If you remember no other Foundational Principles from the QSource thus far, this is the one to remember. To me, this is the basic point of all QSource and of all of leadership. It’s near and dear to my heart, and everything else contained in the QSource is simply leading us to Preparedness (that’s why G3L is called the 4 quadrants of Preparedness…). I will ask your grace as I share some personal experiences, but they are the only kind I have.

So why is Preparedness hoisted up as such an important virtue? Though this has been true for all of time, the last couple of years have pointed out in some clear ways how if we as a people were more prepared, the overall level of suffering and struggle could have been diminished. As the pandemic started to spread and so much was still unknown, we saw all kinds of behavior that was strange and often disturbing. We all saw videos of people beating each other up in grocery aisles for toilet paper. Toilet paper… let that sink in. Accosting another human being because you are so afraid you might not be able to wipe your ass in the most comfortable way you want to. But it wasn’t really about that. Because the masses live their lives so unprepared, they were reacting to a complete lack of knowing what to do next in an uncertain situation. As we learn in GrowRuck and other F3 Leadership training, in periods of high stress and limited visibility, you are likely to default to your level training/preparedness. Under pressure, we often see the results of being reactive vs. proactive.

The good news? This is all fixable with a tiny amount of discipline applied over a period of time. Like drops of water that eventually wear a hole in a rock, with the right guardrails in place, and a small but compounding effort, we can become largely immune to the tough situations that life will throw at us.

But only if we are prepared.