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June 14, 2005

Be Prepared...

I had a great weekend in Phoenix, Arizona for my father's graduation.

Dad had been working on his Masters of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary for around four years. He has put tremendous effort into this achievement and like many collegiate of traditional age did so while working full-time and managing other life activities.

Understandably we couldn't be more proud of him.

Graduation service was a mix of a typical morning church service and a typical college graduation. Attending a graduation is one of those times, like funerals and weddings, where listening to those speaking, you tend to really pause and reflect on your life. I found some words of the keynote speaker (apologies to him for already forgetting his identity) to be most meaningful to me.

In a nutshell - "be prepared". Without getting specific, or even getting close to paraphrasing (I took no notes) the speaker talked to the new graduates about being effective with their new knowledge.

Doing so, he said, requires being aware of that which flows into you as well as out of you. He related this point as something akin to having a 5-inch pipe inbound into you and a 10-inch pipe outbound.

We tend to give alot of ourselves to others but rarely take enough time to "fill back up". Day to day we focus strictly on the outbound. While helping others, solving problems, completing our tasks - we are either to busy or have simply forgotten to pay attention to what comes in.

The danger in not replenishing is that there will come a natural drop in quality of our output. To illustrate his point our speaker quoted Martin Luther, who said:

I have so much business, I can not get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.

Talk about being prepared! Basically he says - I have so much to do, I can't effectively get anything done unless I spend three hours ahead of time to replenish, rejuvenate, plan and strategize.

So, I soaked this message up as it was delivered to the new Masters in Theology and Masters in Divinity graduates in the room. It was only later that the religious context fell away and I realized the basic principle applies to pretty much anything you do in life. Work, business relationships, personal relationships, parenting, etc.

Ultimately it fits in nicely with all sorts of discussions about work/life balance, meden agan (everything in moderation - thanks Matt), et al.

It also scales well. Whether it be long-term business goals, short-term planning for a daily meeting, or personal interactions throughout the day - take time to quietly think things through. Focus on the outcomes and plan well - this is critical ahead of execution for quality sake. I personally will be putting this into practice to improve my execution.

In closing, Louis Pasteur summed it up well a long time ago:

Fortune favors the prepared mind

Be prepared! And may the good fortune follow...

Posted by gcrgcr at June 14, 2005 12:18 AM

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