For Those Who Are Swimming and Can’t See the Shore
In show business there is the old phrase of “what have you done lately?”
It means (roughly) that you are only as good as your latest venture. So: sure you won an Oscar ten years ago, but you’re no longer an actor of any worth because your last five films bombed at the box office. It’s true, our sense of accomplishment can get all wrapped up in the culture of current-cy -- not money necessarily, but the validity of NOW. Not that you shouldn’t look forward, not that we don’t want to grow and achieve more, not that stagnancy is a good thing. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. An Oscar-winning actor is still an Oscar-winning actor. An Olympic medal doesn’t become irrelevant when the winner has turned 80 and can no longer do a triple salchow on the ice. Is Shakespeare worthless because he’s not alive to write another greatest hit this year?
That would be ridiculous, and we all recognize this.
So why do YOU feel, during the current Covid lockdown, that you have been wasting time, accomplishing nothing, treading water? Lets change your perspective about that a bit. After all: you’ve been living in that chair morning, noon, and night. There is no commute, no coffee line, no flight to catch, no board meeting to linger at, no coffee dates with potential clients. That can understandably make you feel like your recent accomplishments amount to very little.
This was brought up with a colleague just the other day. They were having a difficult time, fighting off the depressing state of having “accomplished nothing all week.” And I, who work with this person every day, called them on it.
“What are you talking about? You’ve attended 7 webinars, written two manuals, three video scripts and their associated materials, locked down two potential clients, have interviewed one of them, and drawn up a proposal. It’s Thursday!” And my co-worker stopped for a beat, blinked, and blushed a bit.
“Oh yeah,” they said. “I guess I have done some things this week.”
I blame the chair.
We are locked into the same four-wall perspective every single day right now. Here in Tacoma, WA, this is our 11th WEEK in lockdown. When you are stuck with one viewpoint and little-to-no human interaction, when you are not able to be physically present and participate in the person-to-person connections live, you begin to feel you aren’t achieving your full potential, aren’t being enough, doing enough, growing your company enough.
This is absolutely not true.
...I attended a webinar this week where the moderator began with a story about how this time actually expanded the potential for achievement -- breaking through limits which might have otherwise constricted her husband’s team. How? There were two events the company members were having to choose from. Flight, hotel, and participation costs were evaluated, number of team members was evaluated, who should be going to which was evaluated -- then: Covid hit. This meant BOTH events moved to an online forum, meaning team members no longer needed to choose based on budgets and logistics, top-most priority, or loss of clients due to travel time. Now everyone could attend both events, everyone could reap the benefits, and everyone still got to sleep in their own beds that night.
As difficult as it is -- and it is difficult when you’re a small business at this time -- not all of the change has been an incapacitator. Not all of the “down time” has actually been all that “down.” We charge you to take a moment and actually analyze what you have accomplished in the two-and-a-half months since the bulk of us have been in lockdown. Just as an exercise -- give it a go. Put it on paper. Seriously -- go get a pen and your day-planner or pull up your calendar/outlook /google -- right now:
In the past two months:
How many Webinars/Classes/Townhalls/Forums have you attended?
How many meetings/check-ins have you conducted with your Team members?
How many days have you touched your accounts, budgets or dealt with financing questions/options?
How many days have you checked into, or posted on LinkedIn?
How many days have you spent time managing social media posts and interactions?
How many business contacts have you made/reached out to?
How many days did you spend helping employees on their furlough or unemployment claims?
How many days did you work on projects you hadn’t been able to “get around to” when the doors were open, due to the constraint on your personal time?
Do you have new processes, new employee handbooks, new procedure you’ve written and finalized, ready for when you’re back at full operation hours again?
Have you learned new processes or introduced new software or systems for you, your team, or client’s use? What are they?
Now: LOOK AT THAT LIST. This is your accomplishment. This is what you’ve done from “that chair.” This is the sum of what you have to offer even at your most humbled in operational possibility.
LOOK AT THAT LIST.
Hang it up somewhere! Treat it with no less pride than your kid’s artwork on the fridge. Do not for a moment allow yourself to doubt your success.
Because -- in short -- “what have you done lately?”
A whole freakin’ lot.