Crisis Creates Opportunity

The 4th of July weekend was amazing. The surf and weather were virtually perfect in San Diego. My brother-in-law, wife, six children, and a couple arriving on a Harley came and went over four days. It was a circus. It made me grateful that my time being daily responsible for young children is long over. The energy requirements are relentless. Mostly we laughed. It helps that my brother-in-law is as mature as a 14-year-old. He has a heart of gold and is a heat-seeking missile locked on fun. Mr. Harley man is from Texas. He recently finished a country CD titled It’s Rough Being Me. He has a voice like warm honey and tells stories like only a motorcycle riding Texan can.

But in times like these our conversation on the porch eventually turned to the price of gas, oil drilling and the economy. Every one of us has our own window on reality. Bits and pieces of things we’ve read or heard woven into our theory of how life should work. It turns out that Mr. Texas works from a pick-up truck, building oil-pipe lines. Yes, his job is secure and his pay is rising. Interestingly, my brother-in-law, Captain Fun, is also in the oil business. Cooking oil turned into Bio-Diesel that is. For 20 years he’s made and sold chemicals used in the restaurant business. It’s a small family business, only a few employees and teenage sons who work in the evening. As gas prices went crazy, he started collecting used cooking oil, refining it in his tilt-up warehouse and using it to run his trucks. Soon his neighborhood small business owners were asking him to brew up some french-fry juice for their trucks. Captain Fun named his new venture Pirate Oil. He’s expanding as fast as he can pour his profits back into more equipment. Amazing.

When the circus left town I reflected on two things. First, it’s true. Crisis is opportunity. Life-as-usual is going through some fundamental economic changes. And we can all shake our fists at the greed and stupidity that has brought us our rising tide of economic swamp water. But a reading of human history is largely the recounting of how human greed and stupidity causes needless suffering. If we are waiting for a messianic politician or a new technology to bail us out of our personal struggles with what decades of poor leadership has created, we will wait forever. Second, human imgenuity is an act of will. We can choose decisively to do something to better our lives, bless others and use this train wreck of our economy to stimulate us to a better life.

My brother-in-law, Pirate Oil—Captain Fun—Circus Ring Master, only has a high school diploma. But he has expert knowledge. He’s spent 20 years becoming an expert at safely mixing chemicals and selling them to small business people. He is also unafraid to try new things. But that’s about it. He has no stash of cash (six kids will do that to you), no safety net. What he does have is what we all need to survive in our new rock ‘n roll world—expert knowledge, developed skills, and the courage to act.

He is a living example of something I constantly teach younger audiences. That the world honors experts. What do you know or what are you willing to deeply learn that can make your ability uniquely valuable? How can you use that today to propel you through this swirling tornado of change? Make your expert ability of value to others and you will always carry your economic security with you. And don’t delay. Waiting for the world to change for the better is never a good personal strategy. After all, it’s better to burn the french-fry oil as fuel than it is to eat the french-fries.

Imagine that.

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