Ryan Hawk described an interesting story from his interview with John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems.
John shared an old memory from his childhood when he was six. John went for fishing with his father. He went too close to the water and fell into the river. Even though John was a good swimmer, the current was really fast and he panicked and for a second he thought he might die. While gasping and looking up John saw his father running to him yelling, “Just hold onto the fishing pole!”. This seemed like a strange command as fishing pole was cheap old thing.
John got hold of the pole and every time he surfaced got a breath of air and finally ended up in shallow and slow moving section of the river. His dad caught him and pull him out from the water.
Finally when everything got sorted, John’s dad asked him why he told him to hold onto the fishing pole? He explained that when you get into real trouble, you’ve got to be really careful to not let the panic set in. While you might not be calm, but you have to able to focus on what you can control and influence. You have got to be able to work your way into calmer waters.
Sometimes it feels like an existential crisis where survival itself is at stake. We must be able to hold onto the fishing pole, to focus on what we can control as we strive to see the world as it is and work to find our way to calmer waters.
Thinking Space 