“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
Maybe you have read that. Maybe not. It is Ecclesiastes 3. Also made popular by The Byrds and a lot of other artists. We have all heard this in some way. I wonder if we know how this works, how this factors in our lives. I think of my own life right now. Not perfect, and in fact, not even kinda perfect. Am I supposed to be in this moment right now? Am I supposed to be sad? But, I am blessed. I have health (despite a crazy summer). I have a decent business (despite it not necessarily being where I would like it to be). I have a beautiful wife (and I wish that the relationship could be stronger). I have amazing children (and I know I need to be better at being dad). Despite all the possibilities and opportunities, I am not sad. I am blessed. Do we attach our management and leadership circumstances to what we think is our “bad stuff”?
We have all fallen down. We have all dealt with things not working out with ourselves and our team. How do we stand up and stare down the new day. I use those specific words intentionally. We do sometimes wake up sensing “this is all we get today”. This is, at this moment, as good as I will experience. Really? Have you counted your blessings? Maybe you are supposed to be in this funk to teach you how to rise up and be bigger than your funk. Nothing you face is bigger than you can rise above. Now here is the kicker. You have to believe. You have to believe in something bigger than yourself. Something that is bigger than any issue you may face.
Context moment. You have a team of five. They are engaged and like working for you. They have not been selling to save their lives. You desperately want them to do well, to be happy, and seriously please flipping sell something (or do that thing that I paying you to do). What do you do? You have tried everything. You have coached, you have communicated, and you have been their buddy as much as possible. And the business is still not happening. Where do you go next? Just let them all go? No. Am I saying that all things should be just given to providence? Wait for it…No and Yes.
I get it. Leading a team can be tough. Especially when times are “bad”.
So what to do?
Let the difficulties be as OK as the good times. Be open and evaluate what is going on. Why? This a great question to ask in almost anything in life. If things are not good, why? If things are great, why? Celebrate good and bad and know that there is a reason for each.
If you can isolate a ‘why’ in your behavior, are you OK with changing it? I have found the issue is not the inventory or the store or the business. It was me. And something needed to change.
Embrace this moment. OK, kinda “tree-huggy”. No matter what is happening, it was going to happen, so this means you were supposed to be embrace this. You needed to experience this, as bad as it may be or as weird as it seems to say out loud, this is exactly where you need to be right now. This can be a hard pill to swallow. This sucks! Yep, I get it. And this is what you face so, suck it up and just face it. Harsh? Maybe. I have had to face this (and so have you) and there is no good news except, believe it not, you are supposed to grow from this.
Some days are not this bad…at all. Sometimes our coffee was made just the way we really like it. And sometimes not. Some times our lives are perfect (seemingly) and other times our lives seem like they are falling apart. Bottom line, you choose how you embrace this moment. In management, in leadership, in life. In the words of a pretty good movie, Tombstone, Doc Holiday says to Wyatt Earp (it’s at the end), “There is no normal life, there’s just life…so get on with it.”
You are given what you are given. And then there is your next step. Walk it. Please, just take one step…forward.
Cheers