There's No Such Thing As "The New Normal"

There's no such thing as the new normal. This is the Elevate Polk Podcast, and I'm your host Chrissanne Long. And with me again from a distance is Rob Artery.

Hello from far away in quarantine.

From a distance, the ocean. I don't know. I don't know the words. I just know that. Bette Midler, right? It was Bette Midler?

Uh, I think so. I wasn't, I wasn't like rocking the Bette Midler in my, uh, Sony Walkman as a kid, but, uh, that does sound about right.

I think that's right. If so, if we're wrong, then maybe somebody will leave us a negative review.

We'll go with it.

So before we, before we kick off the show, I just want to do a shout out for my friend, or our, our number one fan, Ryan Edrington. So every time I do a podcast and we end the podcast, we say, you know, hey, don't forget to write us a review. And how many of these episodes have we done so far?

21, 22, something like that.

Yeah, we're halfway through a year of podcasts and we've got our first review. So thank you, Ryan, and shout out for just being awesome and sharing the love of the Elevate Polk podcast.

Well, Ryan, we appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time since nobody else seems willing to take the time. It's all right, we know you're busy. It's all good.

Yeah, I love the private messages, but those, those public reviews would be really awesome. All right, so there's no such thing as the new normal. We had a chat about this yesterday. Um, you want to kind of set it up for us?

Yeah, so I've been just kind of watching a lot of stuff on social media and, uh, people talking about what they think the future is going to look like with this, right? So like, um, are we all going to be walking around masks? Are people not going to shake hands anymore? What is the new normal going to be? As if this is somehow going to profoundly change the human race forever, as if we didn't live through the plague and, and the polio. And I mean all sorts of things. The bottom line is that I think it's ridiculous to try and guess as to what the quote new normal will be. This isn't the I don't think there's anything new normal about this. This is a profound situation. Um, I think there might be things that we do differently in terms of preparing for the next pandemic, if you will. Um, maybe, you know, maybe not depending upon China for so much stuff, uh, the way that we do, especially important stuff like medical protective equipment and antibiotics. I mean, nobody really cares if you buy a pair of pliers from China, but Lifesaving equipment and, uh, and protective gear and masks and things like that, that's kind of important. So maybe in that way, maybe the new normal will be something like not being overly dependent upon a, upon a country that obviously cares less about life and, uh, and, and our global economy than looking like the incompetent fools that their government is. You know, nothing against the Chinese people. But their government is tyrannical and oppressive and horrible and squarely to blame for about 99% of everything we're feeling right now. So if that's the new normal, then great. But as far as life in America, I just think that things will— we— this too shall pass, right? And I just think that maybe you don't want to go so crazy with it. I think left to our own devices in quarantine with nothing but social media and cable news, I think people are just going a little bad.

Yeah, well, so I, I have a different perspective of the significance of the phrase new normal. Not that it's opposing your idea that there isn't really going to be any new normal as you've described it, meaning like there are some things that are worth exploring. But I think what I interpret where we are and where we will be is something that I've learned in my life, which is, I call it getting comfortable being uncomfortable. And I think that's where we are. We're in this messy middle and it's, it's very uncomfortable and nobody likes being uncomfortable and nobody wants to volunteer to be uncomfortable. Um, but circumstances of our lives sometimes put us in situations that were uncomfortable, but it's not necessarily the end of the world kind of uncomfortable. It's just This is inconvenient, or I don't really know what to do right now, or I don't know how to react to these circumstances. This is new for me and I don't know how I am going to get through this. And I had kind of thought about 2 or 3 different situations for myself in my own world of new normal. And I do think that there's, there's, there's opportunity in the phrase. I don't think that it's as far-reaching as some people are taking it, but I do think that there's some opportunity to explore what a good new normal might be. And I think that's really where we wanted to spend our time, right?

Right. I'm not suggesting that we will emerge from this in a month, 6 months, a year from now, and then forget it ever happened. And I think in some ways we shouldn't. I think we should try and find— everything in life should be a learning experience, right? The good and the bad. Probably, I would say, even more importantly the bad than the good. The good times rarely teach us anything. But in these particular times, maybe the quote new normal will be a greater focus on the people that we're watching who are helping right now, the people who are pulling other people up along with them and who are trying to lift up their neighbors and their community at a time when things are really upside down. And maybe maybe the new normal will be looking at those people in a different light and looking at our small businesses and, and wanting to support our communities. You know, I saw a really great quote the other day that said, you know, for years and years we ask local businesses to support our Little Leagues or our PTA or sponsor this or that, and they do it, and they do it, uh, overwhelmingly more than, you know, big corporations do it. And again, that's not hating on big corporations, but they typically have larger, um, a larger focus. And those, those little things that matter to you, uh, are usually done by those small businesses, and rightfully so at this point in time. And I think what should continue is that we should value those. Not that you should never buy anything on Amazon, but that we should all take a renewed stock in our local communities and those local businesses, right?

And I think for me I'm sensing a lot of the blame game that's going on right now, a lot of tension in the community of response to the depletion of PPP funds that was announced earlier in the week and wanting to point a finger. And so I'm going to take some liberties and you're probably going to be annoyed with it, but I'm going to tell a little bit of a story and it's going to be a little lengthy, but I think it's important for us to establish a little bit of context for where I'm coming from and why I am feeling so strong about taking action and looking at picking ourselves up from the bootstraps. So I'm going to take you back to another time and place, and I know exactly where I was. It was at a time when I had kind of— I've referenced in previous episodes that, you know, I had hit my rock bottom and there was really nowhere else to go other than possibly into a deep, dark abyss and never come out, or to pick myself up from my bootstraps and figure it out. Well, Craig had broken up with me at that time. He had gotten completely tired of my demise, you know, of my own mindset, my victim mindset, you know, woe is me. And I read a book, and everyone is familiar with the author, but they're probably not familiar with the book that I was reading. Have you heard of The Pursuit of Happiness by Chris Gardner?

I've heard of the book. I haven't heard of the author.

So, okay, so you've heard of the book and you probably watched the movie with Will Smith, right?

I never saw the movie. Okay. But I'm familiar with the concept. And yes.

Okay. So setting it up, Chris Gardner is a real human being, and The Pursuit of Happiness was based on his real-life story where he found himself homeless with his young son. And so I've never been in that much of a negative space. But he was there. And so I read the book, this— the book that this quote is going to come from, um, called Start Where You Are. And it was a no-nonsense approach to taking that person that I was where I needed someone to rescue me, I needed someone to bail me out, I needed someone to come along and fix whatever was broken in me. And I had never really been accountable to myself to do that myself. So this quote is where the jolt hit me. And when you started talking about new normal, I think that there's an approach to this discussion that I want us to be able to walk away with. So bear with me, I'm gonna read this quote. So how was it that my son and I were able to weather homelessness without descending into helplessness or hopelessness? The answer to that was presented to me in one of the most important life lessons my mother ever tried to impress on me. It's one that I've sometimes forgotten, particularly when I become alarmed, for example, that more isn't being done by others. To remedy the suffering that I see and that could become epidemic. In those instances, I can almost hear Mama's voice asking me next, "Well, son, if you feel so strongly, why don't you do something about it?" Whenever I recall the message of hers, it takes me back to my mother's even more pronounced mantra, which I first heard when I was in my teens, a foundation of the can-do, take-charge attitude she wanted to instill in me. Even though there would be a few close calls before I'd really grasped the point of this particular all-purpose, all-weather life lesson, it absolutely made an impression on me when Mama gave me the gift of her distinctive wisdom in the form of a passing comment. It happened to be during one of the rare occasions when no one else was around, leaving my mother and me to share an experience that gave us both real joy: watching old classic movies on television. On this night, we were caught up in the storyline of a vintage Western. At the climax of the action, just when all appears to be lost and the bad guys with guns blazing are closing in on the lone hero who must confront the reality that his horse has run off, his sidekick's been killed, and he's out of ammo, A look of worry finally crosses this tough guy's face as he gazes up at the western sky with cactuses and armadillos in the background. He scans the horizon but sees no help in sight. It was at that very moment that Mama turned to me and gave me a look that said, "Pay attention, son. This is important," as she pointed to the TV set and spoke words that would resonate forever. "See that? The cavalry ain't coming." For a second, I refused to accept this edict, arguing that the sound of thundering horses and the cloud of dust kicking up in the distance was the sign of the cavalry on its way. The relieved expression on the hero's face matched my own assumption. Of course, that's until he looks again to see that it's the bad guys after all. Needless to say, the lone hero in this Western prevailed in the end, and his victory against the odds had everything to do with ending his reliance on a cavalry to rescue him. Here's the hitch: before his own amazing ingenuity could make possible a reversal of his fortune, he had to reclaim the self-reliant attitude that made him a hero in the first place. The lesson made sense from the get-go. But was much tougher to apply in a concrete way to many situations that occurred in the years that followed, when I'd catch myself pinning my hopes on an elusive cavalry. But each time, whenever I'd look again at the horizon and see a cloud of dust and hear the pounding approach of horses, it would turn out to be my own version of a bad guy posse, signifying that it was all about to get worse. Eventually, the reality that no cavalries are being dispatched to any of us good guys, no matter how deserving of help we are, allowed— it allowed me to be clear about the choices of all lone heroes. On the one hand, you can choose to blame the bad guys and feel as down and out as you please, even though that's not going to feed you or your loved ones. The other choice is to rise to the call and become your own cavalry. So that moment in my life was the day that new normal became something better than what I had been in before. And that's kind of why I felt strongly about sharing the entire quote. I know it was long, but I think we need to be our own cavalry as well. And that's What I'm hoping comes out of this is that we start to be more self-reliant and locally reliant on one another and on the things that we can do to make a better way for ourselves. And I think we are our own cavalry. So I want us to be able to focus on that and not on things that we are not able to control because we're much closer to being able to control the outcomes for ourselves as a unit than we will ever be alone.

Well, that's a hard one to follow up. Um, I will, uh, I'll say this, I completely agree with you in this particular situation. I think that's why you and I became friends too. I think we do share that same type of mentality. It's not that there are not situations in life where other people may be to blame, maybe culpable for the things that have gone wrong in aspects of your life. That's not the issue though. The issue is, will the time that you spend seeking whatever type of justice you believe you deserve— and maybe you do— but will the time that you spend seeking that justice actually make your situation better?

Exactly.

Win in the end, right?

Right.

So in this particular situation, I think a lot of people are upset. You know, I've seen posts about how, uh, restaurants like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse got millions from the PPP, you know, fund, and a lot of little small businesses got screwed. They didn't. I do believe they're going to add more money to this pot, and then in a couple weeks we're going to be right back here going, it ran out again. And there's still going to be plenty of people that go, hey, I didn't get anything. So a couple things, if you're in that group, that I want to share with you. And this one opinion might not be— please understand that some things are not a justification, but they're an explanation. So the reason that big companies got millions of dollars in PPP funding and you didn't is because this was never about making people whole for the fact that they were forced to shut down. This was not about that. This was about a way of basically taking what would be unemployment claims and preventing people from filing and having to go through that bureaucratic process, only to have to put the money in the other end. So if they could give the money to the businesses the businesses could keep people afloat and keep them from filing for unemployment, which would essentially be, do I want to put a dollar in here or do I want to put a dollar down there? That's all it was. So the businesses with the most employees got the priority because that's where that money was intended to go. Now, as Americans, we should all— as, as freedom-loving Americans, we should all be mortified by that because essentially Without due process, the government forced many businesses to close and they did not compensate you for it. And if you didn't have a lot of employees, you may never get any kind of compensation for it. So that's something we do need to look at down the road. We, we tend to believe— I don't know if it's the, the, the Jason Bourne movies, the James Bond movies— we tend to think the government is just this entity with the great, the greatest, the wisest, most wonderful brains in the world that will figure out our problems. And folks, that just is not the case. No, a lot of good people in government, but you cannot put your faith in that. There, there is no— they are not the cavalry. There is not enough money to bankroll our entire economy, the portions that we have shut down. There is not enough money to bankroll that. The numbers never added up from the beginning. So we, we really are the only ones here that we can depend on. That's a scary thing. And maybe the new normal is some people will be more aware of that. Maybe they'll be less likely to buy a bunch of stuff on credit. And, uh, you know, because, hey, you know, those bills didn't stop coming, did they?

Right?

I mean, the government promised you money, but you didn't get it. But your credit card bills, they're still piling up. You know, debt collector phone calls, they're still being made. The best you can get maybe is a forbearance, which just means you're just going to pay them even more interest down the road. So for me, I, I've looked at it, try to find the positive in it to some degree, right? So the way that some of these business owners have pivoted right now and have found ways to adapt their business model and just to keep, keep cash coming in in some way, shape, or form, to me that's inspiring. So I mean, to your point, there is no cavalry from Washington, there is no cavalry from Tallahassee. It's very limited and it was always going to disappoint you. Again, this is not a criticism of government, of people in government. I guess it's hard to say it's not a criticism, but, but it's a reality.

I think it's a reality. Um, I, I think the system is so big that it has a hard time being able to find and fill in the small cracks.

It's right, and we just can't depend on them for— I think we have unrealistic expectations. Of our government, of our elected officials, and, and not just their, uh, their good nature. I don't think that they're as, they're as malicious as they often get blamed for being. I do think, however, that they are less equipped and less able to exert the type of influence that we seem to think that they will, right? And that's—

I also think that the application of of how this legislation was, how it was acted upon. There's, there, once you hand out the legislation and you put actors in place that are responsible for handling the allocation of these funds, now it's a brand new system for thousands of different banks. And now it's a, it's a complete huge learning curve. Questions are being asked and uncertainty is, is palpable. And so if there's any blame that we're trying to figure out. We have to— it's not about blame because I think the interests of small businesses were— the idea was meted out well. The idea behind the law was meant to help the businesses that needed help, but how quickly and how fast and all of these other things that needed to happen. And then because of some of the discrepancies and the interpretations and how these things were then being passed through these banks, it's almost impossible to expect perfection in a time when everything is uncertain and brand spanking new. And so I always, in my business, I always say we've got to go through at least one time so that we can find out where the kinks are in the system. Well, they didn't have time to go through it one time to find out where the kinks are. They had to live it live. And so for us to stand here and say it's the government or it's the banks or it's this, it doesn't matter. I think that, you know, I think in the past I've always talked about, well, a lot of philanthropic language is you have time, talent, and treasures. And I don't know if I've shared this on this show before or not, but the other resource— so we have time, which is a resource, talent, which is a resource, skills, experience, knowledge, and treasures, money to be able to donate to a cause. But I think in the last 10 years, another resource has emerged, and that is attention. So, we only have so much attention that we can give to something before we run out. And it's similar to time, but what we're focusing on expands. And if we're focusing on putting people accountable, or if we're focusing on making our businesses stronger or our community stronger, which one is going to produce the results of improving ourselves on the other side? That's where the cavalry is. You know, if we're focused on the cavalry coming, that attention, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting. What a waste. But if we're focusing our attention today on things that we can do, like so many of these awesome local businesses are illustrating for us, what amazing things could come on the other side of this? What amazing new normal would look like?

Well, let's talk about some of those. I mean, um, well, first off, for some of the really interesting concepts, right? So, uh, I'm loving these, these kits that I'm seeing. So there's a lot of restaurants that can sell alcohol, right? And they're able to make some extra money that way, and they're selling— if they have a package license, they can sell bottles of alcohol, that kind of thing. And I get all of that, but that's rather kind of within their wheelhouse. Maybe they didn't do it before, but that's not a giant leap. But then I saw like Revival in downtown selling kits to make their— all of their like, uh, crazy cocktails. And, uh, I don't know if like the Old Fashioned is a crazy cocktail, but you know, for me it would be a I'm a vodka tonic person.

It's a little bit of a stretch, right?

Right. But, but my point is like, so how do you adapt? What do you do? You just sit there at home on your bed and cry into a pillow and say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm through, I'm finished, what am I gonna do? Or you figure out a way. Well, what if I sold kits?

Mm-hmm. And we look around, and we look around at the, at the environment, and we learn that some things have changed and what we're able to do, you know. So I've seen Fresco's is now offering a takeaway beverage with an order of a food purchase, and, um, the Federal Bar has been very creative. I mean, I think we— the adult Capri Sun.

Yeah, that's, that's probably going to be a new normal item, I think, for a while.

I have—

I had Fresco's the other night And let me tell you, for like $40 for a family of like a 4-meal, it was fantastic. Everything was really, really good. The price was certainly reasonable. And it was a pleasure to support a local business, but it was great. We heated it up a little bit at home, and it was so nice to not have to cook and have something that wasn't— because sometimes, you know, you want to be supportive, but if you're feeding out a family of 5 every single day, it can add up pretty quick, right? But, uh, but this was certainly reasonable, and, and I really, I appreciated it.

So, but yeah, so there it talks, it goes back to the self-reliance and the resilience and the idea of, you know, creative survival, you know. Okay, well, I've got this thing, how do I, what do I do with it? And, and not just going, well, I have this thing and I can't sell it because people can't come to my store right now.

Um, that's what we do. That's what Americans do. We innovate things and we do it best when things are bad, right?

More specifically, the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans and, and that, and that underlying current. So one of the questions that has always popped up is, you know, you know, I'm not an entrepreneur. I think everybody has an entrepreneurial gene in their bones because there's, there's somehow, some way they got to a place where they were alive in this time and this space. And you can, you can argue that point all you want, but when it comes down to figuring things out, that's entrepreneurialism, right?

Figuring out what, what's needed and how to do it and how to make it work for everybody. That is the, essentially, the marvel that is Western capitalism. And, um, and the freedom that we have in this country has allowed us to do that in a way that is different from pretty much anywhere else in the world. Another thing though that has really, I think, has been amazing to watch is the generosity. So like, uh, Lynette Strong, who owns Strong Stitch Embroidery, yep, she started making masks, uh, those fabric face masks, and, and selling them online. And she sold like, I don't know, 1,000 or maybe more. And then she turned around and took, uh, a bunch of that money, if not all of it, I don't know the specifics, but and she bought like a ton of food and sent it up to LRMC for the people working in healthcare up there. That's the kind of thing that you don't see every day. And, you know, that kind of behavior isn't going to be the new normal, right? There will be a time where people are not just sending free food to the hospital, but we can still remember that there's a thread of generosity in this community. When, when times are tough, right? The owner of Sal's Pizza, Sal's 2 on the South Side, he put out an emotional plea on Facebook basically saying, I'm about to lose my, my business. And the community responded and flooded him with orders, so much so that now he went and was able to again return that favor. And he made like 100, 200 meals and sent it up to, uh, the healthcare workers in the hospital, feeding nurses and doctors and stuff like that. So You take a guy who has been on the brink, and his first instinct upon receiving help from the community, his first instinct is to turn around and to repay the generosity with his own generosity. That is a special level, a special quality of people that I think when this is all said and done, when all of the bitching and moaning stops because this wasn't perfect or that wasn't perfect, maybe take 5 minutes And just remember that, that there were some great people around us, uh, who did shine when everything else was a mess.

And it's impossible— and I guess this is a little bit of a disclaimer— it's impossible to see all of the stories, but I know that they're there. I know that I have people in my network that I am seeing, um, rising to the occasion and supporting. I know that there's a small group that has kind of gathered to help with buying groceries for people and supporting, you know, people can kind of phone a friend and say, hey, is anybody able to go grocery shopping for me? I might have underlying conditions and I don't want to put myself or my family at risk. And these aren't shut-ins and these aren't people who are traditionally served by the community of, you know, Meals on Wheels and things like that. So this is a creative approach to, and I can't remember, let me see if I can find the name of that group, 'cause I do want to give it a shout out. The Polk County Grocery Network, Rob Boudreaux and Cindy Boudreaux were the kind of the founders of that. So, you know, there are things happening and it's just exciting to see inspiration around us. And those are the things that excite me in this new normal or in the space between the old normal and whatever the new normal is going to become.

And I think there's another important piece that we have to talk about. So I've been saying for about a week or two now that we were reaching a breaking point as a, as a nation in terms of our economy, our businesses, uh, our livelihoods. We were reaching a breaking point. And there were others who were saying, hey, maybe we need to look at reopening some of this stuff for how we're going to go about doing this. And then we encountered a ton of shaming from people, um, who said we were being reckless, thoughtless, careless, and, uh, and, and greedy. So here's, here's my thoughts on that. So we can discuss if we want about whether or not this was as bad as they say it was. Maybe it wasn't, maybe it was, I don't know. And I don't— well, it— we have to be careful not to look at things backwards because hindsight really is 20/20. So there's a, there's a real big mistake you can make there. However, we do have to look at things as an evolving situation. We have to look— this is a very dynamic situation, and our response needs to be equally as dynamic. So I said about a week ago that we need to start hearing the next phase. We need to start talking about it. Whether or not we open the floodgates at once, that's probably not advisable, but we needed to start talking about it and getting those things moving. Now, that precipitated a lot of ire on the internet because people were— they were taking their positions. And I'm going to use my classic phrase, that prison of two ideas, that dichotomous thinking where assume position A or position B and then begin quabbling about it on, on the internet as if that's somehow productive. The truth is, this is not a battle over whether we should be, you know, locking ourselves at home and, and sealing up our doors, or we should all immediately go and start drinking out of some communal well in the center of Munn Park, right? These are ridiculous ideas. This is not an either-or situation. So what I have seen is some of the people who are very quick to understand or, uh, to take the position of, well, we really need to stay home, we need to stay indoors, and we need to wait this out as long as we need to. Many of those people are still able to work. Maybe they're getting a paycheck, maybe they're working remotely from, you know, from home using Zoom or what have you. Um, maybe their company is still paying them, so they don't have the same considerations And what I've seen, and I think some of this we have to think empathetically on both sides. So if you're in that group, you have to understand that while maybe you have a job, maybe you have a paycheck, maybe you're considered, quote, essential, but maybe your neighbor isn't. Maybe your neighbor isn't getting a paycheck. Maybe they don't have, they don't have a job and they're worried about how they're going to feed their family. Maybe they're an entrepreneur, they own a business, and you think they have all this money. But in reality they're trying to keep their employees afloat. And by the way, the government program that was supposed to pay them, it just ran out of money. So now they're in high gear. We need to open this back up. And your judgment— and I understand it comes from a compassionate place, you don't want to see people get ill and potentially die, nobody does— but we don't bubble wrap ourselves in a free society. We cannot continue to do that long term. We have to find a way to manage. Well, I think it's unfair.

I think that the call, the invitation, the strong urging that I want to share is consider that whole conversation we've had for hundreds and hundreds of years is you have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. And if you haven't walked a mile in someone else's shoes, you don't know what they're feeling. You don't know what they're not saying. So some people might put on a strong, you know, face because they were told never to share the truth, never be vocal about your vulnerability, never tell anyone what's really happening on the inside. And so there are people breaking inside because they don't know how to share vocally on the outside that there are things that are just about to crumble underneath them. And that harsh, harsh reality and the dichotomous thinking is conflicting and it's pitting us against each other. So it's not that people who are crumbling and breaking and internally don't know how to solve problems right now are wanting people to die. It is that they are just feeling the strain and the pressure of the fear of losing everything and losing everything in a big, big way. And I think from an empathetic standpoint, We have to be empathetic on both sides. And it's a horrible, muddy, ugly place that this current situation has put us into, but we cannot lose sight of the other side of the coin or the people on the other side of the challenge that we're facing. So whether or not you are or aren't working or whether or not you are or are not wearing a mask or staying at home and haven't left in 3 weeks, and you're raging against those folks who are leaving their homes. And wherever you are in this situation right now, you're right. You are right for your set of circumstances. And I think that's where we all need to come to an understanding is that there's no right and wrong. I think we're all right because we all want to come out of this alive. And there is no reason why we can't feel the way we feel And we need to feel the way we feel, but we also need to trust one another to know that we're not just looking out for ourselves. We have to be looking out for the greater good and the people on the other side of this that are going to have lost everything. And whatever that recovery is going to look like, we have to be prepared that our decisions that we make today are going to impact how much recovery we're going to need tomorrow. Right?

And we need to be compassionate and understanding and thoughtful about how we transition to opening businesses back up and getting people back to work. We also need to be understanding, compassionate, and, and deliberate in how we respond to those people who are still living in fear, who are still in that group of people who are at higher risk. I am not— I'm not ambivalent towards the, the people who may have a much, a much worse reaction to this, or who need to be more afraid of it— the immunocompromised, the elderly, that sort of thing. You know, this is a very serious illness. I don't think it will end up being as deadly once we have all the numbers, but there are so many unknowns right now. That said, I think we need to respect the fact that if in 2 months from now somebody's walking around wearing a mask, give them some space. Don't point and laugh and giggle. They're not being paranoid. The fact of the matter is, when you live in a free society, you have to look out for yourself. And if at some point, as things open up, it requires you to, to take different actions on your own, if you have to socially distance longer than the general population, well then that might just be how things go, right? It's their— it's incumbent upon them to be understanding and compassionate for those needs. By the same token, it's not realistic and it's not compassionate to think that everybody can follow the same rigorous social distancing as you. The reason I think we're in this conversation is because we have a couple fundamentally flawed ideas, one of which is a term that I've heard many people make, which is that by staying at home we're going to defeat the virus. There is no escaping, there is no emerging from the, uh, the bunker in a month or 2 months, and everything will be blown over and everything will be fine. Flattening the curve had nothing to do with the total number of people who will be infected and had everything to do with how many would get infected at one time. We've done a pretty good job of doing that, but understand there are still people that are going to get this in the months to come, and we have to mitigate that if we can, but we cannot remain shut down forever. In fact, in a weird way The longer that we, quote, flatten that curve, the longer the tail of that curve lasts, and the longer people will be getting infected. It just will not be at such a rate as to, to compromise our healthcare system and result in exponential death. But it's important because what I see is people making this argument that if we just stayed home for another month or two, the virus would just disappear and fade away. That's not going to happen. We are going to be living with this. And guess what? If it's not this, maybe this will disappear like SARS did, but we can't be foolish enough to think that this is not going to happen again because it will. Maybe in a year, maybe 10 years, hopefully at least, maybe 20, or it could be 6 months from now. None of us knows, but we cannot remain under a rock, uh, thinking that it's just going— the storm will pass. We have to find a way to build stronger ships and to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe going forward.

And there's a lot of tension in all of this, and it isn't easy. I listen to Rob and I feel a little bit stressed out, you know, as he's going, you know, he's sharing his perspective and I tend to agree with the sentiment, but I also know that there are people who disagree and who don't understand and, and don't know. Um, well, how could we? How could we know? I think the problem is that the information is so fragmented that we're not getting a full story. So we don't have— it's almost like, um, fake news on LSD. Like, it's, it's, it's just so bizarre that we're hearing so many stories from different places and none of— and we don't— we can't track it back to the source. Like, where did this come from? Is this true? I mean, I referenced sharing something, um, before checking my source once and, and realizing how stupid that was of me. And so here I am checking sources, checking sources, and I just can't find a source. You know, this one source says this and one source says this, and, and is it political? Is, is that what— is that why they're on two opposite sides? I don't know, but I do know that The teeter-totter, it's like the dichotomous thinking. We have to either be on one side of the teeter-totter or on the other side of the teeter-totter because it's never going to be balanced or it's going to take some time for us to figure it out. And we can't— we've got to work toward balance. I think that's the goal, is that we need to be working toward balance.

Yeah, I don't think that it's as political as many people think. I think there is a real effort to politicize it because that's what sells. That's what people are used to. I have seen the general response. What people are doing during all of this does not seem to have been influenced by politics. They say things here or there that's politically motivated, sure, but fundamentally, state, local, federals, across the board, I think what, what's actually being done is based upon need and experts, and it's not as partisan as people think. I think there's certainly some partisan stuff, but I think Our biggest problem is that for a long time leading up to this, we view so many things— we've heard we view virtually every issue as a, as a political, uh, binary decision— that it seems like we fall into that category with everything. So whether or not opening up the government or not, even if that's not a, a straight political decision we still look for that binary choice. What side do you want? Stay closed or open up? And the truth is, is that those are two gross oversimplifications. As far as the information goes, yeah, it is very hard to know which end is up. I mean, we had our very own government told us don't wear masks because we're worried about you buying all the masks and then our healthcare workers won't have them enough. And then we come out later and go, well, maybe you should wear a mask. I mean, People are understandably skeptical because they're being told— it's not even just which source do you believe, it's the people say different things throughout this entire thing. I mean, you can go back and listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who's supposed to be the, you know, the, the global expert on this sort of stuff. In February, he was saying, nah, you don't have to change anything about your normal life. Now, I'm not faulting the guy because The situation evolved. We got bad information from China. We made decisions based upon it, etc. But this is an evolving situation. My opinions are based upon various things, not just this situation, but historical situations. What happens in the past? This stuff doesn't just go away, folks. It's going to be around for, you know, for a period of time. Hopefully we've got better therapeutic drugs, maybe a vaccine, But we can debate whether or not which one of those will be the silver bullet, or if there even will be one. But one of the things I think we should focus on are some of the common ground things that we, we can all agree on, like hiding under the bed is not going to make the virus go away. We have to find practical ways to move forward with this so we can protect the most people, have healthcare resources available, and, and do it sensibly. And none of that is going to come from partisan bickering or this, you know, you need to stay at home or screw you, it's not that bad. Because I just see this where the more side— more one side digs in, the other side seems to make irrational opinions on the opposite end. And then I'm just sitting there in the middle going, what is wrong with you people, right? You know, well, let's have a practical discussion here, right?

And if it's not political, um, we don't need to make it political, you know. And that's the— that's the— my wish, you know. Yeah. Wishful thinking, but let's look at how to preserve what we can preserve. And again, I just come back to, I can't remember when I said it, at what point in time, but we can't expect the federal government and probably not the state government to fix this for us. We've got to be looking for our own solutions. And I think we have the wherewithal. I think we have the leaders in our community. I was never supposed to be a leader. I just found myself in a position where I either had to lead or shut up. And I chose to lead. And that song, you know, "I Look for the Leader and the Leader Was Me," made me bawl because I didn't feel competent enough to lead anything. But I rose to the occasion and I picked myself up from my bootstraps. I trusted my intuition, I trusted my gut, I made decisions, and some of them were wrong. And I've lived with those decisions. But we all have to understand that as our own local leaders start to make decisions, our voices are going to need to be heard. And we need to be able to say, these are the things that we want you to know about the situation that we are facing as individuals, but also as businesses, organizations. All of us are impacted and all of our voices matter. So I think I wish there was a way that we could gather all of that information. We've talked about civic engagement, we've talked about surveys, we've talked about hearing the noise, hearing through the noise, hearing past the noise. We're doing whatever little things that we can, you know. So Rob, you were amazing in creating the Central Florida survey that we've got rotating, and I'll put that on a website. I think after the show I will have it on bridgelocal.com/survey. So if you haven't taken that survey yet, you can go there right now. And we're really wanting to get, to get the information from you business owners, whatever size you are, um, very, very small solopreneurs, you know, sole proprietor to 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 employees. We need a cross-section. We need it. We can't just gather information about one subsection of the community. We need to know what we need to know so that we can help our decision makers make decisions with data and information. So, um, again, that, that link is— and we could put it in the show notes, I hope— um, bridgelocal.com/survey.

You know, I know we're— before we wrap up, I want— I had one, one thought on all of this that I wanted to kind of leave everybody with, and basically it's that this virus has broken many things. It's broken lives. People have lost loved ones. There will still be more people lost in the future. It has broken one of the greatest economies that we've had in generations, and it's not going to go away right, you know, right away. But in all of this, I think it is incumbent upon us to push forward as people, as business owners, whatever place that you occupy. Even if it's for your own family. Our kids are concerned. They're not going to be able to go back to school for the rest of the school year. That's going to profoundly change their, um, their feelings. Even if they sound like they are enjoying this right now, it still creates stress. As parents, as citizens, we have to push forward. You know, the thing that we try and do on this show is to elevate Polk, right? We want to raise the bar for the community. We want to talk about the good things, and we want to push people to keep moving in those directions. Right now, it's, it's more important than ever that we do that in whatever way that we can, even if it's just for our own families. And for what it's worth, I just— I know we all have different opinions. Maybe we agree on some things, disagree on other things, but I want to thank all of you out there for, for standing up. And for the people that we can't possibly acknowledge because we can't see everything, but you know who you are. People that have stood up for their neighbors, their friends, their family, their community, their city, in our county overall. There's no way we can acknowledge everybody, but together I know we feel it. I feel it. Chrissanne Long feels it. I'm not normally the one to make kind of the most mushy emotional type speeches, but I mean it because I think it's important. And I want to acknowledge all of you that I think together we all feel that. And I sincerely, I thank you and It is, I'm proud to be in this mess with every one of you.

Yeah, so my wrap-up thoughts are very, just to back that up and say, I just wanna keep going and I wanna keep moving and I wanna push forward and I want to know that the community is okay. And when I say that, I mean that in a very, very, very strong way. And so I want my last message of this podcast to say, I want anyone who needs help to not feel that they cannot ask for it, that there are people who want to help you. And I know one of the things that I also have learned in my time as a business owner is that it is almost, almost impossible to ask for help. Whatever you do, please don't let your pride get in the way. Let yourself be vulnerable. And let yourself know that people will help you. But if we don't know that you need that help, we can't. So please reach out, whether it's to our Facebook page at Elevate Polk or a private message to one of us. We, we have access to answers, resources, and support, and I'm putting myself into that space because I will, I will answer every message and I will look for responses that will help you through the challenges that you have. And if you need financial help, there is a resource in this community for people, individuals, through United Way at 211. And if it's paying your rent or paying for something that you need, food, gas, something that you need that's tangible, that's now, that's immediate, all you need to do is pick up your phone and dial 211, and there will be someone there to listen and that you can reach out to and ask for help because that is the way that we can help. We can't just walk around thinking everything is okay if it's not. And we know that it's not. So now we need a way for you to share the challenges that you're having. And the survey is one way. We are committed to getting that information into the decision maker's hands and letting them know what our voices are saying. But the survey is only just a gathering of information. If you need help, please reach out and please ask for it. And don't let circumstances or your fear of being judged get in the way of asking for help. And that is the last little bit for our show today. And I appreciate everyone who's listening. And thank you. Thank you all for being the champions that you are in this community. It's not really hard to see how amazing Polk County is when you look for the great opportunities, the great things that are going on.

Amen.

All right. Thanks for listening. And remember, we have a new episode each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read and comment about every one.

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