In high school drivers ed, my instructor told me he was going to pull the emergency brake. At the time we were in a classroom session on a bight sunny fall day. I had never pulled the brake before and I honestly thought he was joking. Why would someone pull the brake when you were driving? We started driving a month or two later and it had started to get snowy. Most of us had forgotten about his comment until one kid pointed out there was no way he’d pull the break with ice and snow on the ground. As it turns out, we were wrong. Looking back, I am so thankful we were. There is no way we could refocus our driving without that lesson. If you want the story without the reading, click here and get all the goods on YouTube!
When he pulled the E-break
The first time that drivers ed teacher pulled the break (yes you read that right, the first time) I was driving fairly slowly down a side road. He pulled the break with absolutely no notice and the car spun out softly landing in a snowbank at the side of the road. I know I screamed when it happened. I may have closed my eyes for a second. Ultimately though, I stared at the snowbank. I was terrified I’d hit it and wanted to avoid it at all costs. When the car stopped, we were in that snowbank. We weren’t stuck in it thankfully. I could just pull back onto the road and drive on.
I was angry and embarrassed and my drivers ed teacher said, you’re too focused on the snowbank. How could I not be? He just made me hit it! It didn’t just happen to me either. You practice in groups in drivers ed, or at least you did then, and the same thing happened to every student he did this to. The next time I drove he said, if you ever slide on ice look ahead of the car. Well, I wasn’t particularly interested in his ice advice at that point. He pulled the break again. I didn’t scream. I didn’t close my eyes. There I was, staring out the windshield as the car hit the snowbank again. Further confirmation that this isn’t who I wanted to listen to on ice spinning.
Did his technique cause us to refocus?
On the way back to the school he told us that you’ll move toward anything you’re focused on when you’re driving. If you’re looking at something in a field, you move toward that ditch. If you’re staring at another driver, you move toward that car. And if you stare at the snowbank you hit that too. Sure I wasn’t intentionally looking at the snowbank that time but I certainly wasn’t focused anywhere in particular.
We had another driving lesson and he pulled the break for a third time. I’m not 100% sure where I was looking but he coached me through. Look at the road. Where do you want to go? Focus where you want to go. The car still fish tailed a little but I was able to regain control without hitting the bank. What was the difference this time after I, and so many other students, had crashed so many times? As much as it pained me to admit it then, it was the refocus.
When I focused on the snowbank, I got to the snowbank. Then I refocused on the windshield, and I got where the windshield pointed. When I refocused on the road I wanted to move down, I got exactly where I wanted to go.
Photo by Thomas H. on Pexels.com
So what is the lesson on refocus for us experienced drivers out there?
What he taught us in that moment (and all of the moments we got to experience and watch it) was invaluable. That instructor was exactly right. I got exactly what I focused on. This is a good driving lesson, particularly in Wisconsin. It is also a good life lesson. Refocus your mind on what you want to get, or where you want to go, and you’ll get there. It took me a few tries to learn this so to make sure you have it fully ingrained, I want to give a lesson from each experience
You move toward what you focus on.
It doesn’t just have to be driving. If you’re avoiding sweets and there is a big table of donuts, I’ll all but guarantee you’ll eat one if you stand there telling yourself not to eat it. If you’re incredibly attentive to the proximity of the baby to the stairs, you’ll move toward them.
It is a natural phenomena. Both because you physically focus on it and because your reticular activating system (RAS) has you paying attention to relevant information. If I ask you to look around your room and find everything that is red, then close your eyes and tell me what is in there that is green, you likely can’t do it. It isn’t because there is no red, it’s because you’re not focused on red. That is your RAS at work. I had a coaching client once ask why I ask for wins at the beginning of the call. It is to get you focused on what is going right so your mind finds more of it.
Focusing aimlessly will give you aimless results.
Did you catch in the story how annoyingly literally I took the first message about looking ahead? I stared out the clear pane of glass, with a there I did it attitude. Then I had the audacity to expect better results. Yes part of that is because I was a 15 year old kid annoyed that the instructor was pulling the E-break. But we do that every day. We say we want to go one direction only to stare aimlessly ahead of whatever direction we’re pointed in. Then, we have the audacity to say that we should have gotten better results.
I got a message from someone looking for advice. He shared that he wanted to move into leadership and while he tackled whatever work was thrown at him, he never got ahead. This man was spending hours at night and on the weekend responding to every single request that came in. The problem was there was no organization, no strategy, no mission for himself or for anyone else to follow. His focus was completely aimless, like me staring out the windshield as the car spun. While he was taking it all in his results would be as aimless as his action.
Some lesson’s you can’t catch without someone intentionally pitching them to you.
Growing up in Wisconsin I was certain to drive on ice, and likely lose traction, multiple times a year. I had friends, who had different driving instructors, who went in the ditch constantly in the winter for exactly this reason. They weren’t working with someone who intentionally took the time to teach them how to focus to come out of the slide. Without that instructor creating the environment for me to learn I likely would have felt just as helpless in the drivers seat of a sliding car as my friend did. It wasn’t that both of us didn’t have the same information, I’d heard her dad tell her the same things my instructor told me. The difference was that mine coached me through it.
You have access to all kinds of information on the internet, at the library, and from experiences that you maybe didn’t notice or frame correctly. A coach refines that information and stays with you to coach you through each step. In your leadership journey you need someone sitting along side you, ready to create a learning environment, where they can equip you to handle ever shift in circumstances. If this is something you want to explore, set up some time and let’s see what this looks like for you!
To this day I’m not sure if that is something that is supposed to happen in drivers ed. Honestly, I kind of hope it is. It was scary and nerve wracking but I never would have learned that lesson without it.