Abraham Lincoln once said, "I will prepare, and some day my chance will come." When his chance came, he was ready.
During his seminary years, one priest-in-training owned a favorite T-shirt. Across the front was emblazoned: "Expectant Father." His chance came and he, too, was ready.
When your chance comes, will you be ready?
I know that sports stories don’t speak to everyone, but if you’ll indulge me, I think Wayne Gretzky has something powerful to teach us about preparation. Former ice hockey superstar Gretzky knew the value of being ready. He broke almost every record imaginable and is generally thought to be the greatest hockey player of all time.
“The Great One,” as he is often called, is not particularly big – he stands at 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed about 170 pounds during his career. He never skated particularly fast, his shot was not high-powered and he often placed dead last on regular strength tests administered to his team. So what made him so great?
Gretzky attributes his stardom to practice and preparation. He practiced stick handling in the off-season with a tennis ball, as the ball was harder to control than a puck. In practice he innovated. He practiced bouncing the puck off the sideboards to his teammates until that technique became a regular part of his play. Then he worked on bouncing the puck off the net. He became so accomplished at these maneuvers that he sometimes said, "People say there's only six men on the ice, but really, if you use the angle of deflection of the board, there's seven. If you count the net, that's eight. From the opening face-off, I always figure we have 'em eight-on-six."
The Great One was so great because, when his chance came to make an impact, he was ready. And because he was ready, chances came again and again.
I’ve learned this: it doesn’t matter what awaits me just across the sea if I haven’t built a boat.
Many years ago a friend and I were talking about a speaking engagement I had accepted in Los Angeles. “I’d love to go places and speak or lead seminars,” she said.
I asked her, “What would you speak about? What do you want to teach?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to write a book and lead seminars,” she said, “but I’ve never gotten around to it.”
I’ve heard her speak – she has a great ability to relate to people. She has a charismatic personality. She is intelligent and articulate. I have no doubt she could excel in such a field.
We talked about her need to develop expertise in an area about which she is passionate. We talked about how she might look for opportunities to lead local seminars and teach courses. And we talked about steps she might take toward writing her book, something she had wanted to do for a long time.
But a number of years after our conversation, she has still done none of those things. If her chance comes, she will not be ready. And more likely, since she is not ready, her chance will probably never come.
I often hear people say, “If only I had a chance.” Maybe it’s a chance at a new position, a bigger challenge or to do something different. Perhaps they are waiting for a chance to prove themselves or a chance to really make a difference.
But I wonder -- if I were offered that new challenge today, would I be ready to meet it? Am I prepared to take full advantage?
It’s not enough for me to dream about exotic, new places. I need to build a boat.
Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/Stanley Zimny
In her book Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard reveals a sad, but poignant story. She tells of a British Arctic expedition that set sail in 1845 to chart the Northwest Passage around the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. Neither of the two ships and none of the 138 men aboard returned.
Dillard argues that Captain Sir John Franklin prepared as if they were embarking on a pleasure cruise rather than an arduous and grueling journey through one of earth’s most hostile environments. He packed a 1,200 volume library, a hand-organ, china place settings for officers and men, cut-glass wine goblets and sterling silver flatware, beautifully and intricately designed. Years later, some of these place settings would be found near a clump of frozen, cannibalized bodies.
The voyage was doomed when the ships sailed into frigid waters and became trapped in ice. First ice coated the decks, the spars and the rigging. Then water froze around the rudders, and the ships became hopelessly locked in the now-frozen sea.
Sailors set out to search for help (possibly delirious from lead-poisoning from the cans which preserved their food), but soon succumbed to severe Arctic weather and died of exposure to its harsh winds and subfreezing temperatures. For the next twenty years, remains of the expedition were found all over the frozen landscape.
Dillard reports that the crew did not adaquately prepare either for the cold or for the eventuality of the ships becoming ice-locked. On a voyage that was to last two to three years, they packed only their Navy-issue uniforms and the captain carried just a 12-day supply of coal for the auxiliary steam engines. The frozen body of an officer was eventually found, miles from the vessel, wearing his uniform of fine blue cloth, edged with silk braid, a blue greatcoat and a silk neckerchief – clothing which was noble and respectful, but wholly inadequate.
Historians may doubt the wisdom of such an ill-prepared journey. But more important for us is the question: Are we, too, prepared for the important voyage we’ve embarked upon, that journey we call “life”? I want to be as ready as possible for whatever may lie ahead.
I try to prepare myself for the future in several ways:
- Intimacy: I need some caring people in my life.
- Work & Finance: I like to work hard, pay my way and help others where possible.
- Spiritual Life: When I am spiritually centered and at peace, I can handle most things.
- Service to Others: A lake with no outlet becomes a dead sea. It’s true with people, too.
- Mind and Body: Exercising my body as well as my mind helps them both work better.
- Attitude Adjustments: I really can control my outlook and attitudes.
- Emotions: I can also control my reactions, including anger.
- Relationships: I need to make sure my relationships are healthy.
As long as we are alive, our journey is not over. And in large part, the success of our voyage will be determined by our regular and systematic preparation.
I want to be ready.
-- Steve Goodier
You heard about the sign posted on a rancher's fence? On the other side of the fence resides the biggest, meanest looking bull you can imagine. The sign is intended to strike fear into the hearts of would-be trespassers. It reads: "Don't attempt to cross this field unless you can do it in 9.9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10 flat!"
Don't try to cross that field unless you are prepared! And isn't that the way it is in life? We have to be ready when the opportunity arises or else we will have little chance of success.
Sixth-grade schoolteacher Ms. Shelton believed in readiness. Students remember how she walked in on the first day of class and began writing words of an eighth-grade caliber on the chalkboard. They quickly protested that the words were not on their level and they couldn't learn them.
Their teacher insisted that the students could and would learn these words. She said that she would never teach down to them. Ms. Shelton ended by saying that one of the students in that classroom could go onto greatness, maybe even be president some day, and she wanted to prepare them for that day.
Ms. Shelton spoke those words many years ago. Little did she know that someday one of her students - Jesse Jackson - would take them seriously (Leadership, Summer 1992). She believed that if they were well prepared, they could achieve high goals.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "People only see what they are prepared to see." If that's true, then it is also true that they only become what they are prepared to become. And a lot of life is just about getting ready.
"I want to be doing something more significant with my life than what I am doing now," a young man once said to me. He felt like what he was doing was just not that important. Other people have said things to me such as, "I only wish I had a meaningful relationship." And, "I'd really like to get a better job, but I just don't see how."
You fill in the blanks. What is it you would like to happen that isn't happening? Perhaps the answer is that you are not yet ready. Maybe you need more time to prepare before you are truly ready for that which you desire.
Think of today as another chance to prepare yourself for that exciting future you are looking for. Today is not wasted. If you desire more from life, then you can use today as training. For you will experience only what you are prepared to experience. Something wonderful can happen. And you can use today to get ready for tomorrow.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/daijo1
Herman Melville's classic, Moby Dick, portrays the whaling industry of his time. In today's world, his book may likely upset readers who share more enlightened attitudes about the use and abuse of animals.
But a scene in the story can teach us even today something about the power of solitude and focus in daily life.
Melville gives us a turbulent scene in which a whaleboat scuds across a frothing ocean in pursuit of the great white whale. The sailors are laboring to keep the vessel on course in a raging sea, every muscle taut. They labor furiously as they concentrate on the task at hand. In Captain Ahab's boat, however, there is one man who does nothing. He doesn't hold an oar; he doesn't perspire; he doesn't shout. He is languid - utterly relaxed, quiet and poised. This man is the harpooner, and his job is to patiently wait for the moment. Then Melville gives us this sentence: "To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil."
What a marvelous picture for effective living! Those who would live each day to the fullest must prepare for them from a state of idleness rather than toil. For many people this means a daily period of quiet and meditation to focus, plan or pray.
Self help expert Brian Tracy calls it an indispensable daily time of planning and preparation. He suggests that we devote a full hour to alone time every morning. That is when we set our daily priorities so that we, and not events, are in charge of our lives.
"I don't have time for that!" some people complain. "My life is simply too busy to add one more thing to it."
But many people find that a regular period of solitude to chart the day's course, still the mind, listen and prepare actually creates more time than it takes. For we are most effective when we start to our feet out of idleness and not out of toil.
What if you spent some alone time every morning? Call it prayer. Call it planning. Call it centering.
I call it a powerful way to begin the day.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/Ramesh SA
