Brian Gubernick traces a cycle: good times create weak people, weak people cause bad times, bad times forge strong people, and strong people build prosperity. He links the Depression and WWII to post-war growth, the boom years to cultural decline, and the 2008 crisis to a decade of real-estate success now giving way to weaker leadership. The message: recognize this as a hard-times phase and build the resilience to lead the next era.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today I want to talk about history and how history teaches us what's about to happen. We've all heard the phrase that history tends to repeat itself. I want to talk a little bit about that and what we can learn from the history of civilization and apply it to our world today. I'm going to start with a quote that I recently read and I've been thinking about quite a bit. Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times. Create great times. Let me say that to you one more time. I want you to internalize this. Okay? Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create great times. Now, this statement, this good times to weak people, weak people to bad times, ultimately leading to strong people creating great times. This cycle of history has played out time and time again throughout various empires and civilizations. You could, you could find it with, with the Roman Empire. You could find it with other, other civilizations that were developed, ultimately fell, then maybe were built back in a different form. You could see this play out all over the place. I'll tell you one great example that I think about. In recent history. I could apply it to the cycle right around, starting with, with, with the hard times that were experienced in the Great Depression. So this is not following the exact order of the quote that I gave you, but it picks up right in the middle and you'll follow me here. So let's go back to the Great, Great Depression and World War II. These were rather hard times. I mean, the US had the Great, Great Depression in the 1930s, economic hardship, really high unemployment, really, really difficult time. As a matter of fact, anybody that you've had a chance to either talk to or watch or listen to that lived during that time is usually pretty much a badass. That hardship experience then created a certain type of people. The entry into World War II just added to that. Fuel to that fire, to that hard time. It pulled the country out of the economic downturn though, but also involved massive and significant sacrifice. These hard times created some strong people. The leadership during World War II was second to none. That wartime period saw the emergence of Franklin D. Roosevelt, saw the emergence of other amazing leaders. And the leadership during that war was crucial in guiding, you know, the US through pretty challenging times. So the hard times of the Depression and the entry of the world— of World War II led to some strong people developed. Those strong individuals created post-World War II good times. After World War II, the US experienced massive economic prosperity, various bills, technological advancements, increased consumer spending, better lives for, for most everybody. The middle class expanded. There was a general sense of optimism. And as a result, many that lived during this time would contend that these good times created a good amount of weak people. Weak people. During these subsequent decades, you know, post-World War II and post this optimism and prosperity, many would argue, and some would be offended, that the societal shifts of the time were, are interpreted by many to be signs of weakening. Cultural changes in the '60s, political unrest, challenges to our core traditional values. Again, not to be offensive, but many would maintain that weak individuals were created during these good times. As a result, these weaker individuals created hard times. So again, many would then look at, you know, recent history and say the US has been faced with challenges like economic recessions and political polarization and global issues and These are pretty hard times right now that we could all agree on. So it might be a bit of a stretch as we run through this, this analysis here of this particular cycle that I'm describing. It might sound like a rather simplified interpretation, and we may not all agree with the characterization of each phase that I just ran through, but we can see how this cycle would play out. Maybe not in my example, but in other places. I think about the world and I think about business today, right? And I think about, you know, the real estate world for that matter. We had some really, really good times. These good times though, they came about from the bad times that experienced prior to that. So in '07, '08, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, we had a market crash. Rather bad times, but through those bad times in business, but let's talk again, real estate specifically. Through these bad times, a lot of strong people were created. A lot of individuals that persevered in business and survived. Ultimately, those strong people began to thrive. Great times were had. And for the past decade plus in, in business and in real estate, I would contend it's been pretty great, but these great times, one would argue, created weak people. I don't know if I mean weak in the truest sense of the word, but the truth of the matter is all of us in business and real estate got a little soft with respect to how we were approaching things. Business became pretty easy. Certain things fell into place without the perseverance or resilience and hard work that maybe existed 5, 10 years prior. I would contend that there are weaker leaders, and these weaker leaders created what many would think are not the best of times at this moment. But here's the kicker, and this is what I want to emphasize right now. If you believe in what I'm saying, if you believe that this cycle is playing out right in front of us and that we are in that potentially weak people, bad times phase. Following bad times is the creation of strong people. If you're in business, if you're in real estate, if you're anywhere in life and you look around and you think that things are a little rougher than they've been, you may be right. Know that history would show you're right on the other side of the creation of rather strong people. And those strong people are going to lead to great times. So the question for you, are you one of these strong individuals? Are you going to rise? Are you going to push through? Are you going to persevere? Are you going to be resilient during what many would, would, would say are bad times and become stronger as a result? And through that, carve out your future, take your unfair share. You know, I was fortunate, as crazy as it sounds, to launch a business career during an economic downturn. I was fortunate because those bad times kind of shook out, shook up the industry a little bit, shook up business altogether, and created new opportunities for naive individuals like me who didn't know any better to go grab opportunity. I look back and while, you know, I wish many people didn't have the experiences that they had, selfishly I look at that time and I say, wow, that opened the door for me. How blessed am I to have started a career during what, what many would contend was a bad time in the economy, a significant recession and economic collapse across the world. That bad time allowed the creation of strong people, and the strong people created great times, and we flourished. So I look at this opportunity today and think, man, for the greater good, I wish we weren't here, but here's some great opportunity for some of us. Bad times create strong people. So the focusing question: are you going to be strong? Are you going to rise? Are you going to persevere? Are you going to go take your unfair share? That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
