Erika Andersen’s post on staying strategic is a welcome respite
Here’s why: difficult situations make us afraid. When we’re afraid, we tend to narrow our focus. We hunker down, mentally and emotionally, and attend to protecting ourselves; we simply try to get through the day. And, so in the eerily applicable words of FDR, it seems to me that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
The alternative? Stay strategic; put aside fear. Take a deep breath and a giant step back; expand your view as opposed to contracting it. Once you do that, it’s much more likely that you’ll be able to see your current reality in a clear and balanced way, rather than through the distorting prism of fear. It’s also more likely that you’ll then have the mental bandwidth to think clearly about the future, and to envision the business or career you want to create, on the other side of this difficult passage.
