Optimism is Courage

Optimism = Courage

(Entrepreneurs + Strength)/Courage = Optimism

Ed Basquill

Optimism is courage! I am calling all entrepreneurs to be strong and courageous. It is a simple formula, missed by most because of the double F factor, Fear, and Failure. You have been gifted with some lemons. Make me some lemonade.

The world just radically changed. It drastically changed just like it did when we had the dust bowl described in "The Grapes of Wrath." It changed like it did when we had World War II and our technology-enabled a blitzkrieg of death that spread like a virus that then metastasized into weapons of mass destruction. It changed on 9-11, when terror spread like a relapsed cancer from World War II, the last war to end all wars, creating a WMD out of an airship, combining the Kamikaze with a technical education in method to kill lacking in knowledge in humanity that may have led to restraint.

Preacher Robert Schuller famously said, "Tough times don't last, tough people, do." He was horribly, criminally wrong. His Crystal Cathedral went bankrupt in 2010, a cautionary tale involving millions in payouts to insiders. He is wrong when the "tough times" are a change, and the "tough people" are the people who won't adapt to the change. There are no tough bullwhip factories hanging on and making millions. There are no tough spring breakers who aren't sick or are not typhoid Mary's silently serial, killing better men than themselves.

Change happens, those who adapt thrive. Farming practices changed, so we don't create dust bowls in the USA anymore. We formed the United Nations and attempted to keep the peace. There was a global war on terror that is, for the most part, won—or de minimis compared to our other events.

I challenge our leaders to have a vision of how the global pandemic may permanently change the economy, and change policies to get us there. 

Here are some ideas plucked from the headlines.

• There has been discussion in the news of the cruise lines. 
• There are ships full of sick people no one wants to offload in their community. 

There has been a discussion of a bail-out for the cruise ship industry.  

Even after this is over, the cruise ship industry is dead as it now exists. President Trump said at his news conference that he would like to build a couple more hospital ships. He has also said we are at war with an invisible enemy. I would use the war powers act to seize and commission those cruise ships, partner with the private sector and turn them into hospital ships. Pandemics are the future if people live in unsanitary conditions and travel. The biggest surprise on this pandemic is it came out of China and not Central America or Africa.

If auto manufacturers can switch gears from cars and make ventilators, they can manufacture other things too, to enable work from home and the new economy. A "work from home mentality" will help with car emissions. The countless photos in the news of empty highways is a harbinger for the future. The untold story is the people who are unaffected by working from home, which should have been working home ten years ago. Still, companies have been resistant to change and slow to adopt the technology that they are now being forced by circumstances to adopt. 29% of carbon emissions are transportation. Why are we making unessential trips anyway?

 Restaurants can have smaller dining rooms and more robust delivery. Universal healthcare seems more palatable when the whole country can be shut down because someone on the other side of the world has an idiotic healthcare system.

Many events and conferences held on a yearly or biyearly basis have been forced to shut down. One such event taking COVID-19 deathly seriously was NAB, the National Association of Broadcaster. They hold their international event yearly in Vegas to show off new technology to better our ability to communicate. The crisis stopped it dead in its tracks. An example of the formula I mentioned above is a small Global Veteran Owned Systems Integrator. HA Design Group. www.hadesign.net They are putting on their own Virtual NAB at their cost. They have reached out to almost all of the vendors and will be holding a Virtual NAB that will point customers back to the manufacturers they need to discover more information. Ha Design Group is an example of an entrepreneur who has headed that courageous call to optimism (press release for this event www.hadesign.net)

This is the kind of innovation and change we should encourage! I am a member of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville Kentucky. There recent sermon series titled "catch the wind" describes adapting to the change, and going where God is leading. They invested in an online ministry before the pandemic, as we believe a church isn't a building, and people should be out of the building being Jesus to people