🎤 Behind the Roar | January 24, 2026
This weekend, the United States is being visited by Winter Storm Fern—and she is bringing all sorts of cold temperatures, rain, sleet, and snow —a winter blanket covering much of the country.
As storms go, this is going to be a pretty significant one, which has caused people to do some last-minute grocery shopping for essentials, emptying the shelves in true “emergency” style, in order to be prepared for Fern’s arrival.
I am not one of those who ran out for last-minute supplies. But I did do my normal grocery shopping on Thursday, without even thinking about the fact that others would be grabbing bread and milk off the shelves as if they would never be available again. The crowds were frantic, a bit irritable, and I could almost visibly “see” the tension in the air as parents tried to calm their kids while navigating the aisles packed with shoppers.
It wasn’t the storm that felt overwhelming — it was the urgency of the preparation.
As I was shopping (for my regular weekly list of groceries), I realized that what I was seeing is so similar to what many of us end up doing with our dreams, passions, and goals. The “just-in-time” emergency shopping for staples before a storm — this is often what we end up doing with the things that bring us joy in life. We dive into a phased “just-in-time” burst of activity trying to squeeze weeks, months, even years of deferred dreams into just a few frantic days.
The just-in-time mentality works great for inventory systems and minimizing working capital, but I can tell you from my own lived experiences, it does not work for human dreams.
If we treat our dreams as a winter storm — waiting until the forecast is undeniable before we take action — then we will find ourselves in a state of depleted shelves (individual burn-out), high stress (waiting for on-demand clarity to appear), and the work will feel much harder than it needs to be (building the dream when the storm is already upon us).
Continuing with the storm preparation analogy: You can always tell who prepared early. Those are the ones at the store who are calm, maybe have only 1-2 items they needed to get to be complete with their preparations. They’ve been prepared all along for the unexpected. They aren’t scrambling the day before to complete everything they knew was needed before the storm hit.
It’s the exact same storm — Fern is arriving for everyone this weekend — but the experiences are vastly different. Much like our dreams and goals.
“It’s time to start seeing beyond the immediate tasks and boldly envision the life you truly want.” — Ronda K. Salazar, from Roar Like A Woman
And that is what I have realized I personally have been doing this year. I’m shifting my focus with regards to my dreams, goals and passions. Instead of procrastinating and scrambling just before the storm, I’m being proactive and dedicating time to building my dreams daily, weekly, and monthly.
I no longer have to be one of the panicked shoppers trying to get everything accomplished the day before it’s needed. I am slowly but steadily (and calmly) marching along, building my dreams, adding to them every day, knowing that very soon, the time will come when I will need to draw on those dreams.
And this time, I’m choosing to be ready — calmly, intentionally, and without panic.
— With Gratitude,
Ronda 💛