Preparation is the mark of a professional. Preparation is also the mark of a successful person in any field. As you move upward in any occupation, you will find that the top people spend far more time in preparation than the average person does. The top 10 percent in any field are always more thoroughly prepared in every detail than those who struggle for a living in the same occupation.

When packing for trips, professional travelers take several steps over and over until they become habits. First, they make a list of everything that they will need for the upcoming trip. They do not trust to memory. They write it all down.50

Second, they lay out everything they are going to take with them, in advance, before packing. Third, they pack completely so that they are ready to leave for the airport well in advance of the scheduled time. Professional travelers know that if you pack in a panic because you have not allowed enough time, you will forget things that can lead to unnecessary inconveniences later on your journey.

One of the techniques that you can use to travel well and increase the likelihood that you will arrive at your destination is to practice “worst possible outcome” thinking. To do this, ask yourself, What is the worst possible thing that could happen on this trip?

Guard Against the Worst

For me, as a professional speaker and seminar leader, the worst thing that could happen would be for my luggage to be lost and for me to arrive without the clothes and seminar materials that I need for my speaking engagement. To guard against this situation, I carry all my essentials on board with me, never out of my sight. Because of this habit of advance planning, I have never had an insurmountable problem because of baggage delays or losses.

Even if I am taking a long trip, involving several days of travel and speaking, and I need a larger suitcase, I always carry a smaller case on board with all my essentials. The larger case can be checked, but if it gets lost in transit, the loss is merely an inconvenience, not a disaster.51

On the way to your destination, in the achievement of your most important goal, continually ask yourself, What are the worst possible things that can happen? And then guard against them.

Plan for Any Eventuality

The mark of a superior thinker is that he or she assumes that the worst will happen and makes provisions against it. Napoleon Bonaparte was once asked if he believed in luck. He replied, “Yes, I do. I believe in bad luck. I believe I will always have it, and I plan accordingly.”

For example, it is not uncommon for flights to be delayed or cancelled because of weather or technical problems. This has happened to me numerous times. To guard against this, I always request a list of the flights leaving before and after my scheduled flight from my travel agent. If there is a problem with the flight on which I am scheduled, I quickly transfer to another flight. On those occasions when unexpected emergencies arise, I immediately telephone my travel agent, who can pull up all alternate flights on her computer and reroute me within minutes.

Move Quickly When You Need To

Not long ago, I boarded a five-hour, cross-country flight to conduct a seminar for a Fortune 500 company. When everyone was seated, the pilot announced that there was a technical problem and that the crew was working to fix it. He said that he would give an update in about thirty minutes, and during that time, the passengers could read or make phone calls.

Having experienced this type of indeterminate delay in the past, I immediately called my travel agent from the plane, found that an alternate flight was leaving twenty minutes later from the same concourse, got up, left the plane, caught the other plane, and arrived at my destination within thirty minutes of the original scheduled time.

Later I learned that the technical problems on the first plane turned out to be far more serious than they first anticipated. The passengers were kept on the plane or in the boarding area for more than three hours, at which point the flight was cancelled. Since all other flights to the East had already departed for the day, the passengers had no choice but to go home and return the following day, if they could find a seat on another flight, to get to their destinations.

Small Setbacks Can Derail Your Plans

You may need something as simple as a taxi to get to the airport. But the longer you wait to order the taxi, the more likely it is that the taxi will be late or even unavailable. Remember the old Six-P Formula: “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.”53

During an ice storm in Dallas a couple of years ago, I was forced to stay twenty-five miles from the airport in a motel at which I arrived after midnight. But I had to be back at the airport by 7:00 a.m. to catch a flight and be in Birmingham on time for my seminar.

The night clerk at the motel was obviously tired and uninterested. I emphasized to him that I needed a taxi at 5:30 a.m. to go to the airport. He assured me that he would call for the taxi and that it would be waiting for me at 5:30 the next morning. After about four hours of sleep, I arose, dressed, and hurried downstairs to get my taxi to the airport. But it wasn’t there.

The same desk clerk was still on the job. When I asked him about my taxi, he shrugged his shoulders haplessly and told me that he had forgotten. I was stranded.

Fortunately, just at that moment, an airline bus came by to pick up members of the air crew for the early morning flights. I wheedled my way onto this private bus and then bribed the driver to take me to my terminal, arriving just in time to catch my flight and get to Birmingham on schedule.

Refuse to Be Passive

This experience taught me two things. First, prepare for the worst. No matter what anyone tells you, be prepared for the possibility that he or she will not follow through.

Second, be proactive, not passive. Instead of becoming angry or depressed, get busy and get going. Find an alternative. Refuse to accept the current situation if it is not satisfactory. Instead of waiting for things to happen, make things happen.54

Prepare a Checklist

Pilots carefully review a checklist prior to every flight. Even if they have flown thousands of hours and have been active pilots for twenty years, they still go through the checklist every single time.

You should prepare a checklist as well. No matter how many times you have made the same trip, you should review your checklist once more. Never trust to memory. The failure to check just one critical detail can leave you stranded and maybe even put your destination out of reach.

Some years ago, I did a series of seminars for IBM. One of my clients within IBM, an excellent manager and a really nice guy, suddenly stopped returning my calls. When I contacted other people in the company, I found that he had died in a plane crash while on a business trip. What had happened was truly tragic.

The plane had crashed on landing in Dallas, and everyone on board perished. In the investigation that took place later, the cause of the crash was discovered. It was the last flight of the day, and the crew was looking forward to an evening in Dallas. According to the black box, the crew members were chatting away happily as they approached the runway to land. The flight engineer—a man with two decades of experience— while chatting with the pilots in the cockpit, failed to review his checklist. As a result, he forgot to put down the flaps as the plane landed. This one mistake caused the plane to crash, burst into flames, and kill everyone on board.55

As you proceed toward your personal destinations, and struggle toward your goals, the consequences of not following your checklist will not be as severe. But it is not unusual for a business to go broke or a person to lose all his or her money because someone failed to pay attention to a critical detail.

The Keys to Preparation

You have heard it said that “well begun is half done.” Preparation is the mark of all professionals and successful people in every area. The way to prepare effectively is to follow your own personal checklist. Here are some suggested steps:

1. Where are you going? Take the time to be absolutely clear about your goals and dreams. Where do you want to end up? What would your situation look like if everything were perfect? The greater clarity you have concerning your final result, the easier it will be to plan the interim steps.
2. Make a list of everything that you can think of that you will have to do to achieve your goal, to reach your destination. Leave nothing out. Continue to add to the list as you think of new actions you could take.56
3. Imagine every possible thing that could go wrong or that could cause delays or failure on your way toward your goal. Think ahead and make provisions against the unexpected. Never trust to luck or hope that everything will work out exactly as you planned.
4. Talk to others who have taken the same journey. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Ask humbly for advice from people who have already paid the price to get to where you want to go.
5. Read everything you can that others have written about your route and your destination. Sometimes, a single insight from a single person can make all the difference between success and failure.

The more important your goal or destination is to you, your family, and your future, the more time you should spend in preparation before you make an irreversible commitment. There is no such word as “overprepare.”

Develop a Plan B

When you set off for your goal or destination, take the time to identify the possible delays, distractions, and detours on your route. Always develop a “Plan B” in case your first plan doesn’t work out. Never assume that everything will turn out the way you expect.57

In business, you should identify the essential people, customers, sources of finance, marketing and selling methods, and other factors that are critical to starting and running your business successfully. In your personal life, you should also think about the worst possible things that could happen to frustrate or derail your plans. Develop a Plan B just in case.

Never forget Murphy’s Laws:

1. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
2. The worst thing that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time.
3. The worst thing that can cost the most money will go wrong at the worst possible time.

And then there is Cohen’s Law: “Murphy was an optimist.”

Plan and Prepare in Advance

Your ability to be absolutely clear about your perfect destination or goal and then to think through and plan every detail before you start your journey can dramatically reduce the uncertainty involved and increase the probability that you will achieve exactly the goal that you have set for yourself. Remember the saying “Well begun is half done.”58

Successful people are aware of the important details, especially at the beginning of a new venture or journey. They leave nothing to chance. They do not assume that everything will be done correctly or that anyone else cares about their journey as much as they do. As a result, they dramatically increase the probability that they will achieve their goals, and it has nothing at all to do with luck.