What Are You Doing To Prepare Yourself For The Moments Of Possibility?

First published on July 1, 2020

Mason Greenwood is a talented young man. Last night, for Manchester United away at Brighton, he got the ball just inside the penalty area, stepped over the ball with one foot, then the other, then the first one again, and then he lashed the ball through the defender's legs and inside the near post. It was his 13th goal of the season, a pretty extraordinary total for an 18 year-old who has not been a first team regular.

Greenwood came to mind just now, because whilst he may have been nervous in moments like that this season, it certainly looks like, inside, he believes. He knows he has been practising this for his whole life. He has stepped over the ball and lashed it into the bottom corner thousands of times. He has been preparing for these moments and - with all that preparation and practice - he can respond to the unusual elements with skill: a crowd (or, in last night's case, an empty stadium), the greater intensity of a first team game, the pressure of playing for a somewhat unpredictable United side.

That's part of the game that we play in life. One way or another, we are practising something. Better, by far, to choose what you practise, and to practise in service of a future moment where your practice might come in useful.

I often speak with prospective clients for two, three, four, sometimes even more hours, as a gift, before we commit to doing work together. Sometimes we decide it's not the right time. One was asking me about it the other day: don't I want paying for this time?

And the truth is, I do get paid. I get paid in referrals, I get paid in stories. But, more, I get paid in experience. I get paid in readiness for the moments which really matter. I get paid by testing my skills and intuitions in hundreds of different situations. I get paid in the ability to be skilful in conversations around money. Each of those conversations, as well as being part of a long-game, business-building sales process that I love, is preparing me for the moments when the right person sits down in front of me. If I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in conversations with potential clients, then at the moment when the one-in-a-thousand person sits in front of me, I'm ready. I've been preparing for that moment every week for the last five years.

More than that, in fact, I've been preparing longer: I've been practising things that relate to coaching since long before I knew what coaching was. Generative conversations in a family of listeners; that gap of presence, holding a structure and being in the moment, from thousands of hours of acting; and more.

Jordan Hall was talking about two types of time, recently. Chronos is business as usual, linear time. Kairos is something different: we're in kairos now. It's not linear, it's not business as usual, it's unpredictable, unlinear and it carries the possibility for enormous change. If you are ready. If you have been practising the right things during chronos then kairos - the chaos of the moment, when everything is up in the air - is an opportunity. Like the surprise moment when the right person sits down in front of me and I'm ready for whatever they throw at me.

Right now, as we slowly begin to move out of lockdown and the world realigns around new norms, customs, and abilities, there is still an opportunity for change. What have you been practising? What moment of opportunity have you been preparing for for years?

And, perhaps more importantly, what do you want to prepare for? What opening of possibility do you want to be ready for? And what can you practise every day or week, even just for a few minutes, that will prepare you for that time?

There are no great people. Writers as different as Malcolm Gladwell and Matt Ridley agree on that. There are just people who happen to have been preparing their whole life (sometimes accidentally) and then end up in the right place at the right time. That's Bill Gates, it's Mozart, it's everyone.

The world needs people who are smart and brave right now. It needs the people who have been training their whole lives for this moment. And it needs people to begin training, right now, for the next one.