fbpx

“Murphy’s Law Syndrome”5 min read

Today, we’re going to talk about what I call “Murphy’s Law Syndrome.” What Murphy’s Law states is, “What could go wrong, will go wrong at the most mis-opportune time.”

Take this past week here in Florida. Hurricane Ian was traveling up the coast and unfortunately hit the West Coast pretty hard. Now, during the week, a lot of us had plans, but immediately we had to shift those plans, alter those plans, and actually cancel some of those plans because of the impending storm to be safe.

Many of us have family plans, business plans, travel plans, and retirement plans, and Murphy’s Law is always out there ready to trip us up. I hear a lot of business owners tell me, “Coach, I would have had that done except for this came up or that came up.” Yes, we have to understand that’s going to happen. Murphy’s Law Syndrome is always in play. Things are going to pop up when you least expect them. So, you need to handle it.

So, how do we prepare for Murphy’s Law? I’ll share a couple of things you can do in these different areas so you can be prepped better in case Murphy’s Law shows up and you have to pivot. First of all, let’s take retirement plans. Make sure whether it’s for your child or for yourself, that you’re consistently, systematically putting money into your retirement, your IRA, your 401k, your profit-sharing plan, whatever it may be. Have a system set up. No matter what’s going on in the economy, in real estate, in the stock market, every month, money is going in, highs, lows, in the middle, to work for you, so you’re systematically setting up your retirement. This way, if something happens, you don’t have to catch up. A large majority of people are not in a good situation for retirement because they haven’t systematically planned for it.

As far as business, I always ask my clients, “Does business always go as planned?” The answer is “No.” Things always pop up. However, there are a few things we can do to be prepared. First of all, speaking about business plans, we need to have a business plan, long-term business plan, short-term business plan, a plan for the quarter, a plan for the month, a plan for the week, and a plan for the day. Along with your plans, you could have a default calendar that pretty much blocks out what you are going to be doing at different times of the week and the day so you can stay on track. This calendar will not always be bulletproof, because something will come up, however, you could actually leave certain times of the day for the “just in case” hour. Just in case things pop up, you have blocked time to address them so you don’t have to take time out of something else.

Most importantly we always have to use the “What If” Syndrome, because Murphy’s Law Syndrome is really, “What if? What if the worst-case scenario happens? What adjustments do I need to make?” In 2008, the whole economy became unraveled. Commodities, stock market, real estate, everything became unraveled. Why? Because there was a tremendous amount of leverage in the world. It’s amazing that no one asked the question, “If the worst-case scenario was to happen, what could be the result?” And no one planned for that.

The outcome of 2008 was very simple. Those who had a clean balance sheet were fine. Those who didn’t have a clean balance sheet got hurt and got hurt hard. The clean balance sheets, people planned for the “what if.” The non-clean balance sheets did not plan for the “what if.”

In conclusion; Murphy’s Law Syndrome, “What could wrong, will go wrong, at the mis-opportune times.” Expect it and plan for it. Don’t expect everything’s going to go consistently smooth, that you’re going to be able to do exactly what you say you’re going to do every single day because things are going to pop up. However, have certain things in place in case it does, that you, your team, and everybody else are prepared for it.

And most importantly, you need to be mentally prepared for it, because everything you had to get through in your life, you got through. Every bad, adverse situation you had to get through, you got through because you wouldn’t be reading this today if you didn’t. What makes you think you’re not going to be able to get through this situation? The answer is, you will. You’ll learn from it, and you’ll get better. So be aware of Murphy’s Law Syndrome, be prepared for it, and press on anyways.


COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud Action Coach Franchise partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice. Businesscoachmichaeldill.com