My Brain Goes Nuts Or Am I Confused ?

These are confusing times indeed. Confusion is in air as if it is something contagious. But what make us all confused? We, who have lived most of our lives with a clear analytical approach on every aspect of subject under the sun, we who work out various permutation and combination and predict the trends in every area of our lives! Its not about us and our capabilities anymore. We are zapped out of our wits.
The weather,economics,the politics or the job scenario nothing is as it used to be. These are job freezes, dehiring, salary cuts, bonus freezes, cost cutting and resultant insecurities situations. One thing follows another and Domino effect gather momentum. But if you have read the Chaos Theory, you would know that confusion can be very deceptive. Out of confusion great creativeness takes birth, which brings out claritywe are looking for. It is clarity to move forward and take the next step.
But what does this confusion does? To my understanding it hampers our habitual way of thinking, which i think is a blessing in disguise since our habitual thoughts tends to block our wisdom. It is like when our brain can't figure something out,It Goes Nuts.
We have been programmed to think that our brain must figure out everythin. After that is its job,isn't it? To understand things. So when brain stops doing its job, we kind of get stalled. If we stay in the flow and stop fighting or resisting this stall, we can easily make the transistion from brain based intellectual logic to deeper soul wisdom.
Like meditation, a place where you don't think, you just let the thought comes and go like drifting clouds in vast blue sky. In this non-thinking place you connect with wisdom within. Yes, a good example can be deep connection between breath and thought.Try holding your breath for a while, observe your thought while holding your breath. Are you surprised to note that you can't think while you hold your breath?
So, if you wish to derive banefits from this confusion, learn to practice the art of non-thought. Get rid of you addiction to words. Notice your feeling of confusion and instead of struggling to find an answer to this confusion, just accept it. Let it be. Don't analyse it.Breathe and feel..............don't think. Welcome confusion and uncertainity. Let go our restrictive way of life. Discover the truth beyond the prevailing circumstances and Expect Success.

Special Note- This column does not condemn thinking per se. It certainly has its place. But is it the only tool we have? It is like a tailor using only a pair of scissors or a carpenter using only a hammer. They will be able to do some task but all their abilities won't be put to use. The same thing applies to thinking. We have many other facilities besides our thoughts. Let us put them to use now. In 17th century Rene Descartes profoundly proclaimed, " I think therefore I am". We never questioned this proclaimation. We resonated with it. But now is the time to question it. Because as i mentioned it time now is changing.

A NEW IDEA IN MARKETING : HONESTY !!

Mr. Longaburger’s secret of success is he is considered one of the ruthless business people ever. He was ruthless, uncompromisingly honest, no matter the consequences.

The fable for millions but allegory for Dave Longaburger is the story of holy St. Aloyisius, which goes like this when Aloysius was child he was instructed by his mother to tell someone who had knocked the door that she was not home. He refused that he could not tell lie, this moral was taken very seriously by Dave Longaburger. Dave later founded a billion dollar company which makes basket woven by thin wood strip,.

Once during sales presentation, a lady was telling story about each of the basket produced by Longaburgers. One basket, she explained was used by Longaburger children to gather eggs from their hen house and designed to hold exactly 12 eggs. The audience was very charmed especially when it was demonstrated that indeed basket could hold exactly 12 eggs. Sales meeting was very successful but Dave didn’t look too happy which he later explained to lady by saying "we never had any chickens”, at this both laughed, but later she was told very seriously by Dave to stick to the facts next time. And here was a fork in the road. Dave set in stone on important principle,: Honesty and Truth were more important than sales and good sales story.

More importantly, if employee of a company tell lies to the customers, employees naturally will assume that the company also will lie to them. For eg: at one point the Longaburger company was in serious financial trouble and to save the company independent sales people and distributors were asked to accept lower commissions. They accepted without a single protest.Why? They knew Dave was not lying to them when they were told that the company was going under unless they could help him through this difficult period. Honesty and reputation for honesty are assets more valuable perhaps than money in the bank.Dave's good works will not soon be forgotten by the Dresden community who still remember the “ten cent millionaire” with admiration and respect.

Some people argue that honesty and truth are outdated, that you have to lie to survive because everybody lies. I think the opposite is true .Most commodities I know of become more valuable when they are rare. When all marketers are liars the smart thing is to become the only one who is telling the truth.

Great Depression 2.0 (10 Great Steps Towards Wall Street Debacle!!)

1. The Bubble Bursts

Housing values fall as supply overwhelms demand. Many subprime borrowers find that their homes are worth less than their mortgages. Defaults rise, which sends prices further south. The downward spiral begins.

2. Run of CDOs

Investors pile into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which are complicated securities based on pools of mortgages. CDOs are often (absurdly) rated AA and AAA and considered as safe as Treasuries.

3. Leverage Loves Company

Firms borrow to load up on CDOs and real estate. Lehman Brothers was leveraged more than 30 to 1. AIG sells credit-default swaps (CDSs), derivatives designed to protect investors from failures.

4. The Mortgage Collapse

Consumers who got big mortgages with little documentation begin to default. Lenders like Washington Mutual and Countrywide Financial see their stock prices sink. Fiscal comeuppance rears its ugly head.

5. Finance Takes the Next Hit

Rising delinquencies mean that CDOs lose value. The investment banks must take write-downs and raise capital; the rout begins. Bear Stearns goes down. Lehman Brothers plays an endgame and loses.

6. Begin the Bailout

Fannie and Freddie have to be made federal wards to try to stop the crisis. Wishful thinking. Next, the Fed steps in to save AIG before rolling out a $700 billion bailout. The markets weaken with worry.

7. The Freeze

Some credit markets have already seized up, including auction-rate securities, which hurt municipalities. Large banks are also getting skittish. The spreads on junk bonds and even better-rated corporate bonds are widening. This raises costs for businesses.

8. The Market Gets Volatile

Volatility is bad for the stock market, and recent indicators are off the charts. Investors head to the sidelines, willing to park their money in three-month Treasuries at less than 1% interest until it's safe to come out again.

9. The Deleveraging Death Spiral

Banks under stress, like Washington Mutual and Wachovia, need to set aside more capital against potential losses. So they have to sell assets, which drives asset prices even lower, which requires more capital. And round and round we go.

10. From Wall Street to Main Street

As lending tightens, short-term loans on which all kinds of businesses rely become less available. This has huge negative potential, because if the gears of commerce get stuck, growth slows and layoffs follow as companies trim costs.
-As Published in The Times.

Theo-Assessment of Economic Meltdown.

Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims — of the current financial crisis? While researching a book on black televangelism, I realized that Prosperity's central promise — that God will "make a way" for poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the sub prime-lending boom. This encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house." The results, I says, "were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers."

            But on the hindsight i think "The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.' ""It definitely goes on, that a preacher might say, 'If you give this offering, God will give you a house.' And if they did get the house, people did think that it was an answer to prayer, when in fact it was really bad banking policy." If so, the situation offers a look at how a native-born faith built partially on American economic optimism entered into a toxic symbiosis with a pathological market.

            Although a type of Pentecostalism, Prosperity theology adds a distinctive layer of supernatural positive thinking. Adherents will reap rewards if they prove their faith to God by contributing heavily to their churches, remaining mentally and verbally upbeat and concentrating on divine promises of worldly bounty supposedly strewn throughout the Bible. Critics call it a thinly disguised pastor-enrichment scam. Some expert note that for all its faults, the theology can empower people who have been taught to see themselves as financially or even culturally useless to feel they are "worthy of having more and doing more and being more." In some cases the philosophy has matured with its practitioners, encouraging good financial habits and entrepreneurship.   

            But i suggests that a decade's worth of ever easier credit acted like a drug in Prosperity's bloodstream. "The economic boom '90s and financial overextensions of the new millennium contributed to the success of the Prosperity message, "Narratives of how 'God blessed me with my first house despite my credit' were common. Sermons declaring 'It's your season to overflow' supplanted messages of economic sobriety," and "little attention was paid to ... the dangers of using one's home equity as an ATM to subsidize cars, clothes and vacations."

            With the bubble burst, i assume that Prosperity congregants have taken a disproportionate hit, and they are curious as to how their churches will respond. Even some of the flashier ministries will shrink along with their congregants' fortunes. "You would think that the current economic conditions would undercut their theology." But i predict they will persevere, since God's earthly largesse is just as attractive when one is behind the economic eight ball. For those who elides more on the anointing of its pastors than on Scriptural promises of God. A client in America replied, who you can say the believer's note to his minister illustrates how magical thinking can prevail even after the mortgage blade has dropped. "Last Sunday, You said if anyone needed a miracle to come up. I went home feeling something good was going to happen. On Friday the 28th of September I got a phone call from my mortgage company and they came up with a new payment for the next 3 months of only $200. My mortgage is usually $1,020. Praise God for his Mercy & Grace."

 

And pray that the credit market doesn't tighten any further.

-As Published in Washington Post.