Isolation Will Kill Your Business Faster than a Pandemic or an Economic Collapse
/If you walked into your bathroom tomorrow morning to find a large snake slithering across the floor, your brain would immediately initiate a series of actions aimed at protecting you — what’s referred to as the fight-or-flight response.
Within two or three seconds, your brain would have made a decision — to run away, to leap up onto the toilet, to slam the door, to throw your shoe at the reptile, to call 911.
Which of those responses is most likely to get the result you want, presumably not having the snake in your house? In that moment, you have no idea. Your actions aren’t the result of carefully considered strategies or future projections. They’re made entirely from an ancient fear response.
Unfortunately, I see many business owners right now gripped by this type of deep, instinctual fear. It’s not the fear itself that is worrisome. What concerns me are the decisions (or lack of decisions) entrepreneurs and business owners are making from this place of fear.
Isolation maximizes fear
No one is suggesting that you shouldn’t be afraid. This type of uncertainty is frightening to anyone. But many business owners — especially the introvert entrepreneurs out there — go deeper inside themselves during times like this.
They isolate — because stepping out of their comfort zone and into this vast uncertainty threatens things many of us believe we need, including to be in control, to be safe, to be right.
What if by reaching out, we expose ourselves as not knowing the answer, as being vulnerable and afraid?
The problem with isolation is that when we are isolated, our fear is magnified. We become overwhelmed, and we lose the ability to clearly see our options. What is happening always looks worse from the inside out than it does from an outside in.
And in the current situation, we’ve been forced to physically distance ourselves in a way that makes isolating seem almost inevitable. But it’s not.
Let’s go back to our snake in the bathroom.
What if, as soon as you saw that snake, your spouse or roommate walked up and you discussed together what to do? What if you were able to call your friend who works with reptiles in a wildlife sanctuary? What if he answered and used his expertise to help guide you through the best actions to take next?
Chances are, you’d be less afraid.
Support minimizes fear
What business owners and entrepreneurs need now more than anything is an outside perspective — and not the perspective of a dozen articles about what to do next. Businesses need to be able to talk to and get feedback and guidance from coaches, mentors, advisors, and peers who understand their particular challenges.
As scary as it may be, an outside perspective can help you identify places where you have an opportunity to lean in to this crisis.
For instance, one of our goals for Trajectify this year was geographic expansion. The goal felt tough because expansion is costly, we needed to determine what locations make sense, and there remained a question of how we would actually get started there and compete with local coaches in those places.
But guess what? Remote coaches and local coaches are now coaching in the same way. The playing field has been leveled by all of us working remotely. I wouldn’t have wished for this crisis, but we are in this situation, and I can see that there’s an opportunity I don’t want to miss.
So I’m leaning into that.
If we allow ourselves to be isolated, we’re hurting ourselves. We’re missing out on opportunities and increasing the chances that we made a bad decision based on fear.
The Fact, Fiction, Fantasy Cycle
I think of our responses to this current fear of uncertainty as part of a cycle that involves fact, fiction, and fantasy.
Fact is what we know and have to do today. I must consider health and safety. I assess my cash situation. Today, maybe I’ve had to close my doors, get a loan, or lay off employees.
Fiction is what we do next. We analyze our options (scenarios), try something new, create projections, forecast possibilities — all based on assumptions (fiction). In this uncertainty, we’ll need to visit those assumptions more frequently, but this something we already know how to do.
Fantasy is the other side of uncertainty that’s better than where we came from. It’s where we are optimistic, and find opportunity. We’ve grown from being outside of our comfort zone (i.e., not in our survival context). It’s the kind of thinking we do when we lean in to what makes us afraid.
No amount of support can change the fact that we’re in this current situation. But support from peers and trusted advisors can absolutely help you hone your assumptions and make choices based on pragmatic information and not fear.
An outside perspective may also help you see the places where growth is happening. I spoke with a client who is engaging with their employees more. They’re having one-on-one meetings and checking in on each other’s personal lives. They’re doing company town halls. They’re being more structured in how they assign and track work, providing more clarity and documenting things better so that everyone is on the same page in a remote environment.
Think about the habits that we’re all building and the ways that we’re learning to rely on community. These are things that are going to help us move forward and be better prepared in the future.
I’m not trying to downplay the very real fear and trauma that many businesses and individuals are experiencing. But if you wake up at 4:00 am with a panicked thought about how you’re going to survive this, living in that fear could lead to conservatism or indecisiveness. It could keep us from leaning into the actions that may help us and the opportunities that may be presenting themselves.
When we lead with fear, that fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ve helped ourselves fail.
If you have supports in place, now is not the time to abandon them. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed and afraid, now is definitely the time to reach out and seek support.
Contact us for a free consultation, the opportunity to join a peer advisory board, or advice on other ways to get outside-in perspectives. And check out our new e-book on the differences between coaches, mentors, advisors and consultants.
