Tag: covid

Order Your Supplies Now

Order any supplies
and other business essential goods
you’ll need
for the next four or five months
(at the minimum)
now.

Multiple wars are intensifying.
Climate change disasters are happening.
COVID and other pandemics
continue to impact…well…everything.
There’s political turmoil.
And other global issues.

Supply chains
will be strained
yet again
this year.

Shipments will be delayed
or won’t happen at all.
Production will be hampered.
Labor will be limited.

Order your supplies
now.

If You Have To Remind People More Than Once…

I have a cabinet
in my kitchen
filled with valued dry ingredients.
It is secure
…WHEN the doors are closed.

The doors weren’t being closed.

So I took everything
other people in the household
used
out of that cabinet
and moved it elsewhere.

Now, the doors remain closed
MUCH more often.

I don’t have to remind
other people
to do this
and
I don’t have to rely
on their COVID-ravaged brains
to do it.

Build your business systems
the same way.

If you have to remind an employee
or another associate
about something more than once,
that system isn’t working.

Change it.

People Don’t Want To Change

I temporarily reversed
a health condition
that kills people
in my family.

My family members
know I did this.

Not one person
has asked me
HOW I did this.

Because they know
they’ll have to change
SOMETHING
and they don’t want
to change
ANYTHING.

Even if it will give them
an additional decade or so
of healthy living.

THIS is how
resistant
people are to change.

F*ck, most people won’t wear
a little piece of cloth
over their pie-holes
to prevent themselves
from being sick
half a f*ckin’ year.

They WILL also resist
any change to their lifestyles
our products/services
cause.

Reduce the impacts
of your products/services.

Make any change
they cause
as easy as possible
for your target audience.

Expect some resistance.

If You Feel Sad And Unmotivated…

A recent study revealed
COVID drains dopamine.

Many of us know
dopamine is our happy hormone.
It makes us feel good.

But I didn’t know
and maybe you didn’t know
that dopamine is a motivation hormone
also.
It pushes us to take action
while we’re feeling good.

If you feel sad and unmotivated
lately,
it might be due to
your recent (as in the past year) bout
of COVID.

Protect your happiness
and your business.

Mask the f*ck up
and continue to
get sh*t done.

We’re business builders.
We don’t have
f*ckin’ time
to catch COVID.

Surveys And Focus Groups Aren’t Reliable

Most blood collection organizations
have dropped mask requirements
both for donors
and for volunteers/workers.

The number of blood donors
have decreased.
Significantly.

I’m not surprised.

The people who care enough
about others
to donate blood
are also
likely to be
the people who care enough
about others
to mask.

And they are also likely
to be the people
who align themselves
with organizations
that care about others.

A non-masking organization
doesn’t truly care
about others.

I know this.
You likely know this.

Why didn’t blood collection organizations
know this?

Because, I suspect,
they listened to non-donor feedback
on surveys.

Non-donors wouldn’t share
the true reason they weren’t donating
– most of them
don’t give a sh*t about other people.

They had to give a different excuse.
And the ‘easy’ excuse
for non-donors was
they’d have to wear a mask.

People lie on surveys
and in focus groups.
I’ve seen that happen.
Often.

Ask yourself
if the results
are logical.

And use those results
cautiously.

The Troll Index

One of my buddies
tracks
what he calls
the Troll Index.

He’ll post a photo
on social media
of himself
wearing a mask.

Then he’ll count how many trolls
comment on that post.

A high number of trolls,
he’s found,
correlates to a COVID surge.

Trolls are usually paid
by entities to stop
actions from being taken.

More trolls
means more concern
those actions will be taken.

Which means
if you want
that action to be taken,
push HARDER
when the trolls are raging.

The Spanish Flu And Suppressing The News

The worldwide pandemic
of 1918-1920
is referred to
as the Spanish Flu.

That isn’t because
the pandemic started in Spain.

It is because
Spain was one of the only countries
that initially didn’t suppress news
about the spreading pandemic.

The rest of the world
did what the rest of the world
is doing right now
with COVID and Bird Flu
and Climate Change
and other negative news
– they reported on news
only when it suited their owners’ goals.

And it didn’t suit their owners’ goals
to report on the pandemic.

The news has always been
manipulated.

It is merely more obvious now
due to the internet
and the easier
person-to-person
communication of events.

And it is more serious now
because many of the events
the news now chooses
not to report
could kill us,
could kill loved ones,
could kill our businesses.

Have other sources of news.

Experts are often available
via social media.
Follow and listen to them.

Just In Case

I watered the garden
last evening.

Today, it rained.

I suspected it might rain.
The forecasts said it might.
But there was a chance
it wouldn’t rain.

And I knew
another day without water
would hurt,
perhaps even kill
some of the plants.

So I ‘wasted’ that water
(not really as it was
taken from a rain barrel
that refilled with the rain)
and I wasted my time.

Because that ‘cost’
was less than
the cost of killing my plants.

There are some events
in our future
that might, if they happen,
severely impact our businesses,
perhaps even kill them.

Act as though
they will happen.

Yes, that means
you’ll waste resources
if they don’t happen,
but the cost of not doing anything
far outweighs
the cost of doing something
for no reason.

Prepare for these events.

There Will ALWAYS Be ‘Businesses’ To Build

Yesterday,
I mentioned I planned to
build businesses
and manage projects
until I’m dead.

In the past,
I’ve also talked about
how climate change,
various pandemics,
fascism
and other events
will kick our a$$es.

You might be thinking
these two stances
contradict each other.
We can’t build businesses
during an apocalyptic-like event.

Actually, yes,
yes, we CAN build ‘businesses’
during an apocalyptic-like event.

These ‘businesses’ won’t likely
have financial profit
as their goals.
The goal will likely be
survival.

But organizing people
toward reaching a common goal
will be necessary.

Managing people
will be necessary.

Motivating people
will be necessary.

Innovation will be necessary.

Then more than ever.

Because our survival will be
at stake.

There will always be
a ‘business’ to build.

The skills and experience
you’re gaining
are invaluable.

The Speed Of Change

A buddy said to me,
yesterday,
“The world is changing
so f*cking fast.
I can’t keep up.”

The world IS changing
more quicky
than it has in the past.

But that change
is still very, very slow.

The reason it seems
like it is changing
so f*cking fast
is because
we HAVEN’T been keeping up.

We haven’t been
paying attention
or taking the previous changes
seriously.

Experts have been warning
about the US
falling to fascism
for decades.

We simply didn’t pay attention
to them
until the Supreme Court
gave the US President
King-like powers.

Scientists have been warning
about climate change
for over a century.

We mocked and derided them
until we got a monster hurricane
in the same day
as widespread floods
and fires.

Even the pandemic was predicted.
Experts warned we were due
for a world-wide pandemic.

If we want our businesses
to survive
and flourish
in the future,
we have to pay attention
to experts
and to the less-impactful changes
happening all around us.

The signs are there.
Heed them.