Today was not the banner day that I had hoped for during my morning prayers.
For many of us, today was the first day back at work for the new year, and as an entrepreneur, I was ready to hit the ground running – good work, new plans, expansion into new fields. But, then something completely business-changing happened that was wholly out of the blue. It hit me like a 2 x 4 to the face. I hadn’t really planned on working my way through the shock and anger phases of grief today, but there you go.
Coincidentally, the Chapter of The Infinite Game that I read this morning was about “existential flex,” which is Simon Sinek’s title for knowing when to completely shift your business. Seriously, don’t be cheeky, Universe? Sometimes I like to call God “universe” so my blame isn’t thrown right in the Almighty’s face, but there you have it. A full blown crisis that no business book has you completely ready for, and yet, somehow God was completely cool with me pitching a Psalmic fit in my office for a couple of hours.
I worked my way through shock with a chicken salad wrap, which probably would have healed my heart quicker if it was from Chick-fil-a, but I wasn’t going to let fried food derail my healthy eating plan on top of everything else. And, as I moved beyond shock into some serious Old Testament prophetic language in anger, I happened to look over at my framed picture of Mother Teresa and her poem “Do It Anyway.” If you don’t know it, I googled it for you. Needless to say, the gist is that you be you regardless of what others do.
So, there it is. In all my calling-fire-down-from-Heaven-Elijah-give-me-a-hand fervor for feeling mistreated, which I was, I decided that I needed to make sure that I not let those feelings infect me. I needed to be who I am no matter what is happening in my business or my life. So, I said a quick prayer, which was much more like the good begrudging Psalms that you never hear in a sermon, and I began with one task at a time. It is hard to do, but I always want to remember that being a disciple of Christ comes before being an entrepreneur anyway.
