December 29, 2020
2020 MAN AMMIRIGHT?!?! It’s been a crazy year for just about every single human on earth, us included, and today we wanted to talk about it. Well, not necessarily 2020 SPECIFICALLY, but in a roundabout way, yes.
Today we’re talking about the unexpected. Those “plot twist” moments in life that leave your head spinning and your plans in ruins. We think we can ALL relate to that after this year, but what if we told you that the unexpected doesn’t necessarily mean something BAD. Say what?? Alright, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Today we’re talking about this crazy whirlwind of a year and all the curve-balls it’s thrown at everyone, business owners in particular, and how to not just tolerate unexpected plot twists, but to HARNESS them to excel, grow, and succeed.
2020 man, it feels like this weird inside joke between literally every single person on the earth, right? There has never been anything that has happened that every single person on earth can relate to. We all just have this inside joke of 2020.
I wonder if we will turn 2020 into a verb?
We wanted to chat about the unexpected as we wrap up this year. We guarantee you so many people on January 1st, 2020 went into this new decade with so much excitement. Everybody on earth was so excited, it felt like a new season of hope and relief. Whether it was your personal life or business there was a lot that everybody was forced to pivot and deal with the unexpected.
So often we can view the plot twist moments, the unexpected and unfortunate (things don’t go according as planned) we tend to view that as the most negative thing to happen. Granted there are a lot of situations where of course unfortunate events happen and you can’t always look at things with a positive outlook. But we think it’s important to keep in mind that sometimes the unexpected doesn’t always have to be a negative thing.
Some of the biggest companies + success stories in the world have come from unexpected moments or life events. In the book, The Click Moment boils down to business owners that much of our success and growth, are luck and chance. In many ways, we can’t always control and predict our opportunities or outcome but in the book, it breaks down a bunch of stories of the biggest companies and how they got started.
All of them were these click moments that happened by chance and they fell into place. The second half talks about how a lot of success is chance but how we can make the most of our situation and position ourselves to be ready to take that chance and leap.
In The Click Moment, they talk about Starbuck’s story and how it got started. Starbucks was founded around 1971 and started as a coffee roastery supplying coffee beans for restaurants and hotels. In America we didn’t have cafes or coffee shops, which is mind-blowing because now they are on every street corner. In America, in the 1970s that wasn’t a thing. Someone in the company (not the CEO) took a trip to Italy for a conference about coffee roasting and while he was there noticed that every street corner had a cafe with lines out the door. He noticed this day after day and was like why do we not have this in America?
One of those situations, the unexpected of going to Italy, it wasn’t a strategic planned thing, it was an unexpected opportunity that they took advantage of. It plopped out of the sky and was a plot twist you can’t plan for.
There is a lot to learn from it. In the sense that you can plan all you want, and plans/dreams/goals are good but at the same time you have to be ready to utilize the unexpected. To see something that sparks an idea and be ready to act on it.
Viewing this year as an example of what do we do when the unexpected happens? If we stop viewing unexpected plans as ruining our lives or business and instead viewing it as an opportunity that you didn’t think about before. Shifting our mindset is the first step. Mindset often, to begin with, is everything before you start doing anything else.
We had so many plans this year, strategies, and goals, and one of them involved a large amount of people and that plan got 2020’d. We sat there and realized we can’t move forward with this plan, but we chose to instead utilize the unexpected and realized we had more time now to work on this project, and now we could focus on opening our online shop. Realizing people are going to need stuff online and resources. We intentionally tried to think through how to utilize this unexpected season. We are not saying we are perfect at this, but instead of viewing the plot twist as negative, we decided to pivot and utilize this time to create something that would serve people during this time.
When there’s a mass plot twist in the world (2020 anyone?) there tend to be three kinds of reactions: Fight, flight, or freeze. We wanted to break that down a little bit and talk about what that might have looked like in the year 2020 and how we can use that to our benefit moving forward if any other unexpected things happen.
An example of this during Covid (we know every situation is different and this doesn’t pertain to everyone) is when everything happened you froze out of fear and uncertainty, you took an employment check and sat back and watched Netflix all day waiting for things to get back to normal.
Freezing looks like not moving forward, not pivoting, it looks like just freezing out of fear and uncertainty.
How can we look back on that and learn from it and move forward? How can I move forward-thinking about the longevity of what you are doing?
There are times where pausing and assessing are good, especially at the beginning of Covid. There are times to pause and assess, and figure out what’s going on and decide what your next steps are. It’s hiding the head in the sand that is different from pausing to assess. Or waiting to see what is going to happen in the next few weeks or months. There is a difference between taking care of yourself and assessing vs. burying your head in the sand.
That running away mentality to go back to what felt safer. You could look at that as maybe quitting. Instead of pausing to reflect on what you want to do, it’s a quick nope and I’m not doing this anymore. With Covid, some were forced, but instead of running away, we have to deal with the unexpected and what we will do with it. Sometimes you don’t have a choice in what happens to you but you do have a choice in your actions moving forward.
Many times quitting something or taking a step back DOES NOT equate to a flight mode. There are a lot of times when that’s SMART and BENEFICIAL and NECESSARY. There is absolutely a difference between running and taking a strategic move. There’s a difference between taking a couple of steps back and knowing why you are taking a couple of steps back again (assessing) versus running from the situation out of fear.
Freeze and flight are very similar because if you are doing it from a place of fear you are usually backing away from the situation because you don’t want to deal with it.
If you are approaching any life decision from a place of fear it is most likely not the healthiest decision you could be making. It doesn’t matter what mode you are acting on, if it is coming from fear it is not a healthy decision.
Rise to the challenge. Get creative and work with what you’re given and pivot your business if you need to. Take advantage of the situation instead of letting it take advantage of you.
Be smart, be financially wise, do what’s best for the longevity of success, and not what feels good in the moment. Think through: “how can I use this situation to accelerate my growth instead of stop it?”.
One of our past students- Teresa Williams did something amazing with her business this year. As a wedding photographer, she realized around May that Covid would create a long pause on her wedding photography business. She paused and reflected on how she could get creative and in return started a clay earring Etsy store. Then she took that time she wasn’t busy booking couples and created an online course for wedding photographers. Those are two examples of how she took her time and used this year to pivot in her business. In this season she did a good job of pivoting her business and was able to still stay afloat, instead of sitting there and not doing anything.
The general overview is the unexpected happens. We have to learn to roll with it. Whether it is on a small scale or global. It’s devastating to our personal lives or we’re locked inside our houses. It happens and we have to learn not only to roll with it but to take advantage of it and utilize it. Turn it to our advantage, make the most of the situation. Pivoting is one of the best things you can do for your business.
We need to stop viewing the unexpected as ruining our plans (victim mentality) and instead view it as creating new opportunities.
When you are looking for new opportunities in the plans that were ruined you will find them but when you are focused on only what was ruined your attention and focus are elsewhere and you won’t see those opportunities passing you by.
Take on the attitude of a fighter. Of looking at something unexpected and strategically using that to our advantage.
From a business perspective: think strategically. What social and cultural things have happened as a result of 2020 and how can you position your business or market it in a way that meets the needs the world is having in the wake of 2020?
A LOT more is online. While it might go back to some sort of normal, it might naturally start to gravitate towards things online. Think about how that might apply to your business.
If your business success rested on being entirely in person – then 2020 was a wake-up call. Not that in-person only businesses are bad, they’re not, but be smart. Have emergency funds, get creative with how you can offer something online in tandem with your in-person business.
What things could you strategically use in your business in a world that has been culturally and socially changed because of Covid? How does this apply to our own business individually?
For the wedding industry, a LOT of weddings got rescheduled to 2021. How can you market towards that? Maybe this is the time where you get hard on your workflow systems to be able to shoot more weddings because your demand is up. Maybe you hire an assistant? Roll with the punches.
People are hungry for everything they’ve missed out on this year. Family, relationships, travel, events, activities. Whatever industry you’re in, how can you get creative and show up, offering your products or services in a way that meets an obvious need?
We need to switch our mindset on how we view the unexpected and then recognize what mode we want to engage in and then strategically think through how you can utilize it and benefit from it. That is the bottom line.
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/heartandhustle
Save 10% off your first month with Better Help!
The Heart Contracts: www.theheartuniversity.com/shop
If you want to connect with us and other listeners in the Heart and Hustle community join our Facebook group here.
Follow along:
www.instagram.com/mrslindseyroman
www.instagram.com/theheartuniversity
WASSUP FRIENDS. We’re Evie + Lindsey, co-founders of this wild partayyy called The Heart University. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to kick freaking BUTT in their businesses, dive down into the heart of their why and how, and serve you with all possible tools you’ll need to up-level your business game and CRUSH those goals of yours.
Whether you’re coming to an in-person workshop, joining our online course, or soaking up all the strategies via this blog or our podcast, we’re STOKED you’re here + can’t wait to see you out there kicking butt.
meet l&e
keep reading
GET OUR 'TOP 5 APPS WE USE FOR INSTA
GRAB OUR FREE GUIDE BELOW ON THE TOP 5 APPS WE USE IN CONJUNCTION WITH INSTAGRAM TO UP LEVEL OUR INSTA GAME! TRUST US, YOU'LL BE A PRO IN NO TIME!
ARE YOU RIDING FRONT SEAT ON THE INSTAGRAM STRUGGLE BUS LATELY?
Be the first to comment