A couple of days ago, I was outside early, enjoying my daily quiet time and a cup of coffee. It’s one of my favorite times of the day: no phones, no people needing something…just me contemplating life and listening to the birds.
Then all of a sudden, I heard a flock of geese in the distance.
And good grief, they were loud.
They came flying over the house absolutely honking their heads off, carrying on like they had missed their morning meeting. They circled over the creek behind the house, and I thought for sure they were getting ready to land.
Nope.
They looped around, flew back over the house, and basically headed right back toward where they came from — all while continuing to make an absolute racket.
And sitting there watching this unfold, I started laughing to myself because I couldn’t help but think:
“That’s people.”
A whole bunch of noise.
A whole bunch of movement.
Everybody following the leader.
And apparently no one entirely sure where they’re actually going.
The more I sat there thinking about it, the more I realized how often we do this in life.
Somebody gets loud.
Somebody sounds confident.
Somebody starts moving with urgency.
And suddenly everybody else falls in line behind them because movement feels like progress.
But movement and progress are not always the same thing.
You can be incredibly busy and still accomplish very little.
You can create a ton of noise and still lack direction.
You can have an entire group moving together and still be going in circles.
Honestly, I think we see this everywhere right now.
Online.
In business.
In leadership.
In organizations.
Even in everyday life.
People react before they think.
Follow before they question.
Speak before they understand.
And the loudest voices often attract the biggest crowds.
Meanwhile, the people quietly sitting back observing everything are often the ones seeing things the clearest.
That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
There’s a huge difference between leadership and noise.
Leadership provides direction.
Noise just creates motion.
One creates clarity.
The other creates chaos.
And sometimes the wisest thing you can do is step back from all the honking long enough to ask yourself:
“Are we actually going somewhere…or are we just flying in circles because everybody else is?”
