Looking back at my secondary school days during the early sixties, when I have had the wnderful opportunity to be a Scout, and I have had in fact learned a lot too, even though I didn't truly understand the ramifications at that time:

• The founder, Baden-Powell, wrote that to 'Be Prepared' means “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.”;
• His idea was that all scouts should prepare themselves to become productive citizens and strong leaders and to bring joy to other people.
• He wanted each Scout to be ready in mind and body and to meet with a strong heart whatever challenges await him.

It was only when I became a young manager, while working in a large German firm throughout the seventies, from the late sixties to the early eighties, that I began to think about the foregoing lessons.

Following a newspaper ad, I was sure glad to have participated in entrepreneur Paul J Meyer's Dynamics of Goal Setting program, which introduced me to the concepts of preparing for future career and future growth through goal setting and goal achieving.

For some people, preparing for the future means planning for different stages of their lives.

For others, it means being ready to handle something unexpected.

Planning ahead works because:

Picturing your goals can motivate you and keep you focused.

Planning how to reach your goals helps you set priorities and stay organized. Sometimes you need to do things in a certain order, so it's important to know where to start.

Subsequently, I recall reading about this seemingly intriguing expression in the New York Times:

“Opportunity favors the prepared mind.”

Then, as part of my nascent quest to develop personal mastery, I came face to face with, among others, Dr Maxwell Maltz's thoughtware in Psycho-Cybernetics, as illustrated here, which taught me the imperativeness and urgency of goal-striving and opportunity-sensing, and of course, change-readiness and future-savviness:

• “Plan all you want for the future. Prepare for it. But don’t worry about how you will react tomorrow, or even five minutes from now. Your creative mechanism will react appropriately in the ‘now’ if you pay attention to what is happening now.”
• "People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile.
• Prescription: Get yourself a goal worth working for.
• Better still, get yourself a project. Decide what you want out of a situation. Always have something ahead of you to “look forward to” — to work for and hope for."
• "... You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live - with your self-respect alive and growing.”
• “A step in the wrong direction is better than staying on the spot all our life. Once you're moving forward you can correct your course as you go. Your automatic guidance system cannot guide you when you're standing still.”
• “If you wait until circumstances justify your thinking pleasant thoughts, you are likely to wait forever.”
• "Study the situation thoroughly, go over in your imagination the various courses of action possible to you and the consequences which can and may follow from each course. Pick out the course which gives the most promise and go ahead."
• "Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow - after you have done your best to achieve success today."

Reminiscing: 

• Almost a quarter of a century, as a professional in the corporate world. 
• Fifteen years of running my own strategy consulting (to small businesses) and training development (in the schools) outfit.

Here I am today, retyred and enjoying the rustic laissez faire lifestyle in Vietnam, after having relocated here from Singapore more than a decade ago!

From the opportunity-sensitivity standpoint, I like to append herewith a wise message from global technology futurist Daniel Burrus.

"It is important that all business leaders and executives find their way in becoming the force of change in their industry from inside their company rather than watching change disrupt them from the outside world."

To me, his astute observation applies equally for any professional who wants to stay relevant in today's VUCANT world.

As a matter of fact, it reminds me of what former GE Chairman & CEO Jack Welch once said:

"When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.“

To paraphrase Dr Maxwell Maltz writing in his Psycho-Cybernetics classic:

"What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all.

You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny.

You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live -- with your self-respect alive and growing."

Putting all these astute observations together and taking a deep drive into what Daniel Burrus has highlighted in the preamble, here are my personal thoughts:

• Be prepared, by relentlessly increasing our  skills and competencies;
• Learn to develop a strategic eye and long-range vision in looking at emerging trends (Daniel Burrus calls it strategic anticipation);
• Constantly talk to knowledgeable persons, including our customers, suppliers and facilitators like bankers,  in and out of our industry;
• Continuously expand our strategic portfolio via cross-skilling, up-skilling, re-skilling and even expert-skilling initiatives via the cycle of learning, unlearning and relearning;
• Pay attention to what's happening and even what's not yet happening (be anticipatory, as Daniel Burrus loves to put it);
• Be inquisitive, and ask a lot of questions!
• Read, read and read widely and deeply, as well as differently;

In summing up, I like to draw intellectual cues from Dr Maxwell Maltz:

"Self improvement is the name of the game, and your primary objective is to strengthen yourself, ... "

Godspeed!