Life has changed for all of us.
When things go south, what is your default, how do you feel?
Overwhelmed to move forward?
Unsure what to do next?
“Black Swan” refers to an event nobody believes to be possible until it happens.
We don’t even know when it happens.
What we all experience at the moment is Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
Have you already heard of those four words?
Take the initial letters and you get VUCA - an acronym coined by the U.S. Army War College around 1987.
To keep moving forward in times of a lockdown is a real challenge.
Even most calm, assured people can freeze with anxiety in turbulent circumstances like these.
Here is a practical framework that will help you, your team & business get through this.
Soldiers use it.
Sportsmen use it.
You can use it as well.
Negative thoughts and fear bring stress that leads to anxiety.
When negative thoughts start coming in, they want to sabotage you, destroy you and defeat you.
Sun Tzu in his book The Art of the War famously said: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.'
First, you have to understand you are in a battle and there is an enemy.
You know the enemy and you know what it does to you physically.
Here are 5 D’s the enemy uses to destroy you mentally.
DOUBT The goal of the enemy is to seed the distrust. You see others thriving, doing great, you get a little bitter, angry, you start doubting others, your relationships, your team, your future and, eventually yourself. That leads to a second D.
DISTORTION The enemy is trying to distort the truth with lies & negative thoughts.
Then you get DISCOURAGED. And what happens? You are hopeless, guilty, you see the future is hopeless and you blame yourselves. The enemy knows he can’t beat you himself, so what does he do? He gets you to beat yourself. And when you beat yourself up and get discouraged, you give up.
When you feel kind of defeated, that’s when DISTRACTION comes in. 'Distraction is the enemy of the greatness’ my sports coach often told me. You choose things seemingly appealing, bright & shiny, but they move you in the wrong direction. It’s like those sea turtles that hatch on the beaches. Where do they go? Towards the ocean, they are meant to go towards the ocean, towards the pure light of the moon that guides them there. But on built-up beaches, built-up areas, they go the wrong way, there are bright shining lights that take them in the wrong direction and lead them towards the disastrous outcome. That’s what happens to you. You may look at an object and get distracted, you may look at something that seems a success, gives you false hope, but, that takes you away from the path.
The final D stands for DIVIDE, that is the enemy’s ultimate goal. To divide you from yourselves and each other. You get disconnected, separated and the chaos sets in. Remember Sun Tzu? He mentions ‘Divide & Conquer’ as a timeless strategy to defeat the pponent.
Now that you know, this is the battle you are facing, these are the 5 Ds the enemy uses to combat you and bring you down, what will you do?
Here are 5 antidotes for you.
TRUST. Trust in your team, trust in your spouse, partner, trust in your skills, in yourself. In the context of recession & coronavirus, trust everything’s going to be ok, others will be fine and trust we are all going to get through this.
Be honest, TELL THE TRUTH. The truth is you can do it, the truth is you are great, the truth is you are not meant to be average.
ENCOURAGE yourself, encourage others & share positivity. As a marathon runner and mountaineer, I've learned to talk to myself, instead of listening to myself. When I listen to myself, I hear all the negative stuff, fear, doubts, all the complaints and pain, but when I talk to myself, I feed myself words of encouragement that I need to keep on moving forward.
FOCUS on what matters most. Keep your chin up. Look outside of yourself. Help others. It will come back to you tenfold.
Communicate. Connect. Commit to each other. Show that you care. If you do this, you are going to UNITE your team and yourself with others.
Be aware of these 5 Ds.
Understand them.
Watch how they play out.
It is pretty easy when you see the tricks that are being used against you to stop them.
As for stress, well it can be a good thing. (If you know how to use it.)
You can do some of your best work under deadline.
Under stress, your focus narrows.
You zoom in.
You are in the zone.
You flow.
'Pursuing a “stress-free” life often causes more stress down the line—problems compound, and by failing to face our most intense challenges we never overcome them.
We have found that individuals who adopt a “stress is enhancing” mindset in their lives show greater work performance and fewer negative health symptoms than those who adopt a “stress-is-debilitating” lens’ says A. Crum.
As you see, avoidance is not the answer.
If you recognize this, you move forward differently.
It is your attitude and perspective that can make a huge difference.
How to beat stress?
As usual, there are three steps.
See it. Rather than denying it, or dwelling upon it, simply name it or label it.
Own it. We tend to stress more intently about things that matter to us. Stress shows us that we care, that the stakes matter, and deep down we know that things that are important should not always come easy. The truth is, the times of fastest growth are usually the times of pain. It is your opportunity to learn, change and mature. You can become a new person. Think of this sentence “It’s just a cold, dark night on the side of Everest.” It's the last part - ‘on the side of Everest’ - that is a punchline. If you were climbing Everest, you could imagine that there might be some cold, dark nights on your journey up. But what did you expect, a gentle hike? Do you really expect running a business and making difference would be easy? Owning your stress doesn't make those cold, dark nights go away but they will likely be a bit more tolerable. And that’s what you are in right now. Ignoring won’t change it, you can’t run away from it. You have to own it as a season of growth. You can grow 10 years in one year. You can experience growth in light of the hardship, not in spite of it.
Use it. 'The evolutionary goal of the stress response was to help boost the body and mind into enhanced functioning, to help us grow and meet the demands we face. When the body encounters stress, it pumps hormones such as adrenaline and dopamine which fuel the brain and body with blood and oxygen, a response which propels the individual into a state of increased energy, heightened alertness, and narrowed focus.’ Again Sun Tsu, the third time I believe: 'In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.' Do not waste your crises. Use it.
And when it gets tough (I promise it will), think of F. Herbert, who wrote in Dune:
'I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.'
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Inspired by A. & T. Crum, D. Miller, J. Gordon
Cheers