How Prepared Are You For Your Next Storm?
Is it possible to prepare for a storm before it happens?
On one level, I say yes you can prepare for storms before they happen. On another level, however, you have to lean into the storm when the wind is actually blowing and figure things out as you go.
I never imagined myself being a widower after only 36 years of marriage. I enjoyed my life with Vicky and was completely caught off guard when we received the stage four kidney cancer diagnosis on April 9, 2020.
I had never experienced this category of storm and it rocked my world. But slowly I found my way back from the devastation to a place where I found hope and purpose realized.
Three Lessons from History on Storm Preparedness*
In October 1911, two teams made their final preparations for their attempts to be the first explorers to reach the South Pole. One team, led by Roald Amundsen, raced to victory and returned home safely.
The other team, led by Robert Falcon Scott, reached the Pole thirty-four days later but all died on the return trip.
What was the difference between these two teams? Preparation.
Amundsen didn’t wait until he was in a storm to prepare for one. Scott, on the other hand, relied on what he knew and failed to prepare. They both serve to teach us important lessons.
What can we learn from these two teams?
1. Keep company with the right people
Amundsen and his team lived with the Inuit and learned how dress, live, and survive in freezing temperatures. He became an expert dog handler, ate raw dolphin, and became a skilled skier.
Scott relied on the knowledge he already had and failed to learn from those who had lived in similar conditions. Instead of dogs, he chose ponies, which didn’t hold up in the cold. He took untested motor sledges, which broke down under the extreme conditions.
Scott knew it all. Ego was his enemy and it resulted in his death. Amundsen’s teach-ability prepared him for what was coming.
2. Stay positive but prepare for bad weather
Amundsen was optimistic they would get to the south pole and back again, but he prepared for the worst. He took more supplies than he needed and used black flags to carefully mark his route on the way to the Pole in case of bad weather on his return.
Scott took just enough supplies and didn’t mark his return route. Why? Because he was overly optimist and miscalculated the possibility of bad weather.
Bad weather will come into our lives — guaranteed. The planet is broken and has disease, cancer, accidents, aging, and hurtful people. Those facts don’t need to steal our joy but do serve as a reality check that hard things do come.
3. Practice hardship before you have to
Amundsen trained himself so his mind ran his body. He and his team practiced dressing, living, and surviving in freezing temperatures. These practice sessions prepared him and his team to endure the hardship that was potentially ahead.
Scott, on the other hand, did not train properly for his expedition. He took a cavalier attitude, was over confident and under practiced.
These two examples serve as a cautionary tale of two very different approaches to preparation. One being a stellar example of what to do and the other being a tale of what we should avoid at all cost. Let me put these lessons into a few practical tips that I’ve learned through my own trial and error when attempting to live prepared for what comes.
10 Tips for Living Prepared for What is to Come
1. Find mentors who will show you the way
You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read. — Charlie Tremendous Jones
2. Adopt a growth mindset
A growth mindset describes people who feel their skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence. — Carol Dweck
3. Live with tempered optimism
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. — Admiral James Stockdale
4. Build positive habits that build resiliency
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. — Octavia Butler
5. Be grateful — even in difficult circumstances
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. – Melody Beattie
If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get. — Frank A. Clark
6. Find ways to train yourself before you have to
Neither a bull nor a noble-spirited man comes to be what he is all at once. He must undertake a hard winter training. — Epictetus
7. Be humble and avoid the trap of the know it all
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. — C.S. Lewis
8. Expect hardship and realize it can actually make you better
To the Stoics, a life without adversity was a life without virtue. Virtue needs the struggle. It wants the challenge, it rises to it. So yeah, things have been rough. Yeah, you have been hit hard. But good! This is making you better, making you into something stronger, wiser, more resilient. Which is why you’re not complaining. No, you’re grateful. — Ryan Holiday
9. Decide now you will keep going even if you feel like quitting
When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before. — James Clear
10. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst
There’s no harm in hoping for the best as long as you’re prepared for the worst. — Stephen King
Reflection Questions
On a scale of 1-10 (one being totally unprepared and 10 being as ready as possible), how prepared are you for your next storm?
What habits or practices do you currently have that will help you when the storm hits?
If you’re in a storm now, what can you do and who can help you to lean into the wind and survive the storm?
*Source: Great by Choice by Collins and Hansen
