The Space Between the Plan and What Happens

I recently spent a week in Hainan, China, with two friends and fellow entrepreneurs from Germany and the United States.

We went with a fairly simple intention: explore somewhere unique, surf, train, eat well, spend time in nature and create some space to think.

Early in the trip, we shared what each of us wanted more of in the year ahead.

Different lives. Different businesses. Different countries.

Yet much of the conversation came back to three things:

Calm. Clarity. Peace.

I’ve thought about that conversation quite a bit since.

Not because any of us wanted less ambition. We wanted to be more capable of directing it.

To make better decisions. To be more present with our families. To lead better. And to have the physical and mental capacity to focus on what matters most.

What I have come to believe is this: the most useful capacity we can build is not the ability to predict what happens next. It is the ability to respond well when something else does.

Because decisions count.

And as our responsibilities grow, so do the consequences of those decisions.

When the Plan Meets Reality

That became an unexpected theme of the trip.

We had gone to Hainan expecting to spend a lot of time surfing. The ocean conditions weren’t what we’d hoped for, so we adjusted and found a wave pool where we could train instead.

Nothing profound happened.

The plan simply met reality, and we changed it.

But I think a surprising amount of life happens in that space: between the plan and what actually happens.

We plan because planning matters.

We build forecasts. We model scenarios. We set goals. We organize capital. We protect against risks. We make decisions based on the best information available to us.

And then the world changes.

New information arrives.

The question isn’t whether our plans will encounter uncertainty. They will.

The more interesting question is what we do when they do.

Aim High. Wear the Harness.

One day, we hiked Seven Fairies Mountain.

Near the top, we effectively encountered two summits. We could stop at the first, or continue to the higher point. The final section required a safety harness.

We chose the higher one.

There was something about that combination that stayed with me.

Aim high. Wear the harness.

Those ideas aren’t in conflict.

Good risk management shouldn’t eliminate ambition. Done well, it can create the confidence and capacity to pursue it.

The harness didn’t tell us what would happen on the climb. It didn’t remove the uncertainty. It simply made us better prepared for it.

There is an important difference between predicting the future and preparing for it.

We spend enormous amounts of time trying to do the first.

Markets, businesses, technology, health, economies, families. We build increasingly sophisticated ways to understand what might happen next.

We should.

But perhaps the more durable advantage is becoming better prepared for a wider range of outcomes.

That requires more than a contingency plan.

It requires capacity.

Consider where that gap shows up in practice. One in three Canadians carries life insurance coverage that falls short of what their family actually needs, with the average household underinsured by 14.5%. Not because people don’t care about their families. Because the future is genuinely hard to anticipate, and preparing for a range of outcomes takes help.

The Infrastructure of Sustained Performance

Our week in Hainan became something of an accidental fitness camp. Most days involved some combination of yoga or Pilates, the gym, tennis, surfing and hiking. On our biggest day, we spent close to five hours exercising.

We ate incredibly well. Spent a lot of time outside. Explored. Talked. Laughed.

I came home more energized than when I left.

It reinforced something I’ve been thinking about increasingly: taking care of ourselves isn’t separate from high performance. It is part of the infrastructure that makes sustained performance possible.

The research supports this. The CDC has found that regular physical activity directly supports problem-solving, memory, and emotional balance. These are not incidental benefits. They are the cognitive foundations on which good decisions get made under pressure.

The same is true of calm.

The Clarity to Act Well

We often associate leadership with action.

But action without clarity can simply allow us to move faster in the wrong direction.

The ability to remain clear when circumstances become difficult is its own form of preparedness.

Physical challenge provides an interesting place to practise it.

When you’re tired on a mountain, the destination doesn’t change.

When something doesn’t go as expected, you adjust.

You learn to stay focused without requiring the conditions around you to be perfect.

That ability matters in almost every environment where important decisions are made.

Aligned Without Agreeing

So does the quality of the people around you.

Three entrepreneurs travelling together also meant three sets of ideas, preferences and instincts.

The trip worked because we communicated.

At different moments, each of us led, followed, listened or adapted.

We didn’t need to agree on everything.

We needed to stay aligned.

I think the distinction matters.

The strongest teams I’ve seen aren’t necessarily the ones where everyone sees the world identically. They are the ones where people understand the destination, communicate openly and trust one another enough to adapt along the way.

Alignment creates room for flexibility.

If everyone knows where you’re trying to go, someone else can lead when they have a better view of the terrain.

That applies in business.

It applies in families.

And it applies to almost any meaningful journey we take with other people.

Perhaps my favourite part of China, though, was much simpler.

The people.

We were a long way from home, surrounded by a different language and culture, yet so much felt universal.

Smiles. Kindness. Laughter. Generosity. People caring for the people around them.

It was a good reminder of how much connects us despite how different the surface can appear.

It also made me more conscious of time.

We tried to make the most of our days, but not by making every minute productive.

There is a difference between filling time and investing it.

An hour solving an important problem.

An hour training.

An hour learning.

An hour in nature.

An hour around a table with people you care about.

An hour doing something simply because it is fun.

They can all be extraordinary investments.

The important part is knowing why you’re making them.

I left China feeling both grateful and proud.

Grateful for the people, the friendship, the food, the physical challenge, the conversations and the chance to experience somewhere completely different.

Proud because the trip felt remarkably wholesome.

We challenged ourselves and took care of ourselves at the same time.

We sought out the novel.

We did difficult things.

We communicated.

We adapted.

And we came home recharged for our families, our teams and the work ahead.

Preparing for a Future We Cannot Predict

I’ve also found myself thinking about how closely this connects to the work we’re doing at DNA.

Risk is ultimately a conversation about the future.

And the future has an inconvenient characteristic:

It hasn’t happened yet.

More data can improve our understanding.

Better technology can improve our analysis.

Better models can help us see possibilities we might otherwise miss.

But none of them can give us certainty.

Nor should that be the objective.

The objective is to make better decisions with the information we have, understand the risks that matter, prepare for different possibilities and remain capable of adapting as new information arrives.

That is true when protecting a family.

It is true when allocating capital.

It is true when building a company.

And it is true when climbing a mountain.

42% of Canadians lack life insurance or are uncertain about whether their coverage is adequate. That is not a data point about indifference. It is a signal that navigating uncertainty well requires guidance, not simply information.

The more I think about it, the less interested I am in certainty as the standard for a good plan.

A good plan should give us direction without making us rigid.

It should help us understand risk without making us afraid of it.

It should create alignment without requiring everyone to think the same way.

And it should leave enough room to respond intelligently to a future we know will surprise us.

Maybe that is what I was really looking for when we talked about calm, clarity and peace at the beginning of the trip.

Not certainty.

Clarity without certainty.

To know what matters.

To know where you’re trying to go.

To prepare thoughtfully.

To surround yourself with good people.

And then to have the calm and capacity to respond well to whatever happens in the space between the plan and reality.