For nearly every business owner I know, the last couple years have been filled with some of the biggest highs and some of the lowest lows of their entire journey. Pandemic shopping highs followed by months of shipping lows. Record audience growth soon met with record high customer acquisition costs. Or maybe just navigating COVID mixed with the profound realization that we can work differently generated your personal flavor of ups and downs.
Whatever the makeup of your experience, a new year is here. And I’m a big believer that seasons of change are a time to embrace a new energy and new ideas. Over the break, I read The Originals, by Adam Grant. In Chapter 8, a chapter on overcoming fear and doubt, Grant writes about a series of studies that challenge conventional wisdom on facing fear.
In one study, students who were afraid of public speaking were asked to repeat a mantra to help them “shift their thinking” leading up to giving a speech. Here’s an excerpt: “When students labeled their emotions as excitement, their speeches were rated as 17 percent more persuasive and 15 percent more confident than those of students who branded themselves calm. Reframing fear as excitement also motivated the speakers, boosting the average length of their speeches by 29 percent; they had the courage to spend an extra 37 seconds on stage. In another experiment, when students were nervous before taking a tough math test, they scored 22 percent better if they were told “Try to get excited” instead of “Try to remain calm.””
I love this study because it speaks to me as a founder, in a strange way. So often, I am told to be like a river rock. “Let the waves crash over me.” Don’t get too emotional. Don’t get overwhelmed. Stay calm. I have always found this advice to be difficult to swallow in part because it’s about suppressing feels instead of channeling them.
As we consider facing another year, I know that I have been carrying around a certain amount of fear and anxiety about the markets. Is a recession coming? Should I still be watching inflation? What is the Fed doing? Will this all impact my business? It’s enough to make me feel like those nervous students facing down a math test.
But when I re-focus that energy and instead think: AH, let me work on BEING EXCITED, I feel my whole body change.
How can I take advantage of this market?
The big companies are cutting - where can I steal some of their market share?
What innovation will get me up in the morning?
Hopefully, this change in mentality can help you too. I would LOVE to see more businesses like ours OWN 2023 while the big companies fear what’s next.
For nearly every business owner I know, the last couple years have been filled with some of the biggest highs and some of the lowest lows of their entire journey. Pandemic shopping highs followed by months of shipping lows. Record audience growth soon met with record high customer acquisition costs. Or maybe just navigating COVID mixed with the profound realization that we can work differently generated your personal flavor of ups and downs.
Whatever the makeup of your experience, a new year is here. And I’m a big believer that seasons of change are a time to embrace a new energy and new ideas. Over the break, I read The Originals, by Adam Grant. In Chapter 8, a chapter on overcoming fear and doubt, Grant writes about a series of studies that challenge conventional wisdom on facing fear.
In one study, students who were afraid of public speaking were asked to repeat a mantra to help them “shift their thinking” leading up to giving a speech. Here’s an excerpt: “When students labeled their emotions as excitement, their speeches were rated as 17 percent more persuasive and 15 percent more confident than those of students who branded themselves calm. Reframing fear as excitement also motivated the speakers, boosting the average length of their speeches by 29 percent; they had the courage to spend an extra 37 seconds on stage. In another experiment, when students were nervous before taking a tough math test, they scored 22 percent better if they were told “Try to get excited” instead of “Try to remain calm.””
I love this study because it speaks to me as a founder, in a strange way. So often, I am told to be like a river rock. “Let the waves crash over me.” Don’t get too emotional. Don’t get overwhelmed. Stay calm. I have always found this advice to be difficult to swallow in part because it’s about suppressing feels instead of channeling them.
As we consider facing another year, I know that I have been carrying around a certain amount of fear and anxiety about the markets. Is a recession coming? Should I still be watching inflation? What is the Fed doing? Will this all impact my business? It’s enough to make me feel like those nervous students facing down a math test.
But when I re-focus that energy and instead think: AH, let me work on BEING EXCITED, I feel my whole body change.
How can I take advantage of this market?
The big companies are cutting - where can I steal some of their market share?
What innovation will get me up in the morning?
Hopefully, this change in mentality can help you too. I would LOVE to see more businesses like ours OWN 2023 while the big companies fear what’s next.
