OK. Here is another quick observation.
While traveling west on I80 coming out of Donner Pass, I got ensnared in trap, a speed trap.
Well, maybe ensnared is not quite the right word.
I-80 coming through the Pass from NV into CA is really twisty and steep. My trunk was full of stuff, which made the rear of the car a little heavier than usual. So coming down that pass and making those turns, well, I had to slow down a lot in order to keep my car from fishtailing.
So while I’m trying to keep the rear of my car from swinging back and forth wildly, I watched a whole bunch of other cars zip right by me taking the turns like Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Just as I get to the bottom and rounded the last turn, I spotted one of California’s finest lecturing one of the motorists that had passed me up (ok, actually, the CHP was writing out a citation).
As I drove a little further, I noticed a few more patrol cars had paired off with other motorists who had zipped by me.
And that was when I noticed them.
An army of CHP cars, all lined up along the side of the road like jets on a runway waiting for their turn to take off.
If I had to venture a guess as to how many were there, I’d have to say all of them.
These guys were organized, they had their act together, and they were writing out citations faster than Michael Phelps handing out autographs after his historic swim at the Beijing Olympics.
This thing was extremely well organized and executed.
Very much like the speed trap I saw in MO when I picked up I-40 just outside St. Louis.
Same strategy as used by the CHP. Missouri’s finest lined up on the side of the road, taking turns snagging the motorists who did not notice the one lone peace officer with the radar gun targeting everyone coming up on I-40 and radioing the intel to his buddies.
So what am I saying here, that success is tied to observing and obeying the traffic laws?
Well, you certainly won’t make any money if you are wasting it on your lead feet.
But consider this. In both cases, these patrol officers were organized. By working together and getting the right people on the team, they caught a lot more zippy motorist than if each one had worked alone or if they just quickly threw a bunch of the office staff together.
The speed trap would have been ineffective had some patrol cars been pointing south while others were pointing north. It would not have been effective if the “meter maids” in those little golf carts were a part of the team chasing down motorist blasting down the road at 75MPH.
No, someone had decided what the objectives were, the best place to hold this “event”, who should be a part of this event and what part everyone would play in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.
You need to do the same thing in arranging your resources to attain maximum effectiveness in achieving your goals and objectives.
Like the speed trap, you have many resources that are available to you. You have people that you can leverage and make part of your mastermind team. You have hard resources like money and time. And you have personal resources like skills, talents, knowledge and past experiences.
Too often we think of resources as things like money, tangible assets and time. These are things that we can measure, see and touch.
Rarely do we ever consider our skills, talents and especially our experiences as assets. After all, there is no effective way to measure them.
And rarely do we effectively leverage our human capital. Instead of collaborate with people and looking for mutual benefit for both parties, we often look for ways to “get something from them” or “how to effectively ‘utilize’ them”.
But just because we can’t measure these resources doesn’t negate their existence or their effect on our inner processes and the outer world.
And if we don’t partner with our mastermind team, we run the risk of alienating the very people who can help us in our quest.
Because we rarely organize these non-tangible resources, the ones that stand to make the biggest impact, are left scattered, ill used and probably doing more to hinder us in achieving our outcome.
In order to maximize your personal effectiveness, you need to first know what you are trying to achieve. Then you need to know what your resources are, which ones to actually use in your endeavor, and how to organize these resources to insure that you move towards achieving your outcome.
If you can identify and organize your resources, you will get a lot further on the road to reaching your goal than if you just threw everything together and let the chips fall where they may.
Bottom line, if you want to catch more of the opportunities that are zipping by you, learn to identify and organize all of your resources that can help you achieve your outcomes. Once you have them organized for maximum effectiveness, achieving your outcomes will be quick and easy.
