What A Road Can Teach You About Success

Have you ever thought about our transportation infrastructure? It’s really something quite amazing. Millions upon millions of miles of paved roads connect us to each other.

Yet it seems like there’s a lot of waste in roads. They wander and curve all over the place. You’ll rarely find a completely straight road (especially outside of a city).

What I’m getting at is: it’s logical to assume that the best route between two points on a map is a straight line. But often, the shortest route is not the fastest.

In a road’s case there are obstacles such as hills and mountains. How many roads do you think cross the Himalayas in a completely straight line?

Any vehicle would struggle so hard to make it up the steep slopes and through the intense climate that it would likely break down before you’re all the way up. Then how long would it take to walk across?

When engineers design roads, they look at the big picture. Instead of envisioning a straight road they stop to consider the possibility that going around might be more practical.

So why can’t we do the same in business (or even our daily lives)?

The Big Picture

Sometimes we get so caught up in getting where we’re going as quickly as we can that we don’t think about how we’re getting there. We rush the growth of our business, and it ends up hurting us in the long run.

All I’m saying is, maybe we should find the time to slow down and look at the big picture.

Maybe instead of trying to beat our problems and obstacles down, we should try to compromise with them and find a more practical way around.

What is Success?

I think one of the reasons it’s so easy to stop looking at the big picture is that we lose perspective of what success is.

Success means reaching our destination. Getting there faster is just a goal (and often not a very smart one).

So next time you’re looking for a shortcut, try taking the long way around. Maybe you’ll reach success faster than you think.