As many learned during the last crisis, if you look past the bad headlines and hardship, opportunities may be born. This crisis is unlike anything any of us have experienced and if you had bad financial habits before the crisis, a blinding light is being shown on them now.

Images like people lining up for a food bank in Pittsburgh only a few weeks into the pandemic started to take hold in the US are a stark reminder that putting off saving and financial responsibility for another day can have grave consequences. Crises can come at you fast, but few of us could have predicted anything this sudden only a few months ago. It just goes to show that as soon as you plan a path for yourself, life can knock you to the floor.

The difference between those that eventually succeed and those that don’t is the will to not give up and continue trying. Improbable opportunities can present themselves suddenly, and the will to take them on is where success is born.

Last Time Around

I want to share my story of how the previous crisis played out for me to hopefully inspire readers who may be going through tough times right now.

My first job on Wall St. was in mortgage backed securities in 2007, you could say I had perfect timing. 6 months in, the entire group was overcome by such a strong wave of grim news and defaults that out of 70 of us, 35 were cut immediately and the rest given a few more months to find work. You would have thought that this was the worst thing that could happen straight out of school. Just after securing my first professional job, I have to find a new one, and in a worsening economy.

The lay-off ended up being a gift because we were the very first people laid off in the entire economy because we were at the epicenter. At that time, people were saying this was Wall St.’s problem and Main St. would be fine. That attitude is likely what allowed me to quickly secure a job at a Japanese bank where I was able to utilize my foreign language skills.

At the time I thought Japan was in such a mess with 250% debt to GDP. I figured they would be the next domino to fall and I would end up looking for work again in a year. The first months there, the bank had such high funding costs, it struggled to compete with the high flying American and European banks. However, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers changed that and we went from not being able to compete to have the rock bottom lowest funding costs in the world. This was due to the yen becoming a safe haven currency and the Japanese banks had largely avoided the mistakes of the crisis as they were too busy cleaning up their balance sheets from their own crisis of the late 1990’s.

We went from chasing customers to them chasing us and we were able to close a number of transactions in the area I was in which expanded my responsibility and my title quickly.

In some of the toughest years post crisis, I felt extremely lucky to be on what seemed to be a rocket glide path to a great career. While I watched the news of long term unemployed and those struggling in foreclosure, I was diligently investing and building a real estate business on the side.

I eventually grew out of that job at a time when everyone was starting to do well again. My vocal frustrations with management and the bureaucracy is probably what led to my being laid off after 9 years.

Once again, I took advantage of the hardship to work on the real estate business I had built up. When a partnership with a friend fell apart in the middle of my unemployment stint, I thought things couldn’t get more stressful. Eventually I extracted myself from the situation, at a painful price and found a job that got me back on my feet.

The Opportunity at Hand

Not long after though started separation from my wife, revelation that I had a brother and the initiation of custody dispute over my son. Then came Covid-19.

Before Covid-19 even arrived, the experience of hardship taught me something about myself. It taught me that I was capable of withstanding much more than I had imagined. It taught me that I didn’t have a choice in what happened to me but I did have a choice in how I respond and that I could choose to be grateful and see the bright side of things.

In a way the hardship backed me into a corner where I was forced to either face it, become better and stronger or wither away. This kind of no quit spirit and keeping the right people from my present and past around me, has presented an important opportunity in the face of the current crisis.

Right now I am on the verge of coordinating, along with important people from my past personal and business network, large transactions that will directly impact the response to Covid-19. I will share them in due course as I am able to reveal them but I truly feel that all the hardship, connections and work in the past has given me the right know-how and skill set to be able to make a huge impact.

Every failure that I had in the past that I endured is coming in handy. From my failed previous business I have the experience of opening a business, handling the accounting, what type of corporation to set up, setting up a bank account, marketing, contract negotiation etc. All are experiences from my past that I had to put into use to put this opportunity to work.

In addition, I am pretty amazed at how connecting people within my network has proved extremely fruitful. I can’t stress enough that keeping positive, forward looking and hungry people around in your life is extremely important for having these opportunities come around in the first place. To make this happen I connected an exchange student from my high school who I kept in touch with over the years to my former manager. They both are crucial in making things happen and they would have never known about each other if it wasn’t for my connection. Seeing parts of your life meld together to create something impactful is extremely gratifying.

Locked in but Not Locked Up

Even right now as you sit there reading this in quarantine, you likely have some opportunities that you can take advantages of as well. Maybe it’s that you no longer have a commute or you have more time to work on your relationship with your family or you can start that online side hustle you had always been thinking about but never had the time.

Or maybe you have lost your job and are sitting around waiting for things to pick up so you can work again. Even in the most dire situations, if you are located in the US, you have a fantastic opportunity right now. People often underestimate their capacity to adapt to a situation and circumstance. There are a wealth of things that you could do still including:

• Working as an English teacher online for kids in other countries
• Delivering food, which has picked up dramatically, assuming you are willing to take the risk.
• Writing for sites where you have an interest. I write from time to time for Seeking Alpha but there are a ton of them out there.
• Learning social media marketing. It seems everyone is on social media even more now so why not use people’s addiction to learn skills in how to market on behalf of companies?
• Warehouse work – Amazon announces it was hiring 100,000 warehouse workers. The economy is making a dramatic shift towards many more things getting delivered and it’s unlikely to die down post crisis.

These jobs aren’t the best in the world but at least they keep you occupied and they pay. If you were laid off and can get unemployment, the stimulus is going to give those unemployed a great opportunity in the form of lots of time to develop a new skill, look for new work or spend time with their loved ones. We all make the choice in how we handle these things and many of us have the luxury that those in say a country like India, which may not be able to lock down for as long as the US, don’t have.

It would really defy the odds if I am able to pull two success career pivots out of the last two crises but just goes to show that it’s not all bad news, gloom and doom. There are positive things that can come out of this situation we are facing, the optimist in us can face it and maybe even thrive. So don’t waste this crisis, no matter how hard it is for you right now.

The information provided by www.cashchronicles.com is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice. You should consult with an attorney or other professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs. www.cashchronicles.com does not make any guarantee or other promise as to any results that may be obtained from using our content. No one should make any tax or investment decision without first consulting his or her own financial advisor or accountant and conducting his or her own research and due diligence. To the maximum extent permitted by law, www.cashchronicles.com disclaims any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and/or recommendations prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any investment or other losses. Content contained on or made available through the website is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice or investment advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed. Your use of the information on the website or materials linked from the Web is at your own risk.