In Dan Kennedy’s article, What to Expect, As We Transition From Recession to New Economy, (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he provides some great insight into fears and the impact on wealth.  According to Mr. Kennedy, “you should be prudent about money. You can’t afford to be fearful about money.”

He talked about the effect the Great Depression had on many people who lived through it.  They started to hoard food and money and became adverse to debt.  They would rather “fix it” than “replace it.”  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with being cautious with money; problems start to arise when a genuine fear or paranoia develops.

Most people can stand to be a little more prudent with their money, but money fears should never dictate the choices that are made.  It is not healthy and it will keep you from pursuing opportunities that will build wealth.

If you want to thrive in the “New Economy,” don’t let fear govern you. Instead, “combine the never-changing principles and forces governing the movement of money with rational thought, reasoned optimism, creative vision, sound and timely strategy, and aggressive opportunism.”

Don’t sit back and watch other people build their wealth. Put your fears aside and search for new opportunities.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Two things very interesting about this:

1.  As the Washington Post noted, these weren’t just any banks, or even a cross section of small banks from around the country. These were banks from congressional districts where Democrats face tough races this fall. You see…this has nothing to do with economics or what’s good for the American people. EVERYTHING he and the others do in Washington is political. (It was all politics, not economics, when they decided to pull the plug on the dumb idea to tax plastic surgery procedures and switch it to another dumb idea to tax tanning salons.)

But, as Harry Reid defended the bribe paid (with YOUR money) to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (hey Senator, here’s what I’ll give you if you vote for health care reform–we are going to treat Nebraska differently from other states and give you a permanent exemption from Nebraska’s share of Medicaid exemption…how’s that?”) …”That’s what legislating is all about.”

How brazen.

How B.S.

2. Back to the bankers. Know what their response was?: “it takes two to tango and right now there is no demand for loans. This is exactly what the small businesses I work with are telling me… ”

a. “too risky to expand”–no telling what the rules will be next year

b. “too expensive to expand”–health care reform will surely increase my costs, cutting into my profits

c. “end of recession? What end of recession?” : until the economy gets going and people are getting back to work no one is buying…so what do I need to borrow money for?

Kennedy then proceeded to absolutely destroy that argument by giving example after example of business who seemed to be deliberately avoiding “making a sale” by their gross ineptitude in their salesmanship. I mean I was howling as I listened to the story about the Cleveland car tire dealership where Dan’s wife was trying to buy $1,200 worth of tires and the sales person “downsold” her right from the start to the point where she got confused about what do to and Dan told her to come home.

No sale.

As Dan points out the executives of this car tire company will be blaming the recession or blaming the radio ads that actually got Dan’s wife to go to the store but it was really the crappy sales person at the front desk who is either untrained or unwilling to learn how to sell tires.

In another story that Dan wrote recently he told of going to a men’s clothing store and picking out about $600 worth of slacks. When he went to check out he told them he needed them hemmed and they told him “great” you can pick them up in 30 days!!!

As Dan puts it, he just dropped the pants on the counter and walked out…what’s really instructive is that as he walked out not one of the salespeople who were standing around tried to stop him, attempted to make sure the pants could get hemmed in a day or two or did anything to save a $600 sale. They’ll blame the recession, too.

If money isn’t’ coming to your business its not because of the recession. People are definitely spending money on something and if its not you you must figure out why.

Are you like the tire dealer or the men’s clothes store?

By the way…if you are reading this and you aren’t getting Dan’s No. B.S. Marketing newsletter and you are running a business you are making a huge mistake. You have a choice. Will your 2010 be “more of the same” or will you increase revenues and profits and makes your goals?

Do yourself a favor and at least watch the video I have for you here.

This time the story portrayed a woman, Daverna White, who supposedly “took a chance on the American dream” [of home ownership] but failed, leaving she and her four children homeless. The Post introduced the article as

“as the recession shows signs of easing and the economy begins to recover, the families most affected by it, such as Daverna White’s, are starting to recover, too.”

Please note: no one can rejoice in the fact that this woman and her four children do not have home. Problem was, this lady’s story had absolutely nothing to do with the recession. It had virtually nothing to do with losing “her home.” It was, if the facts reported by the Post are correct, nothing short of attempted theft gone bad.

According to the article Ms. White makes about $15,000 a year and relied on food stamps from time to time. She ran a small daycare business out of the house that she rented. Nothing wrong with that and all credit to her for trying to better her life.

Somehow, she got it into her mind that she could buy a house that cost $698,000. She was college-educated. She knew better.

She got hooked up with a mortgage loan officer, identified as Wendy Zhang, who offered her this deal: she could buy this house and have it 100% financed. Zhang would give her $27,000 to deposit into her bank account to make it look like she had resources to buy the house. Zhang would also create paperwork that showed that White had $163,320 in annual income.  Zhang agreed to pay her first two months mortgage. White knew that her monthly payments would be $5635 and she knew that she couldn’t afford it. She even called a friend before signing the papers and her friend told her “don’t sign.”

She signed. This was no “gamble on the American dream.” This was, pure and simply, an attempt to obtain a house by false pretenses.

Not surprisingly, White lost the home to foreclosure several months later. The Washington Post reporter even went so far as to describe the day that the bank threw all of the family’s belongings out onto the front lawn, including a copy of Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich.”

Too bad Mrs. White didn’t read the chapter in Think and Grow Rich about “accurate thinking.”