CHARLOTTE – Last week was not a productive one for me.

It was filled with a couple of cancellations, delays, and honestly, additional frustrations throughout.  It was a slow and down, type of week.

In the past, this would’ve spiraled me down in a bad way.  As an entrepreneur, “slow and down” are not words I like to experience.  But about midway through the week, a number of things occurred to me.  Why not enjoy this time, catch my breath, look at things through a different lens, and ultimately, see what I can learn?

It didn’t mean I’d stop working but during this time, I would step back and observe.  Observe my reaction to the frustration.  Did I mope or did I take action?  Observe my mood.  Did I become easily upset or did I pause and think before I reacted?  Happily, my responses were more of the latter but the one underlying though that I had this week was, “What can I learn?” 

The answer, “A lot.”

My learning thought changed to how can I be better, what can I accomplish during this down period that I typically wouldn’t have the time to do, and how…again, with this extra time…more positively impact people.

And wouldn’t you know it, I actually wound up enjoying this period.  To be clear, I don’t want it to happen again for a long time but my point is that not every negative is what it appears and not every downtime is bad.