Here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, we began to be safe at home five weeks ago. Many Americans didn’t think March would ever end. Now it seems like April won’t either. Just today Dallas County’s city council voted to keep the stay at home order in place until May 15th. This global coronavirus pandemic has stunned all of us, providing this surreal daily existence none of us could have imagined.
Shock.
Stunned disbelief.
Panic.
Dread.
Fear.
Daily we hear these words describing how people feel about the current state of things. Business owners are just as prone as anybody else, maybe more so, to feel these things. Those of us who serve business owners have been busy doing whatever we can to help entrepreneurs face the challenge. Along the way, we’ve listened to heart-wrenching stories of business owners who risk losing everything, including the companies that were soaring high just six weeks ago.
Let’s focus on the opportunities, positives and high-potential moving forward. It’s easy to dwell on what’s wrong. I mean, much of it is very obvious. Which is why the throngs are likely going to spend their time there. And it’s why we have this extraordinary opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity for our lifetime – to make something special happen.
I agree with Mark Cuban who has said in a recent podcast interview that now is a great time to start a business. Click the link below to the interview he did with YOUR FIRST MILLION with host Arlan Hamilton.

Cuban has always been a fan of sweat equity and forgoing debt as much as possible. Sound advice for existing businesses and start-ups. However, if you’re operating a small business and you’re able to leverage the SBA packages offered by the U.S. government, which could be morphed into grants (instead of loans) if you use the money according to the rules…then, by all means, jump all over that if you haven’t yet.
Part of the reason Cuban is such a fan of avoiding taking on investment is our ability to develop our own vision for the future. Business owners mostly love control and hate having to answer to others. It’s why we carved out the path to do our own thing. Debt makes us beholden and we hate that.
Cuban is a contrarian against the two prevailing business thoughts of the moment. One is double down and work super hard while others are sitting back trying to figure out what to do. Two is to rest and regroup while the whole planet has been disrupted. Cuban has a third alternative. Take small steps. Get and keep your priorities where they most likely belong – on your family’s welfare. Simultaneously take small steps to advance and move forward. As the saying goes, “Inch by inch anything is a cinch.”
Six weeks ago people weren’t likely taking things all that seriously. I know I wasn’t.
Five weeks ago things began to change. Suddenly, the NBA shut down, followed quickly by March Madness being canceled. That got our attention.
Then the other sports leagues followed suit. And many of us were in areas of the country where our local governments ordered us to stay at home. Suddenly, businesses were shut down, or they shut themselves down before the government did it. Apple Stores, for instance, closed up shop.
Then the mad dash for paper towels, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer. Suddenly, within less than a week our local grocery stores looked like they had been missed a week’s worth of deliveries. Shelves were bare. Everything from meat to eggs to paper products…GONE. Nowhere to be found.
It became very real very quickly. It was shock and awe for all of us.
Then the furloughs and terminations began. And the unemployment soared. Many of us were likely impacted because business owners whose doors were shut could no longer make payroll for work that ...