I didn’t expect my recent 
trip from Charleston, S.C. to Colorado Springs to be easy. When it turned into chaos, I didn’t expect to learn a powerful lesson in perspective.
On Monday I had wrapped up a speech to the Crawford & Company leadership team in Charleston, and when my flight into Atlanta landed on time, I felt great about making the rest of my connections. I was booked the next morning as convention keynote speaker to Taco Bell franchisees in Colorado Springs.
From Atlanta, everything seemed great on the flight to Denver. Then the pilot came on.
Bad weather was ahead. The plane would divert to Pueblo, Colorado.
As I scrambled to check how far the drive would be from Pueblo to my destination, the pilot updated us: we were diverting instead to Wichita.
We sat on the tarmac in Wichita for two hours waiting for the go-ahead to Denver, a 90-minute flight on a normal day. Back in the air, everything went smoothly for an hour until the pilot breaks more news. We will land in Albuquerque, only about 100 miles closer to Denver than Wichita.
It’s midnight when we touch down in New Mexico, and I’m not the only frazzled passenger. All of us are frustrated, and I can see and feel it as we deplane and try to get oriented.
My goal is to find a hotel, sleep for a few hours and get on a 6 a.m. flight to Denver, which will give me just enough time to drive the 70 miles to Colorado Springs and give my speech.
The reservation counter is in turmoil. All around me, people are tired, hungry and try to figure out their next move. Blaming the pilots. Blaming the weather. They had important places to be and important things to be doing. Nothing else mattered except their needs and fixing their personal crises. I was just as absorbed in my own situation. We were caught in “the busy trap.”
After finally getting my lodging and transportation sorted out, I waited on a ride to the hotel. That’s when I overheard a fellow passenger point out something surely no one else had noticed.
A young girl, about age 16, had been on our flight. Unlike most of the rest of us, she hadn’t dealt with anything like this before. Perhaps she had never even flown before. She was scared and faced spending the night alone in an unfamiliar city.
The one person who had noticed was the pilot—the same person who so many passengers had criticized. He wanted to be in Albuquerque as much as the rest of us. He stayed with the scared girl, made sure she had a place to stay, a new flight booked, and someone safe to accompany her to her hotel.
Unlike the rest of us, the pilot had been on the job the whole day, responsible for our safety, powerless against the forces of weather and air traffic control. Other airline personnel could have possibly helped the scared girl. But he stepped up. He wasn’t consumed by his own issues.
Yes, I made it to Colorado Springs, but that’s not where this story ends. Of everything that I could remember from this nightmare travel day, what stuck with me last week—and will for a long time—is the perspective gained.
No question that chaos is going to hit us. We can look inward and stress, and get super-focused on our issues.
Or we can pause. Breathe. Observe.
There may be someone who needs help even more than you do. You might see someone leading by example. Could you step up and be that someone?
The takeaway
Embracing the Pause is important in daily life. Without it, your perspective is limited to what you learn on the move. Pause to observe and consider what others in your world are experiencing. Slowing down is a way to build the empathy that is key to relationships and the collaboration necessary for a solution that helps each of us get where we need to go.
Molly Fletcher helps inspire and equip game changers with the negotiation tactics for leading well and with purpose. Her recent book, “A Winner’s Guide to Negotiating: How Conversation Gets Deals Done” (McGraw-Hill), draws on her decades as a sports agent and negotiator on behalf of pro athletes, coaches and broadcasters. Contact Molly here.
