The Choice is Yours
May your choices reflect your hopes not your fears. – Nelson Mandela
What happens to your state of mind when you feel like you have no choice in a situation?
Last week I had an unplanned and completely mind-numbing experience when I found myself along with my son Travis in Tijuana, Mexico late at night totally by accident. We were trying to pick up the honeymooners from the American side of the Tijuana airport from their trip to Tulum. And with the wrong turn we ended up on the Mexico side.
Lessons learned were many including better communication and not putting all your faith in a navigation app to get you where you want to go. We also learned that its super simple to get into Mexico, super hard to get out.
However, there we were in this situation with our only choice in finding our way to get back into the US. Not an easy feat as the app was not as helpful getting us out as it was getting us in, the data was sketchy, and neither of us speak Spanish. Then we realized that Travis did not have his driver’s license with him let alone both of us not having our passports.
As we quickly changed drivers at the realization of the license situation (thank goodness I had grabbed my purse on the way out the door) we finally found our way to the “line” to get back into the U.S.
Painfully, we made our way into this crazy line with miles and miles of bumper to bumper cars headed towards the US border. I say painfully because no one wanted to let us in, and we had to inch our car aggressively in a way I have never driven before (and I grew up driving on LA freeways) to get into the line. It was so scary that I was physically trembling.
Once in the line we inched our way towards the border all the while not knowing what our fate would be and if we would find ourselves held at the border!! The interesting part in retrospect was that we had no choice, we really had done nothing wrong except make a bad directions choice and would have to face the music of what the US Border police would say once we got to our turn in the grueling line of cars.
Well, you might guess because I am writing this letter from the comfort of my home now in Colorado that we made it through. After many excruciating hours of being in that line the US Customs Police asked a few questions after I explained our situation and sent us on our way. I must say I was so happy to be back in the US that night as we arrived back at my daughter’s home in the wee hours of the morning.
The funny part (only in hindsight) is that the honeymooners had taken an Uber home to their place in San Diego once they heard of our dilemma and arrived there several hours before we did.
Sometimes we can find ourselves running on auto pilot and it is experiences like these that remind us to take a closer look at our choices because our choices really do matter.
This week on Tenacity Tuesday Live I have on as my guest Allison Benham. Allison and her husband Ken are new parents and just 8 short weeks after their darling daughter arrived were faced with a major decision that would chart the course of their business. Join us as Allison shares the choices they made.
Here’s to a week ahead of making the choices that make a difference.
To Your Success and Victories,
- Cheri
Cheri Ruskus, Small Business Mentor and Possibility Thinker
cheri@businessvictories.com • 303-652-1718 • @victorygirl
Need more business clarity? businessvictories.com/clarity
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