Organizations and brands can choose their quadrant. It's tempting to want the best of all four, but it's going to take effort and focus. All of these terms are relative choices, not absolute judgments. Where does your offering fit in?

Visitors to your new bookstore are likely to have a phone in their pockets--they could buy a book from the competition without even walking into the shop. And diners at your funky restaurant have to pass dozens of other places to eat on their way to you. Places that are faster, more conventional and probably cheaper as well. Good, fast and cheap used to be the goals of a typical small business.

It's possible to consider the next event in our lives as something the world is trying to teach us. But it might be even more effective to realize that, whenever we choose, we can learn something from what's going on. We're not getting taught, we're choosing to learn. There's a lesson in every interaction, if we want there to be. When we choose to learn, our active participation makes a difference.