Adapt.

Quincy Jones has been nominated for more Grammy Awards than any other person and has won a total of twenty-seven times in ten different fields. From Children’s to Pop, Rap, Jazz, R&B, and more. He has worked with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Miles Davis and the list goes on. He produced the best-selling album of all time: Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Q, as his friends call him, has so many talents in so many diverse fields, including television (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) and movie producing (The Color Purple), even as the founder and chairman of Vibe magazine, that it’s hard for him not to find unique ways to work with new people and bring out the best in them, as he pulls experiences from other fields and other genres into each new project he completes.

Jones once said, “A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes into contact with a new idea.”

I’ve been teaching clients for years to go looking for new ideas. At a recent mastermind meeting, I shared a personal secret to how I come up with new ideas every day, how I go looking for them and how I teach them to others.

The top doctors and specialists in my coaching groups – the clients experiencing the most growth and highest net incomes – are comfortable with new ideas. They adapt quickly with little pain.

Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest generals in history, addressed an opponent he had defeated by saying, “I will tell you the mistake you are always making. You draw up your plans the day before battle, when you do not yet know your adversary’s movements.”

From something as simple as your daily schedule, to something as complex as opening your next office location, hiring associates or expanding to offer auditory brain training or O.T.C. devices in your hearing health care practices, rigidity of mind carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Open your mind to the possibility that any of your current or future problems can be solved, go looking for new ideas each day and be willing to adapt to what is required of you in the process.

Do you get excited by the prospect of growing the practice 3X or even 10X, or do you avoid BIG thoughts like this because of the anticipated pain involved? How comfortable are you with adapting in a rapidly-changing world? Your answers to these questions say everything about where you will be in 10 or 20 years.