Motivational speaker and author John Maxwell has written an excellent self-help book: Talent is Never Enough.Chapter 5 is titled Preparation Positions Your Talent. Here are a few excerpts from this chapter.
Automaker Henry Ford observed, "Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success."
Ford understood the power of preparation and what it can do for someone:
1. Preparation Allows You to Tap into Your Talent
"I've found that every minute spent in preparation saves ten in execution."
2. Preparation Is a Process, Not an Event
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden says that the best way to improve your team is to improve yourself. He learned that lesson from his father, Joshua Wooden, who used to tell young John, "Don't try to be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be.'
3. Preparation Precedes Opportunity
There's an old saying: "You can claim to be surprised once; after that, you're unprepared."
4. Preparation for Tomorrow Begins with the Right Use of Today
Preparation doesn't begin with what you do. It begins with what you believe. If you believe that your success tomorrow depends on what you do today, then you will treat today differently. What you receive tomorrow depends on what you believe today. If you are preparing today, chances are, you will not be "repairing" tomorrow.
5. Preparation Requires Continually Good Perspective
Former Boston Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn observed, "The sixth man has to be so stable a player that he can instantly pick up the tempo or reverse it. He has to be able to go in and have an immediate impact. The sixth man has to have the unique ability to be in a ball game while he is sitting on the bench." What makes the sixth man capable of that? Perspective. He has to have both a coach's mind-set as he watches the game from the bench and a player's ability once he steps into it. If he does, then he is prepared to impact the game.
6. Good Preparation Leads to Action
What value has preparation it if never leads to action? Very little. As William Danforth, former chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis noted, "No plan is worth the paper it is printed on unless it starts you going."
