It often happens happens, but never was it more poignant than a few years back when I was caught in yet another traffic jam – with an important meeting to attend.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “You’re going so fast you’re standing still” - a phrase amusingly thrown at someone rushing around in a frenzy, but hardly achieving anything. And I’ll wager a bet that it often applies to you also – during your busy busy days at work.
But back to my traffic jam!
I’d left with plenty of time in hand and had been making good progress towards my destination – my driving mind on auto-pilot as I considered the issues and the outcomes of the meeting ahead. 
Suddenly the brake lights on the vehicles ahead started flashing blindingly as the traffic slowed – and slowed - until it finally stopped. A little judder forward as the cars bunched up – and then nothing.
Five minutes went by – I switched off my engine. Then it was ten – then twenty. Extreme agitation set in as I reached for my mobile phone to contact the venue – I was now very tight for time. But suddenly the traffic started moving. With an audible sigh of relief I started my engine, raced forward 30 yards - and stopped again – nothing was moving.
I picked up my phone, dialled the number – but the absence of a dialling tone soon made me realise I had no network coverage! I was never going to make the meeting now – and I couldn’t even tell them why. I felt sick – literally.
So I pulled the car over to the side of the road, got out, and strolled across to the roadside hedge. There was a farm gate, which I opened, and closed slowly behind me as I looked for somewhere to sit down.
Deep with worry – I’d spent weeks setting up this very important deal – I found myself settling down beside a thicket of trees. I shut my eyes, depressed, and resigned to failure. If only I’d left a little earlier – gone a different way – organised a different venue – later in the day - if only – if only . . . .
A flurry of wings just above me made me look up. It was a pair of blackbirds, and their loud, persistent, and variable conversation took me away from my problems as I watched them flit playfully from branch to branch.
I hadn’t noticed until then, but the day was a glorious spring morning – full of sunshine and warmth.
The field in front of me was littered with contented grazing ewes, their spring lambs bouncing around as they tested their new-found legs. The bigger lambs were playing games together, interspersed with panic-felt bleating when they realised they had ‘lost’ their mothers – all of them oblivious to my problems. My attention was drawn to the graceful and majestic flight of a heron as it glided down to the river below – the river it shared with a couple of busy mallard and their young fledglings that scurried in and out of the reeds.
The uneven rustle of leaves above in the gentle breeze completed the peaceful chorus of the countryside, as did the delightful spring flowers beside me complete a tranquil picture.
Here was pure nature, a part of me, a part of each and every one of us, that I had forgotten about and ignored as my business increasingly consumed my life. I thought about my wife, and my young children, growing up with a father too busy to give them the love and time they deserved – lost years I would never recover - unless I changed the way I did things.
It was late afternoon by the time I had picked myself up to walk back to the car.
And I drove straight home – I’d not been home this early in years.
And, instead of my usual “goodnight” to slumbering bodies, I found alive, joyful, loving children, their hugs just so wonderful and free. We all ate supper together, played games, and enjoyed ‘the moment’ late into the night. And the next day I took off too - to spend exclusively with the family.
Thanks to that traffic jam, on that fateful day some years ago now, I’d been forced to ’slow down’ - just long enough to realise I had all my priorities upside down. Life, with the family, should come first - work is just a means, not a purpose.
I did win that contract (and still have it), even though I didn’t make the meeting – they were chasing me - and I was then the one ‘in control’. And when you are ‘in control’ the decisions you make are more rational, strategic and effective than those ‘reactive’ short term survival tactics applied when working under pressure.
Make no mistake, I still continued to work hard - but never again did ‘work’ consume or intrude into MY time. My ‘appointments’ with myself and the family were as important as my appointments with my clients.
So, my ‘advice’ to you, if you are finding life hectic, is to ’slow down’ and check up on your priorities - before it’s too late. Take some time out, on a regular basis - I still do - to think about and re-assess your position and your longer term dreams - and what you need to do or change to get there.
Do that, and you will discover something very remarkable - that the more time you give yourself, the more strategic and efficient you become, and the more profitable your business becomes.
So, on that note, go work smarter
Richard C
PS - Whenever I hit a traffic jam now, I simply smile, say ‘thank you’, and relax - just try it a couple of times! (Remember, it’s not the event that causes stress - it’s your reaction to that event that is the stress.)
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