I was on a flight to New Orleans with my buddy Al.

We were looking forward to a weekend of jazz and food.

Maybe even a drink or two.

And it was a bumpy ride.

The seatbelt signs were on.

The rain was lashing down, rattling against the side of the plane…

And our seats shuddered as we moved through the air.

It was a little unnerving.

I don’t enjoy being buffeted around on a flight.

And as we flew the weather got worse.

The rain became a thunderstorm and the shudders got even rougher.

I looked around.

Everyone was fidgeting in their seats.  No-one was comfortable. 

And suddenly…

Whhhoooooosshhhhhhhh

My stomach flipped. 

The plane was dropping.

I gasped.  I was terrified. 

And I wasn’t the only one.  I could see the same look on everyone’s faces.

And a few seconds later we levelled out.  And continued on our way.

I don’t think an experience like this is rare…

But that doesn’t make it any less scary.

Even though it only lasted a few seconds, the stakes are sky high.

I definitely feared the worst. 

But what made it even more chilling was the feeling of helplessness. 

Like there was nothing I could do to improve the situation.

My fate was in someone else’s hands.  And that made me hugely uncomfortable. 

Of course, there are always things we can’t control.

And experiencing and responding to things outside our control can help us learn and grow.

But there are also things we have more control over.

Like what we do for a living.

And I see now this idea of “control” is a big part of why I left my job.

I was rarely in the driving seat at work.

I had little control over big things like team strategy or restructures…

And I had little control over smaller things like my work or working hours.

Cause if an urgent request came in…

Or a deadline was changed…

Everything else went out the window.   It was firefighting, day after day.

And it was that same feeling of helplessness and being buffeted around.

Only this time I could do something about it.

And ultimately I realised I wanted to be in a position where I had more freedom...

More power to do my own thing…

And have more of my fate in my hands.

Sure, there's less room to hide this way and I might mess things up.

But at least any mess ups would be down to me. 

Rather than my salary, my career and my life being at the beck and call of someone else.

Of course, everyone is different.

What’s important to one person won’t be important to someone else.

But this is why it’s so key to know what’s important to you…

And how important it is to you.

Because if something is important enough…

And it’s not something you have today…

You might decide it’s time to start going after it.

Time for me to wrap this up.  

Have a good day.

- Tom

p.s. lots of interest in the time management challenge idea I mentioned last week.  More details on this tomorrow