3 Ideas From the Reinvention Summit You Can Use Today

No matter where you are right now and how the new COVID-19 reality looks like for you, I am sending you my warmest wishes.


This is not a sprint - this transformation we are all experiencing is a marathon.

So, my big hope is that you're taking care of yourself and your community - and giving yourself permission to grieve, to appreciate, to discover (and to occasionally skip some of those Zoom-Skype-WhatsApp-Hangout meetings that seem to multiply at the exponential rate)!


Here, in the reinvention-land, things have been incredibly busy.

We've run a 2-week free Reinvention Summit, organized a 2-day reinvention bootcamp for 200+ entrepreneurs in crisis, and provided countless hours of coaching for companies in need.

We are still producing the videos and putting together resources from the Summit for all of you to use (no email or login needed) - most of the talks are now ready for you to watch here>>


But to make your life easier (as there are hours of video footage!), today I want to share 3 ideas, 3 insights that emerged during the Reinvention Summit that I am sure can be useful for you right away.

 
IDEA #1: Fear is not the enemy. It's a crucial resource to appreciate and use to the fullest.

Fear is one of the most underappreciated and vilified emotions - often treated as a sign of weakness or a dreadful enemy.

Yet, fear is designed by your body as an ingenious protection mechanism - meant to mobilize, focus, and prepare for action.

The secret for turning fear into a productive resource at the time of intense crisis (like the one we are experiencing right now) is to stop suppressing or hiding from it - but instead facing fear in all glory and using it to structure your response.

During the Summit, we shared a worksheet that allows you to do just that in 3 simple steps:

1. List your fears and all the potential impacts if indeed all fears come to reality;

2. Sort your fears in one of 3 specific categories (things we can control, things we can at least partially influence, and things we cannot control at all);

3. Develop an action plan for things that are within your influence and control.

Ever since this exercise was shared, we got hundreds of messages with how people have been using it to calm down the nerves and coach their teams. It has since been translated into Russian and Slovak languages - just stop by our Reinvention Society to get these versions ;)

And to watch the whole video intro of the Summit and get the exercise, click here - and explore the remarkable graphic recording by the amazing Angelique McAlpine:  

IDEA #2: The world is not in quarantine. It is cocooning.

One of my most favorite authors of all time is Richard Bach - and there is a quote of his that I carry with me through my life (especially when things get tough or when I feel like what's going on is unfair):

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." 

During the Summit, one of our amazing speakers, Aidan McCullen, spoke about the world taking a break - cocooning - and transforming into a new version of itself.

Aidan's talk was filled with warms, powerful business stories, and incredible metaphors - so I hope you can find some hope in it as well:

IDEA #3: Forget Black Swans. This is the Green Swan time.

If you are anything like me, you have a childhood or youth hero that seems completely out of reach. For the years of my intellectual youth, one of my all time heroes was and continues to be John Elkington - the trailblazer, the father of the Triple Bottom Line concept, and a serial entrepreneur. 

So, imagine my complete and utter joy to see him present the idea of a Green Swan - as a more hopeful version of unforeseen disruption that author Nassim Nicholas Taleb called a "black swan". 

John's Green Swans appear everywhere - as new technologies, business models, movements and individual companies using the power of reinvention not only to survive, but to regenerate and thrive.

I am excited for you to meet those green swans here:

 

I hope these three ideas will give you some energy to turn COVID-19 into an opportunity to reflect and reinvent. 

Let me know what ideas are touching you these days - more than ever, we need each other's insights and connection.

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Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva helps companies such as Coca-Cola, Kohler, and IBM turn change and disruption into an opportunity.

Want to join this amazing reinvention community? Grab one of our free resources and you are in: https://www.learn2reinvent.com/freetools