Driving Through A Blizzard

There are many obstacles on the road to success, but your job is to use them as stepping-stones and to persist until you succeed. Twelve feet of snow fell in upstate New York in February. Throughout the winter, there were freak storms that dumped huge amounts of snow throughout the Midwest and down into Arkansas. Even the Florida orange crop was hit by freezing temperatures, causing massive financial losses. Two years ago, my wife and I attended a conference in Colorado Springs. We flew into Denver and rented a car for the 90-minute drive. The woman at the car rental office encouraged us to upgrade to a four-wheel drive because there was “snow in the mountain passes.” Somewhat reluctantly, we rented a four-wheel drive and headed for Colorado Springs. As it happened, the roads were clear, the sky was blue, the sun was shining and we felt that we had been ripped off by paying extra for features that we didn’t need. That was Wednesday. On Saturday night, at the close of the conference, they announced that they were expecting some snowfall overnight. Many people were actually leaving earlier so as to avoid any problems that might occur from difficult snow conditions. Having heard this story once before, we stayed the night, only to arise the next morning to four foot snow drifts and a blinding blizzard that shut down most of that part of Colorado. We got into our four-wheel drive and headed for the highway. There were cars off the highway in the ditches, abandoned, on both sides of the road. Visibility was 50 to 100 feet in most places. Nonetheless, we pressed on. We finally came to a police roadblock. We asked them what was happening and they told us that the highway over the mountains to Denver was closed because of snowdrifts and blizzard conditions. When we asked them what that meant, they said that, “If you proceed past this point, you are on your own. We will not send anyone out to look for you.” This was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. I thought, “This is great! There will be no one on the road ahead of me. With four-wheel drive, I can drive straight through and get to Denver in time for my afternoon flight back to San Diego.” What was interesting was that this turned out to be true, for the most part. When everyone else saw the blizzard, they quit, went home and decided to sit it out until the weather improved. But Barbara and I drove on through the blizzard, speeding up and slowing down, finally passing through the mountains and into Denver, arriving at the airport in time for our flight. The problem was that there was 4-5 feet of snow covering the Denver International Airport, and all flights had been canceled for at least 24 hours. The airport was full of people preparing to sleep wherever they could. Fortunately, I hadn’t returned the Explorer yet, so I turned around and drove into the city to spend the night. The next morning, in spite of there being 10,000 people jamming the airport trying to get flights out, by generously tipping one of the porters, we got moved to the front of the line and caught our flight to San Diego with only a few minutes to spare. The moral of this story is to remember that, despite the snowdrifts and blizzards of life, and despite the fact that everyone around you is quitting and giving up, there is almost always a way through. The key is to take action. And then take further action. And then take even more action, and keep persisting until you achieve your goal. There are many obstacles on the road to success, but your job is to use them as stepping-stones and to persist until you succeed. Until next time.