#131 Notice a trail of shrapnel where you've just been?

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Have you ever looked down and noticed a trail of shrapnel where you’ve been?

Thank you for calling GIH where we instigate growth one call at a time where we utilize antiquated technology to deliver 3-minute leadership lessons every week day! This is message #131 and I am Aaron Havens.

One of the companies I lead does commercial window washing. As we’ve grown, so has our height. We started out doing storefront single level windows. It’s not uncommon to find us 45’ 60’ even 80’ in the air these days. Our commercial buildings have gone from a few windows on the street level, to hundreds of windows multiple levels in the air. We’ve become pretty good at operating lifts and cleaning some pretty hard to get windows. Yesterday was one of those bigger jobs. It started out normal and easy. We move slow and methodical. We want to do a fantastic job and do it safely. Some jobs though. Man… some jobs just don’t go as planned.

It started with a couple trees that I had to maneuver our lift up and around a threw to get to the 4th story window. In the process, a 3 foot branch snapped off and fell to the ground. Nothing too big.

Then, as I was maneuvering a bit further a ground light snapped and shattered under the weight of the lift. Shoot… Looks like we will be replacing that at our cost.

Then a bit further. I did something I have done in a long time. I dropped my squeegee.

Then it started raining.

Then the lift kept making beeping alarm sounds and was flashing “STOPS”… whatever that means.

For a moment I paused, saw the limb, the broken light, and my squeegee all on the ground as the rain was starting and the lift was beeping. You know what I did? Lowered the lift to the ground and walked across the parking lot to get a hamburger and take a brake.

What do you do, when you look down and shrapnel is littering the ground? When it seems like the harder you work or the longer you stick with it… You know… grit… yet it keeps getting worse? When is it time to pause, STOP, and consider your next moves

"Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer." — Denis Waitley

Today… if you notice a train of “wrong” or “broken” or “mistakes”, may we be a people that doesn’t get lost or give up there. Instead, cheer me on spend energies on moving forward…. And I’ll be cheering you on as well!

Thanks for calling in today. Tune in tomorrow for a fresh new topic! After the beep tell me about a time it seemed the harder you worked the worse it got. And, what do you do when you find that to be your reality?