Tag: pandemic

The Will To Believe

I posted yesterday
about my theory
about why leaders and the media
aren’t being honest with us
about events
like COVID.

They’re worried about liability.

So why does the average person
follow their lead?

We know many people around us
are ill.
We know the hospitals are full.
We go to stores
and see cold medicine shelves are bare.

The reality is…
most people are followers.

They don’t want to take
personal responsibility
for their actions
or lack of actions.
That is too much pressure
for them.

So they shift that task
to leaders
and blindly follow them.

They have zero guilt
if things go wrong
because they didn’t make
any decisions.

(But they DID make a decision
– to blindly follow
that leader.)

And, at this point in the pandemic,
admitting COVID is serious
means also admitting
they’ve made deadly mistakes.
They’ve exposed loved ones
to danger,
a danger that might resurface
at any time in the future.

The average person
NEEDS emotionally to think
COVID is mild.
They NEED
to think their child
or other vulnerable loved one
won’t suffer in the future
from a mistake they’ve already made.

The average person
will continue thinking
COVID is over
or isn’t a danger.

Which means COVID
will cause more harm
and it likely won’t ever end.

Plan for that personally
and for your business.

COVID, Leadership And Liability

You and I know
COVID isn’t over.
We know
it is far more serious
short-term
and especially long-term
than most people believe.

So why aren’t
politicians, business leaders,
the media
talking about this?

I believe
it is because
of liability.

If they admit
they know
COVID is serious,
people will want to know
WHEN they knew that.

We’ll uncover
that someone told them
this information
early in 2020.

And then they
will get their a$$es sued off
because millions of people
have died
based on them withholding
and not acting on that knowledge.

ALL of them
will get sued
– politicians, reporters,
businesses.

Companies didn’t install
better ventilation systems,
for example.
They’ll get sued
for endangering employees.

So everyone is pretending
like they don’t know.
Which means they can’t
relay the seriousness
of the situation.

They’re also telling us
it is our personal responsibility
to keep ourselves safe,
which relieves them
of that duty
and will serve
as one of their defenses
when they do get sued.

This tactic of ‘not knowing’
will be applied
to future pandemics
and likely to climate change
disasters.

We should prepare for this.

For example,
I listen to experts
who aren’t liable.

Doctors who aren’t politicians
or the heads of hospitals
or other businesses
fall into this category.

I watch for what
is truly happening.
Are hospitals full?
Is everyone around me
ill?
Are businesses short staffed?

I make decisions
and take action
on THAT information.

Because leaders
are more concerned
about getting sued
than doing their f*ckin’ jobs.

2023 Goals And Plans

Many of us are thinking about
our 2023 goals and plans
this week.

This is your gentle reminder
that climate change challenges
and pandemic challenges
will remain in 2023.

U.N. Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres
is warning of global food shortages
in 2023.

Much of Europe, the US
and Canada
is currently facing
a triple punch
of COVID,
the flu
and RSV.

AND there are new ‘superbugs’
building in intensity.

What does that mean
for the savvy business builder?

We build these challenges
into our plans.

Our plans shouldn’t be based
on everything going right,
on perfect conditions.
They should be based
on reality.

And since everyone,
including the clients
we normally wine and dine,
needs to eat
AND
we require our customers
to be alive
to sell to them,
these two factors will impact
ALL our plans.

Factor for climate change
and pandemic challenges
in your plans.

During Your Year End Review

This is the time of year
when many of us
look back
and evaluate
what we’ve accomplished.

We note the progress
we’ve made,
the goals we’ve met
or not met,
the difference
we’ve made in
this wonderful world.

When you’re doing this,
note
that we were dealing
with both a pandemic
and climate change
during it.

Those were possible life-ending challenges.
They required mental bandwidth
to survive.

Simply surviving them
was a HUGE accomplishment.

If you accomplished other goals
while doing so,
you did AMAZINGLY.

If you’re reading this,
you accomplished a great feat
– staying alive.

If you’ve done more
than merely stay alive,
you should be
VERY proud of yourself.

Remember that
when you look at your progress.

Dreams Vs Reality

Yesterday’s post
about kids and COVID
was admittedly a downer.
It didn’t contain
great news.

But it contained
helpful news.

And yes,
sometimes reality
f*cks with our dreams.

I doubt many of us
dream of developing products
for a massive wave
of permanently ill kids.

That’s our reality, however.

If we can tweak
our dream products
to fit into this harsher reality,
we’ll be more successful,
more relevant
and we’ll help more people.

Mesh your dreams
with reality
and
make a difference
in the world
we actually live in.

The Changing Children’s Market

Babies born to mothers
who had COVID during gestation
have smaller lungs.

Babies are also
being born with COVID.
They are born sick.
They are born with organ issues
and low energy
and immune system challenges.

Why am I telling you
this terrible news?

Because if your business’s
target market
is babies and/or kids,
this will influence
the products you design
and sell.

A significant number of
babies and/or kids
will be ill.
They will have their physical activities
severely restricted.

Toddlers, for example, won’t be running around
as constantly
as they do now.
But they might
still WANT to do that.

Knowledgable parents,
the type of parents
who buy products
for their kids,
will also likely
shield them
from places and activities
that might cause them
to catch an illness.

When you’re developing your products,
keep that in mind.
The children’s market
is significantly changing.

Evaluate Your Experts

We all have experts
we tend to trust
to give us accurate information.
We base our decisions
in business
and other aspects of life
on the things
they tell us.

At least once a year,
I evaluate these experts.
I look at their predictions
and I compare those predictions
to what actually happened.

There are health experts,
for example,
who predict
every COVID wave
will be the last one.

They’ve been wrong
again and again.

I no longer
rely on them
for information.

Evaluate your experts.
If they have always
been wrong,
assume they will be wrong
again.

Find better experts.

Be Open To Changing Your Mind

When I first heard about
COVID-19,
I thought it would be nothing
I had to worry about.
I believed it would be stopped
before it expanded.
I thought it wouldn’t reach
my corner of the planet.

I was wrong.
Clearly.

I tracked the spread
and realized d@mn quickly
it would be a danger
to the people I love.

I changed my position,
ordered the best masks
I could obtain,
donned makeshift masks
while I waited for the order
to arrive,
long before mask-wearing was enforced.

Being open
to changing my mind
helped keep myself
and my loved ones safe.

Right now,
you and I are likely clinging
to stances
that will be proven
to be wrong.

Being open to changing
those stances
could help save
our growing businesses,
our relationships,
and perhaps
even our lives.

Have the strength
and the intelligence
to change your mind.

Order Mother’s Day Flowers Now

I ordered flowers
for my Mom
yesterday.
I scheduled them for delivery
the week before Mother’s Day.

Because I suspect
florists will run out
of flowers this year.

Mother’s Day is
the biggest flower delivery day
of the year.
Not everyone has a sweetheart.
Almost everyone
has a Mom.

Supply chains are
still extremely messed up.
Climate change is impacting
flower growing
and flower delivery.
The pandemic is still happening.

Florists also don’t want
to be left
with excess stock.
They have been going
through lean sales times.
They will likely
be cautious when ordering stock.

If you’re fortunate to have
a loving Mom,
order flowers for her now.

There aren’t
any guarantees
she’ll receive them.
Things happen.

But the odds she’ll have flowers
on Mother’s Day
will greatly increase.

Year End Review

Every year,
on December 31st,
I review what happened
over the past year.

This year wasn’t my best.
Sales were down.
Production was down.

But that was expected.
We continue to deal
with the pandemic,
are dealing
with intensified climate change.

The big wins are…
the writing business survived
these challenges
and,
most importantly,
I survived these challenges.

Not every year
will be stellar.
Some years,
merely surviving is a huge win.

And that’s okay.
That’s part of building
a business.