Carpe Diem

 

 



I wish I could find the video of the morning show I saw this on...

Apolo Ohno, the speed skater, put his hand about a foot and a half to two feet above a dollar bill.  Then he had the host put her hand half way between his hand and the money.  So her hand had half the distance to travel to the dollar bill than his did. (Kind of like the picture above if I were Mr. Ohno.)

They were going to both try to get the money.  The thing was, the host (even though her hand was closest) could not move until she saw Apolo Ohno's hand move first.

Now you would think that with that much distance to cover, the closer hand would win every time, but it doesn't.  The person whose hand is farthest away always gets their hand down over the money first - every time. 

I've tried this many times - in many circumstances - with many different people - and with differing denominations of money (as greater incentive!) - and switching my role from the person with the hand farthest away (who gets to move first) to the person with their hand closest - and it ALWAYS turns out the same.

It is slower to react than to act.

As someone who enjoys countering someone's initial attack, this worried me for a while.  Then I realized that it did not have to.  Rather than waiting for someone to attack, if I wanted to throw a counter, I'd just set them up, thereby making their attack a response to my motions.

The lesson still holds true. 

Waiting and reacting is too slow and based on someone else's words or actions.
What are you waiting for anyway?

Act.
Choose.
Decide.
Do.
Life is too short not to...

Respectfully,
Kathy Wiz