The Probable Future

This week, I would like to share a powerful message from Dr. Don Osborne. How many times in your life have you experienced an undesired outcome. If you are like me, probably more than you care to admit. Dr. Osborne's message gives us some practical advice on how to avoid those undesired outcomes and experience a probable future.

Have you ever played chess? The winner is usually the player that can plot the most moves in advance. The great Russian grand master and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was once asked how many moves he calculated in advance. He replied that three to five moves ahead was pretty normal but, depending on the situation on the chess board, he could think up to twelve or fourteen moves ahead.

Remember that each move was dependent on the moves that his opponent might make. Therefore, he could think of twelve or more moves that he would make based on the numerous choices of moves that his opponent would likely make. If his opponent considered three different moves each time he had a turn, then Mr. Kasparov was planning his next move based on each of his opponent’s choices. He was, therefore, actually thinking about the possibility of perhaps fifty moves. You have the ability to think ahead, too. Do you usually think ahead far enough? In sales and in every other area of your life, thinking ahead is essential for success.

While working as a counselor with troubled kids in Michigan I was approached by a boy about fourteen years old who defiantly announced that he was going to run away. He came to me and volunteered that information. He said that he had not told anyone else, and his announcement to me seemed like a challenge. “Let’s see you talk me out of this one,” he seemed to be saying. I knew from years of experience and training that if I tried to talk him out of his decision, he would just become more resolved to run away.

Instead I simply asked him to tell me about his decision. He was in a foster home, the most recent of a long list of placements by the state because his parents were incarcerated for drug dealing. The boy, I’ll call him John, acknowledged that the couple he was living with were nice people and were kind and even affectionate toward him, but they wouldn’t let him run the streets, smoke or do as he pleased.
John was used to an unstructured, undisciplined life and chafed against even reasonable rules. So, he said, he had a cousin about his same age that lived in Texas and John had investigated the cost of a bus ticket from Michigan to the town in Texas. He seemed quite proud that he had thought out such a bold plan. He had acquired the bus ticket money somehow. After school, instead of going home, he was going to go to the bus station, buy a ticket and ride the bus to the town in Texas where his cousin lived. I congratulated John on thinking things through and he smiled smugly.
I then asked him, “What will happen then, John?”
He looked a bit stunned, thought for a moment and said, “I’ll call my aunt and uncle and they’ll come and get me at the bus station.”
“Okay, John” I said, “What will happen then?”
Puzzling for a while, he then replied, “They’ll take me home but they’ll probably be really ticked off, ‘cause they won’t know I’m coming.”
“So what do you think will happen next, John?” I asked.
“They’ll call the authorities back up here,” he said.
“So, then what?”
“The Michigan juvenile authorities will come and get me and bring me back up here.”
“What do you think will happen after that, John?”
“They’ll put me back in the same foster home I’m in now.”
“Then what?”
“They’ll all be really ticked off at me.”
Then John said, “This isn’t going to work, is it?”
I said, “John, I think you’re right.”

For perhaps the first time in his life, the 14 year old boy with the deck stacked against him thought something all the way through. He arrived at his own conclusion, and rightly decided that running away was not going to work. Two lessons are important here. I didn’t tell John that he was being stupid or that his plan was faulty and therefore didn’t give him more to rebel against. He thought it through without criticism, so it was his own ultimate decision. Secondly, without being judged, he simply was encouraged to think of what would likely happen next, and then what would happen after that.

Fervently do I wish that I had someone asking me that simple question, “What will likely happen next?” at many points in my own life. In sales, in your personal life, in your organization’s strategic plan, is anyone asking, “OK, what’s probably going to happen?” and then, “What will happen after that?”

If you roll a ball on a level floor, it will follow a straight path. Before it reaches the other side of the room, you can see where it is headed. If you don’t want the ball to continue in that direction, you can tap it and send it veering off in a different direction. Your life is like that. It is amazing how accurately you can predict what is going to happen when you see patterns. It is also amazing that more people don’t recognize them as they are happening.

Perhaps they don’t always see the big picture. Repeated patterns become the future. The book The Probable Future: You Can Predict it & You Can Change it describes eight patterns that determine how you function as an individual, in your family, in groups to which you belong, and in your work. By recognizing and understanding the patterns, it becomes possible for you to predict the probable future.
You can then make choices and decisions based on what will probably happen, and what will likely happen after that. If you apply the principles embedded in the patterns, you can not only change your own path, but also influence those around you. You can help clients and potential customers look at what will probably happen if they continue on a path without making changes. You can alter the probable future from what it is going to be to what you want it to be.

If you are interested in "what's probably going to happen next"? in real estate, give me a call!

Have a great weekend, unless you choose otherwise!