What Time Is It Now?
An excerpt from the book "The Morning After" by Maxim Behar
Take a look at your watch.
Carefully. It’s already five minutes to midnight.
Tomorrow is just five minutes away, and the morning after is coming in a few hours. Changes are coming faster than ever imagined, even in our most radical forecast. Our lives will never be the same. Nor will our businesses, relationships, outlook on the world, values, rules, or future moments, good or bad. Everything changed within the first few days of March 2020. It changed in a way that has never been seen in human history.
Memorize these words like never before.
They are going to be the foundation of everything that is going to happen from this point onwards. That is why I never stop being amazed at those people who think that the pandemic will pass and in just a few months, we’re all going back to our previous lives to that previous life with all of their flaws, but ones that we had become so used to that it seemed to us that there was hardly anything short of a financial crisis that could alter them.
Financial and economic crises are clear and foreseeable.
They’ve been around since the very birth of the free market. The present crisis, however, regardless of whether we style it a pandemic, coronavirus, quarantine, or whatever, has nothing in common with any of the crises that our generation and the several generations before we had known. It has affected everyone out there, absolutely every single one of us, and, of course, it has affected everyone differently. In those tumultuous days of lightning-speed changes, of altering the entire philosophy of communication and goal achievement, of management, and for some, of survival, the most important and perhaps relatively ignored question has sprung up: the question of leadership.
The modern leadership of the most innovative leaders will introduce changes in such a way as to enable businesses to adapt swiftly and successfully to this new paradigm. So that managers, employees, consultants, clients, and partners could find their unique place in their offices (or, instead, outside them, somewhere out there in coffee houses or at home). So that they would be able to be creative in such a way that would make them even happier. Hundreds of millions are changing their professions to avoid the crisis, and there is nothing wrong with that; on the contrary, it is changing markets dynamically in a way never seen before. However, one thing that is happening right now and will be dominant in future changes is the necessity for
everyone to competently manage their own lives and their jobs
(I am deliberately steering clear of the word “business”). That includes the need to make fast decisions, to be able to forecast, not to be scared of change, and to act bravely. That goes for every single person, every single day, in every single place. Throughout my years visiting forums and conferences worldwide, I have been frequently asked what I expected to get out of the event. I have always replied,
“Well…hopefully just a single spark that could change my life, or at least my business.”
In most cases, I have received a lot more than that. Interesting friendships, exciting people, books, incredible presentations, but that single spark I have been looking for has been the leading factor in my curiosity. If even one of you discovers by reading this book a single spark, one great idea, or a small kernel of truth that can inspire you, then this could change your life and show you the way to a more successful business, which is my hope.
Time does not stand still, and if we miss those five highly decisive minutes, we will certainly also miss the possibility for positive change. This book is abundant with such ideas. You have to find them.
Now. Not the morning after. Then it will be too late.
“The Morning After “ is available on Amazon.com and BeharBooks.com