Does change come any bigger than this?
It’s two o’clock in the morning and I force myself away from the TV. Watching the results come in is strangely addictive, like wanting to put on another episode of Game of Thrones when you’re midway through the box set, ‘just one more’.
And the Game of Polls had almost as many surprises as the TV drama!
However you reacted to the news you can see people going through the change curve, it’s being broadcast live for the nation to see.
For the Remain camp it’s the same emotional journey people go on when they are given hard feedback: SARA
First the S, surprise and shock, can his really be true? Next the A: anxiety or even anger, I’m not liking this at all. R: rationalisation, it’s because they did this and did that (the blame game can kick in here along with a victim mentality). Finally A: acceptance, so it’s happened, let’s look forward and work out how we deal with this resourcefully.
The challenge is this. You can’t individually control the votes of 33 million people but there are 4 things you absolutely can control
What you think, feel, say and do.
Whichever way you voted, this next choice I believe will define us even more as a nation.
If you voted ‘Remain’, how resourceful are you going to be? Are you choosing an emotion of frustration, hurt, anger? Or are you choosing an emotion of courage, determination, appreciation (yes, appreciation. Millions of people in the world don’t even get a free vote!).
If you voted ‘Leave’, how are you going to reach out to those who are feeling lost today? How are you going to help them come to terms with the future that you can maybe envision and they can’t? Or are you going to celebrate the result just a little while longer and focus more on the win? You may even be feeling pangs of uncertainty yourselves.
This is a time for L: Leadership, which, let’s be honest, only matters when the going gets tough. No one looks for a leader in calm waters but it’s suddenly a lot choppier.
So that’s your next and most important choice. Reach for leader inside of you and choose your response wisely.
Most important of all, recognise that you’re not a victim, you have a choice to make.
