A short, fun story on forgiveness not permission. Zeb Pike was an American Brigadier General and Explorer. There’s a pretty big mountain in Colorado named after him.
The story goes that Pike was exploring the southern portion of the Louisiana Territory. The Red River was the boundary between the U.S. and Spanish/Mexican Territory. He was ‘exploring’ on the ‘wrong’ side of the Red River. He was captured by the Spanish while wondering around in what is present-day Colorado. Pike supposed response to his capture was:
“Oh, that’s the Red River?”
Pike’s accounting of the region drove the U.S. to secure Colorado and even California.
Personal Note: What I love about this story is that we have our Zeb Pike. Robb Pike is a Partner and Senior Coach with The Suddes Group. He has the same kind of adventurer/explorer attitude as his ancestor. Robb is always aggressively and positively pushing boundaries. And when called on it, answers (in his own way), “Oh, that’s the Red River?”
