Hello, everybody. It's Sam from Financial Samurai. And we're in May, May 2020. And the good news is that I think the lockdowns are almost over. I've got to believe that the lockdowns for most of us will be over by June 2020. And life will kind of go back to the way it was with a lot of precautions.

Things are faring pretty well on the financial front. The S&P 500 is rallying because in April, we only lost 20.5 million jobs when the expectations were more like 22 to 23 million. Now, obviously, the numbers are crazy high. But everything is about expectations as we've been talking time and time again.

So the market continues to rally and hold up. And the expectations are that there will be more stimulus, more stimulus for the month of May and maybe June, maybe another stimulus check for all of you folks who make under $75,000 per person and $150,000 per couple. Maybe more PPP money.

After all, there's something like, I think, 30 million small businesses, and only half of them applied. And I think there's about a 30% to 40% chance that the enhanced unemployment benefits gets extended from July 31 till maybe the end of the year. Why not? I mean, give me a break.

There are tens and tens of millions of people unemployed. So this is much worse than in 2008 and 2009 in terms of the unemployment front. Yet in 2008 and 2009, unemployment benefits were extended to 99 weeks. So come on, government. Let's at least match that 99 weeks. And things will probably feel much more secure for those who rely on those benefits.

Now, it's important for all of us to continue to try to forecast the future. And since lockdowns are going to end, I think, within the next 30 days to 45 days, it's important for us to step it up. Step it up these remaining 35, 45 days, because a lot is at stake.

When I ran track in high school, my most hated relay was the 4 by 400 meter. I was a sprinter. I did the 100 meter dash and the 200 meter dash. And the 400 meters, which is one lap around the track, was about 200 meters beyond what I could sustainably run at max speed.

And generally, I'm always trying to go max, max, max. But 400 meters, man, it's killer. Anybody who's run track before knows it's a killer. So I always heavily faded towards the end, thereby letting my teammates down. But our team was thin. This is high school track. And Sam can run the 100 to 200 pretty quickly.

We can train him to get better. So I had to pace myself and train in a different way. I had to accept the fact that I would fall behind early to conserve energy. And it was only after I fired up the afterburners at the halfway mark that we started getting more competitive.

We still didn't crush our opponents, but we were always in the race. And you always want to be in the race, whether it's in a real track race or whether it's in a competitive tennis match or a basketball game or at work or at life in your relationship. You always want to give yourself a chance to win.

Because if you're not in the race, you're never going to win. So given we're in May 2020, I feel like we're at the 300 meter mark. By early June, the vast majority of us will be free again. The politicians will figure out a way-- different way-- a different way to control us, to control our livelihoods.

However, for the most part, we're going to be free again. And although some of us, probably most of us, are tired, we're kind of exhausted, or maybe we started off the blocks too quick, we've got to muster up our remaining energy to finish strong. I encourage you to use this month and any time left before the lockdowns are lifted to step it up.

If you do not, there will be consequences. And let's just think about the consequences for a second. If you are an employee, this is a very, very precarious time for you right now. Your manager will decide who to demote, promote, and lay off partly based on how productive you were during the lockdown.

The lockdown period is one big productivity experiment. Why on earth is the NASDAQ up for the year? Why? Well, one of the reasons why is because investors believe technology companies can continue to be productive with less. So with less employees, with less office overhead, and less expenses in general.

So when you can do the same with less, your operating profit margins expand, your profitability expands, and therefore, your valuation multiple either stays or expands as well. So as an employee, is your valuation multiple staying the same? If it is, that's pretty good because other employees are seeing their multiples decline.

Or better yet, is your personal valuation multiple expanding so that you can get paid and promoted? I hope it's the latter because you really need to figure out a way to provide value and make yourself indispensable during this lockdown period. You will be evaluated when you get back. Trust me, every single manager, the CEOs that I talk to, I talk to these folks because I know these folks.

And they are figuring out ways to cut costs, lay people off permanently. This is like a permanent structural change. And they are also seeing their stock prices do relatively well, at least here in tech land. So they're thinking, well, if this is what investors want, well, hey, I guess we're going to continue to give them what they want by being lean, as lean as possible.

So we're seeing a leaning of companies listed publicly and also a leaning of companies that are private. The lean companies are going to do better. That's just the way it is right now. Let's say you're an entrepreneur. You may see massive, massive pent-up demand for your products or services once the lockdown ends.

Are you going to be able to handle that without tremendous amount of preparation? You better prepare. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to benefit from that uptick in demand surge. You need to find ways to capture that demand and also make sure that if we go back to lockdowns, if this thing relapses, you're going to be more diversified and better prepared.

In sports, you're either going to come out physically and mentally fitter due to all the time you've set aside to train, or you're not. You cannot depend on your opponent to slack off. You just can't do it. You know, when I play tennis, I'm always training. I'm working on my backhand, my serve, my volleys, my footwork.

And I'm trying not to gain too much weight as a father of two now due to the lockdowns. There is no way I can compete effectively by just hoping my opponents just slack off and chill out. No, I've just got to control what I can control, which is to stay in shape and work on my skill shots, my power, my speed, and so forth.

And you've got to do the same thing. You've got to train right now, because if you can't train right now and you're back to work, and it's just back to go, go, go, then you're never going to have the time. So you've got to figure out how to make time.

And it's the same thing with your finances. We've been talking about this for years now, preparing for a downturn, taking advantage of an upturn, taking advantage of situations that don't seem like they're going to last for a long time. That's an arbitrage, whether it's in the stock market, in the real estate market, in business, and so forth.

We cannot let quarantine time go to waste. So in the spirit of doing what I say, I plan to go from three posts a week to four posts a week for the next three weeks. And I plan to record at least one podcast a week, if not two a week, maybe even more.

Because from my standpoint, there's just so much to talk about and so much to write about. And it's funny, because I know once the lockdown ends and when people can go back to work, to go back to their office jobs, it's not going to be obviously 100%, maybe it's 25% in the first three months and 50% in the next six months and so forth.

I know that demand and interest for listening to podcasts and for reading about personal finance is going to tick up. And so during this time, I'm going to try to write and talk about the most pertinent things that are helpful, that are going to help people get ahead financially.

I don't want people to look at my podcast episodes and my writing during the two to three month lockdown and say, "Well, what did you write about, Sam? "Did you just not write at all? "Did you just give up?" No, I'm not going to be the one giving up.

I'm going to step on the gas, just like in high school. I'm going to accelerate and do more. Because when we all come back, we're going to determine who are the ones who tried harder and who are the ones who didn't try as hard. And I think there's going to be a divergence.

There's going to be a divergence of performance once the lockdown ends. And I want you guys to be on the right side of that divergence. Finally, I just want to remind everyone that being smart is completely overrated. Instead of being smart, you want to be consistent, you want to learn from your mistakes, you want to keep on trying, and you want to keep on going.

That's the name of the game, folks. If you want to get ahead financially or whatever it is that you're doing, you've just got to keep on going no matter what. Thanks so much, everyone. And I'll speak to you guys soon because I'm going to be recording a lot of episodes over the next several weeks.