Prob­a­bly a decade ago I wrote a piece for the old Mort­gage Orig­i­na­tor about the need to lean for­ward no mat­ter which way the wind blows. Strangely enough I talked about volatil­ity and uncer­tainty. Times don’t change all that much nor does the mes­sage about lean­ing for­ward, or mov­ing for­ward if you like, no mat­ter the circumstances.

There is cer­tainly more than one way to look at change. A view could be that there was a per­fect win­dow of oppor­tu­nity to grow our busi­ness and we missed it. Now is not the time to take chances. Let’s do noth­ing or maybe even retrench. That’s one view but I don’t buy it. I never have.

Of course there are other views. Whether we are in the upside or down­side of a busi­ness cycle it takes def­i­nite action to cre­ate momen­tous results. We need to ask our­selves what will it take to move us for­ward now? No mat­ter which way the mar­ket winds blow, stand­ing still and doing noth­ing doesn’t usu­ally work.

(more…)