Swimming Lane

Doesn’t it feel like you work in a lane? If you are a solopreneur, you have felt that from the moment you dove in. If you are in a large corporation, you found this out quite some time ago when you realized there’s a deep end where your feet never touch bottom. All of us are in a lane swimming until we see the “T” marker at the end. But what’s beyond this shallow view?

Take Your Marks

We are the human race. Each made up of over 60% water. So, a proper analogy is the swimming lane. Why do we have lanes? Basically, to keep swimmers organized and safe from one another. Swimmers see their boundaries and stay within them. Plastic floating discs dampen ripples and reduce turbulence between them. Pools work when you stay in your lane.

But what if you don’t agree with how things are arranged? What if you want to swim in an occupied lane? Maybe you swam there before and you still think it is yours. If so, there will be some competing waves to navigate. Splashes will fly and you might get cannon balled out of the pool because…you are not in your lane. Stay in your lane.

Freestyle

You say you are or want to be “X.” You like that lane in life. Then you do “Y” – which is not what an “X” does. You say you want to be coached in butterfly, but then you resist every bit of coaching and backstroke instead. You say you have a “free style." But you long for something – some other swimming lane – and take no action to get there. You wait for a stroke of luck.

Your resistance to your own greatness is part of the process. Sometimes it takes swimming in what seems to be another person’s lane before you realize you left the lane you were meant to be in. Sometimes you discover that that other lane is the one you should be in. It is a process of discovery – learning how and what to learn, learning where you are meant to be.

"T" Marks The Spot

There was a time when a pharmacy chain sold cigarettes, a famous sneaker maker used sweatshops, a fast-food chain treated animals inhumanely, and a business school primarily taught profits were the purpose. They led by changing lanes; in time the rest will catch up.

You are swimming where you are meant to at every given moment. Swimming in your own lane, swimming in another lane, going backwards, forwards – it is all meant to be. This is called embracing your humanity, acknowledging you are in a race called the human race. And unlike a swimming race this one is meanderingly multi-dimensional and choppy.

Whatever lane you are currently in, swim in a way that works for you. You really do have your own “T” marker in business and life. There is no lane you can't swim in. Now that’s deep!

Here's to you and your awesome future.

Until then, keep your feet on the board and keep riding your wave!

Robert J. Khoury

CEO Agile Rainmakers