Wading our way through the 2020 small business waters…

Mirrored Horizons, like many other small businesses, have undoubtedly shared in a tumultuous start to the year. As a new service-based business, we have felt the impacts of these uncertain times and the flow-on effects to not only the economy but to people’s social and behavioural norms. Our year started with watching our country burn before our eyes. The reaction to this devastation was one of kindness, level-headedness (in most cases) and a nation banding together in the face of destruction.

Advertising ‘business as usual’ at this time, just didn’t sit right with us and we learned, it didn’t sit right for many other small businesses. We pressed paused on our 2020 business plans and did what we could to support one another. We saw strangers and our native animals experience such catastrophic loss and all we wanted to do is help in any way we could.

We started replanning for the year ahead and with a bucket load of empathy and sensitivity, we began to revamp our business development strategy and tonally aware advertising. The momentum that we began to feel and see had us excited by the prospects that lay ahead. We were meeting with new people who were engaged with our business and subsequently signing up for our workshops. We were submitting proposals to small-medium sized businesses that we were SO aligned with it made us happy dance. We were busy designing the next steps for existing clients and excitedly preparing for our new suite of workshop content.

Similarly, to the bushfires spreading through our nation at the start of the year, soon after, Coronavirus (COVID-19) began its worldwide spread, panic thus ensued and Mirrored Horizons felt the pinch. It has been curious for us to observe the human reaction to another disaster. The bushfires banded a nation together, whilst Corona has seen a fear born reaction of self-preservation prevail over supporting those same strangers that we felt empathy for months earlier. As a small business who is invested in understanding human behaviour both in and outside of the workplace, we have asked the question, “why has this been different?” There are many hypotheses’ as to why the reaction has been so starkly different this time, but one, we have been discussing (through our WFH office chat) is the fear of the unknown.

The reality is, things are changing by the hour at the moment and that level of uncertainty is leaving people filled to the brim with fear of the unknown. This fear is manifesting in various ways for people to gain control over the situation. People are stockpiling toilet paper to have control over something in a time where control and normality are scarce. The fear of the unknown is familiar to Mirrored Horizons as people who attend our Personal Alignment Workshops are often negotiating or contemplating various changes in their lives. Our attendees often choose to change aspects of their lives however, regardless of actively choosing to change, these choices still have a level of uncertainty. It is this lack of control that surrounds uncertainty that people react to in a variety of ways. We are drawing similar comparisons to the human behaviour that we are observing through the spread of Coronavirus. Humans don’t always have rational processing when presented with so many changes to their lives all at once.

As people begin to rightfully self-isolate and social distance themselves, so too comes the impact on small businesses and service providers whose clients are disappearing by the day. We, like many other businesses, are experiencing people’s anxiety and thus have made decisions to cancel events and do our absolute best to mitigate any risks to those who are vulnerable.

How are we choosing to spend this social distancing period? We’re not panic buying, but we are taking things seriously. We are ensuring our attention is focussed on those who are vulnerable. We are considering the holistic worldwide impacts of what is happening around us. Although we may not always agree with them, we are listening to officials. We are looking at our older generations who have previously experienced economic distress with a newfound appreciation. We are embracing the old saying “health is wealth” so incredibly strongly during financially tough times. We are taking the same level of concern and empathy we experienced during Australia’s fires and applying it to our neighbours now. And lastly, we are choosing to spend this time working ON our business rather than IN it.

It has been said that when the Great Plague hit London, Trinity College, Cambridge, where Isaac Newton was studying, sent its students home to continue their studies. During the year away from college, Newton wrote the papers that went on to become early calculus and also sprung his theories on optics. It was also the time when he founded the theories of gravity and motion. Innovation is bred in new environments.

During this period, we have decided to rely on our Mirrored Horizons models and turn our energy towards the things we can influence. We have had a chance to reflect on our business plan and have reprioritised, made new commitments and will be working on these over the coming weeks and into the foreseeable future. We have committed to spending the time innovating, working on the business and developing our Mirrored Horizons offering further. These actions have enabled us to adjust our mindset to an optimistic one and maintain the momentum that we have found hard to hold onto in 2020.

We are changing our approach from feeling somewhat deflated during these times to focussing on our original mantra for 2020 which is “do more good!” Whilst taking the time to innovate Mirrored Horizons we are essentially remodelling ourselves to ensure we’re around and can positively impact people’s lives for the year ahead (and beyond)!

Our parting words whilst we continue to wade through the 2020 small business waters? There are life rafts among these waters, you just have to be open to seeing, giving and receiving them.