LIFE LESSONS|PSYCHOLOGY

The 5 P’s That Help You Perform Better In Life

As told to me by a drug dealer on a Greyhound bus

There aren’t too many things that have stuck with me over the past 25 years, but one piece of advice that was told to me back in 1997 did.

It came from a very unlikely source, a drug dealer.

He was headed to the Chicago area from Seattle. I was on my way to Philadelphia after spending a year in Seattle. We ended up sitting next to each other near the back of a Greyhound bus.

We didn’t speak to each other at first. We just listened to our music through our headphones, pretty much ignoring one another. I don’t even recall how we began talking, but once we did, the floodgates were open.

There is very little I remember about him.

I can’t describe what he looks like. However, I recall that he was sipping on an alcoholic beverage that was concealed with a brown paper bag. I didn’t take him seriously.

I don’t know if he even told me his name, but I do remember a good piece of advice that he proudly told me.

He looked me dead in my eyes and held up his hand to count off what he called “the 5 P’s” that were essential to his success in life and business.

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

The Internet was just a wee infant during those years. Smart phones weren’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eye yet. So I couldn’t just google the phrase to see if he, in fact, came up with it, which he said he did. I took him at his word.

It wasn’t until many years later that I did finally look into and found out that the wise drug dealer had stolen the quote from James Baker, a former Secretary of State.

This is what Baker originally said, “Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.”

Apparently, it was his life motto:

“The conversation covered Baker’s remarkable career, the leadership lessons learned from his years in public service, the skills of lawyers that contribute to success as effective lawyer-leaders and problem-solvers and his life motto: ‘Prior preparation prevents poor performance.’ ”

And it’s a damn good life motto!

Pearls of wisdom come from all sorts of people from varied walks of life.

I could have dismissed what the drug dealer said to me, but it stuck with me because it was good advice!

During my early twenties, I was a very “flaky” and unreliable person, even at work. I walked out on jobs. I did the classic “no call, no show” multiple times. I decided to move cross country on a whim more than once.

I was the epitome of what many call a “free spirit”.

“Prior Preparation”?

I laughed in the face of such things!

And oftentimes, I paid the price with “Poor Performance”.

I think that’s why this once sentence, the 5 P’s, stayed with me for so long.

It wasn’t until my mid-late twenties that I began to heed this advice. I had grown tired of being ill prepared for things that I could have foreseen and prepared for in advance.

By 2005, the Internet was very much alive and thriving, which allowed me to better prepare for and research numerous things ahead of time.

I became someone who planned well and executed my plans well.

If you’ve ever seen the old television show, “The A-Team”, you might recall one of my favorite quotes by Hannibal, “I love it when a plan comes together”.

In recent years, the challenge has become more about finding that middle ground between over planning and going with the flow of whatever arises, especially in what I call, “the age of covid”.

The past year and a half has consistently shown me that even the best laid plans have ways of falling apart.

That doesn’t mean that we have to fall apart as a result.

We are ultimately the judge and jury in how we “perform”.

Try not to be too hard on yourself, nor others.

The most we can do is give our best, and surf those steady, but sometimes tumultuous, waves of change.

When we crash, which is sure to happen from time to time, we can rest in having prepared for that as well.

Failures and down times are part of life, an endless cycle of up, down, expansion and contraction.

Prepare for this, since “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”.

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