Lesson Learned From an Impatient Driver

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

You’ve seen them, right?

Drivers dodging in and out of traffic trying to get somewhere, anywhere in a big hurry.

Was out driving this morning and witnessed a car moving in and out of traffic, changing lanes repeatedly, obviously in need of getting somewhere much faster than anyone else on the road.

I was behind the car driving, and each time it moved to another lane of traffic, that lane seemed to slow down. So it would move back over to the other lane, at which point that lane of traffic seemed to slow down. Kind of funny actually, but I am sure that driver was not amused.

I decided to do a test on the spot. I stayed in my lane and did not get over no matter whether the traffic in the other lane was moving faster, and just decided to keep going…slow and steady…while that other car dodged in and out of traffic for several miles it seemed.

The best part was that at every stop light that we came upon, I was either right behind them or right next to them. And yes, I did get some pleasure from the fact that no matter what the driver did to try to get ahead by changing their course of action, it never seemed to work long enough so they tried something different.

As I continued to drive, I realized that this was a life lesson reminder for me.

Tony Robbins talks about it in his program Unleash The Power Within where people try something new, or something different and when they did not get the immediate results that they were hoping to get, they stopped trying.

When asked why they stopped, they would usually responded with “I tried EVERYTHING….!!!!”

Everything? Really?

“Well, I tried thousands of ways….”

Thousands??? Name TWO!!!

In this day and age of immediate gratification, we lose focus on the fact that the world is not going to change overnight to be the way that we want it to be.

It has taken me 50 years to be where I am at today. If I want to change something about myself, do you really think it is going to happen in the next couple days. And depending on what it is, it could take years (i.e. lose all the weight I want to lose). Yet I still get discouraged when I try to implement a change and it doesn’t “stick” right away. So should I just stop trying? In the past maybe, but not today. Not any more.

It is like when your child is learning to walk or ride a bicycle and they keep falling down….do we tell them to just stop trying and stay down? Or do we encourage them to keep getting up and doing it again?

What about in our business? Do we try something for a couple weeks or months, get discouraged, tell ourselves that it is not working and decide to try something else? Unfortunately too many people do.

I have listened to so many testimonials from successful people and one common thread that you will always find in their stories is that they did not give up when things got tough. in fact, that is when they worked harder than ever. They had a vision and NOTHING was going to stop them from succeeding.

So to whoever that driver was this morning that was in such a hurry to get….somewhere. I just want to say thank you for reminding me. Reminding me that no matter what, as long as I keep trying and keep moving forward that I will reach all of my goals. And I pray that you were able to get wherever you were going safely….

Mark

Mark and Michelle Eaves

FB = www.facebook.com/marknmichelle0925
Skype = mark.eaves14
Twitter = @startsat50
Phone = 662-336-1814 e-mail = michelle@marknmichelle.com or mark@marknmichelle.com