Complete the mission. Touch the white fence.
Yesterday was the last day of my Energy for Life class run by the Human Performance Institute. As I discussed in this post, we had to write mission statements defining our purpose in life. An example of how our life mission (or story) can go wrong was presented and I’d like to share that with you.
The HPI invited 4 elite NFL athletes to participate in their course. These huge, powerful men were taken to a canal in Orlando, FL along which was a walking / running trail. Some distance down the trail was a white fence. The athletes were given a simple mission: go running down the trail, touch the white fence, then run back.
As they started, the instructor called them back to the starting point and said “I forgot to mention that sometimes black water snakes like to slither up to the trail and sun themselves. You should be able to just jump over them, but make sure you do not step on them. These snakes are poisonous.” The athletes nodded and started off again. But the instructor called them back a second time. “I forgot to mention that this is Florida and there are alligators here. They are extremely aggressive and will bite your leg off. The best thing is to not get close to them while running around them.” A little nervous, the athletes nodded and started off again. But the instructor called them back a third time. “I forgot to tell you that there are wild boar in this area. They tend to wander in packs of 2 to 3, are very dangerous, aggressive and should not be confronted in any way. There is no way to stop a wild boar and they will charge you without provocation. Be extremely careful.”
At this point, the athletes are looking as if they don’t want to even do this run, but the instructor shooed them off, so they started running. What they didn’t know was that an HPI employee was hiding behind some bushes halfway down the trail with a camera. When the athletes came into view, he made the sound of a wild boar. All 4 athletes jumped out of their skin and, without hesitation, turned and fled the other direction. Only one of the four bothered to look back over his shoulder (the video clip of this was shared at the workshop with the permission of the athletes).
A few months later, the HPI got a group of FBI hostage negotiators into one of their classes. The experiment was repeated, almost word for word, action for action. Except as the instructor kept increasing the danger level, the FBI guys got more and more excited at the prospect. They even asked if they could bring along their guns (the answer was a definitive “no”). So what happened when they reached the employee with the video camera?
They stopped in their tracks. Not jumped, stopped. Rather than running the other direction, they inched up in the direction of the bushes, peered back there, laughed when they saw the employee and then continued their mission, to touch the white fence and run back.
So why did the big, burly, capable athletes turn and flee while the hostage negotiators stopped, investigated, and then completed the mission?
Because the FBI trains its people on threat assessment, remain calm in dangerous situations (because reacting instead of acting can cost lives), and to deal with even the most lethal problems with an air of heightened awareness. NFL athletes are trained to deal with non-lethal competition, not situations that can cause instant or painful death.
Threats that come from outside the scope of our training and distractions that disrupt our routines, things we have not planned for, can derail our life missions. Whether that mission is to write a novel or build a data warehouse system, concentration is vital to the completion of that mission (touching the white fence) and distractions can hinder us from completing our goals.
If we want to accomplish our goals, we need to train in advance for the distractions that will steal our energy and leave us drifting around without purpose. It’s like the fire drills we go through at our jobs. Training allows us to deal with the complication and get back to our real purpose.
So, remember: Complete the mission. Touch the white fence.
Give yourself permission to succeed. Because you can if you believe that you can.
