The silver lining - how to stay positive amidst all of the uncertainty?

Before The Predictive Index (PI), I worked at PennySaver USA, a California-based local media company, navigating turbulent times in the rapidly declining (crashing) print media industry. My fellow members of the senior management team and I would discuss strategies that could be used to keep the company afloat while shifting to digital. Mike Paulsin, one of my mentors and then CEO, would often say, “Drew, you don’t know what you don’t know.” Despite all the uncertainty. All the anxiety. We still had to make decisions with confidence and move things forward.

Today, someone asked me - "How do you deal with the uncertainty? How do you stay positive?"

Think about it this way. Working out sucks. It hurts (if you’re doing it right). This hurt is conditioning. It’s muscle building. It makes you more resilient. Beyond my fitness schedule, the last week working 100% remote from my dungeon of basement office has taught me that planning time with family, getting outside, eating scheduled meals - all these things collectively are my wellbeing schedule. I did these things all right before, but it’s been harder than ever to maintain them considering the circumstances.

That said, there’s no more important time to keep your wellbeing schedule intact than right now. This week, everyone, with the exception of a few remotes, at The Predictive Index experienced their first full week working 100% virtual. (Wow, I am an awful remote worker!)

Amidst the flood of COVID-19 updates and grim economic outlooks, I’ve been heads down with my team working projections and attempting to read any tea leaves available to help us create a solid plan forward.

This week was the first time in a long time that that anxiety and stress from my PennySaver days came back. However, there is so much more emotion involved. If you haven’t been directly impacted by the virus, you will be. Just the thought of that is heartbreaking. Obviously, these feelings are ok. This is an awful situation. It's shitty. No sense in denying it.

For many, the worst is yet to hit us. The storm is quickly approaching. The time to leverage your resilience, to make it through, and to overcome is now.

Mike Zani, my CEO and mentor, shared a quote to all of PI last week - “let the storms show your mastery." What a great call to arms to stay focused, keep your vision, keep your wellbeing in check.

The true beauty in all of this is that we are literally all in this together - our families, neighbors, and team members. It's amazing how moments like this remind of what's more important in life. It’s moments like this that unify and strengthen.

It’s also these moments when you realize superpowers you never even knew you had or things that you are capable of. That's the silver lining - perhaps the most positive thing to think about right now is how much stronger this will make you and what you will learn about yourself in the process.