How to Thrive During This Recession

I have a question for you this week.

Would you rather be a professional boxer getting punched in the face by a 6’-9” 277-pound two-time world heavyweight champion like Tyson Fury, or be in middle school and get punched in the face by an older bully?

The correct answer: getting punched in the face by Tyson Fury, because the bully's will hurt more.

Say what!? Why?

Because as a professional boxer you would have learned how to take a punch. You have taken many punches. You’ve been trained to take them.

As a professional boxer a single punch in the face is not life altering (99.99% of the time anyway), but as a middle schooler you are not prepared, and a punch from the bully is not only going to hurt you more physically, but it will most definitely hurt you more emotionally and maybe for the rest of your life.

From that experience forward you might avoid anything that puts you at risk of harm physically and emotionally, for evermore.

That would be a shame!

The Roman philosopher Lucius Seneca wrote that “only the prize fighter who has been bloodied and bruised—in training and in previous matches—can go into the ring confident of his chances of winning. The one who has never been touched before, never had a hard fight? That’s a fighter who is scared.”

That describes many people in our economy right now. Most have no experience dealing properly, if at all, with the insidious chain reaction of price increases, slowing consumerism and escalating labor cost.

In other words, many people today have never been punched in the face. They don’t know how to take a punch, like a professional, and then how to counterattack that punch.

I’d like to share an incredibly effective strategy to use when a “punch” is coming your way. Are you ready?

It’s counterintuitive, which is why most don’t do it, and therefore why most others get knocked out when they get punched in the face.

Here it is.

When you see a punch coming (an economic crisis), and there’s no time to block or move out of the way, you want to do what boxers call “lean into the punch.”

You don’t want to lean back to try to avoid the punch. That will throw you off balance, leave you defenseless, and that is when you get clobbered.

That’s the mistake 25-year-old heavyweight champion George Foreman made against 32-year-old challenger Muhammad Ali, when Ali dropped Foreman in one of the biggest sports upsets of all time.

Instead of leaning back as Foreman did, you want to lean into the punch. This allows you to “slip the punch,” putting you in a position to counter with your own knockout punch.

Here is the critical lesson that I want to share. When the punch (crisis or problem) is coming at us, intuitively we want to flinch and lean back to avoid it.

Don’t do it!

Instead, do the opposite. Lean into it - right into the path of danger, to slip to the right or the left so that you’re cocked and ready to drive your knockout success punch.

The hardest of economic times always present the ability for those who seize the moment to thrive the most.

It is commonly known that recessions and depressions are when many become wealthy, and where many, many others get washed out.

Why? Because the wealthy know how to “lean in.” They know this is their time to strike. To create value. To help. To solve people’s problems. To positively impact others’ lives with solutions and in doing so they can create substantial success for themselves and their families.

If you think you will just lean back or ride out this economy, that’s not likely a winning strategy.

And you may be putting your family in jeopardy by “covering up” (using boxing terms), waiting, riding it out or even just operating as normal, all of which in my opinion are potential mistakes when there are phenomenal opportunities to be had.

Don’t let this recession be an excuse for not stepping up, for not getting more aggressive, for not leaning in, and for not leading out.

Five years from now, there will be those who tell the story… "Yeah, I had a thriving business…” or “Yeah, I had a significant leadership position, but the economy went bad. What can a person do?”

And another person sitting right next to them who is in the same business or in the same industry will now be 10 times more successful, living an incredible lifestyle, who leaned in during the same five-year period when others leaned back.

I ask you, which story do you want to tell, because now is the time. The story is being written as you read this.

The pen is in each of our hands and the story’s being written, whether we do anything about it or not, by the decisions each of us are making right now.

So, here's my advice. If you own a business or you are in a position to start a business that solves others’ problems, now is the time!

And if you ever need any ideas, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to help if I’m able.

Now, let’s make these next five years (and beyond) the best ones yet!

Until next time,