planning for the future

Electricity Rates WILL Increase

The electricity rates
in my area
are extremely low
but
I know that will soon change.

Why?

Because AI uses
a sh*tload of electricity
and companies
are building AI into everything.

Demand for electricity
will soon go through the roof
and supply will struggle
to keep up.

Which means
the cost of electricity
will increase.

If the business you’re building
uses very little electricity,
your costs shouldn’t increase
significantly.

If your business
DOES use a lot of electricity,
try to figure out a way
to either decrease that usage
or provide your own source
of electricity.

Electricity rates
will increase.
Plan for that.

The Future Is Disability

With multiple pandemics
on the go
and several new ones
on the horizon
paired with very few mitigations
being in place,
a prudent business builder
plans for disability.

Ours.
Our employees’.
Our customers’.

What does this mean?

It means giving customers
a shop from home option.

It means providing masks
and hand sanitizer
to employees and customers
to decrease the odds
of being sued
when those employees and customers
become permanently ill.

It means installing systems
that make our businesses
easier to run
if we become permanently ill.

It means researching
the needs and requirements
of permanently ill people
and doing all we can
now
to ensure our businesses serve them
as customers, employees, owners
as best as possible.

(I’m not part of this group…yet.
I don’t have any insider tips
on how to do this.
I’m doing my research like you are.)

Don’t wait
until it is a requirement
to do this.

Plan for a world
of disabled people now.

Start Today

When I first moved into
my current house,
I considered planting
an apple tree.

But, when I heard,
it would take
up to 8 years
for a tree
to bear apples,
I decided against it.

I’ve now been in
my house
for well over
8 years.

We could have been
enjoying apples
every summer.

Yes, most significant things
take time.

But we hopefully have
that time.

Start today.

The Time Frame For Reliable Predictions

A meteorologist buddy confided that,
due to climate change,
he now can’t reliably predict weather
past 1 or 2 days.

He still supplies 7 day forecasts
because his employer
and the average person
demands it.

But the forecasts
for 5 or 6 days out of those 7
are wild guesses
and are likely to be wrong.

I can predict my book sales
semi-accurately
for the next 3 months.

Anything after that,
due to turmoil
and change in the industry,
is a wild guess.

Know how far in advance
you can semi-accurately predict
results.

Take that time frame
into account
when making decisions.

If You Don’t Have Equity…

A loved ones feels he’s super important
at the privately held company
he works countless unpaid overtime hours
for.

They couldn’t operate without him,
he claims.

So I told him
he should ask
for equity in the business.

He gave me a half dozen reasons
why now wasn’t the right time
to make that request.

He has been working
there over a decade.
There will never be
a right time
to make that request.

And the owner
will never give him
equity.

Because he isn’t that important
to the business.
He’s replaceable.

If he was important,
the owner would have tied him
to the business
with a small equity stake.

Don’t voluntarily work
unpaid overtime hours
for a company
you have no equity in.

Use that time
to build your own equity
elsewhere.

AI And The Romance Novel Industry

AI is currently
writing essays.

I suspect
soon,
if it isn’t happening right now,
many of the Romance novels
writers outsource
to ghostwriters
will be written by AI.

At first,
human writers will do
quality checks.
But soon,
the need for those human writers
will be eliminated.

The market will, then,
become flooded
with those types of romance novels
(products).

I have been preparing
for that future.

I write in a small niche
that won’t immediately attract
the AI handlers.

I write long series of stories
in an intricate world
with interacting characters.
That is a bit more difficult
for AI to duplicate.

And I’m assuming
my business will go away soon.
I’ll ‘retire’
and do something different
with my time.

Changes are coming.
It is best to prepare
for those changes,
even if that means
you’re preparing
for a time
when your business is no longer viable.

Extreme Weather Days

When crafting my schedule
for the upcoming year,
planning my book releases
(project rollouts),
I’m accounting for
extreme weather days.

They’re becoming
increasingly common.

The rain is too heavy
to safely drive.

Blackouts happen
during heat waves.

It is too hot
to ask customers or employees
to go outside.

In my area,
I am currently planning
for 1 extreme weather
working day
a month.

If those extreme weather days
don’t happen,
I will have free days
to push ahead of schedule.

Plan for extreme weather days.
Then hope you don’t need them.