How should I prepare?

I've been thinking about the topic of preparation a lot these past few days.

At a fundamental level, I always want to be prepared and never be caught completely off-guard, but there's also limits to that.

I'm in the early stages of bringing a new company into this world, and people expect me to be prepared. Business model, financial projections, growth assumptions, risk analysis, hiring plan. Think through all of the questions ahead of time and be prepared to talk about all of it.

With leadership, one of my favorite tools is to mentally prepare for all possible scenarios.

I find it fascinating to see how people are approaching the coronavirus. It seems that preparation is scoffed at or completely written off. It reminds me a lot of what happens when a major hurricane or blizzard is approaching.

We don't know with any certainty what the impact of the coronavirus will be here in the US, and anyone (including the President) who says otherwise is misleading at best. There's predictive models that show that a majority of Americans will be infected with the virus overwhelming the healthcare infrastructure at all levels. And there's models that show all that impact could be virtually negligible. Maybe the storm blows out to sea or maybe the eye of the storm stalls right on top of us.

In this situation, I will feel better by preparing to not have to leave the apartment for a few weeks. Do I think that is probable? No. Do I think it's within the realm of possibility? Absolutely. Is the minimal effort of extra food and supply shopping a worthy trade-off of time? Most definitely.

I was caught completely off guard for Hurricane Sandy. On the night that Sandy was going to hit our area, we had a party with some neighbors and woke up the next morning to celebrate with banana pancakes in a sort of mocking fashion. For over 3 weeks after that, I was left without power, heat or hot water. For the first few days, I was fortunate enough to be able to charge my phone in my car which required me to sit on a line for gas for over 2 hours. Otherwise I would have lost communication with the outside world.

Fortunately, with Hurricane Sandy, for most of us, it was a non-life threatening situation. Yes, there was a lot of property damage and personal inconveniences. With the conoravirus, it could be much, much worse.

I don't want to be an alarmist or tell you how you should or should not prepare. As with most things, I believe it's best to have as much information as possible and make a decision based on what is right for you. Here's a great starting point to do your own research.