The Next Time Someone Says “Be Resilient” I’ll Scream!
Lockdown sucks. I have absolutely detested going to the grocery and navigating the aisles, looking for the non-existent bag of flour, or any meat that’s not chicken thighs.
I’ve hated going into my lift, wondering who was breathing in there before me. I’ve hated avoiding the lift altogether and walking up 5 flights of stairs, still not knowing who was there before me and not being able to hold my breath as I climb to my floor.
I’ve hated that I can’t visit my clients or grow my business. I’ve hated that every finance person from CFOs to domestic money managers at home have decided to hoard resources, like cash for investment or food for an apocalypse.
I’ve hated that the chancellor came up with great solutions for small business owners which are not accessible for my too young limited company. I’ve hated a lot of things about this experience.
Now that’s off my chest, I’m thoroughly delighted to share what the last 90 days of self — isolation have actually made possible.
The 5 key points in brief:
- As business owners small or large, we need to read the early warning signs and be vigilant on strategies to secure continuity.
- Too much time spent only in the present and new can be disastrous for your mental health.
- Our brains have a considerable and expansive capacity to learn.
- When the going gets tough, your strengths get tougher, and your weaknesses evaporate into un-importance.
- Resilience is a multidimensional game.
What I learned in the last 90 days.
Before the lockdown, my partner and I were running a consulting firm. We’d just started booking clients for meetings and workshops, and we’d written 4 proposals that were all shaping up to be great long-term deals. 2 of those options disappeared immediately, and another within 3 weeks. We still thankfully retained one opportunity in the bank. My main takeaway: Read the early warning signs and be vigilant on strategies to secure your business continuity. Did you know that the global pandemic risk has been on the global risk register for years? Yet in looking at the worlds top 10 businesses, it had somehow escaped their headline view, and perhaps board attention too.
Like everyone, I spent some inappropriate amount of time gawking at the news, checking the stats, and like a premier league season waited for the UK to top the European charts. I watched in horror as Prince Charles became ill, then BJ. In those early days, the only thing I was doing that could be classified as resilient was staying up late to get my grocery slots booked before they disappeared. My key takeaway: Too much time spent on the present and new is disastrous for your mental health.
In April, I woke up. When I wasn’t spending time preparing for our single client, I was studying strategy, risk management, and digital marketing. By the end of April, I accumulated more than 120 hours of free and paid training and felt my entire brain structure had changed. My key takeaway: Our brains have a considerable and expansive capacity to learn.
2 years from now, I am going to look back at April 2020 and think that was the moment. That was the time I learned what my real resilience capacity was. When the going gets tough, your strengths get tougher, and your weaknesses evaporate into un-importance.
My partner became an even better data scientist. He built a fraud detection algorithm for a company in 5 days that resulted in a 30% improvement in their anomaly detection output.
As for me, I wrote 3 courses. A course on how to write a course, a course on productivity, and a course on Managing effective Career Transitions. All these ideas had been on burners for a long time, but after COVID, they’ve become a reality. I discovered 3 strengths that I need to leverage more, curiosity, creativity, and communicating through the written word.
Resilience is a multidimensional game. It’s about your relationships. I found that some of my oldest relationships have remained my best during this time. It’s about family. Not everyone will be ok at the same time, and you need to look out for each other. It’s about self-care. I can do with a gym right about now, but I learned to appreciate more my time on the coast, since being locked in a 5th-floor apartment. It’s about purpose. The greatest thing for me has been a deeper connection to a purpose, and I’ve committed to making work worthwhile for a lot more people.
I haven’t been perfect. I am pretty sure I’ve done far less youtube exercise workouts than I should. Still, my resilience has been tested and found well intact during this crisis.
