Making Sense From Noise

SARS Covid-19 has been the subject of much news, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, official announcements, misinformation, speculation, foreign government and political posturing. This led to various groups popping up claiming only they have the ‘true’ information, often followed by ads for cures with doubtful benefits. This is not a ‘Doomsday’ prediction! Optimistic about 3-5 years out.

This pandemic has been a science nightmare and evidence of caring people trying any treatment they can think of to save lives. Quarantines, Stay Home orders, physical distancing, and drugs developed for other diseases. So many first responders, doctors, nurses, aides, and other professionals have been running to help solve this issue. However this makes cures harder to scientifically verify.

Not helpful were China hiding initial information, WHO mismanaging information and research, western governments unprepared and underestimating risk, and everyone trying to blame someone else to cover their missteps. Typical human behaviors.

Facts have been able to discern:

1.     Highly Contagious Virus. First appeared like a Flu but more contagious. No one has immunity since new novel coronavirus.

2.     People are spreading Cvid-19 with no symptoms or before symptoms are obvious. Pattern about week before symptoms, if serious may be hospitalized for week to a month. Then patients need rehabilitation to return home.

3.     Apparently mutated in Italy becoming more dangerous.

4.     More serious for people with compromised immune systems and older patients. However seeing people of all ages infected and dying. Latest study over 75 patients under 15 with unusual conditions.

5.     Appears to be natural source like SARS, MERS and many other diseases. One person from a lab would not cause a widespread breakout compared to thousands out in nature interacting with animals everyday.

6.     If you had it, because of future mutations you may not be immune. Similar to the common cold some us catch every year or so.

7.     Vaccines may take a year, several years, or never be successful. Treatments are likely to rapidly improve results due to experimentation.

Likely will happen:

1.     Curing Covid-19 will take longer than predicted.

2.     Tremendous medical progress results in new treatments and preventions.

3.     Social Distancing will tend to weaken because we get overconfident, or miss family and friends too much. Children in school likely spread disease.

4.     Breakouts will be local and fast spreading all over the world.

5.     Negative effects on global economy will last longer than most people think. Also expect higher taxes to pay for debt over next decade.

6.     There will be some permanent changes in consumer and business behaviors. Remote work will be much more widespread. 

7.     Expect business travel and vacation travel to return over a few years. Both have been important to growing economies.

8.     Unemployment will partially recover quickly as service businesses reopen. However lots of jobs will permanently be gone. Will take several years for creating new jobs to replace missing jobs.

9.     Distrust of other countries will rise. Competition between China, Europe, United States and other countries will trim global trade.

Based on facts and observations, expect we are in for one or two hard years. Beyond that we are going to see great technical progress, new medical discoveries, and global economies growing worldwide over the rest of the decade.

Short term:

1.     Stay healthy by following basics until risks are reduced.

2.     Stay in touch with family and friends. Joy and laughter improve health.

3.     Reduce unnecessary spending for a year or two until your career is secure.

4.     If you are still working, increase your emergency funds and consider delaying retirement. If not working find taxi jobs and educate yourself.

5.     If your job is secure, around fall and winter there will be wonderful deals for homes and autos.

We have adapted and thrived through worse disruptions throughout history. Don’t underestimate resourcefulness, learning and growth. Long term we will benefit from these disruptions. Maintain your faith, and know God is in charge.

Your Job Is Not Secure

Especially if you are over 50. The Urban Institute study by Richard W. Johnson and Peter Goesselin tracked 2,086 people from 1992 to 2018 until they were 65. Study showed regardless of education level 28% were laid off / business closed, 13% quit for job dissatisfaction/boss, 13% unexpected retirement, 9% health / disability / family, and 2% other. Total 66% careers disrupted with over 6 months unemployment or family income down by 50%. Only 19% choose to retire and 16% are still working after 65.

Employers have an aversion to hiring older workers. “Only 1 in 10 of involuntarily separated workers ever earned as much after their separation as before. Median household income fell 42 percent following an employer-related involuntary job separation”. 

Interesting most job growth is over 55, but mostly low paying jobs like “home health-care, personal health-care and in janitorial services. It might be the bargaining power of older people is just not pushing up wages,” - labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci.

What can we do?

1) Save more money for retirement. Every year when you get a raise, increase your % retirement savings and your emergency savings. Avoiding unnecessary debt. Buy a smaller home and less expensive or used cars.

2) Keep learning and developing skills in demand while working. Research your and other industries. What skills do your company need they are having a hard time hiring? What skills related your existing strengths are other employers having a hard time hiring? These jobs should pay better. If your employer won’t pay for it, you pay for it. Community colleges are very affordable. Be more productive, a revenue producer and value creator. Make sure your boss realizes that.

3) If you are laid off, deal with the emotional loss first. Take a little time to grieve your loss, work is a large part of identity. Start collecting unemployment and find what benefits you can get immediately. Work a taxi job beneath your education to get through. Work off any kind helps your confidence. Consider freelance work full time. Companies often hire experience people at higher pay on projects, rather than hire full time.

4) Keep your health up. Exercise and eat healthy to stay energetic.  You will enjoy your life better than sedentary coworkers. Plus you will be more productive and a key person to keep.

5) Plan on downsizing your condo/house after you retire. Move to a community or near family in an affordable area when your income goes down. After layoffs my wife and I shared an apartment with a roommate to save on expenses until our income recovered.

None of this is pleasant to consider. However only 1 in 8 work till full retirement age, we must prepare and expect difficulties in life. My preparations got me hired after 50 by a Fortune 100 company at a higher income. These steps will give you resilience and a better career.

Links to articles below:

Urban Institute ‘How Secure Is Employment at Older Ages?’

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99570/how_secure_is_employment_at_older_ages_2.pdf

Marketwatch - ‘Holding on to a job after age 50 isn’t always easy’

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/holding-on-to-a-job-after-age-50-isnt-always-easy-2020-02-07

AARP - ‘Workplace Age Discrimination Still Flourishes in America’

https://www.aarp.org/work/working-at-50-plus/info-2019/age-discrimination-in-america.html

Respect for People

To move forward in life you have to find mentors to teach you. They often don’t even know they have taught you about life. It is not a formal job title. You find mentors everywhere.

Two men who mentored me were both named Robbie Robinson, many years apart. Both men helped a much younger man grow despite my being white.

Mawthorne “Robbie” Robinson trained me as a material handler, a summer replacement worker of 19. Be on time, be organized, work hard, and help your coworkers be productive. Eastman Kodak paid well, his son was also a summer replacement and decided to stay. He celebrated my going back to college, and wished his son did. His words and example helped me persist when I struggled to graduate college, and when work was hard.

Robbie Robertson was the husband of our engineering secretary. He carried himself well in any situation at work and in public, and always took care of people. Robbie was use to fame, a retired negro league baseball player. Being married to a white woman had to expose them both to some awkward situations, but you never knew it around them. Learned from Robbie both working with people and gracefully handling the inevitable aches and pains of aging. Useful now in my 60s.

In trying times, respect people with different views than our own. Mentors are family members, people you know, commentators, humorists, religious leaders, and writers who challenge our thinking. Find more mentors today for your tomorrows.

“If you never venture beyond what you know... You’ve spawned your own limitations.” - Sumner Redstone

It’s Okay to be Wrong

Didn’t get the Memo? You are not alone. Most of us grew up trying to give the right answer in school. Was embarrassing to be wrong. Had to sit down when you couldn’t spell the word in the spelling bee. (Still be one of the first out today)

Did not have the right result in math? Teacher would figure out where you got off track, and help you. It is called Learning.

No one gets the words or notes right the first time they sing a song. Singers spend hours practicing and honing a song. Artists create drafts before they paint or sculpture. Writers edit more than they write.

What about investing. Most people may have an idea, but no one knows when. Remember the experts said if Donald Trump were to beat Hilary, the stock market would drop due to uncertainty? Results: Dow Jones is up $3,600 to over $22,000 (+19%) in half year. No one really knows. The pundits gave no chance to President Trump. Most pundits are still working.

Most mistakes are not life or death. If you are responsible for other people’s lives, you do have a higher standard for getting it right. Train to be successful.

Stop criticizing other people’s mistakes. Remember you own. We are human. So are you. It is okay to try and fail. No need to be embarrassed about it. Failure is a necessary step to success.

Remember weathered, sore muscled, traveled, opinionated, businessman-engineer and former C student. I Could Be Wrong. 

“At Harvard, the A students tend to become professors and the C students become wealthy donors." - Larry Summers

What is Going Right?

We are all Too Hard on Ourselves. We look at our mistakes and weaknesses, and beat ourselves up. Then we try to fix our weaknesses.

Strengths Make Us Special. You are not reading this because it is spelled right, nor typed well. You read this to Make Your Life Better.
(Flunked many spelling tests, type 25 words per minute with errors,  and still contributed to 2 books.)

Forgive Yourself. None of us is perfect. New uncomfortable experiences are called Learning. 

Work on your strengths, try them out, and Be Grateful for what went right.

Losing

The protesters are complaining President Elect Trump is “not their president”. Immediate thought “Whiners”. (Never naturally “PC”)

Technically they are right, President Obama does not turn over the position until January 20^th. They have a couple months until he will be President #45 Donald J. Trump, and everyone’s president.

BTW this is nothing new. Remember people saying the same thing when Obama won, Bush won, Clinton won, and back till I was young. And if you think this campaign was crude, you never read editorials from Yellow Journalism from the late 1800s, and from Colonial times. Our forefathers did the same.

It hurts to lose. You were so sure you were right. This was the year for your team. Then it does not go your way. Sometimes a close one, other times you get creamed. Someone else gets promoted. The person you wanted dates someone else. You get outbid on a home. The joke falls flat. We have all been there.

What really hurts is finding out people do not think your way. It is logical to you. Their choice is logical to them. Colleges are into groupthink. They are misleading their students about the real world. When I went to college it was expected other people thought about thing differently. Now saying it may get you punished.

Some of us choose to lose. We play against more experienced and talented players. We take chances. Write songs and posts no one hears or reads. Even after years of practice, still see horrible sentences with incomprehensible meanings. OMG I really wrote that? Afraid so.

The reason it is okay to lose, that is how you learn. Trial and error and error and error teaches us.

It is okay to vent and protest. That is why we have free speech. Go ahead and talk about it. Every says, “It is not fair.” Work can suck.

What is not okay is breaking car, business and home windows. That is not influential. That person probably voted for your candidate. They believed what you believed. Now you damaged their property and they have to pay for it.

Anarchist does not mean power. Anarchist is a “petty criminal” who needs to grow up.

Remember January 20^th President Trump.

BTW voted, but for 3^rd party. My vote was a protest.

Greatness Starts with Awkward

It looks easy when someone does it. The painting is perfect. The music sounds great. The picture is perfect. The article is flawless.

Little do you know how awkward or clumsy it was the first time the painter tried that technique. The musician struggled with simple scales to learn finger techniques. The photographer took shots out of focus and cut off the heads of his friends.

I write and know how hard it is to organize your thoughts. My first drafts were hard to read and understand. The sentences were not complete. Thoughts dropped off without explanation. New ideas popped up off topic. Too much was stuffed into the first article and the pages kept growing.

In short it was awful.

But I kept working on it. Edit, put it down, and much later read it again and edit some more. Then the article got circulated to other writers and my editor for feedback. More ideas for changes and edits. Realized my story was too complex and broke it into several stories that stood on their own, and the readers could understand the point. More re-reading and editing the same article over weeks.

The articles that were published looked polished and still read well today. Got high praise and people thanking me for writing down my ideas.

Guess what. My writing skills came from giving myself permission to write ugly. It is how we all learn. “Trial and error and error and error.” Pick ourselves up and try to do it better next time.

Go out today and see what you can learn. After some hard work you will be the artist.