When the Plan Falls Apart

What happens when the roadmap disappears, the timeline slips, and life takes a turn you never saw coming?

In this episode of Operation Next Chapter, we explore one of the most challenging realities of leadership and life: navigating the moments when your carefully crafted plans fall apart.

Whether you're transitioning out of the military, changing careers, leading a team through uncertainty, or facing an unexpected setback, the true test isn't whether your plan survives—it's whether you do.

We'll discuss:

• Why resilience matters more than perfect planning
• How to adapt without losing your direction
• The difference between flexibility and giving up
• Finding opportunity in unexpected detours
• Leading yourself and others through uncertainty

Your next chapter won't always unfold according to plan. But sometimes the path you never intended to take leads exactly where you need to be.

Because leadership isn't about controlling every outcome—it's about moving forward when the map no longer makes sense.

🎙️ Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

#OperationNextChapter #Leadership #Resilience #VeteranTransition #PersonalGrowth #Adaptability #NextChapter #LeadershipDevelopment #MilitaryTransition #Podcast

OperationNextChapter@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Again, we talk about the success, right? You want everything to be easy. We want that easy button. That easy button is great. And enjoy those times. But be ready because life's about to get uncomfortable. Your plans are about to fall apart. What do you do with that? Where do you take that? Do you pick up and let's adjust and let's go? I will say this. Also be on the lookout because that may be the discomfort. That may be the uneasy street.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Welcome to Operate the Next Chapter. We're Mark Nicole, retired Air Force First Sergeant, and this season is about leadership without the uniform. Because eventually the rank comes off, the structure changes, and no one is giving you orders anymore. So who are you when no one is telling you who to be? This season is about reclaiming your standards, your discipline, and your role as a leader at home, at work, and in your own life. The next chapter is in its time. It's built. Let's get to work. What happens when the plan falls apart?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Uh oh. Well, you got two choices. You can let it fall apart, or you can make the decision to change course.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Everyone has a plan until life punches them in the face. Mike Tyson. Yep. The real test isn't the plan, it's a response when it fails. Couple quotes I heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

How many times have your successes been derived from a failure? For when your plan fails, when your plan falls apart.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

And plans will fail. Let's normalize that.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

It's okay. It's going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah. And it's going to happen a lot. A lot more than we wanna wanna hope for.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah, and we've talked about this before, maybe in the first couple episodes, but our transition is a recipe to fail. Right? There's things that are put in place to help us transition and transition successfully, but nobody talks about what happens when the plan doesn't go to plan. How do we start over and figure out a new plan? It's gonna happen in our life, in our marriages, and our finances, everything. Plans are going to fail.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah. You said life and marriages. How about how about in weight? Why do you think there's so many weight loss plans out there? I mean, that's just an example, a simple example. But when you're going through life, you may have the most perfect plan set in motion and it fail. What's your reaction? Better yet, what's your response to that?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Or what you thought was the perfect plan.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yes. Yes. Because let's be honest, there's not any perfect plans out there. Every successful plan has had changes made. Every successful plan in my life that I've ever done, everything that I've ever, you know, this is gonna work and everything else. I have had to make tweaks to it. I've had to make changes to it. It may not be changes that I created. Maybe it was an external factor that came in. Maybe it was a, you know, something, you know, a block in the road or or you know, a wrong turn or whatever that I didn't foresee coming. Maybe it was something external. When I was willing to say, you know what, I got it, and make the tweak to the plan, that's when I succeeded. And it wasn't always like that, right? I was that hard-headed guy. I would beat my head against the wall trying to make my thoughts and my way to do things work. And that's all it was was me beating my head against the wall.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, it's going to happen. Maybe that's a sign. Sign from above, sign from whoever you believe in, but that's a sign. Maybe we gotta figure something else out. I read this other quote this week and it said, If you're looking for reasons to not do it, do it. If you're looking for reasons to do it, don't do it. And you think about that, making a plan, it holds true, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Never thought about that way.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Like we're either forcing it or we're trying to find ways to avoid it. Take that run with it.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

That's a lot. Because so many times when you're when you're sitting down and you know you're coming up with a course of action, you're coming up with that plan and everything, you're doing exactly that. Right? You're thinking about ways to make this work. You're not necessarily thinking about or or looking at the ways that it won't work, but you're thinking about ways to make it work this work.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Wow. I'm a little bit speechless right now.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I was too when I I think it was in a podcast or maybe a reel or something, but I think I listened to that five times in a row to take it all in. And I just I did what you did, or like looking at the scene like, whoa, that blew my mind.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah, and and looking back, you know, I'm doing some mental gymnastics right now, but looking back when things just fell into place that I felt like I didn't plan for at all, was I planning for those? Was that the plan to begin with?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

It happened naturally.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

It was easier than trying to force things down this into this square hole, you know, with the round peg that just won't fit. No, I I can do it. If I just make this little tweak here, I just make that little tweak here. Maybe that wasn't where I was supposed to go.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yeah, I think about a couple books that I believe you and I have both read. One is The Comfort Zone, and the other that we both just finished Mornings Unheeded. This is a story about a B-52 crash and a mass shooter at Fairchild Air Force Base in 1994. These two events were only four days apart, but the book takes you back a couple years prior to those events happening, and they were a chain of failures amongst leadership. I bring that up, and the comfort zone, because I believe we are too comfortable in life and we don't seek discomfort to grow. But the other book, both of those events, there was a plan set forth, and the plan ultimately failed in both cases. What was your thoughts on thinking about the plan for the B-52? Was an air show demo, right? And then the mass shooter was a former airman who went and shot up the base hospital, and particularly a couple psychologists, that he was going through some mental health issues. The plan at the end both failed.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Failure is a weak depiction of what happened there, right? Yeah, I was mind-blown. The plans that were in place that weren't acted out, and the lack of planning ultimately led to mass casualties for no reason because of lack of leadership, because of lack of decision making, because of lack of discipline, because of lack of you name it, on multiple fronts from multiple individuals at multiple levels, and ultimately it led to loss of life.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Yeah, I think between the two events, it was a loss of ten issues. Nine nine total. Yeah, nine total.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

That all could that all were preventable.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

100% preventable.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

We talk about the plan and forcing things. People force things to happen and force things to move forward and force this and force that. The other thing they did, they did not act when they were given information. They didn't uh set a plan, a new plan, change course when they were presented information. The lack of action when they had the information was devastating.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Multiple warnings. Yes. Red flags across many events leading up to the last event causing human casualties. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

And those plans fell apart. Let's just be honest. Or the lack of plan fell apart. What do you do in your life when your plans fall apart? You think you've got everything under control, you think you've got everything moving in the right direction, you've got all the pieces in place, you've got everything going. I know for me, when I retired, you've heard it. I retired without a plan, but I took 11 months in trying to build a plan and move forward and thinking that I'm on the right course. And then a phone call changed my entire plan. My plan to just be retired and go build my house all changed in the in the instance of a phone call. You adjusted your plan. I did. And I still failed. I still had failures. I still had tweaks that I had to make into that. And I didn't get it right all the time. And that's okay. It wasn't okay at the time. It didn't feel okay in the moment. But ultimately, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah, because you had an expectation for yourself, and the plan didn't consider that. As weird as that sounds, like we I had that expectation, like I'm gonna get the best job there is out there because of my experience, my multiple degrees, you know, my personality, right? I expected to get pretty much anything I wanted or what I would get would get after. I had to adjust my expectations, and I didn't do that. My plan failed as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. We're sitting here today because of that.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah. It wasn't going to be a success out the gate, like we talked about in the last episode. But looking back, it's easy to see how all those failures and plans that failed didn't amount to the success that we had expected in our head.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Comfort. Life is not comfortable. If you're comfortable in life, I'm sorry, but that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

And that must be really boring.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah. It's nice to be comfortable at times, right? We we all want to, you know, live the American dream, retire, you know, not work, and everything else. I will tell you, when I stop working, that's not going to be comfortable for me. Because honestly, work is comfortable. That's part of my comfort zone. Now, do I change course and have I had multiple jobs since then? Have my jobs become uncomfortable? Yes. Yes. I have moved uh sometimes by choice, sometimes, you know, by need. But that's my comfort zone is is going to work, and and you know, I I don't know how not to go to work. Yet I'm learning, and I think I'll be good at retirement soon. But when your life becomes comfortable, as Mark said, you're right, that's that's kind of boring. You know, moving and shifting and everything else is nice, but comfort's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Comfort's a stop sign.

unknown 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Discomfort is the signal. Maybe we need to keep moving and find something more to challenge us.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Move toward the hard things. We don't do that as a society. Most people want the easy button and then complain why their life sucks. Or blame their childhood or adapt the victim mindset. People that have gone through a plan, went through multiple failures, multiple losses, those are the ones that come out on top, and the plan succeeded after the string of things that went wrong.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Are you saying we should lean into discomfort?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Absolutely. And that goes back to that book, The Comfort Zone. We were not made to be as comfortable as we are in today's society. Everything is designed for our comfort, but the comfort stops us from progressing and building and growing and making our life better. And doing those things to get to the success or the happiness is actually what makes us happy. It's not the thing that makes us happy, it's doing those hard things that brings the happiness.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Hard work, life doesn't have to be hard, but it does require hard work. When you find yourself comfortable, when you find yourself quote unquote on easy street, I'm not saying get off of easy street. I'm not saying get out of your comfort zone. But I will say be ready because the discomfort and the uneasy street is right around the corner.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, it's coming.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Again, we talk about the success, right? You want everything to be easy. We want that easy button. That easy button is great. And and enjoy those times, but be ready because life's about to get uncomfortable. Your plans are about to fall apart. What do you do with that? Where do you take that? Do you pick up and let's adjust and let's go? I will say this. Also be on the lookout because that may be the discomfort. That may be the uneasy street. So looking forward and planning, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but just know that if you have to force the plan, it might not be the right plan. I've been there. I've I've forced plans and I have forced round pegs into square holes, and it didn't make my life easier. It didn't take away the discomfort. It sometimes added more of it until I eventually re-course.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah, changed course. Yeah. Exactly. And think about the things that you've achieved that probably brought some happiness. Maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's your house that you purchased, or a car that you bought, or a certain, you know, fitness level you've attained, or you've done something hard like a Spartan race or the Murph or something. The end result made you feel good and brought some happiness, right? But what really gave you that success and that long-term happiness was all the things that led up to getting those things. However, you did it, it didn't happen overnight. It took a couple steps every day, hard work, effort, and keeping your eye on the prize. That's really gave you that happiness and contentment. The thing at the end was just the cherry on top, right? But if you were given those things, there wouldn't be as much happiness behind it. You didn't work for it, and that happiness would be gone really, really fast. And then now we're searching for the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, the things in life that I was given didn't mean near as much to me as the things in life that I earned. You know, the things that you have to work for, whether it be a promotion, whether it be just finding a job, whether it be buying your first car, buying that new house, the things in life that you work for are much more valuable, even though you understand or know all the struggle that went into earning them and went into you know making the money or eating the right diet or you know putting the right fuel in your body to win the race and and the diet discipline and and the workout discipline and everything else that goes into it. The uncomfortable part made the end result, made the finish line that much more worth it.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah. Much more sweet. And you know, speaking of you know, eating and diet, like if you miss a day, I miss days. I have a day that it totally went out the window. Guess what? Start again next day. Miss a workout? Keep moving. Got strife in your marriage or your family? Keep working towards that, keep leading. We don't just quit. Quitting is failure. The plan is not always gonna go as planned. Start over. Baby steps, go back to the basics of all those things. It's not over. It's only over when we quit.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah, when we stop. You you mentioned it. People have heard about on those podcasts. I struggle with the eating part. I have stayed disciplined now for two months in my eating and I'm down 22 pounds. Don't get me wrong. I really wanted to eat some ice cream in those times, but I didn't. Because I knew that if I just stay consistent, if I continue to watch what I'm eating, if I continue to look at that goal, it'll be worth it. Has it been hard? Yes. I I I mentioned I love ice cream and I I really like crumble cookies. I was in the crumble cookie store the other day and bought some cookies for some folks and didn't have any for myself. There's that the discipline piece, right? Congrats. The other day, uh Jenny and I were just on the road. We were on a trip. I was walking through the lobby and I bought her a little drumstick ice cream thing and took it up to her in the room. I went and you know, took my shower, so I wasn't in the room when she was eating it, but but those are the little things, right? It's I'm okay putting myself in those positions. Know why I'm okay putting myself in those positions? Because I get another chance to exercise some discipline. I get another check mark, a little success that I can be around sweets and I don't partake in the sweets. And I'm not saying that to pump myself up or anything, but that's just an example. I will tell you, food is a struggle. But I've found a lot of joy in being able to resist and having the discipline to say, you know what? People can eat around. You know, again, Jenny around our on the road. We go out to eat. Order what we can go wherever you want. I'll figure out what to eat that's gonna fit my what I'm eating, and that brings me joy, right? Yeah, just being able to go and sit there and have a conversation with my wife while she's enjoying food. It would be nice if I could eat all the things and not gain weight like she does, but I can't do that. And that's okay. Yeah, that's a success in my life, that's discipline in my life. That is something I've had to learn. Will I fall off the tracks? Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And there will be times where I make a choice to get off that track because I want to indulge, knowing that I have the discipline and I have the ability to come back to right where I am.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah, I love that. That's it's a good perspective. And you know, I kind of was in the same position being in Las Vegas last weekend. You know, I I missed my normal workouts, but I didn't stop moving. I got up and went for a walk and just got to enjoy a cool, breezy morning, listening to fighter jets take off, and that was fulfilling enough to mimic a workout, but I didn't just do nothing. Sometimes we gotta do those things, you gotta adapt, right? Depending on the circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Resilience, not just mental resilience, physical resilience in life, get you to the comfort zone. The comfort zone can also be detrimental. Don't stay in the comfort zone, continue to grow, continue to move, and continue to celebrate the little things, right? Again, I just shared about the diet. You know, maybe yours is finances, maybe you struggle to save. Start little, build baby steps, move forward. Maybe yours is you know, is marriage, maybe it's adapting to being able being in the same household with somebody, and you know he or she doesn't, well, he doesn't put the toilet seat down, or you know, you know, whatever, little things. Well, the only way to change is to change. The only way to move forward is to move forward. You have all the control within you to do whatever you want to do. You just have to make a make the choice to do it. Make the choice to trudge through if if need be. Or maybe sometimes it's a run-through. Maybe it's taking a walk, listening to fighter jazz take off. Maybe it's just you know giving giving your spouse a an ice cream cone when you know that you're not eating it. Maybe it's you know bringing home flowers, maybe it's you know taking the kids out to eat, maybe it's taking the kids for ice cream, maybe it's showing up at the at the office with with some healthy snacks because you know that some of your employees are on a diet. You know, whatever that looks like, it can it can go in so many different ways if you sit back and you pay attention, if you're aware of it, if you're resilient and you're you're doing what you do, it's amazing what you can do for others.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Those are all great examples, Cole. And All of us can relate to all those examples at some point in our our life, right? I wanted to add a couple practical takeaways. Ask yourself, what's still in my control? Most of us are worried about stuff that's out of our control. What's in your control? Start there. Create a minimum standard, quote unquote, for what a bad day is. I mentioned for me, it's getting off track with my diet. I know that if I start out my morning not eating something healthy that I normally eat every day, the rest of the day is probably a shot. That first thing that goes in my body sets the stage for the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

That's true. Can I interject? Because this morning I showed up a little early and Mark hadn't finished his oatmeal and he gave me a hard time because I was early and I was interrupting his oatmeal. So I had to just pause and let him finish and so that we could do this podcast and he could be in the right frame of mind.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

So I reframed that failure, so to speak, and I provided my feedback to you. But those are just a couple practical takeaways, you know, I think we can use in our daily life, and it's really easy to get overwhelmed and consumed by life. And the things that happen that are out of our control. We just have to take a step back, go back to the basics, and start over. Getting overwhelmed is not good for us. It's easy to let happen. So take a step back. Start over.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

It is okay to hit the pause button. It is okay to plan some time off. If you're a planner and you have to you have to have it in your schedule, you heard uh Kurt mention it a couple weeks ago on on a podcast that he pla he has to plan a day off. Sundays is their day to rest. Plan that time in your life. You're going to be more successful, you're going to be more energized, you're going to feel better if you plan and hit the pause button every once in a while. Life is a rat race. Life is busy, life can be chaotic, life is non-stop.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Hit the pause button, especially the American way of life.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

You and I have both traveled all over the world, and we know that the way we live life in America is not like everywhere else. We are going so fast we can't even stop and breathe. Other countries are not like this. And so it's unfortunately part of our society and culture, but it doesn't have to be the way you do life. You can slow down, and actually it's a lot better without going 100 miles an hour. Give your brain a chance to catch up with your body and vice versa. There's just so much going on. It is overwhelming. Our American way of life is overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, go to Europe and try and get anything done in the middle of the afternoon. The early afternoon, mid-afternoon. You're not going to because a lot of those countries take naps. They have siesta. Right? And will they be sleeping? Maybe or maybe not, but they are taking a break.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Yeah, that coffee shop won't be open.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Nope. They are hitting the pause button. Yep. And you can be just as successful. Whatever that looks like in life, you can be just as success as successful if you hit that pause button too. Even here in America, where it never stops.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Maybe even more successful, because I think that's the false narrative we push is hard, work harder, work harder, work harder. And you said it a couple times, we're banging our head against the wall and not getting anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah. Your body needs to recharge. And your body will be happier if you recharge. Your mind will be happier if you recharge, if you if you hit that pause button. And don't don't get me wrong, please don't get it twisted. I've been there. That's why we can talk about it. I've been there.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

We've lacked that mental clarity.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

That's right. If I wasn't on the go, if I wasn't, you know, full full straight ahead and running through things, then I wasn't happy, or so I thought. You heard me say it earlier in this episode. Work is my comfort. I enjoy work. I also enjoy some rest. And I have learned to schedule some downtime, to schedule some relaxed time. Sometimes in the middle of the week. You know, I just log out of my computer and and go sit on the back porch and take a break and or you know, go for a walk and just take some downtime. We we have lost that.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

That is abnormal behavior in America.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Where everything is go, go, go, go, go to the next bigger and badder and faster thing, and we're losing we're losing our joy.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah. We gotta plan it, like you said. Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

If that's what it takes, plan it in there. That doesn't mean you're lazy. That doesn't mean you're less efficient. That doesn't mean that you're, you know, behind the power curve or anything else. It just means you're might be figuring things out. Maybe you're figuring it out faster than what your bosses are. Maybe you're figuring it out faster than what your neighbors are.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

And maybe that burnout is the signal. Plan some nothingness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah. Plan some time. And when you plan that nothingness, I would encourage you to plan that nothingness with your phones off. Or at least out of reach.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Yeah. The scrolling. Yes. It's it's just killing our brains. Yes. Again, guilty.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I I do everything in my power, and I'm I'm attached to my phone for work a lot. But even then, I will disconnect from my phone for a day. Not a whole day most of the time, but for a time period. And I feel better when I do it. When I actually stick to it.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

You know what we need to plan for, Cole? The next episode.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

The next episode? How about the next chapter?

SPEAKER_02 28:20

The next chapter in our podcast. I love it. Alright, man. I will talk as usual.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Hell yeah. Hey, thanks for listening. If this episode challenged you, good. Leadership without the uniform isn't loud. It's daily. It's quiet. It's built into small decisions that no one else needs. This is your reminder to reclaim it. Reclaim your standards. Reclaim your discipline. Reclaim your responsibility at home, at work, and in your own life. No one is coming to assign your next mission. The next chapter is built by the first week, choose to be tomorrow morning. We'll see you next week.