The next death-defying loop.
We talk a lot about how entrepreneurship is like a rollercoaster. When we say that to other entrepreneurs, we often get a smile and a nod because anyone who has started a business understands the ups and downs of the territory. It is great when things are up, but when things are down, you have a couple of choices regarding how you want to react. You can let the decent turn your stomach, or you can muster your resilience, keep your eyes looking forward, and feel confident that the next up is just around the corner. So the question becomes, how do you practice choosing resilience?
Kopans (2016) likens the process of strengthening our resilience to the same way we do in our business and finances. To adapt, grow, and prosper in our business we take a systematic approach to quantitative and qualitative data. We analyze the information and clearly understand areas we need to improve. So why not take the same approach to manage your resilience. Here are a couple of tips to help you do just that:
COLLECT POSITIVITY CURRENCY
Think of positivity as a reserve you can build up so that when you need to make a withdrawal, you have an abundance of funds available. The best way to do this is to engage in positive interactions and express gratitude for them. We have all heard the studies that gratitude is a great way to reduce anxiety and increase satisfaction. Still, when you have a great reserve of positivity to pull from, you are more likely to have higher levels of personal resilience to support you when you need it.
WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE
We say this all the time in the business world. We create spreadsheets, trackers, and KPIs, and we put down on paper the goals we have and the milestones we need to achieve to reach them. So you can do the same with your positive moments. You can create data points in the positive interactions you experience and the ones you make. This is basically managing your cheque book, and hopefully, you have a lot more deposits than withdrawals.
GROW THE MARKET
We have all seen the trends in the latest cryptocurrencies or hot stocks that everyone wants to invest in. When the number of investors grows, the more people want in, the more value the stock has in the market. Positivity and resilience are the same, and their growth is viral. Choosing to be positive helps others around you to be positive, too, and then everyone’s positivity currency grows. The great thing about this is that there is no limit to how much everyone can have. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect everyone to walk around with smiles on their faces all the time, but if we choose to focus on the good, we will create a feedback loop with our resilience increased by the interactions with others and vice versa.
DIVERSIFY YOUR PORTFOLIO
We know it is essential to diversify your risk and essentially not put all of your eggs in one basket in the business world. The same is true for where you draw your positivity from. I have talked a lot lately about changes in how we perceive work in our lives, and this is exactly what I mean. Our jobs are a piece of our happiness portfolio but are not the only place we draw from. We need to take care of other areas like family, friends, health, community, etc. When one area needs to withdraw some resilience, other areas put in deposits. The shift we are seeing in the workforce is a direct expression of this, making sure that employees invest in all areas of their happiness and become mentally richer for it.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS
Like quarterly or year-end reporting, take a moment to review your positivity currency data like your business's financial reports. The great thing about doing this is that you will probably find this moment becomes a time of expressing gratitude and another deposit in the bank of positivity.
Whatever your ways are of strengthening your resilience, the truth is that in entrepreneurship, leadership, business and life, resilience is something that we all need. When you face that next challenge, the next death-defying loop, the next moment that shakes your confidence, I hope you have a plethora of positivity currency to pull from to help you through.
As we navigate our business ups and downs, I certainly count myself grateful for all the good things I have in my diversified life portfolio and will continue to evaluate, manage, and work to strengthen my resilience every day.
