When things stand still, the economy closes, churches, schools, shops, and other daily activities ceases to operate due to a crisis, the easiest thing to do is to also stand still and wait.

In waiting people get frustrated.

We are frustrated because our normal has been disrupted.

Then I remembered a piece of advice I read from the author Robert Greene many years earlier.

He says there are two types of time: alive time and dead time.

One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you.

The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.

Robert knows a lot about alive time and dead time.

Although most people think of him as an incredibly productive and accomplished writer of amazing books, they don’t know about the 20 years he spent in obscurity, working something like 80 different jobs,  most of which he hated, where he was at the mercy of horrible bosses.

As he says:

“The worst thing in life you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you’re not creative with and you’re not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.”

This does not mean you should quit your job immediately if you don’t love it.

What Robert did during those years greatly influenced his writing.

He was not dead in those dead-end jobs, he was alive , researching, learning, studying, and observing the forces he would document in 48 Laws of Power, Mastery and The Laws of Human Nature.

You cannot control what is happening out there due to the lockdown, but you can control what you do with your dead time.

This crisis gives us a choice.

Do we feel shame and anger? Or do we say: This is an opportunity for me. I am using it for my purposes. I will not let this be dead time for me.

Use this dead time to come alive doing something.

A lot of political prisoners used their time in Robben Island to register for courses and study.

Former President Nelson Mandela says prison gave him a lot of time to think.

Former Constitutional Court and Deputy Chief Justice and at the time the youngest political prisoner at Robben Island, Justice Dikgang Moseneke used his time in jail to study for his law degree.

Life is constantly asking us: Is this going to be alive time or dead time?

Use this opportunity to learn, to level up, to improve yourself, improve your business, review your business model, update your business plan, catch-up with your bookkeeping, and most importantly register for a short-course, keep your mind active and growing.

At Lora Academy, we have a short online programme on entrepreneurship and innovation that will help you to level up and improve your business. Use the dead time of the lockdown to be learning time.

The programme starts on starts on Saturday, 13 June and it is online. Register now.

Don’t let this crisis go to waste.

Looking forward to seeing you in ‘class’ soon 🙂