Ready, Aim & Fire

If you have not read the book, Integrity, by Henry Cloud, I encourage you to buy it as an investment in yourself, in your growth and success. The new academic year has started and I have a heavy teaching load this semester. Thus, my reading pace will slow down considerably over the next few months. I am still at Chapter Nine, in which Cloud introduced the concept of Ready, Aim & Fire.

photos: Boalsburg, USA (2007)

Being ready means that someone is prepared and able. You can have a great opportunity coming along, and if you jumped in unprepared, or unable to complete it for whatever reason, you will fail. … Another aspect of being ready has to do with “sharpening the saw”, training, doing, self-maintenance, etc. Getting oneself “ready” may mean training, learning, changing, revamping, restructuring, or a host of other things. But the winners are ready before the game. Long-term high achievers are ... prepared (p. 150).

Aim has to do with focus. It has to do with purposeful, goal-oriented action that knows where the energy and resources are being spent and therefore spent well. A lot of people spend a lot of energy working, but their character is so scattered that they never focus on particular goals and outcomes and keep on tract to get there.

A linear path requires the character to say no to impulses and wishes to do other things, to say no to new opportunities that may be good but are not best. Some people’s makeup is such that they still think they can have everything, and as a result, they achieve nothing. They are all over the place. If you were to focus, or aim, and direct all of that energy and talent toward specific, particular goals, they would succeed (p. 150-1).

• He get sidetracked because he refuses to acknowledge that if you want to do A, you cannot do B. In the end, neither one gets the attention they need (p.151).


• Reality is that time, energy, and resources are finite. Focus is about directing those in a way in which enough of each is given so that things happen (p. 152)
  

Fire means that the person is actually able to pull the trigger. She can, after getting ready and getting focused, go for it. She is not risk-aversive, if the risk makes sense. A lot of preparation has gone into the plunge so that risk is minimized. That is the difference between investment and gambling. You cannot really prepare for rolling the dice. It is going to come out the way it is going to come out, and other than researching the odds, that is really all you can do. But an investment risk is jumping into the water after you have found out that it is not poison, toxic, or polluted (p. 152).

To finally be able to jump is important. Some people, even after intelligent evaluation of risks, do not like to sow. They are afraid to put the seed on the ground and trust the process. They can’t see the seed, and what if it doesn’t rain this year? It is just too scary for their character - Henry Cloud (p. 152).