The Tide is High

My least favorite Blondie's song.  I prefer One Way or Another, Call Me, or Heart of Glass, not the calypso rhythms of The Tide is High.  It's actually sad to watch the videos posted on Youtube, like One Way or Another, as we must have been very gullible as children, as they are not even trying hard to pretend they are lip-synching the song.  The electric instruments are not even plugged into anything!

But, alas, I am not reminiscing about 1980 this morning, but rather a small business lesson that I learned over the years during a previous boom and bust cycle from yesteryear.  When the tide is high, it hides a lot of garbage on the beach.  When you are in a business or market that is growing, it's easy to get caught up and be happy that you are growing and profitable.  It's really important to inspect the infrastructure that you are building and be honest and open to review failures to understand the causes and take definitive action.  When the tide is high, those failures might not seem as important, but when the tide goes down, you'll notice how they litter the entire beach.

It's easier to grow in a growth market.  A great business can grow and be profitable in stagnent and depressed markets, as well.