Imagine you get THE CALL… and it’s horrible news and it guts your business. You’re instantly in crisis mode, now what?I lost 70% of my business overnight and it ended up being an AMAZING experience. How I responded caught some people off-guard, but it worked well. I want to share with you that approach and the lessons that I learned.

So, I got the news – BOOM – instant crisis. I was in a world of pain. My head was on fire.

(Watch to learn more or keep reading.)

The first thing I realized was that I needed to move on from the pain as fast as possible. To do so, I leaned on my support team: my wife, my mentor, my EO forum. I eased the pain by using my support circles effectively. And I chose not to fight over principles because it would have buried me in shit for months or even years (i.e. lawsuits). Next, I pulled out my written Plan B (more on that in a future post) and used it as a game plan to move on quickly.

Second thing, I had a fundamental shift in perspective. I didn’t focus on the crisis. Instead, I approached it as an adventure and it became exciting.

Even something like letting people go (no that part wasn’t fun), I got through quickly. The conversations that I had with my people when I had to let some valuable team members go were difficult but they handled them with such grace. They were actually worried about me. They said they’d be fine. I was a little caught off-guard by that. It freed me to charge forward and explore the unknown with my much smaller team. Create, explore, conquer the impossible. How fun is that?

From then on, I was looking forward not back. The past is in the past. It’s meant to be learned from but not dwelt upon. So I learned to look forward and spent all my energy focusing on the new creation rather than worried about what happened yesterday.

With my smaller team in place, I brought us even closer and I got more vulnerable.  I shared more of my fears, my worries and I asked the same of them. It led to some very candid, powerful conversations. I moved forward with them and it created an amazing bond between us.

One of the coolest things I did was implement an operating system. I used EOS™ and it allowed us to put all of our energy into creating new in our business instead of worrying about the mechanics of how things were getting done.

Then we created role clarity using the EOS tools. We got clear on what NOT to do for each of us. For me, that meant zero time working on operations and almost no day-to-day stuff. I just focused on growth and business development. With a clear structure in place, it was all about: focus, focus, focus. We executed each of our roles and checked-in weekly. Our regular meetings were open and honest, solving problems together so that we were on the same page with what needed to get done.

This approach worked for us. We grew seven times in revenue over the next 20 months. We destroyed our revenue record by 50%.  And we had so much fun doing it. It’s an experience we’ll all remember forever because we did something truly unique and special while conquering the impossible.

One of the lessons learned, looking back, is that I would have paused… and celebrated more. We blasted from one goal to the next, instead of just stopping to celebrate our micro-victories.

If you’re faced with a crisis, I encourage you not to run from it, embrace it. Grab onto it and create a new adventure with your team.

I love the adventure of helping businesses navigate growth, so let’s chat about how I can help you do just that! Contact me today.

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