Business Lessons from the Blizzards of 2010 – and 30 reasons to love them!

So here I am in a Washington, DC suburb, bracing for yet another Blizzard. I have three feet of snow outside my door, the kids haven’t been to school in almost a week, and the government is shut down. So what’s a business owner to do?

The thing about all storms – in business or in life – is that they always come at inconvenient times… because we never plan them!

Our success in getting through them with our sanity in tact lies in our ability to adapt and respond.

And as we are experiencing first-hand, often another storm will occur before we have recovered from an earlier one. This happens in business all the time.

Being in a storm becomes our reality. We have a heightened sense of what’s happening around us, we engage in self-preservation strategies, and our energy goes into planning our counter-attacks. When unexpected disruptions occur, we have no choice but to move to Plan B.

As disruptive as they are, storms are usually short-lived. Slowly, things return to normal, and what is left is the opportunity to reflect and plan for the next time. This is life. In business, in general everyday life, it’s all a journey and it all comes down to rolling with the punches and engaging in resilience.

In full disclosure, I hate the cold weather. I hate being stuck in the house. I’m ready for gloves and a sweater when it hits 60 degrees.

But I truly believe that when life hands you lemons, you have to seize the opportunity to make lemonade. So I’ve created a list of 30 reasons why we should appreciate the Blizzards of 2010. Hopefully they’ll infuse a little sunlight into your day.

30 Reasons to Appreciate the Blizzards of 2010

1. The Blizzards have forced us all to slow down. We’ve been able to cut back on our driving and carpooling, and we don’t need to be at multiple places all day long.
2. Kids get a break from academic pressure, and they get to catch up on their sleep.
3. We get to catch up on our sleep.
4. We get to catch up on our reading.
5. We can clean up our emails, and respond to those we forgot so long ago.
6. We can clean our closets.
7. We can organize our pictures/photo albums.
8. We’re finally getting to the food in our pantry with a long shelf life.
9. It’s good for the environment: less traffic/pollution.
10. We are not in danger of a Spring drought.
11. So many people are helping others.
12. We can appreciate the hard work of the road crews clearing the roads for us.
13. We’ve never appreciated our home gym equipment as much as we have this past week.
14. DC is finally in the news for something other than politics.
15. Snowball fights.
16. Sledding.
17. Snow angels.
18. We have plenty of time to update our i-Tunes library.
19. We are having a lot of family time and we can catch up with our friends.
20. We can relate more to the Winter Olympic athletes (OK that one is a stretch!)
21. We can work on our business plans.
22. We can evaluate our 2010 goals to see how we’re doing. And if you didn’t make them, now is a good time.
23. We have time to do more writing! (Hooray!)
24. We can get caught up on all of the TV shows we recorded.
25. We will greatly appreciate Spring.
26. We’re making the rest of the country feel better about their own weather (Yes Buffalo, we KNOW we received more snow than you this season.)
27. It’s beautiful to see.
28. The meteorologists feel pretty good about themselves because they are actually accurate in their predictions for once.
29. We don’t have to listen to Michael Buble sing Haven’t Met You Yet.
30. There’s definitely going to be a Baby Boom in October.

Well, that’s all I have. If you’re experiencing the Blizzards of 2010, hang in there. Spring will be here before we know it. And if you are somewhere else in the country, thanks for your compassion and kind thoughts! See you after the dig-out!

~Marissa