All storms pass and there is calm again.  In the middle of the storm, lead by focusing on learning and growing – and support your team with examples of past success.

We all face storms in our personal and professional lives.   There is no getting around it.  The storms will come and the storms will go.  The only control you have in these storms is how you will act; you get to choose what you will do with your time in the storm.

One more thing; it’s not just about you – your team is looking for you to lead them through the storm.

The best time to decide what your actions will be is when you are on the outside of the storm. I decided a long time ago that I would use every storm to learn and grow.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I welcome the storms.  But since I can’t control when they appear, I do my best to treat them not as obstacles but as opportunities.

John F. Kennedy once said, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One  represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”

With the weather we can be sure that after the rain comes the rainbow.  When my children were young, we would all look up into the sky to see that beautiful colorful sight that we had seen so many times before.  I admit that even today it gives us all a thrill.

During my personal storms, I do the same thing.  I look for the successes that I have seen so many times before that I know will come again.  I remember and remind my team that we not only survived past storms, but thrived and came out on the other side more prepared for the next one.

When you are in the middle of a storm remember, it isn’t a matter of if you will make it through – you will; you’ve done it before – it’s about what you will learn and how you will grow.