Reader:

Anticipate when you can. Adapt when you must. Learn from both.

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Morning Minute 9.8.26

Don't Wait Until Something Happens Anticipate what you can. Adapt when you must. Learn from both.

A 16-year-old high school athlete barely passes his freshman and sophomore classes. Then, as a junior, he cannot understand why his previously poor grades limit his athletic opportunities.

A 29-year-old employee repeatedly misses deadlines, ignores feedback, and waits to be told what to do. Then she cannot understand why better opportunities keep going to her coworkers.

Both made the same mistake.

They failed to anticipate how today's choices would affect tomorrow's opportunities.

Instead, they reacted when predictable consequences arrived—believing they were unlucky, treated unfairly, or victims of circumstances.

But reacting isn't necessarily the problem.

The real problem is waiting until something goes wrong—before thinking about what could go wrong.

Great athletes do both.

Before competition, they study film. They examine their own performance and their opponents' tendencies. They anticipate what is likely to happen.

But once the game starts, opponents don't always behave as expected.

Then they must react.

​Preparation helps them anticipate. Judgment helps them react.

Successful professionals do the same.

They study successes and failures. They look for patterns. They anticipate problems and opportunities before they appear.

But sometimes, the completely unexpected happens.

On September 11, 2001, I was managing a large automobile dealership. We had carefully planned a major sales promotion.

Then terrorists attacked our country.

Everything changed.

Automobile sales virtually stopped overnight. Our carefully prepared advertising was suddenly inappropriate.

We couldn't have anticipated the attack.

But we could react to the new reality.

General Motors quickly introduced 0% financing for 60 months. Working with our ad agency, we changed our entire messaging within approximately 36 hours.

We learned something important:

You can't anticipate everything. But you can prepare yourself to respond intelligently when the unexpected happens.

That's true in sports, in business, in leadership, and in life.

Learn from your successes and your failures—and from the experiences of others.

Use that knowledge to anticipate what may happen.

When reality differs from your expectations, react intelligently.

Then adapt what you do next based on what you learned.

Learn from yesterday. Anticipate tomorrow. React intelligently today.

Keep Learning! Keep Leading!

And remember:

Information without transformation is wasted energy!

That is today's Morning Minute.

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