What Should We Be Doing During Coronavirus Lockdown?
I woke up early to start my workout. It’s Saturday, and we are in the heat of the nationwide quarantine. A song pops into my head that I have to listen to. “Money Don’t Stop” by Dom Kennedy. I know my sales team likely isn’t awake yet, but I still send it into the group chat anyway with the message “We can still be busy!” Once everyone woke up, a message came back.
“What should we be doing during coronavirus lockdown lol.”
As a backdrop, we are in an industry where the primary (but not only) source of business comes from knocking on doors. We obviously aren’t knocking on doors to be respectful to homeowners at this time, but there are still dozens of ways of producing business.
The question is one that seems to reverberate for the whole world a while so many people are held up in their homes. In modern history, there has never been such a ‘shutting down’ of productivity in the world economy. So if we are stuck inside, what should we be doing?
In one of my early books, I wrote about how everyone innately knows how to make money. To prove it, the hypothetical situation was this:
If your family was kidnapped and being ransomed off, say, for $5,000, how would you get that money? Everyone’s mind starts racing around to dozens of possibilities. You could have it lent to you. You could sell things in your house. You could ramp up your productivity at your job or ask your boss for an advance. You could produce more in your sales job. You could build a side hustle and start aggressively going after business. You could pick up a second or third job. Necessity can be a strong driver of action, yet many people default to, “I don’t know what to do.”
I answered my sales guy the same way that I would answer someone wanting to get fit, make money, or learn a new language.
“Take action. It doesn’t matter as much what you do, but it’s more important that you are doing. Excellence is a habit that’s constructed, not fallen into.”
I see a lot on social media that people are binge-watching Netflix, ordering all sorts of Door Dash, and generally treating this as a vacation. The gyms have shut down, so many people’s work out routines have been abandoned. It’s been raining a lot, so we can’t even go run outside! That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but I can’t allow my circumstances to dictate what I do.
I think about all of the things I’ve said that I was “too busy” to work on. I’ve been too busy to study Spanish, learn piano, and finish one of my books. I am one of the few that can still work at both of my companies every day, so I’m staying busy. I’m actually probably busier, as we are assuring we keep our efforts high during this time of economic instability. But if I was home, I would be reinforcing my habits of excellence.
I refused to allow what is happening in the world, no matter how serious, to stop me from what I want to accomplish. The people who excel the most in life don’t allow adversity to stop them. If we quit now because the gym isn’t open, aren’t we just reinforcing that our goals can be stopped by something outside of our control? Aren’t we just admitting that we aren’t really in control of our lives? I refuse to be a victim of circumstances, whether or not I created them.
When it comes to developing yourself, there has never been a better time. Seriously, if you aren’t able to make progress when you have so much down time, how will you suddenly make progress when the days go back to being hectic? If you can’t take the time to make your goals a reality when you undoubtedly have the time, isn’t that showing you something about yourself? During the lockdown, we aren’t burdened by travel, extra work being thrown on our plate (most of us), or the chance to go out and be social. If we can’t sit down and focus on our personal goals, maybe those goals you have aren’t serious enough to grab your attention. Maybe your attention and focus isn’t strong enough and needs to be recalibrated. Or maybe you are just lying to yourself about wanting to do that thing, someday. Don’t lie to yourself if you won’t ever do it.
I’m working harder than I ever have because I want to create an even larger gap between myself and others. Apparently I said something that struck a nerve, because my brother said, “I like that. Where did you hear that, that you will ‘widen the gap’ while others are taking time off?” I had to think about it, and I didn’t hear it anywhere. I just thought about it and it seemed logical. Everyone is skipping the gym, but I’m dialed in. Everyone is watching Netflix, but I want to finish another book. I want to assure I can control what I can control in these weird times. I want to make sure if we have more uncertainty, I’ve built myself up to handle it. I want to prove I can thrive in any environment. Excellence is like a snowy hill. The first few times you sled down it, you carve a few paths. The more times you do it, the deeper that path will be. Once you do it enough, you will always slide into that same groove. I want to make my groove deep and solid. I know what to do during the lockdown, and the more people watching Tiger King the better.
Alexander V. Johnson
