This Episode: Fear Or Courage: Your Choice
In this episode of Real Retail TV, we are going to explore a really important choice – fear or courage. When fear is driving your decisions, you’re not playing big. Courage is recognizing that there are so many opportunities right now, you might have to step out of your comfort zone, but when you do good things are going to happen.
I’d love to hear what you have to say. Please, put your thoughts in the comment section down below.
Great message Bob!
You are so right about all the new skills we learned & positive changes we were forced to make during the past year & half – without the pandemic I am not sure that I would have made these changes.
AND yes we should all be PROUD that our businesses weathered this crazy time.
Thanks for that reminder!
Thanks for your comment Tara!
Bob
Bob, Thank you for this message. I needed it! I am going to move my store to a new location after the first of the year. It will be a change that is needed, but change is hard! The Alan Watts quote fits where my heart and head have been in making this decision. I purchased this store just 2 1/2 years ago. Then our community was hit by flooding and then the virus hit. So I don’t know what normal looks like. Putting faith in God’s providence is what is keeping me going and future driven.
You’ve got this Linda! If you made it through covid, you can do just about anything.
Thank you Bob. This message came at a perfect time. I’m looking at a bigger space on Wednesday as I don’t think my current small store is serving me well. Your message reminded me of everything we have gone through and we are still here.
I’m glad you found it helpful Paula! Good luck with the bigger space, if that’s the choice you make!
Bob
Love your message ! Just what I needed to hear and was exactly what I prayed for this morning .,,, confidence and courage to be more on the offense vs defense. I’ve been stepping outside my comfort zone and it’s scary . But I’m learning from my mistakes and gaining confidence in the process.
Tracey,
Congratulations! Stepping out of your comfort zone is never easy, but that is where the magic happens!
Bob
Interesting how you are talking about how fear drives poor decisions when you have spent the past year not only living in fear, but encouraging others to do the same.
To illustrate the poor business decisions fear leads to, you gave an example of you walking into a store where there were 2 workers, an older man and a younger man and neither was socially distant or masked, so you would never shop there again. Even though that could have been a father/son duo who were spending all of their time together without being exposed to others. Then, a matter of just a couple of weeks later, you hosted your virtual event. After the event was over, you proudly posted photos of 10 or so people packed into a small room celebrating a ‘successful’ event. None of you were socially distant, nor masked.
Hypocrisy and dishonesty make your customers feel like you cannot be trusted. Stupid decision driven by fear.
On Todd’s previous comment- Wearing a mask does not have anything to do with fear. It is simply doing what you can to prevent getting sick and preventing others from being sick. Decision-making should always be based on logic. There is a ton of upside to mask-wearing based on the science (I have a PhD in chemistry and I used to do CW/BW defense for the US and look at the science) and, to me, no downside. With social distancing and mask-wearing, I managed to get through the pandemic without getting the virus and without spreading it to other people, including my very high-risk husband. And, an event of 15 or 20 people is much different than an in-person event of 500 people. And, is that small group of people all vaccinated? Todd isn’t making logic-based arguments on the topic of this video, just pushing his agenda. And, Bob isn’t even talking about masks in this video. I wouldn’t shop at a store, either, where they weren’t wearing masks when people weren’t vaccinated. They would not have met my needs if they weren’t wearing masks. It is my choice based on logic. Hypocrisy is a store claiming to care about their community and employees and then having employees who didn’t wear masks throughout the pandemic. Courage doesn’t mean ignoring scientific facts. Not sure why people can be fearful of wearing a mask. To me, that is where I saw people acting irrationally with fear.
Bob- Love the green of Michigan, too! Definitely miss it. I don’t miss the mosquitos, though!
On the video topic- It certainly would be less stressful to not build my new development and expand my store right now. But, I have the opportunity now. And, I have to say the difficulty of the last year with the scramble to make changes and uncertainty surrounding sales gave me pause. But, what I have come to realize is that I figure out ways to adapt my business. I have the courage to do big things and move forward. I cannot agree with you more, Bob; all business owners should examine the roots of the decisions they make. Once you do that analysis, you may discover that you really want to make a different decision.
Cyndi, I notice you make numerous logical fallacies in your ‘rebuttal’, so I’m not sure you know what logical sense is.
Long before there was any vaccine, Bob told a story of going into a store where he was the only customer and there was the owner and 1 employee who, in his estimation, weren’t social distancing and weren’t wearing masks. Without finding out details, such as whether or not they live in the same home, he left, saying he would never return because they were not wearing masks or social distancing, indicating that his response was the appropriate response for such irresponsible behavior during a pandemic.
Shortly thereafter, long before any vaccine existed, he held a virtual event with numerous people who were clearly not from the same household. He then proudly posted pictures of all of them gathered in a small room where social distancing was impossible, none of them wearing masks.
So, according to Bob’s logic, nobody should patronize his services again due to his irresponsible behavior during a pandemic.
As I mentioned, a very poor business decision, obviously influenced by fear.
Todd,
To your point about us celebrating the success of the Virtual Retail Success Summit. We were all masked the entire time and we took off our masks for the photo.
We come to work every day with the mission of helping you run better businesses. The vast majority of our community knows we live one our core values which is “we do business with integrity.”
If you believe that we are not to be trusted I would encourage you to unsubcribe from our mailing list.
Bob
This is exactly what I needed to hear this morning! Thank you!
Cyndi,
Thank you for your comment. It’s appreciated!
Bob
Nancy,
I’m really glad you found it helpful!
Bob