I’m sure you have all heard the saying, “life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how you react to it.” Sound familiar? More on that shortly.
I hope this finds everyone safe, warm, and with enough food supplies etc. Storm Emma certainly hit the country unexpectedly hard this last week.
What was nice to see and hear is that situations like this can bring out amazing acts of caring, generosity and community spirit- from aid to those trapped in cars overnight to sharing supplies amongst neighbours. Rather than choosing to wallow and whine, we heard of many positive stories like this locally, and did what we could to support our own neighbours.
In our fairly rural neck of the woods, with hills on every side, we have been snowed in for the last four days. I was able to get a car out safely enough for the first time today thanks to the efforts of local farmers clearing the backroads around where we live. Like many I’m sure, we found ourselves very conscious of our food supplies and rose to the challenge of being frugal enough to make things last, based on the uncertainty of how long the ‘lock in’ would last. We also chose to see this situation as serving up a good opportunity to teach our kids how to respond and manage resources based on the circumstances.
The hand that the weather dealt us this week serves as a metaphor in business too, about how we respond to circumstances, adapt to strive for the best outcome possible from each challenge and seek the lesson in it all.
Of all the weeks to have boiler issues, we had two in our SA portfolio this week. In one such property we were accommodating contractors who were working in our area over from the West of Scotland. Being unable to physically get out to the property myself I had to talk the guest through locating everything and re-pressurising the boiler to get the heat back on. Thanks to the way he had chosen to be positive about the situation and my efforts to do everything I could, we had built up a good rapport over several calls and texts. He ended up staying an extra night, which I discounted heavily for him, and we now have a satisfied guest who would be happy to stay with us again.
Whilst this boiler issue was a very minor challenge in the grand scheme, this last week’s weather has made me reflect on all the ‘dips’ Chris and I have encountered so far in establishing our SA business, and bring an appreciation there will be many more to come. However, with the right reframe and choice of attitude, we can use these situations to bounce back higher and faster.
Here are some of my favourite quotes on the matter that capture this sentiment:
“Early success is a terrible teacher” – Chris Hadfield, Astronaut. He then goes on to say that, “You’re essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation.” In other words when the challenges come, we can choose to embrace them because the lessons help better prepare us going forwards.
Then we have these wonderful reframes:
Dr John Demartini says that everything that happens to us in life is, ‘on the way, not in the way”. We often need to remind ourselves of that.
And finally, it was just this week that I heard Darren Hardy share this reframe in one of his morning messages, “Everything is happening for me, nothing is happening to me”.
On the rollercoaster ride that is business, it’s so important to remind ourselves of this because how we decide to respond to certain occurrences is what will shape our emotions, actions and results.
Strangely enough it was just last Sunday that I was writing a post with a similar theme about reframing things we wish hadn’t happened [see the ‘reverse gratitude’ exercise from WEEK #8 post]. Whilst that last post outlines frameworks to find the good in past situations, here we are talking about the IN THE MOMENT attitude where we have the choice on how we respond to what happens.
This last week’s events have certainly reminded me that YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE OF HOW YOU ARE GOING TO RESPOND TO WHAT THE WORLD OFFERS YOU.
Have a great week ahead.