Rick D’Errico & Craig Skevington
Written by Colleen Pierre, Marketing Manager at STEADfast IT
As I sat in the audience at last week’s New York BizLab luncheon event in Schenectady to hear STEADfast IT CEO/Founder and my boss Craig Skevington talk about the problem with over planning and the security of being in your comfort zone, I was beginning to feel panicky.
You see, unbeknownst to anyone in the audience, Craig was about to offer the opportunity for two people to join us to go skydiving that very same afternoon. Notice that I said “join us”, which implies that I was to be going to be jumping out of a plane as well- something I had never done before and frankly, never given much thought to.
As I listened, I heard Craig say: “The big problem with over planning is opportunities are coming at you every single day. If you’re focused on a plan you’re going to miss out because you’re just thinking about what’s my next milestone.”
Opportunities come our way all the time and we have the choice to seize those opportunities or stay stuck in the mundane and never look up to see the sky from the forest floor. Craig explained in his talk about creating a “disruptive environment”, something especially necessary he says in a startup. A disruptive environment is not something written in your business plan. It’s bringing the boldest ideas to life, making radical changes in course and action, and having the ability to invent, learn, and adjust at a rapid rate.
As Craig was wrapping up his talk, he offered the audience a chance to remember this day for the rest of their lives. The first two people to raise their hands would be leaving the event and abandoning their comfortable Thursday afternoon plans to do something spontaneous- join Craig, myself, and two other colleagues from STEADfast IT to go skydiving.
Two brave women from opposite sides of the room cautiously but affirmatively raised their hands – Erica Stoeckeler and Brittany Moore. At the close of the event, we disrupted our typical Thursday, July 19th plans and headed up to Skydive Saratoga in Gansevoort.
Six of us jumped in total including Mike Hatalla, Bernadette Nastasi, Craig and myself from STEADfast and our two new friends, Erica Stoeckeler and Brittany Moore. Skydiving enables you to experience a full range of emotions including fear and panic, awe, euphoria, relief and joy – similar to the range of emotions an entrepreneur faces. We couldn’t have planned a better day or a better group of people to be with. This was certainly a Thursday afternoon we will all remember for a very long time.
About STEADfast IT:
STEADfast IT is a Managed IT Services provider with principle offices in Saratoga Springs, NY and Hartford, CT, serving customers with white glove managed IT support including but not limited to; Virtual CIO, end-user support, unlimited remote support, data storage, network security, monitoring, encrypted backups and firewalls. For more information about STEADfast IT, business IT outsourcing and IT managed services contact STEADfast IT at 518-581-7200 or visit their website at https://managedserviceprovider.com.
About New York BizLab:
The New York BizLab is a business accelerator/incubator focused on helping companies in the edtech, logistics and tech space grow smart and grow fast. They host a variety of events featuring some of the area’s top entrepreneurs. http://www.nybizlab.net
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