Challenges from COVID-19, civil unrest and an impending election have created crash courses in how to live and lead through crisis. If you choose to be impatient, fearful or frustrated, everyone around you begins to feel the same way, and hope and safety tanks while fear, anger and panic rise. If, on the other hand, you choose peaceful and calm, those around you are more likely to lock arms and embrace the challenges more creatively and optimistically.

It’s critical for all of us to be aware of both the reality of a situation and our own physical and emotional reactions to it. By recognizing our stress responses (fight, flee, freeze or fawn), we can pause and reflect before acting or worse, reacting. PAUSE—how you respond to challenge, disruption and change are a CHOICE.

You can choose to be overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear or you can choose to “fear…less” and instead be adaptable, flexible, decisive and cautiously optimistic. You can choose to lead with courage, by stepping into the arena and finding opportunities to innovate, pivot and lean in to better understand and adapt to the challenges. Courageous people focus forward with bounded optimism.

We are all in need of a worthy new vision for our futures. Lead your yourself, your family and your team toward a new stage of good.

Here’s an excerpt on how to model change from our book, BOOM, 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors off Business-As-Usual:

“If anything is going to make your organization the enlightened, impassioned place you want it to become, it will be a conspiracy of people like you, whose dreams, desires, new ideas, and fresh perspectives will trigger critical transformation. But it won’t occur until people like you become so committed to making a difference that the rest of the organization can’t help but be transformed by your example.

Personal change almost always precedes organizational change. If reform is going to happen in the systems, structures, policies, and culture where you hang out, then change must first make its way into the hearts, minds, and character of people like you. That’s why Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Most of us affirm this famous statement intellectually, but when it comes right down to it, our behavior suggests that we aren’t lifting a thumb until someone else leads the charge.“

Want more?