Pikachu, I Choose You!

(why it’s important to go with your gut and those you trust)

I heard this phrase in passing the other day, “Pikachu, I choose you!” It took me back to the days of watching my kids discuss the trials of Ash, Misty and Brock, and I remembered some philosophical childhood banter.

There was often a time when Ash would make a choice and there would be a disagreement between this group of friends and my kids liked to root for one or the other. Pikachu was Ash’s favorite and they were strongly bonded. That meant he got chosen to battle more often than other characters, even when it might have made more sense to go with another, if the choice was made on skill alone. This is what I inferred by watching very little from the sidelines, distracted with my adult perspective. I got it, but paid little attention.

Maybe other parents were like me, half way listening as we did other things around the house. I didn’t even like the show because I thought it was loud and annoying, so I missed a lot of what was going on. But my kids started to talk about it a lot, using words like choice, trust, and friendship. They would have arguments sometimes and it reminded me of characters from shows that were important to me when I was a kid.

When I was growing up, I had shows like Eight Is Enough, Welcome Back Kotter, MASH, and One Day At A Time. Those were some of my favorites. They had good lessons, but I don’t remember direct monologues from my favorite characters about what it means to make choices based on trust, like we often saw Ash doing. There was a big difference in how my kids were learning about trust and choice, and how they worked out the reasons why the problem in the show was really solved.

I guess my point here is that trust wins out when there is someone to choose or something to choose from. Even if we have the choice to do something we know will give us a “good return” right now, we should do our best to always choose trust when we have difficult problems, and know what will be best for us and everyone else in the long term.

Everything I do right now is being analyzed and related to the business I’m developing, and I know many of you are doing the same. Some of the choices we face are more difficult than I imagined they would be. So I wanted to share my thoughts on that simple television show and how it applied to choosing business partners. And it came down to this.

It’s not always the strongest or the smartest or the best fighters we should choose to help us with the most difficult problems. It’s the ones we trust to have our back and do the right thing, even if they don’t have all the skills we would like or if we have hesitation about their ability at first. Go with your gut, trust your instinct, and choose the one that will choose you back when times get tough.