The right lane is typically the slower lane.
For over 100 years, Aldi has stayed in their lane and has not relinquished the pull of becoming “Super Aldi” “Aldi+”, “Aldi Prime”, and “Aldi 24-7”. Each store’s footprint is small. They make customers do the bagging for speed, they skip the middleman distributor model to lower costs, their hours aren’t 24-7, and they are intentionally cheaper than all of their competitors without compromising quality.
Simplicity, efficiency, and affordability are the name of the game in all that they do. These values have set them apart to be one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world!
The HOV Lane
In a world of global chains that turn into the “supers” of many other offerings outside their core, we have to appreciate the style that Aldi has taken. Their global expansion has been a simplistic model.
Simplicity is not easy and our lives are full of options. Our brains are just as powerful as any computer as we make over 35,000 decisions a day.
With this mental and physical capacity, we are still overdoing it! We are consuming more information than ever, we are taking on more work than what we can reasonably handle, and we are raising our hands to more extracurricular activities for the family than what we have time for.
We are spending our lives in the HOV Lane and it’s destroying our minds, our families, and our bodies. As awful as the pandemic was, it forced a lot of us to slow down, stay at home, and simplify our approach to life.
Have we truly learned our lesson? Are we choosing to work 7 days a week? Are we choosing to put in 12 hours a day? Are we choosing to not sit down and be present with our kids while being distracted by the phone?
Time will tell, but it’s comforting to see more and more headlines that are touching on topics of the human condition of work-life.
Perhaps you are in a culture that attributes a break-neck pace. This may be your workplace or perhaps even your home. If so, there is simplicity, effectiveness, and efficiency that can be found in Aldi’s approach to its mission.
Here are a few of the lessons…
Purpose
Aldi’s purpose is to sell groceries. A purpose is a unique calling that has been gifted to every person. It takes some of us longer than others to realize what it is. Once we know what it is, we must declutter all activities, jobs, or assignments that take us away from what we were born to do. Yes, for those of us that have families, the purposes are multi-dimensional! Work, family, community, and health require a good portion of our identity and presence in each area. But we can show up with a sole purpose in every aspect of our lives, remaining authentic to who we are.
Values
What we do daily defines what we deem as important, these are our values. Aldi has remained true to being simple, affordable, and efficient (their values), so they avoid the mission creep in a world that says we have to be the biggest and make the most money. In the workplace and at home, we need to embrace the values of life that drive our daily decisions. Freedom, flexibility, family, humility, and hospitality just to name a few…every person and every family is different around what we define as important. We must observe these values and build boundaries to help them flourish!
Authenticity
Bigger is not always better! The “di” in Aldi means discount. To be able to keep prices below their competitors means they will need to be different…so they put the measures in place that make them unique. These values sound great but are counter-cultural. Their why is to bring affordable prices and quality to the consumer. They own this better than the majority of all their brands. The application that we can take away here is that we must remain true to who we are. Staying away from the comparison game is the right game to play!
Approach
Aldi is not 24-7. They open later and close earlier. There is time to stop and reset. Workers go home and the 3rd shift is eliminated…rest is not only appreciated, it is forced. Speed has its time, but pressing the pedal to the metal every day of the year leads to burning out our engines. Our bodies aren’t made to sprint all day. The Sabbath was gifted to humanity as a gift…a symbol of God’s love for us, a symbol to us that God even rested, and a reminder that we can escape our “Egypt’s”.
A slower and much more simplistic approach to life requires saying no more often than yes while leaving a larger space on the calendars for loved ones that need our attention. In addition, making white space on the calendar to recharge, rest, and renew the mind is the fuel for the fire of productivity and creativity. Try carving out 2 to 3 hours of “nothing” space a few days a week on your calendar and watch the fireworks go off!
We spend 90,000 hours of our lives working. That’s a lot of time to be in misery.
This article may have given some inspiration to you to do something about your circumstances. Maybe an Aldi approach to a career change or jumping into entrepreneurship is the way to go.
Evaluate your values to the core and do this with your family. Ask the question if you believe you are living the life that is in line with who you are. Assess your gifts, talents, and aspirations. Dream and take small actionable steps of building on your ideas. The internal spark that lights you up; follow that light and follow the energy.
If the left-lane living(aka hustle culture) has pushed you over the edge, there is still hope! Take a second glance at how Aldi has remained in the “right lane” to do a makeover to your work, life, and family…it is a proven model that is worth every effort to replicate.