Getting Prepared For The Bright Lights
- Rumwald Le Guevel
- Oct 26, 2016
- 3 min read
How many of you would love to know the exact day when a recruiter from your dream job is going to call? Or the exact moment you need to excel because professional teams are coming to scout you? Personally, I would. I would have prepared myself with answers that the recruiters would have loved to hear, or I would have made sure to tell my teammates always to play with me and make me shine.
Unfortunately, it is too good to be true; it does not work that way. For most of us, it seems, that lifetime opportunities always come at the wrong time and the wrong place. But we come out with this judgment for the good and simple reason that we are unprepared.
Prepare yourself every day
Unexpected times always come, for the majority of us, either in college or right after we graduate. Our everyday life becomes full of uncertainty and unpredictable events. However, we tend to forget that we can reduce these moments of anxiety.
Back in high school, I always wondered why knowing how to use the Pythagorean theorem, how to write a sonnet, or how to play recorder would make me a better financial advisor or whatever I wanted to do at that time. This type of question tapped into my head a thousand times, as I am sure it did it to you as well. However, when I started to look under the surface, I saw that school was preparing me.
If you knew how to use such methods to solve problems, there is a high chance that you are going to become a great problem solver later in life. If you have been consistent in your studies, there is a bigger the chance that you will be consistent in your job. If you used to be late for classes, chances are that you are going to be late for work commitments later on.
In one of his programs, Dr. Eric Thomas makes his students repeat loudly:
"If you are on time, you are late,
If you come fifteen minutes earlier, then you are on time,
If you come thirty minutes earlier, then you are early."
Life does not wait for anyone, same for a teacher in a lecture.
When I was a freshman at the University of South Brittany back in France, I had this guy in my class who was constantly wearing a suit. Intrigued, I ended up asking him why he always had business outfits to "just" come to class. Here is his answer, "I am getting prepared. When I go to an interview, I am going to be comfortable, focused, and confident because I have been dressed like this hundreds of times before."
The NAVY SEALs are probably the best example of preparation. During the Bin Laden raid, what was planned fell through right at the beginning when their helicopter crashed inside the compound. But they succeed their mission because they were prepared to finish their job whatever the circumstances. They studied every room, blind spot, and were used to work with their teammates.
We all have expectations, but so often we are not prepared when the opportunities are knocking on our doors. The few examples above show us the how, and why getting prepared is important. Don't wait until it is too late, be early, be consistent, and chase problems; don't run away from them.
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