Tag: Crisis

And Here We Go Again …

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

I’d like to begin by thanking you all for your kind words regarding the loss of our family dog. We all go through moments of pain, and what makes those moments so much more bearable is knowing you have family and friends who care. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Well, 2020 is winding down, and the world is still spinning at a rate of about one revolution per day. Funny, if it suddenly slowed down, it would still spin at one revolution per day … the days would just be a lot longer. Has anybody checked the speedometer lately?

And, with news of two potential vaccines on the horizon, we are once again in the midst of a deadly resurgence in Coronavirus cases. Worse still, there are many in our nation who still don’t believe it’s real. A nurse recently spoke of patients dying in her care, adamant that they had to have some other affliction because “Coronavirus is a hoax.”

Well, folks, it’s real. It’s very real, and not only are new cases skyrocketing around the world, but hospitals are full, intensive care beds are nowhere to be found, and local morgues can’t keep up with the influx of deceased patients. Not to be a downer, but it doesn’t get any more real than this.

If you’ve been reading my posts over the past couple of months, we’ve talked about the possibility this could happen. Nobody expected it the first time, and we were caught off-guard. But you know the saying – fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me. I think more than a few of us are sitting in that second category right now.

And the thing is, we go through these things all through our lives. Not anything of this magnitude, thankfully, but life is full of twists and turns. One day you’re living the good life, healthy as a horse, with a great job, an awesome family, and money in the bank. Who could ask for more?

But it can all change in an instant. A new CEO comes in and says, “We’re making changes.” You get an unwelcome call from the doctor. You wake up to the smell of smoke. A dump truck swerves into your lane. Or maybe it’s just Human Resources saying you’ve done a great job until now, but the company’s needs have changed.

Okay, first things first – life goes on. First we cry, then we dust ourselves off and pick up the pieces, and then we grow. The only other option is to just give up, and most of us are better than that. We know nothing bad lasts forever, and as long as we’re able to draw another breath, we can turn things around. We do it all the time.

So, here’s the question I want to pose. What have you done differently since the last crisis? What steps have you taken to make sure you can weather the next storm? Are you working on your health? Have you done anything to increase your income? Have you saved a little for a rainy day? Or are you right back where you were, pretending it’ll never happen again?

Nobody likes the thought of a second job. Oh, maybe if we have a really strong goal, like buying a new car or taking a nice vacation. But beyond all that, it’s just more work. One more thing to cut into your quiet time after a day on the “real” job. But when the boss calls you and says the doors won’t be open for a month or two, that extra money would sure be nice.

Some things we can’t change. Our health is largely dependent on factors beyond our control. Accidents will happen, and jobs will come and go. We can’t change a raging virus, or how it will affect our jobs and families. But we absolutely can do something to ward off debt collectors if our primary source of income were to suddenly disappear. The thing is, we have to start NOW.

If you want to be in control of your income, you have to take control. Nobody will hand it to you. You have to stay ahead of the trends. And never before have home-based businesses been in such a position to thrive. People aren’t shopping in stores like they were. They want product delivered to their home. And that won’t change when the virus goes away.

A business doesn’t have to be massive to generate enough money to make a difference. Sometimes a little extra is more than enough. And if it’s not, you know what to do. Best of all, that’s a decision you get to make – nobody else makes it for you.

Take control. Grab the bull by the horns. Shape your own destiny. But do it now. The longer you wait to get started, the longer you’ll be wishing you had.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Are You Ready For the Next One?

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Mom once told me that if I walked through a door and got punched in the face, I might not be so eager to walk through that same door again. And if it happened a few more times, I’d find a different door. Well, knowing me, I’d just open the door and duck. Until I got kicked.

I thought about that the other day as I read about more states opening up and allowing people to get back to work. I think it says a lot for our society that we are so eager to work. And, when you get down to it, we do like working. Okay, we like the paycheck. We’d like it more if it were bigger, but that goes without saying.

I’ve been working the whole time anyway, but that’s more a stroke of luck than genius. I learned long ago that I’m not good at sitting around. In 1984, Dad had a heart attack and I went on emergency leave. My ship sailed while I was home and, through a series of administrative blunders, it took three months to get me back onboard.

By the time I got back, my commander had decided I’d gone AWOL and was trying to process me as a deserter. I’ll never forget stepping off that plane when it landed on the ship, after a lovely 32-hour trip halfway around the world, waiting for the Master at Arms to put me in handcuffs. It didn’t happen, but life was never the same for me on that ship again.

The entire time I was waiting for a ride to the boat, my job was to check in every morning and keep my sea bag packed by the door. After a week, I bought a bottle of bourbon. A week later, I bought another. By the end of a month, I called in at 7:45 every morning and had my first drink at 7:50. It wasn’t pretty. My wife didn’t even cry when I left. Neither did I.

Over the years, I’ve had a few bouts of unemployment. That happens when you’re a contractor. But I learned a few lessons from that experience in my Navy days. First, no drinking. Get a hobby instead. In my second month at home that first time, I took up woodworking. It was pretty rudimentary at first, but over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

Second, you need a plan B. We all like to think we have a secure job and that we’re so good at it nobody would ever think of putting us out to pasture, but that’s just our own ego stroking itself. And even if we are that good, nobody counts on a pandemic almost entirely shutting down the nation. A job isn’t much good if the doors are closed.

Well, we’ve mostly weathered the storm … for now. But already we’re seeing a spike in new cases and medical experts are telling us to buckle up because we’re likely facing a second round this fall that may be even worse than the first one. If summer is truly the miracle we’ve been waiting for, can you wait eight months for it to come around again?

One of the wisest quotes I’ve ever read was this: “Dig the well before you get thirsty.” We live in a nation where more than 60% of us don’t have enough in savings to cover a $1000 emergency. And we know the emergencies will come. They always do. It’s just a matter of when, and how bad it’ll be. And how long it’ll be before the next one comes along.

It’s hard to dig the well when you’re dying of thirst, especially when you don’t know how far down the water is. You get tired. You make mistakes. When the bills are stacking up and there’s no relief in sight, you take chances you wouldn’t normally take. Or, worse yet, you just give up and wait for the inevitable.

If you could put some extra money in the bank today, would that come in handy when things get bad again? What if you could build an ongoing income, even a small one, that’s independent of your current job and could continue through another round of shutdowns? Would that be a game-changer?

I’m willing to bet you’ve been given opportunities to get ahead of the situation. If not, talk to me. I’m happy to offer suggestions. What works for me may or may not work for you, but you never know unless you try. And maybe we can come up with something completely new between us.

If you’re not thirsty today, you will be. Hopefully it won’t be anything like the crisis we’ve seen, but it’ll still happen. The question is, will you be ready? The sooner you start digging that well, the better off you’ll be when the rivers run dry.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Be Mad. But Be Mad At The Right People.

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Well, it’s a brand-new month. The year is almost half-over, and we’re finally allowed to get back out and interact with the world around us. Masks and social distancing are still part of that, and probably will be for a long time. But it does seem like we’re finding ways to cope with a virus we still don’t fully understand and make the most of the situation.

Yet once again, we’re in crisis with protests across the entire nation – not against masks and closed nail salons, but against something much more sinister. Most of the protests are peaceful, and for a cause we should all stand together to uphold. This isn’t political, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about human rights, something this country has fought wars to defend.

Sadly, there will always be some who see these things as little more than an opportunity to incite violence and destruction. They are the minority – a fractional percentage of those who stand peacefully. But, through their actions, they degrade the message of hope and unity that others are trying so desperately to share.

It’s beyond heartbreaking – it’s truly sickening. But that small faction only has the power that we give them. When we let their violence obscure a message of humanity and lump them in with all those who are protesting peacefully, they win. When we give violence a voice and amplify that voice louder than all others, we enable it. Hate prevails because we allow it.

When riots broke out in Los Angeles over the verdict in the Rodney King case, my daughter, who was still in elementary school, asked why people would destroy their own neighborhood. I told her she was seeing less than one percent of the population in those neighborhoods doing these things. For every person on the street, hundreds were at home praying for it to end. The same is true today.

So far, five people have died as a result of this violence, and many more have been injured. It’s understandable that we would be outraged. Yet, in the same month, store employees have been killed for asking patrons to protect others from a deadly virus by wearing a mask. Were we equally outraged by that?

It would be as unfair to blame the death of those store employees on everybody protesting state shut-downs as it is to blame the destruction we’re seeing on everybody who is standing peacefully against the violence that triggered this latest round of protests. Place the blame where it lies – with those who perpetrate violence, not those who are standing against it.

It’s easy to blur the lines, especially when we don’t have a personal stake in the situation. But we do have a stake. We have a stake in restoring peace and stability, and we have a stake in making sure no citizen faces the risk of death for suspicion of committing a non-violent and relatively petty crime. This isn’t about us versus them – it’s about who we are as a nation.

I try to avoid controversial topics in my posts, and I try to keep them lighthearted and motivational. But there are times when we must all speak out and address the elephant in the room. This is a big elephant, friends, and it’s not going away on its own. We have to make it go away, and we have to do that in a manner that benefits humanity rather than tearing it down.

This has been a tough year for all of us. Every time we think we’re seeing the end of one crisis, another takes its place. Yet somehow, instead of standing together as we did following the 9/11 attacks, we’re allowing each crisis to divide us further. Our perspective is clouded by politics instead of being guided by a sense of morals. Until that changes, things will never get better.

Violence begets violence, and silence breeds indifference. Somewhere between the two lies an appropriate response. If it’s acceptable to protest the inconvenience of social distancing, it must also be acceptable to protest the immorality of wrongful death. In fact, it’s more than just acceptable – it’s a responsibility we share as citizens of a free nation.

While we must never accept violence, we must also never allow that violence to stain a message of compassion. We’ll get through this. The riots will end, and peace will once again be restored. But our response to those standing peacefully against a grave injustice will say more about us as a nation than any number of fires we have to put out in the process.

That’s all for now. Have a peaceful and blessed day.

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

The Road Will Curve Again – But Will You Be The One Driving?

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off nicely.

For those who missed my follow-up post yesterday, our daughter was diagnosed with a pretty strong case of pneumonia, but no coronavirus. Yes, we live in a time when that’s something to celebrate. “Woohoo! It’s only pneumonia!” They loaded her up with IV antibiotics and then sent her home. Right now, a hospital is not the place to be if you’re sick.

As I’ve mentioned a few times lately, I think we’re just beginning to see the new normal. I read an article yesterday that said oil prices will be down for a long time to come, and I guess we can all feel pretty good about that. Unless you own an oil well, in which case I really don’t feel sorry for you. Of course, they’ll still find a way to drive up gas prices. “Coronavirus blend.” It’s coming.

That said, I was pretty excited when I topped off the tank in the RV for $13. Okay, I used my Kroger fuel points and got a 70-cent discount, but still. I had to risk my life to build up those points. So far, I haven’t given in to online grocery shopping. I still go into the store with a bottle of hand sanitizer in my holster, dodging sneezes the whole way through. I earned that discount.

But now, we don’t have much choice. Our daughter is back home with us, and in no condition to fight off germs. So, we have to dig in a little deeper and find ways to keep the pantry stocked without putting the whole family at risk. I have to assume those rabbits and squirrels dancing in the yard haven’t been watching the news. That’s some pretty low-risk shopping if you ask me.

Okay, I’m kidding. I’ve only shot a squirrel once, and I filled it so full of buckshot it weighed in at six pounds. Needless to say, we had chicken for dinner. I’m just not much of a hunter. I’m too much of a softie. I’ve always said I could shoot a deer if the family were hungry, but only if it didn’t look at me. That one seems to be in the playbook, because they ALWAYS look at you.

Part of me wonders if anybody will eat a wild animal after this. Apparently, that’s where it all started. On the other hand, farm-raised animals aren’t all that safe, either. Every time you turn around, something else is being recalled. Guess we should all become vegetarians. You know, so we can learn the joys of listeria, salmonella, and e-Coli. Guess that’s one way to lose weight.

Hopefully, part of the new “normal” will be more stringent food safety standards. Working from home has been nice, and I could get used to these gas prices. That said, having kids cooped up in the house when there’s a playground within walking distance is for the birds. We need to fix that one. I’ll volunteer to keep the monkey bars clean if I can find some disinfectant.

Another change I hope we’ll see is more people taking control of their health, wealth, and happiness. We seem to go through life looking for the easy path to all three. Find a good job. Get a good doctor. Enjoy the good life. And that’s great, until it’s not. Something can always come along and change what we’ve come to know.

Right now, health and income are the two big ones. If we’ve neglected our health to this point, there’s not a lot we can do to change it overnight. But we can try to optimize our health going forward. Illness doesn’t ask if we’re ready – it just hits. And the healthier we are at the outset, the better our odds of survival. The time to do something about that is now.

The same is true of income. We all know the risks of putting our eggs in one basket, yet that’s what most of us do our entire life. And we know better. Companies fail. Industries die. Recession, pandemics, and even weather can impact our ability to put food on the table. Having a secondary income isn’t just prudent. It’s essential.

This crisis has affected us all in different ways. And right now, when there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s easy to wipe our brow and say, “That was a close one!” Well, guess what? It’ll happen again. Hopefully nothing of this magnitude, but we’ve all faced crisis before, and this won’t be the last one. The question is, will we be any better prepared next time?

Preparation isn’t about watching and waiting. It’s about taking proactive steps to be ready for whatever comes along. Are there things you wish you’d done before this crisis? Then get started now. This won’t be our last crisis. But hopefully, we’ll all be a little better prepared for the next one.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

The Road Is Easier To Travel When You Learn How To Drive

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Well, the weekend is over. I’d ask if you got out and did anything fun, but we all know the answer to that question. Hopefully you still enjoyed some down time. You know, cleaning the house, watching TV, breaking up fights between the kids … I have a feeling when this is all over, nobody will have a problem going back to work. “Overtime? Sure! I’ll do it for free!”

Hopefully you’re able to work anyway, but for most of us that means working in a house full of other people. Conference calls are routinely interrupted by small children, barking dogs, and people walking through the room in varying stages of undress. Let’s just say video conferencing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when the camera is pointed in the wrong direction.


So far, I’ve gotten dressed every single day. Not once have I reported to work in my pajamas. That’s not so much dedication as the fact that our basement gets really cold. The air conditioner is on upstairs, and I’ve got a space heater going downstairs. And I wear shoes because … well, that floor! I’m afraid my socks would stick to it. Maybe it’s time for me to do some cleaning.


I got a little help in that department last week. You know all those images on social media of huge wads of paper towels being pulled from municipal sewers? Well, apparently my neighbors never saw that, because the city had to clean the lines out and guess where it backed up? All around my floor drain, it looked like Main Street after the parade. Try not to visualize.

You know what’s worse than cleaning up you-know-what from the basement floor, ten feet from where you work all day? Not knowing whose it is. And my lower back is so messed up I can’t bend over to pet the dog. I guess I could just sit down on … nope! Not happening! And since nobody else will do it for me, I did the best I could. That’s why God made Clorox.


Okay, enough on that. We’re all trying to deal with some inconveniences right now and figure out a new way of getting through the days. I read an article yesterday that predicted when this is over, we’ll all have to get used to a new “normal.” I don’t think there’s any denying that. The question is, what will that be? And what can we do to be better prepared the next time?

Okay, stockpiling toilet paper still seems to top that list. I can’t imagine what people are doing with it, because after all this time, the stores are still sold out. Well, they’re sold out of the good stuff. It’s easy to see where our priorities lie, because yesterday in Sam’s Club, they had six pallets loaded with their own store brand, and not a single roll of anything else.

But we have preferences. Once our tushie gets used to a certain brand and softness, we don’t want to try anything new. Especially in a 72-roll jumbo pack. What if the good stuff comes in next week? What will you do with all that store-brand paper? Well, I have a feeling teens will have no problem with that one. In a single night, it’ll be all over the police chief’s yard.


I guess what I’m saying is preparation never goes completely to waste. It may not be the answer you’d hoped for, but in a pinch you do what you have to do. In the past two weeks, 10 million people have filed for unemployment. Not because they wanted to, but because they work in an industry where working from home simply isn’t an option. That could be any one of us.


And you know, the next crisis may hit an entirely different segment of the population. Instead of a pandemic, it could be a crash of the nation’s power grid or information network, and those of us who feel pretty secure right now would be scrambling for work. If this crisis has taught us anything, it’s that it can happen. And merely surviving isn’t enough. There are still bills to pay.


I was lucky. I had a second source of income – two, in fact – and I have a job that works well with telecommuting. Even still, I know I have to develop those secondary sources of income to the point I could rely on them in a pinch. We all do. And if you don’t have a secondary source of income, what are you waiting for? Another crisis?


Some of us take vitamins every day. We may never know whether they’re making a difference, but we do it anyway. We pay for insurance, hoping we’ll never need it. And, apparently, we stash a lot of toilet paper. But if the money runs out, none of that matters. Extra income is nice to have – until you really need it. Then it’s worth whatever it took to get there.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Find Your Spare Tire Before You Need It

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Yesterday morning was a jolt to the system. After 12 weeks of being able to start my day at my own pace, I found myself in unfamiliar territory – two rug rats who were a lot more awake than I was, and a tight schedule to get dressed, eat breakfast, and leave for work. Okay, “leaving” means climbing down a flight of stairs to the basement, but it counts.

Abrupt change is a shock to the system, even if it’s something you want. I have to be honest. I wasn’t heartbroken at the prospect of spending a few weeks at home in January. It was a taste of what retirement might be like. The verdict is in – I’ll survive that just fine when the time comes. I never resorted to leather sandals and black knee socks, but the rest felt pretty good.

Still, in the back of my mind, I knew it was temporary. Any time that fact slipped my mind, I had my wife to remind me. Women worry about these things a lot more than men. I knew we’d be okay. I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy most of the time. Any time it starts looking empty, I just pour it into a smaller glass. And a shot glass is still technically a glass. I’m just saying.

Thankfully we had some things going on the side before my job went away. Not enough to live on, but every little bit helps. It’s important to have something to fall back on while you still have the ability to stand. Because sooner or later, something will come along and kick your feet out from under you. And trust me, that ground gets a lot harder with age.

When that happens, our first reaction is usually some level of panic. Then we start to think a little more rationally. Finally, creativity slips in and we start looking at things we’d never considered. The only problem is most of those creative ideas require a little time to start generating an income. If only you’d started six months ago. Sound familiar?

And what happens? The crisis ends, and we go right back to what we were doing before. Only this time, it’ll be different. Because we said so, that’s why. And if the same thing happens again, we’ll be a lot better prepared. Only next time, it won’t be the same thing. It’ll be something you’d never anticipated. Like now. Who would’ve ever dreamed of something like this?

Well, you know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s delusional, at best. My street has two ends. They never change. I can drive from one end to the other, and I’ll always end up in the same place. It doesn’t matter how I drive, or what kind of car I use. The destination is always the same. Unless the brakes fail. Then things change real fast.

That doesn’t mean what you were doing before is all wrong. But if what you were doing left you high and dry with nothing but a savings account to fall back on, you may want to consider a different approach moving forward. And the time to get started is now – before the need arises.

Cars have a spare tire you hope you never need, but potholes happen. And when they do, they can literally knock the wind out of your tires. That’s pretty much true with most things in life. Things will never be the same as they were, and they won’t always go the way we’d planned. The question is, do you have a spare?

Dad always used to remind me to check the air in my spare tire. You see, it’s not enough to have something on the back burner, forgotten until the need arises. A spare tire needs an occasional shot of air, fire extinguishers need to be recharged, and fallback sources of income need to be running above idle. At the very least, keep some gas in the tank. Good stuff.

Change affects us all in different ways, and preparation helps to minimize the impact. Hopefully you were ready for this crisis. But could you do it again next year? It could happen. You can save yourself a lot of sleepless nights by finding that spare tire today. Hopefully you’ll never need it. In that case, it’s just money in the bank. And who couldn’t use a little of that?

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Breathe – This Too Shall Pass

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Mine started off completely different. Before I even had my first cup of coffee, I went to the store to see if I could get lucky on some items that have been part of the panic hoarding. You know, a box of macaroni and a small bag of rice. Apparently, these things are part of the miracle cure for coronavirus. I never got that memo.

Since the stores are closed overnight for cleaning and re-stocking, I went at opening time. Well, a half-hour later, complete aisles were empty. It’s pretty obvious what happened last night. At least they were gracious enough to throw away the empty liquor bottles after the party ended.

This will eventually settle down, and then the stores won’t sell any of these items at all for another six months, except to those of us who only bought what we needed for the next week or two. Funny, there’s no shortage of hand soap. I guess if you use enough toilet paper, you don’t need it. Mom, are you listening?

Another thing that’s plentiful is dog food. I went to the store yesterday to hoard … I mean, buy … some of that. The shelves were completely full. I guess if this thing keeps going long enough, we can buy a little extra and mix it with some pinto beans and cheese to make a casserole. I mean, the dog has no problem eating our food. Fair is fair.

I remember when I was a kid walking into Grandma’s kitchen and she was snacking on something. Grandma had one glass eye and was nearly blind in the other. She saw me come in and asked, “Do you want some candy? It’s good!” I said, “Grandma, that’s dog food!” She couldn’t dig it out of her mouth fast enough. It went from tasty to poison in less than a second.

That story would be a whole lot funnier if it really was candy and I was just playing a trick on her. Needless to say, I never tried any. It may have been awesome. I’ll take her word for it.

They say desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m assuming the reason stores are out of Kleenex and paper towels is that, in a pinch, they can be used for cleaning something a little more personal. But when my granddaughter ran out of Kleenex and started wiping her nose with toilet paper, that’s where I drew the line. She can have one of my old tee shirts for that.

I hate to see forced hibernation, but that may be what it’ll take to let this all settle down. We need to get a grip. There is no shortage of toilet paper or any of these other items. They are just temporarily out of stock. That’s all. Granted, if you’re out and can’t buy any, that’s a problem. Just visit your neighbors. Odds are one of them has enough to supply the whole block.

Panic doesn’t solve problems – it creates them. When we approach a problem with a level head, solutions appear. Panic is a reaction that clouds our judgment and compounds problems. Whether the problem is health-related, financial, marital, or just about anything else, our ability to maintain an even keel and work through the problem is critical to our success.

Tackle what you can today, and worry about the rest tomorrow. In that time, some of the remaining issues will resolve on their own. And even if they don’t, you’ll be that much better suited to work through them. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. Do you have enough food and toilet paper for today? Then who cares if the store is empty? Move on to the next problem.

This crisis will go away. It may take a while, and we will certainly have to adapt in the meantime. But the sooner we settle down and face the real problems instead of creating artificial ones, the sooner we’ll be able to get on with the business of living. And that doesn’t stop with the coronavirus. It’ll be that way throughout the rest of your life.

Whenever you’re faced with a mountain of problems, break it down. Some are real problems, and some are perceived. Some require your immediate attention, and some will work their way through with no help from you. Focus on the things you can fix. One step at a time, one day at a time. Breathe in and breathe out. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom always to know the difference.” Words to live by, now and always.

That’s all for now.  Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

If You’re Not Driving, You’re Just Along For The Ride

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off well.

If you’re among the majority of the nation, your day didn’t start out like last Tuesday. Kids are home from school, parents are working from home (if they’re able to work at all), and all around us the world is slowly grinding to a halt. Hopefully you’ve got enough of the essentials to carry you through for a few days, because your neighbors cleaned the shelves at the store.

There was a story in the news about a guy in Tennessee who rented a truck and bought up every bottle of hand sanitizer he could find. Once the stores were empty, he put the items on Amazon and eBay for as much as 80 times what he paid for them. Both outlets shut him down, and he’s stuck with 17,700 bottles he can’t sell. Now he can’t afford toilet paper. Instant karma.

I normally try to mix in a little humor in my posts, but there’s not a lot to laugh about in this crisis. I read yesterday that up to 80 million jobs will be impacted, and in the coming week as many as 10 million people could be out of work. Never mind the kids whose school year was interrupted, or the high school seniors who may be denied the spectacle of public graduation.

Life, as we know it, has changed. And while we will eventually weather the storm and come out safe on the other end, things we’ve taken for granted have changed forever. At the top of that list is our feeling of security. It’s a reminder that life can come along when we least expect it and change everything in a moment.

The last recession is still a vivid memory. Most of us were impacted by it, and it’s taken the better part of 12 years to recover. Yet, in a matter of days, most of those gains have been wiped out. Hopefully this crisis won’t last so long, but recovery will take time and the landscape will look very different when it’s all over. Where we fit in that landscape may yet be unknown.

When you rely completely on one source of income, your exposure to risk increases exponentially. That’s why I’ve always tried to have a few things I could fall back on. A little here and a little there adds up. When you’re working, it’s extra income. It’s a chance to enjoy some of life’s finer experiences. And if the job ends, it becomes your immediate means of survival.

You never know what may happen to change your situation. Two years ago, I had brain surgery. That could have put me out of commission for good. You could be on your way to work tomorrow and somebody decides to take your lane. It happened to my wife. All manner of things can happen to change life as you know it. The question is, what will you do then?

To the extent that you can rely on yourself for income, and not somebody else, you have a better chance of controlling the outcome of things over which you have little control. I’ve never once fired myself from a job. Have you? If your company closed its doors tomorrow, could you continue making an income on your own? Every little bit helps.

Dig the well before you get thirsty. You’ve read those words before. There are things we can all be doing now that may not make a major difference in the next week or so, and maybe not even for a few months. But they could make all the difference in the world as we move forward and find our new place in life. If you’re out of work already, why not put that time to use?

It’s funny how we scramble to find a quick solution when we need money, yet we’re quick to scoff at anything outside of the traditional 8-5 job. But at a time when so many companies are sending people home, doesn’t a business of your own make that much more sense? The problem isn’t a lack of opportunities. It’s an overabundance of misplaced pride.

If you’re over the age of 30, odds are somebody at some time has offered you the chance to build a home-based business. And, if you’re among more than 99% of the adult population, you turned it down. Granted, owning a business is no guarantee of success. You have to work at it, and you may still struggle. But right now, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to work at?

This crisis will end. And then something else will happen. That’s the reality of life. Handling those ups and downs will depend heavily on the choices you make now – before the need arises. To the extent that you control the variables, you control the results. Put yourself in the driver’s seat and you’ll never have to wonder where you’re headed.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

It’s Only a Crisis If You Didn’t See it Coming

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is starting off well.

I’ve often wondered what I would do if I got up in the morning and the coffee maker was broken. I know, if you’re a coffee drinker, that deserves an apology because it’s not a vision any of us wants to imagine. That rates right up there with flat tires and sitting down to the sound of the seat ripping out of your pants. At work. In a conference room. Full of the company’s top executives. Get the picture?

Thankfully, coffee makers don’t usually just quit all at once. You get a little advance warning. It starts brewing really slowly, it makes funny noises, and you start seeing chunks of something that doesn’t look like coffee grounds in the bottom of your cup. If that happens, run – don’t walk – to the nearest coffee maker store. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself without coffee when you need it the most.

It’s that way with a lot of things in life. You fall into a comfort zone where things are going well, and the thought of an abrupt change is the last thing on your mind. But it happens, and usually when you expect it the least. And it can require immediate action to avoid an even bigger mess. A lot of times, the outcome is largely dependent on our ability to act quickly at the first sign of trouble.

Rarely does anything go seriously wrong without at least some advance signs of trouble. Usually, we think about those signs after the wheel falls off the car and realize there was a noise we couldn’t quite identify, or a little extra sway in turns. It’s easy to write it off and just keep driving. But sooner or later, the problem will demand our attention. And the longer we wait, the more expensive it gets.

I have to take my car in for repairs this morning. I can’t quite describe the noise coming from the front end other than to say it sounds like I’m pushing a bulldozer blade down the road. And my car doesn’t have a bulldozer blade, so that’s probably not normal. And, thinking back, it’s been making little noises for a few weeks. I ignored those warnings, so now it’s shouting them at full volume.

But this isn’t really about coffee pots or cars. It’s about life. Because all through our life, things change. Relationships falter, the bank sends a foreclosure notice, the doctor walks in with bad news, or you find out you need a new job – like now. Any one of these things, or dozens of others, can throw you right out of your comfort zone and into full-blown survival mode.

It can hit you like a ton of bricks, but more often than not, there were signs of trouble long before the sky fell in. Those signs may have been subtle, or they may have like a red flashing light, something you couldn’t have missed with your eyes half-closed. But it’s easy to ignore those initial warning signs until they start screaming at us. By then, comfort has turned to crisis and we have no choice but to do something about it.

We talked earlier this week about creativity, and if you want to see creative thought in overdrive, put yourself in a crisis. You’ll dream up things you would never have thought of, simply because you don’t have any other choice. What you’ve been doing hasn’t worked, so now you have to do something different – maybe something you’ve never done before.

And most times, we look back later and wonder why we didn’t just do that in the first place. Maybe it was something so completely out of character, or out of our comfort zone, that it never really crossed our mind. And I’m not talking about anything immoral or illegal. Just a different approach that we never would have considered. But now, it’s the perfect fix. It’s the right thing at the right time.

Again, the change may be subtle, something you do without really batting an eye. It can also be something monumental that takes a complete leap of faith into the unknown. Or it could be something in between, where we have the option to make the easier move or to put it all on the line and make it work. Notice I didn’t say “hope for the best” – it’s all or nothing.

If we take notice at the first sign of impending trouble, we can usually avoid a crisis. And if we assess our options before they have to become choices, we can move in the direction we choose rather than the direction in which we’re pushed. A minor course correction may be all that’s needed, if we do it early enough. The goal never really changes – just the path you’ll follow to get there.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day and a fantastic weekend!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved