I got home from an appointment this afternoon and turned on the TV. I immediately heard a news flash about the shooting at a community college in Oregon. As I write this, President Obama is holding a news conference about this tragedy. Across the country, thousands of people, maybe millions, are worrying about a shooting happening where they live. A lot of people really live in fear of this type of shooting, although the chances of actually being in one are very low. Just for the record, I grew up around guns, and firmly believe in gun ownership. But we need to find some way to try and eliminate this type of tragedy. Shooting deaths are a social storm we are all trying to figure out how to deal with or eliminate if possible. But no one can predict where and when the next mass shooting will be. This is a type of uncertainty that we have to live with today.
After watching the news flash about the shooting this afternoon, I turned on The Weather Channel. They were reporting about Hurricane Joaquin, at the time a Category 3 hurricane hovering over the Bahamas. When I first heard of this storm a few days ago, it was "tropical depression 11." At that time, the meteorologists predicted it MIGHT turn into a tropical storm before heading northeast into the Atlantic and not causing any harm to the U.S.. Now, as I write this, Joaquin is a Category 4 hurricane, and will head in the general direction of my home in central North Carolina tomorrow. It might veer east, farther into the Atlantic. But three of the latest computer models have the storm heading right to this part of NC. Even if Joaquin never makes landfall, we are supposed to have a minimum of three to six inches of rain here, a week when we've already had flooding in the metro area. We could possibly have as much as 20 inches of rain, and we could possibly get hit head on by the storm. Even with satellites and all of today's technology, no one can predict exactly where Hurricane Joaquin is going, and where it will make landfall on the East Coast. This is another type of uncertainty we just have to live with today.
After watching those two channels this afternoon, I turned on CNBC, the main business channel. The Dow Jones average was down over 200 points at one time today. A dozen of the Dow stocks are in "bear market territory." That means those stocks are down 20% or more from the highs of the past 12 months. Nearly every day lately the stock market goes up or down more than 100 points. The seasoned traders don't know what's going on. Legendary investor Carl Icahn just made a video this week warning of hard financial times ahead. He's a billionaire who spent his own money to produce a high quality video to warn people, both professional investors and average Americans, that we are in scary economic times. We could be heading into another recession, or we could be in a time of restructuring where the markets are finding a new normal. No one can predict exactly where the stock market, or other financial instruments, will be a few months or years from now. This is yet another type of uncertainty we just have to live with today.
You see the theme I'm getting at? We are in a period of great change in human society, and uncertainty is a big part of the equation. It's a storm of storms. Things are changing in all kinds of arenas. Part of coping with this era of rapid change is dealing with a high level of uncertainty. So... how are you at dealing with uncertainty? What can you do? How can you better prepare yourself to weather the myriad of societal storms happening right now?
Let's stick to the storm analogy. How do you prepare for a big storm? You stock up on supplies you might need. You think of the worst case scenario, and make a plan in case it happens. Then you hunker down and deal with whatever life throws at you. The best thing to remember about storms of any kind is that they are temporary. Remember the old adage, "This too shall pass."
Another thing about storms is that they create opportunities. Downed trees provide work for wood cutters and utility workers. Financial storms provide lots of opportunities to buy things at a discount. A "storm" in a certain industry opens up many new opportunities for entrepreneurs. It's no secret that many businesses are started during recessions and depressions or paradigm shifts in that industry. The key here is learning to deal with uncertainty in a rational and thoughtful way, instead of freaking out like so many people do. So... what opportunities do you see in the many storms we face today?
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