Setting Your Compass to Impact the World

Chapter 1 
Setting Your Compass 

To have success in life you and I must set our compass—set our focus on executing the necessary tactics to give us the best opportunities for success. I like to call these tactics critical success factors. Without proper execution of these critical success factors, your project is doomed to failure. To live a life of significance, a life that counts for higher purpose, we must also set our compass or focus on accomplishing things that hold significance. I have found in my own life that many of the internal conflicts I have experienced deal with struggles as I pursue both. I want to begin by encouraging you to know that it is possible to set your compass in such a manner that both significance and success can be achieved without compromising one or the other—if we are first willing to define both significance and success according to God’s standards! 
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It was before daylight on a spring morning in the damp woods of north Mississippi. Twelve years old and hunting by myself for the first time, I listened for the sound of the elusive American wild turkey. Turkey-hunting remains a passion for me to this day because of the challenge of overcoming this worthy adversary—and the wonderful memories of time spent on the hunt, just my dad and me. Many times before this morning, I had been with my father; he had taught me well the ways of the wild turkey. 
For those of you not as familiar with the ways of a turkey, this is a brief background: Turkeys roost at night up in trees to be safe from predators prowling about the ground—and because they have poor vision at night. During daylight, however, the turkey is sharp-eyed; it has the best eyesight of any animal in the woods. This is the turkey’s greatest advantage over man. 
To effectively hunt turkey you must first locate the male—called the gobbler for its loud, distinctive gobbling call. As strange as it may sound, one way to outsmart the turkey is to arrive in the woods before the sun comes up and hoot like an owl. If the gobbler is roosted closely enough to hear the hoot, it will gobble; this allows the hunter to establish the turkey’s location and approach to shooting distance. Once you “set up” on a gobbler, the game begins: you attempt to call the gobbler off the roost onto the ground with special turkey calls that emulate the hen, or female turkey. Often you are in competition with the real thing, so it makes the calling process even more difficult. You nonhunters you may be wondering why you don’t just shoot the turkey out of the tree. This is an option, but it is considered unsportsmanlike—and, more importantly, it’s against the law. Because of his incredible eyesight, the turkey in all likelihood would see you before you could get close enough to shoot him out of the tree anyway. 
During the spring turkey season, the woods are still very green and thick, which makes it difficult to see and easy to lose your way. Based on this difficulty and on my tendency to be directionally challenged, my father had coached me many times to have my compass handy and always be sure to set it before pursuing the prize. Oh, but this morning would be different. I wanted so badly to demonstrate to my father that I had been a good student and that I could now hunt this bird on my own without his guidance. As I cupped my hands around my mouth and hooted I could hear a gobbler in what sounded like close range just over the hillside. With heart pounding I proceeded to head deep into the woods to find the perfect place to set up on this bird. 
Walking through the thick woods was effortless as I imagined this turkey, which I was sure had at least a ten-inch beard and two-inch spurs—the mark of a trophy. As I got closer to the spot I’d heard the first gobble, I stopped and hooted again. The gobbler had flown down off the roost and landed on the other side of the tree going away from me. I didn’t know that a drove of hens (female turkeys) had already gotten his attention and he was never going to give me even a thought. I continued to quietly pursue him as he moved deeper into the woods and further away from me. I set up over three separate times, calling this bird with my best effort, and he continued moving away from me. 
Soon it was lunchtime, and I realized that not only was I not going to get this turkey, but I had no idea how to get back to the truck. (Yes, I was allowed to drive into the woods by myself at the age of twelve.) I had my compass securely in my pocket, but I had failed to set it before beginning the journey and it would cost me almost an entire night alone in the woods (until my father found me). It was quite a blow to my young manhood. There would be days to follow when I would be successful, but I can assure you I never went into the woods again without setting my compass.