I want to take this opportunity to share with you 4 perspectives I like to call the 4 Ds. Now my friends who know me well think my 4 Ds refer to Doughnuts, Dairy Milk, Donor Kebabs and Dinemore Submarines. But, what do they know? These 4 perspectives are supposed to add value to your life but making it better.

It is a framework to make you look at life more deeply and more strategically.

The first D is to Decide.

There is a lovely quote that says if you never have a dream you will never have a dream come true. We all need dreams, goals or objectives that make life fulfilling and interesting but its is astute decision making that helps realize these dreams, goals and objectives. What are you passionate about? What is that stretch target that will add more meaning to our lives? More importantly what decisions will you make to get there.

A successful businessman in the United States named Ray Siegfried who started from very humble beginnings, shares with others a great tip on decisions and dreams.  He says he wrote down on a piece of paper 10 things he wanted to achieve in his life when he was in his early twenties and every morning when he woke up he would look at that paper to remind himself of what wanted to achieve in his life. So friends, a great strategic action is to write down our dreams and make decisions everyday that takes us there.

Companies call their dreams – vision statements. The Disney Vision Statement is “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere.” Starbucks’ vision is to “To establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world.”

What’s your dream? Write it down, remind yourself of it every morning and make the decision to work hard toward it.

The second D is to Develop.

As individuals we have strengths and weaknesses. We need to develop our strengths into competencies and convert our weaknesses into strengths. We need to look at our relationships and make the fruitful ones even better.

The most important ingredient in developing is perseverance. To win we need to try and we need to try till we win.

Paulo Coelho, the award winning author,  in the introduction to his No 1 best-selling book  “The Alchemist” says that the secret to life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.  We all revere Abraham Lincoln as the bold leader who fought to end slavery in America. He became President at 60 years of age. We all know about his success. But do we all know that before his success, he failed in business twice, lost eight elections and suffered a nervous breakdown. Look how far he made it despite all this. He did so well that they carved a giant face of his on Mount Rushmore. Steve Jobs was fired from the very company he started. See where he ended? Obstacles are just stepping stones to success if we have the right attitude.

There is a lovely story about Chinese Bamboo. When you plant it and water it for 4 years you see nothing on the surface.  On the 5^th year it shoots up and becomes 90 feet tall in the next six years. During those first 4 years the Chinese Bamboo spreads its roots in preparation for its growth. Then in the 5 year it grows to great heights. When things seem bleak in life, keep trying harder. You might just be on the verge of growing tall like Chinese bamboo.

The third D is to Diversify.

In life we need to try new things. We need to diversify our activities, our interests and our friends. The more new things we learn and the more people we meet, our lives get enriched with variety and new perspectives. Diversity, they say, is the spice of life.

Fear is the biggest obstacle to diversifying. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. To jump, we need to lose our fear and the need to keep both feet on the ground. Don’t avoid new opportunities thinking you’re an amateur. Always remember that amateurs built the ark and professionals built the titanic!

People, organizations and institutions that embrace diversity attract more people, customers and the public toward it. More people relate to you when you are more open to try new things.

Diversify the countries you have visited by travelling to new lands. There is a famous quote which says  world is a book and those who don’t travel read only one page. I hope you get to ponder the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, gaze at sun setting on the pyramids in Giza Egypt  and hold hands with your true love in front of the Taj Mahal.

The fourth D is to Divest.

Divesting is the art of getting rid of the elements in your life that are destroying its value. What are the activities which are not adding any positive meaning to your life? If you get rid of them, could you devote your time to activities that add value to you?

As cruel as this may sound, you can benefit from divesting the people in your life that are a negative influence. It is not a wrong thing to do. The naysayers, the pessimists and the people who bring you down need to be managed out of your life.

By divesting you get to allocate more time, energy and resources toward people and activities that matter.

General Electric has a great divestment strategy. Under the dynamic CEO Jack Welch, General Electric had a policy of divesting any business in its corporate portfolio that was not No 1 or 2 in the markets they operated in. This strategy helped the company become one of the most admired corporations in the 90s.

Don’t be afraid to divest and make room for people and activities that matter. Anything negative can be shown the way out of your lives and replaced by positive thoughts, activities and people.

I hope the 4 D Strategy- Decide, Develop, Diversify and Divest will add value to your lives and careers as it has done to mine.

I wish you a wonderful life and career!

Dinal Edirisinghe is The Founder of Surmount Ventures. He looks forward to your feedback on this article on dinal@surmountventures.net

Surmount Ventures owns the copy right for the 4D Strategy model – Decide, Develop, Diversify & Divest