Dear fellow entrepreneurs

To my fellow entrepreneurs,

I am writing this letter, primarily in response to the so-called economic crisis that the news and radio shows seem to want to perpetuate. I am suddenly reminded of a time not so long ago when I had fallen prey to the media hype, which if you remember had stated there would be chaos and bank runs as soon as the year 2000 would fall upon us.
Millions of dollars were spent on computer upgrades, most of which may have been needed for all I know, but as a new mother of three toddlers, I had been convinced that I needed to take action.
With the internet a fairly new concept to me, I had not yet learned temperance and had soon become obsessed with the “y2k” issue. I was frightened for my family.
Our brand new family business had been providing enough to live comfortably but extra money to spend on “rations” came at the cost of cutting back elsewhere and possibly gave contribution to debt.
Still, in all of this, I must point out that I have always been an “all or nothing” kind of person, a bit of a risk taker, but for me I was not willing to risk the welfare of my family and I spent nearly $3,000.00 on food storage items, food, water barrels and emergency supplies.
Well, I am here to tell everyone that the SKY NEVER FELL! I am not proud to tell you that Texturized Vegetable Protein, Rice, Legumes, Sugar, Oatmeal and flour lined my garage 3 rows deep and 3 rows high of 5 gallon buckets all carefully vacuum sealed with foil and diatomaceous earth to keep the bugs, air and ultra violet light out. In my own defense, it so happened that I was not only being influenced by the media and the internet, but a few members of a community church had found me in fear and were supportive of my fear. Some may have even profited from my overly ardent concern by selling special supplies to me. Oh, and on a side note, if one is ever purchasing Texturized Vegetable Protein, keep in mind that it is extremely light weight and that 50 pounds of it could fill up a garage easily! TVP, as it’s called is used as a meat substitute. The irony is that because I had spent so much money on all of that food storage, I have since refused any kind of prudent preparations for a rainy day, such as in case of earthquake. This fear and panic had ruled my life for a good half a year; I had employees joking about my paranoid behavior and made an absolute fool of myself.
My point is that we must once again disregard the media or at least use caution when forming opinions about what we are hearing and seeing. If I were to believe what some of the news programs are saying I would consider hiding out in the mountains for fear that bank runs could cause a complete meltdown of our system, just as in Y2K.
Does anyone see a pattern, here? I will not go on about politics, because we all love our new president and a positive attitude is what is of utmost importance. But shall we look forward ten years to the next time the corporate media wants to fear us into their control, while we eagerly check the news five times a day to see how the unemployment rate has fallen, or which companies have laid off how many people, or what the blah, blah, blah has to say about the blah blah blah.
Am I the only one who sees the fear mongering hype? Am I the only one who sees a bright future? NO I AM NOT, THANK GOODNESS!
A wonderful man that I know pointed out recently that while the unemployment rate might be down 10%, the employment rate is at 90%. That means that 90% of the country is NOT on unemployment. Every time one of us says: “This economy” or “the recession” or something of that nature, we are only creating a self fulfilling prophecy. We all know this fact, we have all heard about the story of Chicken Little (If you haven’t, please do!)
Now, I am not Polly Anna. I am not walking around with rose colored glasses. Even if it were really true that the economy was taking a dive, aren’t we helping it along faster by clutching onto the belief that the sky will close in on us at any moment? As I said, I am guilty too.
I was at my marketing meeting a few weeks ago and I couldn’t help notice how depressed everyone was. I had noticed that marketing ideas that people gave were shot down before the person could finish the sentence. I remember verbally attacking one of the members when she used the phrase “in this economy”, meaning to attack the phrase and the media, not the person saying it. I felt really bad, and subsequently found myself saying “in this economy” over fifteen times in the following two weeks and then I really felt stupid!
I was trying to find my own solutions to this “problem” and communal style living and gardening came to mind. I thought about buying a few chickens, and then I remembered I have neighbors. I also remembered how much I hate the smell of chicken shit. Then I thought about Y2K, which is what inspired me to write this article.
The most important thing anyone can do in any economy whether it’s a good economy or a bad one, whether a person has a job or they’re self employed, busy with work or with no work or something in between is to Ignore the bad news, really, just pretend they're lying or that it's not true. I cannot say this enough. Any and every single time I have looked at the news since the latest election, just to “check in” or “stay informed”, in order to feel better about “this economy” I have been shot down every single time. The news keeps saying the same bad news over and over again. In the midst of all that we are bombarded with fake stories of god knows what (don’t even get me started).

“Well, then if you don’t watch the news and you don’t read the paper and you don’t listen to the radio, how do you know what’s going on in the world?” you ask. My answer is that if you need to know “what’s going on in the world” you should only pay attention to the media as a point of debate. Become a part of the debate if you like, but you’ll likely drive yourself nuts, drive others nuts and most importantly be wasting your time. But if you must know, you must know and in that case I say to you: follow your inner guide to know what is true and what is not true.

Question everything you hear. Ask yourself what you are gaining from dwelling in fear, depression and doubt. Well, if I am scared about what is going on in the world, then I am more likely to go back more and more often to the source of that fear for a better answer.

If you want to know what’s really going on, just look outside your window. Cars are still driving, people are still buying new cars, new clothing, groceries and new houses are being bought and sold and bought and sold and we all know deep down that everything is going to be okay.

So my own personal solution is to pay my rent, buy my groceries, suffer the consequences of my over spending by having to work a little harder, be a bit more innovative and creative and come up with new ways of making money.
How many millionaires came out of the great depression, anyway? I really don’t mind if the banks get regulated or defragmented or discombobulated or whatever.
We are all going to survive whatever happens by our own ingenuity, but in the meantime do we have to keep feeding the negativity and the gloomers and doomers of the world?
We could just stick our heads into the sand or up high in the clouds and just do what we do, let the chips fall where they may and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If the shit hits the fan, you and I will be the ones picking up the pieces, not the banks or the government or the corporations. It really is true that we are the only ones to save ourselves and there are a thousand ways to do it. You know it, I know it. Let's just wake up and have some fun doing it!

If there’s a positive message in all of this I would say that the lesson is not to feed the media machine by giving into fear. Keep your money in the banks and make a difference a bit at a time by contributing to your community in every way that you can, love yourself and your family and be happy. If you have warm clothing and something to eat that’s a start.

If we keep your head in the clouds and keep dreaming, go easy on watching the news or don't watch it at all, we will likely live a blissful, peaceful and prosperous life. By sharing our wealth with our own communities as much as possible and by supporting the local markets as much as possible each one of us CAN change the whole world. We can also contribute by sharing our stories of hope, faith, humor, success and even wealth without guilt if we just follow our intuition instead of bad news.
My intuition is that no matter what the hype is, we are all going to be okay and some of us with a huge amount of faith, diligence and hope will do more that survive.
Now, “in this economy” we should look back at positive stories from the great depression and respect our elders for that very reason. We should learn from the past and understand that each one of us does make a difference. We are the consumers. My point is that the reason I love this country so very much is because I can write a letter like this and have hundreds and maybe even thousands of people reading it. The reason I love this country so much is because we have the right to be ignorant or not. We have the right by our purchasing power alone. That is still the real truth. At least for now....................................