Remember to stop adapting and start creating. These days, everyone is talking about “adapting and pivoting to the “new normal”, whatever that all the means.
The reality is Covid-19 is forcing people to believe they need to somehow change everything they are doing, including their messaging, who they are and how they do business.
They couldn’t be more wrong. If over time something happens and you are going to adapt you will never become who you are meant to be. This kind of thinking is reactive not creative. The thing to do at this time is not to pivot or adapt but to create and expand into the contraction and fear. So stop adapting and start creating.
Trust me from personal experience. During times like this the thing to do is push harder not embrace the changes you needed to make before you were being FORCED to make changes.
For 35 years I have been in business and I have had more than my share of opportunities to learn this lesson the hard way. When you spend all your time adapting and changing to fit the current situation, you will find yourself and your business going sideways or shrinking. I just had a person in my office this week who was told, “due to Covid you need to change your messaging.” As a result his business had gotten hurt, not because of Covid but because he changed his messaging.
How are you going to define your brand and grow your business if you continue to change to fit every situation. There will always be another situation. When Covid is over it will be something else. The question is who will you be? What will you represent? What does your company stand for? Despite economic contractions, threats of pandemics, political influences, protest, boycotts, or whatever is popular at the moment you MUST get clear about who you are and what you are creating.
If you don’t spell all that out for people who work for you and buy from you, those who work with you and who could buy from you will just become confused. Regardless of what’s happening around you, especially when things get crazy the way they are now, you must be true to your mission. My mission hasn’t changed one bit this year, I’ve just gotten even more focused and more insistent. We are still doing a 10X Growth Conference in Las Vegas in 2021. We are moving full steam ahead and selling tickets every day. I am buying as much real estate as I can and we are closing a monster deal this week. We are continuing to grow our Sales Business, bringing on more salespeople this quarter than we did all last year. We are expanding our online webinars and even introducing a 10Day 10X Challenge next month for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs.
Adapting to your surroundings is reactive. Being like a chameleon is fine if you want to blend in and play it safe. If ‘just getting by’ is your definition of success, a ridiculous calculation by the way, because you know expansion is the only true way to ensure your success.
Let’s face it, there’s a reason they call a chameleon’s ability to change its color a “defense mechanism”. How are you going to achieve anything if nobody can see you? I didn’t get to where I am today by blending in but by standing out. Elon, Bezos, Jobs, didn’t compete or blend in. These titans expanded during contractions. They didn’t adapt. I’m not a chameleon. I’m a creative person who continues to make my reality, the reality. I don’t adapt or conform. I create.
I know this is a lot to think about because adapting is such a popular concept. But it doesn’t work and the titans never use it. Whether you are self-employed, a manager, a CEO, or a hourly employee, you are in command. Clearly you can’t control everything around you but you can control whether you attack or defend.
Great generals don’t play defense and wait for the enemy to attack. They go on offense but before they lead their forces into battle they have a plan and they execute on the plan even when the unexpected happens. Of course, we all know, things rarely play out as planned but if the organization executes on the plan they maximize the chances of victory. Battlefield or boardroom, it doesn’t matter.
Look, 2020 has clearly been a year for the books. Now more than any other time you must get clear on your plan and get the support you need to attract, persist and execute on YOUR plan rather than adapting. I said this in March when the economy was being shut down, “ DO NOT GO IT ALONE RIGHT NOW.”
Get a mentor to keep you on track to keep you pushing and this is why I have made time each week for an exclusive group to spend time with my team and I to make sure we give YOU the support you need, so the marketplace adapts to you not you to it. Bezos and Musk have become the richest people in the world not because they adapted but because they created and persisted until the marketplace came to them.
Who knows what’s going to happen this year or next? I assure you it will get crazier! The question is will you get crazy and take dumb advice like, “soften your message,” “now is not the time to promote,” “back off right now and give it some time,” “wait until after the election, or the vaccine or the economy or…..” —whatever.”
Now is the time to push, persist, expand and execute. If you want my help, reach out to me and see if you qualify to be part of my 10X Challenge. This is NOT the time for feelings, emotions, and opinions. It is time for ACTION.
Don’t adapt to your surroundings, create them and then dominate your environment.
-Grant Cardone
