Love Wins: Resources for Supporting Your Team in Uncertain Times

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Reboot: Better Humans Make Better Leaders & Better Leaders Create Humane Workplaces.

6 min readMar 18, 2020

“Love wins — not only over hate but over our own fears. I know this from the bottom of my toes to the top of my ever-graying, ever-thinning head. Love wins. Love your clients. Love each other. Love your loved ones and friends. Love yourselves.” — Jerry Colonna

If you’re feeling anxiety or fear right now, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re human. As leaders, we tend to try to carry the world on our shoulders and hold all of our thoughts and feelings inside. If you’re feeling anxiety, fear, overwhelmed, or anything else for that matter, know that you are not alone. COVID-19 is having a material impact on many lives and many businesses.

We pulled this blog post together with reminders and resources and points of connection because we know these are crazy times with much uncertainty. We’re including practical resources such as guides on how to transition to working remotely as well as crisis management resources to support each other in this time of need.

Tackling Anxiety and Fear

Reboot Your Anxiety: Anxiety is something that many of our clients — and many of us here at Reboot — have struggled with. We wanted to shed some light on how to free oneself from the grip of anxiety, so we joined forces with Josh Roman, COO at Claritas MindSciences, and Dr. Judson Brewer, Claritas MindSciences founder, Director of Research at the Center for Mindfulness at UMASS, Author of The Craving Mind, psychiatrist, and addiction expert, to bring you this five-day course. We’ll look at the difference between stress and anxiety, how anxiety works in our brains, how it shows up for you, what makes us anxious and finally — how to step out of the anxiety cycle.

Our recommended listens from Reboot Podcast:

Episode #122 — Hardwired for Joy — with Ingrid Fetell Lee: In this episode, Jerry and Ingrid define joy (and how it can be differentiated from happiness) and consider the role it plays in our lives. Ingrid describes how humans are hardwired to find joy and underscores the extraordinary ways in which it serves to combat stress and fortify resiliency in times of adversity. Ingrid reminds us that times of stillness can broaden our capacity for finding delight in ordinary moments, and how those small joys can sustain us in arduous times.
Episode #67 — The Energy of Our Emotions — with Ben Rubin & Dan Harris: Ben Rubin and Dan Harris are the unlikely co-founders in 10% Happier, which came together when Ben’s previous company Change Collective underwent a successful pivot. In this episode, Ben and Dan open up to Jerry about what it’s like being co-founders. They shed light on how their mutual anxieties affect their relationship and their company.
Episode #62 — Letting Go of Perfection — with Sharon Salzberg: In this conversation, Jerry sits down with Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection, to discuss the ways in which love might be a counter-intuitive antidote to the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. We learn that as we cultivate a sense of love and compassion for ourselves in our ambitious pursuits and adventures in life, we bolster our resiliency to face life as it is.
Episode #75 — A Pattern of Habits — with Judson Brewer: Judson Brewer, Director of Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness, is a revolutionary thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery.” In this discussion, Jud and Jerry ponder identity, how beliefs about our character might shape the way we show up to meet the world, and the ways in which our perceived identities restrict and confine our sense of self.
Episode #22 — Does Anyone Really Know What They Are Doing? — with Sharon Salzberg: We’re often in (or feel we’re in) uncharted waters — a place where making things up as we go is a necessity. Feeling lost in those places can be anxiety-inducing. We feel incompetent. We feel shameful. We can end up feeling that everyone has figured it out but me. But how true is that, really? And perhaps the better question–how can owning my own anxiety in these areas help me step more fully into my authentic self and even increase my capacity for happiness? In this conversation, Sharon and Jerry discuss Sharon’s own entrepreneurial path, a new definition of success (and failure), authenticity, loving-kindness and the question: Does anyone know what they’re doing?

The Reboot Podcast Listening Guide: We have had a lot of amazing conversations with entrepreneurs in the past five and a half years. This listening guide puts each episode (and some extras) into topical categories and contains a bunch of additional resources such as our self-guided courses (all free) and supplemental readings that pair well with the podcast discussions.

Our recommended reads from the Reboot blog:

Enter the Spiritual Crisis: “A rock bottom — physically, emotionally, mentally — is a pull to heal. Here, at this juncture, we can open up to the latent wisdom within us, and dig deep into some self-healing. We can track our wiley ego, converse with our future self, reparent our self, learn what we really want and set our intentions accordingly. We learn about our emotional addictions, detox our bodies, get clear about our boundaries, and feel what’s behind our anxieties. We grow up, and grow ourselves.” — Ali Schultz
The Secrets of a Successful Entrepreneur: “Then, even in the darkest moments of doubt or angst, or even on the eve of the toughest conversations with the most challenging personalities, you can find grounding in yourself. The shoulds of the past and the anxieties of the future aren’t as loud in that place because your own voice will be louder, more clear. That’s a rich moment.” — Ali Schultz
Getting Curious: “Fear is an interesting thing to track. In fear, we feel our very breathing, pulsing existence threatened, thus it puts us in a state of self-preservation.” — Ali Schultz
Murmuration: “How are you?”–such a simple question, right? We call it Jerry’s big, hard question. Yet, when asked as an offering, an invitation, to show up with all of you in the safety of listening peers at the start of a meeting, you begin with an authentic human connection which becomes the point of departure for the agenda and tasks at hand.” — Ali Schultz

Managing the Stress and Uncertainty of Coronavirus: In the most recent episode of The Anxious Achiever Podcast, Jerry joins host Morra Aarons-Mele for a conversation about how he is leading Team Reboot through such a stressful time.

HBR: Complete list of podcast episodes addressing stress and anxiety in the workplace (and life!)

Coronavirus HR Comms & Resources Guide: A crowdsourced collection of resources for HR and business leaders to help inform and support Coronavirus response plans

Relating Wisely with Fear (podcast)

NY Times: A Brain Hack to Break the Coronavirus Anxiety Cycle

NY Times: 5 Ways to Help Your Community Combat Coronavirus (While Still Social Distancing)

Advice for Working Remotely

Crash Course in Remote Management: A Webinar with Vaya Consulting and Automattic: Automattic’s Cate Huston and Nicole Sanchez, the founder of Vaya Consulting and an expert on workplace culture, co-present a Crash Course in Remote Management. This is a recording of the free one-hour webinar.

Zapier: How to Transition to Remote Work in a Hurry: Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier, shares tips for how to transition to remote work without warning.

Zapier: The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work: Another worthwhile resource from the Zapier team. This compendium of blog posts provides valuable advice for teams working remotely.

Working Remotely: Tips from 100+ Remote Workers & Leaders: The team at Help Scout shares their tips and advice for navigating a remote workplace.

Leading Remotely: A Newsletter by Derrick Hicks: Derrick Hicks shares sharing his ideas and perspectives on what it takes to lead your team well, remotely.

Remote: Office Not Required: The founders of Basecamp explore the “work from home” phenomenon and show precisely how a remote work setup can be accomplished.