Perspective Is Everything

How’s your big-picture perspective?

Someone told us that we needed to visit Grassi Lake when we were in Canmore. They said it was beautiful. What they didn’t say is that it’s a pretty challenging hike for someone who is not used to hiking, much less someone wearing flip flops.

We parked our rental car, got out and walked around and saw a bunch of people coming out from what appeared to be a trail. There were signs warning you that the trail is challenging in some places and just beyond that there was another sign.  

It said: “Bear In Area”.

It didn’t say bear seen in the area or possibility of bears. The sign was pretty definitive. There was a bear in the area.

My husband looked at my feet and said, “I’m not sure you want to do this in flip flops.” 

I defiantly used the F word: I told him I’ll be FINE.

Keep things in perspective.

We started walking up the trail and it was hard. The trail was steep, the gravel was loose and I was quickly losing steam. I wanted to admit that I was afraid of the bear and that maybe my husband had been right—these treadless flip flops were less than ideal. 

Then my husband said, “We can do this. Little kids are doing it, old people are doing it. We’ll take our time and get there.”

And slowly but surely, we made it. We made it to the end and the views were spectacular. It was worth every single step to see the beautiful blue water, the rock climbers, the mountains and even the unscary wildlife. 

After taking a ton of photos and walking around the lake, as we were about to leave, my husband said, “Do you want to look over here?”

It was the other view to the left whereas we had gone right when we reached the top.

The view to the left was the real prize. From there, we could see all the way back down the mountain to where we started and see the vastness of what we had done and…

I almost missed it.

I almost missed looking at that one magnificent view because I thought I had seen it all. 

This happens in business every day:

• When you fail to look at all the parts, you fail to see the big picture. 
• When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Whether it’s your numbers, your bank balance, your website traffic, your team’s performance or your marketing plan—having a big picture perspective of what is going on in your business allows you to see where you want to go next, and how far you’ve come.

One final thought from making this climb: 

When you do hard things, you remember you are capable of doing hard things and that builds the courage and confidence you need for the next chapter of your business.

Proper shoes are not a requirement…!

How are you maintaining perspective in this season?