America is Hurting - Where is the Stability in Instability?
Terri Norvell, Property Management Consultant

A recent full page ad in USA Today read 'America is Hurting'. Everyday we are accosted with updates on our unstable economy. The price of gas has ignited, cost of food is growing, and neither rain, sleet nor snow will slow the rising postal rates. Yet, not everything is up. In January, consumer confidence hit a 30-year low and the stock market doesn't know what it's doing. This teeter-totter of instability is pervasive.

As a property management consultant, I see that the external upheaval exacerbates internal upheaval too. So we look for ways to make sense of the chaos and uncertainty. Add the heightened requests from pressured clients, your boss and teammates, and this is immense strain on everyone.

So here's the truth that most people don't want to hear. No one is coming to fix this current reality. No one is coming to solve your immediate challenges. No one outside of you is going to give you that stability that you are looking for right now.

Yet, this can be empowering at the same time. It's up to each and every one of us to figure out how to make sense of our current reality; to define what we are going to do to thrive each and every day.

'Massive disruption always provides for opportunity' is a powerful observation from Dan Burris, a worldwide leading technology forecaster.

The reality is that within this disruption there are myriad opportunities for growth and success. Think about it: what this disruption has done is to magnify where issues already existed. Certainly this is true with the economy, as well as within what your 'business as usual' had come to be. Issues that were lying under the surface that needed to be addressed are now obvious.

Does this make it easy? Nope. Easy doesn't get you to sustainable results, much less growth. Now is the time for even greater personal responsibility. Now is the time to re-analyze and re-configure, to sharpen and use your creativity, your bottom-line focus, your sense of internal trust and knowledge to thrive in this cycle.

In the next set of eLetters I'll be sharing concrete strategies to find and strengthen your stability at this unstable time. While America is hurting, there is a plethora of what to ways to ease this pain and prosper at the same time.

Terri Norvell is a national property management consultant, trainer, author and keynote presenter. Her expertise in the fields of professional leadership and team building for bottom-line results assists companies in growing their people and their profits.

Contact Terri Norvell - property management consultant

Back to eLetters