‘You can’t skip day two.  You can’t skip day 2.  You can’t skip day 2.  Where is the messy middle?  Where is Act 2?*

“The illiterate of the 21st century will be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot LEARN, UNLEARN, and RELEARN.**

We like beginnings, new possibilities, startovers: Day 1.

We like endings, results, the new state of being: Day 3.

In between, there’s the messy, difficult, awkward, challenging: Day 2.

The messy can be avoided, mind.  We can get to Day 3 without the failing, the falling, the wrestling with all the randomness and complexity.  The results might not be as groundbreaking but it’ll do.

I’d begun today reading about Henry Ford’s desire to create a cheaper car that many more people would have access to (Day 1).  After various trials he made it to Day 3: the Model T.^  In-between was a Day 2 that introduced the assembly line but I found myself wondering whether this still was too simple a solution because it would significantly contribute to the de-skilling of the labour force – something still prevalent today in both hard and soft industries.

Day 2 is where our passions, talents, energies, imaginations, and determinations have to be engaged.  Perhaps, more than ever, we find ourselves in Day 2, the unlearning before relearning.

(*From Brené Brown’s Rising Strong.)
(**Alvin Toffler, quoted in Sunni Brown’s The Doodle Revolution.)
(^See Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy.)