Late last week, a friend of mine posted to Facebook asking if there were any hair stylists out there who would be willing to coach her, for payment, through cutting her son’s hair. The responses from hair stylists ranged from “so you’ll take our livlihoods away forever” to “please stop–we have lost everything.”
I don’t want to pick on hair stylists exclusively here, but this was an excellent model to take. We are living through a global pandemic. Everyone is going to have to adapt. This is literally where learning about how species adapt to their surroundings is supposed to help us. A potential client gave hairstylists a way of earning money during this time. Those she knew rejected the idea. Someone with an entrepreneurial spirit will eventually take her up on the offer and earn money. Someone will have money for the mortgage or rent; someone will not.
Prior to our quarantine in Virginia, I spent months working on promoting a live, interactive, in-person cybersecurity class. Am I shutting down? Of course not; I’ve just shifted my focus to other types of instructional design and technical writing (and if you want to see the cybersecurity class, all but one piece of it can be done live, online, and still interactive).
I see business owners everywhere, EVERY DAY, shifting and adapting to make their businesses work, and if your work was not a business, that does not mean you are out of luck! SHIFT. ADAPT. I know there are people in your life who can help you find something, even if it was not what you intended to do.
I am not saying that it is not OK to be sad, or to feel a little hopeless. But hopelessness will only take you so far. I have connections for you; let me help you and we will put those connections into action. You never know what you’ll get out of it.
