Business View Magazine | May 2020

30 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2020 WELLNESS Rather than seeing this as a crisis, my personal life-skills training teaches me that I choose to see this as a “window of opportunity.” I will admit that it can be a hard revelation and it does demand a bit of inner work and personal reflection, but I choose opportunity, hope and growth as a way of life – even during a global pandemic. At our company, TimeXtender, we follow The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People created by Stephen Covey and now offered by Franklin Covey. Our training, and some of the ideas in this article, are based on their program. The 7 Habits are a shared language of our corporate culture and we practice it daily. Having these basic life skills embedded in our corporate DNA and culture has helped us continue to succeed during the pandemic, even as a global company with employees, partners and customers located all around the world who are now working remote. To better understand, let us consider that we have reactive and proactive behavior. Reactive behavior means that we’re affected by outside events, which influence how we think, feel and act. With proactive behavior, we think, feel and act based on pre-determined principles and desired outcomes. Looking at this another way, we’re free to choose between a mindset based on victimhood or a mindset grounded on personal growth. It’s normal to have thoughts of sadness at this time. I let myself be sad at times too, but I will not let it define me. We have the freedom to choose a proactive mindset. We can replace thoughts of sadness with thoughts of gratefulness. We have the freedom to choose what’s in our inner thoughts and can readily opt for a more powerful feeling that leaves us being more action-oriented with an optimistic outlook. We just need to be aware of how we use our thoughts, words and actions and, in doing so, we can actually influence the outcome for our colleagues, loved ones and ultimately the world. The 7 Habits teaches us about paradigms and principles. Today, we have a choice to view the environment we face in a whole other light with positive vision, or what’s known as a “paradigm shift.” Rather than choosing to be captive to the pandemic, let us choose to be free. Once we make the decision to view the environment differently, we can create personal principles to help us see this as our window of opportunity. For example, we might create a personal principle such as, “I choose to be proactive and live my life based on being positive, optimistic and hopeful.” From here, I invite you to schedule a few