Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

It’s one of those lines that’s funny until you realise it’s the truest thing you’ve ever heard.

Because plans always look perfect in the calm, quiet moments when you’re sketching them out. The checklist is neat. The calendar is colour-coded. You feel like an organisational god.

And then Monday morning shows up, and life casually punches you in the mouth.

The kids get sick. The car won’t start. A client cancels the meeting you stayed up late preparing for. The thing you thought was “locked in” turns out to be anything but.

I can’t count how many weeks I’ve had where my perfectly mapped-out plan disintegrated by 9:15am Monday. Not because I’m bad at planning — but because life doesn’t care about your spreadsheet.

We love the idea of control. Our brains crave it. That’s why we plan — it gives us the illusion that we can tame the chaos.

But the Stoics were brutally clear about this: most of life is outside our control.

Epictetus taught that everything falls into two buckets: the stuff you can control (your thoughts, your choices, your actions) and the stuff you can’t (pretty much everything else).

Here’s the problem: we spend 90% of our time stressing about the second bucket.

Take one Monday last year. My diary was packed — three client calls, a strategy workshop, school pick-up, dinner with friends. I had it all timed to the minute.

At 8:30am, the Wi-Fi dropped out. At 9:00am, my youngest was sent home sick from school. At 9:45am, I got a call from a client saying they needed to “pause” the project we’d spent weeks preparing.

By 10am, my masterplan looked like toilet paper after a thunderstorm.

And yet, here’s the lesson: I couldn’t control any of it. The only thing I could control was how I responded.

The old me would’ve stewed. Complained. Blamed the universe. Instead, I just got on with it. Cancelled what needed cancelling. Made soup for my daughter. Reworked the week.

Not perfect. Not painless. But a hell of a lot better than pretending I could bend reality to my will.

If you want a crash course in plans going to shit, have kids.

Nothing obliterates a “perfect” plan faster than a toddler with gastro.

I remember one birthday party we’d planned for weeks. Guest list sorted. Cake ordered. Decorations up. I’d even prepped some games that, frankly, deserved an award.

An hour in, it started raining. Not just rain — a monsoon. The backyard setup collapsed. The kids were crammed inside, high on sugar, tearing through the house like feral raccoons.

Then my daughter spilled bright blue cordial all over her white dress and burst into tears.

Meanwhile, the other parents were giving me that sympathetic-but-slightly-judgy look, the one that says, “Well, this is memorable.”

In that moment, I could’ve snapped. I could’ve sulked about the ruined plan. Instead, I laughed. Because what else can you do?

We dragged everyone into the garage, cranked some music, and turned it into a dance party. By the end, the kids were sweaty, messy, and having the time of their lives.

Was it the party I planned? Not even close. Was it better? Honestly, yeah.

Parenting chaos is one thing. Business chaos? That’s a different beast.

I once worked for weeks on a campaign that, on paper, was bulletproof. The creative was sharp. The budget was locked. The client was happy.

Two weeks into the campaign, everything is going to plan and... the client calls: “I've decided to change business direction. Thanks. Bye.”

That sinking feeling in your stomach? That’s the death of a plan.

Here’s what I’ve learned: failure hurts less when you expect it to be part of the process. The Stoics didn’t treat setbacks as surprises. They expected them. Marcus Aurelius literally reminded himself every morning: “Today I will meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, arrogant…” He wasn’t being pessimistic. He was training himself to stay calm when reality didn’t match the plan.

The same applies in business. Some campaigns hit. Some flop. Some clients are a dream. Some disappear. You can’t plan your way to certainty. You can only prepare to adapt.

And often, the failures teach you more than the wins. That botched client experience taught us exactly what not to do (or who not to work with) — lessons that made us better.

Here’s the paradox: planning is essential. But so is being willing to throw the plan out the window.

The military has a saying: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

It’s not an excuse to be sloppy. It’s a reminder that plans are only as good as your ability to adapt when things inevitably go sideways.

When I look back, the moments I’ve been proudest of aren’t the times everything went perfectly. They’re the times everything went wrong, and I stayed calm enough to figure it out.

That’s where resilience is built. Not in your planner, but in your response to the chaos.

Now, before I sound like some calm, stoic Zen master, let me be real with you.

I’ve also completely lost it over tiny things.
I’ve yelled at the TV remote for not working.
I’ve sworn at IKEA instructions that made no sense.
I once nearly cried because my café ran out of almond croissants.

We’re all human. We’re bound to fuck it up. I still do, all the time.

The difference is I’m getting better at catching myself. Better at laughing at the chaos instead of raging against it. Better at remembering that most of what goes wrong won’t matter in a week.

Life isn’t meant to be a perfect execution of your schedule.

It’s messy. It’s unpredictable. It throws curveballs you didn’t budget for.

And that’s not a design flaw — that’s the training ground. Every plan that goes to shit is a chance to practise patience, flexibility, and humility.

So by all means, make the plan. Colour-code it. Schedule it. Build the dream.
But don’t marry it.

Because when (not if) it all unravels, that’s your moment. That’s when you stop pretending you control the world, and start showing that you can adapt to it.

That’s the real work.

Until next time,

Broden Johnson