10 Life Lessons from a Rubik’s Cube

My seven year old son bought a Rubik's Cube with some money that he saved. He wants to learn how to solve it but isn't quite experienced enough to do it all on his own.

As the leader of this house, it falls upon me to figure it out and teach him (that, at least, is the excuse I use because I have always wanted to learn how to solve it).

So, I have been spending quite a bit of time learning how to solve it. I can solve it in about 3 minutes now and have all of the major patterns memorized. I am starting to learn some of the simpler patterns so that I can learn how to make it easier for him (plus, I think it is pretty cool).

I realized, as I was spending some time this weekend, that there are many lessons that can be learned from the Rubik's Cube. Applying these lessons to life and business will help us get a lot more accomplished.

Here they are (or at least the top ten that I came up with).

1. If you spend six, ten or twenty hours on something, you can't expect someone else to learn it in 10 minutes.
2. If you make the same decisions based on the same variables, you will get the same results.
3. If you make different decisions based on the same variables, you will get different results.
4. If you make different decisions based on different variables, you will get unpredictable results.
5. One small change to one small thing can have large ramifications on other things.
6. Messing something up is easier than putting it together.
7. After you have done it once, it will only get easier the next time.
8. Learning the patterns makes all the difference.
9. Nothing great was ever accomplished without a lot of time, patience and persistence.
10. If you give up, you will never get it done.