Bull & Baird: Resilience
Resilience might be one of the most important things we can build as human beings. Whether it’s investing or life, being able to endure is a powerful human trait. Let me tell you a story about how my resilience was tested recently.
“What are we going to do now, is our home ruined?”
Words uttered by my 19-year-old son at 3:30 a.m. on August 10th, 2025. The look on his face is something I’ll never forget.
My wife and I were standing in our basement, water over our ankles. He had heard our screams and wandered down to see what was happening.
Milwaukee was experiencing its worst single day rainstorm in history. It rained close to 8” by that time, it would go on to rain another 2” before it was done, and a lot of it was pouring into my home.
I’ve never felt more helpless in my life. As the water crept higher, there were moments my wife and I felt overwhelming dread.
I had a plan for this though! I had bought a submersible pump and we had a backup system for our sump pump. I thought about what I’d do if our basement flooded for years but even though I had a plan, I was frozen in place. In the end, a plan is just a piece of paper when human emotions take the wheel.
There are times when a storm is happening where you must let it pass; I wrote about that earlier this year. But there are times when actions are needed to shore up a problem and the plan was in place for just that.
The three of us decided in that moment to do just one thing. Then another and another. If we could pile up small successes eventually we could overcome the problem.
“I’ll move everything as high as I can.”
“I’ll start pumping water out the laundry vent.”
“I’ll bail water from near the furnace.”
Suddenly our mood was lifted enough to think clearly again. We went back to the plan and it helped us immensely.
There are lots of things that happen to us in life that are completely out of our control. Weather, stock market crashes, election results, pandemics, just to name a few. Was my situation as bad as others have faced across the country? No, in the grand scheme of things my flooded basement is a blip in history. But it taught me something important.
In the end it’s our reaction to the event that determines whether we will survive it or not. Which means resilience is probably the most important thing we can learn in such a chaotic world.
Not only does it take resilience to survive surprising events, it also takes a good support system. By the time the sun rose we had 6-7 friends in our home helping dry us out. They wouldn’t leave us until the job was done. The kind of help that makes you cry a few days later thinking about it.
After the storm I suddenly had a deeper understanding of the kind of helplessness some of our clients feel in a market selloff. Fear is something that can overwhelm anyone at any time, even if they have a plan in place. Again, a plan is just a piece of paper when our very real emotions bubble to the surface, but it's your guide to getting to the other side.
If you’re reading this at some point in the future and you’re feeling overwhelmed by what’s happening in the world just know this: it’s normal. It’s normal to feel afraid and scared of the unknown. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed and hopeless, even if you have a plan in place.
Your goal is to lean into your support system and build small wins, even if that small win is a walk around the block to clear your head. Even if that small win is your son saying, “We’re doing good Dad, lets keep going.” But don’t lose sight of your plan because that’s how we reinforce resilience.
Whatever you are facing will eventually pass, like it did for us, and the sun will shine on you once again.
The information reflected on this is a Baird opinion and subject to change. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. All investments have some level of risk, and investors have different time horizons, goals and risk tolerances, so speak to your Baird Financial Advisor before taking action.
