Navigating The “New Normal“ Of Virtual Events Like A Pro

When it comes to music, I spent quite a bit of time listening to jazz while I was growing up. I loved the layers of emotion, the soul you could feel in the notes and how some notes belonged while others didn’t. Of course I’ve since learned that those notes that didn’t belong - the dissonance - are such a part of the music because they wake you up, they stop your mind from repeating the same pattern and they force you into a moment of awareness. 

If we were talking about life, we might compare that dissonance to pivots, the moments that wake us up, force us out of a pattern, and into moments of deeper awareness. On the flipside - the resonance - the deep reverberating sounds we long for in music, are so representative of the high notes in life that are really the rewards from the pivots and the dissonance we all experience. 

Changing Reality

I was thrilled to be able to speak with Rainey Foster recently. She’s a musician, a recording artist, an actress, and her philanthropic efforts are incredibly inspiring. Rainey’s love for jazz music left us in this amazing conversation of resonance, dissonance, and how we must keep moving forward - but when that is really difficult - we always have music. Rainey also serves as the Executive Vice President of Leading Authorities, one of the world's foremost lecturer agencies and event production companies. She understands the critical needs of a company's high-profile speakers and is quickly becoming an expert on how that has changed in our new virtually-based reality. 

We Cannot Remain in the Past

This pandemic is a pivot we’ve all been forced into, but I am determined for all of us to come out on the other side of this drowning in opportunity and wisdom from the resilience we’ve built up along the way. One point Rainey and I kept coming back to is that we cannot rest on the success of the past. Together, we have to figure out how to navigate the future. “There's a joy in being able to feel things on such a deep level. We're all feeling that in many ways. I had a lot of personal loss in my life in a short amount of time. All were sudden tragic deaths. My husband, my sister, my brother, and my business partner. I can now sing the blues, but you can't stay in that place. There's got to be a way to feel the gratitude and recognize the love and the experience that you had and also be able to find the next place. The greatest lesson is that all you have is this minute.”

Think about this: Rainey believes she has earned the right to sing beautiful blues because of the resilience she has built in her life. What a wonderful perspective -  to believe that we ARE better and deserve MORE for those pivots, instead of less. Yes, we can CHOOSE what we believe, including that we love our lives, no matter what.

Going Online

When we talk about grief, it’s important to also be able to translate that to business as everyone has made these pivots. Our presentations are via Zoom now, our meetings are different, our business dealings are different, we are adjusting to a lot of change together. And while it’s okay to grieve these past processes, our next step should be proactivity. What worked yesterday isn't going to work today. Companies need to get out of the past and figure out how to navigate the future. 

Establishing New Roles

The most challenging task we’re all facing now is re-establishing our roles or even establishing new roles based on how we can interact and do our work individually and together. Understanding our strengths and where we can fulfill new roles within a business allows us to maximize our impact as we pivot. This also creates space for us to answer the chaos and change our clients are experiencing 

Virtual Fatigue

We’ve all had to really lean into how to produce an impactful virtual meeting. We’ve all had to consider how these interactions are end-to-end just like any in-person event we would put together, and we have to put just as much (if not more) thought into the creative process. It’s not easy to create an effective and impactful meeting over Zoom, especially when everyone is Zoom fatigued, but statistically, it is showing to be a beneficial transition, because the retention of the takeaway is 60-90 days which is much longer than in-person events. You should be asking yourself, every step of the way, “How can I create value for my clients in a virtual setting?”

Being able to leverage these challenges will always bring us into resilience. The adversity as we move forward and create new chapters in life does serve us on the other side. “Resilience comes from faith that once you get through the darkness, there will be light.” We're not talking about tolerating or managing change. It’s about utilizing change in an affirmative and proactive way. 

How will you utilize change today? Let us know in the comments so we can support your Pivot-Ability and resilience!