Shit Happens.....Adjust!

Do you remember the line from the movie Forest Gump where he is running and the guy comes up next to him wanting an idea for a t-shirt and Forest gets sprayed in the face with shit from a puddle and says “it happens.”

Then the guy says “what shit?” and Forest says “sometimes.”

Well I think Forest was right friends, sometimes shit just happens. We can plan and prepare and execute to the best of our abilities and shit just happens that we didn’t account for.

Of all the attributes in the world I think one of the greatest is adaptability. I was on a call the other night with the author of the book The Attributes who happened to be a former Navy Seal. He mentioned on the call that adaptability is one of the higher attributes that Seals need to have.

They are literally dropped into different situations and have to adapt and execute on the mission. I laughed in thinking about this because early on in my career this was probably one of my lowest attributes. I had little ability to adapt to changing situations, I wanted everything executed exactly as I had planned.

Then I got kicked in the teeth a few times. I had some hard lessons and had to adjust my thinking.

Today I would say that one of my greater attributes is my adaptability. My ability to go into a situation, assess the room so to speak and then adjust what is needed to execute on the purpose of me being in that situation.

Is it perfect every time, absolutely not, but I then adjust accordingly.

One of the greatest lines from another Navy Seal, Jocko Willink, is “Cover and Move.” In the Seal teams when in a fire fight or another situation that wasn’t necessarily going as planned they had to cover, account for everyone and then move. They had to adjust their plan to make sure everyone got out safely so they could continue executing on the mission.

So today I remind you that shit happens and it will keep happening but when it does, cover, assess and move. Adjust what needs to be adjusted and work on your adaptability attribute.