Two weeks ago, the state of Nevada ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses…

Even crazier…

The governor essentially gave businesses 12 hours to shut down.

Yikes, right?

Considering I own a call center with over 70 employees…

This could have been a disaster…😱

But actually, it was totally fine.

Why?

Preparation.

Over a month ago, my COO Mark saw the writing on the wall…

So, he and other members of our leadership developed a plan for taking the entire workforce remote.👨‍💻

It wasn’t as simple as “bring your computer home”…

There was software to be installed, new computers to be purchased for some of our agents, a bunch of security measures that needed to be implemented, ways to continue monitoring productivity remotely that needed to be stress-tested, etc…🤯

But leadership gave themselves plenty of time to figure all of this out.

Then, our agents and leadership actually started going remote…

Around 36 hours before the governor ended up announcing the closure of businesses.

It feels like we dodged a bullet…

And it’s all thanks to the power of preparation. 😎

Most of us hate to do it…

But it just never hurts to plan for the worst.

In fact, planning for a worst-case scenario carries very little risk or downside…

But the upside when those “worst cases moments do occur”…

Is tremendous.

It’s the difference between a fragmented, disoriented entity that’s at risk of shutting down…

And one that continues marching on.

And it's not just businesses.

This applies to individuals, too. 

What I’ve noticed with this COVID-19 stuff so far…

Is that some of the people in my network are doing quite fine, or even thriving currently…

While others seem completely dazed and lost.

It’s actually fascinating and terrifying…

To see people I know who were just so blindsided by this…

That now they're just stumbling along…

Or falling into a depression.

To me, it's kind of nuts.

Cause shit happens…

Life marches on…

And ultimately, we’re all going to be fine…

But what those people are experiencing is a very real psychological phenomenon.

You see, in the past, they’ve actually done studies about this…

Where social scientists have looked at gruesome events…

To figure out what the survivors did differently than the non-survivors.

For example, there’s a famous case of a jetliner that caught fire on the runway…

And about half the passengers lived, and half the passengers died.

What they found from interviews with the survivors…

Is that overwhelmingly the survivors mentioned how whenever they get on a plane…

They had a mental habit of immediately noting where the exits were…

And most of them even tended to run through a quick thought exercise of what they would do if they had to evacuate.

It's important to note that this mental exercise is mostly done subconsciously, in a matter of seconds…

And yet, it's so vital…

Because while researchers obviously can’t interview the deceased…

What they heard from the survivors…

Is that they were shocked to see people who, as the plane was going up in flames, just remained in their seats with their belts fastened.

The survivors remembered screaming at them to “get up, get up, move, what are you doing?”…

But the hapless passengers just couldn’t muster a response…

They were entirely shocked.

And it led to their truly horrid demise.

Kind of gruesome, I know…

But time and time again…

This same phenomenon has been reported.

Mass shootings, massacres, natural disasters, you name it…

The ones who are most likely to survive…

Are the same ones who had already envisioned what would happen in a similar situation…

And the reason why…

Is because just taking a few moments to do these mental exercises when things are normal…

Can help the brain to avoid going into shock when a nightmare scenario really does come true.

Interesting stuff, right?

Anyways, not trying to compare our call center going remote to mass shootings or casualties…

Business is one thing, and human life is another…

So please don’t think I’m conflating these points…

Rather, I just couldn’t help but point out that interesting aside.

And, with that being said…

Going back to the call center…

It serves as an important reminder to me…

Which is that it never hurts to be prepared.

But it almost always hurts to be caught off guard.

So, yeah…

That’s it for today.

Gonna go jump on my RMBC Course now…

I should be pretty much finished with it by the end of this week!

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.