How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
Did you ever feel like there was something not right, but you couldn’t put your finger on it?
Nothing quite material, something just lurking behind your every day life that dragged down what you thought you were working toward.
And then one day, like the flick of a switch, the formless has form.
A form just as evil as it felt…
That was what changed when the world locked down for COVID-19: the mask was off.
The nice world I wanted to believe we were living in fell away from my feet.
Stirrings
I had been warned years before that technocrats were not acting in my best interest. But I also found that worrying about what was hiding around the corner was no way to establish myself in the world.
So I upskilled, got the credentials, and tried sticking to the path I was always told would work to build a comfortable life.
The problem was doing that put me at the mercy of whatever employer I was working for. I yearned for an opportunity to start my own business, built plans, looked for partners, engaged with mentors and MBA classmates, and weighed how I would fund it.
But I was crushing myself trying to please everyone.
New Surroundings
I jumped ship to a new employer the year before COVID started. Instead of a bustling plant with 600+ employees in the industrial district, I was working at an old mine with 30 others in the middle of the woods.
This turned out to be a blessing at first. Not being around so many people meant I wasn’t having to avoid everyone to keep them healthy. And management encouraged me to build morale by patronizing local restaurants.
That could only last so long. Especially with a foreign based company.
Their values of conformity would soon start pushing us into “protective measures” that made less and less sense.
Not just masks and social distancing, but wearables that had to be logged regularly for contact tracing. It was keeping people home who wanted to work. It was assuming the best about a trainee who seemed motivated, but would say he contacted someone who tested positive and needed to be out for another two weeks while waiting for his test to come back.
Defiance
I tried working with it for over a year. But something shifted after my son was born in the summer of 2021. If the situation was going to change, someone was going to have to stand their ground.
I was going to have to be that someone.
I refused the masks and social distancing wearables. I submitted a picture of myself holding the statute saying offering gifts for experimental treatment violates informed consent. I pushed back when senior management wanted to send a mobile vaccination clinic to the site…and somehow got the other management team on board.
Through it all, though, this gnawing feeling kept coming to me. That doing this was putting my employment in danger. And my family by extension.
Striking Out
Luckily, the mentors who pointed me toward resources to defend myself didn’t stop there. They also encouraged me to take control of my destiny. To become my own boss and start my own business.
It was a stretch beyond what I could imagine prior to COVID.
I started a writing business and went full steam into a mentorship program. I learned how to trade options and took out a loan to scale. I even joined several startups as an advisor or a worker.
And I fell on my face doing it.
But do I regret it? Not in the least.
Starting my own writing business gave me the opportunity to practice marketing when senior management wouldn’t support my move into that field.
I networked and joined accountability groups with others who were serious about making the same changes in their lives. So we could search for clients and have a group to report their wins and lessons.
Failing at options at first made me a better manager of risk. Not to mention real world experience with financial engineering.
And all of those combined? Stretching myself got me into a better job than I could have dreamed of.
What Changed
Before COVID, I would worry that I was only using 30% of my skillset. With no opportunities on the horizon to use the rest unless I could move to another position.
But the lockdowns nudged me past drawing up plans to act on them. Past wondering whether the immaterial would strike me unaware.
The kind of nudge that takes a step toward making what’s not right…right.
Affiliate Corner
COVID lockdowns created a lot of uncertainty, but you don’t have to go it alone. Join me and an accountability group of like-minded people who don’t hate you at Tom Woods’ School of Life.
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Check out these other inspiring stories before you go:
Liberty Begins At Home 
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