The Second Law of Parallel Parking

I will play the other side, because I am most definitely risk-driven.

I have to say that regardless of how you are apt to operate – off the cliff or around the cliff – the outcome has everything to do with clarity about what you are (or were!) trying to achieve, and yes, is absolutely connected to your values. You will achieve what you set out to achieve, and staying in the position or perspective that allows you to make the correct decisions has also everything to do with allowing the desired outcome to unfold.

The kicker is that there is this other thing called timing. That, I believe is truly divine, is out of our control, and yet in the same breath, is working behind the scenes with the timing of all the other variables that need to come into “alignment” with the things we are trying to create. Whew! It really is so amazing… and maddening! So many times, as a risk-taker, I have jumped in with both feet, “failed”, moved on, and 6 months later, the thing I tried to push forward happens automatically, without effort, and often without my knowledge. I will just simply experience the result. A good example – sans the emotion of my big picture blog project – is a painting customer who hires me, books me, post-pones, gets irritated with my check-in close to the new booking date, I move them from job to lead stAtus, I forget about them, and then they call and book themselves in for the perfect time. It’s totally nuts! It makes me feel completely not in control.

My big picture thing that I can’t seem to move forward is a right-fit web developer. I’ve gone as far as I can go with that on my own and the big why not around hiring a web person is totally based on failures. I had a conversation with a friend earlier this week. He’s a physicist and for no reason he tells me about some law of physics (the 2nd one, the first was “refer to the 2nd law”; physicists, you can’t live with them, pass the beer nuts) that can be boiled down to “there is an infinite number of ways to do something wrong, and only one way to do it perfectly correct. Consider parallel parking as the example, and you will see it doesn’t really matter, eventually you will park the car, because parking the car is the goal”. It may mean driving down the street to a Green P… I am not a physicist…

OK, all well this after a rather healthy shot of Gretzky’s whisky, no joke, so to me this counts as a synchronicity ha! But seriously, at the time I was thinking, Gretzky does whisky too? Of course he does. And he’s successful because he DOES the damn whisky. I mean, genius. All of a sudden, all of the things Gretsky has done in my life time flashed through my mind, and yes, some successful, some he probably regrets – profoundly actually – and yet there in front of me was his current venture, a really sexy bottle of Rye Whisky. I mean I have no idea what it tasted like, can’t drink the stuff, but the appeal was definitely there. Suddenly Canadian Whisky was beautiful, not something getting thrown out of the back door of a bar, half cocked. That’s why I can’t drink the stuff.

I really love how your post has come together in my mind with the 2nd law of parallel parking and Gretzky’s current success. Objectively I see all of what you have done as a success, and the way you have gone about it has been so wonderful to watch. I’ve learned so much about the balancing act between a huge big picture risk, and then the small day-to-day methodical, well-planned, and focused action.

This perspective really helps me to manage the why not of hiring the web developer. I know exactly what I want that person to do now; I am not throwing a request and an idea into the wind, for him to misunderstand, or worse, steal.  I’m not dating that person either, and he does not have all my ideas in a file in his desk somewhere, refusing to execute, or waiting for my Dad to fund the project. I am not foolish, or naive, or stupid. I made some mistakes. And frankly, as time has had its way with this project, those failures were definitely in my best interest. None of those people could have kept up with the changes that have occurred as the project has matured, nor were they at all pleasant to work with. To spite the fact I paid them, they behaved as if they were doing me a favor.

Anyway, my point here is to see the solution to the why not I have around hiring a web developer. Reading your post, how you feel, and your methodical plan to move beyond your frustrations with the process, I can see that it is the same solution to mine. Get organised. Prepare for the next move. Get into position. Get clear on my values, and the goal itself.

When I am prepared and in position to take the shot, finding a web developer will be easy. In the meantime, I can see that a patch on that part of the project is definitely necessary. I’ve gone back and forth on that decision so many times, decided to postpone the meeting… aka not taken the shot. NOT being a proficient enough web developer myself is stalling the project.

This is such a relief to see all of this. It’s not a problem with ME or the project that is stalling it, it’s just simply a Why Not. Suddenly, it’s really unemotional.  The Why Not will always shut a project down – any project – and I hadn’t connected a Why Not with the web developer “thing” in my head, not really. Intellectually I knew it was just something I had to get brave enough to do, but I kept rationalizing that the stall was more intelligent.

Good one, Parker. Merci Cherie.