Let’s help our communities.

Well it’s been a bleak week and I fear it’s only going to become worse. Many businesses are being forced to close their doors; many workers are being laid off. In this unimaginable time, it’s more important than ever to retain a sense of positivity, try to shut out those dark voices in your head. Let’s band together and get back the community spirit that we seem to have lost.

What I learned

• Things are going to get worse before they get better
• We’re all in this together
• Understand that it’s not your fault
• Stay positive
• Let’s help our communities

Transcript

Hey, welcome back. The sun came out. Who knew that was going to happen? How are you going? A lot of people upset today. A lot of people very sad and scared, worried, and unfortunately it`s going to be challenging for a while and that`s because our leaders responded too late. There`ll be time to address that later. Right now, we as a community, as business owners, and let`s face it, some of us, as some of you are going, well, former business owners, whatever, just take a breath because, as I said last week, everyone`s in this, right? Everyone`s going through this, so it`s not your fault. It`s not my fault, I can tell you that, it`s not your fault that this has happened. So don`t get too down on yourself. Now, you have to change the frequency that you`re listening to in your head right now if you`re going down a dark path, okay? You`ve got to change that radio station and get a different signal coming in because that reception that you`re getting right now if you`re feeling that way is not going to help you and your family and the greater community.

We are going to need to stick together and unfortunately, or fortunately, maybe we`re going to have to rebuild this country because of what`s happened, and we`re not going to be able to rely on our current leaders to do that. I think that`s fairly clear from everyone. So, as a community, we need to look to one another. Call up a mate today, call up someone who you know is probably hurting. I hit up a former client on the weekend and I also hit up another one who I knew was in a category that had been hit as well. And I think if we do that now, we know that there is a support network between us all and that when times do get tough there`ll be people around who know and you can turn to. And, for me, some of the things that I`ve been doing personally is to not go into that funk, because it`s so easy to do and I`m a shocker for it, is start to think about, okay what`s happened? Look at the reality, look at it without emotion, rip the band aid off.

One of the things that`s helped me outside of doing my work with current clients is looking for ways that I can help because even though it`s bad now, unfortunately it`s going to be, it looks like, a lot of death and to me that`s more upsetting than anything that`s happened so far. So some of the things that I`ve been doing to help my own mental health and also just wellbeing and just to feel better, apart from singing like an idiot, play the ukulele and dancing on the veranda, the other thing that I`ve been doing is focusing on open source medical supplies projects that are going on around the net at the moment, around the globe. And I think that for me is a real positive way that it gives me a sense of purpose and that`s what we all need right now, we need a sense of purpose. And this thing is a bushfire that`s ravaging the Earth and we`ve got to come together and we`re going to fight it.

I`m not a member of the CFA so I can`t go and fight fires, but I can fight this one by staying home and I can fight this one by helping people and connecting people out there that need help with medical supplies. And I think if we can start as a community to look towards those things, yes, it`s going to be challenging with our businesses, and some of us don`t have businesses anymore. There is people out there who, overnight gone. And for those people it`s like, `I don`t know what`s going to happen.` And all you can do is take it one day at a time. Get through today. Let`s just work it out today, get through today. Sing a song, put on some music, dance like a fool. Whatever it is, change the frequency, change what you`re doing to get out of your funk because we need you. We all need each other right now. And as dark as this is, it`s going to get a little bit more challenging and we`re going to need to rebuild. It looks like we`ve going to have to take Australia out of depression.

So let`s make sure it doesn`t extend to you, your friends, your family, and we make sure we can stick together as a nation, as Aussies, and help rebuild. Hopefully, that`s helpful everyone. Hit me up on LinkedIn if you`re struggling. If you want me to have a 10 minute review of anyone`s site, I`ve been doing that in the last few days, just free reviews of not videos, just quick fire, brutal, bullet points to take away on your websites. Now, let`s face it, you know there`s deliveries are still going to be happening for the moment so I`m not even going to talk about that side of things. If you do have questions about those on your business, just hit me up on LinkedIn privately. For now, I`ve changed my Twitter profile and everything else to talk about the open source medical supplies projects and hit me up if you want to get involved with that.

And certainly if you have connections in manufacturing, injection moulding, additive manufacturing, those sorts of things, they`re the people that we need. So have a think and see if you can start connecting some of those as well. And as dark as this is right now for us and a lot of other people, maybe we can save some lives. See you next week.

Jim

Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.