| Commercial Lending – Lessons from the Playground! I just got back from spring break with my two boys. One of my rules for allowing them to do things is “Know the playground, Know the friends”. In other words, if my kids want to go somewhere I want to know where they are going and whom they are going with. If the place they are going to is OK and the people they are going with are OK, I am good with it. If, however, the place is bad OR the people they are going with I don’t trust, then it is a hard ‘no’. I was thinking about playgrounds last week and realized there are at least THREE (3) rules from the playground that we should remember, and this goes for our politicians too, who are making decisions right now that could drastically affect our lives…so here it goes. Playground Rule 1: You stop a bully by punching him in the face. Bullies generally don’t stop any other way. I get the NATO strategy of not fighting Putin directly but funding Ukraine and sanctioning Putin to try to stop him financially. The hope is they get some sort of cease-fire treaty and Putin, then realizing he has no money, backs off. I hope that works, I really do. But nothing in Putin’s actions tells me that he will back down. Hitler first attacked Poland because much of it had been part of Germany, just like Putin attacked Ukraine. Hitler didn’t stop there, and something tells me Putin won’t either. Hope I am wrong. But it is possible he will need to be punched in the face to be stopped, not sure what that would look like, but unfortunately, nothing shows me this guy is going to stop or quit any time soon. Playground Rule 2: Two wrongs don’t make a right. How many times have our parents said this one? You know this drill, someone does something wrong to somebody because that person did something wrong to someone else. Still doesn’t make it right. Stealing is wrong. Taking Russian citizens’ boats, houses, etc. because they are Russian, and hence, bad is NOT right. It is still stealing. Just because you think they are bad, does not mean we can steal from them and be “right.” Who gets to determine bad? Our president? Us? What are the criteria? Most of those Russians never shot at or hurt an American, their crime? Living under a dictator. Does that make them bad, do we know them really? What if you woke up one day and because of your President’s actions, another superpower was stealing your stuff. How would you feel? Stealing is still wrong and the character of the person you are stealing from does not make it right. Playground Rule 3: The truth is usually in the middle. You know this one too, your two kids are fighting, you step in saying “what happened?” and you get two different stories. The truth is usually in the middle. So it is with much of life. The only way we are going to grow is to listen to other people! Listen to THEIR side. If all you do is talk to the people who agree with you, watch the news feeds and news people that line up with you-you don’t grow. You just get madder at the “other” side. But if we can open up, dialogue, and not judge but listen, we can find a common middle ground, the “truth” so to speak. Last week I had a zoom call with an old friend from Canada-he thinks totally different than me, but we talked for 3 hours and I got a lot of fresh insight. It was fun. We MUST start going outside our little sphere and talking to others and listening and learning. If you are not growing, you are dying. People are incredibly interesting, let them tell you their story. You may learn something!!! If you need money fast, and just miss qualifying for SBA or conventional, give me a call at 512-358-1511 today or get started by filling out this form! Karen Schimpf Commercial Capital, Ltd. (512)-359-358-1511 karenschimpf at gmail.com www.ApplyCommercialLoans.com Give me a CALL TODAY at 512-358-1511 or get started by filling out this form! |