Solidarity Hour... The First One
Yesterday at 4pm Eastern we had our first ThinqShift Solidarity Hour. Covid-19 is having extraordinary and far reaching impact globally. People are being impacted in all sorts of ways. There’s the hard impacts on business, jobs, economics, trade and politics, but then there’s the human impact. Many are anxious and scared. Our sense of personal safety and security is being hit right at its core. In all this, we wanted to provide a way to connect to firstly our Fabulous People network (people we work with), but also open it up to a wider audience. The goals are simple: Share experiences. Tackle some difficult topics. Stay centered and lighten and lift our spirits.
This was our first one, and we were really happy with how it went, and we learned a ton doing it, that will make the next one even better!
It was hosted by Vicki and I. Here’s are the highlights for those who couldn’t make it:
The Power of Slowing Down
Vicki talked about how intentional breathing can be used to relax ones nervous system in order to be able to hear the guidance from our soul in order to make tough decisions. The example she used was one of her coaching clients who is a business owner that had to make a call between being there for her team, or being with her family. This technique helped her to answer that question for herself. Vicki goes on to explain that it all starts with intentional breathing and allowing yourself to be truly in the moment in order to truly hear who you need to be, and allow your soul to lead the way. Key takeaway… without self-care you are unlikely to see the most valuable things to focus on. She asked us to imagine getting to the end of the quarantine period and having successful restored our souls, rewired our habits, created time for ourselves and reconnected with our families. Remember, goals are a place to come from … not a place to get to.
Real Voices from Carlo in Rome, Italy!
Vips’ sister, and brother in law, a Program Manager for a global company shared his experiences of life in Rome in a super candid way. He shared how life is there today given most would agree they are further along the curve than we are in the US or UK at present. Working from home. Having kids around all the time, and how it feels after several weeks of strong lockdown. He described the emotions they went through from week 1 to week 2 to week 3 and beyond. Top recommendations were “….to limit your intake of media or you will go crazy if you keep looking at all the numbers..” and “to create your own space”. And that in the middle of this, they have found that it’s even brought their family together. There is joy in things that we often take for granted. Like watching a movie with the family, or playing games that he used to play when he was a kid. It was a relief to hear that even now, there are groceries and yes, toilet paper available. Thank you Carlo and Misti.
Three Phases We Can Expect.
A Fabulous Leader, and a client asked for advice on how to think through where he should be focusing his attention. Beyond some tactics, Vips shared his mental model that there are likely to be 3 phases we can expect: The Chaos Phase. This is where we are now, there’s a high level of anxiety, disruption, and a sense that no-one is in control. Business leaders are basically in damage control in this phase - short term crisis management and financial tightening up while trying to minimize lay-offs. Vulnerable companies will fail. Next the Acceptance Phase. Everyone is frustrated, things are taking longer than originally expected and people start realizing that this is going to go on for longer than we thought. We’ll see a rise in depression and social pains. However, people do realize it’s going to take a long time to recover but we are over the worst. More companies will fail because they couldn’t ride it out, and the winners and losers start becoming more obvious. Business leaders are now focusing more on the signs - the opportunities that are emerging and a picture of the ‘new normal’ starts to crystalize. Finally, the “New Normal”, where the world has changed and will never go back completely to the way it was. Business Leaders who had the foresight, formed their “new normal strategies” and started innovating and adapting early will reap the rewards! Vips advice for business leaders - divide your thought energy 1/3 1/3 1/3 now on these 3 phases and your plans for them.
A huge thanks for Breah at BlipStudio for visualizing Solidarity Day 1.