Takeaways from this blog:

  1. We are in a period of tumult, confusion, and crisis with this C-19 virus pandemic.
  2. On the positive side, it is a time to think and counsel oneself, and develop good 5-year life and career plans. (see my book 5 AT A TIME)
  3. It is also a great time to build family ties and think about the family’s future.
  4. Entering a long dark tunnel might be frightening, particularly if you don’t know what you will find at the end of the tunnel.
  5. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and if you have done the four types of plans, I have discussed in previous blogs, you will have a pretty good idea of what that light will look like and how to immediately deal with it.
  6. Remember Leaders make good planners and vice versa.

What to do for the next week or month while reading, thinking, praying, working, walking, or sitting at home.

It is an unusual situation for 70 million workers who have been told to work from home if their job will allow that.  One study said 30% of those told to stay home have depression or anxiety—and I am surprised if it doesn’t grow higher as the stay at home period grows longer. 

Still, it is a great time to think about your future by yourself, with your spouse, and with your family.  Fix up the house, do yard work, cook, talk with each other, play games, take a walk with family members and maybe use some of the time for planning your life and your career. 

One of my friend’s favorite expressions is “just think about it”.  We are in a “just think about it” opportunity period.

So perhaps we could direct some of this downtime with family to “just think about planning your life and career for the next 5-years”. 

My book 5 AT A TIME, a leadership self-help guide to planning Life and Career 5-years at a time, can be a great place to start.  It is a pretty simple concept and if you like you could almost call it a game—may be the monopoly of our life and career.

First of all, what are the principles of the life and career planning game?

  1. Each individual playing builds a set of 5-year goals or objectives for life and career. It is neat if these blocks of five fit with your birthday, so Hole #8 starts with age 36 and goes to age 40, and so on until Hole #18 is age 86 to 90.  These become the 18 Holes of life from age 1 to 90 that are referenced in 5 AT A TIME (try the eBook version link at www.bradlienhart.com).

2. These goals and objectives are to be complete but not with tons of detail. Once you have the 5-year set for life and career, you go back to the beginning of the period and fill in each year with mini-goals and objectives to get you to the 5-year set.

3. You will quickly see how life and career goals and objectives start to converge or diverge, compliment or contrast, help or hinder each other. Now you start planning how to fix these bumps or collision points in the road.

4.In Blog #5 “Leadership and the 5 Major Life Decisions”, I make sure you think about the 5 big decisions you will face in your life and career planning.

5.Education, which has 5 pathway choices after high school.

6. Career and work choices—what do I want to do, what makes me happy.

7. Marriage or partnership—now life and career planning start to get complicated.

8. Having children, adopting children, or bringing two families of children together through divorce or death and re-marriage.

9. Retirement or now I call it Repurposing (a blog will come out soon on Leadership and Repurposing)

10.Now we have a game board with space all around it –properties, railroads, get out of jail free. Let’s bring the spouse with his or her 5-year goals and objectives, two children with their own goals and objectives (probably in a formative stage), add one dependent parent to mix, and a dog. Now you start to see the planning complexity start to build, and the opportunity for converging and diverging ideas—more bumps in the road to “think about” and fix.

11. The first time you play this family game it may seem impossible—just too complicated so let’s just deal with events as they come. BIG MISTAKE!  The “day at a time approach”, which is common in the majority of households, leads to confusion, mistakes, wasted time money, bad feelings, greater anxiety, and even broken relationship.

12. 5-year planning one the other hand reduces confusion and stress, and in the end, if done for the remaining blocks of your life and career, it will lead to a much higher and richer ROL (Return on Life for you and your family).

13. The second time you set out to do planning for the next Hole of Life, everyone will know the rules of the game, they will remember the fun they had playing the game the last time, all players will see the measurable benefits and remember who won, and it will be 10 times easier to play 5 AT A TIME. And hopefully, we will not have another C-19 like a crisis.

Governor Cuomo of New York was just doing his daily C-19 press conference on March 22, 2020, from Albany and by the way he has shown Great Leadership and Leadership Teamwork managing this crisis in our largest state with by far the most cases of C-19.  

Before he took questions, he added a few personal observations:

1) We will get through this health risk challenge as a country and we will be stronger for it.

2)  It is easy to understand why people have Cabin Fever but use the time productively while following the strict guidelines—practice hygiene, practice social distancing, stay at home with your family, take long walks in our parks while practicing the above, and use your time TO PLAN what your life and career are going to look like 4-6-9 months from now when the C-19 crisis becomes controllable. 

3)  Life will never be the same again but we will learn from these experiences and life challenges, and America Will Be Great Again.

 

In Blog #3:  Leadership Enables Quality Planning, I discussed the four types of planning that should be considered in your 5 AT A TIME Planning Process during this “just think about it” period we are in—I am providing them in reverse order to reflect this time of personal and family challenge:

  1. Contingency Planning: most important right now as we think about scenarios, we may face in the next 4-6-9 months.  Contingency planning puts you in a ready position to react now to “an unexpected or predictable contingency”, allows you to have already thought through a pivot strategy or move, you will have thought of financial and family implications and impact on resources, and preparing yourself with contingency reactions.  When you think about contingency planning across a family system there may be several contingency events to consider and potentially a domino effect to run through your pivot planning process.  All of this is a good use of your time, rather than sitting and mopping and getting hit upside the head at the end of the tunnel.

2. Operational Planning: Even as individuals (and particularly if you have a business) this is really important right now.  Why, because our number one management process is our supply chain.  Just look what fools we look lie dependent for 80% of our medicine from 20 foreign countries—notably China and India and now we can’t even find a roll of toilet paper.  Supply Chain has always been my favorite planning process.  Just think about your personal and family Supply Chain and build yourself a little process map.  If you want to make it really personal and relevant think about your financial Supply Chain as you would look at it through an operating budget for your family (top line income, all your expenses including debt service, taxes, and what is left over?  Profit).

3. Tactical Planning: This is your Marketing Planning and it is a good time to review strengths and weaknesses for you and your family—where can you best benefit from your personal and family value proposition. This inside outlook needs to be done for each family member—call it your own SWAT Analysis.  Let’s be clear this is not all about money—we must consider personal satisfaction, carrying and sharing, and what I want to be known for at the end of the day.

4. Strategic Planning: This is your rolled-up 5-year personal and family Business Plan.  We know a Business Plan is not cast in stone—it must be reviewed along with with measurable performance every 3-6 months and that may lead to pivots and adjustments but “just think about it” those pivots and adjustments will be conscious with forethought, a lot less anxiety and stress, and a far better ROL. 

Enjoy your C-19 5 AT A TIME Monopoly Game and let’s agree with Governor Cuomo, “our country and each of us as individuals will be stronger as we beat back this surprising and almost overwhelming challenge to our lives.”

Brad Lienhart, CEO, Lienhart Leadership Coaching and Consulting- check out other blogs and videos and a quick link to order my book from AMAZON at www.bradlienhart.com.  There is a contact page, let me know how I can help you with 5 AT A TIME planning.