The 6th Step...

I thought I’d share another email I sent to my portfolio CEO’s, this one on March 31st…

=================

I'm sure most of you have heard the Serenity Quote at some point - it goes like this,  "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." 

I've always loved that quote and was reminded of it today during a really great call with Alex (for those of you who do not know Alex, she is the current Program Manager for Techstars Austin).  

She made a really astute observation that one of the things which makes this current time so tough is that we are all grieving different things.  Some people are grieving the loss of their job, or the loss of freedom, some are fearful of the future, some are grieving for people who are sick or worse, some are grieving their business or their friends business and really the list goes on.  

And what makes that especially hard is that the people you want to talk to most may be having a different experience of grief than you making it more challenging to connect emotionally and to empathize with one another.

I then started to wonder when the mass grieving would end.  A week? A month?  Longer?  When would "we all" feel OK again?

And the conversation made me curious about the topic of grief so I did a little research and found that in psychology there are considered to be 5 stages of grief.  These are the 5 emotional phases that "all" people go through when they are grieving. 

The 5 steps of grieving are:  

-Denial: Covid-19 is just like the flu and I'm not worried 

-Anger: MY LIFE CAN NOT JUST STOP!  The Government, or old people, or young people are to blame

-Bargaining: I know we are suppose to social distance but I'm going to that party anyway

-Depression:  I'm so sad for me, I'm so sad for the people losing their jobs, the economy is fucked 

-Acceptance:  I guess this is the new normal.  I'm good and will get back to some level of normalcy.

And it quickly made me realize that there is a step missing.  There is actually a 6th step for some....FOR US....

FOR US, the doers and makers of the world, the missing 6th step is:  Action

This is the point when we've reached acceptance and then want to use our (super) powers to make change and progress!  It's the thing that makes us who we are and why "live the life we live" instead of "doing the job we do".

So as you look onto this next week, think about where you (really) are in your journey of grief...and own it so that you can get to that 6th step more quickly...because you do know the difference of what you can and can not change and you do have the courage to make a difference! 

Much love,

Amos