Check Your Rope Frequently To Avoid Ugly Accidents

By Greg Fullerton

So back in the days when I weighed 340…

“Oh, here he goes again on his ‘big’ days.”

I was in Panama City, Florida doing a training and I had some time to kill.

I was walking along the beach and I saw a guy parasailing. I had the crazy thought that I should try it.

So went and paid the fee and got all hooked up in a harness.

It wasn’t particularly assuring when the Hispanic guy hooking me up said, “Okay, when the rope geets tight, you run.”

Just as they were about to gun the boat engine and [attempt to] pull my fat butt off the ground, I looked down and saw that the rope connecting to the harness was fraying.

Alarmed, I said “Hold on a minute. How often do you guys change this rope?”

My heart skipped a beat when he responded, “Oh, every time eet breaks.”

“Okay, nevermind,” I said, with no small amount of nervousness in my voice. “Unhook me.”

“Oh, señor, eet’s safe.”

“No, unhook me, man.”

So I chose not to parasail that day. I had visions of me skipping out over the water and spreading my 340 pounds like butter for the sharks. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

Maybe the rope would have held me, I don’t know. What I do know is that we all need to perform consistent preventive maintenance in our lives.

Our “ropes” get frayed when we don’t take time to assess, evaluate, plan, introspect, and relax.

We can easily get caught up in urgent but less important matters that drain our time and energy without adding to our results.

We can lose our sense of balance — for example, excelling in business while neglecting our health.

We need to take time to plan, and we also need to focus on every aspect of life: mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, financial, family and other important relationships.

I spend a half hour to an hour a day in solitude. I unplug from my cell phone, the Internet — any and all distractions — and reconnect with my values and priorities. I compare what I’m doing with where I really want to go and see if I need to re-align.

It’s my way of “checking the rope.” So how about you? Are you doing adequate preventive maintenance?

Get in the habit or you could become the regrettable victim of the “Every time eet breaks” mindset.