Welcome to the New Economy
November 11, 2011
It's 2011. The Great Recession is finally over, but unemployment is still near 10%. Does that seem odd to you? I know that unemployment isn’t generally factored in when determining the beginning and end of recessions, but it seems peculiar to me that 10% of our nation is still out of work, yet our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total output of our goods and services is up enough to end the greatest recession in American history. Weird huh?
Anyway, the recession may be over, but there are still millions of disoriented, unemployed and under employed people all over America and around the world. Many consider that we are still in down times.
The reality is though, we’re not in down times. We’re in new times. We are in a new economy, with new rules and new ways of thinking and being.
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Paradigm Shift
We need to realize we are not experiencing a minor or even major change in the world. It’s a monumental paradigm shift in the way we live, make money and interact in the market place.
A paradigm shift is defined as a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing. The shift has already occurred, it’s just that most people don’t know it. Or perhaps they know it, but the don’t know what it means to them, or what they should do.
If you and I were face to face, and I held out my hand wherein was a pair of dimes, and I asked you to tell me what these two dimes were worth. More than likely, you’d say twenty cents. But you’d be wrong.
What you might not have noticed in your haste to answer the question was that this pair of dimes were minted in 1956 when dimes were made of 90% silver, which would make these two dimes worth more than $2 each at todays silver prices.
This paradigm or “pair of dimes” analogy is important and relevant. We live in a time where we can no longer make assumptions. We can’t just make a snap judgment about the world we live in. This is a time to observe, to inspect, to study and to gather information quickly, so that we have a good understanding of whats really going on, but more importantly what we really need to do thrive in the coming years.
The Rules Have Changed
These changes aren't an anomaly, and this isn’t the first “new economy” we’ve ever experienced, though it’s certainly the most revolutionary. Over the past century, the rules of the economic game have changed dramatically.
In my great grandfathers day, the vast majority of the population were independent, meaning they didn’t rely on anyone or anything else for their financial welfare. They were farmers, ranchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, etc. They were their own bosses. This era was called the Agrarian Era, which has been the main form of socio-economic organization for most of recorded human history.
In my grandfathers day, he left the farm mentality to work on the railroad. This was during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a massive paradigm shift in economic thought. Where as an Agrarian Society is based on agriculture as it’s prime means for support and sustenance, the Industrial Society taught that opportunity no longer lay in the fields but in the factory.
The Industrial Society was driven by the use of technology which enabled mass production and created millions of jobs around the world. Over several decades, there was a mass migration from the farm to the factory, and for the first time in world history, a majority of the population were putting their hands out waiting for anther man to fill it. Again, this was a radical shift.
When my dad was a kid, he often heard what a great opportunity the rail roads represented. When he was old enough, like my grandfather, my dad went to work for the railroads. Later in life though, he abandoned the Industrial Mentality for a desk job with benefits. He made the transition into the Service Revolution which began following the Industrial Revolution and supported the large population of workers living in urban areas and working in factories. This again was a new way of living and thinking.
When I was a young woman, my dad lost his good job and benefits. Noting that we were well into the Information Age, and seeing the changes on the horizon, I made a decision to abandon the job mentality, and went out on my own and became an entrepreneur.
Over the course of 100 years in my own family and throughout the world, we have gone from independent to dependent, and then back to independent. We went from a time where if a man wanted more money he put his hands to the soil, to a time where he puts his hands to the boss, the corporation, the government or to the picket sign. And today, we are coming full circle back to independent.
Become Independent
If you want to thrive in the New Economy, you must once again become independent. You do this in two ways.
First, you must become independent in thought and education. The currency of the new economy is not gold or silver or paper funny money. The currency of the new economy is knowledge; the swift acquisition and application of relevant knowledge. But this knowledge isn't available in the Schools Or Universities. And it's not available in the main stream media (what I call the trough for the masses). It's in Books, Audios, videos and blogs, and you've got to search them out.
Secondly, to thrive in the New Economy you must become professionally independent. The idea of the good, safe, secure job has gone the way of the T-Rex. Anyone depending on a job for their security is living on the edge at best, and living irresponsibly at worst.
I have been trying to convince a friend of mine to start his own business for years, but she just won't do it. Before the recession, she was earning about $150,000. But she got laid off. After being unemployed for several months, she landed a new job, at about $60,000. But then she lost that one and was unemployed for several more months before she took another job at about $40,000. And now she's unemployed again.
This is NUTS! During that time of ups and downs, she could have been building a business on the side, but she didn't.
My friends scenario is becoming more and more common. And the only way to combat it is to become independent, by going out on your own and starting your own business.
In this New Economy, now more than ever, we need to learn for ourselves, think for ourselves, and work for ourselves. The world has changed, and it continues to do so. If we don't change along with it, we will most certainly be left behind.
That's the bad news. The good news is, if we educate ourselves about the times that we are in, and begin to play by the Rules Of The New Game, we can do very, very well!
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