Why having a "PLAN B" can Crash-Proof your Life

In this episode, we delve into how change can derail our lifestyle plans and the importance of having a Plan B when the winds of change place speed bumps, distractions and detours in our path. While there's no “undo,” “reboot,” or “delete” button that allows us to change the outcome, through the case studies of 2 resilient couples shared in this podcast, listeners can experience how having a Plan B can allow us to turn the page and reinvent ourselves in remarkable new ways. 

Check out THE NEXT CHAPTER - CHANGE THE MINDSET, CHANGE YOUR LIFE - CHECK IT OUT HERE
For a Short Preview - CLICK HERE
To buy the book - https://www.thenextchapter.fyi/buy-book

Transcript

Why Having a Plan B Can Crash-Proof Your Life

Hi and welcome to The Next Chapter podcast… where we delve into one of the 130+ topics in our new book. You know… if there’s one thing Monika and I have learned… both personally… and through the thousands of hours of face-to-face conversations with our clients over the past 30 years, it’s that… in life, what happens to us and around us may not be our choice, but how we respond always is… if we change the mindset, it will… truly change our life.

In todays podcast titled “Why having a Plan B can Crash-Proof Your Life” we’re going to delve into another one of those challenging topics. As we have discussed in previous Podcasts… whether we are solo, life partners, or spouses, a sustainable lifestyle is simply the external manifestation of our inner belief system. However… change is that demon that seems to constantly stalk every aspect of our life. 

And… ready or not, when we are confronted with change, every facet of our lifestyle can be impacted… sometimes thrown into chaos. While some of us seem more prepared than others, the great news is…it’s never too late to adapt… and while no one is suggesting it’s easy… it’s always a personal choice to embrace the changes that surround us before we have to. And this is where having a Plan B comes in…

Monika and I are often asked… is it possible to embrace this thing I desperately don’t want to be faced with? And the answer is a… qualified Yes… but it must be a conscious choice…since it often impacts many aspects of our daily lives. For some of us, visualizing what we want for ourselves can be challenging. Either we’ve never given it much thought, or we’re not used to giving ourselves the freedom or really… the permission… to explore those dreams we shelved long ago.

You see… being able to develop a reasoned Plan B requires knowing what our BIG WHY is – you know… that thing gets us up in the morning and keeps us up at night until we figure it out. It’s that thing that gives us GOOSE BUMPS when we finally do have that Ah Ha moment and that thing we’ll go to outrageous lengths… to achieve.

Let me give you an example… Tim was a serial entrepreneur and had successfully built several businesses. Jenny had enjoyed a fulfilling career in nursing, in addition to being a dedicated hockey mom, soccer mom, and ballet mom. Eventually, as empty nesters and having prudently invested in their rainy-day fund, they decided it was time to shift gears and refocus. But before they could decide What their next adventure would be, they needed to be clear on their Big Why.

Was it boredom… a lack of challenge… the need for drama in their life? During the year-long sabbatical they had given themselves to step away from their respective business and career, they were vigilantly looking for that next thing… their Plan B. They had been on several vacations and determined they were too young to escape to Florida or Panama or Portugal for more than a few weeks a year.

They went to the Franchise Show when it came to town and decided that was not for them. Rather, it looked like they were “buying a job” when what they really wanted was even more independence, not being sentenced to a long-term commitment to a franchisor, who was like a silent partner that had to be paid every month, even before they got to keep anything for their hard work.

When a friend from the West Coast called to say she was coming on a business trip, they insisted she bring her partner as they had never met him. Ted and Debbie spent several evenings with Tim and Jenny, and when the topic came up, Ted (who was a few years older) shared that he’d struggled with this too. It wasn’t until someone had asked him what his Big Why was that he’d realized he hadn’t thought about that. Dumbfounded…was how he described the feeling of not knowing. Surprisingly, the answer to his Big Why had come over a drink with a friend who had casually asked him about his childhood. The more he shared, the more his friend probed.

In the days that followed… as Tim unravelled the “stuff” that had shaped who he’d become, he realized that one of his talents was music and another was his passion for helping older people (as a child, he had loved being with his grandparents and their friends). And suddenly, there it was: his Big Why was to connect with that unfulfilled inner desire to use that talent and empathy that was hidden within.

From this realization, the next step… which is discovering the What that goes with the WHY… often evolves naturally. To Tim’s surprise, when he shared this with Jenny, she saw the potential of combining their skills and came up with the idea for a unique business—elder sitting, which would give caregivers time off for vacations and to recharge themselves.

It could also allow Tim and Jenny to be as busy as they wanted and yet get away whenever they chose. Their business flourished as caregivers heard of this wonderful couple who not only cared for their elders… allowing them to get a way for a needed break, but actually returned them happier and healthier than when they’d dropped their folks off.

Between Tim’s love of sharing his music and their genuine curiosity for the stories that had shaped these seniors’ lives, they were able to get each of these folks talking and remembering. The moral of this story is simply that discovering our Big Why can be an exciting journey into who we were and what we once aspired to in those formative years.

Figuring out what we’re good at and love to do… as well as how much time we’re willing to invest in each aspect of our lives going forward can be kind of fun too… you know… things like working, travel, personal time and giving back. Sharing this with someone we trust, a special someone who has permission to probe a little, can help us uncover some hidden nuggets…and one of them may lead us to our Big Why.

So what does this have to do with having a Plan B you might ask… and that’s a valid question. The answer is… what happens when a person gets up every morning, goes through the same routine day after day but finds it leaves them empty, feeling listless, unfulfilled, disappointed, angry, bitter, resentful… you know… the list can go on and on but the result is the same. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in his famous 1854 essay – ON WALDEN POND – and I paraphrase “the mass of people live lives of quiet desperation”. 

WHY or can that really be true you may ask?… and the most common answer from our experience and the thousands of hours of face-to-face conversations with folks was that they were totally out of touch with their WHY, let alone the WHAT, WHEN, WHO WITH, HOW MUCH or the WHERE… that they wanted in their life. 

Now... the context for those conversations was they were trying to make major lifestyle decisions that would impact their home, their family, their finances, their career or other more personal motivations. However the problem was that too often they were simply reacting to situations and circumstances around them and feeling powerless as they didn’t seem to have any lifestyle plan or vision.

In such situations, our approach, as their Realtor, was simply to step back from whatever we were there to discuss and respectfully ask permission to better understand what they were struggling with. While this typically didn’t reveal their BIG WHY at that moment, it did help them and us to understand their reasoning for wanting to make this lifestyle change.

In many cases, issues related to their finances, relationships or health were the underlying cause… but as often is the case… their strategy for dealing with it was similar to the adage about “moving the deck chairs on the Titanic” – they were treating the symptom and avoiding the problem. In many such situations, the solution actually required a Plan B… a total rethink of their situation and what would be a logical resolution to the underlying problem… not a band aid. 

The good news was they were now able to step back, see their options and while none of them may have been ideal or on their Bucket List, they could now choose to reinvent their situation and move ahead with purpose and hopefully a new reason to get up in the morning and make each day better. 

Much has been written in other books about Embracing Change and that there’s no “undo,” or “reboot,” or “delete” button that gives us a chance to change the outcome of a situation, it’s important that we allow ourselves a time to grieve our loss, but not so much that our future becomes defined by it. Like a child learning to walk, we must release one thing before we can move past it to discover what else can be available for us tomorrow.

You know the three most powerful words that can make our dreams possible or to erase them permanently are “I don’t know.” While “I don’t know” can be a limiting condition… when a child or an adult is asked the right questions in the right sequence, we can help them to start identify those obstacles that seem to hold them back. Although they cannot necessarily change those things that are outside ourselves, we can help them choose how they see each situation more clearly and respond accordingly.

To reinforce the importance of having a Plan B and the resilience to embrace the changes that may come with it, meet Colin and Kat (short for Katerina) who had lived in Ontario most of their lives. Colin’s parents had come from England after the war when he was very young, lured by the promise of the economic freedoms Canada offered. Kat’s parents had come from Europe seeking a new life and to leave the pain and loss of the war years behind theml. 

Both Colin and Kat were true entrepreneurs and had owned several businesses, as they’d concluded early on that they weren’t well suited to work for anyone else. But as governments changed, business owners were finding it harder to make a profit, attract and keep quality employees, meet the onerous new rules on minimum wages and workplace safety, or adhere to the privacy and anti-SPAM legislation.

The IRS in the US and the CRA or Canadian Revenue Agency are not government departments (i.e., cost centres), but rather, they are set up as independent profit centres. As such, they have become very aggressive in their audit and collections practices. In Canada for example, the CRA’s mandate is to generate a profit on the budget dollars provided by the federal government to fund their agency. 

To meet these objectives, the CRA seems to be targeting Canadian business owners, like Colin and Kat. As small businesses tend to have less robust accounting records and either can’t afford to or aren’t aware that they should lawyer-up to protect themselves when the CRA or IRS comes knocking on their door, being a small business owner is making people like Colin and Kat endangered species.

Having survived several audits and an employee’s wrongful dismal suit, Colin and Kat were done! “Enough is enough,” Kat said to Colin one evening after a particularly stressful day that became unbearable when she opened the mail on her desk and found an invoice from her lawyers for $34,653.42.

While her business was doing okay, it certainly couldn’t afford the ongoing legal fees of continually having to protect her and their respective businesses, as she and Colin had been doing over the past several years. When Colin asked her what she meant, uncharacteristically, she broke down in tears, dropped into a chair, and said, “I just can’t do this anymore; it’s not worth it.”

Dropping to his knee, he put his arms around her and pulled her close. “What would you like to do?” he asked. Her answer shocked him, though it shouldn’t have, as they had talked about it before, but usually it was just a flippant comment. This time, however, there was a firm sense of finality in her voice. “I’m done! They win; let’s sell everything and leave this country for good.”

Colin’s answer was even more surprising: “I had expected you’d come to that conclusion sooner or later and have been doing some research. Want to open a bottle of wine and talk about it?” To which she stood up, put her arms around him, and said, “Yes, let’s start over somewhere else. If we were able to do it here, then we can do it again!” And so…they did just that. You see they had a Plan B… even though it hadn’t been formalized until now!

Six months later, Colin and Kat opened the doors of their first business in Costa Rica. They had been through several Central American countries on vacation, and as they both loved being by the water and the hospitality business was a comfortable fit, they had leased an old storefront building on the boardwalk with a view of the ocean.

They had done their market research and found there was a need for a specialty products store that offered health foods, supplements, and skin-care products not available elsewhere in this part of the country. They split the large vacant building, and in the other half, they opened a small bistro that served all-day breakfast, Tim Horton’s and Starbuck’s coffee that was always fresh, and the best muffins and bagels this side of Buffalo.

The rest…well, it’s up to your imagination to finish the story. But the reality is that Colin and Kat’s story is becoming a common trend, as expats are choosing to pull up roots and deciding to settle in other parts of the world. Bringing their skills and expertise, they’re able to succeed abroad. And while it’s not without its challenges, there seems to be less hassle than what they left behind.

So in conclusion, let me again share what we write inside each copy of THE NEXT CHAPTER that we have the opportunity to deliver personally. “In life, what happens to us and around us may not be our choice, but how we respond… always is. Change the Mindset, Change your Life”. So there it is… our Plan B is often really just changing our mindset and how we see the situations and people around us. And… while we may not be able to change the circumstances, we always have the choice of how we see them and choose to respond (versus react) appropriately.

We hope this podcast has been helpful. Thank you and join us again as we share the collective wisdom from those thousands of hours of client conversations that shaped THE NEXT CHAPTER. Until then… this Robert and Monika encouraging you to create your Plan B... you never know when it may open the door to The Next Chapter for you.