“The Impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” – Marcus Aurelius
I am meditating on this quote of Marcus Aurelius from the last several years now. But as we are facing pandemic all around the globe from the last few months, these Marcus’s words become the formula to turn obstacles and crisis upside down. Today, we need a framework for turning a crisis into a breakthrough more than ever. A framework that can help us in dealing with our inner crises: personal and professional frustrations, anger on unmet expectations, too many addictionss and distractions, search for quick fixes and immediate gratifications, lack of confidence, too much stress and anxiety and with external crisis: broken institutions, curse of bureaucracy, unemployement, discrimination, injustice and greed.
These crises are important because they work like guideposts. It tells us which path we need to walk on. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “The things which hurt, instruct.”
We can find lots of reasons and excuses to stay as we are – paralyzed – amidst a crisis. We can stay frozen even when we know what we should do next. We can surrender to our inner resistance – our invisible enemy – even though we know that we need to stand up and fight.
But we shouldn’t do that.
We should understand that all the great men and women in history faced unimaginable horrors, day-to-day frustrations, politics, betrayals, breakups, anxieties and economic calamities but they never use these as curtains to hide behind but as a fuel to transform themselves into something bigger and exemplary.
Here is the list of businesses started during economic crisis:
Fortune Magazine (90 Days after the Market crash)
FedEx (Oil Crisis of 1973)
Walt Disney (After 11 months of smooth start, faced market crash of 1929)
HP (Great Depression, 1935)
Microsoft (Recession in 1973 – 75)
Proctor and Gamble (Panic of 1837)
LinkedIn (2002, post-dot-com Bubble)
As former CEO of Intel, Andy Grove said, “Bad companies are destroyed by crises. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.” We all can, just like great companies, flourish on the floor of uncertainty and crisis, if we use the right framework.
In this article, I am going to share with you a framework to turn a crisis into a breakthrough. This framework has five key components. Each component will help you in understanding the crisis and to up your guards in a way that you not only survive but thrive during the crisis. Here are five key components:
- Define Crisis Properly
- Manage your focus
- Act like it is always day one
- Nourish Right Intent
- Constant Re-Strategizing
Component # 1: Define “Crisis” Properly
“Choose not to be harmed – and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed – and you haven’t been.” – Marcus Aurelius
Turning a crisis into an opportunity, requires a perception shift that can help you to understand what crisis is and what is not.
How do we define a “crisis”? Derivation of the English word “crisis” is from the Greek noun “Krisis” and the verb “Krino”, which have several related meanings: “to seperate”, “to decide”, “to draw a distinction,” and “turning point”. Hence one can think of a crisis as a critical point from where any situation can become a breakthrough or a disaster. It is a point which provides two ways to go: Go towards a Breakthrough or towards a Disaster.
Crisis in itself is neither good nor bad. Instead it is a moment of decision.
The turning point represents a challenge. It creates pressure to devise new coping methods, when former coping methods have proved inadequate to resolve the challenge.
Crisis doesn’t mean economic fluctuation, instability, danger, emergency, hurdle or disturbance. All of these are wrong connotations attached with word crisis. What truly crisis is a point from where you can move either to have a breakthrough or a disaster depending on your decision and choice.
How do we define a “Breakthrough”? Breakthrough is a moment in time when you figure out a sudden solution for a challenge you are facing and that can advance your progress. Disaster, of course on opposite end, is something that can disturb your current position in a serious manner or sometimes irrevocable to recover.
Component # 2 : Manage your focus
“Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.” – Epictetus
What lines from Epictetus “Let me put you to the test”. This is what you need to turn a crisis into something useful. This approach is about taking an upper ground when crisis strikes instead of being fearful and feeling the defeat.
In life and business, results are 80% mindset and 20% skill set. Managing focus is about stress-testing crises so you can find what truly it is all about. Instead of being swayed away and start creating thought processes that only nourish fear and do no good to you.
Managing focus is about handling internal and external distractions properly. Because when you face a crisis – a point of decision – you can’t afford to get distracted. You need all of your mental faculties to draw a decision that can put you on the path of breakthrough.
Internal distractions means mild stresses and irritations you have. List down what is disturbing you. Don’t hold it in your head. Otherwise it will keep on disturbing you in the background and suck all the energy before you make any required decision. Figure out what is irritating you and you are not doing anything about it. Try to handle it. If you can’t handle it now, at least schedule it on the calendar on some future date.
External distractions are many but key one is the information you consume. Cut down the consumption of information or at least set a criteria to select and consume the information. Pick sources of information wisely. One bad piece of information can distract you and guide your decision to the path of disaster.
Remember, you are standing on the point where you need to take a decision that can go either way. Handling internal and external distractions and nourishing the right perception about the crisis at hand can help you in taking the right decision.
Component # 3: Act like it is always “Day One”
“Day 2 is decline, followed by death.” – Jeff Bezos
Turning a crisis into a breakthrough not only requires perception and decision but also action. Treat everyday as your day one. Do not get complacent or lazy while pursuing a dream. At the same time, do not get anxious about what will happen in future. You just need to handle the present well.
Most of the time, you can win during crises by staying longer in the game than anyone else. You need to stay optimistic and motivated to be in the game longer than anyone else. How can you stay optimistic and motivated?
By treating every single day as a “Day One”.
Open your eyes every day and start taking action. Try to utilize your time well. In times of crisis, time is the key resource to handle well. You cannot afford to waste time and energy on aimless things. You need to perform your duty well and you need to do it daily.
There will be days when you face rejections and failures but learn from them and forget them when you lie on the bed and open your eyes the next day with one mantra in your mind: “It’s Day One”. Start new and fresh.
There will be days when you will face success and accomplishments. Savor them and forget them. Next day when you open your eyes, repeat this “It’s Day One.” Start Again and Deliver.
That is how you will keep moving and stay away from decline.
Component # 4: Nourish Right Intent
“The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged chance, conquered the chance, and made chance the servitor.” – E. H. Chapin
During a crisis or calm, having the right intent is non-negotiable. You need to be in the right state of mind if you want to take your chances. Having right intent means staying persistent when a plan doesn’t work your way, thinking long-term, and anticipating as you move on in your journey.
Great men and women in history stay persistent when going gets tough. They do not quit or feel hesitated about their vision when they are in the middle of something chaotic. Life is not about one crisis but many. We need a will and right intent to make sure that we stay in the game with the approach that we will face whatever life throws at us.
The Germans have a word for it: Sitzfleisch. Staying power. Winning by staying in the game and not quitting until before it’s over.
Long-term thinking is also one of the key tenets of right intent. Remember, whatever you are facing right now was faced by someone like you in the past and will be faced by someone like in the future too. We all are connected.
You need to remember the fact that the crisis you are facing right now will not sustain for long. Our life is operating on universal principles. It flows in a cycle. Every good time will be replaced with tough time and every tough time will be conquered by good time.
Always think long-term while taking decisions and action. Your decision might not sound right in the present or your action might not deliver you the fruit you are expecting but in the long-run it will give you enough to recover the damage. Always consider how this crisis will be in 1 year, 3 years and 10 years time span while taking decision or action.
To have the right intent during a crisis also requires you to anticipate. Anticipation comes through deep reflections and meditation on what already happened to you and others in the past during the same kind of situations. You try to map out the future by studying the past.
Premortem, as called by psychologist Gary Klein, can help you in anticipation.
Unlike postmortem, where you try to dissect the whole after it happens, in premortem you need to figure out in advance what can go wrong. It helps you in preparing for what can challenge you in the future.
Component # 5: Constant Re-Strategizing
“The Great Captain will take even the most hazardous indirect approach – if necessary over mountains, deserts or swamps, with only a fraction of the forces, even cutting himself loose from his communications. Facing, in fact, every unfavorable condition rather than accept the risk of stalemate invited by direct approach.” – B. H. Liddell Hart
Life is uncertain. You can fail even after making the right decision, taking enough action, having right intent and after being the most focused guy. Yes, it sounds harsh but it is reality. What do you need then?
You need constant re-strategizing.
It is naive to think about things in this way: You face a crisis, you sit on a chair and anticipate and think things through and map out a plan and then act and get results. This is not how things work out in the field. Yes, planning is necessary but also it is important to keep updating your plans when you are on tactical level.
As they say, “Map is not the territory”. Your map – blueprint to deal with crisis – is great but reality might unfolds differently. You need to stay vigilant and stay awake so you can update your map as you go on. Keep on adjusting and keep on improving.
Conclusion
At the end, let’s be honest. You might be facing a horrible situation right now or you are facing some minor disadvantage or get stuck with less-than-favorable conditions, hiding behind the excuses and fears is not the way. It is also not suitable to blame the Government, Luck or someone for the crisis because blaming anyone cannot help your situation. You need to stand up and turn this situation in your favor. Remember, no one owes you anything. No one will come to help you. Nobody has more stakes in your life than you. Bring your best to the game.
You are one decision, one action, one person, one improvement away from turning your crisis into a breakthrough.
