•Says We Must All Embrace The New Normal
Pastor Femi Faseru is the leading Pastor of the Kingsway International Christian Centre, KICC in Nigeria. He is passionate about teaching Leadership, Financial principles, and success skills through various seminars and the media. He is a much sought after speaker both nationally and internationally. His teachings have motivated, encouraged and spurred on loads of people to start or advance their businesses.
He’s one of the few championing the course for a “New Normal” after the sudden hit of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that has crippled business and social activities.
Speaking on City People TVInstagram Live Chat, Pastor Faseru, took time to analyse the 6 kinds of thinking that can cushion the adaptive process as the world, by reason of the pandemic, has imposed a new order to live by. Read Excerpts below.
We will like you to share with us your thoughts on the journey so far in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and how we should adjust
Thank you so much for having me. Yes, COVID 19 is an unfortunate incident that has come upon our planet towards the end of last year into this years and it has brought a lot of destruction into our world, it comes to disrupt families and truncated some lives, thousands of lives on the planet are lost, some families are put in disarray, the unexpected has happened to people, to businesses, in fact, what we never thought that we will ever see in our world, we are seeing.
We have seen the great nations look so helpless even in the things we used to sing their praises on. If someone was sick and he died in Nigeria, people will ask how come you didn’t take him abroad for more advanced medical attention.
Now we have seen those great countries in this pandemic on their knees. Screaming and shouting they don’t have enough to treat people and we see people die in thousands even in these places.
This pandemic has come to show us the weakness of systems, the weakness of nations, it’s come to also come to show us individually our weaknesses as well, even those of us that the Lord has been merciful and gracious to have kept us alive right now, and we have seen during the pandemic, what we thought was important, and now we see it that it’s not as important, as what we thought back then. Just only a few months ago. COVID-19 has come to really shake our world, but what I’m going to say is that instead of us trying to find our way back to what it was, I think we need to learn from what we are going through and strengthen our weaknesses as much as we can. I am talking as individuals as people as a nation and has humanity as a whole. We should try to strengthen our weaknesses as uncovered by this sudden attack of COVID-19. We shouldn’t try to go to the old normal, we should embrace the normal, which I believe should be better than what we had before.
Specifically, how do you think we can adjust to the big hit caused by the COVID-19 on major businesses?
Everything has to start from within, whether we are talking as an individual, as a company, corporation, family, or as a nation, we have to understand that they all start from within. That is important. Before this pandemic, a lot of people, a lot of systems a lot of nations would be looking from outside for help, would be looking from outside for support, and one of the things that we need to recollect or remind ourself is the fact that, in the last 3 to 4 months, we were shot within our four walls. If you fall sick, your hospital will have to take care of you. No plane is flying, no one is coming across the sea, you have to work with what you have within the system so it is now high time, we started to think from within. So if you allow me, I will put these things into six steps of thinking that we can be doing. At this point in time, we are not going to drift back into the old normal, where we can suddenly be hit or be shattered as we have seen in the world right now.
Number one is that each and every one of us, be it individual, system or nation will have to engage critical thinking, in the sense that we have to be our own critic. We need to critic our own old ways of doing things. You have to find out, in what do you put your trust? You know a lot of people have thought if I had a good career, if I had I good business, then my life will be this or that. Well, we have seen how this pandemic came and shut down careers and shut down businesses as you said.
Unemployment all over the world. Companies are laying people off. All over the world. Our statistics is not that brilliant in Nigeria otherwise we would have added figures to these things but where we have statistics in America, it goes into millions of people that have lost their jobs overnight.
In what do I put my trust, because anything can disappear tomorrow? Ask yourself, is your trust in a system? Is your trust in a government? We have seen governments on their knees in this season. Is your trust in somebody, in a career or in a job, in whom is your trust? I now feel like people and a body we now have to understand that God is God. Let’s put our trust in God. It’s the only way to go. Let’s put our trust in God and let God be God in our lives. So we’ve got to check our relationship with our maker. We’ve got to make sure that we are devoted to him. We’ve got to question ourselves, who have you committed your life to until now? Because if you committed your life to a career and the career is gone now because of the pandemic, what would you have left?
So once we begin to question ourselves, particularly the way we live before this pandemic, the priorities we gave to our lives before this pandemic, then there will be two things we will have to do because now we are faced with the reality. Maybe somebody who lost a job, maybe somebody who lost a business, maybe you have your own business, but your customers have lost their money in the process and they are not able to patronize you. What do you do? What do you do right now?
You can’t give in the towel. You have to engage in creative thinking. You have to start to think about the new normal. We cannot feed our way back to the old normal, old normal is gone; in the business setting, everybody has to wake up from wherever you live, some people travel all the way to the Island, 3 hours to get to work. And after the day’s work, another 3 hours to get back, travel hours is 6 hours a day. And the person has gone to the office and worked when the person gets homes, he becomes tired and the same thing is repeated Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and some people still have a busy day on Saturday as well.
So we will find out that people are not as healthy as they can be, because of the way we live in the old normal, if we embrace the new normal, we don’t have to be on the road to get the business done. We don’t have to be on the road to give the service we are supposed to give.
In other words what we are saying is that corporations and companies, need to move away from desktops, computers and they need to begin to embrace laptop computers. It’s the same computer that I am going to drive down to operate for 3 hours, why don’t I have a laptop and in the comfort of my home, I get the job done by flipping up my laptop and I get the job done. That way I can be more productive and be fresher in my mind when I wake up and do the job in my home.
Can we adjust our businesses so that we don’t wear people out, the old normal was not only wearing us out, the old normal was also costing us more than it should. You can imagine the amount of fuel, the gas that is being expended on our roads every day just because we want to get to work. Not because we want to work with it, but because we want to get to the place where we work.
So we can save a lot of money, so I am an advocate of this new normal that has been imposed on us. How I wish that we chose this new normal ourselves, we probably could have been better prepared for it. But we didn’t choose it, it was imposed on us, probably because that’s the way we should go. So as a result, I want to encourage us to embrace this new normal. Be creative in your thinking. Let us stop thinking the old way, can we think the new. What do we need to do now that will be new? Can we think out of the box because some, you’ll agree with me that most of the things that we are doing, they were not because we thought of doing it that way, it was because that was the way people were doing it, and we just jumped. Has this new normal given us the opportunity and the privilege for us to also contribute to humanity by engaging our own mind by thinking out of the box, and the normal we used to know and particularly when we are in a chaotic environment? So we need to engage creative thinking.
Number 3 sir, we need to engage constructive thinking. What can we do right now to make our lot better towards the end of the year? What can we do right now to make our lives better, at the end of this pandemic? We have to now engage in constructive thinking. Can we start to think of better structures? Can we as a nation begin to think of useful projects? Projects that are useful to society. Projects that are useful to the community. Can we begin to think of what we actually need for now? What we need in the future? It shouldn’t just be about us just being busy. Can businesses actually be doing businesses rather than being busy? We have to be constructive. With all the allocated budget at the end of the day, what is it that we will be saying after the money has been spent?
At the local government level, at the state government level, at the senatorial district level at, the federal government level, when all these monies have been spent, what is it that we can point at? What is it that we can see. We have to begin to be constructive so we can build systems. Our health systems need to be built. Our educational system needs to be built. For example, some of the pupils have been subjected in the last few months to taking their education via television. What percentage of these pupils have the privilege of televisions in their homes?
Those who have the privilege of televisions in their homes, what percentage of them have electricity?
Can these bring us to the time when we begin to think of systems? How to construct an educational system that will be available to all not only to a few privileged ones? Number 4, can we engage collaborative thinking? In look chapter 5. Jesus saw a man that was frustrated at his work by the name of Peter (Simon). He was frustrated at work. He has laboured all night and he had nothing to show for it. Nothing. Then Jesus told him to drop his net in the deep for a catch. And instead of him dropping his nets, he actually dropped a net, and when it dipped, it caught fish, but he couldn’t handle it alone and the fish started to break out of the net.
What we are dealing with in our world is obvious, that it’s not a job for one man. It’s a job for all of us. To even curb the spread of COVID-19, it’s not the job of the government alone, it’s the job of all of us. If the government says when you go out you have to use your mask, use it. But you find people doing all manner of things with the mask. Collaborative thinking. How can we all beat the virus? How can we beat this together? We have to collaborate together. We all have to come back together. Is it possible after this pandemic, we now realize that we need each other more than before? Because one will chase a thousand, the bible says two will put ten thousand to flight then the power of two is much more exponentially greater than that of the power of one. Can we all come together as a people and begin to build Nigeria rather than us building our own individual castles? This is what we need. We need collaborative thinking. Businesses will work more with the government, the government will work more with businesses. I am talking about one taking advantage of the other. In the old normal, businesses will be thinking about how to cheat out of the taxes. The government will be thinking about how to put levies on businesses. The few people that are paying taxes levies are put on them, till they drive the businesses into the ground. Can we understand that we need one another? How can the government strengthen businesses? How can businesses strengthen the government? We can see how businesses came to the aide of the government by giving some palliatives and giving billions to the government to be able to work and be able to arrest this COVID-19 in Nigeria. So we have seen that work because Nigeria has the same population as Brazil, the number of people that have died in Nigeria, when you compare it to the number of people that have died in Brazil, we have every cause to thank God even though we are also in pain because of the 455 people that we have lost. But the number of people that have died in Brazil is for greater.
The collaboration of the private sector individuals, organizations, with the government over here, I hope we can take lessons from this. Going forward, we should try to see how we can collaborate not only on COVID-19 but how do we collaborate in getting our roads fixed, collaborate in getting electricity in the country. Collaborate in getting schools and befitting hospitals. So we need collaborative thinking.
Number 5, we need collective thinking. We need to begin to think about others. Let us bring to an end, this selfish thinking; me, my wife, and my children. We should think about others, we should think about our neighbours. In everything that we do. COVID-19 says to use your mask when you are outside, it’s not only because they want you to be safe, they also want others to be safe as well. Because COVID-19 is making us think about others. After this pandemic, because this pandemic is going to come to an end, and I pray that it comes to an end soon (In Jesus’ name). After this pandemic, can we become our new normal that we are thinking about others when we are driving on the road? Can we think about others when we get to a junction? Those who are ahead, can we allow then to have their way first before we jump and cause gridlock? Can we start to think about others?
When you are employed in a company to work, can you think about the business, can you think about investors. Can you think about those who set it up? The vision that set up the business and you go in there and you give in your own quota just as you are contracted to do. Can we think about others?
Because if you think about others, you will not get into places and begin to steal and begin to run down another man’s business.
And then lastly comprehensive thinking, in the days that we live in right now, we have to think wide. As an individual, that we were not able to go to work, what would you do if something happens tomorrow and you were not able to go to work, and you’ve got a family to feed? Can you begin to think wide right now and think far? How do I create multiple streams of income in case of eventualities? Because now COVID-19 has shown us that anything can happen if God allows it anything can happen to anybody. But if something happens, how are you going to carry on?
Comprehensive thinking. Think wide, there is a need for us to think far. I have watched people who have worked and they’ve worked hard and when they retire, they retired to suffer, because while they were working, they were not investing. While they were working, all they had was a salary. Comprehensive thinking. What stope every employee to have a side-business? What stops that? Sir, one of the reasons why some companies have the highest turnover of employees is basically because the employee at some time, even if very good for that business will want to leave because they want more money. There’ll be a loyal turnover of staff in corporations of those employees who have a side business and money is not their motivation on the job, but rather the ability to contribute and be part of the building block and never have to worry about money. Some people are doing the job they don’t like just because of money. So we need to seize this opportunity and expand our thinking. We also need to understand that we were locked down in the house for weeks. That is a preview of what will happen when you are 70 when you are 75. And if you are 35, if you are 40, if you are 45 and you are locked down for 6 weeks and you couldn’t feed your family, what are you going to do when you are 70? So it’s a wakeup call.
Let us from now think far and begin to solve the problems of tomorrow, now. Let’s begin to think deeply and understand that we are the ones who are ultimately responsible for ourselves. Not the government, not society. You are ultimately responsible for yourselves particularly in the country where you live.
