As the skipper made the turn into his slip he slowed even more--
so much so that he stopped. It was then that the wind pushed his
bow around and, before his crew could fend off, slammed it into
the end of the dock. With another go-around, they recovered and
eventually tied up safe and secure. The hull's gel coat probably
wasn't damaged nearly as much as the pride of her skipper.

Always wanting to learn from others' mistakes, I thought about
what happened and how it could have been avoided. It my opinion,
the captain of this yacht violated one of the basic principles
of seamanship: keep the boat moving.

In his well-intended effort to be cautious, he lost steerage
because the boat stopped its forward motion. Without water
flowing past the rudder, he had no ability to direct his vessel.

Our lives are not boats, but it's not a bad metaphor. Safe in
harbor, we need times of rest and reflection where action is not
required. But in the marketplace, when we take action, we need
to be doing enough to give us headway--enough to guide and
control our forward motion--to maintain momentum.

When we're moving ahead, we see things that we wouldn't see at
rest. We experience events that otherwise wouldn't have
occurred. Oftentimes, the goal we start out to accomplish turns
out not to be what we wanted, but instead leads us along our
true path. All because of our forward motion.

A universal principle states that, "a body in motion tends to
remain in motion." Conversely, a body at rest tends to remain at
rest. And as we saw in the example of the boat above, we can be
blown about by all manner of things that can, and most often
are, contrary to our intention.

When we rest, we should rest, but when the time comes for
action, KEEP MOVING!

----------
Copyright 2000 Michael E. Angier, used with permission.

Michael Angier is the founder and president of Success Networks
International, publishers of SUCCESS STRATEGIES, INSIGHT and
SUCCESS DIGEST. Success Net is an association committed to
helping people to be more knowledgeable, productive and
effective. Their mission is to inform, inspire and empower
people to be their best—personally and professionally. Free
subscriptions, memberships, books and SuccessMark™ Cards are
available at http://www.successnet.org Win-Win Way, PO Box 2048,
South Burlington, Vermont 05407-2048 USA 802.862.0812
success@successnet.org   http://www.successnet.org

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