I didn’t hear the windows in my hall of residence rattle. Didn’t hear the trees getting ripped out of the ground. Even the flying bench that blew a hole in the refectory doors…I slept through it.
Heck, I didn’t even twig next morning when I stepped out onto campus!
Trees uprooted? I figured the council had sent a felling team. Windows smashed? I put it down to freshers on a drunken rampage. I didn’t suss it out till later, when I picked up the Evening Standard – I’d slept through a hurricane.
October 1987. 30 years ago this week.
It was the worst wind to hit Britain since Winnie The Pooh and The Blustery Day. And in my student halls on Hampstead Heath, I’d been right there in the action.
It’s crazy, thinking back. I mean, all the signs were there to see. But I was oblivious. I just hopped on the first bus that was still the right way up, and headed across town to a lecture.
Now, I know it was odd of me to miss the bleeding obvious. But this was my first full week at uni, I was a country boy in the big smoke. So for all I knew, this kinda thing happened in London every Friday!
Anyway, no matter. We can all ignore the signs now and then, can’t we?
Take your marketing stats.
All the evidence you need could be staring you in the face. But still, you can miss the point. It can take another pair of eyes to tell you what’s going on.
So let me ask…where do you turn, to find the story behind the numbers?
Who tells you if there’s a storm brewing, that you’ll need to weather…or sunny days ahead, and a chance to tap into new profits? It doesn’t have to be yours truly. But it should be someone who can analyse the past and draw up a plan of attack.
Otherwise? You can easily miss an obvious truth, and carry on as normal. Just as I did in ’87.