Creating a new frontier
If you have experienced a traumatic life event, you know that your life will never be the same again. Things that seemed routine are now things that you intentionally have to put focus on. This past weekend, I spoke with someone who is now fighting a battle for his life with cancer and we discussed this point. Where he was actively playing golf with his buddies every week, now that time is consumed with CAT scans and doctor appointments.
I experienced the same thing immediately after the Miracle on the Hudson. My January 15, 2009 routine focused on building my business with Oracle, serving my clients, and doing never-ending paperwork. On January 16, 2009, it suddenly changed to focusing on getting my health back in shape, meeting with authorities and media, and trying to “get back on the plane” by serving my potential clients.
I was invited to be on a show in San Antonio, TX, “The Difference”, and I appeared with a 9/11 survivor. It was an emotional and impactful interview. When he and I had a moment to “compare notes,” we had similar experiences; both of our situations happened in NYC, it was seen worldwide, and both of our lives radically changed.
We were creating a new frontier for our lives.
One thing I learned from him and others who experienced a traumatic life experience was something I have used in my personal and professional life since January 15, 2009. What I learned yesterday is something I can use today.
The pandemic opened up a new frontier for all of us. Good companies that stayed laser-focused on their principles and mission became great as they had the flexibility to pivot the challenges the pandemic caused into success.
Entrepreneurs understand that the raw materials they have at their disposal are their ideas, which only people can take away from them if they let them. They surround themselves with people who fight for them in places they are not. They leverage their relationships and connections.
A part of the future frontier you create is leveraging the people you have met or are connected with from the past.
One thing I learned from a master connector five years ago but started to practice a year ago was to develop your Top 20 and your farm team. Every Sunday, I write down my top 20 connections that I will reach out to that week. I also write down my farm team, which is the following 40 connections I have that I will connect with in the next quarter. This strategy has helped me have people advocate for me in places I am not.
This is not new stuff, but as I heard in a movie called the Avengers,
“Sometimes you need a little old fashion.”
Strength grows out of struggles. And if you can manage your state, as Tony Robbins teaches, you can control your destiny. One way to create your new frontier is to work on managing your state so you can be in a state of gratitude, focused on serving first, before being served.
Many people I have had the honor to meet who have faced their own “plane crash experience” and grown out of it now use that experience to be better, not bitter. They use that experience to create a new frontier for their lives.
We are in a world where every day, someone creates a new frontier. Whether it’s through technology or as my wingman, Suzanne Lesko, teaches about resilient leadership, you have the ability to create a new frontier out of just about anything that happens to you in life.
155 of us survived a plane crash known as the Miracle on the Hudson. There were 155 different meanings that came out of experience. 155 new frontiers were revealed. And as I learned and now teach,
“The meaning you attach to something produces emotion, and emotion is your life. ”
If you attach an empowering meaning to your “plane crash experience,” you produce an opportunity to create a new frontier for your life and
This is a pathway for you to create opportunity out of uncertainty and create your flight plan for your future.