Navigating the Storm: Your Guide to Opportunity in Crisis
By Coach Brian Gibbons, www.REISkills.com
If you’re feeling the pressure right now, you’re not alone. The headlines are loud, the uncertainty is real, and it’s easy to feel like the ground is shifting beneath your feet. But I need you to hear this, and hear it clearly:
Every crisis comes with an equal amount of opportunity.
It all depends on how you react to it. This is not the time to close your eyes and hope it goes away. This is the time to keep your eyes wide open. You must understand the timeless truth that “This Too Shall Pass.” It’s just a matter of when.
Your job, as a leader and an investor, is not to predict the exact end date. Your job is to position yourself to not only survive the storm but to emerge from it stronger, smarter, and ready to seize the opportunities that always follow a downturn.
To do that, you need to operate by two very important rules.
Rule #1: Time is Your Friend
Time is everything when it comes to being prepared for a crisis. Let’s be brutally honest: no one knows how long this will last. Maybe it’s a slight blip, or maybe it’s something more major. The one single fact we know… is that we just don’t know how this will all play out.
You must detach yourself from your own bias. Your optimism or your pessimism doesn’t change the market. You just don’t know the future.
This is why you need to prepare for both best and worst-case scenarios. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
The more time you can give yourself in your business and your investments, the more likely you are to be prepared and to recover. More time gives you the ability to make better, more strategic decisions—not desperate ones. It gives you the runway to make thoughtful adjustments and move with purpose.
As the great Warren Buffett famously said, “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” This doesn’t just apply to stocks; it applies to all assets. Patience, fueled by a respect for time, is your ultimate strategic advantage.
Rule #2: Emotion is Your Enemy
Let me be direct: Fear will cripple your business.
Fear drives short-term, panicked decisions. And short-term decisions, driven by fear, almost always cause long-term problems. During times of panic, people become irrational. They follow the heat of their emotions rather than the cool light of logic.
When you operate from a place of fear, you can’t see opportunity. You can only see threat. You sell assets you should hold, you halt marketing that builds your brand, and you retreat when you should be strategically advancing.
You must remember the words of Tony Robbins: “Where focus goes, energy flows.” If you focus on the fear, your energy and business will contract. If you focus on the logic, the data, and the long-term vision, your energy will be channeled into productive, growth-oriented action.
The Big Picture: Your Path Forward
So, how do you put this into practice? It starts by shifting your focus from the daily noise to the Big Picture.
The “Big Picture” is your long-term vision. It’s your “why.” It’s the life you are building through your business and investments. A crisis does not change your “why”; it simply tests your commitment to it.
Now is the time to double down on your education. To sharpen your skills. To analyze markets with a clear head. To build relationships. To create a plan that is resilient enough to handle uncertainty.
The opportunities are there. They always are. They are in the market adjustments, in the new needs that arise, and in the fact that your competitors are likely being ruled by fear and emotion.
Don’t be one of them.
Choose to be the calm, strategic, and prepared investor. Choose to make Time your friend and Emotion your enemy. Keep your eyes on the Big Picture, because this too shall pass, and you will be ready.
To your success,
Coach Brian Gibbons
Ready to build your resilient, big-picture strategy? Dive deeper into advanced techniques and a supportive community at www.REISkills.com.
