Lightning Does Strike Twice
I attended a leadership conference this week and watched lightning strike
What happens if you stop fighting about everything, with everyone, all the time? You find yourself surrounded by unlimited opportunity, fresh ideas, and a very supportive world.
Let me tell you a story.
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A Tale of Two Attitudes
This week I had two very different experiences.
The first was a bit shocking, a little maddening, and rather sad. After doing some food shopping, I loaded up my SUV and started it up. When I hit reverse, the backup sensors screamed that something was too close. Had I left the cart behind me? I checked the camera, then the mirrors, and saw the issue:
Another shopper was standing behind me, between our cars, near the blind spot.
I figured he was getting into his car, so I waited. Instead, he just stood there, looking around. He took out his cell phone and started talking and texting. He didn’t hear my car running, so I took a deep breath and waited.
After a minute, he still hadn’t moved. The sensors kept my SUV from backing up. So I rolled down the rear window and called out, but he didn’t hear. Switching the car into park, I got out and walked around back.
“Hello,” I said, “Excuse me.” The man turned around and looked at me. “Would you mind stepping out from between the cars so I could back up? I don’t want to bump you with the mirrors accidentally.”
He looked at me and frowned. Then he took a little step back, theatrically, and said, “There. I’m not in your way anymore.”
I smiled and said, “Actually, you’re still between the cars, and it’s narrow. It’s setting off the sensors, so my car won’t back up. If you could just step out a few feet, that would be great.”
He Just Wanted to Fight
“I don’t need to do a thing,” he replied.
And suddenly I realized: He wanted to argue.
“I’m sorry. I was just being polite. I didn’t want to scare or hit you trying to back up...”
“You’re not being polite at all. You’re just trying to tell me what to do,” he said.
I realized there wasn’t anything I could say to help the situation, so I backed off.
“OK. No problem. You don’t have to get out of the way. I’ll just wait. Have a good day.” I turned to go back to my car.
I’ll admit I was triggered. I had plenty of snappy comebacks I wanted to say, but I kept it together. I felt a range of emotions in seconds: frustration, anger, defensiveness, and then sadness. Some people make a fight out of everything, even with strangers.
That’s when I noticed a woman who arrived with a carriage of groceries. She looked at me with a sad face. I shook my head and got into my front seat. When I looked into the rear camera, I realized: She was the person he was waiting for…
… because now they were having an argument, too.
Later in Dallas
The next day, I flew to Dallas to attend a leadership conference.
As we landed, it started to drizzle. Dark clouds were on the horizon, and the wind had picked up. By the time I checked into my hotel, it was raining steadily. By the end of dinner, it was thundering constantly.
At 10:30 pm, while sitting in bed, my smartphone screamed out a tornado warning.
Minutes later, I was walking down the stairs, headed to the designated shelter (a first time for me). Looking around in the hallways, I noticed something interesting about a group of strangers facing a very serious problem:
Nobody was fighting.
As we walked (many of us still in pajamas) to the center of the hotel, we talked to each other, asking if anybody needed help and trying to stay optimistic. As warning sirens blared and smartphones screeched, people remained calm. There was a sense of instant support between complete strangers. At the ballroom, I was immediately waved over by colleagues attending the conference. People greeted me openly and warmly, under very stressful circumstances.
I felt the exact opposite of the day before in the parking lot, even though I was in a ballroom surrounded by strangers who could, at any minute, be swept away by a real tempest.
Time to Clear the Air
For the next two days, I felt so incredibly refreshed.
In my industry, there’s a lot of eye-poking going on. People are always positioning, striving, cornering, and critiquing. There’s no shortage of things to say about the competitor. And too many conferences are an exercise in exchanging wooden nickels. A first-time attendee told me they were “on the lookout for trouble,” to which I replied:
“You won’t find any here, at least not this week. This is the most amazing group of good people in the business. They’re more likely to give you a good pointer than a poke.”
And suddenly that’s what happened, as a client of many years came up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders and surprised me with the most heartfelt hug. I hadn’t seen him since before the pandemic; in minutes, it was like no time had passed at all.
And so it was, for the rest of the conference.
What happens when you stop fighting all the time?
You make space to connect. To learn. To become better by meeting strangers, not always anticipating the worst.
When you’re not acting on guard, you can be on gratitude.
I couldn’t believe how many helpful insights and pieces of advice I received - freely, openly, graciously - from people I met for the first time. Most of the presenters on stage weren’t angling for a confrontation or sound-bite: They shared their best ideas and strategies with a room of “supposed” competitors without fear or worry.
In the hallways, cocktail parties, and dinner tables, when I asked what people were watching or doing in their markets, they told me everything, without concern for who might overhear.
It was as if we all realized that we could choose to make the conference a time to plant future trees under which we could all one day sit, if we stopped trying to strike each other’s growth down, instead.
Lightning Does Strike Twice
My friends, life is too short to fight with everybody over everything.
I know we live in a world where we are constantly tempted to comment on everything and everyone. Sometimes it gets worse and meaner than mere comments online. It spills over into the real world when we meet strangers in real life.
The world will seem sad, a troublesome place, if you believe every stranger (or competitor) is only a threat. If you fight all the time: at the airport, in the parking lot, on TikTok.
Until you make the connection that not everyone is out to get you.
Until that intuition strikes, be careful: After you snap at a stranger, you might run into someone who does know you — a friend, colleague, or family member — while you’re still charged up and —
Strike out at them, too.
A split-second connection can clear the air:
Back in that parking lot, I waited for the man and his wife to stop arguing and get into their car. By then, I noticed someone else had seen the scene unfold. They were sitting in the car parked in front of my spot. They blinked their lights at me as they backed up, then waved as they drove away.
As I pulled forward — through their spot — it occurred to me that lightning can strike twice, and create an entirely new way forward:
Made possible by a complete stranger, who used their power in a very different way.
Think about it.
—M
