Fear, Hope, Accountability and a Little Red Walker
My wife reminds me that fear attaches us to the outcome of
fear. Attach yourself to fear and what
you fear will come. My greatest fear was
being 50 and out of work. Welcome to
fear. I should fear winning the
lottery. I fear winning the $250MM
lottery! I fear winning it so badly I
can taste it…! OK – so maybe that fear is hope.
But hope isn’t a strategy. Hope
is attached to a plan that we work toward and strive to achieve in our
lives. Hope is what you have when you’ve
decided to enact a change and have a plan to reach an objective. You can hope your plan succeeds but you still
need to drive the process to make sure it’s obtained.
I discontinued using the word “HOPE” at work. At work when talking to sales leadership
you’d hear, “I hope we’ll reach the sales goal…” Only having hope means that you no longer
feel you have control over the situation.
Go ahead and push the poker chips forward, we’re all-in. Hope we win.
Is it chance or effort? Define the effort. I also replaced the words “waiting
for…” from my work vocabulary. At
home it’s OK. Like I’m waiting for my
Chinese food to be delivered. What? I’m not going to go and cook it myself and
then deliver it to my home. You have to
wait for that kind of stuff. Call it in,
line up behind all of the other callers, be patient and then tip generously
when it arrives. When working with the cross functional groups within my
previous organization I’d hear them say “I’m waiting for regulatory to sign
off…” or “We’re just waiting for the supplier to ship the components” “Waiting for” means that you are no
longer working toward a goal and you are waiting for someone else to do
something about it. You’ve given up any pain of failure and transferred the
issue/pain to someone else. You’ve left
your responsibility
and accountability
behind. It should hurt when goals are
not accomplished. It should hurt when
you wait for things to happen but they don’t.
When it’s OK to linger and not move forward you train yourself to be a
passive victim in the world. It’s OK.
It wasn’t your fault. You’re not
accountable. A better response to
“waiting on the supplier” would be “Dave
from purchasing is living on the production floor of our supplier ensuring that
at least 5 units are shipped today.”
Someone was working to make sure that the goal happened. Thanks Dave, like OB1 you are our only hope. You’re the one making sure the plan is
executed. Could you do something about
the Chinese food delivery? It’s been
like 45 minutes. Seems like a long time. I mean, I’m just saying…
My 85 year-old Father fell down a few moths ago. It wasn’t a bad fall. Stumbled at the corner on the way to his car and
face planted into the grass sort of fall.
He refused to take any accountability for his active participation in
the actual fall. I know that sounds
crazy, maybe cruel but give me a moment and consider his response, “There was a
rock and it was dark. It wasn’t my
fault.” Snap back to reality (Thanks M&M/8 Mile…you get it, right?) How
about the fact that the doctor prescribed a walker for you because you have
issues with balance and you are horrible with cane skills? In fact, you have no cane skills. You almost trip on your actual cane. Dad, you are an accident waiting to
happen. It is not IF but WHEN you will fall again.
You refuse to use the walker because you consider it a sign of weakness,
an inability to be active. You also have
a tendency to walk with your hands in your pockets, all the while leaning
forward shuffling your feet. There is a
bigger story about a great fall that my Dad did have down stadium stairs that
was a major injury, hospitalization, shoulder replacement and months of
recovery. We’ll cover that later perhaps. In this instance, my dad is fine, small
scratch on his nose and his ego.
However, it’s another lesson in how we all need to take some ownership
of how we’ve gotten to where we are in any given situation. What is your role in the problem you’re
sitting in? Own the issue and your role
in where you are, solve the problem and then move on. Take your hands out of your pockets, grab
your walker by the handles, lift up your feet and start walking, head held
high. In my case I refused the
relocation and decided to make a career change.
I own the problem, the process as well as where it leads me.
What was your role in where you are today? What decision did you make that lead you here? Now that you’ve
taken ownership – what can you do to move on and change it? I know, I ask a lot of questions. I ask really good questions. Great questions.
BTW – Dad has embraced the walker. He figured out that he could walk faster if
he had the walker to steady himself versus Mr. Cane McTripmyself. I’ve dubbed the new bright red walker the
Porsche Budster. Thanks Dad for a new
lesson – know your limitations, embrace them and then find a solution. Well technically your son bought you the
solution and used guilt to convince you into using it but I’ll give you props
for finally taking the initiative and using the walker. He walks 2 miles a day behind the
walker. Go Dad.
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