The Best Years of Your Life… Now!

As we’ve been putting together our Radical Prosperity Mindset workshop video — one of the topics we’re covering seemed like it should find it’s way into a post — so here goes:

As soon as you are able to, you need to arrange a time with your immediate family, or your extended family of friends and trusted neighbors and have a very serious discussion about everyone’s reaction to what’s going on in the world.

The reason I bring this up is some of the reports we’ve been getting — from surprising sources — regarding how the stress and panic of the ongoing financial crisis and how it’s beginning to affect people. It’s happening in ways that are not always obvious.  

For example: according to a news report I heard on the radio a couple of days ago the suicide rate amongst middle aged “white women” has risen 300% in recent weeks — and it’s being attributed to stress from the financial crisis.  This is a very alarming trend and could be an early indicator of how stress could be affecting many women.

That’s why I urge you to take time to reach out to those you care about and have a conversation about the potential implications of the our rapidly changing world…

There’s a real problem of denial in our day-to-day world right now.  People who are not having their concerns reflected in the mainstream media or other areas of society may feel isolated or that they are all alone facing their particular situation.

We also need to be talking to each other and defining our relationships. Who are you going to be able to count on when you really need  to count on someone?  Don’t wait until an unexpected situation occurs and then find out a relationship — you had been counting on —  was based upon your assuming certain things that were not shared with the other person…

You need to know where you stand with the people in your life.

The current changes taking place in the world makes it all that more essential for you to make sure you’re not caught up in “one sided” relationships with people who will let you down when you need them most.

You should look at getting a reality check on your interpersonal life as an important part of your “personal survival network”.  I’m talking about emotional as well as physical survival.  

This may be the first time in your life you’ve had to think about what part your relationships with your family, friends and neighbors are going to play in case your physical survival becomes an issue — but it’s something you need to consider very seriously.

As always my motto remains: “Expect the best but prepare for the worst”.  

Knowing who you can trust and to what degree you can expect someone to act in your best interest — is really nothing more than allowing yourself to become “street smart”.  Believe me when I was a kid growing up on the streets of Detroit — I knew who my friends were — and I had no illusions about how much they would be willing to help me when the chips were down.

-Bob Baran 

I’ve always believed that doing nothing in any life situation — that begs you to take action — makes it inevitable that the real cost to you  –  in time, emotion and money —  will quickly escalate.

I had a conversation with someone today that brought this truism home.

We had a computer repair guy stop by to do warranty work on one of our Mac’s.  It was a small thing — replacing the headphone jack.  As one thing led to another the topic of the financial crisis came up.

“Right after I first heard about the financial crisis — I was ready to sell off my stocks and cash out — but all of my friends told me to hang in there — now I’m afraid to look at what’s left…” was the computer repair guy’s comment on the situation.

 I felt so bad for him when I heard this… Why do people not trust their gut feelings when it comes to something as important as their life savings?

What possessed him to ask his friends what they thought?

Are they now going to rescue him financially?

The problem with asking your friends what they think you should do (about anything) is that unless they are experts and have real experience with a given situation, their advice is usually worthless!  

Sorry to put it so bluntly but that’s a fact.

You see, most people are afraid to take action —  even when their personal early warning radar is screaming at them to do something.  Instead they contact their friends or family members —  who are also feeling the same sense of concern — but a strange phenomenon then takes place:  

The person being asked for advice doesn’t want to disclose his or her own feelings and  betray their emotions. So they attempt to come off as being unflappable.   In other words, they tell their friends to stay calm and not overreact — which in this case was the worst advice anybody could give!

I mentioned to him that I posted a blog on  Monday October 10, 2008 and told everyone I knew to sell-off their stocks immediately — and park the money in an FDIC insured bank account for the time being… I was motivated to write that posting by watching Jim Cramer, from the “Mad Money” cable show… I was just relaying his advice — and he was someone who I knew was an expert — and didn’t have some kind of hidden agenda...

What I was struck with was the if the repair guy  had embraced a  Radical Prosperity Mindset — he would have taken the most obvious action — which is to protect his nest egg!  

Instead he chose not to trust himself or his “radar” and reached out to his friends and family for advice.  So they all lost a significant portion of their nest eggs together!

Why will people rationalize doing the opposite of what their own “internal survival mechanism” is urging them to do?  Because our society has made rational thought — even when it is based upon bad information — to be more valuable than an “emotional feeling”.

Big mistake!

As I explain in “The Intentional Prosperity™ System” — an emotional feeling can often be a rapid synopsis of an enormous amount of data.  Think of it this way:  His gut’s told him to do something quick — that feeling was based upon the right side of his brain quickly scanning his attitudes, opinions and beliefs as well as his current day-to-day reality.  That “scan” came back as a feeling —  he didn’t feel comfortable with —  so to dispel its effects he rationalized his feeling as being reactionary and not valid.

Of course it was reactionary!

The right brain function of your mind has a 360 degree view of your current reality!  I’m convinced that it (the right brain) also has the ability to accurately project into the future —  likely probabilities…  Because he couldn’t decipher the flavor of emotion he was feeling — which was telling him to get out of the stock market because he was going to loose a lot of money.   He trusted his limited left brain rationale and the limited rationale of others who he trusted more than he trusted himself and talked himself into doing nothing.

Instead of trusting himself he consciously chose to become a victim.

By adopting a Radical Prosperity Mindset, you learn quickly to trust yourself because you allow yourself to enter the “zone” where your awareness is amplified and your feelings become your long-range radar — working for you — protecting you.

If you diminish the importance of how you feel — instead of paying attention to what the flavor of that feeling may be communicating to you — you become your own worst enemy. Because you’ve turned your back on one of the most powerful “survival and success” tools you possess — instead of understanding, embracing and utilizing it for your own good.

-Bob Baran 

I hated listening to those gloom and doom guys!

You know the type — for the last twenty years they’ve been telling you about the impending global financial crises — the collapse of the stock market — the end of civilization as we know it. I used to turn them off.

Yeah, well it took twenty years to get here…

If you would have listened to those gloom and doom guys you would have been living in fear, uncertainty and doubt for a good part of your life — waiting for the other shoe to drop… That’s no way to live.

Okay… the other shoe has dropped.

Now let’s face reality.

The mainstream media is not going to tell you the entire truth about what’s going on because they don’t want to lose your patronage. If what they tell you makes you feel bad you’re going to tune them out — So you’ll continue to get more of the same with small doses of reality on the 6:00 pm news.

The mainstream media is not the early warning system it may have been once upon a time.

After all, how is it possible that we all went to bed one night — where everything was fine and the next morning — on that fateful day in September — we wake up to find out we were “days away” from a global financial meltdown — Excuse me? (What is it about September anyway?)

So, do yourself a favor and don’t count on the media to tell you what’s really going on

By the time they “get it” it’s usually too late for you to do anything about it…

The media has become isolated from reality. It’s the old “herd mentality” at work. The media jumps on a story because their “group think” (read lazy journalism) determines something is finally important enough to discuss it. By the time this happens the real significance to you has already diminished… and the reason is this:

When the mass of society finally adopts something as being significant — that significance has already been diluted to the lowest common denominator.

What does this mean to you?

Don’t wait around with your finger up in the air trying to judge which way the wind is blowing! If you wait for the wind to reach you it’s already too late to change your direction!

You’ve got to become proactive about your life and your lifestyle.

You must develop a “Radical Prosperity Mindset” and get “street smart” about your life and your options. Don’t sit back and act as if everything is just going to continue as it has in the past. We’re undergoing fundamental change to our way of life and we will not fully understand what those changes are going to be for months to come.

I’m working on a new video that will be titled “RPM — Radical Prosperity Mindset”

It’s a highly focused workshop that will show you how to squeeze the financial fat out of your lifestyle and reposition yourself to ride the wave of change — a wave that’s already here and is going to continue to build in the coming months… The video is also going to show you how to become “street smart” about your life and the world around you.

Change is already underway — Either you understand, accept and adjust to it by empowering yourself to become the Master of your destiny — or do nothing and wake up one morning paralyzed by fear, uncertainty and doubt — because you don’t know how to react to a world that just happened to change…

While you were sleeping.

-Bob Baran

“Radical Prosperity” is the art and science of taking care of yourself when you can’t rely upon “the system” to do it for you.

The global financial system has been forced to  transform itself as it reacts to an unprecidented loss of faith — banks not trusting the viability of other banks — causing a slowdown and in some cases a freeze in the credit markets.

This is having a ripple effect all the way down the “pyramid” to those of us on the bottom who have played the game —  have been prudent with our finances and trusted that “the powers that be” were looking out for our best interests.

Well, we now know that’s not the case…

Amazingly, they weren’t even looking out for their own best interests!  Which is really bizarre… How else can you explain so many financial institutions going bankrupt, needing a bailout or having to be merged into another company?

So what good can come out of this?

It might make more people pay closer attention to their own definition of prosperity.  In fact it may even radicalize your thinking — which would be a really good thing.

For instance, did you ask yourself —  at any time during the last few weeks —  any of the following questions:

1.  What if everything collapsed and even my cash money wouldn’t buy anything?

2.  Am I prepared to survive?

3.  What would I do if my job ceased to exist?

4.  What if my retirement and savings are wiped out?

5.  Do I still have “blind faith” in the system like I used to?

I thought about a lot of those things… I was just as stunned as everyone else to wake up one day and hear about the global financial collapse on one hand … and notice that on the other hand, nothing has really changed —  except that there seems to be a renewed feeling of dread in the air… And the price of gasoline has dropped.  We’ll begin to really see and feel the changes in the coming weeks and months — and it will start right after the election.

I think we’re facing an “epoch” changer — events are going to be referred to as “before the collapse” and “after the collapse”. Kind of like before 9/11 and after.  

When I reviewed the history about “The Great Depression”,  apparently the stock market crash didn’t usher in the depression right away… It actually took a couple of years for the ripple effects to move through the economy and throughout the economies of the world.

One thing is for sure: It forever altered the behavior of a lot of people and caused them to re-evaluate what was important.  In many cases survival became the primary motivation behind many of their decisions. 

We’d like to believe that we have many more layers to our current social “safety net” — which didn’t really exist back then.  One thing I’ve noticed which may be more prevalent now is that most people don’t possess an essential “skill” that was more a part of the “way of life” in the 1930’s:

How to make money.  That’s right!  How to make money.

It may sound incredible but our society has caused most of us to be much more removed from the process of making money.  Outside of putting something up for sale on ebay or putting on a garage sale — most people don’t know how to view a situation and recognize an opportunity to make money — and then take the action to make the money.

This is because most of the jobs in today’s world are compartmentalized.  Not many people have the skill that gives them the ability to go out on any given day and make money.  Not just sell something that they own to raise cash — I’m talking about creating wealth — making money from an idea or “connecting the dots”  in a given set of circumstances and acting upon that opportunity.

I call this skill RADICAL PROSPERITY

Imagine for a moment how you would feel knowing that regardless of the changing circumstances in your day-to-day world, you possessed a skill that would allow you to create money from virtually any situation?  

It would go a long way toward erasing any “dread” you might be feeling about the future. 

The funny thing is that I’ve been offering to teach people this skill all along as part of “The Intentional Prosperity™ System”.  I’ve described it as “being able to find your passion and follow your passion — creating a lifestyle doing what you love”  I’ve even got a web site named www.passion-unlocks-prosperity.com which is dedicated to living your life doing what you love…

But times have changed and it may be time to present the ability to make money and live life on your own terms from a much more radical point of view:  SURVIVAL!

So I’m putting together material on how to survive and prosper during uncertain times…

It’s still based upon a foundation of Intentional Prosperity™.  I’m just going to shift the application of the Intentional Prosperity™ process from “living the life of your dreams” to “surviving the coming changes”.

“Radical Prosperity” will be a book, video or a seminar — I’m not sure what the format will be. But it will quickly teach you the basics —  what you need to know in order to survive and prosper in any expected or unexpected change to your day-to-day life.  Think of it as a “life preserver” — an easy to understand primer on practical prosperity.

Just having this kind of financial “life preserver” will greatly reduce your anxiety about the future.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress. 

-Bob Baran 

I am responsible for closing down the stock market 40 years ago! 

Here’s exactly how I did it:

When I was senior in high school we had a visiting Assistant Professor of Economics (I think he was from Northern Illinois University) teach a class.  During that class he wanted to show us how the stock market worked. 

He gave each one of us a fixed amount of play money and told us the rules:  When you buy a stock the price of that stock goes up.  When you sell a stock the price of that stock goes down.

He set up about 15 “stocks” — which were names he wrote on the blackboard — all at the same share price.  As my fellow students bought and sold these stocks the prices went up and down accordingly.

I didn’t jump right in — instead I watched for a couple of minutes and realized something:

You could force the price of a stock upward with a minimum purchase of one share.

So I began to force the price up by buying one share at a time.  As I began to do that other students seeing the stock go up also began to buy — but they didn’t buy just one share they bought several shares at a time.  Finally, I used up all of my play money with my one share at a time gambit and then sold all of my stocks at once…

The teacher was watching what I was doing and called a halt to the trading — he shut down the market.

I ended up with the most play money in my account. 

The teacher was upset that I took advantage of the system for my own gain… and made a point of chastising me for it in front of the class.

I remember thinking to myself: 

Wasn’t the purpose of the exercise to show us how to make money in the stock market?  Was it fair that I was singled out for understanding how the system worked and using it to my advantage? 

After all, he didn’t set up “trading rules” which would have prevented the artificial ramping up of the stock value. A simple technique I just happened to recognize early on –  that it took a very small amount of money relative to the overall size of the market — to force the price of the stock up or down.   I cashed out when the stock I was manipulating was near the top of its value — the point was to make money, right? 

That was forty years ago.

I’m  amazed that the manipulation I was able to accomplish as a teenager in a classroom is still possible in the real world forty years later. 

The fact that the stock market can gyrate up and down almost 1,000 points or more –  in a single day –  means the “irrational emotional element”  — which is part of the herd instinct –  has no checks and balances in the current system — not to mention the flat-out manipulation of share price — that always assures some will win but most will lose. 

Let’s face it:

What’s irrational is taking a company that might be worth 5 billion dollars —  if it was put up for sale — based on its’ assets and revenue — but having its stock valued at 25 billion dollars!  A valuation which is based upon an assumption of “faith”  that people will continue to purchase that piece of paper — a share of stock — for a price that has no valid connection to the true value of the company… Other than some arbitrary emotional belief that somebody’s going to pay that amount for the stock.

Here’s the fatal flaw…

If three or four percent of the total stock issued for a company is sold in a single day it can have a catastrophic effect on the share price.  It doesn’t simply go down three or four percent in value — You see in a perfect world there should always be enough people willing to buy the shares on a given day to offset any sales of that share.  One share is sold and one share is purchased — maintaining a sort of balance.

But you have a system now where it’s possible — if you understand how — to make money when the market goes up or when it goes down.

The share price of a stock can drop or explode in a single day based upon the well publicized opinion of one individual or organization — Something that shouldn’t happen.

It’s also time to eliminate altogether or rigidly regulate anyone’s ability to “profit” when the market goes down.  Common sense tells you that there shouldn’t be an incentive to collapse the wealth of many to line the pockets of a few.

The potential for real stability will now only come when the “exuberance”  is sifted out of the market and share price more accurately reflects  the true value and performance of the corporation.  

Unfortunately, it means lot of people will have been better off going to Las Vegas and gambling their retirement nest egg away. Most Casino’s will “comp” you a free meal and drinks if you loose everything — something you won’t get from those who managed  your 401K — into oblivion.   

-Bob Baran