The principles behind diversification are spreading out risk and preparing for the unknown. We currently find ourselves in the middle of a major “unknown”—a global pandemic that most of us didn’t see coming.
COVID-19 is an unexpected situation that’s affecting us in unexpected ways… Hindsight being 20/20, could we have been more prepared for crisis on an individual level?
Measures to control the pandemic have put importance on social distancing, avoiding contact with others, and staying at home as much as
possible… But what if you could be somewhere else entirely?
Somewhere removed from the chaos and away from other people but safe… in a country with dependable infrastructure (including solid financial systems and health care)…
Where you could have a bit of space with tillable land and fresh water to live self-sufficiently, if you wanted to… and where, most importantly, you could live legally for however long is necessary…
Even if you had somewhere like that to go to right now, you wouldn’t be able to get there because of the current restrictions on international travel. In fact, there are very few tangible actions you can take towards building layers of contingency at the moment, but perhaps this is an opportunity to start thinking about your backup plan… The current circumstances won’t last forever.
Lief Simon, Editor of Simon Letter, has long made the case for diversification. He’s usually talking about diversification of your investment portfolio, but the logic behind spreading your assets across different types of investments to insulate against unknown risks applies to lifestyle, too.
It all comes down to having options. If things go south in one part of the world, it would be advantageous to have at least one other place to go, where you can hunker down in safety and ride out the worst of whatever global crisis has struck. This article will take you through your best options for doing just that.
