The Vuja de Moment: Create a different future Simon T. Bailey Founder, The Brilliance Institute Author, Catalyst of Brilliance Keynote Speaker, 2012 APWA Congress Editor’s Note: Simon T. Bailey will be a Keynote Speaker at APWA’s 2012 International Public Works Congress & Exposition in Anaheim, California. His presentation is entitled “Release Your Brilliance – How to Show Up, Be Accountable, and Drive Results” and takes place during the Closing General Session on Wednesday, August 29. For more information on our upcoming Congress, please visit our website at www.apwa.net/congress.
he believed that he would take what he had been given and turn it into something significant. He said that he was going to work it until it became great.
A 52-year-old man called in to a radio show and said to the host, “I am out of a job and you know that no man at 52 years of age can get a job. Furthermore, I don’t have any brains. I haven’t had any good experiences in life. I haven’t had any education and nobody likes me. What are you going to tell me to do about it?”
The Vuja de Moment is when you stop whining and complaining about the economy and decide to grow the economy of your mind. It is when you reset your internal thermostat to being brilliant and watch your life rise to the new temperature.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the host of the show, asked, “How do you know you don’t have any brains?” The man said, “When I was young I was told I didn’t have any brains. All of the brains in the family went to my brother!” Dr. Peale then asked, “Who said that to you?” The man said, “My brother.” Dr. Peale then asked, “Who doesn’t like you?” The man said, “No one likes me.” Dr. Peale asked, “Do you like yourself?” The man then said, “I never thought I was supposed to like myself since I didn’t have any brains.” This sounds like a combination of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Six weeks later the 52-year-old man sent a note to Dr. Peale stating that he had a job. It wasn’t much of a job, but 22 APWA Reporter
July 2012
This 52-year-old experienced what I would call the Vuja de Moment. This is when you find and delete the virus from your mind-drive and heart-drive that has slowed your operating system down in the Matrix.
William James (1842-1910), onetime Harvard Professor of Anatomy, Psychology, and Philosophy, who was a contemporary of Mark Twain and Horatio Alger, Jr., taught the “as if” principle. This school of thought meant to not be afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact; and, if you want a quality life, act as if you already have it. The Vuja de Moment is when you act “as if” you can create your future instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop and have it created for you. Like the 52-year-old man, something clicks inside of you and you say, “Wait a minute, I have a choice to stand up and live or lie down and die.” Some people are the walking dead. The recession has sucked the life out of them and they have settled for whatever life brings them.
A recession happens when people lose confidence in the future. Many have called the last few years the worst recession since the Great Depression. Simply put, the economy shrank in five quarters, including four quarters in a row. This means that not even the Jaws of Life could pry open the wallets of consumers to spend or employers to hire. Research was limited and capital investment decreased. Thus, people began to buy into the meme (an element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation) that the future is bleak. However, a Vuja de Moment occurred when Apple released the first iPad in 2010 and sold three million in 80 days. This is similar to when www. pinterest.com launched in 2010, and has become one of the top ten most visited social network sites with over 11 million total visits per week according to www.hitwise.com. What’s the point? Everything shifted for the 52-year-old man when he decided he didn’t have to live out the script of his brother anymore. Apple and Pinterest ignored conventional wisdom and read the tea leaves of the times differently and decided to create the future. What about you? Isn’t it time to take control of the steering wheel of your future and drive instead of being driven by the memes of the times? How can one do it? See Differently – Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes,
