Reserve time in your calendar to be prepared. For what? For the obvious, for the expected, but most of all for the unexpected and the unexpectable.

If you prepare for the obvious, you’ll be doing the minimum required of you. You will satisfy the minimum requirement. It would already be a lot more than the average, but you won’t be able to demand hugs of gratitude for your exceptionality. It’s the recipe to pass unnoticed.

If you prepare for the expected, you will get the warm feeling of doing things right—you went just a bit over the qualifying threshold. You’re smart, but you don’t apply. You show the potential, but you prefer to devote your energies somewhere else.

If you prepare for the unexpected, you’ll conquer the famed extra mile. You’re not like the others. You care. You’re maybe a perfectionist. But of the right kind. You’re thoughtful and resourceful. You make a difference. You like to be celebrated and to surprise.

If you prepare for the unexpectable, you’ll just own the world. You have unlimited willpower. No defeat can stop you. The darkest dark is where you can find a lonely photon to shed light on infinity. You will change history. And maybe you will survive it.

It doesn’t matter if you can foresee, predict, or forecast the future, be mindful in preparing yourself always beyond the expected, and exercise your imagination to be ready for the unknowable. What could happen?