Everybody's 2020

“What a wonderful, life-changing & memorable year has 2020 been,” said Nobody.

Somebody, however disagreed and said, “This has been the worst year of my life. My company struggled with business & I lost my job. We were stuck indoors all year seemingly hiding from an invisible threat. I lost all my freedom, a year completely lost and better be forgotten forever.”

Anybody, who had mixed feelings about 2020, murmured under his breath, “Like any year, 2020 had its ups and downs for Everybody.”

Everybody took his head out of the phone & said, “Anybody took my name? Let’s look at the positives people. We survived, Everybody’s fine.”

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As 2020 comes to a close, a lot of end of the year reflections & thoughts will flow through the veins of the internet so I thought why not share mine as well.

For me, 2020 was a humbling experience. It made me realize how much power & control do I actually have. There was a deeper realization that there is a Master Planner somewhere out there, looking out for me and I need to trust the process and let go a bit. I may have had the illusion of power and self-reliance but had a reality check, that not really.

I am just one of the many chess pieces on the board which will be moved, sacrificed and put back in the box when the game is over.

However, this also made me realize that there is more to life than what I have been busy with up until now. Some things have to change and I will have to make the effort to reprioritize some aspects of life to leave a meaningful impact behind me which is beyond my own self.

The year of the highlight

The events that occurred one after the other throughout 2020, with every next one getting highlighted more than the previous one. In another year, some of the headlines that got viral would not have got that much attention as they did but just because it was 2020, even the smallest of things got blown out of proportion blaming it on the poor year as it was.

I will remember 2020 as the year where every other thing was made bold, underlined & marked in italics with a large sized red font, in quotes.

At the height of sensationalism, we found it difficult to recognize what was truly important from all of the social media noise which most people call trends these days.

An organizational perspective & a business angle

In the world of business, this was payback year. For all the times when somebody had said, “One day, you will pay for all this”, this was the year where it all kind of culminated.

Organizations who had somehow survived in the past with very weak internal cultures and lack of innovation couldn’t survive when the revenues dried up because of the black swan event. Companies who didn’t make hay in the sunshine, found themselves starved & thirsty in the rain with no choice but to downsize, right-size or in some cases, even shut down.

This meant either a lot of people lost their jobs or governments had to build debt and continue providing social security to justify their existence & their continued right on the common person’s tax money. Bottom line, world economy hit the pits as disposable income vanished which directly impacted a large number of traditional revenue generating industries.

Any organization which didn’t prioritize digital transformation in the good times as they couldn’t get out of their short term focus, found themselves struggling to survive. They had to rush digital transformation in some shape & form and while it may seem to them that they have survived, there is a reason it is called “transformation.” It can’t be done in haste as it involves a transformative change in people, processes & culture enabled by technology and not the other way around. These changes take time and the larger the organization, the larger the scale hence more the time required.

What has happened now for such organizations is temporary and forced upon which wouldn’t stick, in my opinion. Only the organizations that learn from this and amend their ways for their future strategy will gain from this with more permanence.

However, organizations who were always playing the infinite game, benefited. They had always invested in their talent by taking care of them in personalized ways and hence were able to retain the best of them. They were able to come together like a family, survive the difficult times of the cash crunch while holding each other’s hands, supporting each other in all ways possible, all this with the inability to meet physically.

Companies who were ahead of the curve on technology, who had improvised & innovated with their products and their work cultures were cognizant of the needs of the future worker, clearly thrived and stood out.

When any uncontrollable change happens, it is always a matter of perspective, choosing a perspective is a matter of one’s choice. One can choose to complain or find a bright spot even while being in the dark.

While a lot of organizations & individuals complained, the smarter & resilient ones who were already functioning at higher levels of productivity were able to pivot and grab opportunities that the economical and social change of circumstances presented in front of them. These people are great examples to learn from and collaborate with in the future.

My reflections, realizations & resolutions

For me, it was a lot about re-alignment of priorities, taking a bit more control of where I spend my time on from now. There was natural recognition of the fact how much control I had given away to mindless activities and how that time could be better utilized for learning, making use of my abilities by helping others and working towards making a difference in this world. I completed my training as a professional coach with the Association of Coaching (AC) UK and started coaching seriously, now pursuing this as a parallel profession. This by far has been the highlight of my 2020 which will stick for the future.

My 2020 was all about finding my IKIGAI (a reason for being). As working from home became the norm, less time wasted in the commute and mental energy conserved from not needing to deal with office politics, I had much more additional time available for my own self-reflection. Needless to say but this was a great blessing.

I realized how all the events & situations from my past were somehow interconnected. All of them were directing me towards a path. A journey which was going to lead me towards finding my purpose of being here, my role in the playscript of life.

I describe myself now as a futurist & an eternal optimist who believes the world can become any practical reality which the human mind can imagine. If we can think it, we can do it.

I have a utopian vision of a world where everybody is living to their utmost potential, serving each other, solving each other’s problems, teaching each other & learning from each other.

My purpose in life from now on till forever is to help people find their purpose in life. All efforts will be around playing my part in driving positive change towards reaching this utopian reality so we can all live fulfilling lives.

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“What goes up, must come down,” said Somebody. “This is what has happened to our world in 2020, we were running too fast and everything needed to slow down.”

“Anybody knows that, don’t claim the throne of intellectualism yet!” said Nobody.

“What goes down, also comes up again.” Everybody said, reflecting a touch of philosophy. “We took a step back, slowed down for a bit, got a chance to reflect and survived. We are more self-aware & ready to bounce back.”