Fight not fright

As Halloween approaches, some people are busy trying to make the festivities of the dead something to remember.

While the kids and young adults may all be looking forward to trick or treating, there are a number of Filipinos who are genuinely more frightened, not of Halloween or ghosts, but of the state of our economy.

It was easy to put up a brave face in the past months, but the last two weeks of October were simply disastrous due to the plummeting value of the peso versus the US dollar. Anything around 62-to-1 was just a bad dream, but 64-to-1 has become a nightmare.

As if overnight, people suddenly realized that business establishments were indeed closing shop, vendors and stores I visit all say that fewer and fewer customers come to buy and all of them seeming to clutch on to every peso they can hold on to.

Yesterday, I was asked how or what could people do to stop their businesses and jobs from being swept by the economic tsunami.

As the column title suggest, the first thing to do is to “fight not fright.” Yes, things are bad, but is this the first time we as a nation and people experienced economic, political or medical disasters of a global kind? NO. Did we survive similar nationwide and personal challenges before? YES.

Some came out with less, some had more, but we lived, learned and came out all the wiser. Here are just a bunch of things I learned as a survivor by God’s grace.

Humility helps. Acknowledging you have problems, or may be in over your head, or simply don’t know what to do is a good start. This makes it easier to ask for help, get feedback or advice.

From there, you ask for help from an experienced hand, an expert or simply someone you trust. Make time or ask to spend time with that person but try to prepare your questions or concerns and please bring pen and paper and take notes.

The worst thing you can do is go around in circles not knowing what you want or need. Be reminded, of course, that the advice you get might not be what you expected to receive.

The solution to a problem is proportionate to how serious the problem may be and how objective and indifferent the “adviser” may be. We may be friends but that does not make strong medicine easier to swallow.

My favorite crisis management tool is a large white board and different color pens to write down all the pluses and minuses of your business or personal concerns.

This approach helps you to physically detach your problems from your head and heart and spell them out in black and white. Everything becomes impersonal and hopefully objective, because it still depends on your honesty.

First write down things you have going for you, things you can look forward to and most especially things you are, or should be, grateful for. Don’t start with problems because it robs your confidence in past accomplishments and victories.

After the good stuff, you make a column of all the challenges or difficulties. We tend to exaggerate matters in the business world as well as life and this is why you need a large white board. Last column would be things you hope for, dream of or wish to have in the future.

Spend all the time you want on writing down your problems, concerns and challenges. Doing so already helps reduce your tension and removes the emotion or fear from your problems.

The next exercise goes deeper. Based on the list of problems, you now make a carefully thought out list of “real problems” in terms of urgency, priority, important or unimportant. This is an exercise in focus and intentionality.

If you think this exercise is simplistic, you are right!

The objective of the white board processing is to spell out your concerns, reduce the tension, remove the distraction and take away fear or anxiety by placing distance between you and the board.

Next comes the column of goals, dreams and aspirations. These are the reasons you get out of bed for every morning. This is one of the book ends to why you are in business or on the path you chose.

Now go back to your problems. Slice them into separate cuts that you can study and understand how each became your problem, then when you fully understand the problem, focus on nothing else but solutions. Know your objective, you already know your problems.

When a boat is taking on water, people try to bale water or off load excess baggage or dead weight. Identify dead weight. You can paddle a kayak but it’s pretty hard to run a ship by yourself. You need a crew. Never be the first to abandon ship, there might be sharks in the water.

The ship’s captain is not an octopus and only has one body, so man your station and do what’s expected of you. Show the solution before pointing out the problem.

When the weather turns bad and bleak, seek safe harbor! While you are “sheltering,” decide on your next destination, plot your course, look to the stars and ask for God’s guidance, provision and protection. God bless your expedition.

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