As he visits family in New York, Chris Barrow, the Dental Business Coach, discusses the notable difference between England and America’s perception of a ‘crisis’.
I’m in Crestwood, an affluent commuter town just 35-minutes north from Grand Central Station, situated along the Bronx River valley.
This week we are enjoying a relatively quiet time, visiting my wife’s family, and fitting in to their schedule of school runs, work, and after-school sports, interspersed with family dinners and meals out.
The valley of the Bronx River plays host to a north-south freeway on one side and the railroad link on the other. It’s so hard to travel east-west across the prevailing communication links that the residents must plan extra time for their journeys.
The third route up and down the valley is a public pathway that winds its way for 20 miles through the most gorgeous Autumnal display. We have picked the right time of year to take in a spectacular display of foliage.
Mid-term elections
We pass occasional joggers, walkers, bike-riders, and buggy-pushers of all ages.
To the surprise of our hosts, Annie and I choose to walk wherever possible. Between family homes, to shopping malls and up and down the public pathway for our morning constitutional.
A 10 km walk is split in half, with a coffee shop stop during which we get to people-watch the commuters and soccer moms beginning their day.
We’ve been here the week of the mid-term elections. As I write this, the results are slowly coming in and seem to be returning to an almost equal divide between the Democrat and Republican supporters.
Exit polls indicate very clearly that the two most burning issues that are influencing voters (58% so far) are inflation and abortion. With crime as a close third.
Pundits are preparing the public for a recession in 2023. In addition, the recent overturning of Rowe versus Wade has significantly increased the number of female voters who have used their vote.
People here who work or play in New York City are sick of the increasing risks associated with staying central.
Crisis or not?
The dental office below our apartment advertises Invisalign in their shop-front window and new patient availability.
Watching the morning news on TV, there is one word that seems to be missing from the anchor team’s vocabularies – ‘crisis’.
Nobody here talks about a ‘crisis’. They just talk about the situation and how they propose to deal with the situation.
In so many ways, this week in the USA has reminded me of how similar we all are – living our lives, raising our families, paying our bills, straightening our teeth!
In other subtle ways we are very different:
‘Two nations divided by a common language’?
The quotation is variously attributed to George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill.
Whoever originated the expression, they were only 20% correct in my opinion. I think there is much more that unifies us – not the least of which is just staying alive in 2022.
Crisis or not? That seems to be an attitude of mind. We could learn a lot from the lovely folks here.
Catch up on previous Dental Business Coach columns:
- Have you revisited your cashflow forecasts?
- Dental news: half empty or half full?
- Knowing your own capabilities and limitations
- Stagflation and the next ‘crisis’ in dental hygiene
- We need to stop using the word ‘crisis’.
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