Navigating An Unknown Future In Business
If advice along the lines of ‘leaning into the discomfort’ and ‘the only way out is through’ leaves you waking up startled, breathless and unable to get back to sleep in the middle of the night, then perhaps its time to consider that running a successful business is perhaps not the best thing for you after all. Especially not right now.
On the positive side, at one point or another, uncertainty has, or will come for us all. Its not the uncertainty that separates the leader from the follower, but rather how we choose to respond to it. The use of ‘choose’ in the previous sentence is absolutely intentional. Because not unlike most things in life as well as in business, the way in which we respond to uncertainty is a choice intentionally executed.
Lead – Don’t Shackle
All of the above are all good and well, but how do we go about implementing principles we know to be effective in a practical way when confronted by an already-in-motion business setup? This brings us to the first and perhaps most important ‘order of business’: lead employees towards a better future instead of shackling them to how things have always been done.
Instead of focusing on a scenario of ‘business as usual’, teach employees to think in terms of the positive potential; in terms of business as it could be.
Beat The Fear By Embracing It
The only way to defeat fear, is to look it straight in the eye. Fear of the unknown is no exception. Stop seeing whatever it is that frightens you as the enemy or as a business liability. Teach yourself the alchemy of redemption. While its true that our world has probably never been a scarier place to live in than right now, its also true that there have never been quite as many undiscovered opportunities than what there are in this present moment. Realise that a liability is only a liability until its been redeemed and transformed into an asset.
Humanity Needs A Purpose
The only antidote worthy of being labelled as such, when trying to overcome the discomfort associated with not knowing the outcome; not knowing what’s about to happen next; is defining in actual words, a purpose. A strong sense of purpose is worth its survival weight in gold. Its what helps us to keep going when all common sense tells us to give up. And while on the topic of common sense – if ever sense were to present itself as common, run fast and run far. Sense is many things, but common isn’t of them.
Risk May Not Be What You Think
In stock market investments and in online gambling like sports betting there exists a pole with two sides: perceived risk vs actual risk. When attempting to navigate uncertainty, its crucial to know the difference between these two. We more often than not see things as we are and not as things are. Learn to tell the difference.
