Better Than Normal | The Vulnerable New Days

This is the third installment in a series titled “Better Than Normal – Designing Transformative Experiences,” which will provide tools to help you position your employee and customer experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world.

I love thinking I’m invincible – look at me who’d want to go toe-to-toe with me? Then again, when I look a little more closely I realize I’m not all that. What a gift COVID-19 has been when it comes to putting a humbling mirror up to most business owners and leaders.

Growing up in my Italian home, I was told never to say things like a pandemic is a gift, so I hope you forgive me. My point isn’t that any of us wanted this tectonic disruption. It’s just that we are best served by finding the thin silver lining in a stubbornly dark cloud.

For me, the vulnerability of the pandemic is an important part of these better than normal days. Let me explain. Normal was confidence, conservatism, being too busy to call people, undervaluing relationships, and taking things for granted. The new normal is hungering for human connection, listening more, striving to be more empathic, and demonstrating greater levels of compassion.

I’m ready for a vaccine to appear yesterday, but there is something to be said for not swaggering about like we know it all, have it all, and don’t need anyone or anything.

The goal for me and many of my clients is figuring out how to help others feel more connected and a little less vulnerable. In the process, we forget about our vulnerability and lose ourselves in the enlivening process of being of service. Have you considered vulnerability a positive in this better than normal state we find ourselves?

In future installments, I will share more thoughts about how we can build on the best of our current situation to make tomorrow’s normal even better than today. I’d love to hear how you’re helping the people you serve feel more connected and less vulnerable and possibly share how some of my clients are doing the same.

Let’s take some time to talk. Please reach out to me here.

Be safe and make today better than normal!