3-31-25

Do any of you remember maps?.....and no, I’m not talking about Google

Maps….I’m not talking about hitting the button on an app on your smartphone

and getting the immediate gratification of knowing where you are at all

times….I’m talking about a good old fashioned paper map….the kind with creases

and labels…..in the old days distracted driving was not texting while behind the

wheel…..distracted driving in days of old was the effort you had to make to unfold

a map and figure out where you were while not absolutely losing your

mind……and I love maps…..in the military I was trained with old school map,

protractor, compass and a stubby pencil to find my way from point A to point

B…..it was terrain association, dead reckoning, pace count, hitting an azimuth and

having that deep satisfaction of walking up to a spot and knowing where you

were……and maps are not easy….they require a brain…..they require effort….they

require knowing where you are at any given time because once you lose sight of

the landmarks on the ground you have to orient the map, look around you, find

something that matches, and then regain your understanding of your current

position and how it relates to where you were going……it also involved some

degree of trust…..I used to belong to AAA also…..they had a cool feature that you

could get back in the day called the TripTix…..you told AAA where you were going

and they would build you a set of map cards that would flip open in sequence so

you wouldn’t have to fight the giant paper map in the car……but one thing a map

could never do is account for changes in the road…..detours, traffic, construction

zones…..they were all unknowns……but then came the era of GPS and everything

changed……I thought GPS was frivolous when it first came out…..I eschewed the

silliness of trusting a machine to tell me where I was at any given time…..but then

I went to the Pentagon in ’09 and realized that I wasn’t going to be driving around

familiar territory any more…..it was big city madness…..so I got into my first foray

of GPS navigation and bought a TomTom…..anybody remember those…..you had

to download the updates constantly off of CD Roms……but you could select your

voice…..so I had the lovely voice of a young British girl named “Mandy” who

would speak to me in soothing tones as I traversed the giant Metropolis of

Washington DC…..”excuse me, please turn right ahead”…..”thank you Mandy,

that’s very kind”……I heard that you could download other voices and that one of

the choices was Mr. T……”Turn right fool!”…..but I had a feeling that one would

incite me into violence so I never went there…….even Mandy would get yelled at

when she didn’t know there was construction….and in DC there was always road

construction……”excuse me, please turn right ahead”……”Well! I can’t really do

that can I Mandy!”……”please stand by while I reroute you”…..Yes Mandy! why

don’t you do that! And Hurry up while you’re at it!” …….anyone driving by

would’ve seen me waving my hands like an orchestra conductor as I shouted at

Mandy…….but it was still better than the old school maps…..and now you can

drop a pin…..post speed traps for all of your fellow travelers…..see the roads and

the construction zones before you get there……now you can make a plan…..and

yes…..I always prefer a plan……I can take the road less traveled as well as anyone

and see what’s down there…..I love backcountry hiking, and exploring……but

when it comes to most days I like to know where I’m going…..

I’m a planner by nature……and I’m a listmaker……sometimes when life seems to

be getting the upper hand it actually makes me feel better to sit down and create

an updated to-do list…..when I’m really grooving I will even make the list and then

rank order the various tasks and set my priorities……I’ve started, or helped to

start, multiple businesses and I learned early on to do a full SWOT analysis to

examine the business case in light of strengths, weaknesses, obstacles and

threats…..when I go to court as an Attorney I try to have a litigation plan with a

desired endstate in mind for my client that comes from having researched the law

to know our position before ever appearing before the Judge…….part of that is

just me…..I’ve taken tests to determine my gifts and talents before and mine have

always been leadership and administration……basically, I like to plan……And I was

trained in the Army to conduct detailed planning …… every operation, every

mission, every training event…….before I took my team downrange in Afghanistan

I had to do a briefback to the higher ups to lay out the plan for everything from

daily operations to escape and evasion…..

Now granted, not every plan survives first contact with the enemy…..that’s the

truth….but if you don’t plan at all, well you know what happens….. the old adage

that “a failure to plan is a plan to fail”…….there’s also another another old saying

from an unknown source that I’ve heard many times…..that “when making a plan

remember that the enemy gets a vote”…….the first saying means clearly that if we

don’t think things through and arrive on the scene with a well thought out plan,

with contingencies, and logistics, and timelines that we are dooming ourselves to

an increased likelihood of failure……but the other means that as surely as we are

making our plans that the enemy is making their’s as well….in other words when

the bullets start flying the enemy has a say in the final outcome and we’d better

remember that…..

Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying watching the Trump administrations

work…..because they told us in advance what the endstate would be……we can

see the plan….because they announced the plan…..and they are working the

plan……call it the Trump Agenda, the Trump Doctrine……MAGA…..whatever…..the

fact is, there is a plan and they are working the plan……we just spent four years

watching the Biden administration put their finger in the air and decide on any

given day what they wanted to do……sure, there were agenda items here and

there…..but there was no cohesive effort toward working an actual plan…..in the

last two years of his administration Biden rarely met with the press and just as

rarely held a cabinet meeting…..in the final days of his term Biden finally held a

cabinet meeting and promptly turned it over to his wife who then ran the meeting

while his son Hunter looked on…….there was no understanding, no list, no

analysis…..no plan…..you have to know what you stand for before you can truly

take meaningful action……

Having a plan is like having a map…….it guides to your to ultimate destination….if

the leader falls, then anyone else can pick up the map, the plan, and still move

forward because it is all right there in front of you……in the absence of a plan

anything can happen…..in the absence of mission priorities and task organization

the unit can flounder on the battlefield……

So yeah, I’m a planner by nature, I try to order my steps, I try to examine the way

forward and then chart the various steps and milestones that we need to

achieve…..and I am thankful to finally have a team back in the White House that

actually seems to have a plan…..because the American people deserve a

plan….Tell us what you’re doing? Tell us where we are going? Tell us what it’s all

for! Tell us what we will achieve! Tell us how it impacts us if we do, and if we

don’t!......Is there a doctrine?......is there a serious analysis?......is there a plan?.....

No traveler should be without a map……no leader should be without a plan……

Yes, plans matter, plans unify, plans breed success because they give focus and

maintain direction……a failure to plan is a plan to fail……but the enemy gets a

vote? Yes. …….when shots ring out they soon enough start flying in both

directions….don’t think for a minute that the Democrats are going to sit idly by

and just let Republicans have their way…..how do we nullify progressive

influence….how do we galvanize grassroots support for when times get dicey

politically…..how is it that we can keep the team focused?

I love a good plan…..it gives us something to rally around……but the enemy gets a

vote so it better be a good plan……but the old adage remains……a failure to plan is

a plan to fail…….

“turn right fool!”……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way ….