2 Categories of Workers

During these uncertain times, as has been seen during other challenging times, there are two different categories of workers that appear. Let’s unpack these.

1. You've got a ton of things to do. Because of the circumstances surrounding you and your company, you’re running on caffeine and anxiety. It feels like a modern-day revolving Groundhog Day, and you're working long hours with no breaks. Congrats! You’re a Rockstar.
2. You just don't have a heck of a lot to do. Many of you will decide not to put yourself in this category. Mainly because it's a tough thing to admit when you really analyze it - and it comes with current and future missed opportunities. No one is buying right now, or you are fortunately being taken care of by an employer still, or let’s be honest the motivation is just super tough to come by right now. Understandable.

If group #2 sounds like a duck, this post is for you. This is said out of tough love, but with much respect. I get it. I understand. Let’s light a fire where it has been extinguished. Adapt & overcome it.

So, you're still employed, and it is looking like maybe at least another month or so of working at home. Here are a few tips:

Turn off the news, get out of the fetal position, go for a walk(social distancing) and use the hours/opportunities that you rarely ever have - including solitude at times - and invest in bettering yourself.

Get busy building & doing the things you always swore you would get to doing if you just had enough time. (Work projects, entrepreneurial ideas, hobbies, learning)

What if the next month ends up being a tale of two professionals in your industry/at your career level. On paper, you both have the same educational background, relative skills and career attainment at this stage in your career – To make it apples to apples of course.

One professional will stay in the fetal position over the next 3 months (regardless of when you return to the office, things will stay slow, let’s call it a minimum of 3 months, more likely 6), talking about how bad everything is, complaining about their 401k, how tough it was with the kids/family, and that there just weren’t opportunities, etc.

The other one? This professional has limited availability on demand to hop on a social Zoom call or a social chat like everyone else is doing these days.

Why limited availability? Because they're in their workshop, taking blocks of time to work on the previous mentioned work projects, entrepreneurial projects or learning skills that will add even more value to their company or help innovate themselves after this thing subsides and the economy recovers.

On the other side of this thing (let’s say 3 months), the professional in the workshop becomes at least 5% more valuable to both their company and industry.

COVID-19 has been a hard-hitting gut check and wake up call to a lot of Americans and folks across the world. There is no doubt that this is a super challenging time for most. We haven’t all been exposed to the virus, however, the virus has started to expose all of us. It exposed our deficiencies. It has exposed our general laziness or lack of drive. It’s exposed our quick twitch reactions in times of high anxiety/pressure. It’s exposed our lack of empathy for others, or general lack of kindness. It’s exposed our true work ethic behind closed doors. Guess what? It’s okay. It’s a second chance to be aware and promote betterment each day in each other.

During these down periods of work, let’s all just commit to planning for the June 1st or July 1st versions of ourselves. Hopefully coming out on the other side of this experience safe, well, and stronger for it.

Being just 5% better than you were on the other end of this makes you exponentially ahead of your peers or industry leaders that chose the aforementioned option 1. You are valuable. Read that again. You are valuable! It doesn’t matter which situation or environment that is surrounding you while you read this. Imagine being 5% more valuable to your company or employees. What does that look like? I encourage you to go for it and expose others to the thought of bettering themselves during this time. It’s infectious.

- Brett Arthur

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Thanks for reading!