My cousin had an off-road checklist. One line said never drive into a creek you haven’t waded first.
He took his Land Rover off-road in Arizona, special tires and all, and drove into a creek he hadn’t waded.
He’s fine. The truck is totaled. The checklist ended up on the seat, soaked, the ink bleeding. It was a job for Matt’s Off Road Recovery, the YouTube crew more than two million people subscribe to, just to watch them pull folks out of places they never should have driven.
Years ago, I was in Detroit during a snowstorm when my Aunt Bev Tobocman called. My grandfather, 89, had a heart attack in Ushuaia, Argentina.
I had a four-wheel drive F-350 SuperCab with a big winch up front and a big tow hitch out back, loaded with rescue gear. None of it would help us on the other side of the world. I drove it through the snow to her house on the lake. She made ropa vieja, Cuban shredded beef, and we started building a recovery plan with one goal: get him home. Alive, if we could.
We didn’t know if he’d survive the night. It didn’t look like he would. Information came in scraps, and the comms were no good. We didn’t speak the language, and we had no playbook.
So before anyone moved, we took inventory. He had travel insurance and Medjet, a membership that covers medical transport home. I had an Amex Platinum card. My mom could fly down and run point. We had money if we spent it right. Then we worked it like a winch, a few feet at a time, never letting the line go slack.
He lived. Three weeks later he was home. Air ambulance to Buenos Aires, commercial to Chicago, air ambulance to Pontiac, Michigan. He had three more good years.
In EOS Worldwide, Predict is one of Gino Wickman‘s Five Leadership Abilities, and it runs on two clocks. The long clock was the goal we set at Bev’s table. The short clock was every day for three weeks, solving whatever broke before it could pile up.
My cousin had the long clock on paper. He skipped the short one at the edge of the creek.
What creek is your team about to drive into without checking the depth?
Stay Curious,
JBS
PS This post is decorated to Kenneth C. DeWitt pursuit of the EOS Life attempting to cross Hurricane Creek.