By Robert Wheatley

Let’s Get Going….

It’s spring break and we ventured down to Puerto Vallarta for some R&R with the kids. The flight was full but not packed. The lines long at Customs but not too long. The restaurants in PV have business but there are a few empty tables. The beach areas are busy but not over-crowded.

We’re staying in a beautiful condominium nestled on a quiet sandy cove in the Conchas Chinas area. A close friend of ours developed the site and building. He is currently trying to sell the six units. Five star views, sandy beach, infinity pool, stone floors and counters, Viking kitchen and impeccably furnished. Yesterday they sold the unit we are in at a substantial discount to asking price with warnings from the agent that the market is tough — and getting tougher so a new offer might not appear for a very ling time. The deal is done amid an undercurrent of concern about sitting for months on the just-finished product. The mood about the sale is subdued.

In the market areas away from the tourist center people go about their day selling their wares, fruits and seafood. In their eyes you can see the lingering questions about their own welfare. But their overhead is low – the distance between life’s simple pleasures and the hard obligations of managing your bills isn’t too great. Sort of like when a child learns to ski and the inevitable crashes aren’t such a big deal because the distance between standing up and falling down is less than a yardstick.

So the weather in PV is still 82 degrees each day. Perfect. And the palm trees are no shorter. But you can tell the issues for people in every walk of life are real and compelling. The paralysis is partly supported by the facts of submerged 401ks and declining home values, tight credit and other asset-reducing conditions. The other half is fueled by the hall talk and informal conversation that helps supply the fear and anxiety of what may or may not lie around the corner.

It is human nature to reign in, pull up the drawbridge and head to the root cellar hoping the bad news above will pass over us without much effect. I ask this: are we any less creative or innovative than we were a year ago? Has there been a collective draw down on brainpower that has sapped the ability to invent, lead, manage and build our businesses? Is the central move to add-value and compelling benefit that lies at the core of most entrepreneurial success stories somehow vaporized in the face of bad economic publicity?

No.

Instead I believe we collectively feel a bit chastened by the revelations that perhaps our consumption habits were a tad unbridled in the days of escalating home values, equity loans, cash outs, easy credit and other assorted sources of wealth we could and did tap into.

But for the most part I also think most of us did not run around like drunken sailors running up credit limits for sport. Many of us bought real estate, made investments, fixed up our homes and invested in our children’s futures. So with limited apologies for the occasional indiscretion most of us should be able to sleep easily at night.

It’s time now to refocus our energies and attention on the never-ending business of value creation. The engine that drives the economy, mostly from consumer spending, is an outcome of remarkable, interesting, useful, beautifully designed and delivered products and services that improve our lives and loves. So lets get to it. We’ve done it before. Now is not the time to reign in and wait out the storm above. Now is the time to fire up the engines of invention and work like crazy to improve lifestyles and reignite the passions of both want and need that come from our in-grained ability to recognize and invest in a great idea when we see one.

What do you think?

View from the pool…