The Best Years of Your Life… Now!

This weeks message is simple:

Make the most of the time you have with family and friends - and indulge yourself in all good things - especially love…

Merry Christmas From Bob and Gwen Baran

Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains according to an article in USA Today.

Comparing the brain functioning of “children of poverty” to that of stroke victims was a not so surprising - for those of us who understand the direct relationship between what we “think” and the neurological pathways - what we think -  create inside the brain.

In the Intentional Prosperity™ System I clearly explain how a “poverty mindset” literally creates an expectation of poverty within an individual -  which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

It’s not surprising that the scientific community is finally beginning  to “discover” what many of us who have been students of the “human operating system” have long accepted as “common sense”:

You Become What You Believe 

Why has it been so hard for the scientific community to accept consciousness as the ultimate determination of what we perceive and experience as our day-to-day  physical reality?

Maybe consciousness - as cause -  is too easy.  After all, “where you place your focus and attention - becomes your reality” - sounds too much like pretending.  You know: I’m going to pretend I’m this and because I’m putting all my attention on it I will actually become what I pretend to be.

But that’s how it really works - it’s that easy

We - that is our mind -  needs to create a rationale for what it will believe so it tends to dismiss as “not credible” anything that just seems “too easy”.

Where’s the dissertation?  The research - the corroborating authors and scholars?

Focus + Attention = Reality

It can’t be that easy!

But it is… Accepting and practicing that formula - now that’s a challenge.

-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 

Mark my words and the date of this post. 

Nobody has any idea what the full extent of the financial crisis really is. 

It’s not a cut and dry situation where a person takes out a loan and then defaults on the loan.  If it was that easy to understand there wouldn’t be any financial crisis.

It’s the unknown nature of the “fantasy financial products” —  that have been sold around the world —  which is causing the problems.  Because the underpinning — the collateral - those “real” things that are supposed to maintain value over time –  which were used to justify the value of those derivative financial products has dissolved.

In a nutshell here’s what I believe caused the financial crisis we’re now facing:

An enormous number of “sub-prime” mortgages were sold.  That is, people who could not afford a mortgage or would not have been considered credit worthy — in much saner times — were given mortgages.  Many were “sold” on an initial lower mortgage payment which was affordable.  That payment — part of an adjustable loan — was only for a relatively short period of time — 3 to 5 years.  Then the loan adjusts itself upwards.

Suddenly after a few years of affordable house payments people are faced with substantial increases.  So much so that their household income cannot cover the increase.

Long before this happened the mortgage loan was already sold as a financial product using the appraised / market value of the house as collateral.  Since housing had continuously increased in value — the house was worth more than the money owed on the mortgage.

Now comes the financial institutions and their “fantasy derivative financial products”

The financial institutions began purchasing and  bundling these loans using the appraised value of the houses as “collateral” and the expected increasing loan payments as the revenue. 

Now here’s where things get out of control:  The “financial products” sold as investments valued themselves as being worth 12 to 30+ times the value of the collateral! — are you with me?  In other words, only a portion — 1/12 to 1/30 of the value of the  investment products are  based upon the actual value of the houses with sub-prime mortgages.

Using a smaller foundation of  “hard assets” in order to create new “value” is called leverage. 

Banks loan out 10 to 12 times the amount of their actual cash deposits and have been doing so for years.  As long as people paid their loans — with the anticipated defaults on loans figured in — this system has enabled our economy to grow and prosper.

But here’s where the system got off track:

The sub-prime mortgage backed “derivative” investment products were sold all over the world. Mutual funds, hedge funds, union retirement funds, even local governments, here and abroad, purchased these investments — because they were told they were sound! 

They relied upon trusted “rating services” who rated these products as fairly risk free… 

Looking for the best return on investment, these entities purchased these “derivative” financial investment products.  It’s important to remember that they weren’t investing directly into the sub-prime mortgages — it was a “derivative” or product leveraged against the “value” of those mortgages.

Here’s what brought the house of cards down:

The people who should never have been given a mortgage in the first place stopped paying their loans.  In a surprising number of cases, they just walked away from their houses — to a degree that had never before happened!

This caused the loans to go into “default”. 

So many of these loans started going into default that there was a sudden and substantial number of houses placed on the market by the mortgage companies.  This glut of houses started driving down the market price of all houses.  The worst depreciation — not surprisingly taking place in the geographic areas where the largest number of these sub-prime mortgages where being sold.

Now, the hard-assests used to leverage the derivative financial products being sold all over the world starts to fall in value — and the loan payments —  which created the profit that allows the return on investment promised by the “investment products” — are no longer being made.

The “investment banks” which purchased the sub-prime mortgages and then resold them as derivative financial products all over the world — suddenly had the foundation which supported the “perceived” value of their ” derivative financial products” collapse.   

The really frightening part is no-one knows how many levels of new “derivative” financial products were created and sold — This is why nobody can predict how bad the financial crisis really is…

When all is said and done, our financial system is based upon the faith — of the investor –  that investments will be safe. The underpinnings of what makes investors feel safe has dissolved.

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll explain the other “half” of the financial crisis — “short selling” and “naked shorting” — It has nothing to do with sex!

If you see this financial crisis differently, I would love to hear from you — This is the best take I have on it with the information that’s available — But then, even the so-called experts aren’t coming forth with anything more than speculation.

My concern is that too much time will be spent on assigning blame and political posturing in the coming days and weeks.  I believe we are not being told the whole story.  That, I’m afraid will only become apparent after the election…

Intentional Prosperity™ — understanding how the world really works.

Hold onto your wallets!

-Bob Baran

“Heavenly Body” from The Life On Mars - A music video
composed, performed and produced by Bob Baran.

Intentional creativity — the imagination unleashed!

I’ve mentioned many times that the very same principles and techniques presented in “The Intentional Prosperity™ System” were responsible for my being able to achieve many artistic breakthroughs with my music.

I wanted to share with you a track from my album (released a few years ago) “The Life On Mars” titled: “Heavenly Body”. I combined images from the NASA / Hubble Telescope along with the music.

I composed, performed and produced the music as a stream of consciousness composition. Using intentional creativity — I was able to sit down in my studio and compose the music without having any idea what the first note or the last note of the composition was going to be. You could say I “channeled” it directly from my imagination. You can hear full stereo sound clips of the album at gatheringwave.com or the itunes music store and just about every other online music store.

Intentional creativity allowed me to create instantaneous music.

I’ll be adding an article about this creative process to the Intentional Prosperity™ site — with this music video in the near future — I wanted you to see and hear it first.

I hope you enjoy this music video and please feel free to share the video with your friends… By the way, YouTube converted the expansive three-dimensional stereo music track into a “mono” track –
ahh, the limitations of a free service!

If you have any questions or comments about the video or the creative process I used please email me at bobbaran@mt.net or use the chat feature on the Intentional Prosperity™ web site.

-Bob Baran