People talk about V-shaped recoveries because those people need it to be true. On-off. There was no evidence such a thing was remotely possible. Denial in these cases was predictable, and healthy, but still denial.

But now, deep into the summer, the situation has outstripped our ability to relate and has become something new. It’s a juggernaut of 50 sets of decisions multiplied by dozens more interpretations and a political atmosphere that sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

I spoke earlier of the death of denial on July 11th — also the first day Trump wore a mask in public. Few seemed to know what to make of it. As so much theater of politics these days, it was equal parts BS and bell-weather.

This is really what the New Normal is. The New Normal is Not Knowing. The New Normal is not having the map to know where the ocean ends or what comes next. What about school. No Really What About School?

School aside, the country stopped being in denial, but it didn’t leave much as a way forward.

What’s The Next Thing?

The world won’t change because the new way of doing things is inherently and universally better. This is often the pitch, that remote work or home delivery or any one of a hundred other (coincidentally) late-stage venture opportunities were ‘the better way’.

The world changes because we get used to doing things a certain way and they become habit. Habits are very, very hard to change. Habit is what makes us want to buck all the virus restrictions — but it’s also what we’re forming right now as we’re isolated, rolled back, and distanced. And as the pandemic evolves so will the behavior, at every turn new, and never to snap back to the old ways — not exactly at least.

So, the opportunity does not lie solely in solving the virus, or even solving one of the direct problems it causes. The opportunity lies in selling an experience that works in the constraints of the Pandemic world, and does so long enough for people to form the habit.

If you want to succeed, become part of the habits of the New Normal.