Pay attention to the horizon, but always look in the rearview mirror.
Every adult drives a car. And there are some fundamental rules of driving that car we all take for granted. No driver would think of driving, for example, without looking up over their dashboards (I call that “viewing the horizon”), checking the rearview mirror often, and checking the side mirrors from time to time. It’s a natural rotation which we all get accustomed to very early on in our driving experiences.
Business is really not all that dissimilar. It’s virtually impossible to run a business successfully without keeping your eyes on the horizon. Yes, it’s true, you won’t want to swerve into the shoulder on the right side or the car on the left side, but you don’t accomplish that by fixating your eyes to the right and left. You do that by setting your eyes above the dashboard on the horizon.
And then, of course, you align yourself between the horizon and what you see in the rearview mirror. And you do that almost incessantly. Your head is gently moving from side to side as you check your two side mirrors to make sure that you are not colliding or bumping against any terrain.
I have been asked more than once whether what I produce is the result of vision. And my answer is almost universally the same: it’s not vision, it’s simply looking at the horizon and aligning it with what I see in the rearview mirror.
If you do that—mile after mile, day after day—it’s amazing what you see in the rearview mirror and it’s even more amazing how much more open the horizon has become for you.
Original writing date: February 8, 2007