“Don’t wait for a reason to prepare. Prepare so that when the reason arrives, you’re ready.”
Hey Rollers,
I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet who doesn’t want more time.
More time to do the things you love with the people that mean the most to you. Or simply more time to get through everything that’s demanding your attention.
I’m no different. But recently, I’ve started noticing how an investment I’ve been making for years has started paying dividends.
No… not crypto.
Preparation.
If I’m honest, I’ve often been hard on myself about how much time I spend preparing. I’ve always wanted to show up to a meeting, workshop or keynote knowing I’d done the work. At times I’ve wondered whether I was overdoing it. Looking back, I don’t think I was.
I’ve spent years reading, writing, coaching, facilitating and speaking. At the time, none of it felt particularly remarkable.
It often felt like I was preparing for individual moments, with no connection to anything else.
Looking back now, I don’t think that’s what was happening at all. What I was really doing was building a reservoir.
A place to draw from.
The interesting thing about a reservoir is that you don’t notice it filling up. It happens slowly and then one day you realise you’re no longer starting from empty.
That’s what preparation has become for me.
When a client asks an unexpected question, I rarely have to start thinking from scratch.
When I’m facilitating a leadership team, connections between ideas appear more quickly than they used to.
Even when writing this newsletter, I’m usually not searching for ideas. More often than not, I’m remembering them.
Not because I’m any smarter than I was five years ago but because I’ve been consistently putting deposits into the account for a long time.
I think that’s one of the hidden returns of preparation.
We assume it gives us better performance. And it does.
What I didn’t expect was that it would also give me more time.
Make no mistake, there are not suddenly more hours in the day. There are now just fewer hours spent figuring things out.
Preparation pays twice.
The first time is when you do the work.
The second is every time that work saves you time in the future.
That’s a return worth investing in.
Until next week.
Keep rolling.
Justin 👊
Take Action in 3 Minutes:
Think about something you’re good at today that once felt difficult.
Ask yourself:
The answer is probably years of consistent investment that nobody ever saw.
Now answer: