In little and big ways, things are changing all the time and handling the change is certainly not optional. You deal with it whether you want to or not; and how well you deal with it is at the essence of whether you succeed or fail. Recall that bear you either get or it gets you? Much of the time, that bear's name is Change.

It is probably not going to surprise you to now learn Simon also has a few little rules for dealing with change. First,

• You have to be aware of change before you can deal with change.

This surely sounds like another one of those no-brainers. If you do not know about something, you cannot deal with it; but be careful not to look at the obvious and jump to the wrong conclusion. Change is continuous and much easier to miss than you might think. Most change is not noticed, at least not while it is happening. You notice something has changed but not it is changing.

If you only become aware of change after things have changed, you are always reacting, adjusting, and trying to catch up. You cannot be proactive from a reactive position. Knowing this means you give high priority to being aware of change while things are changing. This starts by assuming change is always a here-and-now, dynamic condition. Sometimes the pace is faster and sometimes it is slower, but it never stops. If you do not know that, you have not been paying nearly enough attention. …

To move from a reactive position to a proactive position, here is Simon's next little rule.

• It takes change to deal with change.

Just as change is continuous, you must continuously change to proactively deal with it.

• If you are just the same as you have always been or are slow to change, you are already behind and falling further back.

• If you cannot see what is different about today as compared to yesterday, events are passing you by.

• If you are frustrated and confused by what is going on around you much of the time, you are likely using yesterday's map to figure out where you are today.

• If you think things are changing too fast, you are probably moving too slow.

Your old friend Simon tells this story from his youth. "The monkey bridge loomed monstrously between us and success. If perchance you do not know about monkey bridges, picture and learn."

Jim and I were twelve and had our sights on being Eagle Scouts. Back then, you could not get there without a hiking merit badge; and that only came a few miles after a mandatory twenty mile hike.

The monster hike day started early and was going well for the first five or six miles; and then came the monster hill. Twelve-year-old boys like to refer to most anything as monsters, e. g., monster sandwiches, monster hits into left field, and monster anything else meeting their varying standard for big. But the monster hill really was a monster.

Jim and I just sat there for a while, saying things like, "There's the monster hill," and "It's a monster sure enough."

This went on for a while when I asked, "How are we ever going to get all the way up that monster?"

Without a second thought and with the certainty of all twelve-year-olds, Jim said, "We are going to just do it;" and do it we did.

Things went fine for a few more miles until it started to rain. The further we hiked, the more it rained, and the more soaked we got. Even that was not all that bad until we were about half way across a field and up to our canteens in mud. Between us and the trail into the woods was a creek, nearly out of its banks and rushing south, if you know what I mean.

I asked Jim, "How do we get across this monster creek?"

His approach had not changed. "We just do it;" and do it we did.