Turbo Leadership Systems^™

Accept what is and then say, "What's next?"

Wednesday morning, on my layover in Vancouver, B.C. on my flight from Timmins to Toronto and home to Portland, I slept in an hour or so. It felt good to get up at 6:30 instead of 5:00. Five A.M. comes early when I don't get to bed until a little after 1:00 a.m. I planned to be the first person at the Nexus window when they opened at 8:00. They rolled up their window partition and I stepped up to the counter to see what the next steps would be in getting Nexus approval. With Nexus clearing I can go through Customs just by having my retina scanned; no more having to wait in long lines, no more interrogation by Customs officers on my weekly trips to Canada. When I get into Vancouver Customs area after a cruise ship debarks, these lines can be 45 minutes or longer. I'd completed the Nexus application several months earlier, a pretty laborious process. I waited, waited and waited. I finally received an email that specified one day that I could come in for the interview required to complete the process. As it turned out, my schedule wouldn't work for that date. I wasn't available. When I told the young lady at the Nexus counter what had happened, her response was, "That's impossible. That would never have happened" and "There's no way you can just show up and have an interview. It has been so long since you were approved, you are going to have to go back through the entire application process a second time."

I observed my response. There was a

little pushback energy for a few seconds. I just looked at her and said nothing. She seemed quite eager to exercise her power. It would have been easy to put a bureaucratic label on her, object to her abrupt treatment, tell her she couldn't treat me that way, tell her my sad story; staying over, giving up my morning, etc. I just looked at her when she finished speaking. I waited for her to continue her story until ultimately she said, "You can go over to the US Customs Office and see what they can do for you". I quick-timed it across the terminal. They were very helpful and assured me that within a few days they would reopen my application and then we could proceed.

This experience gave me a chance to again check in with myself and see how I'm doing at accepting "what is".

Now that you've taken a moment to read this simple story, I encourage you to reflect over the last few days and see if there has been a time when the events of the day have not gone as you had scripted them. How did you respond? The suggestion here is obvious – start by accepting "what is". After you have accepted what is, then you can look for what's next. You will then move into "what's next" with more confidence, poise and strength.

P.S. I was approved for Nexus in less than 3 weeks and I now just fly through customs!