If you are a person who likes to learn or needs to learn, these last two years should have been wonderful. The next two years may be even better. We can’t change the world but we can learn how to live and do business in it better.
We are going through a time period now that has a chance to educate a lot of people. Maybe that should be, a chance to relearn some things that have been forgotten or ignored. People go to a University and pay a lot of money for the possibility of learning something. Now we have a situation where very large to very small businesses also have the possibility to learn something. This may cost a lot more than going to the University but there is the potential to learn some things that will have a lot more value.
Some of our largest companies forgot or never knew the most basic things of good business practices. They did things that never should have been done. Now they get to pay for the education. Did they learn, or do they just get to pay for it? We have many small businesses that did the same things, it just may not cost them as much. The education might cost less but it could be just as valuable. Individuals also had a chance to get a good education with possibly very little cost.
Everyone should have learned something about debt or borrowing money. Most of the time the people that loan money expect it to be paid back and with something they call “interest” added on. “It is easier to borrow money when prices are high than it is to pay it back when prices are low.” These are good things to know.
Something else that is good to know is that “When it is easy to borrow money to expand the business other people are also expanding.” Another good thing to learn is “When things are good and everybody is expanding their businesses it is possible that there may be some over production.” Here is another good lesson “Over producing tends to bring low prices and it may be hard to pay the debt off with low prices.”
Maybe when business is good we should save money instead of borrow more. Then when prices go down we would have money instead of owe money. When we decide to expand it should be with some of our money, maybe not all, but some.
Invest money in things you know something about or invest very little and then only money you already have. Buy things you have the money to pay for. If you don’t have enough money to pay then buy less or smaller. To save money takes very little effort and you don’t have to spend money to save, it also can make money. Learn to save and how to make money not just how to spend. To make money takes effort and you may have to spend money to gain or hope to make money, just try to spend money that you have.
The large and small companies that had and are having financial problems had people that were well educated at our finest educational centers. They had all the newest equipment and technology to work with, yet they had these problems. Most of their education or at least what they learned was how to spend money, when they should have been learning how to make and then save money.
This is what we should learn from this problem that “emotion is trying to make bigger than it is.” Develop as much skill at your job or business as you can then learn how to make, save, and manage money, not just how to spend it. It’s not necessary to own half the world by the time you are 21 years old. Learn and really understand what you want to accomplish, then start doing things as properly as possible. Then you can really own what you have not just have payments to make on something that might be gone with the first little down turn in the economy. Things are so good now that it is easy to get over extended. Because of spending money that people didn’t have, they say things are bad. The only thing bad is the people who keep telling us how difficult things are.
When things are like this there is opportunity everywhere. If we lose money, a job, a business, the knowledge we gained should have been worth more than the money, job, or business was worth. That will make it easier to get started and be more successful than before. Or we can learn nothing because of complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves. If we lose a business it must have had very little value or it could have been sold for a large amount and everything would still be alright. Sometimes to lose a business that has very little value can actually be a good thing, then we can start over and do things better and have a business that is worth a great deal. If we lose a job it is the same thing, we should have learned enough that a new and better job is easy to find.
Learn all you can, these next few years should be fun, just like the last fifty have been. After all, we get to decide how good or bad they are. I’ve decided that they are good, that’s why I can Smile and Mean it.
