How To Overcome Fear During A Recession
Updated: Aug 5, 2024
Written by: Sarah "Sharky" Harkness, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The current climate is taking a toll on all of us, whether it's the constant stream of negative or disruptive forces highlighted on social media or the fractionation of societies and politics. There seems to be a real focus on forces of fear.
Fear is an emotion and a state of being that can block us from our potential and creates challenges when we are finding ways through adversity. It seems that only by overcoming or rising above fear can we find solutions that exponentially impact us and solve our problems.
I have close colleagues and long-term friends who have been laid off without warning or after assurances they were safe. In our own business, we have suffered too due to pressures on our customers, and for small and large businesses alike, the effects of macro-environmental pressures on us all right now only seem to be getting worse. Where previously, our stories and experiences of suffering and survival were outliers, beacons of hope or inspiration, they are now getting lost as they are becoming status quo. Suffering is now a currency and a trade we can exchange. This leads me to how this can now be our secret personal, professional, and organizational weapon against fear.
If we choose to stay stuck in fear, it will bring us things to challenge us and remind us of what we, as human beings and experienced professionals, are made of and are capable of. However, if we choose to adopt a different mindset, a mindset deeply calm and focused on using what we know about who we are, our strengths, our intrinsic value, and start using that in our decision-making, we start to connect the pieces of connection together that ultimately take us out of our suffering.
Practically, this could be as basic and simple as the fundamentals:
Get good sleep!
Bask in vitamin D whenever possible.
Be conscious of what goes into your body, especially if you are unwell or in pain, as foods and nutrients have a huge impact on how you feel and how much you can approach your adversity or job hunting with clarity.
Don't just desperately seek what you need (a new role, income, housing, or food); take a tiny sliver of time to focus on the path to get there.
Facilitate the trade of connection. Connection and collaboration within our organizations, families, and communities are all about trade, so ask yourself: What is your intrinsic value? How can you be of service to people, your customers, your employer, and your family?
Now is not the time to be ego-driven or solely focused on the currency of funds. There is a scarcity of resources, time, and money, and the world's population has swelled and created massive amounts of poverty and separation.
Get some perspective! Find a way to share your experiences with others and use the challenges you are facing to help others, too!
Create or join a community! This is a must for anyone feeling isolated or challenged to connect following being laid off or having to face a difficult situation.
Leaning into the challenge of overcoming your fear of the future and looking for practical solutions based on your experience, your knowledge and knowing your intrinsic value to find your community and then your next opportunity will help you survive this recession.
I don't have all the answers, but as a CEO who has personally had to ask others to look for work elsewhere and had to sacrifice my own capacity to work due to a life-threatening permanent disability, I know suffering. I also know that these challenges we collectively are now facing enable opportunities for connection and to find out who we are.
You got this!
Sarah "Sharky" Harkness, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah began her career at Salesforce.com in the sales development team, when there were 40 people in the Sydney office and half a floor. It was here that she began her RevOps career learning from the ground up and developing the demand generation model of the largest SaaS provider in the world. From there (after 10 years), she continued to add to her RevOps expertise by joining Marketo in Australia pre-ipo leading the commercial sales team and managing the NZ country region. She then joined Dropbox for Business in the Enterprise APAC team and led the APAC sales and gtm strategy for GitLab pre-IPO reporting to the CRO. Co-founding Cattle Dog in 2015 with Luke and Nas, she has grown the RevOps and Growth GotoMarket services organisation to support hundreds of high-tech and digital customers globally. Working with the likes of Honeycomb.io, Falkon, Nirmata, JB Hifi and Conga, Sarah has helped SaaS and B2B businesses create and accelerate their growth and refine their RevOps strategies and technology. With board experience in her own business as the CEO and co-founder, along with non-profits she spends her spare time coaching and mentoring others in their careers, businesses and creating new go-to-market strategies aligned with driving cost out and increasing revenue. Always looking for where the revenue could be leaking, Sarah is a visionary and solutions mind participating and leading in communities all around the world including: Peter Diamondis’ A360 Singularity Executive community, The Entourage (Aus), RevOps Collective, Pavilion, RevGenius and Women in Revenue.
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