by Jennifer Borba von Stauffenberg
As many of you know, I made the decision to move to the Pacific Northwest last August. Here’s what I have learned from living here… we are constantly changing and growing. Every day as I walk outside to enjoy nature, I notice there are visible changes to the flowers and the trees. Weekend before last, we experienced our first snow. For my children and I, this was the first time we ever experienced the transformation of our home to white wintery wonderland. I was new to this and wondered what would happen to all the beautiful plants. My husband who grew up in Austria assured me they would be just fine, but what happened is astounding to me even still, they continued to grow. When the snow melted, flowers began to emerge. What this made me think of is how after we weather this storm of politics and Covid, we will still grow. In fact, the pressure and challenges we are all facing will actually help us grow faster. Most of us have grown immensely.
As we turn this powerful corner and case numbers decline due to the vaccine, I am focused on my growth. How can I use the resourcefulness I had to tap into in 2020, to emerge powerfully? I kept saying somehow we were still strong, but the truth is that we lost about half of our business, but we stayed focused on sustaining and looked for new opportunities and new ways to help our clients. We weren’t lucky, we persevered. Imagine if we applied that same strategy to business going forward, we would thrive.
Here are some questions you can answer to help you strategize for growth as you rise out of this pandemic:
- Why do you do what you do? This question always informs my purpose and motivates my passion to work hard, or smart if you prefer that language.
- What are your greatest gifts? What makes you special? What truly differentiates you? Now celebrate that.
- How do you serve? What do you serve? And why is it essential?
- What have been the most effective ways you have reached people in the past?
- Who do you know that is effectively achieving what you are trying to achieve and how are they doing it?
- What are new things you can do that you haven’t tried before?
- As Bob Goff would say, who is your winning horse? Do you have a project or product that is outperforming the others and how could you put more time and energy into that one?
- What do you enjoy doing? What do you not enjoy doing? Is there someone who could help you with that?
- What is your message and who needs to hear it?
- Have you made sure your website and marketing materials reflect how you have changed and evolved?
- What are five actions you could take today to support your business in moving forward powerfully?
If these questions have you invigorated, run with it. If you would like support building out your strategy for thriving, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for support. We are here for creative strategies. It’s who we are. info@olivecreativestrategies.com.