Dare the Rain to Fall
Posted May 12, 2006 · Idiare Atimomo
You could cut the tension with a knife, at least on our side. We were making the most important presentation of our professional lives to the biggest of the big brands in that industry and we had exceeded the time given to us and hadn’t finished our presentation.
We had spent sleepless nights and a significant amount of money running into millions of naira to prepare for this presentation and here we were being told we had only one minute left! If we could fall on our knees and beg for extra time, we would have but our lead presenter did something else: he just kept on pressing on!
Rather than waste time agonizing, he felt the thing to do was to just keep talking, hoping that the passion with which he was carrying on would cover for our lapses in managing our time.
And it worked! Nothing brings out the fight in man than a challenge confronted headlong. The judges held their peace as the last presenter handed over to the next person and that one handed over to the next person. In a blaze of glory, we finally finished pitching our ideas on how to take their business to the next level.
As we left the hall just a few days back, it dawned on me how I sometimes waste time seeking permission from the world to do what I’m sure needs to be done. This “Permission Paralysis” can totally paralyze initiative if you let it get a grip on you.
Permission paralysis arises from a desire to cover all bases so that failure, if it occurs, can be blamed on others. You see people who should know what is good from what is bad still asking for permission to do the needful. In a management position, such persons are the frustration of their bolder subordinates.
It comes from that desire to wait for perfect conditions before you act. I have learnt from personal experience that perfect conditions hardly ever present themselves. I sometimes reaffirm this truth to myself whenever I decide to wash my clothes.
If it is cloudy outside and threatening to rain, I still go out and start washing. I assume a stance of almost daring the rain to fall and I can in all honesty report that the rain has backed down 90% of the time. How this happens remains a mystery to me but I conclude that we have more control over the elements than we know.
Permission paralysis arises because somewhere along the line we have been penalized for taking initiative in the past. Eagerness was cut short by some careless superior who had the power to determine the destiny of our ideas and actions. Some people fail to recover from this experience and keep looking for the validation of their intentions before turning them to action.
This is an invitation to mediocrity for the rest of your life! You will never have the whole stadium on your side on the field of play. You must arm yourself with the guts that will propel you over the fence of complacency. If Einstein waited for the permission of his teachers before trusting in his inherent genius we would never have heard of him because they told him he would never amount to much.
Whose permission are you seeking to do what you know to be the needful at that point in time? Please wrest your God given powers of initiative from them and get to work. Please dare the rain to fall! Peace.
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