It’s 6 AM and I’m sitting at my kitchen island, coffee growing cold beside me, scrolling through news that makes my chest tight. Another crisis. Another tragedy. Another reason to feel like the work I do is stupid.
The emails I need to send, the podcast outro I need to record for Shawn, the meeting I have to attend with Jess, the outline I need to write for SECOLive, the sales page… that damn sales page… all feel trivial against the backdrop of everything becoming something I do not know how to interact with, because I’ve never been so at a loss.
Maybe you know this feeling. Maybe you’ve sat in your studio or office, staring at your computer screen, your piano, wondering if you should even bother opening your email when people are suffering.
Maybe you’ve crafted and deleted a dozen social media posts, each one feeling either too “let’s pretend nothing is happening” or too “I REALLY CARE ABOUT ALL THAT IS HAPPENING.” Maybe you’ve questioned whether focusing on your business during times of crisis makes you selfish, disconnected, or greedy.
I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. And if you’re reading this, maybe you’re there right now.
As those in and around the arts, entrepreneurs, and business owners, we exist in this strange liminal space where we’re expected to be both deeply human and relentlessly productive.
We’re supposed to feel everything and also somehow compartmentalize enough to keep the machine running. We’re told to be authentic and vulnerable, but also strong and unshakeable. It’s an impossible balance, and when the world feels like it’s burning down around us, that balance becomes even more precarious.
The Guilt of “Business as Usual”
It was March 2020. The world had just shut down, and everyone was FREAKING OUT about moving their in-person lessons to an online space.
You may not know this, but I was in Los Angeles filming a self guided course for voice teachers about business. That was supposed to launch in just two short months. I’d spent months preparing, and suddenly it felt obscene to be talking into a camera about growing an IN-PERSON VOICE STUDIO business when people were dying, when families were being separated, when the future felt more uncertain than it had in our lifetimes.
I wrote an email to my list about the filming. Then I deleted it. Then I wrote another one acknowledging the pandemic. Then I deleted that too. Then I wrote nothing at all for three weeks, paralyzed by the feeling that anything I said about this good thing that was happening in my world would be wrong.
So we hustled and hustled, and just started teaching EVERYONE we could how to go online. Business was great, and I felt so guilty.
The guilt was crushing. How could I be growing a business when businesses were closing? How could I celebrate small wins when people were losing everything? How could I ask people to invest in themselves when they were just trying to survive?
I stayed silent and I learned during those silent weeks: my silence wasn’t the part of my business that helping anyone. The people in and around me weren’t served by my guilt. The clients who needed my help weren’t better off because I was too busy comparing my pain to others’ to show up. The team members who depended on me weren’t safer because I’d decided to stop making moves.
This guilt is real. It’s what we are taught we must feel to be a human. Sadly, guilt is also a trap that keeps you from doing the very thing that might actually help.
But caring deeply about the world beyond your business is the real sign that you’re human. Your awareness is what makes you human, not your belittling your amazingness because you perceive someone has it worse off than you.
Your business isn’t separate from the world’s pain, it’s part of the response to it. When you provide a service that helps someone sleep better at night, you’re addressing the world’s stress.
When you create a song that brings joy to someone’s day, you’re countering the world’s darkness.
When you maintain employment and economic stability, you’re building the infrastructure that communities need to recover.
The guilt tells you that caring about your business tmeans not caring about the world. But the truth is more complex: sometimes caring about the world means caring about your business enough to keep it running when everything else feels uncertain.
Reframing Your Role: You’re Not Selling. You’re Serving
I have a client who leads a funk band. When the world started falling apart, she felt ridiculous promoting their upcoming (online) shows.
“People are struggling to pay rent,” she told me over a Zoom beer. “And I’m asking them to buy tickets to watch us play music on their computer.”
Here’s what she didn’t see: she was giving people a reason to log into something communal when isolation felt suffocating. She was creating space for strangers to dance together when connection felt impossible.
She was keeping her bandmates employed when gig work had dried up everywhere else. She was offering two hours of joy in a time when joy felt selfish.
She wasn’t selling entertainment. She was serving her community.
This reframe changed everything for her, and it can change everything for us too. When we shift from thinking about our business as something we’re doing to the world to something we’re doing for the world, the guilt starts to transform into purpose.
We aren’t interrupting people’s crisis with our business. We’re providing stability in uncertain times. When everything else feels chaotic, our business can be the steady thing people rely on. The voice studio that’s still open. The consultant who still returns calls. The online library that still uploads vids on time. These aren’t trivial things. They’re anchors in the storm.
We’re not distracting people from important issues with our products or services. We’re creating solutions that people need. Maybe it’s choral vocal tracks that helps remote choir members stay connected. Maybe it’s a course that teaches voice teachers new skills when their old career path disappears. Maybe it’s a service that helps musicians manage their mental health when the world feels overwhelming.
You are not being selfish by maintaining your own employment and economic activity. You’re being responsible. Every dollar you maintain is a family with continued income. Every vendor you pay is another business that can keep its doors open.
You’re not building something frivolous when you focus on business resilience. You’re creating the economic foundation that communities need to recover. The businesses that survive difficult times become the economic engines that power recovery.
Practical Strategies for Moving Forward
Stay Informed, But Protect Your Sanity
The mornings I realize I’ve spent more hours reading about a crisis I couldn’t directly impact while ignoring emails from clients I could actually help are the mornings that prompt me to keep. on. swimming.
Information is not action. Staying informed is important, but staying informed to the point of paralysis helps no one. Setting boundaries around news consumption is a must. Not because I don’t care, but because I care too much to let caring render me ineffective.
Now I check news twice a week: once with the goal of understanding what’s happening, and once to simply stay current. I use apps that limit my social media time. I unfollow accounts that consistently leave me feeling hopeless rather than informed. I’ve learned to distinguish between staying informed and staying overwhelmed.
This isn’t about burying our heads in the sand. It’s about protecting our mental energy for the work that only we can do. We can’t help anyone if we’re consumed by anxiety about things beyond our control, or have our fingers in our ears saying “lalalaIcanthearyou.”
We can’t run a business that serves people if we’re paralyzed by or ignoring despair about the world those people are living in.
Leading with Empathy, Not Answers
The most powerful business communication I’ve ever received came from a CEO during a particularly dark news cycle. She didn’t have solutions to the world’s problems. She didn’t pretend everything was fine. She simply said: “I know this is a hard time. I’m thinking of you. We’re here when you’re ready.”
That’s it. No platitudes about silver linings. No forced positivity. No performative activism. Just acknowledgment, empathy, and presence.
You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to solve the world’s problems in your newsletter. You don’t need to take political stances to prove you care. You just need to show up as a human who sees other humans struggling and wants to help in whatever way you can.
This might look like adjusting your policies to be more gentle during difficult times. It might mean offering extended payment terms to customers who are struggling. It might mean checking in with your team more frequently. It might mean simply acknowledging that you know things are hard right now.
The goal isn’t to fix everything. The goal is to be present and helpful in the specific ways your business allows you to be present and helpful.
Focus on What You Can Control
I keep a note on my desk that says: “Control what you can. Release what you can’t. Know the difference.”
When the world feels chaotic, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by everything you can’t control. The economy. The political climate. Natural disasters. Global conflicts. Health crises. These are real, serious issues that affect all of us. But they’re also largely outside your direct sphere of influence.
What you can control is how you run your business. You can control the quality of your products and services. You can control how you treat your employees and clients. You can control the ethical standards you maintain. You can control the causes you support and the values you embody.
You can control whether you deliver on your promises. You can control whether you respond to customer service requests promptly and compassionately. You can control whether you pay your vendors on time. You can control whether you create a culture that supports people during difficult times.
These might seem like small things compared to the world’s big problems, but they’re not small to the people they affect. The customer who gets exceptional service during a stressful time. The employee who feels supported when their personal life is in chaos. The vendor who can count on your payments when other clients are struggling to pay. These individual impacts ripple outward in ways you might never fully see.
Find Your “Why” Again. This Time, Go Deeper
Every business book tells you to find your “why.” But during times of crisis, surface-level purpose statements start to feel hollow. “We help people save time” feels inadequate when people are losing their jobs. “We make life easier” feels pretty ridiculous when life is being made impossibly hard.
This is when you need to dig deeper. Don’t just write down why you started your business, but why others need your business right now. Not just what problem you solve, but how that problem-solving contributes to human flourishing. Not just what you do, but how what you do helps people navigate the specific challenges they’re facing.
I started this business because I wanted to help voice teachers, musicians, and those around them who take themselves seriously as business owners. That felt meaningful enough until the world started falling apart and growing a company felt like the least important thing anyone could focus on.
So I have to go deeper. I help artists take themselves seriously as business owners so they can pay more people, serve more musicians, and create more economic stability in our very effed up industry.
I help them build sustainable businesses that can weather crises and continue serving the arts because the arts are essential when people need stability most. I help them develop the resilience and clarity they need to lead others through art-making as activism and release.
Same work, deeper purpose. Same activities, clearer connection to the bigger picture. Same business, stronger sense of how it contributes to the world I want to live in.
The Long Game: Building Resilience, Not Just Revenue
The businesses that survive and thrive through challenging times don’t just endure, they evolve. They develop capabilities they didn’t know they needed. They discover strengths they didn’t know they had. They build relationships that run deeper than transactions.
When my funk band client was forced to pivot to online concerts during lockdowns, she discovered she was better at online tech than she’d ever realized. When she had to lay off half her band, she learned how to be a leader during crisis. When she had to rebuild her revenue streams from scratch, she found innovations that made her more resilient than she’d been before.
None of this was easy. None of it was fun. There were lots of tears. Still, all of it was valuable in ways that went far beyond the financial. She didn’t just survive a crisis—she became someone who could help others survive the next one.
Your commitment to showing up, even when it’s hard, is an act of faith in the future. It’s a statement that you believe tomorrow will come and that when it does, people will still need what you have to offer. It’s a vote of confidence in the possibility of recovery, growth, and renewal.
This doesn’t mean being naive about the seriousness of current problems. It means being realistic about the fact that life continues, communities rebuild, and people adapt. It means understanding that your business is part of the infrastructure that makes that adaptation possible.
Moving Forward with Purpose, Not Guilt
The world needs businesses that are run by people who care. Not people who perform caring on social media. Not people who virtue signal their way through crisis. But people who genuinely care about their customers, their communities, and the future we’re all building together.
Your business is a vehicle for positive impact, not despite the world’s challenges, but because of them. Every time you choose to maintain quality when it would be easier to cut corners, you’re making the world a little better. Every time you support a client or colleague through a personal crisis, you’re making the world a little more compassionate. Every time you create something that brings value to people’s lives, you’re making the world a little brighter.
And if you know me, you know I am allergic to toxic positivity. This is not pretending that running a business will solve all the world’s problems. It’s about understanding that your work matters in ways that extend far beyond your profit margins. It’s about recognizing that the choice to keep showing up, creating, and serving is itself a form of resistance against despair.
So yes, keep running your business. Keep creating value. Keep showing up. But do it with intention, empathy, and a clear understanding that your work is part of something larger than yourself.
The world needs what you have to offer, especially when everything else feels uncertain. Not because your business is more important than the world’s problems! It’s because your business is part of the solution to those problems. Not because you have to choose between caring about the world and caring about your work. It’s because caring about your work is one of the ways you care about the world.
The key for us all is to do it with purpose instead of guilt, with presence instead of paralysis, and with the understanding that our business is not separate from the world’s healing. It’s part of it.
What strategies have helped you maintain focus on your business during challenging times? How do you balance staying informed with protecting your mental energy for the work ahead? And most importantly, how do you remind yourself that your work matters when the world feels like it’s falling apart?
I’d love to hear from you. Reply in the comments or send me an email and let me know what’s working for you—or what you’re struggling with. We’re all figuring this out together.
All My BeastyBoss,
0 Comments