We Are Afraid Of FEAR!

Our worst fears have been realized. Barrack Hussein Obama has been re-elected to a second term. The demise of our country is at hand. The sky is falling. Gotterdammerung. Armageddon. Revelation.                             We should all move to………………….. WHERE?

   REALLY?                                                       

Never in my life have I heard more idiotic drivel from the right wing press and out in the marketplace. Grown men and women saying things like, “ Our country can’t survive another four years of this!” This what? What exactly is THIS?

THIS – the inevitable collapse of an artificially enhanced and vastly overpriced real estate market.

THIS – changes in business driven by disruptive technologies that have radically altered consumer buying patterns.

THIS – a commercial lending environment that is less fluid in reaction to consolidation and failures caused by the real estate meltdown.

THIS – (probably the biggest THIS of all) a climate where business owners and managers put off making critical business decisions because “They don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“I don’t KNOW what’s going to happen.”  Let’s think about that sentence. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Of course you don’t. Nobody KNOWS what will happen in the future. We never did and we never will.

“I am afraid things will get worse.” When change is happening all around you, if you don’t adjust, most likely your circumstances won’t improve.

I am just going to say this OUT LOUD because somebody needs to: The biggest thing that has damaged our economy is FEAR!

We have allowed ourselves to be frightened into a state of near torpor by politics and the news media. “ Business is bad…nobody is doing anything.” I hear that about a hundred times a day. Think about that statement… If NOBODY is doing ANYTHING……..OF COURSE BUSINESS IS BAD! Business is about DOING THINGS!

Look around you…the businesses that are prospering are the ones that embrace change and the new technologies and marketplaces. The businesses that ARE doing well (and they are out there) are the ones that are fueled by a  brightly burning conviction that they have something better to offer in the marketplace. One of the great disservices done by the media is a failure to showcase businesses that are prospering. I don’t really blame the media for this. Like government , we get the news that we ask for. Stories about spectacular business failures are easier to write and get more attention. So how do you find those businesses that are growing and doing well? Look around you.