BLOG: Don't Waste This Crisis: Use This Opportunity To "Go Big"

While I'm not a huge Jordan Peterson fan, he did an hour long interview with American entrepreneur, Patrick Bet-David, for Bet-David's YouTube channel Valuetainment last summer.  At the beginning of the conversation, Bet-David brings up the following phrase to Peterson: "Tough times produce strong men; strong men produce good times; good times produce weak men and weak men produce tough times." 

Bet-David went on to ask the question, "if that it is true, where at we at today?" Now this is where the year, 2019, is paramount. We were in good times and as Peterson mentioned "there was plenty to optimistic with a healthy dose of attentive caution." If we plug the situation into the phrase, it would only be fitting that those good times were producing weak people. 

Now, let me make one thing clear the term "weak" is not to be construed as "offensive," but a way to connect the time with the personality of society. In good times, people don't have a lot to worry about things are going well - they have a well-paying job that challenges them in the right way, the economy is going well, there's no outside force such trying to harm them. There really was little to worry about a year. We were in good times. 

Flash forward 13 months later, we are in the middle of a global pandemic that has cost over 200,000 Americans their lives, social injustice and racial tension with a lack of leadership on the national stage. The concern of the highly contagious and deadly virus shutdown the economy, businesses were affected forcing them to layoff or furlough many staff. Now not only were people worried about contracting the virus, but also worrying about whether or not they would still be employed. 

Things quickly shifted from good to bad times. The times are cyclical and if are to believe in the pattern, these tough times will produce strong people. 

These times we're in right now provide us with a great opportunity and we need to take advantage of it. Last week I listened to a  Zoom talk by Ric Elias, the CEO and Co-Found of Red Ventures as well as BC and Harvard Business School grad. Other than being a collect of bad winesª he said something that stood out "luck comes dressed as a challenge" and that is exactly how he and his team are looking at these times. 

He told his leadership team many times, "we are not going to waste this crisis." What he means by it is they are not going to come out of this grateful that it passed, but grateful that it happened. Figuring out ways to re-invent the way they do business and what changes can be made. That is a tremendous outlook to have during a difficult time and will ultimately produce the strong leaders needed to produce the good times we wish to see in future years.

ª - Ric Elias is a collector of bad wines because he drinks the good ones. So in life you should collect bad wines. 

Book of the Week: "The Power of Positive Leadership" by Jon Gordon

COVID-19 has changed the way we see the the world and changes to all professions are coming - if they haven't already. But there is one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed. What has not been affected, but will be growing is greater collaboration. 

We have been isolated physically by the virus, but we don't need to be. Now more than ever, communication and collaboration with each other is paramount. I've pulled a bunch of bullet points from Jon Gordon's book that most effectively highlight the importance of finding the positive even in the darkest of times. 

While collaboration and facilitation moves to be the norm as we progress forward, it is not going to be easy. All facilitators will run into issues when trying to collaborate. It's going to happen. Not everyone may buy in, but it's important to not to run ahead. It's way easier to go all in as a team than to run ahead. 

This leads into our next point: not letting our inner reptile eat our positive dog. There comes a time when busyness overtakes us and we feel we have more things on our to-do list than there are hours in a day. When this occurs, we are focused on doing the things we must do. We are in survival mode, we are focused less on uniting people and bringing them together. Essentially, our reptilian brain is taking over and eating our positive dog. 

As a nation, we our reptile is currently enjoying our positive dog for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Between the pandemic, the continued fight for racial equality and the lack of national leadership, there is not much unity for people to be positive about. 

But that's exactly what we need to do as a nation. In tough times, we have to be telling ourselves a positive story. Remember right after the Boston Marathon bombing, the city rallied around everyone and coined the phrase "Boston Strong?" It was a horrific event, but in an effort to show resilience - which us Bostonians are known to have - we told stories of courage, faith and unity. Turning a negative into a positive. Think back to your old junior high algebra courses and learning when you multiple two negatives it turns into a positive? 

Many people have said 2020 has been an absolute disaster of a year. But has it really? If we really try hard we can probably find some glimmer of hope. 

For me it was winning the club championship for the third time. It was not just my third title, there were many things that made this year's championship a special one.

First, it was the first one I won in match-play. The two other championships were stroke play events. I've always been the better stroke play player - I don't make many mistakes and when I do, I try to keep the high numbers off the scorecard. (Something I attribute to coach, who always preached "minimize the damage - a six is better than a seven, a seven's better than an eight.") Match play has always been tougher. Going head-to-head with my opponent. And the player I drew in the semifinals was a formidable match play player. She could outdrive me and pull off shots that I could not hit, so that win was something special. 

Second, I had to keep the every five year streak intact. The last championship I won was back in 2015 and the first one was in 2010, so it was only natural for me to win 2020. In fact was chatting with a fellow colleague in his office in January saying "yeah I'm a pretty good golfer, I have my name on the board a few times, 2010, 2015 ... going for the every five year thing." He smiles and says "it's 2020." 

And finally, the person I was going up against also had two previous championships. Could I really let her get her third championship? And more importantly the two years she won (2016 and 2018), I was her caddy. There was NO WAY she's was getting her third without me on the bag. 

So it all comes down to how you look at 2020. Are you a Tigger and can see the positive or are you Eeyore?* 

* - Note this reference to being a Tigger vs. Eeyore came from the late Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. And it was that "Last Lecture" that served as the inspiration for the title of this blog.