Status quo, the murderer.

We are all very well educated by now as to the damage a plague can do. As horrible as our recent plague was, The Black Death was exponentially worse, killing between 70 to 200 million people world wide between 1346 and 1353. This was the end of the medieval era. When plagues, floods, droughts or swarms of locusts showed up, it was generally thought that god was punishing us for our bad behavior. What did medieval people do when god was punishing them? They went to church. What is church? Church is scores of people crammed into a confined space sharing the same air at close range.

The conventional thinking (Status quo) to inoculate yourself from the disease was to go repent at church. That thinking is precisely what accelerated the rate of horrible, ugly and grotesque deaths. Comforting as it felt, it was no inoculation at all. Status quo thinking made things worse.

The message here isn't some anecdotal missive about how the status quo can be sort of bad sometimes maybe in rare instances.

The message here is that the status quo is a downright murderer. Sometimes it kills us by penetrating the lungs and blood vessels. Sometimes it aims straight for our souls.

Return to office wants your heart.

In my latest book "Revolt: The rise of Fractional and the death of full time " I make a pretty good argument (I think anyway) that in these times of tremendous economic, cultural, political and societal change, the full-time status quo today is what church was in 1346. Comfort. Status quo. Reliable. Safe.

It's not.

An Autopsy of the Full-Time Status Quo.

The leading cause of death in the US is heart disease.

The leading cause of heart disease is stress.

The leading cause of stress is work.

Houston, we have a problem.

Those are cold hard facts, brother. Look 'em up. The status quo of work is literally killing us. The question must be asked, what is it about the full time status quo that is causing such ridiculously high levels of stress? Could it be the strings of 15 hour work days keeping us away from our families, our communities and our health? Office politics? Pay raises that lag years and sometimes decades behind the inflation rate? No? How about rampant ageism, sexism, racism and ableism? Or maybe it's simply the feelings of injustice when the top 1% takes 500 times the pay of the average worker? Could it be the constant fear of getting laid off?

Every single one of these stressors are considered just another Tuesday in the American economy. Normal. Ordinary. Just part of the recipe of capitalism. Yup. Heart attacks are just part of the ingredients of capitalism. In the 2021 movie "Don't Look Up" two astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) go on a media tour to warn humankind of a planet-killing comet hurtling toward Earth. The response from a distracted world: Meh. We are fine with the status quo thank you very much. Even though the full time status quo is comfortable, it can easily kill you.

Return to office wants your soul.

In the book I argue that our love affair with full time work is much more like Stockholm syndrome , the condition in which captives fall in love with their oppressor over time. Too harsh? Maybe I'm catastrophizing? My friend Heather Polivka put it things this way. When the pandemic hit the water line went down. All of the status quo things that were there came into view as the water line that hid them receded. We didn't like what we saw. The status quo under the water line revealed the harsh, harmful and corrosive nature of the full time status quo.

Working 70 hours a week was normalized and expected. We saw that.

Controlling, micromanaging and toxicity as a way of operating. We saw that.

Dog eat dog, cut throat, back stabbiness. We saw that.

All taking a serious toll on our souls. Our confidence. Or feelings of self worth. Our identity. Our mental health. Speaking of mental health...

Mental health is finally something we pay attention to, Perhaps just in the nick of time. New studies show that mental health and well-being at work continue to decline in 2023. According to the National Institute of Mental Health , one in five Americans (57.8 million in 2021) were living with some type of mental illness, ranging from mild to moderate to severe anxiety and depression. That number has increased as a result of the pandemic and the ensuing turbulence in the workplace along with a dwindling economy. Anxiety is the highest reported mental health disorder in the U.S. with 42.5 million Americans suffering from this illness.

In short, return to work and your soul may very well take a hit. The happiness, joy, balance and fulfillment you felt at home may very well take a back seat to anxiety and depression again. No wonder we're resisting.

Once again, small business saves America.

All of that dark cloudy stuff I write about above generally lives in massive corporations. "Corporate America." The ones where their primary focus is returning value to shareholders first. The game looks like this: extraction at the lowest possible cost. That is an ideal breeding ground for the nasty full time status quo tens of millions of Americans have suffered for decades.

The game changes in the small business sector. (50% of our GDP, 85% of our workers) Their motivations are different. They are still on their upward arc. They have to focus on vision and innovation. Relationships, leadership, respect and dignity are far more significant currency of the small business game over shareholder value. When you are motivated by these things, you act in very different ways. Growing businesses CANT do status quo and grow. To make progress they are forced and get outside of the box as a means of survival.

Why this matters for Fractionals.

When I ask people after class what rules will they set for themselves in their Fractional business, almost every one says this as on of the rules:

I refuse to work with assholes.

Now that means two things. One, they have had to work with assholes and couldn't do anything about it. And two, they want control. "I refuse" means I am in charge. I make my own rules. No one can make me.

The thing about Fractional is you are serving "real" people. The small business sector. People pursuing the American dream. People on their upward arc. People focused on progress, not building a moat and keeping others out. You work in the fields of abundance and opportunity. And THAT means when you work, even 70 hours a week at times, your work is your own. It is valued. It is impactful. It is needed. It matters.

In fractional, you matter.

And isn't that what we all want and deserve in our short time on this orb.

Go fractional,

John