159: Pivoting Around a Pandemic—Maintaining Business Continuity and Caring for Self and Others with Dr. Michael Consuelos

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast everybody. I am really excited and grateful to be talking today with Dr. Michael Consuelos, who I was very fortunate to meet through my private momentum community for heart based solopreneurs and small business owners. He was somebody who from the day he joined at the end of last year has just added tremendous value, wisdom, encouragement and perspective at every single step and call and workshop, including a live zoom with his dog Atticus at one point. Michael is here today we are going to talk about pivoting around during and through a pandemic. How do we handle this? How do we stay calm? How do we work in such a different way? We will primarily focus on the business aspects. Whether it's you're a large organization, a manager or an executive leading a team through this, or an employee or entrepreneur who's figuring out how do you adapt and stay afloat during times like these. I'll read a little more of his bio in a minute, but first, Michael, welcome to the show.

Jenny, thank you so much.

I am really excited to have you here and you were so great to reach out. I think I mentioned this on one of our private Q and A calls and you reached out and just said if there's anything I can do to help. And I learned that you have a history and this is something you've done before. So before we get into the call, just read a little more of Michael's bio so you all know who you're listening to because coronavirus and pandemic news abounds. So Michael is the principal at MJC Solutions, his veteran owned small business that provides professional consulting and advisory services to organizations serving the healthcare sector. He's held several Leadership roles in emergency preparedness and pandemic response since 1997. That includes leading a health system pandemic response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. And most recently he served as the senior vice president for clinical integration at the Hospital and Health System association for Pennsylvania, where he worked in the hospital preparedness program. Dr. Consuelos Coordination of the health system response with local, state and federal authorities was to help them all maintain health business continuity and has since been used as a model by other hospital systems. So that theme of business continuity, we're going to pull that out today and translate it. How does it translate beyond Michael's work with the healthcare sector and into all of us who are facing so much uncertainty right now? Michael has a long history of educating healthcare professionals and has been invited to speak to national audiences on healthcare response capabilities during nuclear incidents and again, maintaining business during a pandemic. So, Michael, did I miss anything? Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jenny. That sounds great. Yeah.

So there's even more. Like I didn't even cover everything in your extensive background.

Yeah. And in my day job. Well, yeah, so let me go back a little bit. So I was, as you mentioned, I'm a veteran owned business, but I was a physician in the United States army. And that's really where this all started. And obviously with mass casualty care. And then in the early 2000s, we were dealing with chembio threats even before 9 11. So it's been sort of a passion of mine to really help fellow physicians, healthcare workers to really feel safe. Because really we take an oath to take care of people. And in these disasters or in these environments like a pandemic, we put ourselves in danger. And it's important for us to mitigate that danger as much as possible. And it's important, as we mentioned, business continuity, it's really important in healthcare for us to maintain our business continuity. So if the pizza shop down the street closes for a few days, that's an inconvenience. But if your hospital closed down for a couple days, that is a huge problem from the community, especially for those who are suffering from chronic illnesses or let's say pregnant women who want to deliver a baby, that's a tough time to try to figure out where to get your care if that does not happen. So for me, business continuity, especially in this current environment, is really important for folks to take a step, if they already haven't done that within their own company, to think about business continuity.

How long did you serve in the Army.

Yeah. So I was in the army for six years and actually I left right in 2001. It was kind of a strange timing right after 9, 11. And since then I've been in the sort of civilian world in healthcare. And again, that's where I got more experience in the H1N1 pandemic and then more recently with the hospital preparedness program, which basically helps with federal funding prepare hospitals in the regions and EMS to respond to all sorts of hazards. So it's an all hazard response because it may be hurricane one year, could be a fire like in California or in the current environment of pandemic.

Now, we're going to keep today's conversation pretty broad, but just to state, for the purposes of the recording, because things are changing so quickly, Michael and I are recording this on Tuesday, March 10th, and again we're going to try to keep our focus as broad as we can. At the same time, things may unfold, they're changing day by day. So Michael, I think when we hear the word pandemic, of course that alone can inspire panic. The movie Contagion is racing up the charts that it's almost number one on Amazon and itunes. And you know, I've heard a range of responses. Some are batting down the hatches like they're totally stocking up on bulk supplies for the apocalypse. And then I have others who say this fear is so overrated, the media is blowing it up. It's all sensationalism. This is no big deal. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

I try to fall with the experts. I try to get my information from folks at the cdc, from the World Health Organization. There's a couple of great other resources. Johns Hopkins has put up a dashboard that tracks really minute by minute, hour by hour, the different cases and deaths across.

Not just the United States, but across the world. You mentioned movies. We've seen this movie before, but it's just been different. I mean, this is more of a series, I guess, the different episodes. Yeah. So I think the reason folks on the medical side and the public health side and the emergency preparedness side are concerned is because this is acting differently than previous pandemics over the past couple of decades. So just for a couple minutes, we want to look back to 2003 when we had SARS. And that stands for Severe Acute respiratory syndrome. And that was another coronavirus. Coronavirus is. Let me just take a step back. Coronavirus is basically the common cold. It describes what kind of virus it is. And so it was a so called SARS coronavirus that started in Asia back in 2003, and it had a pretty good outbreak within a couple dozen countries, North America, South America, Europe. But it really got contained pretty quickly with quarantining, tracking of travelers. And it seemed like it didn't spread as quickly as what we're experiencing today. And so the other thing that I think people are concerned about is the death rates that we've heard. I had to get kind of grim right away, but SARS was just under like 10%, but 9.5% was the fatality rate. So it's important to understand that if a virus attacks a host and that host dies pretty quickly or becomes very ill very quickly, then they're compromised and can't spread that virus to other people. And that became even more important a few years later in Saudi Arabia when we saw mers, and that's the Middle East Respiratory syndrome, another coronavirus, back in 2012, and that fatality rate was about almost 35%. Those folks got severe respiratory illness. And pretty much a lot of them, one out of three died, and again, very sick. Easily to identify, easily to quarantine a very specific geographic region. And the virus didn't really spread that much. So what we're seeing today is a different animal. And because at least as we have recent data, 80, 85% of people have a mild cold and could potentially be asymptomatic or meaning not having symptoms like fever and cough, and they can spread it. So it spreads much more quickly. And so that is one of the concerns. And that's why we see countries quarantine large populations. Because right now, unlike the other thing that we've been talking a lot about is the flu. The flu we have vaccines for, we have antivirals, meaning like an antibiotic, but for a virus that can help shorten the course, we have pretty good testing to track patients who have influenza. We are just now getting the tests out for the current coronavirus infection that we're calling COVID 19. But we don't have vaccines and we don't have an antiviral. Especially older people, as we've seen in countries like Italy, that is really the high risk group. It seems to be older citizens and also with serious chronic conditions. I know there's a lot of stuff there, but I wanted to let people know why it's different in the past and different than the flu. And I think that's what the drums being beat is people thinking, well, this is just like the flu. Well, it's not.

That's really, really helpful. And yes. I've also heard that some have compared it to the Spanish flu, which ended up infecting 27% of the world's population. And so the numbers could get big. I think part of it too is, you know, first and foremost, anything we discuss in this conversation is Michael and I both want to say we hope you and your loved ones and all people around the world, you know, loving kindness. It's not even limited to just our family and the people we know and care about, but of course, to just have so much compassion for the people who have already passed from coronavirus, the ones who have it, the stress. And there may be some people who think, oh, well, I'm not the vulnerable population. And yet all of our daily lives are being significantly impacted at this point. So that does seem to be another indicator that this isn't going to be just another flu because we're seeing effects. You know, just the other day, my next two speaking engagements were canceled. A big event I was going to attend, Ted 2020, was postponed. Who knows if that will stick? I have organizations where we are now having to develop contingency plans that they might want to book me for, let's say, later in the year. And we're going to have to come up with a three pronged proposal. The event happens as planned. The event's all virtual. The event is canceled altogether. So even those who aren't in the direct line of fire today, which we all know you could be. So some may have a lot of fear and uncertainty around their health or their family's health. And then there's this other global economic impact and freeze that's happening and unfolding at a very rapid pace for people to adjust to. And it kind of removes even the ability to plan for the future right now. Unless you're one of those that's like, oh, I love black swan events. I've been waiting for this for 15 years. Can't wait to dive into my investing strategy.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. Right. And so you're right. And in the healthcare world, this is having also an impact. So we have.

Large health innovation conference called HIMSS that was canceled. Our societies and associations are canceling their annual meetings, which usually happen in the spring or early summer. Those are starting to become canceled. So, yeah. So people. And then on a perspective of people like me, now a solopreneur entrepreneur, these conferences are the way we do our business, Jenny. And you know that. I mean, it's not just speaking engagements. I have a couple of meetings coming up and they're discussing potentially canceling them. And I'm trying to, I work with several tech companies, health information and health, digital health companies, and trying to get their products and services out there. And it's handcuffing us. And so we have to think, really, I mean, what I'd like to talk about with you, because you've got a great experience in the entrepreneurial world and helping us sort of pivot, right? How can we do things a little differently, at least during the short to midterm period, so that we maintain our business continuity as an entrepreneur, as a business, as a large business, a multinational global business? We need to maintain business continuity because I believe that part of. And one of the things I want to talk about is really moving away from being a victim of the current circumstance to becoming a participant in the solution and finding new ways and from every disaster we've had over the past decade. In 2017, we had horrible hurricanes, we had the Harvey floods in Houston, we had mass shootings in Las Vegas. Each of those was a lesson for us to do a better job, to protect ourselves and take care of people afterwards.

It's an opportunity. Let's pivot and make this first of all a opportunity for us to look at our business continuity practices, think differently about how we run our business and interact with people. And so we're prepared because this may not be the last one. Right.

I remember when I was working on Pivot, I had just read Nassim Taleb's books. I had just finished Anti Fragile, which is Gaining from Disorder. And of course he wrote Black Swan that's now probably climbing its way back up the charts as everybody looks to that. And by the way, a Black Swan event, I should have pulled the exact definition, by all riff from my memory is one you can't plan for or project. And there is no logic to it necessarily. There's no. By definition, a Black Swan event is one you just can't see coming. It's not in the history books.

Right?

What makes this pandemic a black swan is that our economy is so global now and organizations are so global. And in a way, you mentioned opportunity. We're also more tech equipped than ever before. We have the Internet, we have tools like Zoom, where you and I are recording this right now. And so in a way, and even it's so interesting to look at large. I work with very large organizations who are, by the way, some of those are putting a pause on even travel within their employees or in person gatherings within their companies. So it's not just affecting cross organizational events and meetings and conferences like south by Southwest getting canceled. It's actually affecting how people do business within large organizations. Definitely. And then you look at entrepreneurs and people like us that are. We joke constantly in momentum about what sweats are you wearing today? You know, like working from home, working remotely, adapting. So functionally speaking, entrepreneurs are quite well set up for doing business in this way. Many entrepreneurs certainly it's very tough for those that have businesses related to travel events, restaurants, sports, schools, theater, anything that has large gatherings. On the other hand, you mentioned speaking, I have some colleagues who speaking is their primary source of income, if not only source of income. And not only are the events all getting canceled like Domino's right now, but I can guarantee almost no one's going to plan a large gathering right now. So typically fall is a busy season for me and many people I know well, nobody right now is going to spend more money and more cost and more planning on something they might just have to cancel. So there's a very real income impact that is already occurring.

Yeah, those are perishable, what in economics we call perishable goods and services. Right. So I mean, everybody thinks about apples in their grocery store that after a while they go bad, no one buys them, they get thrown out. But in our line of work, there's actually perishable events. Right. So maybe you can push them back, but it's possible that some of these events are not going to occur and they'll just rehash them next year or do something different. Right. So that opportunity is gone. And airline industry, restaurants, every time a table doesn't get filled or a seat doesn't get filled on an airplane that's a perishable service or good that you'll never see that income again, that flight will never be full again.

So you mentioned big organizations and I'm familiar with several, and they are doing some interesting things. One of the things I want to share is one of the large investment banking firms in New York is splitting up their workforce. They're taking about half their workforce and they're moving them to another building in another borough.

And then they're taking another percentage of the folks and they're asking them to work from home. So they're basically taking their workforce, splitting it into not quite thirds, but so home office, satellite office and home office. What is genius and important about that and people should look at that model is if there is an event, if there is an event that requires quarantine for a large population of their workforce, if it happens in their home office, the other half or two thirds of the organization is still able to work and even possibly meet in small team meetings if they had to. Otherwise, if you had your whole organization in one building, there's a mass event where multiple people get infected that creates serious business continuity issues. Again, I don't know if that was part of their plan or they're working through that, but those are the kind of ideas that business leaders should start sharing if they aren't already sharing with each other. Even in a competitive environment. Like you mentioned, we're all human beings. We all want to take care of each other.

Lessening the number of people on the subways and buses and in transit, that is really helping decrease the chance of spread of the coronavirus, which is important for not just the company, but for the community.

And that goes to diversification. And that's an investing strategy, as I know it's an investment bank, so makes sense that they're thinking that way, even diversifying ones. I call it your pivot portfolio. So what are the business activities that you do even if you're employed full time at an organization? The reality of our economy today is you could be reorged or let go at any moment in time. And what would you do? And.

The interesting thing is Pivot came out of a time where my business almost collapsed. So in a way, at that moment, I was really thinking a lot about this. What do I do if I'm in this position again and all hell breaks loose? I kind of wrote pivot with that in mind, knowing that, well, that's what we need to be agile the most and have these backup plans. And in the book I talk about redundancy. So maybe you do have a day job or a main source of income if you're self employed. But what's something running in parallel? So for me, speaking as in person, thank goodness I've been doubling down on licensing programs for the last five years. So not only does that preserve my business, but companies that don't want to organize people in rooms together are equipped to facilitate. So I'd love to talk and actually return to this idea about perishable services.

There are some businesses with such slim margins as is like restaurants and airlines.

And then you have, let's say, entertainment goods, sports and theater. And I'm going to include a lot of links in the show notes for this episode. You can find them@pivotmethod.com podcast.

Even articles in the New York Times talking about the theater, Broadway, Broadway shows being Affected. Now, I know these are all first world problems of the highest order. So there's going to be a lot of people that don't have the privilege to work from home. Some workers in the gig economy, some who have jobs that it's not even possible. You can't work at McDonald's from home. That's not a thing. And some businesses may not be flexible with giving people time for self quarantine or even if schools shut down, which some are starting to do. The parents that I talk to now have to figure out not only how they navigate their role at work, but taking care of their children in the face of schools shutting down or self quarantine even. So I know I'm jumbling a lot.

Those are all really important. So I want to. The last piece also. So there was a study back in 2005 actually in the New York metro area where about 6,500 healthcare workers were interviewed and surveyed. And I want to bring this up because they brought together different types of emergencies, bioterrorism, chemical warfare, mass casualty. And they asked them, are you able to work? And then are you willing to work?

Some of the things you're talking about is whether or not they can actually work, able to work in case there's something like that happening. And then there's the fear and the concern for someone's own health or the childcare or elder care issues. And what they found was, during what they actually used the SARS event that I spoke about a little bit earlier as an untreatable infectious disease outbreak. And about 2/3 of folks said, yeah, I'm able to work, but less than half, I'm sorry, able to work out, but less than half were willing. And that meant that hospitals would be saying to themselves, how do I get those folks in the door? And you're absolutely correct.

And the reason is because as society starts to slow down, mass transit, daycare, schools, it draws the family unit back to the home. Right. And they're not able to do their work or their work is not able to be done hourly. I just had a dental appointment a couple weeks ago. So yes, twice a year I get my teeth cleaned. And the dental hygienist said, you know what's happening? Because I get paid hourly. And I have. I'm just trying, I'm scraping by. I'm trying to have two mortgage payments in the bank because if I don't work for two weeks or four weeks, I can't make mortgage payments. That's real life stuff.

Absolutely. And what's so Challenging is that even the business owners don't know and can't promise how long this is all going to last. So even if this person has saved two mortgage payments in the bank, there could come a situation. What you said about able to work and willing to work is so interesting because I'll give you an example. Even I was requested or invited to speak right as the dominoes started to fall. So it wasn't quite clear yet that every single thing was going to be canceled. And it's cross country. And I was asking myself, it was this weird question where. And I spoke on my podcast with Grant Baldwin on building a successful speaking career. He talks about it's not just the value he brings to the organization, it's how much is it going to cost for him to leave his family.

Yeah, it was a great. By the way, I did hear that podcast, great podcast. Plug for that.

Thank you.

You know, and I think you're absolutely 155.

But I was just gonna say I had to make a calculation. Is it worth me not, not worrying about the final destination? Is it worth me being in the airport and on the plane?

Right.

What's the price on that and what's the, what's the effect if I. And how am I gonna be the one lone wolf that says, oh, it's no big deal. And then meanwhile, all the smartest, you know, organizations are like shutting things down and not just not wanting to get sick, but how could the self quarantine impact my business? And I'm always trying to build redundancy with my team where it all doesn't rest on my shoulders and I'm not the bottleneck. But these are very real questions now where money is at stake and yet how do you put a price on your health or being away from your family or exposing your family to.

Potential virus?

Yeah, I completely agree. That is a calculus that I think many, many people are not just work attending events. Are they going to visit their family? My parents are in their 80s and they live in North Carolina. I live in Pennsylvania. And I'm trying to figure out like I want to see them soon. I might just get in my car and just drive and not talk to anybody. Go through, drive through and not, you know, basically so I don't bring the virus potentially to them. And they have some illnesses. So, you know, I think that risk is real. People are making individuals calculations and I think we need to respect that. I think we need to respect where people are in their lives, their professional needs and give people some space. I Think we need to kind of come together and support people in those individual decisions because we don't know really the whole story behind the person. And I hope that businesses and conferences and.

The people who make these larger decisions also are doing the right things for the people.

It does seem that the people are doing that. One of the. You mentioned the opportunity that comes during times like these. I'm finding there's a lot of flexibility, creativity and collaboration that's happening even in a business sense. Because I just came from a call where we kind of joked about pivot and how do you pivot when change is happening so quickly.

And we have to scope out some future work together? And we're both saying to each other, well, we can't make any promises. Like we're almost laughing in a way not to make light of the situation, but we're like, let's try to have this planning call. And yet we have no clue. So I mentioned earlier developing a three part proposal of it's in person, it's virtual, it doesn't happen. And what are the. And these are not bad things to have on hand anyway, by the way.

Absolutely, you're absolutely correct. Because it could be other reasons. Right. That this could happen.

So one of the things I want to riff on that a little bit is something I mentioned earlier, which is moving from a stance of being a victim of the situation to an active participant and would like to say you actually become a hero. And that example that you're giving right now is you could say, well, I don't know enough information. I don't want to waste time doing this. I'll just wait. And then you wait on the next thing. And then people who depend on you to do that work are also waiting. And I think it's important to go ahead and do that work up to the point where you have to pull the trigger for the trip. But moving from a victim to a participant and actually doing the work is beneficial to you, but also it's beneficial to people who work for you. And I think that that's people and folks, if they get anything out of this, is to move from that stance of victim to try to maintain their business.

There's a story that I give when I give talks to large audiences. There's a person who worked for me, his name is Tom Grace, he was helping out in Florida during one of the hurricanes, I believe, back in 20. And this hospital, small hospital, community hospital, was being inundated not just by water, but by community members. Folks were, it was the shelter was too full or they couldn't get to the shelter. So now the hospital was the safest, highest ground in the community. Right. And he was talking to their leadership. He was not on site. He was coordinating care across preparedness across the state. And he started asking some questions and he started asking, are those some people, do you think they're willing to do some work, some manual labor? And they're like, yeah, probably. Do you have people who are in daycare or in the school systems? Do you think they would be able to work? Yeah. So instead of being victims of their situation, he had the leadership of the hospital. If people could physically do it, they were filling sandbags and shifts around the clock for 24, 48 hours. If they're daycare workers or teachers, they took the kids who come there as the high ground as they were trying to find shelter and because they already have the proper security clearance, everything else like that, started doing things with the kids to keep them entertained. So he moved that unit of group of people from being victims and waiting for the walls to come crashing down to actually taking care of themselves and each other. And it gave them purpose. And I think that thinking about next few minutes maybe, like, what do we do? What do we do with ourselves and our.

Partners in our work to move away from just waiting for something else to happen and reading the news 247 to OK, what can I get done.

Over the next couple weeks or months?

That question alone is so important in a situation like this, and you're right, that it'd be easy to be consumed by the news and very quickly tip into fear and anxiety. You know, we have terms like fud, fearing uncertainty and doubt, or vuca, which I know originated with the US Army. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. And we're certainly in those times. So I love your question of. And we could ask that of ourselves every day as the environment around us changes, how do I move from victim to hero? And I'll just say, and I've had. It's been really interesting reading, mostly I'll link to these from the New York Times about even schools and theater companies, how they were piloting global streaming. So there's an opera in Italy and Italy is on countrywide lockdown, quarantine. So they streamed their performance showing the show must go on, the show will go on, and we can do this. Now, schools that, you know, a lot of universities were already experimenting with sort of massive online courses and online streaming. Well, now they're getting a chance to pilot a lot of this technology and almost like leap ahead. Even the corporate organizations I work with are running through scenarios. What if we had to transition all of our training online? What would that look like? Which courses could have that happen the quickest? So I think on this Victim to Hero Shift 1, it's asking the question and I also think it's realizing when you're sucked into the media cycle versus kind of getting a little daily dose of like reality, what's happening or as close as possible, when are you sucked into it? Even for me, it is, I will say it is nerve wracking as an entrepreneur and a breadwinner and saying I am exactly one of those types of businesses that all work could dry up if the economy slows down, you know, and I've known that for a long time and it would be easy to tip into.

Total anxiety about that. And so I would love for us to talk about when you find yourself even in those moments, even you, Michael, I wonder if you get anxiety or you're just kind of used to this by now. You've been through it before, but how, how you shift it.

So yeah, the models I talk to folks about.

I think there's, there's what I call quiet work or quiet actions that are more internally facing and then there are the active or external facing, business continuity or business changes you can make. Just thinking about as you're talking about that, I think about, well, we're in March, it's tax season. Hey guys, did all of you get your taxes done yet? It's got to get done, it seems. Sounds kind of weird to talk about that, but how about you get that finished while we can't. We all have proposals. We've all had our boilerplate proposals. That's kind of a quiet activity that never seems to have enough time.

Was the last time we refreshed, I don't know, customer contacts.

Fine tuned our keynote. Right. I mean you talked about the, you know, Jenny, you talked about a couple of keynotes that you've given and I'm sure you give great keynotes. Like, you know, is there, this is an opportunity for folks who do that work to say, huh, how can I change my keynote and pivot to this current situation? How can I fine tune it to be more in tune with the current worries and concerns of leaders? I don't know, just as I like, I could probably come up with 10 other things, but that's, you know, those are internal things. What do you think about that? What do you think about just like alone time to work through stuff that Sometimes you don't get that space, you don't get that.

Well, one thing I read was saying, of course this is, oh, it's just the privilege and then the sort of like, like loved ones health caveats just have to go above everything I'm saying. But this one article was that this is giving everybody the break they need. That actually our world is so fast paced and there's so much work and so many meetings and so much travel. For me, this will be the least I've traveled in 10, if not 20 years because I traveled a lot. Even when I worked at Google the most, I've been sort of grounded and there is a little bit of relief like there is, there is a little bit of a feeling of everyone, I think gets to hunker down a little bit, you know. And I listened to the other Pivot podcast with Kara Sluicer and Scott Galloway. They were saying, who's doing better right now than the president of Purell or the head of Netflix? Because so the quiet I think is also acknowledging. So for me, the quiet mode. I love this distinction between quiet things we can do, internal versus active and external. For me, quiet is.

The self compassion one. Like this is a stressful time. So sometimes just saying that to myself, yes, you are in a business that is vulnerable to complete economic slowdown. We all are. Imagine not just what it's like for me, imagine what it's like for others. Be grateful for.

What I do have. I do know how to work from home. I do have a lot that I already do virtually by nature of working with global companies.

Quiet, the internal is about not just self compassion, but really looking at.

When am I in fear, when am I ruminating? So some fear is healthy because it says even, oh, it's time to refinance, It's a good time to have extra cash on hand. Mortgage rates are at a record low. Okay, like revisiting certain decisions like that and reflecting and when am I ruminating? And so if I'm ruminating and I'm thinking fear based thoughts, everything could collapse. All my income could stop. If other companies stop doing business, then they certainly are going to be hiring external consultants. Well, I could also counter that with a thought that's just as true because I don't know. So if I'm going to think the fear based thought, I might as well add a thought that says, well, companies are going to need external and remote and scalable programs certainly around navigating change now more than ever. So I also try to have that discipline of Fear based thoughts are okay, they're natural. It's understandable. And what's the other side of that?

That is about gratitude for myself, my family's health, you know, everyone I know. And also, and also asking that question of, well, what is the opportunity here? What is the. There's the fear based thought and certainly things could go the way of the worst case scenario. Why don't. I might as well ask what's the best case scenario? Or how am I well positioned, not just focusing on the fear of being an entrepreneur in times like these or small business, but saying, well, what's good about that? Maybe I'm more agile than a lot of bigger organizations, you know, just finding the good.

Yeah. So I have to say, Jenny, I don't know what other folks are getting out of this, but I'm getting something out of it. Right, so. Because I think that.

Right back at you.

Yeah, so no, I mean I think.

As I thought about our conversation, maybe just my personality, a lot of it.

Was.

Checking the boxes on things that I thought could get done in this quiet time. But you've helped me reframe in a way to really be mindful and notice the fear and be okay with it and say, yeah, that's there.

Okay, now what are we going to do kind of thing. You know, I think everyone is concerned, you know, even, you know, if there's folks who aren't concerned, I worry about them the most actually.

Because there's even.

There'S concern about business and the economy and as you said, there's concern about the people we love. Parents. My dad, my dad and I were set to have a visit in Seattle coming up and that just doesn't seem like a good idea for either of us to be on public transportation in and out of where we know that there is more activity around COVID 19 than in other parts. So.

Of course people could also ruminate. I mean, I've talked in previous podcasts like the one with Casey Carter about how I think about my death or my families that quite often I'm always like, what if this is the last time we talk?

Well, you know, the one that comes bothers me sometimes. You talk about, I'm sorry, just everybody not listening to this is when you talk about when you were publishing your book that if you die before your book was published, I mean.

That hit me and thought the work that I'm doing, what if I don't get to see it to the end? Right. I mean we're getting really down here.

But you know, that it's important. Like, to me, death doesn't. When I go through these thought exercises, memento mori, it's not. It's not a morbid. And I'm not even depressed about it. Like, I actually think I scare people around me because I'm like, okay, just so you know, here's the file. So when I die, here's where to find everything and I'll just talk about it. Like the weather and that can be really concerning for people. And so.

Yeah.

Sorry to interrupt. I was just gonna say, like.

No, no, no.

It really is an indicator that you care.

No, you're absolutely correct.

And how to make the most like we. Because COVID 19 something like this makes it so immediate in our face. We or the people we love could get sick. And yet that is a reality every day. Like, the people who are not alarmist about this and don't seem that worried, they're like, look how many people die in car crashes every day. You know, they are comparing it to sort of broader things that could happen in any given day. I don't think that helps people much. I think the anxiety about your family staying safe and healthy is still going to be there, but it's not that productive ultimately. Unless there is. Maybe this takes us into the active piece, but it's almost like what's happening in the stock market. What you don't want is everybody panicking and taking their money out at the worst possible time when the market is at an all time low or relatively so. And the same thing could happen with moving people around. Like, it's actually not probably the time. Unless they're in a nursing home that's been affected, which has happened. Of course.

Yeah. It reminds us of our impermanence in our current state. Right. Meaning we're on this big blue marble together for a period of time. We're not going to talk about what happens before or afterwards, but it reminds us that life is fragile, that our work is important, and that, again, the reason I'm passionate about this is because it's. To me, I think it matters for people to maintain some sense of purpose and to continue about their daily lives. You mentioned the opera and the theater. I mean, I think there's the economic impact, but we derive great joy from those events, from the sporting events, that sense of community, to cheer for our team and, you know, say bad things about the other team. That's a human experience that.

Is going away for a period of time. Sorry, we're getting kind of dark here a little bit. But then facing and say, okay, but the fact that it exists is precious and valuable for us to do the things we need to do to bring it back.

I just love that piece of the reminder around impermanence and recognizing all those things that do bring us joy as a culture and a society and how much value there is.

You know, it's a time for us to rethink not just our own business, but maybe our relationships to reach out to people. If we can't be with them on phone, it's likely that they're potentially stressed and suffering. You know, again, this is now we're moving to a more active state, but you know, to reach out to the loved ones and make new friends also. So maybe we could talk a bit more about the active stuff because I think there's also this pent up need for people to do something and put their hands to work, their minds to work. What a great opportunity to think about, boy, how do I leverage technology?

What have I not tried before that now I have to try? I don't know.

Yeah, I would love to talk about active response both in terms of health more broadly and the world more broadly and business. Because there are two different things. So there's active in terms of think by all by now we all know. Wash your hands.

Yes, sing that song. But yeah, right, Wash them. Wash them longer than you possibly think you should wash your hands.

The crazy thing though is someone said, like, stock up on all these things and hand sanitizer because I'm really not a germaphobe by nature. And I was thinking, oh, my friends that are obsessive about germs, they're most, now's their time to shine. You know, they're like, oh, I'm already in the habit of doing all these things. Like, I never used to wipe down every corner of an airline seat before. I know I probably should. And I have friends that do. But now that's the advice is take a wet wipe or sanitizing wipe and.

Wherever if it's a plane or not. But I will say I went onto Amazon, I was trying to be responsible, so I thought, okay, I better stock up on a few things. Boom. Hand sanitizer is out. Sold out. All the stores near us, it's sold out. The shelves are clear. So in terms of active response, first, again, we'll cover the health aspect and the general response and then I'd love to dive into the business and career side with you. But in terms of active, what do you even do if that stuff's cleared off the Shelves, like, we can't even get a lot of these materials right.

So I want everybody. Now, you're a few years younger than I am, but I remember when I was growing up, there was this thing that my parents put next to the sink and made bubbles and I washed my hands with it. Soap actually works pretty well. So, I mean, I understand the convenience of hand gels and these. You know, if you're on the move and you're out in public, that's hard to replace, but that everybody should have plain old soap at home and just make it a habit every time you come in from the outside world to wash your hands. If you're in a public place, use the facilities to wash. Everybody should be doing it. But it's surprising to see how many people don't actually do that.

It's hard to replace the portable gels. And I hope that people stop hoarding because. So if you have all the hand gel in town, that means everybody else is going to get sick and at some point you're going to get sick. Right. So there has to be some responsibility there.

The wiping down of things, basically, alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, if you can find it in the pharmacies or in grocery stores, unlike some things you've seen, I think people are using vodka that's 40% alcohol. That's not going to. It needs to be at least 70, 65 to 70% alcohol to really dry what it does. It basically desiccates, it dries the virus and it can't live. So that you can start, basically, and I hate to say this, but a little rubbing alcohol to put on your hands. And if you saw the old movies, I think in mash, they jokingly would take the alcohol that they made and rub their hands, but I think just plain old alcohol would work. So, I mean, I think there's lots of home remedies, but I think just washing your hands, that act of washing hands and social distancing, and especially for folks who may be listening to this who are over the age of 60, 65, or have chronic illnesses, really think twice about being in large crowds and try to keep enough distance away from themselves and people who may be sick.

I do find it's a little confusing because some of the media, it says, just go about your daily lives. Everybody stay calm. Here's how to stay calm.

But it kind of feels like some of the fear and anxiety people are experiencing is warranted. And even the social distancing. I was just thinking about just yesterday, we meet a lot of People walking the dog now. I live in New York City.

Sure.

He's so cute. He's just now five months old. You've seen him.

We zoom with our two dogs go, right?

And sometimes people, once we're talking about the dogs and we're done, they go to shake my hand. It is an awkward moment. And so now part of that social distancing is like offering the elbow bump, you know, but it is an awkward moment where you got to be like, oh, coronavirus. Not everyone's obsessively reading about it 247 and knows protocol yet. So that's what's kind of interesting.

Yeah. And different communities. As time goes, different communities have different levels of risk. And so depending on when you hear this podcast, your community could not have anybody in the vicinity who is positive for COVID 19, or there could be a significant number of folks. So it's hard to generalize, I guess I'm saying. And I think.

It'S important to know your own risk and risk tolerance and trying to limit your risk, but absolutely trying to keep society going and keeping some sense of normalcy is also important.

Moving on to the business side, so I'll offer a few things. Definitely want to hear what your. What's on your mind. I mentioned contingency plans. Another thing that I think is very interesting about navigating work in an emergency like this one, in a global pandemic, Is that what it's doing, at least from my rookie perspective? Like, I'm not you, I'm not an expert.

But I do have a sort of an interesting seat, I guess, in that I've been studying change. But what I'm seeing is that it's really accelerating a lot of global trends in the workforce that were already happening. So remote work was already happening. I've talked about Basecamp, a recent podcast I did on the book it doesn't have to be crazy at work. Remote work is a thing. And a lot of companies were more somewhere, more or less open to it, days of working from home again, figuring out how to facilitate large gatherings virtually things like massive online education MOOCs. So these are trends that this is where things were starting to go anyway. And one opportunity that I see here in terms of active and those who are both employees, executives and entrepreneurs, is to say, how does responding now to a pandemic and pivoting around a pandemic actually position us for where these trends in technology are taking us in the future anyway? So if your team doesn't know how to facilitate training over tools Like Zoom or Google Hangouts, Now's the time to learn. If you are an entrepreneur and you offer services that are in person, now's the time to adapt and say, how do I deliver and how do I shape programs in an environment of uncertainty? What would it look like to create contracts? And this goes for both sides of the equation, or all sides. What would it look like to create contracts that actually have resiliency built into them in terms of how the work is delivered, such that companies do not want and cannot stop doing business simply because the pandemic is happening? In fact, for most people, the urge is going to be how do we keep our business going? And for that reason, we all need to ask this question of how do we do our business in a way that is global, scalable and virtual and that's going to last a long time, even when we opt for in person, which now becomes the thing we're so grateful for. In a way, it's like what you said about sporting events and theater, that it shows how special it really is to be able to do our work in person. And yet now that's not going to be the only way things get done anymore.

Yeah. So when I speak to business audiences on this topic, I asked them about is it important to be the first to market with a new viable product? And like, oh yeah, yeah. Is it important to have a monopoly or oligopoly or basically have a limited patent on a certain technology? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So why do you not think it's important that your business, which could be the only business in town, stay open? Right. I mean, businesses work so hard to be first movers to get their pat and all that. All that and business continuity. The active things that you're describing, the businesses, this is my, this is what I'm theorizing. The businesses who are doing the things you just described, Jenny, the quickest, the best and most efficiently have an advantage in the market now and for the future.

Right? And it occurs to me too, even for so many individuals who don't currently work from home, but are increasingly might be asked to work from home, it's a skill. I mean, you and I, Michael, like people laughed at me because I have a free course called Free Up Founder Time. I'll put it in the show notes. And I did this bonus call. Somebody asked me, jb, how do you prevent interruptions when you have family around? Because they just think because I'm home, I miss available all day long. And I actually bought this color coded foam door hanger. System from Amazon. Like, they're $6 for six colored foam door things. And I wrote little messages on each one. Like recording a podcast that goes on the red foam door hanger. Recording a podcast, do not enter. And there's a yellow one. It's like working. Feel free to knock or text, you know. So some of the hangers say text only, please. Purple is meditating or doing yoga. Like, text only. So for my husband and I, he laughs at me. Everybody laughs at me. That's fine. I'm okay with it. But there is actually an indicator on my door that says what the protocol is. Because again, just because I'm home doesn't mean that I'm available. And there are very small, simple things like that that people who don't know how to work from home. It can be really anxiety producing because you have stress. Oh, if I hear the dog is barking, or you have a child who needs you, or you're hungry or you're bored and you go to the fridge, or there goes the TV remote. So close it's right there. It's not easy to work from home. It sounds like a luxury, and in many ways it is. But there's a lot of challenges and just anxiety that comes with it. Which, by the way, just got me to remember what I wanted to talk to you about on the quiet, all right.

Stress alone, right? Fear, worry, uncertainty, stress alone. On that quiet side, let's say that the.

Downbeat part of the quiet internal, that alone can create a compromised immune system, right? So let's talk about the importance of that. I just don't want to forget. And then we'll come back to the.

No, no, no, no, no. In fact, you know what? I meant to bring this up, and I have a little outline, just sort of self disclosure. I try to get organized for these things. Of course, as I was riding my bike, so I'm a big cyclist, as you know, I had this like, oh, there's this thing. And then it never ended up. That's the bad part. It's like I can't remember to write all this stuff down. And the AARP did a study and I'm going to get probably the exact dollar amount wrong. It's about $134 increase in cost for elderly people who suffer from social isolation. So it cost the healthcare System an additional $134 a year if that elderly person is isolated. And basically what that means is that their other chronic illnesses don't do as well. They have anxiety, stress, or other behavioral health issues that worsen so it's actually a real costless system. Not just the personal suffering that you're describing, but it has a true economic impact. And you're absolutely correct. The isolation. We are social beings. Even, you know, I'm an e. I'm an extrovert, so I get the energy from other people. And there are. I heard, I heard a rumor there's eyes out there. But you know, see, the eyes are.

Going to thrive right now.

I know exactly.

We're going to be like, sweet. I don't have to go anywhere or.

See anyone, finally, that they would leave me alone.

So there are, there is. And I'm just. This is just the one thing I remember. There is data that shows that social isolation in human beings creates problems. It creates problems in their health and their productivity and other things. So, I mean, let's not get totally grim. But there's a reason they put people into isolation as a punishment. Right. So anyway, so, yeah, so I think that that piece is really important. Important to remember.

And maybe that can be part of the we have. We have. I'm picturing this great diagram, Michael, of like quiet, active, upbeat, downbeat. You know, those aren't even the right words, up and down. But maybe when you find yourself in that quiet, stressful rumination, one reminder is that takes you into the active is actually, it's. It's important for my, my health and wellness, for my immune system to move out of that mode. So having compassion and recognizing it and, and talking to yourself as you would talk to a friend or a child, which is to say, don't beat yourself up like, oh, what the hell's wrong with you? Why are you just reading the news all day? No, that's not the narrative. It's just, hey, I know this is stressful. And actually the best thing I can do for my health is take my vitamins, rest, you know, have, have exercise, keep social distancing and like, go back to that active place actually for the betterment of your immune system. Because the placebo effect, like, our minds are so powerful and that alone is an important step to take, no matter how much kind of discomfort. It's like just, I think, important to try to avoid compounding the stress because then our immune system goes to fight the stress, not the long term, really vital health prevention.

And we probably don't have our clearest minds also.

Yes, right, right.

So it's hard to, I think, dive into our work if there's this constant noise of worry in the background. Right. So it's hard to get into, as you say, a flow state. If that's happening to you, I want to just go back to just. We were saying about those door hangers. Right? Those are.

Yeah. Now we can bounce back.

Yeah, Sorry. So, you know what? I. Sorry. But you know, I think those little tricks and for people to share, I mean, I think that's a good. That's an active thing that you can do within your own community or people who are now used to be in offices together, who are now in some sort of social isolation, talk about things like that. It's like, hey, how are you handling this? What are you doing? Oh, I heard a podcast the great Jenny Blake talked about through these door hangers. I did that helped me out share that information with other people. I think that's also an active part to. Again, it's a system and people will start getting their own systems. But that could be. That's a piece of work to share within a business, a management group, just to check in, just like people do the coffee counter or the water cooler, whatever else. Everybody's checking in how their weekends are. Let's not stop doing that just because we're working remotely.

Let's put that into our day somehow. It's hard to have a virtual water cooler or coffee bar or whatever. But let's not forget that that serendipity of conversation to catch up with people and talk about how they're doing is an important piece that companies and individuals need to find some sort of outlet that isn't completely tied to some sort of asynchronous communication. So it's not just, oh, I'm posting on Facebook or I'm posting on this or this. We need that face to face time or that interaction to feed off each other and to develop ideas. Which again, is another active that I'm concerned about is that.

When people go to conferences and you hear a speaker, there's some idea generation. There's actually a mental change that occurs and you see the world differently. Or you bump into somebody at a breakfast and they tell you what they do and you learn a little bit about what their company does. Your world is better because you learn more about another person, their role. Also, like, oh, I didn't realize that's what you guys did. Whatever it is that's going to be missing. Right. And so how do we not be able to reel all that back in? But how do we allow those type of interactions to occur? And I think that you mentioned these long. These large online courses or large meetings. You know, there'll probably be a lot smarter than I am to see. Could we set up something that happens more virtually and people do breakout sessions. So if you have a conference now, as I've mentioned, some of these conferences in healthcare, they're now being done virtually.

That serendipitous interaction and making the. Trading the business card and making a connection is now longer going to be there. Like Zoom and other type of conference platforms do allow for breakouts.

Right. I love that feature of Zoom. It's so good.

You just used it recently and I was a big fan.

Yeah. Everybody said more and more we want more time breaking out with each other.

You know, because that's a natural. That's a natural human response, I think, is as you're sharing ideas and you're building off each other. Like you and I are having this, you know, people are just sort of, sort of eavesdropping here. You and I are having this idea generation that is really hard to have by passing emails back and forth or texts or whatever else. We need that space. We need that little rope, that little connection between us mentally to feed each other, and then we're a better person. I think because of it.

There's a lot we can also learn from each other. I think entrepreneurs are going to learn from organizations. How are organizations setting the tone and what policies are they putting in place? Because we don't have. I don't have some chief HR officer who's telling me what to do. So I might look at, well, what are the organizations out there doing? How are, you know. So part of the reason south by Southwest was canceled was that they, the big companies pulled out of it. Google, Twitter, Facebook, they said, we're not sending our employees. We can't be liable if anything happens. By the way, of course, the residents of Austin, Texas were saying, are you kidding me? Get this out of here. Like, they signed a petition saying, don't bring us this risk. But so I think entrepreneurs can learn from organizations and kind of track a little bit. Similarly, organizations have a lot to learn from entrepreneurs in that. Even my course Free Up Founder Time, I created it for founders solopreneurs. And yet as we were talking, I'm like, there's so much in there that would be relevant. So companies have to be willing to tap into all that exists in the entrepreneurial world around how do we work, how do we get things done. And companies always talk about they want every employee to be the CEO of their career. They want employees to take think like an owner. Even the idea of virtual conferences, I stopped saying yes a long time ago to participate because I was just getting like five requests a week. I mean that's an exaggeration, but I just made a blanket rule. I'm not going to participate. But look at all the people who I've done one. I organized one called Speak Like a Pro way back maybe 2000, I don't even know what year, long time ago. But now the people who organize virtual online conferences, now you have things like what you were explaining in the healthcare industry that are going virtual. They have so much to learn about how people have already organized these events, even from a technical hosting standpoint that I think there's going to be some very interesting cross pollination and peeking over the fence at what the other group is doing and what we can learn.

I want to build on that. Here's an idea that somebody could do actively. A lot of the folks who are entrepreneurs today, like myself and I've done this, I've reached out to former employers and say, hey, do you need some help? I'm pretty busy, but is there something I can help you with? And I'm thinking the folks who are doing the solopreneur entrepreneur journey right now, a lot of them had prior employers and like you're saying they're skilled at some of the things we should described, they could actively reach back into their network and say, look, I know how to run virtual meetings, I know how to do this, I know whatever the laundry list you just mentioned. Do you guys need help?

Right, by the way, is what so many of my coaching clients in the past have done successfully. Their first client is often the company that they're leaving that they were working for full time. And this can be beautiful, ongoing relationships like what I have with Google where I might have left full time back in 2011, but we still work together to this day happily. So I am so delighted when I get to go in and give a keynote to a group within the company and vice versa. They're just as happy to hear from a former Googler. They call them zooglers in the wild. What's it like? Yeah, with an X. With an X.

Is there life after Google? Kind of like after college. Right.

So someone did suggest I write that book a long time ago and then I think somebody did. Who knows? Anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the other thing I was thinking of was I'm an executive coach and I know you coach and a lot of folks who are listening to this are probably coaching also have some sort of service, professional service around the coaching lines and I've heard you speak other people speak about on demand services, right. And so how could you write a really quick agreement contract and throw it out there for people to as they are stressed or they're having leadership issues with their groups now they're all disjointed and doing whatever they're doing. That's an active thing, right? It's a new business line. You don't have to go meet people. You're now getting your name out and it's try something new. And that's actually on my little checkoff list for this week to say, okay, how would I do on demand services specifically on this topic, emergency preparedness, but other things that I do for coaching and where I don't have to really garner a long term relationship but say, look, if you need help and you're just asking to spend time with somebody and bounce some ideas and get some on the spot just in time. Just like the hand gel in the stores is just in time delivery, it's just in time coaching or just in time advisory work.

You know, I don't know, what do.

You think about that also? I love it. And that also connects to the idea of piloting. None of us know or have the answers about what to do and what the future is going to hold. So we mentioned at the beginning leading your company to pivot around a pandemic. So if you are a leader, you are a manager. I'm not in these organizations. I have now been privy to the internal communications. But I can imagine that so much of the role of a leader right now is to say, I don't know, I don't have the answers. And this goes to change management, to use industry speak, but to say, I don't know and we're all in this together, we're going to figure it out. And if I were a leader, I would say I'm going to ask for your help taking things day by day. And what's so funny is that as an entrepreneur, I tell that to my team already. I'm like, I might have moments where I'm like, listen, I don't know how I'm going to pay you next month. This is the reality. So if you could just be patient with me about this invoice, I'm giving it a little more bluntly than I might. But as an entrepreneur we're already having setting that tone because we simply just do not know what the future holds at any given time. The other thing, so there's piloting, being willing to pilot different streams of Income. If you're an entrepreneur and pilot different forms of sort of contractor relationships, pulling in remote work, pop up work, coaches, consultants as needed. Of course, there's a certain level of responsiveness. So, Michael, you did exactly that, actually. You've been a superstar momentum member like you've been. You've just added so much since you joined.

But thank you, Jenny.

You reached out to us, to my team and said, hey, just want to make myself available. If you need anything at all for you, for Momentum, just let me know. And that gave me an opportunity to respond and say, actually, yes, let's record a podcast. So that brings me to my third point. So we have piloting responsiveness, and this goes to the quieter internal side of things, perfectionism. When you wrote that, I thought, this is important. We do need to talk about it. And I'm nervous. What the hell do I know about pivoting around a pandemic? And I can only speak from my seat, my position in the world and what I'm thinking about and going through and the expertise I do have around change, navigating change. But I was nervous. However, if I let perfectionism get in the way, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So I've talked about this before on the podcast. I'll throw it in the show notes. We have to be willing to move forward. In the book, I talk about Google's mantra, get be scrappy. We have to be willing to move forward in a very scrappy, imperfect way where that's also responsive and quick. So I mentioned earlier, my friend who said, how do you deal with change when it's happening so quickly? So you and I, Michael, I did not wait for you to fit into the schedule. We're booked out till April. You know, at this point, we're booked six weeks out. I said, let's record as soon as possible. How about, you know, how about Tuesday? You said, yes, we're in the moment. We're building the kind of talking, you know, what do we want to cover in this call? We're doing it on the fly the first 15 minutes before we hit record. And then I'm going, going to push the schedule out. Like I'm actually going to squeeze this in on an off day of publishing a podcast is a very tiny example. But to give a sense that that's how everything is going to be, it's going to be scrappy, responsive in the moment, agile, imperfect. Things are going to be messy. A lot of things we said might become out of date or might have been said in A less delicate way than could have been said. And yet, as Petra said in her book Perfection Detox, the world needs your imperfect voice, not your perfect silence. So I think we're all going to have to be willing to keep moving, knowing that it's imperfect and responsive and can change at any time.

Yeah. So I want to follow up with that. Is that.

My email to you and to your listeners? I have a passion about this. There's. I've been giving out free advice to my own detriment the past couple of weeks, but basically because I care about people and I want to maintain professional relationships and friendships in this current environment. Because if I were to look at every single way I could have turned a dollar for my expertise on this, then what happens?

I'm not being true to myself.

And humans who are true to themselves, sometimes they're kind of messy, sometimes imperfect. And I didn't know what was going to come out of my mouth half the time during our conversation, mainly because I'm an extrovert. But I like what you're saying. I like that there is, especially in this. On one side, there's the facts of the pandemic, there is the trends, there's the science. There's a difficulty that each organization, each family, each individual is facing. And then on the flip side, again, it's, let's stop from having all this stuff happen to you, which is factually happening, and move into a position where you're actively taking some control to move towards solutions. And they may or may not work, but if you're not doing anything now, nothing's getting done.

It's sort of if you don't explore that pilot, and if you have fear of failure.

I'm sorry, but you're still in the same place. That thing isn't getting done. And you may learn something. We in science learn just as much from our success as we do from our failures. And if we didn't have failures.

Again, the sweet joy of success is not as sweet. So.

I think there's a lot of space for piloting, for trying things I kind of want to move to. The difficulty I'm having is how do large organizations maintain, I don't want to say order, but a flow of information, a congruence to their mission and to what they're trying to accomplish. When people have spent decades working from an office. So we're sort of the scrappy entrepreneurs, but there's a lot of folks out there who've been wearing the suit, the whatever it is, to the office every day. Now in this new environment, and I think I would posit that leaders need to be humble and realize that there's going to be some bumps in the road, that there are going to be individuals who are very productive, efficient leaders or managers or workers in their organization who are going to struggle for a while in this potentially new electronic version or distance working environment.

That's okay, but you don't want to shut them down. You want to say, okay, how do we learn from that? How do we help you? What are the systems and how do you make. How do you bring the familiar back into that environment? So, you know, one of the things that I think about is as you go to a meeting, one of the things I've been, I've been reading a little bit about this is that, you know, when you come to meetings, there's sort of a space that you get into to be active in the meeting. Everybody has their roles and if you have a large organization, how do people.

Assume those roles? How do they change that pace of their work to get whatever they need to get done to that meeting? And I think it's organizations who are successful in managing those rocky waters and allowing the folks who may traditionally have not been connected that way, have not been wired that way to do that work to help them along because you need to keep them in the flow of the organization. How you open meetings, how you allow the agenda to be shared.

How do you recognize people on the phone? If you're in a meeting, I think the simple fact that someone just starts talking, you look over, you know who's talking and you recognize all the history and everything else is in your mind and you're going with the meeting. But when you're in a remote virtual meeting world, it's important for people to do things like announce who they are or there's certain things that you need to almost over communicate. I think.

So yeah. There's so much in there. Sorry to go ahead.

No, no, no, no, go ahead.

There's so much in there. And.

Couldn'T help but think while you were talking as well. I know you don't like it when I go to. When I go too downbeat. But the fact is.

Again, regardless of the health spread, if people are. If there's too much fear and uncertainty and markets stop and there was just a freeze placed on the market just the other day. This is not to incite panic, but the very real facts are in previous slowdowns, certain industries absolutely took a hit that they didn't bounce back from.

Not saying the Industry would have that. But there may be companies that go out of business. It's crazy to say that and I hope that's not the case for anybody listening or anywhere you work. But that could happen. I think part of that is like a splash of cold water in the face as well. Let's be real, we don't know. And if things slow down so much to the point where you don't have that pivot Runway, you don't have those reserves of cash, whether you're a billion dollar company or trying to make your mortgage payment, there will come a point where you, you need to know what your plan B is as a person and as an employee. So those are two different things. Or as an entrepreneur. So we, it's not a bad idea to know what that is and to try to be creative. Like you said, not, not over monetizing a time like this, but also being creative about what is needed and, and sort of pivoting services or the way we do business. And then in terms of communication, I just wanted to build on what you said, things like Slack. So my team and I were all introverts actually. We can't stand having Slack always on. That would drive us nuts if we felt we were constantly getting pinged and things in our virtual faces. But we use Slack. Let's say we're launching momentum. Which doors are opening again? Well, we use pop up Slack. So we use Slack as a one off in rare circumstances we're launching something we do want to be all readily available. There may be organizations that want to create a pop up mental health channel on Slack or something where medical professionals like you, Michael, are available slackable. There's more and more therapy moving toward apps and texting and creative formats. But companies could consider pop up solutions that aren't long term but that help everybody come together and navigate times like these in the face of uncertainty. Because again, there's going to be some piloting and some brainstorming about business. How do we keep business as usual or business as pivoted. And then there's also just going to be how do we together navigate the total uncertainty of one day to the next of having no freaking clue which way this goes.

What we've gone to is remote patient monitoring. And so the patients who are sort of elderly and medically frail, having them come into the hospital on a frequent basis or the doctor's office is a major problem. Sometimes they don't have transportation and those kind of things. So we're moving to remote patient monitoring. And in the Behavioral health space. In fact, I work with a company named Neuroflow that does.

Evidence based measurement of the things you're describing, the reasons I work with them is because we have way too few behavioral health professionals in the world. Really there's a huge workforce issue. So we have to find, we have to leverage technology to communicate in an easy way that folks are familiar with on their phones that will allow them to journal, to talk about their mood, their sleep and all those kind of things. So we're doing that in healthcare for behavioral health. And what you're describing to me, and I hadn't thought of is that businesses should be thinking about remote worker monitoring, but not in a Big Brother kind of are you doing your work but do you have the resources that you need? Are you getting enough sleep? How much time are you spending? Whatever it is that lack of connection that you would get in a real world that people are stressed or having problems, they can connect with others and easily move that down the scale a bit.

That's going to be.

Maybe it's going the wrong direction here, but that's harder to do.

So you're absolutely correct. At least I think you're onto something. Is that the organizations who are able to stay connected not just on the work perspective, but also on the level of anxiety and surveilling. So they're thinking that can. That is coming to mind is what if large portions of an organization in that under medically required quarantine, how do you get them back in the workforce? How do you. All those things you need to know and how is that communication occur?

Oh, and there's been so many articles about just the stress of self quarantine. And I'll put how to self quarantine in the show notes because I'm sure if you're listening to this, you've probably listened to that or read about that. But also I want to add here that in terms of the shift from victim to hero, do not wait for your organization or if you are the entrepreneur, somebody to invite you to this type of thing if it doesn't exist. This is actually a time for you to raise your hand and say we need this. And I'm happy to.

Take the lead on it and I'm happy to pilot something and you can pilot in small groups before you roll it out out more broadly. But sometimes people are waiting, oh, I wish my company was doing xyz. It's not going to be like that. If you have an idea, start it and if your company says no, do it externally. I guarantee you're going to. You can create a mastermind, as weird as that sounds, among your friends or your peers or people who are in a similar situation to you, because we all have a different setup of how our jobs work. And this podcast was geared more toward the information economy and, and we just don't have the time or the expertise to go into pivoting around a pandemic for Uber drivers, you know, or for people who are in a different situation or they have to go into work to make their salary or their income. And even I was thinking about momentum. You know, I'm thinking like this is a community for heart based business owners. And we're always talking like the course that's running right now, pivot to profit. And, and you know, now it's. The community itself may shift. Like together we all need to think about this. And like, so even this question of leading through and around, it's, you're leading yourself, you're leading your family, you're leading, leading by being like actually by. And part of it.

Again, without saying we can know, just creating that forum. So how do we discuss what do you need on the internal side? How can we be helpful to each other on the external side? And all that meditation and mindfulness stuff that gets woven in and has now gone mainstream is actually really important here. I remember when I first met Michael, he's taught me a lot about living in the moment. And I used to have a lot of fear around relationships. And he introduced me to this term future tripping. So if there was a time where I would wonder, where is this going? I learned pretty quickly that was never going to work with him. But.

We would both acknowledge or call out if the other one was kind of like future tripping. And that would be another tool here is you want to have contingency planning and creative thinking during a time like this. But if you find yourself future tripping about the domino effect of worst case scenarios, that's a time to say we actually don't know. And to land on we don't know is okay, that's probably as good as it's going to get right now in the face of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Yeah, I think not knowing is a state of being. Right. So I think that it's been getting comfortable. Right now we're living in this ambiguity. And I want to go back to sort of discussions around leadership, leaders who can deal with ambiguity and lead in that. So whether it be economic ambiguity and uncertainty or the current situation, those are leaders who are, I think are going to come out on top and hopefully are leveraging those skills to mitigate risk, to have some leadership, courage and take risks that are calculated at the same time are interesting and piloting the things that we've just described because there's a necessity there.

But I think the folks who and if folks are struggling with that, they need to think, I think I want to say this carefully, is that this is pressure testing the system, I'll put it that way. So whenever there's an economic downturn, whenever there's these kind of events, it pressure tests the system. And companies are going to come to realize those who had a binder on their shelf that said digital emergency plan, whatever they're calling it, and it's been sitting there for however many years now they're pulling it off the shelf, it's going to get pressure tested to see whether or not it actually is real life. And I also want to encourage as part of emergency preparedness, you have the different cycles of disaster. So part of it is the preparedness part and there's the mitigation of what's going on and then it's recovery stage. And I think I'd like to also we could talk about this at some other date is as this will subside, like all things do subside in the infectious disease world. What do we learn? How are we going to be better next time? That's important. It's important for us not to have short term memory loss in the future. The companies who survive again, the ones that are going to stay active and viable in this, also need to figure out what do they learn what worked, what did not work and then fold that into the fabric of the organization so that they're more resilient in the future. And we need to build, just like we need to build resilient communities, we need to build resilient businesses or resilient, I should say resilient individuals. The things you were mentioning is, is sort of helping resilience business themselves have to find.

What does a business meditation look like? How does getting grounded, all those things that we do as individuals to potentially ward off what's going on. How does a business do the same thing? Because it is a living, breathing organism.

Right. And we were talking about leading, leading through ambiguity. The word blaring in my mind comes from Penny Pierce's book Transparency is.

You know, I think it's important to consult the experts, like you said right at the beginning, and also be transparent. It's not to pretend you have it all figured out. That would be inauthentic and inaccurate. So there's a certain amount of transparency and vulnerability. And those people, whether as individuals or business owners, who have practiced those things have an advantage even on that front. And the whole point of Nassim Taleb's work, Black Swan, antifragile is. Antifragile is not just. You're not just resilient. It's organisms or entities that gain from disorder. So as we close this out, and we should definitely do another one, part of the question, I love your reflection questions, is sort of what happened? What do we learn when it's time to reflect what worked, what didn't? And what do we need to build into the system for next time? Part of this is also saying, what are the opportunities here? And again, not to be opportunistic, not to become like the ambulance chasers of whatever industry we're in, but to say, you know, there are people in real estate who when a downturn like 2008 happens, some people lost their homes and other people dove in. Now there's a lot of conversation we definitely don't have time for around structural inequality and privilege and all kinds of things are really messed up about a lot of the systems that I'm talking about. But to the extent that you can shift into that hero mode and say things, all hell could break loose, all things could get paused. But when that happens, at least in the US Our economy is structured in a way that there are still opportunities there if you have the courage to go against what your reptile brain is telling you to do, if that makes sense. So I think that's just something to consider is, you know, some, I had some friends saying, okay, the stock market's so low, everything's on sale. Now that's only an option if you have cash reserves and you're not worried about losing the roof over your head and you need to keep your cash liquid. So I guess I just throw that out because that's the advanced mode. I guess it's going from resiliency to actual anti fragility and planning. How does my business and career thrive when the economy is good? And even if it's not happening right now, and this is the time of more fear and uncertainty, but let's say in the next 10 years, how would it thrive if this kind of thing were to happen again? And you can build toward that with the long term in mind while still asking, and how do we lift up everybody around us and our families and people who may not even have the privilege of Asking that question.

Yeah. At the risk of making this a little bit longer, if you'll give me a couple seconds here, I just want.

To do it and then we're done. It's like our nuggets, all this thing, what you want people to.

Yeah. So just something Jenny, you said before about.

The transparency and I forget the trust that in organizations. I think it's important, folks to look at Amy Edmondson's work around psychological safety. She's done some great studies over decades and she publishes in Harvard Business Review and other journals. I think, as you were saying that I think organizations are going to have to look at.

What their safety around psychological meaning to tell the truth, to be truth tellers about what's going right and what's going wrong. I just want to put that out there. I think that that's something leaders need to be aware of is as things get stressed, people go back to the reptile brain that you mentioned. That's why I was going there. Right. And so everybody has stressors. But you need to build an organization that has enough psychological safety that people can share concerns. Especially in healthcare, we deal with that all the time. Right. We want, we want to keep the patients safe, but you want to keep your business safe too. So we want to make sure that as we go through this pressure testing that there's enough psychological safety in the organization that people feel comfortable bringing up real problems and not saying, well, they're not important enough because this other thing is happening. No, those problems are important and they need to be brought up to the fore for leaders to manage. So that was the only thing that made me great.

No, it's good. And I'm going to tack on, by the way, psychological safety is a big topic within organizations now. So I'm so glad you brought that up. And this goes back to self compassion because some of us don't even create psychological safety in our own mind. And how do I know? Because that's what I did for my whole life until, you know, I turned 30 and started meditating. But if you're creating an environment in your own mind where you can't even be fearful, vulnerable, uncertain, imperfect, etc. That's the first place to give yourself a break and cut yourself some slack and then it goes all the way up to the organization.

Okay, so what do we give to the people who are at the end of the podcast club?

The end of the podcast club? Shout out Neil.

Shout out Neil. Exactly. Well, you know, look, I think I've said it 45 times, so at least if you were, I don't know, doing something else and you look, it's moving from victim to participant or in the best of all worlds, a hero. Right? And so how could you be a hero for your business? No matter what size it is, how can you be a hero for your family and your friends? But also you talked about community earlier, right? The different issues in the community. How can you be a hero for the community? And so, you know, if there's nothing else, you can figure out what to do. Look to the left, look to the right, look for elderly family member or neighbor that may not feel safe going out and getting groceries. Something that is so life sustaining and just offer and say, hey, I want to go out and get your groceries. Don't worry about it. Right. And then lastly, just stay informed and help others who maybe are stressing out and be compassionate to yourself. I don't know. I don't know if that's.

I love that. I love both of those pieces of advice and thank you. You summed it up so well. If you've made it to the end of the podcast club, we're so grateful that you're here. I hope this was helpful. We are winding our way around this topic and, and reach out to me.

Yeah, reach out to me. I mean, I'm happy to talk to.

People, you know, reach out to Michael. I'm going to put Michael's all his info in the show notes along with a lot of articles that cover a lot of what we talked about, probably not even all of it. Um, there's free of founder time and momentum if you want more sort of behind the scenes. And even just the practical side, we didn't get. We didn't get too deep in the nitty gritty how and tactics. And as you were talking and giving those fantastic closing actions and questions, Michael, it occurred to me that right now questions are maybe the most powerful thing that you can do is just reframing the questions. And I just love how you're asking. We can ask ourselves every day, like, what's. How can I move from victim to hero today? That's all you need to do and how you put it, Just look to the left and right.

That's okay for now and you will be shown. So part of the work I'm always talking about is Penny Pierce and the Penny and Jenny show and Tosha Silver on Surrender.

This is really a time that we surrender. We say, I don't know what's going to happen to my career or my business. And I Can't know. So I surrender. I turn this over, show me the next step, and we can ask to be shown the next step. And we can ask to be shown what one next step is in the highest good for all involved at any given time. And if you're sick, you might stay home. If you have a family, you know you're going to make different choices and it's going to be different every day. So those are my personal practices that help me in times of uncertainty and anxiety, where ultimately I remember, oh, yeah, I'm not in control here. I surrender and I wait to be shown.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

My pleasure. So much fun for such a dark topic, but yes, I know.

I know.

Yeah.

And if you're listening and you made it to the end of the podcast club, keep us posted. Like, we can do a Q and A episode. You can submit questions@pivotmethod.com ask and if we get enough of them, Michael and I, I think I can speak for you, Michael, but I could say we'd be happy to jump back on and do another one of these and keep the conversation going around maintaining business continuity and pivoting in career and business around a pandemic.

So in the name of fighting isolation.

Yeah, fighting isolation.

You're not out there by yourselves. We're here.

Exactly. And making this an evolving conversation as information and events continue to unfold. Because this is just one moment in time. So if it's helpful. I was also conscious before we hit record. Oh, there's so much out there. Are we just contributing to the doy? So hopefully you got something out of this that's different from what you're seeing and hearing every day or brought you a little bit of comfort if that's all that it did. And then I very thankful for that. And I'm so thankful for you, Michael.

And I'm thankful for you. Thanks.

Thank you. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.