WHAT IS OPPORTUNITY IN A CRISIS?

How can we step up? How can we use this time to really grow as a particular person? 

Viktor Frankl, survivor of Auschwitz, he wrote an incredible book called ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’, and he said, 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves. The more one forgets himself by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love, the more human he is.” 

I think what this is, and I believe this with every ounce of my being, is that we will never get a better chance at changing the way we live as men than right now, particularly in Australia where you can have a mortgage holiday, you’re going to get backed up by the government left, right, and centre.

This is such an incredible opportunity to say, “What do I want to change in my life so I can live a life that is exactly how I want it to be?” There’s a little line that I’ve come to love, a little question. I often ask this to executives just to make sure they’re on track, and it’s this: “If you take away all the money you have earned as individuals in the business or if you take away all the money you have earned, what is left? Is there something of value that you have left in this world that makes it a better place than before you arrived?”

Because if you are now midway through or any point in your life and you said I’ve only been earning money to buy things and provide a roof over people’s heads, if there’s nothing else I’ve done on this planet, then it’s not really a life of meaning. That’s back to Viktor’s thing. Man’s search for meaning. If that particular sum, which is if you take away the money you’ve earned, what is left? 

HOW TO BEAT POWERLESSNESS AND GET FOCUSED ON THE OUTCOME

It is easy to feel a sense of powerlessness. It’s almost as if you are spinning the wheel, you can’t do a thing about it all. What we want to break open here is we’ve all got a power. We’re in a whole, new, new world, but how can we claim our power?

In 6 months time what do you want your life to be like? What do you want to have? How would you like to be stronger? What’s the value you want to add in the next six or so months? 

The counter side to that, which is always good, is to rank yourself. You go back to the live scoreboard, which we’ve done a couple of times now on Universal Man, and score yourself in life. 

How are you going with your partner, your kids, your wife, your family, your job, your career, health, fitness, finances? Give yourself a score on all those things and say to yourself, “If I keep living the life like I’ve been living it, what will happen? Or what can I do over the next three to six months to get things drastically back to the place where I want them and even exceed some of my dreams?”

At the start of the Corona Crisis Grego’s business lost 98% of his revenue in my business. So his family’s income is gone now probably until the back half of this year. We aren’t saying this from a place where life is good for me and might not be for others. It took me a a while to get over that, and now Grego is seeing it as the grandest opportunity. 

SHORT AND LONGER TERM GOALS

Set your short term and longer term goals and work on these with a trusted mate. You can actually team up, and you with these days of Zoom, Skype, all of those types of things you can actually work on a project with somebody else. That could be a fantastic thing. It could be a personal thing. You might say, “Okay, I’m going to enrol in an MBA.” Good, that can be you in your own way.

On the other hand, you might work with somebody else. I’m going to produce a podcast with somebody else. So, work in pairs, work in your teams. 

MEET AND PARNTER WITH PEOPLE YOU’D NEVER GET ACCESS TOO

There are partnerships and opportunities and relationships that you can begin now that you would never normally get access to. More and more people who are normally incredibly busy just have a bit more time to read an email or take a phone call. 

During World War II, the Allies and the Russians worked together. Imagine that. Anything can happen in a crisis. You’d be totally amazed, so set up new networks and really just open as many doors as you can, not just for business, but for other things as well, like in other parts of your life. Open some relationships and friendships, because with everything I’ve noticed, and everything I’ve realised is you’re getting back your commute every day. That might well add an hour to two hours into your day that you didn’t have before because you were focused on commuting.

RECREATE YOUR BUCKET LIST

When you go back to your list of things that you want to achieve in six months and if you expand that out over your life, if you haven’t ever done a bucket list or you haven’t looked at your bucket list in a while, now’s the time. Grego was sitting down with his wife last night and said, “You know what? For years and years when I was younger I always, always had this dream of living in a ski field up in the high mountains somewhere, just for a season or two.” 

“We’ve got to find a way at some point to go and do that, to work remotely or work there whenever we get there and live up there in the mountains with the kids and enjoy it.” It’s found its way back onto our bucket list item. We probably weren’t going to do that, so that’s such an important thing. 

Pricey picked up the phone yesterday and to his IT guy down in Victoria and said, “Mate, Anthony, what do I do if I want to start writing a blog?” So, what he did, he got me onto a particular website and he’s walked me through the actual ground steps. Now Pricey has his blog up – Encounter The Heart. 

SUMMIT IT UP

The first thing is to get over that mindset, the hurdle that there is an opportunity here. When you can deal with the financial hardships and the things that might be coming your way, there’s a grand opportunity to reset. Spend some time thinking about what the future might look like for you six months down the track, even longer. Do a bit of a live scoreboard on yourself right now and how you’re going in key parts of your life.

Spend some time really thinking about what you want to create. Create that rhythm, that discipline in your life that will get you there, and collaborate with others and be creative, connect with people, all these things we just mentioned, revisiting your bucket list items, and just create a little bit of a rhythm to review these goals that you set yourself. That might be a little accountability group with your mates over a beer on a Friday night or whatever it is, or a Wednesday night just to keep some momentum with others on this journey, a lot of lads on this journey. If you can do that, then this will be a wonderful opportunity that you are seizing.

Fast forward 6 months and look back and say, “Man, I just had six of the hardest months of my whole, whole life, that I’ve come out of this stronger, better.” If you’ve grown as a human being, that kind of a growth will be some of the best growth you’ve done in your entire, entire life.

Stay Legendary

Pricey and Grego