William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.
Early in the 1998 film, Shakespeare in Love, Philip Henslowe, producer of the Rose Theatre is making his way to the marketplace when he is dragged away for money he owes a creditor, Hugh Fennyman. When Henslowe explains that theatre is a business replete with disasters, Fennyman wants to know where his money will come from. “What do we do?” he demands. “Nothing,” Henslowe replies. “Strangely enough, it all turns out well.” “How?” Fennyman asks. Henslowe responds, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
The truth is we all hate to lose. When we throw our hat in the ring to compete for something and we take action to win at anything there’s no way that we can predict what’s going to happen. Even if we assume all our ducks are in order, we do all the groundwork we can conceive of, we take precautions and we plan in detail, we still can’t guarantee that everything will work out the way we expect.
As the saying goes, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Many people like to think they can predict an outcome (based on some past experience or history). It becomes an emotional habit that just seems to pop up in them as an automatic reaction (I know some people like this). Without knowing why, if events don’t happen when and as they think they should a belief surfaces that the game is over.
In a similar vein, people that think this way often fear taking on new challenges because they can’t foresee the conclusion, and the unknown frightens them.
The truth is we never really know how things will work out, no matter how planned and predictable they may seem. You need to take the first step even though the path doesn’t yet exist. And the only way to build the path is to anticipate wonderful outcomes and venture into the unknown with all its potential landmines and disasters waiting with each step.
The good news is, as Philip Henslowe notes in Shakespeare in Love, “Strangely enough, it all turns out well,” (and if we are open to see it, most often, “better” than we anticipated). Being open to possibility and letting go our grip of control, allows things to happen that we couldn’t have imagined or made happen directly by our efforts. We meet people, new jobs open up, different and better opportunities come our way that lead us to an even bigger and brighter future.
How you ask? As Henslowe tells Hugh Fennyman, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
William “Bud” Hart is a certified “Mindset” Coach, Accountability Partner and Business Consultant. Founder of Hart Group, www.hartgroupma.com.