By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you better focus your decision making.

It was my first time fishing alone. I was six years old. Pole in hand, I stood on that dock and my eyes seemed like two magnets pulling me toward my red and white bobber. I could see three small fish nibbling at my bait. I was mesmerized. I forgot where I was.

And then suddenly I found myself, fully clothed, falling face first into the water as if those fish were pulling on me. I fell in, still clutching my fishing pole.

Fishing for customers in the business world can be just as distracting at times. We can get too busy with the transaction to think about the action; too fixed IN the moment to reflect ON the moment. To help me stay aware of the woes of day dreaming, I review the following day dream disasters every now and then. Perhaps this list will help you to guard against the Day Dream Invasion:

• In 1969, the Baltimore Colts lost the Super Bowl to the New York Jets when Colts quarterback Earl Morrall failed to pay attention to receiver Jimmy Orr who was all alone in the endzone. Orr was so wide open that he was jumping up and down trying to get Morrall’s attention. Ooops!

• A four-star admiral in the US Navy retired after years of military service. After the retirement ceremony, he and his wife both got in the back seat of the car as usual. There they sat and waited for a few minutes before they realized they no longer rated a military driver for the car. Ooops!

• A Houston funeral home paid attention to the wrong body —twice. The right clothes were on the wrong body for the wake. Then the funeral home paid attention to the wrong body in exhuming what was supposed to be the correct body. The funeral home blamed human error. The widow claimed it was more like “inhuman error.” Ooops!

• A waitress mistakenly served a vodka-tonic instead of a Sprite to a two-year-old boy. The restaurant settled out of court with the parents for roughly 5,000 times the cost of the Sprite. Ooops!

• In 1931 baseball great Lou Gehrig could have won the home-run title in the American League. But day dream-itis must have captured his attention span for just a moment. Gehrig had to settle for a tie with Babe Ruth for the home run title. It happened during a mid-season game. Gehrig homered and trotted around the bases with his head down. He did not notice that the base runner in front of him veered off the base paths to get a sip of water. Gehrig inadvertently passed the runner and according to the rules his home run would not count. Ooops!

Today’s ImproveMINT
Stay alert. Fend off the Day Dream Invasion to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

You might also like these previous Leadership Mints on prevailing over Strategic Thinking:
Broadening Your Funnel Vision

Impulsive Thinking: Beware of Jumping to Conclusions

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