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What are your Core Concepts?

I was reminded of something this weekend.

I spent most of it alone, which I enjoy.

Except for the chores, which never end.

It takes an hour to mow.

Thirty minutes on the front yard.

Twenty minutes in the back.

Ten minutes to go grab a gallon of gas for both.

I had thought to pick up a chicken sandwich while out.

Slim Chickens has a good one, and they owed me a jar of desert for May 1.

But that would add another twenty minute round trip to the time out and away from the house.

I spend so much time away for baseball and work, that I cherish the moments I do get to stay in, or out in the yard, as the case may be.

And I try not to feel guilty about being away from the keyboard and the umpteen tasks lined up for what “could be done.”

While working through a problem pushing the mower across thick grass, I remembered.

Most drivers hit the wall because that’s where they’re staring.

If I recall, you turn into a skid and stare at the direction you want to go.

Don’t slam the brakes, don’t even use them.

Or how I was taught was to use the gas pedal as the brake, which is counter to what you think, but when your rear end is sliding and your aim is forward, you want to accelerate into it.

Drifter’s do it with panache and way better than I ever could.

Papaw taught me on a dirt track, and a buzz cut guy with dead man’s eyes taught me somewhere else.

I learned the expression about it later, on my own, reading a self help book.

The author was explaining why so many people hit trees in the middle of an open field when they crash.

Couldn’t they just, you know, miss?

Nope.

Most people hit where they’re staring, and the tree, though not a goal, becomes one when your pupils constrict, you hold your breath and it’s all you can see.

I didn’t hit the tree mowing.

I didn’t slide through the turns or evade or escape anything.

No one can escape pollen.

I just recalled that some goals get sidetracked because people focus on the wrong thing.

I do.

I get feedback loops that make me think one thing, and ignore the silent other.

Ignore a lot of the silent others.

Because I make assumptions, and try to be better, but sometimes better means a different kind of mistake.

Like believing.

Thinking one thing because that’s all you hear as feedback.

Even if that one thing isn’t the truth.

It’s called an echo chamber and it feels dangerous.

Because what if you start to believe one thing, but the data suggests reality is something else.

I’m not really a data guy, though I trained on it extensively.

Then I watched a guy who was good at it use data to twist and bend the facts.

He turned a win and a net gain of 6000 brand new students into a loss that would lead the company to bankruptcy.

It’s what the data suggested, and the trendline showed and the macro’s figured.

My P & L suggested something else.

We were gross positive.

We were making money.

We were winning.

But the Board and the VP and other voices in the echo chamber started chiming in about the wall we were fast approaching and that’s all anyone could see.

Except…

We weren’t in a Nascar race.

The wall wasn’t real.

And nine times out of ten, whatever obstacle or roadblock or stumble that crops up isn’t as real either.

One of my mentors said, don’t have the wind, take to the oars.

He also said two is one and one is none, so you better prepare your ass.

I wasn’t prepared for the data wall, and I forgot to stay prepared for focusing on the wrong things.

Because it happens in business, and it happens in life.

Which is why I try to keep things simple.

Core concepts to follow when it’s time to steer into the skid and refocus.

I’m going to share some of those concepts as the days go on.

But I wondered…

What are some of yours?

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