“So Much Human Time Is Wasted Waiting”

July 22, 2008

This line from the movie Indiana Jones (by the way don’t waste your money to see it) along with the loss of one of my closest friends, Scott Richards, got me thinking this week about how much time I have spent waiting. And not only spent the time waiting, but wasting a great deal of that time in the process.

Do you remember when you were younger how you wanted to be older? When you were in elementary school you wanted to be in junior high, and when you were in junior high you wanted to be in high school. You could not wait to get your permit so you could drive. You asked someone out on a date for the weekend and it seemed to take forever for the weekend to come.

You finally got to college, something that you were waiting for most of your high school years, and then you were there. Now what? What do you want to be? How much time was spent mulling over what college would be like, most of those imaginations not even closely approximating reality?

You take your first job and you wait to get promoted. You start your business and you wait to get that next big account that will make all the difference. How much time are you wasting waiting? What happens to you when you wait? Do you become less productive? Do you become hyper focused on the waiting at the detriment of other things? Do you close yourself and others down? How is waiting helping or hurting your leadership?

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