What's Your 'SHELF LIFE' ?

What's Your 'SHELF LIFE' ?

What's your 'SHELF LIFE' ? Yessireeee I'm asking you.  In he past, when we talked about 'SHELF LIFE', we always referred to good and commodities.  But as life has become more exacting these days, can we widen the net and redefine 'SHELF LIFE' because it has to be inclusive.  You could be a student, a worker, a parent, an entrepreneur, a civil/government worker or YES, an elected officer in a political office.  We all have a 'SHELF LIFE' like it or not.  You just DON'T want to be compared to an EXPIRED product on the shelf.  You want to look and perceive to be good and outstanding enough to merit the attention of your stakeholders.

In the past, all the small-town grocery owner has to do is to literally 'dust off' the goods on the shelf.  Is that enough to lure you as a consumer to grab those canned goods on the shelf ?  Unfortunately, that's NOT enough to lure you to grab and pay for it.  Household names DON'T guarantee anymore that 'rule of the incumbent'.  In fact, new names, new packaging are the norms of the day now.
 

So let's go down to basics.  What really is 'SHELF LIFE' ?  That's your relevance, your usefulness, your competitive advantage, your allure and your luster all rolled into one.  Even as a worker, probably when you got onboarded on DAY-1, everything was 'NICE and DANDY' and that could go probably within your Year-1 but from Year-2 onwards, you gotta take stock of things.  Face the mirror and reassess if you remain that 'HOT ITEM' as you were perceived from the time you hurdled the interviews till you got onboarded.

Who wants to be akin to that apple which looked so fresh and enticing when it was first brought from the reefer van over to the shelf ?  Not us, right ?  Otherwise, your days will be literally numbered because in a few days, you as an apple WON'T look that fresh anymore and a week after, you're just as worth as crap, to be blunt about it.

So how do we go about things ?  In the not so distant past, just fitting it was all it takes for us to be relevant.  These days, you can remain that fit but what's your 'COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE'?  Unless you can showcase that 'COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE', you will be tagged just another foot soldier from that battalion.  So how do you extend your 'SHELF LIFE' ?  Reinvent. Overhaul. Re-tool.  Upskill.  And that includes the most coveted soft skills that will delight & positively impact CUSTOMER 

Do you want to be just another persona there in a mammoth crowd ?  Or worse, is it just fine if you are ignored simply because you've been on an extended run that has gone beyond your 'SHELF LIFE' ?  If you're a student, you extend your 'SHELF LIFE'  if your teachers continue to rank you in the 90 percentile.  If you're a worker, you want that you remain your management's #1 GoTo Guy when needed.  Think about your 'SHELF LIFE' folks.  Oh, BTW, it's Father's Day today.  Let me extend my 'SHELF LIFE' further ✅✅✅