…it was 1 AM on a desolate stretch of U.S. Route 29 south of Charlottesville, Va. (I think Springsteen’s "Highway 29" was set in California).
It had been a long week of exams and little sleep at the Darden School (University of Virginia) … for some reason I had to leave at 10 PM for the 6-hour drive to my hometown in Spartanburg, SC. So I started out alone driving south and drinking a big cup of coffee….
…as I passed through Motley my bladder became quite uncomfortable. I transitioned to pain as I saw nothing open in Whittles.
… panic set in as I went through deserted Dry Fork… the whites of my eyes are now turning yellow…
I am ready to just pull off the side of the road when I spot a faint light ahead… it turns out to be a rundown bar that is thankfully open… I screech to a halt and run/dance my way in hoping I can make it… I almost faint when I approach the bathroom door and see the big homemade sign:
Get Key from Bartender
…Ughhhh!!… I run back to the front and, dancing in place, desperately pleading to the bartender for the key – she looks at me like I am stupid and says with amusement -
“It’s not locked!!”
In the solitude of the next 4 hours of driving, I dwell on what had unfolded… I was standing in front of the door …and with zero cost/zero risk I could have simply pushed on the door…
But I was persuaded by the sign that it was locked…
…as I thought about it I realized I had often concluded that many doors in my life and career were locked because of signs – my own assumptions or people telling me… how many times had I failed to test a potential opportunity ?? …particularly when there is little risk to simply test…
My lesson: always give a push on doors that appear to be locked ….especially when the risk or potential downside to pushing is very low…
Just some thoughts…