I was already late when I left the office
heading for the airport. My flight was the
last one of the day that would enable me to have dinner with an important client in a
distant city, and I had to make it.
Driving well above the speed limit, I could
feel my hands tighten around the steering
wheel. My pulse was throbbing in my temples as the stress of the possibility of missing my flight began to rise. When another
driver attempted to cross over into my lane,
I accelerated to close the gap between my
car and the one in front of me, blocking him
out.
Speeding around a curve in the highway, I
suddenly saw a sea of red brake lights
ahead, forcing me to a complete stop. Soon,
I heard sirens and saw the flashing lights of
two ambulances racing down the shoulder
of the highway.
When I finally reached the accident, it was
a vision of total devastation. One car was
overturned, and several others lay
crumpled at odd angles, while emergency personnel hurried from one
injured person to another.
Staring in shock at this terrible
tragedy, I witnessed a scene I had
experienced many times on television
but never in reality. Barely 20 feet in
front of me, two emergency workers
lifted the body of a man and placed him
into a long, white bag. They pulled the
zipper from foot to head with a slowness
that seemed almost reverent, closing the
body within it, and closing the journey of a
life.
Even as the shrill command of a policeman’s whistle forced me to drive on, I
knew that image would stay with me forever.
Had the man in that bag been in a hurry,
just as I had? Was he driving too fast, dialing his cell phone or mentally distracted by
a problem at work when his last moment
occurred? I’ll never know. But I will always
suspect that it was the same frenzied pace
that I felt — the same urgent need to hurry
— that created the devastation on that highway. Except for a few minutes’ difference in
time, and the miracle of grace, the man in
that bag could have been me.
Are you always hurrying through your
life? Is your pace so urgent that you become
angry at the smallest delay, such as a
lengthy traffic light or a customer in front of you counting out exact change to pay? If so,
then here are two questions you should
consider.
Are you creating your own crisis? On that
day, making my flight was so urgent that I
felt compelled to drive dangerously, but it
was a crisis I had made myself by squeezing
in one additional meeting before I left.
Today, I can’t even remember what that
meeting was about, but the urgency it created could have cost me my life.
Instead, why not plan adequate time for
the things you need to do and leave a small
buffer between commitments for the unexpected? As radical as this may sound, you
will actually get more done by remaining in
a calmer, more focused state than you will
by rushing frantically from commitment to
commitment.
Are you always distracted? Constant multitasking only creates the illusion of productivity, not the results, while adding extra
stress.
I recently received a call from a colleague
about a complex financial spreadsheet. In
the background, I could hear the sounds of
a crowd cheering. When I asked, he told me
he was at his daughter’s soccer game and
how important it was to her that he was
there to watch her play.
I realized this man was sitting in the
stands with his laptop open, discussing an
issue on his cell phone, while believing he
was fulfilling an important commitment to
his child. The sad truth was that both his
work and his daughter received less than
his best that day.
The commitments you make and the people to whom you make them are essential
elements in creating the life you want to
live. Slow down enough to give them the
time and the undivided focus they deserve,
and you will find that both your work and
your relationships reach a new level of success and fulfillment.
JIM HULING is CEO of MATRIX Resources Inc., an IT services
company that has achieved industry-leading financial growth while
receiving numerous national, regional and local awards for its values-based culture and other work-life balance programs. The company was recently named one of the 25 Best Small Companies to
Work for in America for the second year in a row by the Great Place
to Work Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management.
In 2005, Huling was awarded the Turknett Leadership Character
Award for outstanding demonstration of integrity, respect and
accountability. Reach him at [email protected].