[photo by DeaPeaJay]
My grandfather owned a farm in Cheboygan, Michigan and during the warm summer days when we got tired of watching the hay dry we would go to the beach.
Several years ago I was back at a beach near Mackinaw with my family. I was enjoying the relatively warm and sunny weather (this is Michigan after all so I have to caveat warm) when a high pitched voice caught my attention and I noticed a young girl having trouble staying afloat. I consider myself a pretty strong swimmer and being near the water already, I swam out to rescue her.
I learned several things that afternoon:
1. Swimming in a hurry takes much more time and energy than one would think.
2. While it may be easy to keep ourselves afloat, we’re only about five extra pounds from being submerged.
3. People who think they’re going to die are not reasonable.
She turned out to be a fourteen year old girl who had ventured too far out and could not keep herself buoyant. While swimming out to her I could tell she thought her life was in danger and that made me want to get to her quickly. But even at top speed it seemed as though I were merely crawling along the surface of the water.
I have had this feeling several times since and not only while swimming. It comes from underestimating the amount of effort a task will require. As a general rule I would say double the amount of time you think you’ll need for unfamiliar tasks. This does not just mean tasks you’ve never done before. I had been swimming many times, but I had never been swimming in a hurry over a measurable distance so I didn’t realize how long it would take.
Another thing I never thought about while swimming was just how close my mouth and nose were to the water line. Like most things in life breathing in water has the appearance of a binary situation: you can breathe or you can’t. So when I could breathe I didn’t think about how close I was to being unable to breathe.
What I didn’t realize therefore was the only two places I could breathe from, my mouth and nose, are very close together and only inches away from the water level. And while I was buoyant enough to breathe when left alone, even a small amount of additional weight, like a teenage girl trying to keep her face out of the water, and my body sank two or three inches deeper into the water effectively causing me to be unable to breathe.
This has manifested itself in my business life as shallowness of knowledge. I may be all right discussing things on a superficial level but may be only two questions away from looking like a complete idiot. Most of the time I don’t, so I feel safe, just as I felt safe swimming, but given a little extra weight I could be submerged. Now I try to bone up on information even when it is unlikely to be asked for just so I have the security of knowing I’ve got plenty of buffer.
Lastly, people don’t want to die. I know this. In fact, I knew from my Boy Scout life guard merit badge training that drowning people will panic and sometimes pull you down in an effort to save themselves. I knew this but I’d never experienced it. It was an eye-opener to say the least. The panic in this girl’s eyes, the amazing strength of her grip, the speed and desperation with which she acted was shocking. I was caught completely off guard.
I have sensed that same panic in the business world. Not the same wild look in people’s eyes, not the same crazy, adrenaline fueled grip, but the same essence of desperation. Never underestimate what a person will do when they’re in this state. They’re not worried about you. They’re not thinking about the future. They’ve got one thing on their mind and it’s survival.
If you’re ever put in a position to help someone in need by all means do it. It’s a great feeling to help someone in danger. But don’t overestimate your strengths and underestimate your weaknesses or you could both end up in need of help. So here are some takeaway points:
Practice using your skills in a way that simulates the real world conditions in which you may have to use them.
Give yourself a buffer by building a deeper level of knowledge than you think you’ll need.
Don’t rely on people who are desperate for survival themselves, you never know what they’re going to do to save their own life.
But the real bottom line is: Don’t hang out near weak swimmers.
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Exciting stuff! You obviously survived the experience, but what happened to the girl?! I need closure...
ReplyDeleteShe survived, as did I, and hopefully she learned some things about herself in the process too. I never saw her again after we exited the water.
ReplyDeleteShe was pretty shaken up by the experience and probably a little embarrassed. When we got to the shore she went her way and I went mine. She didn’t thank me.
Not that I mind, I didn’t do it for the gratitude but it’s a bit of a bummer since it’s probably the only time in my life I can legitimately say I saved a person’s life.
Thanks for ending my agony of suspense! And nice job on the impromptu lifeguarding; you did a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to bet that the young lady in question did learn quite a bit from the experience. And this is an important point as it relates to principles of failure: sometimes a partial failure grants just as much valuable insight as a full-blown failure.
In the case of this girl, if she had COMPLETELY failed to breathe or make it back to shore, she probably would have learned some pretty cool stuff, but I imagine the usefulness of that information as it pertains to the rest of her mortal life would be negligible.
But as it happened, thanks in large measure to your actions, she merely SOMEWHAT failed to breathe, etc, while being granted an uncomfortable opportunity to contemplate what a complete failure might be like. Thus, she was able to gain some gems of wisdom, but without suffering the ultimate consequences of an absolute failure to remain buoyant whilst immersed in the murky waters of Lake Huron.
I agree with your sentiments, we all can and will fail many times in our lives. The important thing is to not overemphasize our failures but to acknowledge them as an essential part of the learning process.
ReplyDeleteI like this article. I think that some people have a natural need to help others, so much so that they will put themselves in danger even though they know it is happening.
ReplyDeleteI had an experience as a manager several years ago where someone was abusive to many people I worked with. I remember saying to someone, "Sometimes someone has to go down in order to bring others up." That person was me. I let it happen after I did everything I knew possible to help other people. I let it happen to protect others I cared about and I wasn't strong enough in this time in my life.
The ironic part is that I watched it happen to my own boss in the first few months of my coming to this company - only 4 years before this. I was new and didn't understand or want to get involved. He went down and "magically," it brought me up.
What a learning experience to be on both ends.
Thanks for your comments Kathy, too often toxic people are put in positions of authority because in the short run they can achieve results. Sadly, the true effects of their behavior don’t manifest themselves until much later and their causes are likely to be misunderstood. I applaud your willingness to put the welfare of others above your own.
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