If You're Reading This, You Are The Best
Recently, as a number of us in a B Corp Women CEO email group exchanged congrats with each other for being honored with a Best for the World designation (Dojo4 was recognized as Best for the World in the Workers category) I thought to myself, “Wait a hot second here, this is cool and everything, but isn’t every person on this group, regardless of externally awarded accolade, due for some major back-patting?”
Every business leader in that particular group, and every business leader anywhere in the world, that somehow, by sheer force of will and/or extraordinary good luck and/or remarkable innovation, was able to keep their business afloat through this global pandemic, is a human miracle worthy of reverence. The unseen and untold feats of perseverance and determination that were needed (and continue to be needed) to pull our businesses through this relentless pandemic are no joke. No sir.
Apparently, in the US, there were 37.5% fewer small businesses open across the country a year and half into the pandemic than there were before the COVID tsunami hit the economy. Imaginably, a portion of those losses were actually opportunities for their owners to adapt into something else or finally follow another dream, but no doubt the majority were simply casualties of the vicious reality played out in the bar fight of widespread disease versus capitalism.
If you made it out alive, you are awe-inspiring. Even if you’re still limping and suturing the wounds, your survival deserves mass congratulations. You don’t need anyone to tell you that you’ve accomplished something unusual and truly impressive.
And if you had to fold, well, shit. Our heart is with you. None of us were prepared for this kind of societal disaster and we don’t live in a country that truly helps us rise above the lonely, individual fight to be able to stand up to this kind of cataclysm. We’ll never know all the excruciating decisions you had to make and all the human stories that were involved in the demise of your business. We celebrate the years of contribution you made to your local economy and your community. We celebrate your spirit.
This pandemic has taken its toll in ways that we may not understand for a long time, if ever. Navigating what it means to be in business during this time has taken a steeliness of nerves and an acceptance of powerful and changing unknowns, that would bring anyone to their knees. As business owners, we have had to hold and manage the fears of our employees, our colleagues, and our communities. We’ve had to be realistic when our realities are surreal. We’ve had to be optimistic and steady under the heavy cloud of apocalyptic gloom. We’ve had to fill out miles of paperwork, run through bureaucratic mazes, and risk all we have on bets with seemingly impossible odds. We’ve had to provide reassurance when we ourselves are quaking on the steep cliff of our own confidence.
So whatever happened to you and your business since the pandemic infiltrated every aspect of our professional, economic and personal lives, we each should be awarded a big, fat, giant medal. The Medal of Confidence. The Medal of Perseverance. The Medal of Patience. The Medal of Insanely Hard Work. The Medal of Endurance. The Medal of Acceptance. The Medal of Staring Bravely into the Void. The Medal of Survival. The Medal of Knowing that the Only Way Out Is Through.
