Media Lemmings vs Rocky Balboa

I honestly just picked up the term “Media Lemming” from a Fox News anchor who used the term to refer to members of the US media who pick up on a concept or position being “played” or promoted by someone and start chanting the idea without realizing that the idea is fake, erroneous or will ultimately lead the pack of lemmings over the cliff to their destruction or discredit. Media lemmings are also not limited to mainstream media but to any and all of us, who post, repost or share stuff on social media without making the slightest effort of verification or thinking about social impact or consequence.

For the record, Google research maintains that lemmings don’t commit mass suicide as depicted in an academy award winning film during the ’50s. They were reportedly thrown over the cliff from the back of a studio truck! But since the people have simply assumed that lemmings commit mass suicide. Nonetheless, there is some truth to the concept of “media lemmings” in terms of herd mentality and it obviously extends to the general population. For instance, many of us are feeling pretty anxious about how things will be after the Extender-filled Community Quarantine is lifted. Truth be told, we’ve all shared the analysis to paralysis and doom and gloom forecast of spookspersons, economists, bankers and media. We have actually been stirring that pot of witches brew prophesying that there will be a recession, mass lay-off and a string of bankruptcy. BUT the fact of the matter is all of it is 30% data and 70% guesswork. Much like the science and medicine behind Covid-19, everything is fluid and uncertain. 

When our World War 3 started, we all thought that respirators would be the game changer and every President and nation fought tooth and nail to procure them. Now medical data from the battlefield indicates that they are more the game enders. The international experts said that facemasks, sunlight and Hydroxychloroquine could do little good or do more harm. But now you are not allowed to go out without a face mask, new studies are supporting the efficacy and benefit of a combination of high humidity and sunlight in killing the virus (such as jogging and going to the beach) and Hydroxychloroquine is being used by desperate physicians and proving to be useful in pre-empting full blown Covid-19.

In the same manner, I am suggesting that we should all temper our lemming mentality about how bad things will be for business and the economy. The Philippines, thanks to God, and the never say die attitude of Filipinos, has weathered so many economic, financial, and environmental disaster and has always come up to the surface. Yes we are experiencing the global pandemic and for those who sadly lost a loved one, the damage will certainly be permanent and long lasting. But for the rest of us it’s all temporary. I liken our global ECQ to a forced vacation, a temporary shut down for repairs but not a permanent closure. For businesses, all the equipment is still in your offices, job site, and commissaries. Your work force and talents remain the same if not better motivated and eager to get back into the ring. The business, well it has been about “potential” meaning the need and the buyer is still out there, it all depends on how you attract, inform and harvest that potential into actual sales or transactions.

If you’re worried about customers, they are still on the planet and in the country. I for one am bent on hitting the beach, doing at least 10 serious home improvements I discovered resulting from ECQ, and I have no doubt that everyone will be going for personal, medical services and buying everything we did not have or needed badly during lockdown. In the mean time, government both national and local remain our biggest customers! The money is still in the system except for what we spent for imported stuff. Yes the government spent a lot of money but that money went out paying for products that are mostly manufactured and produced by Philippine companies. The economy, business and capital did not die due to Covid-19.

What the pandemic did was to temper our greed. For the longest time CEOs around the world were driven by one thing, the only thing; profit for shareholders. Every year companies in the Philippines arrogantly boasted of double digit growth and profits in the billions while employers united in fighting salary increases and giving employees shares of stocks. So now, we got a rude awakening and the unavoidable realization that it is not wise to expand, get into loans just to do more, more, more! Now we are back to square one, to figure out how to reboot, redesign, upgrade and operate our businesses in such a way that it does not become something that imprisons us or kills us when it comes crashing down on us. The tools and the trade are still on the floor, now go Work Smart!

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Instead of using a verse from the Bible, I leave you with a line that we should all take to heart and remind ourselves of every time we take a hit. It’s from the movie Rocky Balboa starring Sylvester “Rocky” Stallone:

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows, it’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky Balboa

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