We hear about it all day, on every television news or chat channel! We read about it in every online chat! It’s the headline in every newspaper. I mean every newspaper! When we get together with friends or family, it’s the main topic of discussion! It has taken the world by storm in an amazingly shot time! It has definitely changed and will keep changing out lives for quite some time to come! What is it … ?

The Corona virus Crisis !

“This crisis — like earlier ones — could well be the catalyst to shower aid on the wealthiest interests in society, including those most responsible for our current vulnerabilities, while offering next to nothing to the most workers, wiping out small family savings and shuttering small businesses” . Quoted from the article in The Interceptor, available here

The media has exploded the Corona pandemic and is making huge profit from it. Nothing sell like bad news. In most countries, Import and export has been closed. Airports and other forms of travel have been stopped. Schools and other public places have been closed.

These are all good decisions to curb the flow of the virus as we see in the corona-similator from the Washington Post. According to the post we need to be quarantined… lockdown.

I am a school teacher …

In the country I’m in, the President has ordered all schools to be closed, no gatherings of more than 1oo people and a few other measures. Good measures! but … a lot of families are going to be indoors. Well a lot of children will be at home and that means that at least one parent will have to stay home to look after the kids.

Here are a few other realities:

No sports will be played and therefor only sports replays on the telly,

All musical shows, concerts and pays will be cancelled,

No movies, the theaters will be closed,

For some, No work, no pay.

No income, or only half ….. (think for yourself)

Coronians and coronaphobia

Boredom will set in and as a joke I heard says, in 9 months from now a new generation will arise and be called the Cononians.

Jokes aside. I know a few companies that are going to make a lot of money with this, not including the hand sanitizer and toilet paper companies. And the major proportion of those companies will be internet companies. I have already heard of grocery delivery companies being started, with the anticipation of stores and malls being closed or “locked down”. If not locked down the coronaphobia will prohibit people from going. If you think coronaphobia is not real, try greet someone in the age old tradition of a handshake.

Real Change

“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around” Milton Friedman

With all this in mind and the explosion of the internet, there are so many opportunities to still be busy and make money … to pay the rent. There are so many opportunities to learn how to make money or just learn a new skill. I spoke to some of my students about the opportunities on the internet, as it is such a growing opportunity.

We have all heard of the age old saying that goes “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. I came across another one and I think it is 100 times better.

“When life gives you lemons, you don’t make lemonade. You use the seeds to plant a whole orchard — an entire franchise! Or you could just stay on the Destiny Bus and drink lemonade someone else has made, from a can.”

Opportunity Knocks

There are so many opportunities on the internet, and with so many people staying at home, why don’t you try? Do you have a skill? I am a teacher and can tutor. They have art skills and writing skills. We all have them (skills) and they can provide us with an opportunity to make a bit of extra cash. A great site to go to is Fiverr where you could go on and register to provide a skill. If you want to learn how to improve your skill on Fiverr you could go there too. Learn something new or teach something on Udemy!

You could start a blog or a website. Get a name from Namecheap and get hosting from probably the cheapest web-hosting and best known one, BlueHost. Come to a my site where you can either see what I have done or get digital products to sell to make money, courses to do or books to read about how to “plant your orchard” (build your own home or internet business). If you don’t want to browse around or spend money, but you want to get 2 free websites to practice on and the training to learn how to build and market them (and a community of people to help you), then you can go to a site called WealthyAffiliate.

So many people are going to be clicking and surfing the internet for information, education and tools. Be one of the people that supplies the tools and you will have more than a lemonade company! You could build up a good pension or an empire? It’s in your hands.