The World’s an Interesting & Challenging Place. That’s the Point

Donovan Vogel
7 min readJan 7, 2022
Image courtesy of Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Hola Medium. Hello there everyone! Olá amigos. It’s been a long time since my fingers last typed on this Mac keyboard on this beautiful platform.

If I’m being completely honest with you all I’ve been resistant, not wanting to talk or type on here, and avoiding this space over the past year now. I believe January or February of 2021 was my last piece here…

These past two years brought incredible challenges; and yet, we know that there are lessons we can learn from others who have gone through far worse than we have. And perhaps more than ever before, we know we need to listen and learn from our peers so that we take these lessons and move forward in ways that will best serve our children, future generations and our communities in a post-pandemic world.

Pivot or perish: that is one of the biggest lessons taken away from the global pandemic.

To pivot means to course correct in order to test a new hypothesis about something. For example, your life’s priorities, purpose, spirituality, health, a business model, career change or what the future of your relationship looks like.

Here are two ways to pivot:

  • Zoom-in. Pin point what is most important to you and WHY. Get very clear, meditate and sit on that topic(s).
  • Zoom-out. Recognize your problems may pale in comparison to those of others. What you are going through right now will not last forever (good or bad).

Next, perish means just that. You’ve learned that you don’t have the means to continue. The pandemic turned our world upside down, brought on one of the largest global health crises of the past hundred years, shook us all around and made us wake up to cold hard truths and realities. This means that you need to cut your losses from 2020 and 2021 and re-focus your time, energy and resources on other important things that matter to you in 2022.

“You don’t build a business, you build people, then people build the business.” — Zig Ziglar

After reading and stumbling upon that quote years ago, it has always stuck with me. People come first. Business (and profit) comes second.

Donovan Vogel

Philadelphia based teaching financial literacy | Prospering all other hours | Writer | Lifter | Reader | Traveler | Freedom & Wellness