Stay ready, don't get ready.

Update from 8/13/20 at end of article

Not an original idea but a powerful one. While this mantra has it's origin in sport, the message rings true across many facets of life. Finance, career readiness (hello pandemic economy), and skills improvement. This is true when talking about personal development or finding true love!

But there's a reason that this phrase is most often associated with our sports heroes. Sport perfectly illustrates the importance of staying ready so you don't have to get ready when you're called upon and I can't think of a better example than what has recently happened with German Formula 1 driver Nico Hulkenberg.

Before we get too far, I need to give a bit of background. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused all sports (rightly) to be shut down I was, like most people, yearning for that sport itch to be scratched. I missed the things we all love about watching sports, the feeling of normalcy and routine, the drama, the competition, the storylines, and having something to look forward to throughout the week. I meandered around the channels a bit, watching old Chicago Cubs games from the late 80's (and a few games from 2016 of course), some vintage FC Barcelona games, old Champions League matches, but nothing that I watched gave me that sense of excitement and drama. First, I already knew what had happened in most cases. Second, if I didn't know what happened in the individual game, I was missing out on the context the complete season.

Enter Formula 1. F1 first caught my eye (or ear) through a podcast that talked about how the sport is the most technologically advanced on offer right now. Not just from the cars and drivers but from the fan experience as well. I threw myself into learning everything I could about F1. Aided by YouTube and a 30 day free trial of F1TV (brilliant marketing move), I found myself staying up until the wee hours of the morning learning about the history, rules, drivers, teams, and strategies within the race. All the things I love about sports that I've been a fan of for years, I had found again! I blew through the 2018 and 2019 seasons with the same amount of excitement as if they were happening live. A new fan was born.

There's a lot of things that make Formula 1 exciting, too many to mention here. If drivers making adjustments on the fly with a steering wheel that looks like the love child of a Rubik's Cube and a Nintendo DS while traveling in excess of 200mph isn't enough... you have a race in a new country every week and the high stakes of one small mistake by either driver or team putting an entire race week down the toilet. Not to mention, there are only ten F1 teams with two drivers each. 20 seats in the whole sport! It's an elite crew that makes the free agency and the transfer windows quite interesting.

This brings us back to our friend Nico Hulkenberg. In 2019 he drove well but his team didn't re-sign him. At the end of 2019, he found himself without a coveted racing seat for 2020. While this can be discouraging for any driver, it's not unheard of for drivers to miss out on a season or two and then be brought back in when a seat opens up during the offseason with a new team.

But this is 2020. The F1 season started anew at the beginning of July with strict COVID protocols in place for protecting teams and drivers from getting or spreading the virus. Still, Racing Point driver Sergio Perez tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon. That is to say less than 24 hours before race weekend was to get underway at Silverstone raceway in the U.K. This left Racing Point directors an impossibly small window to find a new driver and get them fitted to the car and registered for the first of three official practice sessions on Friday morning. To make matters worse, their reserve driver was racing at a different location and unavailable. Team bosses decided to call Nico and offer him the seat. One problem, when Nico answered, he had just landed in Germany for a sportscar test.

I'm sure the next 24 hours felt like they were flying by faster than a Formu... I'm sure they felt fast.

After having been out of an F1 car for more than 6 months, Nico was ready to jump back in at literally a moment's notice. He stayed physically and mentally in shape, stayed competitive, and stayed ready.

You never know when your phone is going to ring with that opportunity to jump back into the driver's seat. Even more important but less obvious is that you never know when your phone is going to ring and it's going to be someone taking that seat away from you. We don't know when our window will close and we don't know how long it will stay that way. These are things we can't control. Just like pandemics, and economic downturns, and tragedy, and strokes of good luck. What we can control is how ready we are to jump back behind the wheel.

When uncertainty comes our way remember, preparation over panic. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.

If you ever want to talk about preparation, adversity, or more life lessons from Formula 1, let me know.

p.s. Hulkenberg placed the 7th fastest lap of the day on Friday. He's got one more practice session and a qualifying session on Saturday before the Grand Prix on Sunday morning.

p.p.s. Netflix has a great series called Drive to Survive if you're looking to dip your toe into the Formula 1 world. In typical Netflix fashion, it has excellent production value while still being very accessible if you know nothing of F1.

Aaaand here's a fun video that demonstrates just how impossible these cars are to drive.

UPDATE: Racing Point was unable to get the car started for Hulkenberg's first race back. However, a second positive test from Perez gave Hulkenberg another opportunity with Racing Point at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone on 8/9/20. The second race in as many weeks at the same circuit allowed Nico another crack and he was able to improve on his pace (qualifying in P3 behind the two championship Mercedes) and finishing the race in 7th place after an exciting and difficult race due to track temperatures. Of course, a podium would have been a story for the history books but, coming back after being out of the sport for multiple months and finishing his first race in the top 10 is an incredible achievement. More importantly, it makes a very strong case for Hulkenberg as an elite driver, and deserving of a seat for the 2021 season.