Coronavirus the Greatest Opportunity

Step 1. Define the problem

At the beginning of 2020 COVID-19 came out of nowhere like a hurricane and took almost everyone by surprise. Most countries entered into lockdowns and most people stayed stuck in their homes.

Tourism ground to a halt, restaurants closed, people felt frightened by the uncertainty of the future. International trade nosedived as countries quickly started to close their borders. And world economies plummeted.

Circumstances forced almost all brick and mortar establishments to have people work from home or to suspend activity or even worse to close their doors permanently. It seemed that nobody was safe from the deadly plague that was the coronavirus.

Step 2. Get clear on the specifics

How has the coronavirus affected you personally? Have you immediately managed to pull in the reins of chaos, doubt, and uncertainty and easily and naturally come up with an action plan to navigate the turbulent waters to come? Or did you scramble for the hills and waited for the plague invasion to subside or at the very least for the waters to clear?

How has the coronavirus impacted your family? Did they calmly stay safe and sound in their homes, eating, sleeping, spending time together, and patiently waiting for the government to come and save them? Or did everyone got rattled by the tsunami of daily doom and gloom found on every outlet of information there was?

How has the pandemic changed your work? Was everything business as usual and every person in every team of every department working full steam ahead, feeling motivated and inspired and productive? Or were people less productive, less reliable, scared and grasping for some peace and fresh air from anywhere they could get them?

Step 3. Find the limits of your box

If we were living thousands of years ago we would be thinking that we angered the gods and they are punishing us and there’s nothing we can do about it but pray. We were alone in the face of the divine and powerless to change our fates.

If we were living in a totalitarian regime like North Corea we would be thinking that we angered our enemies and they are out to get us and there’s nothing we can do but hunker down and hold fast. Together we will endure anything and everything our enemies can throw at us. And nothing can change our fates.

If we were living in a modern scientific world based on logic and reason we would be thinking that our global living conditions were eventually going to cause this to happen as it has a myriad of times in the past and there’s nothing we can do about it if we don’t change our ways of organizing our societies and the way we produce our food.

But instead, we live in a world where the most precious asset we have is the knowledge in our brains and a world where most people constantly feed that brain a steady diet of junk food. Junk food in the form of unregulated non-fact-checked social media. Junk food in the form of scare-mongering from the mainstream media. Junk food in the form of paranoia, mistrust, and fear. Passing it around in the guise of helping others. And the only thing that can change our fate is to say no, I’ve got enough of this bullshit. I’m checking out.

Step 4. Breakthrough

The title of this article is aptly named “Why Coronavirus is your Greatest Opportunity in a lifetime”. If you’re looking for the answer to that question in this article I’m afraid you’re out of luck. However, I firmly believe and I dare you to prove otherwise to me, that the answer to that question for each and every one of us lies dormant inside of us until we decide. Until we really decide that our world is not something we have been given by the gods of antiquity and are powerless to change. Until you decide for yourself that it’s up to you to change the world and make it into as close to your paradise on earth as possible. Until you decide that no god, enemy, virus, problem, or disaster makes you powerless. Until you have decided that you already know deep, deep down Why Coronavirus is your greatest opportunity in a lifetime!

Step 5. Implement

For those of you who said yes above. I thank you and leave you with a quote by Steve Jobs

“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do.”

— Steve Jobs

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