On August 12, 2009, my wife and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. It’s really hard to believe that 20 years have raced past so quickly. I can still remember the hot summer afternoon in Raleigh, NC when we stood before God and made a covenant together, reciting vows to one another. I have lived a blessed life because of Kim; I can pray that each of you have the same experience
To celebrate, we had the chance to fly to Europe to visit Prague and Vienna. It was very nice, of course, and we had a fabulous time. However, the reason I share this with you is to highlight the fact that you can learn life lessons, real secrets of success, through events that happen all around you. As we made our way through Germany (we flew into Frankfurt), the Czech Republic, and Austria, so many different events happened that consistently taught me key lessons.
- with a language barrier, being able to ask the right questions is very, very challenging. So, if you are the one with the questions, you must work extra-hard to try to get your point or you’ll more than likely find yourself standing there confused, dazed or lost. However, if you are the one with the information, you should care if your customers actually understand, otherwise you’ll end up losing business.
- a smile goes a long way to helping ease tension—I can’t tell you the number of times this became true through our 10 days in Europe.
- take the risk to just ask—while you may get a “no” or a blank stare, you might also get a secret treat like the time Kim and I got a private concert with the Royal Trumpeters of Prague in a secret garden after we innocently asked a nice Castle Guard where we could hear them play their morning fanfare over the city.
- learn to adjust when something minor doesn’t go your way—our first hotel was only 2 blocks from the Karlov Most (The Charles Bridge), but also on the main road which mean that revelers would be out till very early in the morning (usually till about 2 AM), so it was noisy. We wondered about whether we should try to find something else; we had actually spoken to another place that sounded excellent. However, we decided to stick it out since the location was perfect and we did love the room and view. Earplugs were useful, but by the 3rd night, we had gotten used to it and it wasn’t so bad. Several times we noted how wonderful the location was for getting back to drop off gifts or change for evening events, plus we later found the other hotel and it was way off the beaten path and far uphill from the Bridge (so actually inconvenient).
- be diligent and determined; don’t quit just because you can’t reach your goal at first—in Prague, we knew there was a famous graffiti wall honoring John Lennon of the Beatles. We had our maps and instructions, but the more we walked as it grew darker, in a somewhat deserted park that grew more ominous in the evening, we simply could not find it. Though we considered just giving up, we kept making progress in shrinking the search area based on the map and then, finally, we turned a corner and voila, there it was. And yes, it was worth the search.
- know when to cut your losses—especially in Vienna, we found that usually I would just get too excited and schedule far more to do than we humanly pull off. By the last day of our trip, exhausted from all the walking and searching, we still had a few things on our list including doing one “crypt crawl” (Vienna has several underground tours of cellars, crypts, sewers and graveyards) and hearing a recital in one of the many Viennese churches. After walking as fast as we could, we missed the start of the nearest crypt tour by 5 minutes and after wandering around trying to get the attention of the one German speaking guide, I told Kim we needed to just punt. She was willing to keep trying (there was another place half a mile away that we might could catch) since she knew I was the one who really wanted to go underground, but I knew it was time to pass. We also gave up hearing the organ recital in order to enjoy a more leisurely wander through an art gallery. We didn’t get to climb any towers either, which I love, but we just couldn’t fit anything else in. Trying to do so would have only made us more exhausted and meant that we would find less enjoyment in the overall experience of our last day.
Yep, there are lessons for success all around you if you just keep your eyes and ears open, keep a teachable spirit, lose any arrogance to what you think you know and be willing to just take things as they come.