Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese? : An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and Life is a simple story that provides a strong message on the importance of adapting to change. The book is only 94 pages and takes about 30 to 40 minutes to read.

Using a simple parable to bring the key message across; the story revolves around two mice, named ‘Sniff’ and ‘Scurry’ and two littlepeople named ‘Hem’ and ‘Haw’. The mice and the littlepeople both feed on cheese and one day the cheese goes missing. While the two mice were quick to move ahead and look for more cheese, the littlepeople stayed behind analyzing and wondering where, why and how the cheese went missing. In the end, the mice and one of the little people, Haw who forged ahead looking for the cheese gained more than those who were left behind.

Though the book received raving reviews, I didn’t really enjoy reading it. Maybe I had high expectations from the reviews that I read. I guess I was hoping to read something that can make a big impact in my life. Unfortunately, the story of the mice and the littlepeople did not capture my interest but I have to admit it did successfully bring the message across on the importance of adapting to change.

Anyway, whether I liked the book or not is not important, what’s important is the key learning that should be extracted from the book. Here are some of the things I got from reading Who Moved My Cheese?

• Keep life simple
• Don’t overanalyze and overcomplicate things
• When a situation changes, you have to be ready to change too
• Reflect on the mistakes and use that learning to plan for the future
• Keep things simple, be flexible and move quickly to adapt with the changes
• Do not overcomplicate and confuse yourself with fearful, unfounded beliefs
• Adapt fast or fall flat at the losing end