While the Tide Is Out

I do not know about you, but I am fed up with excuses and the fear those excuses are reinforcing. There are two biggies right now in the excuse department: the Recession and the Holidays. They are getting in the way of everything we think and contributing to a bigger lie – which is that no one is buying anything. Codswallop, I say. What if I replaced the word Recession with Low Tide and the word Holidays with New Moon? What big lie could that engender? After all, they are just words.

Granted the moon and the tides are related in that the periodic rise and fall of the sea level has to do with the gravitational pull of the moon. That relationship is not equal to the cause and effect of a holiday and an economic cycle. But making such a relationship is not my purpose. My purpose is to support two three-word ideas: Stop Saying It and Get Over It. Besides, there are a lot of things we can do while the tide is out and we do not need a lot of reflected light to do them. But let’s consider first things first.

Stop Saying It. Quit indulging in the blame game that the economy is somehow gypping everyone. It is not. There is just less money in circulation. It is nothing more than that. The gyp is the pernicious notion that economies are static, like water in a concrete pool. Granted such changes require some getting used to. At this time the paucity of cash in circulation has undermined some of our previously held, perhaps unfounded, political and market ideas. That is not my point. If you believe that something is bad, it probably will be. If you allow yourself to believe that something is good, it definitely can be. When prices drop, we call that a deal. Where is the gyp in opportunity?

Get Over It. All right, already, Merry Christmas, damn it! Besides, you know I mean well. It might be nice to have more cash or perhaps more credit, but other than consumption, what do cash and credit have to do with customs that were conceived and enjoyed in utter poverty? Now is the time to re-evaluate how we celebrate our hallowed days. While we are at it, we might as well start planning for next year in our homes and our businesses.

So what can we do while the tide is out without a lot of reflected light? We could scrape barnacles off the bottom of our boats. We could fix the dock. We could do some crabbing. The operating word here is We. In business, for example, we can readjust our business plans. We can rethink our pricing. We can reconsider our advertising and sales efforts. If people are not buying, it is because we are not making it easy for them to do so. When we do, they will. That is worth celebrating.

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This posting also appears at the Organized Business Blog, which focuses on business management and consulting issues.