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Be Prepared

Thinking forward makes it so much easier.  Whether you’ll be leading a meeting at work, making a proposal at your local club, toasting a friend on their birthday or making new social acquaintances, anticipating your needs helps make the things you do successful. 

Preparing ahead means you’ve had the important talks with your children before they encounter the unexpected.  Preparing ahead helps you avoid a hostile or unreceptive audience, it keeps you from speaking but not saying the things you wanted to say, it helps you dodge mistakes. 

When you prepare ahead, you’ll get to shape your message or action in ways that gets you to your intended results.  When you prepare ahead, you’ll ask yourself lots of questions.  What is the purpose of the meeting and how can we make that happen while using the attendees time most efficiently?  Why is my proposal good for my local club, what needs of theirs does it meet?  It’s my friend’s birthday and I want to be certain he knows how very special he is, what can I say that will be most meaningful?

It doesn’t take much time.  It’s mostly mental planning.  As you’re preparing mentally, though, you may find you’ll need more information or you may need to gather early support for your idea or plan.  When planning ahead, you may decide to send a detailed agenda or you may seek advice or ideas from other parents who’ve already offered similar guidance to their children. 

Think about the people or organizations for which you are preparing.  What do you know about them?  What might be of interest to them?  What might be of mutual interest?  Recall or imagine meeting the parents of your child’s fiancé!  While conversation is sure to flow, it’s nice to have thought ahead, to have a few quips or stories that could initiate that flow.

In anticipation of the blind date with the man I married, I thought ahead.  It was New Years’ Eve blind date!  I knew I’d need to be prepared to keep us going til midnight without terrible, embarrassing silent moments.  I prayed he liked to dance; you can dance without a lot of conversation.  I thought about subjects – our life histories, favorite trips, books and movies.  That seemed enough to get us through.  As it turned out, we never stopped talking but if that hadn’t been the case, I was prepared.

It turns out that Ronald Reagan and my Uncle Lee had preparation in common.  Both kept quotes, jokes, stories and ideas on index cards, preparing for their perfect use.  Reagan used these to add spice and interest to his speeches.  My Uncle Lee used his storehouse of stories and jokes to add flavor to the history classes he taught and zest to his writing and conversations.  Preparation was a hallmark for both men.