For the first time ever, I spent 90 days at home not out traveling, not out growing the business that I started and have really grown over the last 16 years. Our business is born and built every day by being in front of clients and customers – reviewing results, building relationships, and finding newer alternatives. But COVID-19 marked the first time ever that I was simply not able to do that. And what I realized was that 90 days was long enough.
Ninety days was long enough to see the complacency that had crept in. I’m not talking about complacency over just the past 90 days, but more about the complacency that crept in during 2017 through 2019 when the economy was booming and business was rocking and rolling.
It was really easy to become complacent. Any problem that came into our company, it was always able to be fixed by either adding staff or going out and finding new business and new sources of revenue. What I realize is that I had become complacent over the past few years. It took 90 days of being off the road, having to create a continual routine, having to have ups and downs, and having to realize what it was going to take to come out on the other end. And that’s simply to be better. It’s simply to have a better caliber of the expectation that you hold for yourself.
I find myself more engaged in communicating with people. I find myself more attentive and more present when I’m at home with my family. Phones and emails and texts are waiting until family time is over, whereas before that didn’t happen. I find myself more physically fit by creating a very strict diet and workout regemin. I also find myself with a much more vast appreciation for everything that has been built and that I had not had the same appreciation for before COVID-19.
So, complacency will always creep in. And what you have to do is realize how to find it and how to fix it.