Its. Time. To. Move.
“Now I know a refuge never grows from a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose, gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.”
This is a lyric from one of my all-time favorite Indigo Girls songs, and it is extremely appropriate right now.
There has been a lot of chins in hands over the past six weeks. Thoughts have been in all kinds of directions depending on who you are, what your life has been like, what your circumstances are, and the list goes on. Everyone’s reaction to difficulties is unique, because everyone is unique. It’s never my place or anyone else’s for that matter, to judge how someone feels.
Any kind of significant change can cause someone to freeze and be fearful. This is normal, and in fact is the first phase of change. I call this the “Freak out” stage. The stage where we can’t believe it’s happening and we want to pretend it’s really not! Eventually though, the reality sinks in and we have to figure out what to do, and then begin taking some action.
I Have Been Through a Significant Amount of Crisis in My Life.
As a result, there are two things that exemplify how I live.
The first is that I am continuously proactive in the most important priorities in life so that I am not compromised or have a weakness in these areas. This is the 3 Circles Living philosophy of course, and why it is relevant to this message is that a crisis in any area of your life typically will require some measure of extreme focus to get through. It’s difficult to focus in a specific area when other areas are collapsing at the same time, and in addition, a crisis that touches any of your priority areas will immediately expose compromise (weakness) and make the issue worse.
The second-thing is that once I am aware of a crisis or an imminent change, my “freak out” stage is over swiftly. I immediately start looking for immediate solutions and for the future and current opportunities present in the change.
Being Positive Through Change
This is one of the reasons, if you have been following my content over the past six weeks, that I have been consistently driving positive and encouraging messaging into the marketplace. I know what it’s like to be terrorized with fear, anxiety, loss, etc. and then get through it and move on. I have had to do it over and over in my life. Then when you can look back, maybe six months later, or six years later, you see how much good came from whatever happened.
Most people are not through the hard part of the current situation yet on a personal level. When 78% of the working population is paycheck to paycheck and 88% of the adult population is metabolically unhealthy, then it’s easy to see how this road to recovery for many will be hard.
But…if the lessons are learned, this could be one of the most positive radical changes in a culture in history, and the amount of positive that will spring forth in the future is beyond what anyone could imagine. Anyway, I am bouncing around here, so let me jump back to the main point…
It’s Time To Take Action
There are some massive trends that were already in motion prior to current events that are now accelerating. This represents huge opportunity. When trends occur, they are like waves in the ocean (hence my paddling reference…yes I know the picture is not in the ocean…but it is paddling😊). I surfed a little when I was younger so I can give you this reference point as to how it really feels! When a wave is coming, if you are on a surf board, you have three possible outcomes. You can paddle and catch the wave, you can sit still and it will roll right by you, or if you are in the wrong place, you get pulled into the wave and slammed to the bottom and potentially get hurt (I had my share of these on a surfboard!).
In the big picture it is all of our responsibility to make the best life for ourselves and the people we love, and to use our blessings and gifts in the contribution to others. Identifying trends is a big part of that. Some industries will emerge from this period little changed. If you are in one of these, things will resume and expand back in time. Manufacturing is a good example of this, although I would submit that USA manufacturing is going to grow as people and companies look towards the future and prefer to limit their exposure to global supply chain interruptions. So this wave will roll right by.
Some white-collar support work will trend downward from an employee perspective as companies move a bit towards remote workers and contract workers at an increasing rate. This was happening already because of technology and health care costs, but it will accelerate because many companies that weren’t on this page, just became that way in response to the situation. Short-term by the way, the commercial real estate office market and retail real estate market is going to take a hit…online shopping just accelerated and work-from home efficiencies will decrease the need for office space for a while until it is filled in by new players. These are a few examples of getting slammed.
Mega Trends that you can look to…service businesses like financial services, insurance, real estate, just got substantially more efficient in that the clients are going to be more accustomed to working through transactions and relationship development remotely via technology. This will expand the “bandwidth” of time available to do business and create productivity gains. In addition, these kinds of industries will benefit from the movement to creating individual economic immunity through expanding home-based income streams, so more people will be working in these industries as sidelines. In addition, markets that have lifestyle features and are less urban, will see substantial uptick in demand.
Obviously the home-business industry, the health and wellness industry, and the online goods and services sectors will enjoy dramatic and accelerated growth. There are so many more things I could talk about here, but to the point….look for the trends…WAVES…you can get in front of and start paddling.
If you wait to get busy until after things are clear? You are going to be way behind. There are opportunities abounding right now. You have time opportunities to make yourself better as a person. You have time to work on getting fit and healthy. You have time to start a new income generating vehicle. If you are in any kind of business that provides a product or service to the public, you have the opportunity to connect with people and serve them.
There is plenty to be done.
Turn off the out-of-control, irresponsible media. Tune out the fear-mongers. Get on your “board” and get paddling.
If you are trying to figure out your next step, send me a message and if I can help, I will.
I hope you found this helpful. Please share with others if you believe they would benefit.
Here is a recent video on How to Design an Awesome Life
Many Blessings, Todd
P.S. “3 Circles Living” will not only help you condition yourself properly, but it will also give you an exact formula for achieving your richest life possible. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen!
