161: Personal Safety, Contingency Planning, and Crucial Conversations with Dr. Michael J. 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.

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. Thank you so much. For those of you who have sent in feedback around the last few episodes Pivoting around a Pandemic, I was coordinating with Dr. Michael J. Consuelos over the weekend. He was my co host for episode 159 and he and I decided that for the time being it might be helpful for us to connect over little huddles. They probably won't happen daily, but they'll be shorter in the moment episodes that are responding to what's happening in the news now. And these can be interspersed and will be interspersed amongst other regular Pivot Podcast programming. So as I said in episode 160, which was on how solopreneurs can maintain momentum during this time, I would like to try to reach out and connect and serve as many of you as possible. Some of you are leaders of large organizations, some of you are parents with kids at home, some of you are solopreneurs, Some of you work within organizations and are now being asked to work from home. It just is all over the gamut in terms of the Pivot community and how Michael and I can best serve and support you. So not every episode will be for every person. And then, by the way, there are some of you that are going to be totally sick of all things pandemic. And the minute you see that in the title of a podcast episode or news article, you immediately avert your eyes or hit delete. So yes, there will be some regular interviews that continue to go out. And at the same time, if I wasn't talking about what's really happening now in the moment in an agile way, I wouldn't be honoring the whole point of Pivot which is not just navigating change and being resilient to it, but becoming what Nassim Taleb calls antifragile. How do we grow from chaos and disorder? So with that, I'm really excited to welcome Michael back to the show. Michael, welcome back.

Thank you, Jenny. Happy to be back.

Quick refresh on Michael's vayo. He is the principal at MJC Solutions, a veteran owned small business that provides professional consulting and advisory services to organizations in the healthcare sector. He's had several leadership roles in emergency preparedness and pandemic response. So since 1997, Michael is a general pediatrician by training. He served in the US army for six years and I don't know, most importantly is an amazing member of momentum.

That's right. That's right. Love, love momentum.

I'm just so happy ever since you joined, it's just you've been so present. And thank you again, Michael for being my co host and copilot during this wild time.

It is, it's good. Yeah. So there's so many things happening so, so quickly, Jenny, that I'm glad we're getting folks and giving them short little, as you said, huddles, which are great. It's time for us to get around, get caught up and hopefully folks listening to this will get some things out of it that they can use in their daily lives, but also come back for some other episodes because I think we're going to be able to go through a lot of things. I think at this point in time. I think there's some things that happened in our history, sort of in a recorded history that has really changed generations. I think this is one of them. I think we are, luckily we've not had a World War 3 or anything really to that order, but I think we're witnessing something very close to that where countries are coming together to fight a common enemy at this point in time. It's coronavirus, it's COVID 19. And I think it'll define for many, it'll define the generations that are growing up and being affected every day with this.

I was just thinking that same thought this morning, which is that we are going to be telling stories to our kids, God willing, that. Where were you when coronavirus was happening? Where were you when you were asked to stay home and not gather and the lights went out on so many cultural institutions and how did you navigate that? What was it like? You know, I was in New York when Hurricane Sandy hit and we lost power for five days. I will never forget it. The streets were pitched black. You couldn't see two feet in front of you. And in New York City, that's a bit terrifying. You don't know if there's a rat, a robber. You don't know who's standing in front of you. There were army US Vehicles all through the streets. We had to walk two hours just to plug in our phones and even get cell phone service. It was a crazy time, and.

We feel it now. Even we are recording this on Monday, March 16th. Even from last Thursday, I remember emailing with colleagues and clients and sort of game planning. And now Monday, things have continued to unfold in such a way that it's like you said, Michael, it's just past the point of anything that any of us have really experienced in our lifetime in terms of a global pandemic.

Jenny, It's a new world. I think every morning we're waking up to a new world.

Again. We don't want to get grim right away, but I think that there are reasons why this is becoming a new world. Right. So in the less than a week that we've spoken, the United States is in a very, very different place. There's continuing announcements where we're asked to decrease the numbers of people gathering. So at one point it was less than 500, and then it was less than 250. And then over the weekend, the CDC said 50, and now it's 10. Right. And we have cities who are doing pretty much not quite locked down. It's sort of a virtual lockdown where you are asking residents not to go to restaurants and bars. We're one day before St. Patrick's Day, and we have some really large celebrations that are not going to occur. And I hope folks are hitting the advice to stay home and take care of themselves. And just to put in perspective, yesterday, Italy, they reported 368 new COVID 19 deaths. That's a lot of people. I know Italy's a long way away from us right now, but that's almost like a jumbo jet crashing. Every day a jumbo jet is crashing in Italy. And that impact to people there and then across the world is huge.

I think that, like I said, it's a new world. I think we're also entering a place where people are concerned for their own safety. And it makes me think about how people can talk about that. How do they feel? In our first episode, we talked a little bit about psychological safety and transparency. And that's the thing that's on my mind today is the people who are essential workers and they're seeing businesses going virtual, but they're the ones still going to work, whether it be in health care, in food service and the police and ems, banking, other areas that are essential for our society to go forward. They're still going to work every day. And how do they share their stress, their concerns? And how is that changing the way they work?

And it really is that flip side too. So let's say people are really staying home now. I was thinking about that and I thought, well, how will we get food if restaurants in New York start shutting down? Oh, we'll just order delivery. But there's a person delivering that food. And that person doesn't necessarily have the luxury of staying home or getting delivery themselves. This is their job. And then the other side of that is, well, also you're still inviting an outside.

Person, basically. So there's two sides of that in terms of.

All those workers, like you said, that can't stay home and they're seeing everyone else stay home. That must be incredibly uncomfortable and anxiety producing. And then I think on the, on the personal side, it's hard to know. It feels so serious and so intense. Like there's Michael and I just holed up in our house and we do have to leave actually twice a day to walk the dog. So at least we're getting fresh air. But it's hard not to be paranoid. Was saying, oh yeah, I'll invite this friend over. And I immediately thought to myself, ah, social distancing. Are we even supposed to have a friend over? Like, we can't even invite anyone into the home. It gets weird and it's, it's hard to know what to do.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And then how do you approach those awkward social distancing interactions? Right. So how do you do that? And so I want to draw a little bit from our experience in healthcare and the folks who are in quality who are listening to this or other organizations, who've heard presentations around crucial conversations. So how do you have those crucial conversations with your teams, with your boss, or people work with you? And one of the tools I'd like to talk about is the CUS tool that it's not two S's, but it's just one S that's C U S. And the C is for I am concerned. So it's important that when you're uncomfortable in that kind of scenario, like you mentioned, Michael's like, oh, let's go over. It's like, hey, I'm concerned. Or if you're being asked to go to a St. Patrick's Day gathering with 50 or 100 people, and you're trying to tell people that that's not the best thing for you. Maybe start with yourself. I mean, I think you start saying, like, I'm concerned. And they use for uncomfortable. And again, it's I'm uncomfortable. That's the you part and then the safety part. And I think at this point saying, I'm concerned for my safety. I'm concerned for the safety of others. And this may not be the best next step. And so I like to really, in that piece, when people feel like they're concerned for their own safety, to start with themselves and start that conversation with them in the center, and then hopefully somebody else will join them in. Because I think if you feel concerned, there's probably others around you who also feel the same way and feel like their safety is in jeopardy.

How do you help people discern between concern? Discern between concern. That rhymes between concern and confusion. So, for example, I may not even express, I'm concerned, I'm uncomfortable. This is a safety issue if I'm not sure if it's a problem. So is having a few friends over for wine. Is that a problem? And I can't help but tell you, I confess, I did watch Contagion over the weekend, which is maybe the dumbest thing, or. I don't know. It just felt very of the moment. And I also like being part of the cultural zeitgeist conversation. But there's this unmistakable scene at the end where you see how it all transfers from the bat to the pig to the person. And now it's like I have just that one scene replaying. So even if you invite someone over for wine, it's like, did they touch the subway railing that the other person sneezed on? Like the small group, I have confusion over what's sort of safe, given the current guidelines and what to do versus what not to do. So that kind of prevents me from even communicating is when I feel confused other than me saying to the other person, hey, I'm confused about this, but I feel a little bit like we're fumbling around in the dark, especially those of us that aren't part of the medical community in terms of what is the appropriate way to respond and keep moving. Should we all just not leave the house and not see anyone for two weeks?

Well, or longer. Or longer, yeah. So my concern is that it could be longer. And I think you're bringing up a great point is how do we adapt the new normal? Or how do we pivot to the new normal. Jenny and I think we all have to do a different dance. I would recommend that people start having the conversations and also reaching across the aisle, so to speak, and asking them, other people, what they're thinking. So I think it's okay to be confused and I also think it's okay to bring that up in a setting where you say, look, I'm a little confused about what we're doing here. Here are my concerns. And then this is where I think we need to have at least a conversation. We're social animals, so it's going to be really hard for us not to be together. I think it's about mitigating risk. It's about, can you have that nice wine? Get together and everybody agrees that we're not going to shake hands. We're all going to wash hands as we come in. We're all going to sit in the four corners. I mean, it seems kind of weird, but just say, okay, well, let's all, you know, hang out. But we're not going to do anything that's going to put us at risk. I think it's also important that if anyone thinks that they're sick, if they think that they're having symptoms, especially fever, that they just bow out, you know, they're going to have to. People are going to have to be really transparent about the potential that they could have this and not put others in jeopardy and go ahead and just bow out. Go ahead and say, look, this is. I'm not feeling well. I think it's best for me to stay home. I think it's a two way conversation with that. And I think it's the rest of us to sort of say, yeah, thank you for doing that, I hope you're doing okay and I'll check on you here in a day or so. So that person isn't isolated.

Speaking of staying home if you're sick, every time Michael or I sneeze, which I just feel like once we look at each other with the oh, no eyes, like I'm picturing the emoji that just has those big circle eyes. We're like, oh my God, I sneezed, you know, and then, God forbid it happens, like in public. I was at a workshop, there was a gathering and I did go to it, but I took a car, not the subway, but I went. It was under 15 people.

Which even now, maybe people are not even going to have those gatherings, but I went, I washed my hands all day long. But that said, there was this moment that I was sitting in the room and I thought I had to sneeze. And I was like, oh, my goodness, don't you dare sneeze. Like, everyone is going to look at me and be so paranoid and worry that. Because, of course, we keep hearing in the news a lot of people don't know their carriers. They don't know they have it yet. They're not showing any symptoms. So it's just this terrible time of, like, any sneeze or a cough feels so alarming.

Yeah. So I agree with you, but I think that that's okay. You know, I'm going to hear this over and over again from me. I think that that's okay. I think that, that, that that feeling is, you know, should be some level of concern on your part and other people are concerned is, you know, how do you have that conversation? As you may know, I just went and so at this point time, a lot of the universities are closed and are closing or some sort of virtual version of themselves. I drove out to pick up my daughter. She's at the University of Michigan, so go blue. And they. And she was just. Came back from spring break, caught a little cold while she was at spring break. And then she was coughing, and she was saying the exact same to me. She's like in the classroom trying to hold her cough back because she was afraid that everyone thought she would have the corona. It's sort of like this sort of scarlet letter. And so she's obviously doing fine. But you're absolutely correct. So how do we navigate those waters? And I think that what I'd like to talk about is if you're in that situation.

We should be able to speak to each other as human beings and show concern and not.

Sort of point fingers, but rather show concern and make sure that, you know, how about saying like, hey, are you okay? Are you doing okay? You know, something. Some version of that, but also for ourselves to bow out.

I was thinking, actually that if I got sick, because I had this kind of slightly optimistic thought, my dad sent me a great Washington Post article in sort of simulation with a bunch of dots about how the disease spreads. And I'll link to it in the show notes. But the sort of hopeful part of it is once you get it, once you recover, you're immune, just like other strains of the flu or many other strains. And so I was like, okay, well, if I got it and I just tried to take care of myself, however long it would last, then I'd be immune on the other side. Okay, that would Be nice. And then instead of just the worry about what happens if you get it, if you're not part of the vulnerable population or the most vulnerable, instead of just ruminating and worrying, you would have already gotten it.

And I'm like, maybe I would try to do a podcast and just say, I have it. It happened. You know, here's what it's like, just carrying on with this sort of in the moment experience of the whole thing at the same time. And I asked this, so I'm curious to hear. While we're here on the recording, I was also going through the thought exercise because as I shared in episode 160, if you run your own business, you have to ask that question. If I get sick for three days, one week, two weeks, can everything carry on without me? Can everything in the business keep running? Is my. I don't want. I never want my individual health to be a bottleneck on the health of the business, ideally.

And yet now Michael and I have a dog. So I was thinking about it, that if one of us got sick, most likely the other one would get sick. I mean, we could try all the precautions. If you get your own room, your own bathroom, you don't touch each other, but in all likelihood it would happen to both. And then I was thinking, what is the protocol? So here's that confusion again around how the dog gets walked. Like, I would never want to put another person at risk. A dog walker, probably even within our building. We'd want to let our building know, hey, we have it and not touch anything. And we probably couldn't leave the house. And to be honest, we don't yet have fully stocked food supplies in that way because, well, who knows when that could happen? And I don't know. So it's just very confusing. Like maybe you could touch on that piece of caretaking for a pet or something.

Is it better that the dog not get walked for two weeks, but then he'd be a maniac? I don't know.

Yeah, no. So I think first of all, there is things being a confusion. I think at one point in time there was some discussion in the public whether or not dogs could carry COVID 19. I think that has been disproven at this point in time. I think in general, first of all, coronaviruses, at least this strain seems not to affect the canine species. You know, it's bats, camels and a couple others, and humans and a couple other species. So I think dogs are safe. The problem is that as you cough, sneeze or whatever, you Pet your dog. Your dog is friendly with you, you're friendly with your dog. And it's.

As I understand it, there have been cases where they think that the dog was not the carrier of the disease, as in the dog was sick, but rather was able to move it along, just like if you shared a piece of clothing or something else in an inanimate object that carried the virus. So I think you bring up a very good question, but let me step back a little bit. As we discussed in the past of my experience around emergency preparedness.

Part of the preparedness cycle is to sort of have these conversations and do this planning in advance. So I think it's great that you and Michael are having these conversations. And I would encourage the listeners to this podcast that if they have these kind of scenarios to sit down around the table and have this, first of all, have the conversation. So it's not a. You do that during the light of day and not in the fog of war, and you come up with a plan. So I'm like, I don't know that everything is feasible, but the question is, are there dog walkers who would feel comfortable, first of all, in this scenario, would they use their own sort of mask and gloves and make sure they wash their hands? I'm just kind of making this up as we go along here. But identify, my advice would be identify that person now or a friend or family member that would be willing to take that risk and knows what they're getting themselves into, if that situation now versus some later point, and then vice versa. I guess the question is, you know, do you reach out to your friends who also have pets and say, you know, if this happens, you know, can you help us or we can help you or whatever it may be? So I think this, this is in general, I think your question is there's, I don't think there's any one right answer. And I think we could. And I'm definitely not an expert in coronavirus transmission through the canine species, but I think. But I think having the conversation, Jenny, having the conversation now in any part of it. So with your family. And so let's go a little bit further down the line. If one of your family members gets sick, what are we going to do? Family, like, what's the conversation if grandma or grandpa gets sick and they're not living locally, what are we going to do? Is someone going to drive to be with them? Who's going to do that? Who has the most flexibility? Let's start having that family. So there's a whole Area of around after 9 11, everyone started having these family plans. I don't know if you remember that, right? So if something happens like 9 11, you're supposed to meet somewhere because people are at work or at school. I think we've sort of forgotten that part. And I think we need to go back to some of that family plan. Not family planning in the sense of planning a family, but rather what is the plan for your family if this were to happen, Right? And I think.

I would suggest to folks to sit down and spend time on the phone or however you want to do it, to start having some of these conversations and checking and first of all, checking in on each other. We've said this before the previous podcast. Checking in on your family and friends is going to be very important during this period of social isolation. So that should be happening anyway. But very simply, come up with a plan that everybody says, if grandma and grandpa gets sick, this is who's going to be there for these reasons, and this is why. And if they can't, this is what going to do. And I think there is also. There is. It's. It's about situational awareness. That's the other part of mercy planning is that you have to have situational awareness. So be aware of, you know, even though your plan, you had a plan, sit down with that plan and ask yourself, does it still make sense? Right? So if your plan is to visit Grandpa and it takes a flight to get there, but now that city is really having an issue and now you're putting yourself into danger, well, it may be a time to rethink the plan. You have to have situational awareness. And there is a great book that I've shared with you and Momentum in the past, written by Ty Gagne, that is basically, it's where you'll find me. And it's about a climber who didn't have situational awareness as she climbed the Presidentials on President's Weekend, basically almost exactly 10 years ago. I'm sorry, five years ago 2015. And sheep had several times. Climbers have bailout points. Okay? So as you're doing an ascent, there are periods where there's points where if you get to a certain point and things are not going well, you bail out. Say, okay, I'm getting to this point. If things aren't going well, I'm going to go here. At the next point, I'm going to go there. And she never got to her first bailout point for different reasons, but she had a plan, but she didn't Follow through with her plan. Okay. And she unfortunately died. And folks, again, we put in the show notes because I'm kind of butchering the story right now at this moment in time. But it's a great book if it's to read around situational awareness and how we as humans are biased in our thinking as we start down a path. So not to kill a point here, but as you're making a plan for whether it be your pet or your grandparent or your family member, I would also urge people to think about bailout points, about being aware of the situation and whatever is going on in the news and rethink your plan because it may have to change.

There's so much important and helpful stuff that you said in there. So going back to the dog, you actually gave me a light bulb moment and an aha. And this now sounds obvious in hindsight, but rather, rather than bringing someone into the home or even at the front door and like letting the dog run out, really, he should go stay with someone else for two weeks. So it's like, maybe that's even better than repeated daily exposure. And then I had the other thought, that any dog walker who gets coronavirus and then recovers will, like, make a killing because they'll be like, I'm immune now. I'll walk anybody's dog. In terms of the family conversations, so important. And I love what you're saying about have a plan, reconnect on that plan. And by the way, it's a good time to have that plan for all kinds of different emergencies and black swan events that we cannot predict. So nobody could have sat down and had a family emergency preparedness plan for 9, 11 before it happened, or for Hurricane Sandy or other areas of the US and the world have been affected by fires, natural disasters, all kinds of things. So it is an opportunity to revisit all kinds of different scenarios and talk it through. And if so many of us are staying home and on lockdown, we have a little extra time on our hands. Although there's a lot of cleanup work happening, too, around shifting work agreements and client work and business scrambling and then finally around situational awareness. I love what you're saying, even the notion of bailout points. And not to make light of that concept, but it does tie into the whole notion of pivoting, which is that I talk in the book about worst case scenario cash outs, like, what are your points along the way at which you will start going into plan B, plan C, plan Z, and starting to cash out things that you need and so in a way, we could think about bailout points in terms of supporting family members during this time, in terms of travel, even in terms of our business. I have a lot of businesses are in my heart right now of the ones that are just saying, this is going to crush me. Like I don't have the Runway to support my employees and keep paying people and pay the rent, especially again, brick and mortar. And I can't weather a six month economic shutdown. I can weather two weeks. But there are so many people that are saying, I don't know what I would do. We can't rely on government stepping in and sort of being able to fix that all for everybody. So what are those different bailout points? And to not freak out about them, but just say, all right, if things haven't changed or improved one month from now, what will you do? Are there funds you can cash out? Are there people you can go to? Okay, if it's three months from now, what would you do? And if it's six, so how long is that Runway? And what would be those bailout points or checkpoints or do not pass go if moments in terms of again, like you shared this great example of do you go visit that family member or is it better to try to help from afar if it comes to that?

Yeah. And I want to piggyback a little bit about the learning that this presents us. I know that nobody wants to go through family stress or what we're going through right now in the world, but I think we're doing a lot of learning about ourselves and we're learning a lot about other folks and about our businesses. And what you're doing described to me is also a learning cycle, or if I were to draw this out on a whiteboard, what you're describing is that we're also learning about our businesses. And we are at some level, because of the stress and the pressure testing of our business, we're learning more about that business.

And ourselves. And as leaders or as entrepreneurs or as team members, there's learning to be had here. I think it's not all a dark, dim story. There is anytime there's a trial put before us a challenge, the opportunity is to lay down and do nothing or to take it up full on and learn from it and see how we can, you know, potentially do better. And I think looking at things in advance prepares our minds. So visioning, right? I think we've many folks talk about visioning and, and making that vision our action. In this case, planning helps our actions, right? So sitting down with our family, if you're having these questions, they're likely having the same questions. And if they're not, this is the opportunity for them to learn about how to make these decisions. It's an opportunity to get together and talk about things that maybe you never would have talked about and.

You know, learn more about each other. And same thing for businesses that you're learning. Businesses are learning more about themselves right now under this duress than they may have if everything was going sweetly and finally down the road.

That's so true. And that's. That's what they, the infamous they says say, which is that actually our brains. I think this is actually in the book Emotional Agility by Susan Garrett. No, Susan Garrett is the dog trainer, Susan David. Susan Garrett has great dog training resources.

You have dogs in the brain right now.

I know, I know because, I mean, he's so cute. Can you blame me? But no, Susan David wrote Emotional Agility and she said that when things are going well and we're kind of flying high, our brain doesn't really learn. It's not in an observant mode, picking up new information because it's just kind of coasting, and that's a fun place to be. It's like the wind is in our hair. We're coasting, we're having a good time. We're not that introspective when things are going really well. And then compare that to what's happening now. And as you said, this really takes us full circle to the start of the conversation. This is going to be imprinted on all of us for the rest of our lives. At this point, it is unprecedented and we will not forget what was going on and how we handled it, how others around us. So our brains are learning more now than ever. Just think of all of us. Think how alert. At least I can speak for myself. How alert I've become to the news, to washing my hands, to am I taking my electrolyte immunity flavored electrolyte? Who knows if that does anything at all? But it's a nice cup of placebo water. I mean, I am so tuned in and aware. And I love your perspective. Like, we're learning so much about ourselves and our businesses and our resiliency, and we're having deeper conversations than ever with friends and family. I think there is a certain transparency, vulnerability. There's real humanity that is happening at the same time, and it just wouldn't be happening when the times are good. So we would never wish something like this upon ourselves. Upon the planet. And yet it is providing such global opportunity and fodder for that greater intimacy and connection. And what are we all here to do? Live, learn, love and serve. And I think now it's really the time more than ever to do those things.

I could not said it better myself, and I would only add is if you're not having to use hand lotion at least three times a day, you're not washing your hands long enough or hard enough.

Oh, no. I'm probably guilty then.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, yeah, so I think. I'm sorry I didn't put that plug in.

No, it's good way to bring it back home. Dr. Consuelos, everybody, please wash your hands.

Yeah, please wash your hands. I mean, it's just like, I just feel.

All right, listen, I'm going to be washing my hands as often as I can. I just feel like it's not enough. I really. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not being a fatalist. I'm not saying I'm not going to do it, but I feel like, come on, if the coronavirus wants to get me, it's going to find a way around my hands. What do you think? Is that just being stupid? Would someone have to sneeze in my face then for that to, like, be true?

All right, here's the. Here's the scientist that's going to roll out. You know, it's like, oh, God, do I really want this guy ever again? Another podcast.

So.

So if it reduced your risk by 10%, would you do it?

Of course.

Right.

I'm not. I'm not saying I'm not going to wash my hands.

No, no, I'm saying. But 5%. Yeah, 1%.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like following the advice.

Yeah, yeah. So, no, I'm just. I'm just sort of saying so.

No, but I'm saying I feel like I'm washing my hands. And yet if coronavirus wants to come find me in New York City, it is going to find a way. Like, I just feel like.

It'S almost.

A false sense of security.

Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is, even if it's a Even, it's not 1%. It's much higher than that. It's probably 20 or 30. Nobody quote me here, okay? Because I don't have the data. So I'm just gonna say. I'm just using this as an example. Even if it's just as small as 1%, I think most people would say, you know what? Yes. I'm going to do it, but I think it's much greater than 1% and I think it's the thing that you can do. Back to our first podcast. Right. So we have our choices. We could do nothing. We could do something. We can at least wash our hands. It's the one thing that we all can do.

Wash our hands and try not to touch our face.

Right, exactly. Right, right, right. But also, you know, it's not just you catching it is if you have it, you washing your hands is also helping other people.

Oh, for sure, for sure. But so I guess, I mean, I guess that this goes back to like Coronavirus 101. But.

I mean, if someone kept their hands immaculate. Okay, immaculate, 100% washed and clean all day long and hand sanitized and they didn't touch their face even once. Okay. Could they still get coronavirus?

The answer is yes. So if someone sneezed on them or you know, that basically they're, you know, basically particulates of the virus, you have to. So the person would have to call someone with coronavirus would have to cough, sneeze or otherwise provide you with their bodily fluid containing the virus? Yes, the answer is yes, because it's about you protecting yourself. It's like as you mentioned, Jenny earlier on, it's about touching the, you know, the subway, whatever turnstile or the door handles and that kind of stuff. I think that that's, it's more about you protecting yourself at that, at that point. So. Right. And that's why, so just really quickly, I'm sorry, so there's, there's. The World Health Organization is doing the do the five. Sorry, I'm doing another healthcare plug here. I'm sorry if I'm dragging this on, but the five things are, number one, wash your hands often. Number two, elbow. So cough, you know, your, cough into your elbow, your arm, whatever face. You mentioned that already, don't touch it. Feet three feet apart and if you feel sick, stay home. But the number one thing they have on there is wash their hands. I think there's a reason for that. So. Yes. So you can, if an infected individual coughs on you, you can, you know, you're going to get the virus sprayed upon you, but it's about you picking up, of picking it up off of surfaces. And we naturally touch our faces all the time and we eat with our hands. So it's about trying to limit our exposure to the external world.

And like, I know probably apologies, listeners, if you've already done the research on this But I've seen it a couple different things. What about a package gets delivered, Someone like, you know, you touch a turnstile, that someone coughed on their hand, and then they touch the turnstile, and then you touch the turnstile and then you touch your face. That sounds like, yes, you could get it. What about package gets delivered, they coughed on their hand, they touched your package, the package is delivered or delivery food, let's say.

So that happened to us yesterday. We had wine delivered to the house.

And so we got the box. I carefully opened the box, washed my hands, took the wine out of the whatever box, thinking that that's probably clean on the inside, and put the wine away and then threw out the box and washed my hands again. So I think in that process, I think I washed my hands three times.

And you didn't.

Okay, crazy person. I know.

No, no, no, you didn't. You're the one that knows. You're the doctor here. You didn't sanitize. So I guess, like, I'm hearing some people are, like, sanitizing boxes or letting them sit for 24 hours somewhere else before you touch them or.

Yeah, you can do that. I mean, I think, you know, I'm getting myself way into trouble here.

So.

Yes. So there has been studies of how long the virus stays on surfaces, and it's unfortunately a very long time. And we've seen estimates that are hours, and then there's estimates that are much longer than that. So. Absolutely. I think.

Disinfecting surfaces, door handles. Right. Are a huge deal.

Mobile phones, probably. Right. Mobile phones are going to have a ton of stuff on them.

Yeah, absolutely. So anything that you're. Anything that you're touching with your hands on a regular basis should be cleaned just as often as your hands, probably. So, yeah, the package delivery thing is, you know, I think you'd also be. So I'm going to go the other direction here. You can also drive yourself completely bananas through this whole thing.

I was gonna say I feel like I'm gonna get an A D in.

Ability to. I think mentally I'm staying pretty optimistic so far. I mean, we'll see how that changes. But it's like if you were to grade my abilities on germaphobe. I'm just not a germaphobe, but I never have been. So talk about the bigger pivot for me is all these practices and, like, staying vigilant about them. Yeah, that's going to drive you crazy. Not even the work changes.

Jenny. I think we have. So, folks, we're going to Hang up with this. I'm going to have to do a whole coaching session with, with Jenny Blake. We're to turn the table. She's always one that's coaching me out of problems and I have to turn the table here.

I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I know we're going to get sick of it. You know, in the beginning it's easily easy to be like, so aware and, and A plus students in all these hygiene activities and at a certain point you're like, ah, forget about it. Like, just open the package. Yeah, I know I shouldn't be saying that, but I'm just being honest.

No, no, no.

And now everyone listening is like, don't note to self. Do not go to Jenny's home. Her.

I think, I think they all stopped. They all stopped listening a while ago.

20 minutes ago. Yeah, that's true. Now we're at the super end of the podcast club.

Exactly right. So I think my point. So again, I'm going to try. In fact, I will belabor my point. I think you can only do the things you can do. I think that if you're, I think a kind of a try to objective standpoint, you can't reduce your risk to zero. Right. So it's about personal choices and trying to reduce the risk. Like I said, I was kind of joking around 1%, whatever that percentage is. Right. So do as much as you can to reduce your risk. But that makes a difference. If over a period of time you're doing things that reduce your risk by 30 or 50%, that does help. And if everyone's doing that, the overall effect is that we're going to reduce each other's risk. Right. So, yeah. So, yeah, people stopped to listen to.

This a long time ago.

How did the Pivot podcast turn into the hand washing podcast? Listen next time to find out about. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you're bringing a good point because I think it does translate to everyday work that we do. At some point in time we get frustrated with the routinized and we get comfortable. I think at this point in time, I would say for right now, I think we're not at that point.

Thank you for being our voice of reason. And I'm partly saying all these questions out loud because they're my internal dialogue. And you said it earlier, you said if you have a thought or concern or if you feel unsafe and you're worried, it's likely others are too. So if nothing else, maybe I can just give voice to a little Part of all of us, it's kind of annoyed, whatever we're having to do. And that's the least of it. That's like, you know, annoyed would be a good thing at this point, if that's all you're feeling. But thank you, Michael, for being here, for going on this tangent with me and swaying in with being the voice of reason, truly, and guidance and expertise. I'm so grateful and I look forward to doing more of these huddles together.

Let's do it.

Yes. Thank you. And where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

Yeah, absolutely.

Last time.

No, that's okay. So it's, it's a lot. So I go by a lot of MJC stuff there. So if you look up MJC Solutions, that's my website, feel free to email me directly@mjcj consuelos.com and we can put those in the show notes. But once again, Jenny, it's great talking to you. It's never, never a boring conversation, let me tell you. There's always a lot to learn and to exchange. So hopefully folks got something out of this.

I hope so too. And reminder, if you want to submit a question for Michael and I to discuss, there's something on your mind. We really want this to be for you, for the community, the Pivot community, and Michael's community as well. So submit a question. You can submit a voice note@pivot method.com ask or you can email hellobitmethod.com and if we don't have to say your name, sometimes I just say first name. But we really genuinely want to know what would be most helpful for you at this time. And as news continues to unfold and develop. I know you're all probably getting inundated by other podcasts and articles, but if you think that there's something that is affecting fit for Michael and I to discuss or you specifically want to hear our take on something, we also want this to be a two way conversation and we want to know what's on your mind. We want to build this around you and what would be most helpful. So we welcome any and all feedback and questions for future huddles like this one. Thank you so much everybody. Stay safe, healthy and sanitized.

Wash your hands.

Yeah. Thanks everybody.

Bye Bye.

Thanks, Michael.

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, 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 ennyblake.

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