Life Lesson 2 of 3: I almost kissed a girl… and I liked it! 3 quick stories on Stupidity… or Simply Taking a Chance?

Life Lesson 3 of 3 to follow in January 2016: The Baddest of all Bad words, I think?

Hopefully these stories will bring a smile to your face and a little inspiration to your life? 

The Plan:  Sitting near the back of the bus next to the girl I had been flirting with for the past few weeks was more than my “tween-age” self could handle. My classmates and I were all piled in the bus headed to New York City for a field trip to visit the UN Building. Really? The UN Building… again? I can remember all of our field trips in school. The Planetarium, UN Building, or some 18th century reenactment farm where we saw a lady speak in a fake early English accent while she milked a cow or an angry old farmer who showed us how to candle eggs and would get mad when we would reach out to touch one of the eggs. Really? When in life did I ever need to know how and why to candle an egg?

I was getting the typical ribbing from my friends sitting next to this girl, but no more than I would have given back to them. OOOOHHH! Peters gotta a girlfriend, Peters gotta a girlfriend … Shut up guys!

Off we went on the bumpy roads of New Jersey headed for NYC. I was using the shifting of the bus as an excuse for my knee to touch hers… This is so cool she is not moving away from me?! Wow – I couldn’t have planned this any better? Now my next move was to try and hold her hand. I had been thinking about holding her hand for a few months even before we started flirting. 

I was so nervous – How do I get to hold her hand?

Do I just hold my hand out near hers hoping she sees it and gets the hint??? No man, don’t do it, that’s just not cool.

Do I ask her if I can hold her hand? No – that would be such a dorky move… What if she say’s no and I get rejected in front of my friend’s?

I know – I will turn around to my friend and ask a really important question which will give me the opportunity to scoot closer to her and then I will just grab her hand! This was a similar technique of the “movie theater” 2 arm extended stretch which resulted in a shoulder hug which I heard was so popular at that time? To this day I never really mastered that move either?

We approached the Lincoln Tunnel and now was my chance to hold her hand… Alas, the toll was paid by the bus driver and I turned around and made my move – asked my friend a really important question… Ahhh, do you think we will get their soon? He shot me a look as to leave him alone because he was sitting next to his girlfriend and he did not want to be bothered. Then it happened - YES – Victory… I grabbed her hand and she did not pull away!?! Look at me! I am the man! I am so a 1980’s sort of action star like Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger all rolled up in one. I had the perfect plan and I executed it flawlessly… In my mind I was singing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and doing the “Moonwalk” down the aisle of the bus – even though neither the song nor the moonwalk would not be made public for a few more years!

"She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene, I said don't mind, but what do you mean, I am the one, Who will dance on the floor in the round, She said I am the one, who will dance on the floor in the round"  

We entered the tunnel and looked straight ahead, still holding hands. It was awesome… or at least I think it was from what I can remember?

We pulled our hands away as we excited the tunnel and the sunlight hit our eyes and we pretended that nothing happened. We did our typical tour of the UN Building that I had already been to numerous times before, but I didn’t complain… it was a day out of school and I didn’t care what we were doing? 

All during our tour I was trying to play it cool, but all of my buddy’s were egging me on… Come on Cordts, ya gonna kiss her? Come on, wad-ya chicken? If you don’t kiss her, I will! The challenges kept on coming, one after the other and I even think right before we started the tour the creepy bus driver whispered a challenged for me to kiss her as well when I was getting off of the bus??? But I may be mistaken? Obviously like every other young boy in this world… you could never back down from a challenge?!?! The pressure got the best of me – I was in a panic, because we had to go home soon and I needed to take a chance to kiss her; because that was the Plan, that was the Goal, that was what the Greek god’s had written in the stars, just a few weeks earlier when she sat across from me at lunch!

Near the end of our tour a bunch of us snuck away and we headed outside towards the Northside of the UN Building to a large patio. One by one we were walking past the security guard waiting in line to exit through a revolving door… come to think of it – that security guard whispered the same challenge to me that my friends and the bus driver did?!?!

I was watching the door spin trying to think how I was going to make my move… we got closer to the door and she turned towards me and looked at me, I leaned in and she quickly turned away to head into the revolving door and I missed my chance to kiss her. I quickly jumped in the door like a game of jump rope, at the same time saying to myself, hurry up Cordts, Make your move! Make your move! Make your move! Just then she stepped out of the revolving door and turned towards me and my timing was so perfect that I closed my eyes and leaned in for a kissed then all of a sudden I saw but mostly felt the words BAM! SLAM! THUMP! UGH! in colorized versions of star shapes much like the 1960’s Batman and Robin episodes when they were fighting the Joker or the Penguin! What had happened was the revolving door continued its revolution and slammed my head in between door and the radius edge of the glass, I then fell to the ground and hit my head again.

I immediately saw stars and the kid pushing the door behind me kept pushing until I rolled out on the ground. As I lay on the ground I looked over at all my good friends for a little help and they took such care, compassion and pity on me by lying on the ground laughing at me with tears in their eyes. Jerks! Man did I feel stupid… and even more stupid on the bus ride home when she did not sit next to me.

And at that moment I did not feel like the action stars of Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger all rolled up in one... I felt like the block headed Charlie Brown who always fell for Lucy Van Pelt when she promised not to move the football once again! I beat myself up because my plan had failed. I took a chance and I failed. 

The next few days at school my friends were still giving me a hard time and I tried to be cool about it, but deep down I was not. It was about two weeks later that I was walking down a set of stairs to go to class, when I looked at the bottom of the steps and she was walking up the stairs and as we passed she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek! WOW! All was right in my world at that time… I almost kissed a girl… and I liked it!

Plan for Success:  You’re probably asking yourself, how does trying to kiss a girl as a pre-teen have anything to do with business? My response, a lot. How many of us go through our day and we meet with our clients and have plenary sessions with our team and we compile a game plan to address our project tasks and everything is moving along just fine, then all of a sudden we are slammed in the side of the head by a revolving door… only now, the door that we were just hit with keeps slamming us and every time we try to get up the door keeps swinging and we can’t get our footing until we roll out of the way. 

This is typical in business. We plan with our Project Tracking tools, Ghantt Charts, Historical Data Software, Excel Programs, Power Point Slide Decks and Multi-Team Plenary Sessions.  We envision, we discuss, we forecast, we devise, we communicate, we re-forecast, we over-communicate, we coordinate, we re-plan and then when everything is perfect, we implement but then all of a sudden when we least expect it… BAM! - “Life Happens!”

John Lennon wrote a line in a song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)": Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.  

As leaders, Planning is what we do, Planning is who we are, Planning is why we are in leadership roles, Planning is why our clients hire us. Planning if done properly can be the foundation of ALL business success and even if it is properly planned some events can even lead to failure? Below are a few quotes from great people in history that have discussed the trials and tribulations of not planning or not planning properly; # 5 is apropos to my story about the kiss. 

1. “Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. “Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” Richard Cushing
3. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin
4. “A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.” H. Stanely Judd
5. “A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble at his door.” Confucius
6. “Planning is a process of choosing among those many options. If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us.” Richard I. Winwood
7. “Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.” Napoleon Hill

Question: What is your plan? Is it written down? Have you shared it with your team? Do you vocalize it? Have you prepared for all events in your plan? 

Plan for Success, But Prepare to Fail:  I know some of you are confused at this statement – Why would anyone plan for success, but prepare to fail? That is such a negative and counter-productive thought to any project or deliverable? 

You ask yourself: If you planned properly you should not be blind-sided by the occasional disruption. I concur, but there are those times that things go sideways and the project starts to fail.

What do you do? That depends on who you are and also who you want to be? It is sad to say that not everyone handles difficult issues on their projects the same way.

Some people will prepare for issues before they arise and face them head on and address the task immediately. They will notify all clients, partners and team members of the issue at hand and will devise a solution or a Plan “B” to get the job done. My father in law used to tell my wife, what is your Plan B? And he would continue by saying that all of life is Plan B!  

There are others who will not prepare for issues and when something arises they will immediately blame others why it went wrong or even worse, they will hide and not address the issue hoping it goes away.  I could only guess that the thought process of hiding from an issue is fear. Fear is crippling and even though there is fear – the issue will not go away until it is addressed. Bad news does not get better with age.

Question: Have you prepared for possible failures, weakness or pitfalls within your plan? Have you written down the possible failures, weakness or pitfalls within the plan? Have you shared the failures, weakness or pitfalls with your team? Do you vocalize the possible failures, weakness or pitfalls with your team? Have you prepared for or have a Plan B in case of possible failures, weakness or pitfalls all events in your plan? 

Plan for Success, But Prepare to Fail and Fail Forward:  I love watching sports, especially when there is a clutch play and whether it be football, basketball, baseball or any other offense versus defense sport when the player is fighting for the goal, basket or plate and during their battle they are fighting and falling forward to hit that goal. They may not get a touchdown or a basket, they may not even get to home plate… but they fought a got a little bit closer. How many of us in business get tackled by an event and we fall backwards or right where we are? We shake our head and say – I can’t believe I just got tackled? We will sit and dwell on getting tackled without moving forward. 

I have seen too many times when something goes wrong on a project that the person in charge or a team member running the project is M.I.A. or is forced off the team for one reason or another. Is it frustrating when this happens? YES! It’s even more frustrating because your workload has just increased and now as the leader it is your responsibility to address the task either by yourself, the entire team or a team member who has been waiting in the wings looking for their opportunity to shine.

It’s during these times when people are screaming and saying we have problems is when I remind them that I never use the word “Problem” in my vocabulary – I remind them that this is merely as “Issue” and not a “Problem”. Issues can be fixed, Problems can never be fixed. A problem arose in my family 15 years ago when the doctors told us that my dad only had 2 weeks left to live – that’s was a problem.

If your project or circumstance has gone sideways and it can be fixed with effort, time, money or communication then it is merely an issue.

When we budget projects we forecast with our Ouija Boards, Crazy 8 Balls, Tarot Cards and any other estimating tool available. We plan for possible overruns in certain areas of a project or anticipate unexpected conditions and we put some sort of an allowance to cover a portion or all of the overrun. Then if nothing arises during that divisional task we can simply move those monies over to another task in need. Why don’t we do the same when we are compiling a team? We need to look for the person who is always looking to do just a little bit more, the person who addresses a task head on, the person who is given a menial task as does not shy away from it because the task is below their pay grade… that is your future leader, that is the person you need to put your time and energy into… not the excuse makers or the ones that hide when there is an issue.

It is amazing to see new leaders take a stand and although they may not get the task addressed properly they are at the very least, jumping in and finding a solution. They; under your leadership, are failing forward… it may not be pretty and at times it may just even be painful, but it’s still falling forward and moving ahead to complete the task.  Look at a project failings as an opportunity to grow the team, grow an individual and grow as a leader yourself. Don’t shy away from it. Embrace it!

Apparently Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying – People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Put your pride in your back pocket and vocalize who you think your next leader will be and work towards moving that person through the ranks. My wife had an Economics Professor in college that also taught at Harvard Business School. He made a statement that stuck with her and I have adopted it since. People advance in life in Two-sies and Three-sies. Most successful people in business advance in a group and succeed in a group and after these groups succeed they go on to create similar and more powerful teams. Those who think they can do it on their own soon find themselves burnt-out or struggle to get momentum.  

Question: Have you forecasted and addressed who your next future leaders will be? Have you written down goals for your future leaders? Have you shared your goals with your future leaders? Have you vocalize the goals with your future leaders? 

Remember: The next time your head gets slammed in the door as a result of a project or team member has gone sideways, embrace the opportunity… Because maybe, just maybe you will get a kiss on the cheek, but more importantly, you may have just found your next leader?