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.

Drought And Electricity

I can’t run
any of my businesses
without electricity.

In my city,
most of the electricity
is sourced
from hydro,
from water-based technologies.

That means
droughts impact
electricity supply.

(This is also true
of nuclear-sourced electricity
as nuclear requires
a lot of water.)

I monitor the water levels.

I have purchased batteries
to store electricity.

I plan to install
solar panels.

If you can’t run your business
without a resource,
know what drives
the availability
of that resource.

Monitor that driver.

And plan for alternatives.

This is one
of our responsibilities
as business builders.

Have Different Layers Of Insurance

One of my buddies
told me
she couldn’t afford insurance
on a certain high-priced item
so she installed highly visible
security cameras
around it.

Which is a type of insurance.
It is protection
from the possibility of loss.

Having an extra story
I can release
if I absolutely needed
that income
is insurance.

Having an extra $100
hidden in my home
is insurance.

Having an arrangement
with another business owner
that gives me
an emergency place
to run my business
is insurance.

We should have
different layers of insurance,
including the traditional kind.

And then we should hope
we never have to use
any of those layers.

Lowering Risks

I tested positive
for the first time
for COVID.

I’ve been fairly careful,
wearing high quality masks
anytime I’m with other people
indoors,
limiting contact,
employing social distancing
as much as possible.

This lowered the risk
of getting COVID
with each contact
but it didn’t eliminate it.

Especially since,
over the past two and a half years,
I have had hundreds,
perhaps thousands of contacts.

Low risk per contact
multiplied by
those thousands of contacts
meant the odds of me
catching COVID
was becoming pretty f*ckin’ high.

My ‘luck’ ran out.

Low risk events
happen.
Especially if we
participate in thousands
of them

Plan for that.

And yes, I will continue
taking precautions.
COVID is kicking my a$$
and I’d prefer never to get it again.