Be Ready When An Earthquake Strikes!

Okay, if you are in southern California, you may have been awakened by an earthquake yesterday morning long before your alarm clock went off, (well at least long before my alarm clock went off!). It wasn’t “the big one”, and so far, I haven’t found any damage other than a few leaves that may have been shaken off my new lemon tree, (the huge lemons remained intact!) but……, it was significant [An earthquake with magnitude 4.7 occurred 9km NNW of Westwood, California at 2014-03-17 06:25:36 -07:00 …], significant enough that I definitely rose up from a peaceful slumber to say, “What the %#@*?”  But, what I didn’t do is get up out of bed, inspect any damage or even really worry too much; I just waited for it to pass, and then went back to sleep and then this morning read the comments posted on FB with a bit of amusement. 

My lack of concern and others like me with regard to the earthquake, stuck a chord though. Am I really prepared for an earthquake? And symbolically, and metaphorically, am I ready for any kind of emergency in my life or my business. This could turn into a really long post if I wanted to go into the many examples of how we need to be prepared for a variety of situations, but I don’t want to go off into a tirade about the importance of being prepared in case of an emergency or disruption in life or in your business. Suffice it to simply ask yourself, would you be prepared if __________________ (fill in the blank) happened and how would you handle the situation?  I challenge you to select one thing to get prepared for and think about how you would handle the situation.

Quite often we get thrown for a loop because we didn’t employ one of the first rules of a good girl scout, (and of course with it being girl scout cookie selling season I couldn’t help but bring in that reference) is “to be prepared.”  So take the challenge and let me know what you come up with.

As for myself, I will go back to my original thought, and in answer to the question I posed, “Would I be prepared if an earthquake of real significance happened, and currently the answer is no, but I will put together a plan today, and at least get some of my things that are precariously perched on a shelf and are precious to me and use some earthquake putty to secure them safely from toppling over.

xo, jan