Experience Comes From Bad Decisions…

I heard him call out as he walked up the street towards the house.

Easy to hear him because there was no traffic on the side street where I was.

I was just leaving my friend’s house from visiting for supper.

She lived in Juarez, Mexico, working as the youth minister for a church just down the street from her house.

Immediately, I put my guard up.

Because I didn’t need any brooms, or street corn, or whatever this guy was selling.

Lots of vendors in Juarez just cruise the streets calling out their products.

As he walked up, wearing his red and white t-shirt and blue jeans, I was ready with the head shake and a polite but firm, “No, gracias.”

Then I heard clearly what he was saying.

“Ayudame…ayudame por favor…”

Help. Please help me.

His t-shirt wasn’t red and white.

It was white and blood soaked.

There was no merit badge in Boy Scouts for “Helping Drug War Violence Victim”.

My brain went into adrenaline fueled overdrive.

Having grown up in small town South Carolina, this was not a situation I had ever experienced before.

Hey man, are you ok?

Please help!

I think there’s police or an ambulance right at the end of the street…I’ll go get help.

NO! No police, no ambulance!

Ok…

Can you give me a ride home?

Um…sure. Hop in the truck bed.

So there I am, around 10pm, with a complete stranger, soaked in blood, riding in the bed of my beat up Ford Ranger pickup.

My friend jumped in the cab with me, understandably not super comfortable just staying at home while I drove a stranger to who knows where…

Two blocks later, my brain caught up with my actions.

I realized I had a stranger with unknown wounds sitting in my truck bed, at a time when Juarez was in the middle of drug cartel turf wars.

What if his wounds were life threatening!?

Why didn’t he want cops involved?

What if he DIES right there in my truck bed while I’m taking him home!?

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING RIGHT NOW!?!?!?!?

Every block, I called back to him for directions.

Straight? Right? Left?

As much to make sure he was still conscious as it was to actually get directions.

Terrified, my brain painted my future.

A stranger passes away from injuries in my truck bed.

I’m a foreigner in Mexico.

I’m going to jail for life.

After what seemed like a 10 hour drive, he called out to me that we had arrived at his street.

He popped out of the truck bed and disappeared down the street.

Still on the adrenaline high, I drove my friend back to her house by the church.

One last thing was to check the truck bed for blood…last thing I needed was having to explain to border patrol why there was fresh blood in the bed of my truck as I crossed the border.

Then I headed back across the border from Juarez into El Paso…

It was an event that burned itself into my memory.

That moment when I was driving the truck and I realized how sketchy the circumstances were.

I had no idea what I had gotten into.

In that moment, I did the best that I knew how to do. I helped a man get home.

But there was serious risk that I wasn’t aware of until I was already in the middle of it.

Hindsight 20/20, I probably should have stuck to my initial offer of getting help from the ambulance or police.

But…there was no one I knew that I could call in that situation to ask what to do…

1 — Because the cell service back in 2005 wasn’t the same as it is today

2 — I didn’t know anyone who had been in a situation like this!

I mean, I’m glad I gave that guy a ride home (or wherever it was he needed to go…). I’m not sorry at all that I helped.

But it was a far more serious situation than I thought as I made the decision to give him a ride.

What ended up ok, could have ended REALLY BADLY…

And I was not interested in another visit to a police station in Mexico.

Ok, so most of life’s decisions and situations are not as adrenaline pumping as a guy in a blood soaked shirt on the street at night in Mexico asking for help…

But I have lost count of how many decisions I have made in life where I didn’t consult anyone and it cost me.

Reminds me of the classic quote…

“Making good decisions comes from experience, experience comes from making bad decisions”

Over the years, I have learned the value of having a community I can lean into when I’m faced with new situations…

Whether it was starting my own real estate brokerage, forming a partnership for property management, being a father to teenagers (why don’t they come with a built in instruction manual!?!), buying the first apartment complex, or whatever the situation may be…

Finding the person with the experience who has done it before has been key.

Key to avoiding rookie mistakes.

Key to building the relationships I want in my life.

Key to personal growth.

The key to unlocking my life.

Who do you look to for that experience to lean on in your life?