The Maverick Marketer Blog

After taking the summer off I have been getting going on several inspired projects these last few weeks.

You know what I noticed?

My attention kept getting sucked into the election year pony race we call politics here in the US - and lately, the drum beat about the 700 Billion dollar bailout has stolen the show.

Yesterday in fact the stock market took a big dive (though not nearly as big as the larger percentage declines in 1987 and 1929 - just so you know).

So I decided to break my long break from posting and rant a little.

That’s what blogs are for, after all.

See, I have been involved in the stock market since about 1992 and have been through this before many times.

I know, the talking heads on TV are saying we’ve never seen a crisis like this before, but that’s not true.

The stock market sucked for the entire decade of the 1970’s (that’s how I explain the cause of Disco, by the way).

The early 80’s during the Carter administration were, well, a malaise.

The savings and loan crisis was all the rage there for a while in the late eighties… and we lived to talk about it.

The early 90’s sucked too… I know… I was graduating University and the future didn’t look so bright.

In 1994 (I think), the House Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich grabbed the headlines because they were threatening to stall the entire US Budget.

The Government was supposedly going to be crippled… everything shut down.

What happened? Nothing… they figured stuff out, we moved on.

Donald Trump and other real estate tycoons lost billions and bankruptcies were in the news… yet Trump, and real estate, rocketed back to prosperity within a few years.

Back in 1994 it was widely predicted by doomsayers that in 1995 the US Government’s debt would destroy our economy and we’d all be out on the streets.

I recall one book called, ‘Bankruptcy 1995′ that spelled out our inevitable doom in painful detail.

Instead, the largest bull market in stocks began that year and lasted until 2002.

Confession: I missed out on that bull market because I was convinced the doom and gloomers were right and ignored the ever rising stock market that was right in front of my face.

Ouch.

It’s expensive to listen to gloomy experts!

In 1998, the stock market volatility was absolutely off the charts during the efforts to impeach then President Clinton.

What happened? The market actually moved higher… and President Clinton remained, well, President (though he may have cut back on his Intern intake).

(By the way, when I met Clinton in 2001 at Gibson’s steak house in Chicago he seemed just fine to me, popular as ever.)

Then, in 1999 the Y2K was all the rage and countless otherwise experts were wringing their hands and saying modern society was about to end.

I remember a chance half hour phone conversation with the late, great Gary Halbert where we both talked about what was supposedly to come.

I fully expected that on New Years Day 2000 I would be forced to hunt rabbits in the woods to feed my family… but instead I watched TV and ate popcorn because, well, nothing happened.

In 2002 the stock market crashed for several years as the Dot Com Dumb Dumb party came to an end when the music stopped… lots of folks got laid off (me, too!).

What happened?

Oh the horror… I never got another job again…. because I thrived as my own boss when I discovered Internet Marketing (see, you really can make money online, unlike the Dot Com dodos).

By the way, the stock market recovered nicely and went up from 2003 to well, 2008, without a lot of fan fare in the media (go figure).

The Japanese stock market collapsed and stayed down for like 12 years (even though in 1989 it was widely feared the Japanese were buying up all of America, starting with our prize golf courses… GASP!!!).

Oddly enough, Japan seems to have survived, too.

Ross Perot said NAFTA was going to swoosh us all down the TIDY BOWL in a giant sucking sound.

And the Great Lakes used to be so toxic that they caught on fire…

Wolves were about to be extinct (and now they are eating just about everything in our national parks).

Let’s see, what else have I been warned about and lived through in my 39 years…

Global Freeze (in the 70’s), Acid Rain (in the 80’s) and of course, the Cold War (remember the USSR???).

Today we’re worried about Global Warming (ha… no irony there. Wish they’d make up their minds… which is it, FREEZE or WARMING???), The Bailout or failure of Wall Street, Main Street… we used to even worry about Sesame Street - because supposedly PBS was going to go under.

In the late 70’s we were running out of oil… oh, hmm… over 30 years later we’re still ‘running out of oil’.

I’ve survived Pokemon and Teletubbies and Barney the dorky purple dinosaur, too.

We nearly lost Apple but Microsoft swooped in and gave them a bunch of money (now that one was funny!) and now we have iPods across America.

And in 2012, according to the Mayan Calendar, we’re going to see some folks ‘ascend’ while those who are less evolved spiritually will have to stay here and suffer more ‘life’ as we know it.

It sounds like a New Age Armageddon to me.

I’m not holding my breath, thank you.

I’ve set my Palm Treo to alert me on New Years 2013 to send out an email saying "WRONG AGAIN!!!!"

The tabloids pretty much call for the End of Days to occur every year.

We could, I think, schedule the weekend after Labor Day as Armageddon Day.

Yet… I’m still here to write you this breezy blog post on the World Wide Web (which supposedly is running out of IP addresses by 2010… GASP!!!).

Last week I read, to my surprise, that my bank, Washington Mutual (WAMU) had become the largest (300Billion) bank to fail in US history.

Then, minutes later, I read that JP Morgan Chase (worth like 2 trillion) bought WAMU for 1.98 Billion and saved the day.

(My apologies to folks who owned WAMU stock, though… their money just went POOF).

I can relate… I lost $20 grand in one day in 1993 when Gold tanked that August (I lived).

And that’s what happens… strong companies buy up assets like WAMU on the cheap during down times… setting up the economy for future growth.

It’s the circle of economic life my friend, not a crisis or the end of the US as we know it (contrary to what all the uber ninnies on the news are telling us).

As you’ll see, the real question is: How do you put yourself in a position of strength to thrive in up and down times?

More on that in a minute…

When the folks try to scare us, they never talk about how throughout history we’ve found ways to adapt, overcome, and survive… and even thrive… in the face of disaster, change, crisis, and doom.

Human beings respond to crisis, problems and trouble by finding solutions - and that is what the doom and gloomers don’t ever seem to factor in.

Ingenuity and the strength of the human spirit.

If you go back to the economist Thomas Malthus in the 19th century, he predicted that we’d run out of food and the world would starve to death — and he’s been wrong for over 200 years.

That’s why I call doom and gloomers ‘Malthusian Morons’.

FACT: The Chicken Little Brigade has almost ZERO credibility.

We should line them up and hose them down with giant streams of silly string and crank Boy George on giant loudspeakers and put a video of the whole thing on YouTube.

These nervous nellies profit from our fear and yet their track record of being wrong is breathtaking.

It amazes me contantly that they are not held accountable for their stupidity when the bad things DON’T come to pass and discredited thoroughly.

Why?

Because sadly, I’ve found that some of the greatest tragedies I’ve seen in my life, like 9/11, Huricane Katrina, and earth quakes, tsunamis, and other disasters were not predicted or prevented in any real way at all.

I mean, who predicted that the Titanic would sink???

Or that we’d have World Wars???

Where does that leave us?

Any thinking person can see that at times things like depressions, natural disasters, war, and more do happen and that is unfortunately a part of life as we know it.

But the media doesn’t want you to ‘think’… they want you to be afraid and dependant and turn to them for ‘comfort’ day in and day out (bad, bad idea… they never report ‘good news’).

To my knowledge, worrying about such events has not prevented any of them!

Action and imagination solve problems a whole lot better than ‘worrying’.

After all…

Napoleon Hill didn’t write, ‘Worry and Grow Rich’, did he?

However, the doomsayers predict doom almost every day it and the media seems eerily cheerful in reporting on anything negative that happens around the world in real time, 24 hours a day year round (yay CNN! Way to go!!! Everyone watch the Crappy News Network… NOT).

What is missing is perspective.

Miracles, recovery, healing, new discoveries, massive profits, enlightenment, giving, growth, birth, beauty and joy are ALSO happening every day around the world.

But you’d never know about it if you rely on the NEWS media for your view of reality.

If you want to profit from these times, let McCain, Obama, the stock market, real estate woes and the nattering ninnies in Congress shuffle papers around to their hearts content and beat their chests with fury and indignation at the state of The Nation and The World.

And ignore them.

Pretend they are all talking in a Donald Duck voice and laugh instead if you are tempted to get sucked back in to the drama.

If you have real estate problems or stock troubles, educate yourself on how to best deal with those issues.

Don’t wait for the government to bail everyone out… ain’t gonna happen.

Don’t envy or resent the ‘rich’, join them!

Your best option is to increase your income by growing a profitable business of your own.

Seek out those who ARE successful and learn what they are doing.

Stay current on what is working in your industry… and in marketing.

Here’s an example… I’m going to Big Seminar to do just that this weekend in Atlanta with my friends Pat Obryan and Bill Hibbler.

I’ll be seeing many more great and successful friends and fellow members of the the AM2.O Platinum mastermind group there, too.

I’ll be surrounded by about 500 people who all are focused on one thing: growing their internet businesses…

I regularly attend seminars, workshops, and other live events to feed my brain and my energy.

This summer I went to events like Unseminar 5, I put on The Inspired Product Creation Workshop with Pat Obryan, and I also spent time masterminding to grow my business, too.

It’s all about controlling the input and filtering out anything that is unhelpful.

I surround myself with people who share my values and avoid spending much time (if any) with people who talk nothing but gloom and doom.

That’s how you profit no matter what the economy is doing.

Save yourself, save the world… IN THAT ORDER.

But it’s hard to grow a business when you focus your attention on the drama in the news every day.

Fear, depression, worry, and angst suck…. it sucks the life, the energy, the optimism, and even the ability to act for your own benefit.

Fear is seductive… and the media makes money when you give them attention and buy (literally) into their scary stories.

Just say NO to all that… but more importantly, say YES to your own power to creat your life and expect what you want to happen.

While everyone else is getting the heck scared out of them by the headlines, you can tune all that negative noise out and focus on what YOU can affect… YOUR OWN FUTURE.

These distractions can help you boost your business if you can keep your head on straight while everyone else is glued to the news, wasting time and energy on that stuff.

You get an edge by channeling your energy into growth, progress, and the next step in front of you today.

You’ll see more sales, growth from your efforts.

How?

Focus your attention on how you can help your customers to feel better, solve their problems, and profit more in these so called ‘bad times’.

The ‘worse’ times are perceived to be… the more problems you can solve.

That’s how politicians, the media, and the economy can help make YOU wealthy.

Take action on this advice and you’ll reap the rewards.

That is the upside of going through ‘down’ times.

I can tell you from personal experience, that works a whole lot better than worrying about stuff you can’t control or listening to gloomy idiots on the boob tube.

Whenever you feel fearful or down, turn that feeling into fuel to to fix your own life.

Take the next step to your own economic recovery.

Do you need more traffic, a website, to build your list, a product… or… what?

Identify what it is and go for it.

Focus on what you need to do next, not on the unknown future.

I’ve fallen for the doom and gloom dummies many times in my life… and I’m here to say… I’m alive and I’m in the game. Let’s play

Focus on what you can do… and let God sort out the rest.

Here’s the deal… you know it and I know it.

Bad news is we’re all going to die and we don’t know when or why or how… fact.

The good news is that until then you are free to move about your life and take action to live it fully… also a fact.

And when you die, none of this stuff will be your concern anymore anyway… so why worry about death either?

See, nothing to worry about

Truly, the only thing we have to fear is…. yep, fear itself.

So tell the fear mongers to stuff it and focus on your playing your own game to win.

What’s the quickest and easiest way to profit?

Model what successful people and companies are doing (no big surprise there).

Look to what’s working and use that as your guide… not the nit wits in the news (they’d have you believe EVERYONE is failing).

If you can, get a change of scene.

Isolation is a bad idea when you are struggling.

Like I said, I’m going to Big Seminar this weekend…. Armand Morin is a great friend and a perfect example of someone successful to model.

Hey, if you can make it, join me there and get out of the house.

Even if you can’t make it, check out what he has to say on his site, check out his attitude and you’ll see it’s 180 degrees from the media doom and gloom.

By the way, he’s made in the neighborhood of $50 million in his internet marketing career… so you could say he’s got a successful model.

Choose carefully…

Every day I read, listen to mp3’s, and watch videos on all kinds of subjects about what IS working.

I recommend you do the same.

Stay tuned… I’m going to do my part to help by sharing helpful stuff you can use to grow your business no matter what’s going on in the news.

My goal is to have you look back on these days and smile because they helped boost you to new heights.

My name is Craig Perrine, and I approved this message