“Normality" is far away from here.
What you had last month is not coming back soon, certainly not exactly the same and not the way you think it will.
There’s a nice article here from Matthew Syed (he of Black Box Thinking and Bounce) who has the ability to see bigger things.
All the way through the coming months, one of the most important tools we will have is the narrative inside our heads.
Make no mistake, although external events will influence us hugely, we can influence our own environment with that narrative.
You can paint a picture that is dark, or you can paint a picture that is not and that is absolutely up to you.
The later chapters in Syed’s article about altruism and kindness are perhaps shining a light on the best way to go.
And so, perhaps in a later Blog we’ll do some proper “calling out” but for the moment I will try to be vague but give you examples of what I think might and might not work:
1) Continuing to practice Clinically as a Dentist deep into this, on the basis that you have some form of ‘special permission or special gift or special equipment’ is utterly reprehensible.I see that local to me and see people who think that they’re able to put on private emergency services for increased costs to ‘help the profession’ but in fact, profiteer from a terrible situation. That will not be forgotten, not by me and not by my many.
The practice in question is even being supported by a major company in Dentistry and that will not be forgotten either.
2) This is worse than that though, it is the people who have leveraged their life on debt and monthly payments and then projected that image widely through any media channel they can, as a demonstration of success.
Some of these people are now crying out about how hard the world is and how bad it’s been to them and, quite rightly, nobody gives a s*@t.
I give a s*@t about the guys on the building site, who have gone from a reasonable wage to £97 a week.
I give a s*@t about the guys in my team, who’s husbands have been furloughed or whose jobs are at risk and they are worried if they will be able to pay the mortgage going forwards.
I don’t give a s*@t if you have all the bobbles and bangles in the world, which demonstrated trappings of success in a previous life. It’s time for monopoly. It’s time to cash in your hotels.
I’ve watched for years as Practices in my profession have built themselves up on the finance model and sold Dentistry to people who could barely afford it and forgotten about the monthly payments they will have to incur, for things that won't even work for the length of the time of their loan.
It’s broken my heart and been very hard not to be drawn into such a world, to try to prolong our business.
As I look now, in the midst of the long game, I’m delighted that my business wasn’t built on that premise.
Welcome to the start-up world, welcome to grinding it out and making do for the next 5 years, before any aspect of success ‘begins to return back to you’.
That is the harsh reality, that it the truth, if you cannot enjoy the journey through this period (which I absolutely can and embrace) its going to be a tough 60 months.
Blog Post Number - 2324