People in a crisis are not thinking clearly. Their emotions take over, and that's not a good place to be when it comes to your finances. Sometimes they feel like they have to get back to what they had before the disaster, but they need to be patient.

If you belong to a credit union or any associations, check to see if they have any sort of guaranteed life insurance for which you may be eligible. You may be able to get some minimal insurance to provide for your heirs without having to undergo medical underwriting.

This game is definitely tough. Sometimes emotions get high, and people stop thinking and come with late hits, stupid hits.

We all sing about the things we're thinking; musicals are about expressing those emotions that you can't talk about. It works a real treat.

The goal with hostages is to gradually lower expectations; in nonhostage crises, it's to lower emotions.

When emotions shout down intuition, think, then act. When intuition prevails, act then think.