Re:Focus

Face Reality And Not Your Imagination

There have been many occasions when I’ve been on a plane and we hit some bad turbulence that my heart started pounding. I am not a nervous flyer, per se, but sometimes I imagine elaborate scenarios of all the things that are going wrong in the cockpit and it freaks me out. I’ll hear strange noises sometimes, and think it’s the end. I’ll start sweating. My heart will start beating harder and faster.

It happened last night again. I was on a flight cruising across the country to San Diego when the lights on the plane went out. I was concerned... not overly…but I certainly started to imagine why the lights went out. Did something short out? Was there spark? Does old wiring catch fire? Then, about 30 minutes later, the lights went out again. This time, my heart pounded a little harder. Then, about 20 minutes later, they went out again.  A movie was playing on my iPad, but I couldn’t focus on it. My eyes were peeled out the window instead, I was watching the wing and the engine to make sure everything was ok.

Staring out the window, I noticed that the stars were turning. We were turning. A huge turn. Aircrafts make course adjustments throughout a flight, I know that, but when you’re heading across the country, there is no need for a 90+ degree turn. My breathing became shallow. My imagination was racing. I needed to put my mind at ease.

I hit the flight attendant call button. “I’m probably just being a nervous flyer,” I told the flight attendant, “I noticed the plane making a huge turn and have no idea why we’re making a huge turn. Perhaps you could ask the captain to come on the PA to let us know what was happening,” I suggested, knowing that hearing the captain would stop my mind from inventing scenarios..

The flight attendant leaned in and said, “we’ve lost one of our generators, but we have another one.” My brow started to sweat profusely. “Is it dangerous?” I asked. “We have a second generator,” she replied with false confidence. She looked shaken.

Not a minute later, the captain came on the PA. “Ladies and gentleman,” he began politely, “we’ve lost our right engine generator and we’ve lost our APU,” he said matter-of-factly referring to the auxiliary power unit – the plane’s back-up power generator. “Procedure dictates that in a situation like this, we divert, so we’re going to be landing in Oklahoma City.”

It was at that point, I started to relax. I didn’t know why I was so relaxed, but I was. When I imagined something was going wrong, my heart was pounding. Now that something was wrong, I was cool as a cucumber.

The flight attendants came on the PA and asked us all to store our electronics, put our seats up our tray tables away and prepare for landing. “I’m not sure when we will be landing,” she said, “the pilots are busy, but we’ll be landing soon.”

About five minutes later we began to descend. There was a pretty thick cloud cover, so I couldn’t see the ground, though now and then I could see some hazy city lights through the clouds. I remarked to myself under my breath, “why are you so relaxed?” I was in disbelief. Getting wrapped up in my imagination I can bring myself to a near panic state. And now, when my heart should be pounding and I should be sweating…I wasn’t.

I paid attention to the landing procedures. Our airbrakes engaged to slow us down. That’s a good sign. The flaps extended - also a good sign. We were making a steady descent but I didn’t hear the wheels go down. Again, I spoke to myself out loud and under my breath, “no wheels.” And then actually continued to calmly declare, “well, if we have no wheels, I guess we’ll land on our belly.” The whole time, still remarking in disbelief how completely relaxed I was. I almost wanted my heart to speed up – it seemed more appropriate.

The wheels deployed shortly after and we landed safely in Oklahoma City with fire engines and ambulances lining the runway.  We came to stop and were escorted by a whole fleet of emergency vehicles to the gate. I think the whole plane sighed a collective sigh of relief; it certainly was nice to be on the ground.

I made a few calls to let folks back home know what was going on. It was only then, telling the story, did I get a little emotional and feel my pulse rate increase. But we were ok and I found my composure pretty quickly.

I stayed the night at an airport hotel, still calm, waiting for an aftershock of panic. But it didn’t come. I wasn’t the least bit bothered by all the inconvenience of getting stuck and trying to get back home. We were safely on the ground and all that stuff was just plumbing.

Lying in bed that night, I replayed the events of the evening back in my head, still amazed at how relaxed I was. I also realized how our imaginations get the better of us. The number of times I’ve imagined scenarios where I was going to lose everything at work if I made the wrong decision. The number of times I thought my career was over because of something that happened outside my control. Or, armed with only the proof or scenarios I conjured up in my own imagination, I thought people I liked or worked with we planning to abandon me. Yet, in reality, I still make decisions. I still take risks and make mistakes. Things go wrong all the time and yet we deal with them…and life goes on.

When things are fine, we look for all the things going wrong. We imagine. We fester. We worry. When things really do go wrong…and things always go wrong….we deal with it. We look for all the things going right. Before the captain came on, I could only see the lights going out and imagine a fire behind the walls. Once we were making our unscheduled landing with only one working generator, I listened for the flaps and wheels to deploy – signs of things going right.

This sudden change of perspective in times of danger - perhaps it’s our survival instinct, a way we’ve developed to increase our chances of survival. Or perhaps, in times of stress and adversity, there really is hope and opportunity.

 

As an endnote, I would like to thank the flight crew of that Delta flight. I didn’t get to thank them in person. They were grace under pressure. And the ground staff that greeted us at an all but closed Oklahoma City airport, they were fantastic. I’ve never in my life experienced such remarkable service and generous spirit.

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Our Survival Skills Become Our Talents

Martin was a scrawny kid when he was in high school. He wasn’t that tall and he wasn’t that strong. He didn’t excel at any athletic activities and was an average student. By normal high school rules, Martin would be considered a target. A target for bullies, a target for ribbing from other students or even teachers.

But no one laid a finger on Martin. Not ever. And the reason was simple. Everyone liked Martin because he was funny. If anything, people enjoyed having him in their class – students and teachers alike.

Something deep inside Martin’s brain knew he couldn’t compete on a physical level or academic level so, in order to survive high school, he developed a fantastic sense of humor.  Now, as an adult, we refer to Martin’s sense of humor as his gift.

I grew up with ADD and thank goodness no one diagnosed it. If they had, I wouldn’t have been forced to learn the skills to survive. Unable to focus, I too had to learn how to get through high school. My still-forming mind and personality could have taken me in two different directions – I could have become a victim of my weaknesses or I could figure out a way around it.

At an early age I learned to help others. I had to…I needed their help in return. I learned to talk, develop a charm and a curiosity for what others were doing. It wasn’t an option. If I didn’t do the reading for my English class because I couldn’t focus long enough to get it done (no matter how much my parents yelled at me to concentrate) I’d still need to know what the reading was about for class the next day. So I’d ask someone…and we’d talk about it.

It was because I lacked a natural ability to focus that I learned to spend more time talking about subjects instead of reading about them. I had to. Without it, I’d fail. This survival skill carried me through college also. I rarely cut class in college. If I didn’t go to class, I’d have to read the books and that would be the end for me. I spent hours talking to colleagues and professors after class - learning. And thank goodness I did…because I don’t think I read a single book in college.

As an adult nobody looks at my skills as survival skills, they look at me and say “what a talent you have.” When we’re young, the things we learn in order to survive become our talents when we’re adults.

Richard Branson suffered from terrible dyslexia as a boy. As an adult, we hail his ability to rally people and solve problems. A “talent” he freely admits was born out of a need to survive as a kid.

The greatest thing any parent or teacher can give a child is the support to solve their own problems. The goal is not to force a kid who struggles to work harder at being like everyone else. The goal is help a kid who struggles to find a workaround for the specific thing that’s holding them back. The skills our children learn to overcome adversity when they are young will become their talents when they are older. And it is these talents that will invent and build the products and companies that will help and inspire the rest of us when they’re older.

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Blow Up Your Business Before Someone Else Does

In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs and a few Apple executives visited the Xerox Corporation to see a new technology they had developed. It was called the Graphic User Interface or GUI – it allowed people to interact with a computer through a series of pictures and icons instead of having to know .dos or some other computer language.

At the time of the visit, Apple was hard at work developing the Lisa – it was to be their next big idea after the Apple II. They had poured millions of dollars and an exorbitant amount of time and sweat into developing the Lisa. But this graphic user interface was a revolutionary idea…and the young Steve Jobs knew it.

Like Kodak, who invented the digital camera in the 1970s but suppressed the technology for fear that it would eat away at film sales, so too was Xerox suppressing their idea for fear it too would cannibalize their existing business.

Jobs pulled aside his executives and told them that he wanted to abandon the Lisa and develop the graphic user interface instead. Shocked, one of his executives exclaimed, “but Steve, if we do that, we’ll blow up our own business.”  To which Jobs replied, “better we should blow it up than someone else.”

Apple abandoned the Lisa and, a few years later, in 1984, introduced the Macintosh; a move that would revolutionize the entire computer industry.

Steve Jobs was not unique in his ability to see great ideas. Kodak and Xerox both saw the power of their respective innovations. So much so, in fact, that they worked to keep them hidden knowing full well the impact their technologies would have. What made Jobs a remarkable leader was not his ability to simply see great ideas but to seize them, even if it meant abandoning work already done and money already spent. He would often quote Wayne Gretzky,  who said, "a good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." And that's exactly what Jobs believed. What’s the point of continuing to pour money into an idea that will be dead on arrival? Cut your losses and blow up your own business before someone else does. Don't play where the market is, play where it's going to be.

The music industry refused to blow up their own business. They worked hard to sell albums in a digital world that wanted to buy songs, only to have Apple blow up their businesses with iTunes.

Publishing refuses to blow up their own business leaving them exposed to an online retailer, Amazon, to blow it up for them.

A great idea is a great idea and great ideas cannot be suppressed…at least not forever. The ones who get to profit from the great ideas, however, are not the one who develop them necessarily, but the ones willing to embrace those ideas before anyone else does.

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Caring About Your Customers Only When You Have To

Fact: every single company cares about their customers...the difference is how they care about them.

I live on a block in New York City that has a Food Emporium on it. It is a sad excuse for a supermarket. The produce is very poor quality, the layout of the store is disastrous and the staff would much rather be somewhere else…at least that’s how they make the customers feel. 

But recently, a Fairway Market moved in less than a block away from the Food Emporium. Fairway is, in a word, amazing. The aisles are well stocked and brightly lit. The produce is incredible, fresh and ripe. The staff is friendly and helpful…in fact, there is staff there whose only job is to help customers find what we’re looking for. The quality is astounding and the prices are cheaper than most of the other supermarkets in the area. People travel from miles away to shop at the Fairway. I’ve even found myself going food shopping more often because it’s such a great place.

Once Fairway moved in, something strange started to happen. All of a sudden, Food Emporium started advertising around the neighborhood. They started talking about change…change for us, they said. In addition to the advertising, they now have people passing out coupons offering discounts on various products.

It’s clear the only time Food Emporium started thinking about their customers was when another company who really cares about their customers moved in.

It is true that every company cares about their customers. However, some companies, like Food Emporium, care about them because they see them as dollar signs. And some companies, like Fairway, care about them because they see them as people.

When a company sees their customers as dollar signs, they treat them as a metric. Something to balance efficiencies, increase margins and decrease expenses. When a company sees their customers as people, they treat them like human beings. Something to look after, worry about and give an amazing experience to.

If companies only care about their customers when they have to, it's probably too late. Even if Food Emporium changes everything…I still know they never really cared about me. But that’s ok…I never really cared about them. 

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The Night The Lighthouse Went Out

Today we've lost a lighthouse. Steve Jobs, the man who stood for so much more than sleek design or innovation, the man who stood for people, is gone.

He was singularly devoted, not to technology, but how people interacted with technology. It wasn't for us to fit into a world of computers, it was for the computers to fit into a world of people. And that's what made Jobs different. That's what made Jobs special.

There are many great CEOs and there are great innovators, but we won't miss them the same way we'll miss Jobs.  Jobs lived above his company and its products. This is what made Jobs one of the great leaders of our time. He didn't lead a company - he led us. He inspired us. He had a cause and we followed him in his pursuit.

For all those who think different, the rebels, the misfits, those who see the world differently, Jobs gave us language. He gave us a way to show people who we are, what we believe. He gave us symbols, like beacons, so that we can more easily find those who believe what we believe. And most of all, he made us feel like we belong. He reminded us that the ones who see things differently are the ones who change the world.

Rest in peace Steve, for you accomplished what you set out to do...you changed the world...and our lives are better for it.

You will be missed.