COVID-19 Update 3.31.20 - Josh Zolin, Windy City Equipment // Blue is the New White

Hard to see the good in all this, but we have to try. Many been laid of or had to lay off. Never easy from either side of the table.

I don’t have much advice in a time like this. I’m trying to figure it all out just like all of you. But I do have some things that, so far, have worked for me.

Take all this with a grain of salt, because only time will tell if these are the right decisions or not. Or good advice.

1) Talk to your people. Friends, family, employees, co workers, whatever. What people need right now is strength around them. This is an opportunity to lead by example. You don’t need to know the answers, you just need to be rock for those around you and assure them that you are doing everything in your god given power to ensure the best for them.

2) Make a plan. What plan? Nobody knows anything. We’re all living in a sea of uncertainty. But it doesn’t maker. I’m willing to bet you weren’t prepared for this. But now is the perfect opportunity to build a plan for when it happens again. And it will. Or something similar.


3) Market. Yes, market. Now is the perfect time to relate, empathize, and connect with your audience, whoever that might be. People are looking at their phones twice as much as they were. Both for entertainment AND for information. If you can be on the forefront of both, you will win. Personally, I’m doubling down on my marketing. You’ll see some new, wild stuff from WCE and BITNW later this month.

4) Find the good. This might be the hardest thing. And also the most cliché. But its true. Look I know there’s a tennis match in your head every day between optimism and utter defeat. But if you never let the latter take over, you’ve won long before many others.


5) Finally. Take a deep breath. Feel that? You’re alive. A privilege denied to many. Stop complaining. Stop making this political. Right, Left, Center, doesn’t matter. This is the situation. It’s not preferred, but ultimately it is indifferent. You can’t control what’s happening in the world. But you can control how you respond. You can ALWAYS choose to act with virtue. And right now, that’s the measure. The only measure.

Whether this advice is good or bad, I don’t know yet. But I know this; when all this is over. The dust has settled. And we all emerge back into the world and learn how to drive and communicate again:
Some will have lost their jobs, they’ll get new ones. Or start businesses.
Some will have lost their employees, they’ll hire more.
Some will have lost their companies, they’ll start another one.
Some will have lost a lot of money, they’ll make more.

And yes, possibly the hardest to hear and accept, some will have lost people close to them. They will grieve, never forget, and press on to forge new, better memories with those around them with a new appreciation for being alive.

Because we are human. And we are resilient.

So now you have a choice. Take even this opportunity for granted by feeling sorry for yourself. Or get to work figuring out how you can be better when this is all said and done. Not only for yourself, or the people around you, but the entire human cosmopolis.
Godspeed my friends. Let’s go to work.