Your Personal Moat

Bodiam Castle, a 14th-century castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England

Last week we explored the ways that businesses can build an economic moat to provide protection from competition. I believe that it is also possible to build a personal moat that provides a buffer against the challenges we face individually.

Some of the key elements of a personal moat include:

• Knowledge - Information is power. If you have knowledge and understanding of important concepts in a field that is in demand, you can use that knowledge to navigate through the channels of change.
• Skills - Skills represent your ability to harness knowledge to accomplish specific goals. People who can get things done are always in demand.
• Creativity - Creativity is the ability to synthesize ideas from multiple sources into a new idea or a new solution to a problem. 
• Relationships - It's not just who you know. It's how you have treated them and how they feel toward you. Treat everyone you meet with respect and kindness.
• Resiliency - We all have difficult days, even difficult years or decades. But the only hope of success is to keep pushing forward with new attempts and new strategies to succeed. In the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill told the world "If you are going through hell, keep on going!"

With the rate of change accelerating rapidly, the value of a personal moat grows everyday.

What are you doing to enhance your moat?

You might also like:
Choose the Difficult Assignment
Creating Happiness
An Arrogant Assumption