I once read that the Greek origin of the word “crisis” means ‘to sift’. What immediately comes to mind when I hear the word ‘sift’ are those toy colanders we used to bring to the beach to let the kids dig for buried treasure. Can you picture it? A heaping pile of sand, swiftly cascading through your fingers, falling away rapidly until all that remains is the big stuff. The important stuff.
Right now, we are frantically sifting through the sand of social media, news updates, homework problems, and Zoom calls with just about everyone we’ve ever met. We’re in a crisis and we’re sifting and searching for meaning in all of this muck. I believe with every fiber of my being that we can find meaning in everything that happens in our lives. We can find gratitude IN the hard stuff, which is not the same as finding gratitude FOR the hard stuff. So what do I think we’re meant to find in this crisis? Courage.
Courage is defined as “strength in the face of pain or grief.” I love that definition because it’s not blind to the hard and harsh realities of life. Finding courage doesn’t mean we dance around the pain or ignore the existence of it. Standing with courage means standing firm and secure in the face of hardship and meeting trials as they come. Courage is exactly what we need to cultivate right now in order to face the daunting uncertainty up ahead.
But how?
Whenever I want to learn something new, I search for an experiential way to learn it. It’s how I’m wired and what works best. When I wanted to learn composting (a new hobby and “live off the land” lifestyle that has come out of quarantine), I ordered a compost bin off Amazon and got to work. Sure, I could’ve spent months reading about the pros and cons of compost life but instead I just got my hands dirty.
I take this experiential approach to absolutely everything in my life and I know many of you do too. That’s why when my company’s headquarters went virtual about a month ago, I decided to immediately take action, pivot hard and bring the experience of a RISE conference –the single greatest thing we offer as a company– right to your living room.
RISE x Live brings the power of our stage to your living room.
Here’s the thing: we’re going to come out of this experience eventually. We might not know when or how or how long from right now, but this will end. There will come a time when the coronavirus and its subsequent quarantine is a distant memory. And so let me ask you: how do you want to remember this time? How do you want your kids to remember it? Who do you want to be in this season and more importantly, in the one that follows?
We’ve gathered together the world’s greatest speakers to one stage, for one day only, united in one topic: Courage. What does it mean to have courage in times of crisis? How do you show up well as a leader in your family or your business when everything feels insurmountable? How can you RISE above your present circumstances in pursuit of a greater future?
If you’ve been to a RISE conference before, then you know the level of energy and celebration and intention we bring to every single one of our events. If you haven’t, then you’ll just need to take my word for it (or watch the video below). What we do at conference is powerful and it’s palpable. It creates waves of change that ripple into your family, your business and your community.
We know we can’t control what’s happening in the world right now, but we can control how we show up in it. We can choose joy. We can build courage. We can decide today that tomorrow is built upon the skills and habits we cultivate right now. In the midst of this crisis, as we sift through our circumstances, we get to determine what remains.
