The Transitions You Can See Coming

About this Video:

Have you ever known a major change was coming but kept putting off thinking about it? I’ve done that more times than I’d like to admit. The problem is that avoiding a transition doesn’t make it easier—it usually means arriving at the hardest part completely unprepared.

In this video, I share what I’ve learned about the four stages of transition: anticipation, endings, the messy middle, and new beginnings. Drawing from my experience selling my business and navigating major life changes, I explore why the preparation we do before a transition often determines how well we handle what comes next. This conversation is about change, identity, resilience, and learning to prepare for life’s next chapter before it arrives.

Transcriptions:

I want to talk about something most people spend a lot of energy avoiding.

Not because it’s shameful, not because it’s complicated, but because it’s uncomfortable.

And uncomfortable things, if we’re honest, have a way of sitting in the waiting room of our minds for a very long time without ever getting called in.

I’m talking about transitions you can already see coming.

Here’s a situation I keep running into in my own life and in conversation with people I respect.

You know something big is coming, a health diagnosis, a parent in decline, a retirement, a business transition.

You can see it on the horizon, and instead of moving toward it, instead of doing any thinking about it at all, you wait.

You wait because planning for an ending feels like wishing for it.

I get that.

I’ve done it, and I want to tell you from experience that the waiting doesn’t protect you.

It just means you arrive at the hard part unprepared.

You know, there are four stages to every transition, and understanding them changed how I think about almost everything.

The first stage is anticipation.

You know something is coming.

This is actually a gift.

Even though it doesn’t feel like one, it’s the only window you get to think clearly before the ground shifts.

The second stage is the ending.

What used to be stops.

The last day.

The funeral.

The closing.

People think this is the whole thing.

It’s not.

It’s the beginning of the hard part.

You know, the third stage Susan Bradley calls a passage.

Bill Bridges calls it the neutral zone.

I just call it the messy middle.

Your old identity doesn’t fit.

Your new one isn’t formed yet.

You don’t know which way is up.

This is where people make their worst decisions.

It’s also, not coincidentally, where people buy boats.

I say that without judgment.

I’ve watched it happen to very smart people.

The boat never helps.

And then we get to the fourth stage, which is called a new beginning.

Not the end of difficulty, but the settling into what comes next, the new normal, finally feeling normal again.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you.

The quality of your new beginning is largely determined by what you did during anticipation.

If you use that first window, if you ask the hard questions, had the hard conversations, made even a rough plan, you arrive at the messy middle with something to stand on.

If you waited, you’re starting from zero while grieving under pressure.

That’s a bad time to figure things out.

You know, I had a food service company for many years.

The industry changed, and I needed another plan.

I found a buyer and thought I had everything planned out for what comes next.

I thought I knew how to breathe through the messy middle.

The truth is, I had a rough plan for a scenario that was about to happen.

But when my ending came, and I no longer was a business owner, I didn’t know who I was.

I hadn’t planned enough.

I hadn’t spent any time in the anticipation stage.

The same logic applies to your life.

I love Grateful Dead stories about a life well-lived, and here’s one.

The Grateful Dead used to play three-hour shows with no setlist.

People assumed they were improvising.

They weren’t.

They’d built decades of muscle memory and trust, so whatever showed up, they could play through it.

That’s what good anticipation does.

It doesn’t script your future.

It gives you the chops to handle whatever actually comes.

So here’s what I wanna leave you with.

Not a checklist, just a question worth sitting with.

What transition can you already see coming?

And are you using this time right now while you still have it to actually prepare?

You don’t have to have all the answers.

You just have to start asking.

That’s the work, and it’s worth doing.

Hey, I’m Josh Patrick.

This is the Long Strange Trip.

And if this landed for you, drop a comment.

I wanna know what stage of transition you’re in right now, and let’s figure this out together.