The NCAA basketball tournament is normally held every March and it's called March Madness. While they didn't host the event this year because of the Corona Virus, we certainly experienced our own different version of March Madness.
Every text and email and conversation with friends and clients seemed to begin with, "This is crazy." It felt like we were living in a bad movie experiencing a surreal moment that made you confront the reality that this isn't a game or a movie, but life as we know it. Each morning I woke up wondering if it was just a bad dream only to turn on the news and understand the seriousness of this situation.
The goal of basketball teams during March Madness is to survive and advance. Teams want to somehow, someway make it through one round to advance to the next. How they do it doesn't have to be pretty. They may not play their best. They may not thrive. They just want to win the battle today to give themselves a shot to compete in the next round where they hope to adapt and ultimately thrive.
From a physical standpoint it's the goal for all of us in April and the upcoming months. We have a new version of a virus that we haven't experienced before. The goal, if you get it, is to survive with a strong immune system, win the battle today, advance and allow your body to adapt (develop antibodies) so you can ultimately be stronger and thrive in the future.
From an economic, business and career standpoint for most of us the goal is the same. This year is likely not going to be great unless you are a grocery store, Amazon, Wall Mart, and make toilet paper. The goal is to find a way to survive so you can advance. As you advance you can then adapt and seek to thrive in the future.
Survive. Advance. Adapt. Thrive.
It's going to look different for each of us depending on our job, company, industry, situation etc. But the goal should be the same and I hope these four words help you. I keep saying them to myself each day as I take on this challenge with you.
If you watched my Positive Summit video I talked about The Shark and the Goldfish that I wrote during the great recession about my experience losing my job during the dot.com crash. It's the story of a goldfish that has always been fed. He gets brought to the beach and a wave of change hits and takes the goldfish back into the ocean with it. He must learn how to survive, advance, and adapt so he can thrive. He meets a nice shark that teaches him how to find food and how to adapt so he can ride the wave of a change to a successful future. It's a story for this time.
We've been hit by a massive wave of change. For most of us this is not a year that we are thinking about thriving. For many we are just trying to keep our head above water, pay our bills, feed our family, teach our kids, keep our homes, deal with the fear and anxiety, stay healthy and make it to another day.
In this spirit, let's look at the ocean of possibilities and maintain optimism and hope. Optimism is not a supplemental way to think. It's an essential way to think to overcome adversity and waves of change.
Let's look for ways to survive and be creative and innovative so we can advance and adapt that will allow us to thrive once again in the future.
Through this process when we look back on this time we'll learn that surviving allowed us to advance, our discomfort lead to our growth, the change made us adapt, and adapting made us stronger which helped us thrive as a result.
How are you surviving, advancing and adapting? Please share on my Facebook page, or Linkedin. I would love all of us to learn from each other.
-Jon
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