MANAGING A CRISIS
February 12th, 2010 by Ryan McGovern. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Wednesday was one of the stranger days in my life. In the span of 24 hours I experienced an earthquake, was disrupted by a flat tire, and had a hacker try to take over a live video broadcast. I can’t remember another day when so many hurdles appeared in my path. My week’s activities have been shifted to focus on all the events of that day because of the possible ramifications of all of them going badly. Although, I was able to navigate through all of these experiences with minimal repercussions and still feel like I made the best of each situation. Using a few simple rules I made sure my house and family were safe, got my car back on the road, and made the best of a situation soured by a bad apple.
RULE 1 – PANIC = DEATH
If you’re crossing the street and your favorite shoelace has the audacity to untie itself, would you:
A) Stop walking and then weep over the tragedy
B) Scream bloody murder and curse out that no-good shoelace
C) Continue crossing the road carefully, then tie your shoe and move on
The last thing you should do when something goes wrong is get angry, vengeful or pity yourself. Clouding your mind with those thoughts will force you to make a bad decision and hurt yourself or others around you. You can set yourself back in achieving goals and damage your relationships with others.
RULE 2 – ASK FOR HELP
There are 6.6 BILLION PEOPLE on this planet. In any situation you’re dealing with, there’s an ample supply of support. All you have to do is ASK. If you choose to be a cowboy and ‘pull up your bootstraps,’ and then you fail, YOU ARE AT FAULT. Think of all the times when you helped someone because you sympathized with their situation. Its just good karma – help others and they will help you in return.
When I got in my car to go do my weekly video broadcast and realized I would never make it in time because of a flat tire, I had to ask for help. There was no way I was going to change the tire by myself and still make it on time. I am lucky to be married to an action-oriented genius. My wife, Ally was on the phone calling for tire prices lickety-split! What this solved for me was how I was going to commute to work in the morning.
RULE 3 – REDEFINE FAILURE
Where you able to jump a sweet ramp the first time you climbed on your BMX? No?! Then why would you think that your first handful of solutions should always work when dealing with a problem? Getting discouraged by failure puts an immediate end to your progress. To stop this from happening you have to change the way you look at a failure. It’s not a bad thing, because failure actually gives you an advantage. You’re one attempt further than anyone who is still thinking about doing what you’re doing. You are more educated on the subject because of your failure. Which means your next attempt will always be BETTER than your last.
