A 5 Minute Read, By Anthony (Tony) J. D’Angelo, founder of Collegiate Empowerment Posted April 10 2020
You've made it! You got through the first four weeks of the crisis of the COVID-19 Shutdown. You’re still standing. The first 21 days of any new experience is an important benchmark in the cycles of behavioral change. Four weeks in, you're now probably starting to get your feet under you. You're starting to get your rhythm, your routine, your ritual, you're understanding what it's like to work remotely.
Let’s give ourselves the grace to recognize that there are also many challenges. This experience is unprecedented, unpredictable, uncertain. Maybe you’re homeschooling your kids, getting the groceries now feels like entering a warzone, or you’re spending lots of extra time with your partner. You may be facing new frustrations and new obstacles yet remember, all the obstacles that we face are the raw material for our future success.
This pandemic has caused a shutdown. This shutdown is forcing us to pause. And here at Collegiate Empowerment we see this pause as a gift. We like to call this the Shutdown Solution. It’s giving us the space to examine our lives and ask ourselves if we are truly living fully. As you’ve come to expect, Collegiate Empowerment has a powerful tool that will help you take advantage of this downtime where you’re forced to be in lockdown mode. By the time this is over, we want you to be in breakthrough mode! To support you in making new breakthroughs during this shutdown, here is the framework of a Collegiate Empowerment Tool called The Breakdown to Breakthrough Cultivator:
Step 1: Jot Down The 5-10 Projects You’ve Been Putting Off?
Right now you have a lot more time. With this in mind, think about all the “stuff” you’ve been putting off. I call it “stuff” because they’re often really important and meaningful projects, yet “stuffed” with excuses like; “I don't have enough time. I have so many other urgent things. I'm commuting too much.” All those excuses? They’re all gone! So now create a list of the 5-10 projects you’ve been putting off. What stuff do you have on the back burner that you can now move to the front burner of your life? Shutdown mode doesn’t mean we stop working; shutdown mode means we now have the space to rise up and get to work. Real work. Good work. Even Great Work, and I dare say Our God’s Work.
Step 2: Identify Two Big Clean Ups
We all have messes in our lives. Maybe you have a physical mess to clean up, like your basement. Maybe you have a digital mess, like your desktop. And like most Americans right now, maybe you have a financial mess on your hands. Don’t worry you’re not alone in this. I too am looking to clean up our expenses here at Collegiate Empowerment. We’re reassessing and asking, “What expenses have become extraneous based on the new economic reality? Do we need all those subscriptions? The answer is: probably not. Understand the “higher ups” at your institution are probably making the same decisions and you could be on the chopping block. I am not here to scare you. I am here to prepare you. Job loss is a brutal reality all Higher Ed pros must consider today. We’re all standing on economic quicksand. What are two big clean ups you can make during the next 90 days so you have a solid foundation for your bigger future?
Step 3: Identify Two Big New Skills and/or Capabilities
Ask yourself: what do I want to get better at? What are two skills and capabilities you can cultivate during this shutdown period? What skill, talent, and/or new capability have you had on your bucket list? Well now is the time to develop that new talent or skill. Cash is at an all time low, yet the opportunity to develop your Capabilities is at an all time high. Now is your time to ramp up and amp up! Here at Collegiate Empowerment, one of our new capabilities we’re ramping up is our Community Coaching Program. It’s a complimentary service run by an all volunteer team of Higher Ed Pros to help other Higher Ed pros navigate these rough times. What two capabilities do you want to develop over the next 90 days?
Step 4: Name Your Project
As mentioned above, one of Collegiate Empowerment’s big projects is CE Community Coaching. Whatever your project is, give it a name. That way you can focus on it and approach it in a logical, rational way. Get it out of your heart & head and down on paper. Thoughts & feelings fuel us, and logic focuses us. During uncertain times like these we all need focus. What is your project? What do you call it? What project are you focused on over the next 90 days?
Step 5: Name Your Why
Face it, if you’re working in American Higher Ed today, you are overworked, overwhelmed, underpaid, and underappreciated. Just as you support and serve your students, we at Collegiate Empowerment want to support and serve you. That’s our Why. What is your Why? What does your project mean to you and the people you serve?
Step 6: Identify What Does it Look Like When It’s Done?
Think about your project. What does it look like when it’s done? For Collegiate Empowerment, between now and July 1st our ambition is to serve over 300 Higher Education professionals from over 50 US colleges. The other powerful strategic byproduct of this is we will have six well-skilled, talented, and well-versed Collegiate Empowerment coaches who will be able to provide one-to-one coaching, when the time comes for us to release that offering to the market. Now what about you? What does your project look like by the end of these next 90 days? What is your end result and outcome?
Step 7: Identify Your First Step
The first step is critical for any project. Three weeks ago, we took the first step in our Coaching Project by recruiting our team of amazing volunteers. Identify your first step. What is the first thing you can do to move the project forward?
Step 8: Identify Your Second Step
Most people are really good at identifying the first step, but not the second step. As Professionals, we always need to be asking, “What is the next step?” The second step is where real growth happens. That's how you're going to make this breakdown into a breakthrough. At Collegiate Empowerment, once we began training our Coaching Crew, our second step was to set up our enrollment forms. Now what about you. What’s the second step to take on your project?
Step 9: The Next 90 Days
Most transformations happen in 90 days cycles, so think about what’s going to happen between now and July 1st. How are you going to use this time? Think about your projects, your clean ups, your Why, the new skills and capabilities you want to acquire, your first step, and your second step—take all of that and come up with a 90 day vision; a vision for your growth, for your projects, your people, your profession, and your personhood. Let’s face the reality: this shutdown will last longer than most predicted. What’s your vision for the next 90 days to create new breakthroughs?
The First 90 Days Back
We don’t know when the world will be back to “normal”. It could be June 1st, it could be July 1st, but we at Collegiate Empowerment are fixated on October 2021 as our “back to normal” date. Yes October of 2021, not 2020. Whatever the date, we are planning and preparing for the first 90 days back after the shutdown is over. At Collegiate Empowerment, if all goes according to plan, we’ll be back to live events on campus, we’ll be back to live workshops in Princeton, we’ll be back to travelling again to serve you and your students. Yet there's no guarantee of that. So how are we going to adapt? Well, we have our new capabilities in place & ready to go. We will be offering our CE 1-1 Coaching to American Higher Ed professionals. We will also be there for you & your amazing students, via our CE Digital Empowerment Series. The real question is: How do you plan to emerge from this all?
A Crisis Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
As they say, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” This experience we're going through is here to help us grow. We’re not called the human erase; We’re called the human race. We've been through wars, famine, and right now, we're in a plague. During the next 90 days, ask yourself, how can I be useful to other people during this time? How can I bring my clarity, my confidence, my capability, and my commitment to those who need it? When we focus on what we can give, panic is replaced by peace, chaos is replaced by calm, and faith overcomes fear. How will you respond?
Will you break down, or will you break through?
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Anthony (Tony) J. D’Angelo, is founder & Chief Visionary Officer of Collegiate Empowerment, a educational production company dedicated to serving the US Higher Education Industry. Since 1995, Tony has served as a coach and strategic consultant to thousands of Higher Education Professionals and University Executives from over 2,500 US colleges. Learn more @ www.Collegiate-Empowerment.org or Follow: @TonyDAngelo on Twitter.
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