A global threat should not be a reason to point fingers, to upsell, to market, to do brand awareness, to interrupt attention, to retract within our ideologies.
It should be an opportunity to come together and together bring the situation back to normality.
Can we do it?
In certain circumstances, when much is at stake, when it’s a matter of life or death, when you are trying to contain a problem that could have grim repercussion, overreacting can be the right choice. It’s about protecting something that is dear, and it is ok to be overly precautious.
Being preoccupied, on the other hand, is rarely the better thing to do. It’s a distraction to keep us busy, a way to delay important decisions, a focus that engulfs our mind and that we do not need.
Precaution is action that keeps the problem at bay. Preoccupation is debate that makes the problem big enough so that nothing else exists.
Precaution is (it should be) the language of governments, authority, leadership. Preoccupation is the language of media, populism and masses.
Choose carefully which one to utilize as you go about this difficult time.
More often than not, acting to appease the demand of someone else will end with the person we are trying to appease demanding more.
What are you going to do with the new request? And with the following one? And with the one that will, inevitably, come after that?
You need to be able to stand by your decisions because they make sense to you, because you have evaluated different options and assesed that’s the best course of action, because that’s what you would have done if nobody would have asked.
Intentionality is the only thing that matters.
What we are not helps define what we are.
Yet certainly, that cannot end there. This is particularly true when we compete, when we try to influence, when we run against something that is already established.
We need to differentiate, and that cannot be done by merely saying “not-the-other”. The more you let this message run, the more steam you are transferring to your adversary’s engine.
Building movements that matter is hard job because they require self-reflection, deep knowledge of the playing field and story building.
All the rest is a shortcut, and short is the breath that will sustain it.
The stories we tell others, the ones we use to buy people into our cause, to inspire action, to convince buyers that our brand is better, to present ourselves and the work we do.
They are not lies.
They are ideals waiting for an audience.
You've got this 