What is your million dollar idea?

I am more fortunate than most.

We spend so much time of our lives working. We want to do well, we give our energy, our passion, our best, our figurative blood, sweat and tears at work and naturally we build an identity to our organization. Even if we don't necessarily agree with or love our managers or the brand, we form a bond during our employment and even if we resign willingly, we tend to still feel a little bit of loss when it's time for us to move on.

When we are told our employment is terminated due to something like a pandemic, it can be really jarring.

In this way - I am fortunate. I left my last company in December of 2019, so I had already processed the resignation and exit in my head. I had taken a month off to travel and write and so when I began interviewing again, and saw how quickly the roles were drying up as the pandemic spread, I didn't have too much of a negative adjustment period.

As I am watching in comfortable stasis, each week more and more people are posting on my social media. I am seeing waves of people write that they have just lost their jobs. I am being texted and called for resume and job hunting advice (so much so that I created an online guide at https://www.thehrvault.org/product-page/covid-19-unemployment-kit ) and so I can imagine now, in the midst of all the fear and negative emotions about paying bills, worrying about our health and the health of loved ones, so many are now experiencing that strange and uncomfortable detachment from the companies and titles we had. (It's not too far from when a relationship ends, is it?)

And similar to relationships, when our employment ends, there are ways to get past the discomfort quicker.

I remember a training I attended - several years ago - and oddly enough, I don't remember what the training was about, but I *do* remember this line. "Everyone has at least one million dollar idea inside of them."

I will not guilt you into being productive. You do not have to use this time to come up with your podcast, write the next great novel or teach yourself python. You can and should use the time you have now however you want. If that means grieving and panicking and sitting on the stoop eating most of a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream, starting listlessly at the lawn for a few hours, you should do that. (I'm speaking from personal experience here).

Yet, resilience is one of our most important traits and human beings like motion and movement after a time of enforced stasis. So, I will bring this back to the title.

What is your million dollar idea?

If you have food, shelter and water, and a little bit of money in the bank (and an internet connection, who am I kidding) then you are fortunate and essentially have the basics, so you can use your energy and focus to better use.

Adding to that, we now have the resource that literally everyone says they don't have enough of to consider their "big idea". Time. We have time. We all have at least another 6-8 weeks of it by my calculations. We've been cosmically sent to our rooms and have been given a time out.

So when you are ready - and only when you are ready - give yourself the gift of thinking about your next steps. When the world begins to re-open, how will you stand out amongst the millions of people who are looking for work? What will you do now that will be your huge career move in the fall?

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking about a few potential opportunities to really make a positive change. I think some of them could be AWESOME ideas, maybe even one or two "million dollar" ideas. There are people who are far smarter and far more brilliant than me, so I am writing out the list of questions and things that I am seeing now that I imagine will be big holes for talented individuals to fill when the world begins to recover.

Hopefully this list inspires you, unleashes that resilience that is in all of us, and can bring you to a place of using this as an opportunity to make the world a better place:

Daniel's Random List of the Opportunities that are Opening:

• This is probably a good time to look at Airline business modeling
• There's going to be A LOT of new babies in November/December/January. What will this mean for hospitals, pediatricians or stores that sell baby clothes?
• There were probably a LOT of weddings/parties/baptisms, etc cancelled. Way to connect people with events?
• Medical supplies are going to be in overstock?
• People are going to be dying for fitness/health improvement
• Logistics of bringing people back to work? (What does it look like in transportation?)
• How can we ensure environmental gain isn't suddenly lost?
• How will websites, economy, life look if suddenly schools and companies re-opened?
• How did 2-3 weeks of quarantine literally destroy the economy? How can we better prepare?
• We should recognize essential staff with bonuses (especially delivery drivers, store staff, etc) Why are we giving companies billions of dollars but not giving cash bonuses to people literally on the front line?
• We should really look at pay models for professions, especially as it relates to the difference between celebrities and teachers and essential staff.
• I personally consulted with three companies who literally had NO succession plan and were caught completely off guard when leaders or key staff became ill. Companies really need to invest in this.
• What does the future look like? Remote work is critical, but human beings cant be fully remote. I imagine there to be an uptick of companies that offer consulting on remote onboarding/virtual employment.
• What are we going to do with all of these huge large spaces that won't have events for another year? (Las Vegas, sport stadiums?)
• I imaging there will be a lot of divorces or marriages that come after this, probably a lot of couples counseling
• I believe there will be a surge in online learning for the next 3-5 months. Will this impact school fees?
• I think that the role of "influencers" is going to take a plunge...
• I imagine there's going to be a huge surge in pandemic preparedness companies, and insurance
• As restrictions start easing, how will the tourism business look?
• What do we do for the seniors who lost their graduation?
• Were we pleased with how our government handled things? How we can improve it without blaming other nations or people specifically? How do we just address the issue with the guise of empathy and improvement?

Feel free to take, steal or be inspired with these and come up with your own as well.

Looking forward to seeing the changes!

Daniel

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