Mindset & Opportunities
The world may feel like it's in a tailspin, but every good pilot knows that when the plane feels out of control it's time to focus on solutions, not dwe...
I've been running an agency for over 40 years, and I've seen three recessions, a stock market crash, and a pandemic try to take my clients out. Every time, the businesses that survived weren't the ones with the biggest war chest -- they were the ones whose leader stopped panicking long enough to make a decision. Every good pilot knows that when the plane feels out of control, it's time to focus on solutions, not dwell on the problem.
(This doesn't mean ignoring the problem, it means being aware of it so that you understand what is happening and, therefore, can start implementing solution-focused measures.)
There are four things I think business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders should be focusing on right now:
- Stepping Into Leadership to Become a Role Model
- Seizing Opportunity Without Being Opportunistic
- Maintaining Routine
- Focus on What IS, Not What IF
Stepping into Leadership
It's critical that today, right now, you make a decision to become a role model. You don't need to be at the top of an international game like LeBron James or have a following like an influencer to lead. I've watched clients with a five-person shop out-lead Fortune 500 marketing departments simply because the owner refused to blink first. You can be a leader and a role model in your own space, at your own scale.
To do that, you have to start by stepping out of the drama. Step out of the chaos that's going on and don't feed into it. Right now, people are watching you: your family, your friends, your employees. They're seeing what you're doing and your behavior, how you act. Your leadership will determine their response.
If you act chaotic, frazzled and scared, guess what they're gonna do? They're going to act chaotic and frazzled and scared. I've sat in enough boardrooms during a bad quarter to know that panic is contagious, and so is calm. This same principle is exactly why building genuine trust with a client matters more during a crisis than any status update ever could -- people don't remember what you said, they remember how steady you were when you said it.
This isn't the time to be in fear. This isn't the time to take a back seat and feed into the drama. This is a time to step up to leadership.
The Difference Between Opportunity & Opportunistic
There's a big difference between seizing opportunity and being opportunistic.
Opportunistic is buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer and flipping them for 10x or 100x the price.
Seizing opportunity is turning your distillery, your brew house into a hand sanitizer manufacturing company and charging a reasonable and fair price. I've watched clients pivot an entire product line in under three weeks and come out the other side with a business unit that outlasted the crisis that created it. If you seize an opportunity, you may suddenly have a whole additional business that supports you and your team for the short or long-term.
Maintaining Routine
Suddenly working from home has disrupted a lot of routines. It's so easy to lose your good, productive daily habits when your overall routine is broken. If you and your team are working remote, I encourage you to start creating those routines at home. Keeping as much of life as routine as possible will help you focus your energy on doing the right things, rather than puzzling over whether to change out of your pajamas after three days.
A note on this front: many people are now working from home with kids that are also at home. This, obviously, requires some deviation from a traditional workday routine, but wake-up times, meal times and so on should feel like regular days. And you can create new, temporary routines to give you and your kids a healthy amount of structure so they're still learning, playing, creating, and helping out around the house.
Focus On What IS, Not What IF
Where Focus Goes, Energy Flows. I can't take credit for the catchy saying, that's wisdom from Tony Robbins, but after four decades of writing ads for companies riding out one crisis or another, I've found it's true.
If you focus on the negative, if you focus on the destructive, if you focus on the chaos, all of your energy goes there. Wouldn't it be better to focus on creating positive (or at least net neutral outcomes) right now?
A lot of people are focusing their energy on the negative, on the darkness, on what's wrong.
It's okay to stay safe. It's okay to be concerned about COVID-19. It's not okay to let that destroy what's good and what's working in your life or your business.
There are a lot of things to be afraid of right now: loss of health, family, income. And while those are real fears, the fear of loss is not loss itself. When we allow our fear to dominate, we're focusing on something we don't directly have control over.
The trick is to focus on what you CAN do, what positive strides you can make. Because when you focus on the negative you're planting seeds that can manifest the very thing you feared in the first place.
We all know that COVID-19 is going to cause a fiscal mess for most businesses. That most businesses will be affected, changed, and hurt in some way. Don't focus on "what ifs" or the long-run outcome. Focus on what you can control today. There's no pre-destined outcome, we're not fated to end up someplace terrible. The ending to the story is up to us and how we handle the tough times.
Your mind drives your mouth and when you speak about what's going on, you have two ways of speaking about it. It's either with caring and compassion or chaos and complaining.
Complaining and chaos does no good. All it does is amplify or feed into the chaos. Get control of your mouth and your mind and be thoughtful about the words that come out because those words can make or break someone's day. I've built my agency on the idea that a client doesn't need to be agreed with, they need someone who'll tell them the truth -- the same rule applies to how you talk to your own team when things get rocky. Complaining is the easy way out; telling people the truth with compassion is what actually earns trust.
Where your focus goes, energy flows. If you constantly tell yourself, "I can't do this," well...guess what? You can't. If you say that you suck at something, you're right. If you flip that, if you change the narrative in your mind, you can change the focus of your energy. You can completely flip it to where the energy that you've put out into the world determines what you get back. I can, I will. I am. That's way more powerful.
When you focus on possibility you create power and momentum.
How you show up matters, the things you do build energy and momentum. You have a choice whether to show up, afraid or fearless. It's all up to you.
Things will get better. Look at the history of the world. Look at the history of the economy. Bad things happen and we recover from them. This too shall pass. I've watched clients build entire new revenue lines out of a crisis -- the same instinct that makes for a great pivot is the same instinct that makes for a headline that earns the read instead of getting skipped: you stop staring at the problem and start looking for the opening.
Frequently Asked Questions
Being opportunistic is exploiting the situation—like buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer to flip for 10x or 100x the price. Seizing opportunity means creating real value, like turning your distillery into a hand sanitizer manufacturing company and charging a fair price. One screws people over, the other builds a legitimate business that supports your team.
Your employees, family, and friends are watching how you act right now. If you're chaotic, frazzled, and scared, they're going to mirror that behavior. Your leadership directly determines their response, so stepping out of the drama and into calm, solution-focused leadership is critical.
When your overall routine is broken, it's easy to lose productive daily habits and waste energy on basic decisions (like whether to finally change out of your pajamas). Keeping wake-up times, meal times, and work structure consistent helps you focus your energy on doing the right things instead of spiraling in the chaos.
It means focusing on what you can control today instead of obsessing over long-run outcomes or things outside your control. Fear of loss isn't loss itself—when you focus on negative 'what ifs,' you plant seeds that can manifest the very thing you feared. Focus on positive strides you can make right now.
Where your focus goes, energy flows. If you constantly tell yourself 'I can't do this,' you're right—you can't. But if you flip the narrative to 'I can, I will, I am,' you redirect your energy toward possibility and create actual power and momentum. Your words (internal and external) make or break not just your day, but the reality you create.
