On January 11, 2024, winter arrived in the Okanagan Valley with a ferocity no one could ignore.

Temperatures plunged to -30°C and held there for five devastating days. When the cold finally released its grip, the damage was staggering. Up to 99% of the region’s grape buds had been destroyed. Vines that had taken years ”in some cases decades” to establish were killed outright. In a matter of hours, one of Canada’s most celebrated wine regions lost the better part of a vintage and, for many producers, far more than that.

For an industry already navigating climate volatility, shifting consumer preferences, and fierce global competition, the freeze didn’t just damage the crop. It forced a reckoning.

But here’s what struck me most about the aftermath: not everyone was starting from zero.

I’ve known renowned viticulturalist and winemaker Eric Von Krosigk for many years. He is, by any measure, one of the most knowledgeable and forward-thinking minds in the Canadian wine industry, a man who has spent his entire professional life not just making exceptional wine, but asking the questions that most of the industry hadn’t thought to ask yet.

Long before January 2024, Eric was already planting grape varieties at higher elevations and farther north than anyone had previously considered viable in the Okanagan.

While others were comfortable with established patterns, he was studying climate data, rethinking varietal selection, and preparing the ground ”literally and strategically” for a future he could see coming.

He wasn’t reacting. He was already packed.

When the freeze hit and the industry was forced into the kind of sweeping reinvention that Eric had been quietly preparing for, he didn’t scramble for a new map. He already had one. And today, as the Okanagan wine industry undertakes a profound rethinking of everything ”vine selection, market positioning, customer relationships, the very identity of what BC wine can be” Eric is not just a survivor of the crisis. He is one of its most valuable guides.

That’s what it means to pack before you’re ready.

The Principle

Most of us wait for the signal before we prepare. We respond to the diagnosis, the resignation, the market shift, the -30°C freeze. We treat preparation as a reaction rather than a discipline.

The leaders who navigate disruption with the most clarity and calm aren’t simply more talented than their peers. They’re more prepared. Not because they predicted the specific event ”no one predicted that particular January” but because they had already asked the hard questions, developed the deeper capabilities, and built the resilience that disruption demands.

Packing before you’re ready means building capacity before the role requires it. It means developing the skill before the opportunity arrives. It means having the difficult internal conversation before external circumstances force it upon you.

It means, in the language of Full Spectrum Leadership, choosing to lead yourself first, deliberately, proactively, and without waiting for permission from the future.

The Professional Application: The Leader Who Is Already Packed

In my work with business owners and executives, I encounter two distinct types of leaders when crisis or opportunity arrives.

The first type is capable and well-intentioned, but reactive. They’ve been managing the present so effectively that they’ve neglected to prepare for the future. When disruption comes ”and it always comes” they’re talented people operating at a disadvantage.

The second type isn’t necessarily more gifted. But they’ve been asking different questions. They’ve been investing in capabilities their current role doesn’t yet demand. They’ve been having conversations about the future while it still feels theoretical. They’ve been reading the terrain ahead while others are focused entirely on the terrain beneath their feet.

When disruption arrives for the second type of leader, it is still hard. But it isn’t paralyzing. They’ve already done the work that others are now scrambling to begin.

The freeze didn’t create Eric Von Krosigk’s strategy. It revealed it.

Ask yourself honestly: when your next disruption arrives ”and it will”, will it reveal your preparation, or expose its absence?

The Coaching Dimension: Packing for Growth

I’ve observed a consistent pattern in coaching high-performing leaders over many years. The ones who grow the most don’t wait until the gap is obvious to everyone before they address it. They sense it first. They act on it before the evidence becomes undeniable.

They pack before they’re ready.

This is, at its core, what the coaching relationship is designed to accelerate. Not crisis management ”though it can serve that purpose”, but proactive preparation. The development of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and leadership range before the next level of challenge demands it.

The most powerful leaders I work with are never comfortable with only the skills that got them here. They’re always packing for where they’re going.

That distinction ”between developing for the present and preparing for the future” is one of the defining characteristics of Full Spectrum Leadership. It is the difference between a leader shaped by circumstance, and a leader who shapes it.

The Question That Lands Differently After a Freeze

When I think about what that January freeze really revealed, it’s this: the future doesn’t negotiate.

It doesn’t send a warning. It doesn’t wait for convenient timing. It doesn’t honor the plans you meant to make. It simply arrives, and in its arrival, it makes an honest accounting of every investment you did or didn’t make in your own preparation.

The Okanagan wine industry is now engaged in a reckoning that is, for all its pain, also a remarkable opportunity. Vines are being replanted. Business models are being reimagined. The industry is asking, with fresh urgency, questions that should have been on the agenda years ago.

And the people leading that conversation, the ones standing at the 30,000-foot view with clarity while others are still processing the shock, are the ones who had already been packing.

So Here Is My Challenge to You

You don’t need a freeze to start preparing.

What capabilities are you developing today that your current role doesn’t yet demand, but your next level will? What hard conversations are you postponing until circumstances force them? What strategic questions about your industry, your organization, or your own leadership are you leaving for later, because later feels safer than now?

Later is rarely safer. It’s usually just later.

Full Spectrum Leadership is not built in the moment of crisis. It is built in all the quiet moments before it, in the disciplines, the investments, and the questions that most people defer until the temperature drops to -30°C and the choices have already been made for them.

The future is coming.

Pack before you’re ready.

Let’s Keep Talking!

Peter Comrie
Co-Founder and Human Capital Specialist at Full Spectrum Leadership Inc.
Reach out to me at peter@fullspectrumleadership.com

Or connect with me here to book a call!

Reach me on Linkedin; https://www.linkedin.com/in/petercomrie/

Tags: Conscious Leadership, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Proactive Leadership, Leadership Legacy, Full Spectrum Leadership,