Let me explain something to you. What’s going to happen in the economy is going to happen, whether you worry about it or not. Same with the election.
I spend my days writing,so I’m often working with TV noise behind me. Pundit after pundit has stopped trying to predict the election, because now they are all trying to predict the meltdown. Trust me, they can’t predict either.
I’m a futurist, so of course I saw all this coming, and I went through my own moments of fear before you did. Now I’ve come out the other side. I’ve let go of the outcome, which I cannot influence.
Instead, I’m doing everything I can to use my experience to help myself and others get through this. After all, I started my business during one of these(1980), survived another one (1990), started another business and went through still another one(2000), and now feel pretty much like a Weeble. (Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. You have to be old enough to remember Romper Room.)
So. If you want to be a Weeble, here’s what to do:
Come listen to people who aren’t suffering, but are doing something.
Use the Early Registration discount to register for the Third Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference on Nov. 19. We’ve aggregated some of Arizona’s best and most interesting entrepreneurs, and stirred the pot with amazing outside influences. Our early registrations are ahead of the last two years, as are our sponsorship commitments, so there’s still something happening in Arizona, if not on Wall Street (and not in real estate). Try learning something new.
Start a company yourself
Stealthmode Partners has, for the first time in its existence, sponsored something with cold cash, and it’s Phoenix Startup Weekend, October 17-19 at Gangplank. At a startup weekend (it’s a national movement that has just come to Phoenix), you just show up, join a team, and work on a project with that team all weekend. Or, as the publicity says, “Startup Weekend is an intense 52 hour one weekend event bringing brilliant and talented people together to create companies, projects and great startup business communities.”
You can be sure these people are not sitting around fearing things they can’t control. Instead, they’re trying to change the world.
Myself, I helped an old friend start a solar contracting company this morning. We got it done in essentially one meeting by pooling our talents and experience. Will it scale? Who knows? We don’t care; we’re the type of people who start things and find out. In the meantime, we get to learn about a technology we really care about and do something we will enjoy. Mostly we want to create a landing place for some of the great talent we see available as they are laid off by the fear mongers. We will have fun.
Sure I can’t retire. But I don’t want to. Retirement is a concept sold to you by financial planners. Have I lost money? Sure I have. So what? I’m alive, I’m healthy, and I’m happy.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Best advice so far. Thx Francine. =)
Sounds very interesting.. Can established companies that are moving in newer direction and refocusing come to or is it a start up only.
Great blog by the way. Love the golden. I also have blogspot about goldens and dogs in general. Coolest dogs.
Half the battle is won immediately as soon as anyone decides to press on and hope for a better future. Isn’t half this economic crisis caused by panic right now today?
Thank you for setting a great example for all of us, Francine. I don’t believe anything good has ever come from fear. It’s important to be informed and it’s just as important for us all to check the primary sources of the information we use or believe.
The sources of information you provide are the best – your own, personal experience, through good times and bad. You must certainly provide optimism for the people of Phoenix! It’s evident from the projects you’ve helped to start, such as your project for victims of domestic violence. These women are by no means victims!
They have moved beyond one of the scariest of situations in this world and left most of their fears behind them as they did. Now they have realized what capable and resourceful women they really are. Thanks to you and your partners, they are successfully providing things of value to others with fair compensation to themselves for doing it.
Kudos to you, Francine, for the optimism you bring to this time of anxiety for so many.
You are very welcome to come, alrady,because it’s for all companies that want (and need) to be entrepreneurial. Just register before the end of the earlybird discount: http://www.azentrepreneurship.com
Hi Francine, I was a friend of Scott’s. He was a beautiful man. It’s such horrible loss. I think about him every day.
You’re right, we need to take our minds off of the market and what’s going on and just remember to be… the truth is, we are complete just the way we are. We don’t need anything else, we may “lose” everything, but we in fact can never truly lose anything – we are complete in and of ourselves. Just use this time as a time for inner growth and to reach out to those who are especially stressed. Be… and be there for others.
Broken, Scott was a victim of all of this. I tried to reach out to him to offer this kind of advice and counsel, but he was too involved to have perspective. I’m still unhinged by his action.