Would you Get out of the Fox Hole..??

[JK4Woods]

Ok… just a question that came up a week or so ago in my mind.

I work with a high pressure Executive bunch.
All type A’s, hard chargers with exceptional intelligence and egos.

I’m shepherding along a critical project, that has been fraught with outside influences and impacts.

So delay, and costs have started to vary widely from expectations.

I was asked to prepare and report on status to the highest executive level at a certain time.

I prepped and went upstairs … to the top floor…
Announced myself to the admin and was instructed to take seat in the officers office and wait. He was in a meeting elsewhere on the floor.

I sat there and sat there. Ten minutes became twenty, which lengthened again.

Nervousness grew. It was almost unavoidable.
I started to question intent.
Was I being made to wait..??
Was I in trouble?
Was this a physiological litmus test?

Anyway, my stress level got pretty high.

So I had a silent prayer.
Just asked for a steady heart, and calm steely nerves.

I continued to wait.

The thought came into my mind….
Would I get out of the foxhole, and charge the machine gun..??

The answer from a knowing spirit said Yes! I would. (It knew I would leave the safety of protection, and at whatever peril to my own self, I would charge forward toward the machine gun.

Then the thought came… would he? (The CFO I was to meet). Would he get out of the foxhole and charge the machine gun..??

I didn’t know…. I actually have no idea his personal disposition or level of courage.

Then the spirit whispered… “that’s right, you don’t know, but you know you would”.
“You would face danger and hazard for your team. In spite of fear”.

Then my heart settled and somehow great courage swelled in my breast. I know I can face fear and danger and hazards and still move forwards.

Moments later, he swept into his office, invited me over to sit at his desk, and apologized several times for keeping me waiting, and in fact, he seemed to forget he was going to strongly voice his displeasure with the project status.

He became quite meek and accepted my report and made the meeting as brief as possible.

Thanking me for my efforts and overwatch.

I left that top floor relieved, and not quite euphoric, but happy I hadn’t gotten my butt chewed as the messenger.

It was a great personal bit of revelation and inspiration.

[762X545]

Your fear is a symptom of the rest of our society and it's not your fault. We are being conditioned to be fearful. Fear police. Fear the government. Fear the flu virus. No longer are we expected to be epic in any way shape or form. There are very few men or women who seek "epicness." Rather than relish the opportunity to go toe to toe with the CEO and mentally duke it out we are supposed to be meek and reserved. We need to change that. We need to teach ourselves and then our kids that it's ok to jump head first into that school assignment, work assignment, kitchen remodel or whatever it is. Someone had to be the first person to tile a shower so what makes that person better than you? Someone had to present that report to the CEO so why can't your report be the best ever?! So many of us settle for mediocre. We are afraid of succeeding. We are afraid of trampling the weak and hurdling the cowardly. You faced your fear and it turned out just fine. Too often we make up fears in our minds that dont exist. We concoct every reason not to attempt to crush life and all we will be left with is living a life in the shadows of those who were more courageous and a tombstone that reads "average."

[iWriteStuff]

Ok… just a question that came up a week or so ago in my mind.

I work with a high pressure Executive bunch.
All type A’s, hard chargers with exceptional intelligence and egos.

I’m shepherding along a critical project, that has been fraught with outside influences and impacts.

So delay, and costs have started to vary widely from expectations.

I was asked to prepare and report on status to the highest executive level at a certain time.

I prepped and went upstairs … to the top floor…
Announced myself to the admin and was instructed to take seat in the officers office and wait. He was in a meeting elsewhere on the floor.

I sat there and sat there. Ten minutes became twenty, which lengthened again.

Nervousness grew. It was almost unavoidable.
I started to question intent.
Was I being made to wait..??
Was I in trouble?
Was this a physiological litmus test?

Anyway, my stress level got pretty high.

So I had a silent prayer.
Just asked for a steady heart, and calm steely nerves.

I continued to wait.

The thought came into my mind….
Would I get out of the foxhole, and charge the machine gun..??

The answer from a knowing spirit said Yes! I would. (It knew I would leave the safety of protection, and at whatever peril to my own self, I would charge forward toward the machine gun.

Then the thought came… would he? (The CFO I was to meet). Would he get out of the foxhole and charge the machine gun..??

I didn’t know…. I actually have no idea his personal disposition or level of courage.

Then the spirit whispered… “that’s right, you don’t know, but you know you would”.
“You would face danger and hazard for your team. In spite of fear”.

Then my heart settled and somehow great courage swelled in my breast. I know I can face fear and danger and hazards and still move forwards.

Moments later, he swept into his office, invited me over to sit at his desk, and apologized several times for keeping me waiting, and in fact, he seemed to forget he was going to strongly voice his displeasure with the project status.

He became quite meek and accepted my report and made the meeting as brief as possible.

Thanking me for my efforts and overwatch.

I left that top floor relieved, and not quite euphoric, but happy I hadn’t gotten my butt chewed as the messenger.

It was a great personal bit of revelation and inspiration.

Art thou a PM, then?

[harakim]

Your fear is a symptom of the rest of our society and it's not your fault. We are being conditioned to be fearful. Fear police. Fear the government. Fear the flu virus. No longer are we expected to be epic in any way shape or form. There are very few men or women who seek "epicness." Rather than relish the opportunity to go toe to toe with the CEO and mentally duke it out we are supposed to be meek and reserved. We need to change that. We need to teach ourselves and then our kids that it's ok to jump head first into that school assignment, work assignment, kitchen remodel or whatever it is. Someone had to be the first person to tile a shower so what makes that person better than you? Someone had to present that report to the CEO so why can't your report be the best ever?! So many of us settle for mediocre. We are afraid of succeeding. We are afraid of trampling the weak and hurdling the cowardly. You faced your fear and it turned out just fine. Too often we make up fears in our minds that dont exist. We concoct every reason not to attempt to crush life and all we will be left with is living a life in the shadows of those who were more courageous and a tombstone that reads "average."

This is exactly right. You have your place in our world and they have theirs. Neither is better. I had a friend who was a swinger and one time he told me he used to be afraid of CEOs and people like that until he realized they would not dare bring up swinging with their wives and would not swing even if they did. They'd be too afraid. And those things were easy for him. In that sense, I think swinging was good for him. He could have learned this lesson other ways, but this was the way it happened..

I used to think researchers were super careful until I worked in a research lab. I used to think day traders were super smart with snap judgments until I went sailing with them. I used to think people who worked in charities in third world countries were so brave until they told me about their drinking adventures and so forth while they were doing "charity".

762x545 is right about how the world makes people feel. Everyone has their place and it takes all the cogs in a machine to run. The only differentiator between someone who is more and someone who is less is if they are more or less of themselves. And that all boils down to how much they let fear ruin their life. The less you fear, the more you are yourself and the more successful you will be, whatever that means for you.

[mudflap]

I think this is a great story, JK4, thanks for sharing.

I used to contract cable jobs. Every day, I had this fear in the pit of my stomach that I would get a job that I couldn't complete - that I wouldn't be able to fix whatever was broken. Talked to my wife about it and she said, "well, has that ever happened?"
I had to admit "no. I've never had a job I couldn't fix or complete."
"So it's a confidence issue, right?"
"I guess so."

After that, I decided to be more confident in my abilities.

Same thing with building a cabin debt-free - talked to some "friends" at church after I had taken the class, but before I started building - they had just bought a large farm and were going into a lot of debt to put a house on the farm. I asked if they had looked into debt-free building with a log home, and the wife said, "oh, we looked into it already - it's not something you do - it's very complicated." I tried to explain that it wasn't complicated, and that average people were doing it, but she didn't want to hear about it.

So in that case, being closed minded cuts you off from a lot of benefits.

over the course of this build, I've learned that things have a way of working themselves out. The setbacks, the mistakes, the flaws - it all tends to wash out in the end. Stuff that seemed impossible like moving 6,000 lb logs with less-than-capable equipment gives me confidence that other stuff that still seems impossible (figuring out electric or plumbing code) will probably work itself out.

moving forward, even while you can't see the entire picture, is the essence of faith, IMO.