Video Text: OODA Loop

Now I’m guessing that nobody has ever heard of this, but surprise me if you will — anybody ever heard of OODA Loop? Okay, this comes from an Air Force colonel and it stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. Now, we’ve been talking about for this first part here, your personal personal lives.  How do I make the most of my personal life?

I’m going to give you this story why this Air Force colonel came up with this particular circle or cycle and I’m gonna ask you to decide how does this apply?  Because what I’m asking you to think is the why. Why is this important? Why is the story that I’m getting ready to tell me important to me? How will I apply it to my life, to my business?

Well the way it works is. If I’m an Air Force fighter jet and there’s an enemy fighter jet,

1. The first thing I’m going to do is I’m just going to be observing to see if there are enemy out there.
2. The next thing I’ve got to do is if I find one I have to orient which means reposition somewhere.
3. And then the third is I have to decide whether that person is going to take hostile action or not because that certainly will determine what I’m going to do next.
4. And finally, is the act.

And then the cycle keeps repeating and repeating.  Now, of those four phases what do you think requires the most amount of time and preparation… that’s it orient and that’s the right answer. Why?

Observe a problem or something that you want to accomplish figuring it out like the orienting is kind of like the planning the stage of it.  You know, figuring out how to how they keep yourself in that direction how to get them the momentum going and following through you know because I just think that’s the planning stage and planning you’re right let me continue with the example.

So if I’m an Air Force fighter jet and I’m moving along and I see an enemy fighter jet what I want to do — that’s the Sun — I want to be above that aircraft and I want to be between that person and the Sun. I want them looking into the Sun and I want me looking down so that I have potential energy of my side. How do I get to that point in space before they do?

The way I was able to do that is because during the orient phase the the big United States Department of Defense machinery was building the best Jets you know strapping rockets to the person’s back so they can get to that point faster and higher.  So there’s a lot of research and development that goes into it.  There’s a lot of training of the pilots that goes into it.  My training was just was nine months itself to be a rotary wing helicopter pilot and I don’t know what the fighter pilots do but I assume it’s at least the same. So right there and then in the military pilots — the red is always the enemy in the blue is always the friendly — so this Air Force colonel was saying our job is to get inside their decision cycle. If I want to be more successful than that person who’s going to be shoot shooting at me I need to be inside, I need to have them reacting to my actions.

Now, apply that to the business. Do you need to sharpen your saw? Sharpen your saw is a Covey term… in the Orient phase, do I need to study and prepare more and develop myself so that when I’m competing for this or that job or this my business is competing against that business for that contract… you see the parallels.

So you have to ask, so back to this question on the goals, focus, and self-discipline and the amount of time you have in your life.  Where am I spending my time? Am I spending there are the most important things based on my bucket list my goals and only you can answer that because it’s a personal preference.