If You Stay Ready You Don’t Have to get ready.

When I first started working after graduate school, one of my main goals was to get to the right job, making the right money, get all my affairs in order. I had a very linear way of thinking about life. Granted, I was young, and life and been pretty good (and predictable) so far. This was before my mother got sick and passed, the house burned down, my father suddenly passing away along with being laid off. I look back on my younger self and laugh because other than aging and going to school there aren’t many linear paths through our existence.

Those events taught me an important lesson, and now I see something in a new light that we always said growing up in the streets of Richmond CA. We always said: “If you stay ready, you won’t have to get ready.” After losing my first career position, one that I thought I would retire and die in, I learned stay ready. Now I always look for new opportunities. Honestly, it is easier to say no when you have a job than when you don’t.

Like most people, we started off the New Year with clear linear plans for life: home, family, exercise, vacation and career. Things were going as planned on this linear path. Then, a Black Swan events like COVID-19 happens. It will probably send 2020 down as being one of the worse events in our history, but it is a great example of the non-linear path that life takes. It has been a great example of staying ready. For example we had been settling in to a great workout routine in the gym. But gyms are closed. We are actually down significantly in weight since Shelter in Place, because we stay ready and knew what the workout would look like.

Many people have had their retirements postponed, even completely lost. Job offers have been pulled back as unemployment skyrockets. Every plan is probably on hold or destroyed with COVID-19 and the financial crisis that ensued.

Personally, we will overcome this terrible time and new opportunity will be created from this chaos. You just have to be aware and see it for what it is. You have to be ready and flexible to keep going and growing. It was a famous song from a Claymation move “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” called “Put one foot in front of the other” by Jules Bass. This song encapsulates it never being too late to change yourself or your life. It is nearly impossible at this point predict how your life with proceed even with the best laid plans. Keep that in mind, rest assured that there isn’t a perfect time to start anything. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.

I am grateful that my wife and I started our side hustle a year and a half ago. Although I am an essential worker with the Department of Public Health, Ann lost all her speaking gigs. She is now working the side hustle full time, and growing it faster than before.

I urge you to take this time to re-prioritize what is important to you and execute on whatever it is, be it the side hustle, a new career, downsizing, a simpler way of living, or even living healthy. Just know it all starts with you taking action and realizing that the path is winding but ultimately this is path you want to be on.