On my last post I talked about four rules for dealing with this new economic era and I promised to elaborate on each one. This post will talk about keeping your head.

How to keep yourself from allowing fear to paralyze your mind and destroy your goals and dreams has consumed the better part of my thought, energy and concentration since 1972. That was the year that I went into business and realized, that nothing happens until someone sells something, and that qualified sales people who can sell consistently, are almost impossible to find.

This set me on a course to find out why sales people cannot sell, so I thought.  This eventually coalesced into an obsession to discover what makes people do what they do.

What I consider to be the greatest book ever written on success, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill in 1937, set forth the premise that “what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve”.

Napoleon Hill said in his later life that almost no one used his formula to achieve success.  He said, “There is no way to explain mans indifference to himself”.  I discovered why man is indifferent to himself and it is because “what the mind of man does believe it does achieve”.  It sounds the same, but it is totally different.

This explains the core cause of human behavior and what is behind all human misery, suffering, and loss.

If you go to my website you will see the phrase “Think More. React Less”. What a man believes is the sum total of the opinions that he made without conscious knowledge or intent.  These opinions are what cause him to react more and think less, which is the recipe for human disaster.  I think that it is fair to say that thinking is on the decline and reacting is on the rise.  How else could our democracy get so far off track?

I explained all of this in a diagram that I call the B-code and it will be detailed in my book that I am currently writing which I will title, as you may have guessed, “Think More. React Less”.  This will be the book that explains how to make good on Napoleon Hills’ promise.

On my next post I will explain this further.

The abuses sold to the greedy and supported by both political parties have put our economy and our freedom in jeopardy. There is little or nothing that you can do to affect the national picture, but you can and must preserve your own business.  I will offer ideas of how to best succeed.

The recession that became full blown in November of 2008 was a game changer.  I do not know if your business was affected, but I am certain that most small businesses have suffered losses in revenue and profit.  This economy is not going to rebound and come back the way it was the last thirty years.  Consumers are out of spending options and businesses cannot spend to support flat or declining demand.  This is creating a long-term threat for many small businesses.

I have spent my life in the trenches as a small business owner dealing with these same issues that confront us today.  I operated a small remodeling business in Beaver County, Pennsylvania when the steel industry collapsed in 1981-1982.  My business was off 70%, so I completely reinvented it.  Not only has my company survived, but it is now 12 times larger than it was when I first started it!

I have 4 rules that you can follow in order to survive this economic challenge:

Rule #1
Keep your head. Do not allow yourself to become negative or develop a feeling of self-doubt during this uncertain economic environment.

Rule #2
Do not take a “wait-and-see” approach. Between 1985 and 1988, former-steel workers in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania were still hoping that the mill would reopen even as it was being shredded into scrap metal.

Rule #3
Protect your sales and profit. You can no longer accept mediocrity.

Rule #4
Reinvest in yourself. Your greatest potential is in you and your employees. And, remember you are your most important employee.  I have always said that I would spend my last dollar on something that would stimulate my mind.

I will elaborate on each of these rules in more detail in my next series of posts…

I consider myself a capitalist with a clear conscience. I developed a conscience long before I knew what the capitalist system was about.  I have my shortcomings like everyone else, but I have never been inflicted with that disease called “greed”.  I thank God for that every day because greed is responsible for more human misery than any of the other fears.

Capitalism, when it is working correctly, promotes healthy competition, encourages innovation, and delivers the best opportunity to acquire the highest value for a consumer’s purchase.  This ideal is still alive in the United States of America, and it is called small business!

This is why I love small business and dedicate my life to promoting it.  It is worth that much.  Small business is the foundation of freedom.

Unfortunately capitalism also creates the most fertile ground for greed to grow. Small businesses never get large enough to use greed to the disadvantage of consumers over an extended period of time.  However, large businesses do and this has created a nightmare for our democracy and it is threatening our freedom.

Our government has always been for sale, but the sale has now been completed. Both political parties support the same abuses. Competition has been weakened and we are living in the pure age of the monopoly and/or oligopoly.

For example, we purchase gasoline from one of five oil companies worldwide and have no recourse but to pay their retail price. We purchase computer software for our businesses and when the software manufacturer stops supporting the software, every two to three years, we have to purchase it again.  We purchase Internet service from one of a very few major providers and, well… you get the idea.

Let’s face it, as small business owners we do not have the leverage to be a player in this economic game. And furthermore, no one is looking out for us!

So what can we do?  As small business owners, we would do well to separate the abuses perpetrated by large businesses from the good delivered by small businesses.  Recognize that their needs and contributions are very different.  And lastly, become more aware that both political parties are not working for you, small business or the freedom for which this country was founded.

Most people would consider me to be one dimensional.  The preservation of freedom, which is founded on the ability to earn, have and keep money, has become my life’s mission.  It is mostly all that I think about.  I have always had a burning desire to help people improve their lives.

My conclusion is very simple  -  the foundation of freedom is economic. When one has money they have choices, and when one does not have money they are enslaved.

Human beings were meant to be free; it’s truthful and the only condition where by the individual can lay a foundation upon which a satisfying life can be built. The United States of America represents the place on earth where freedom has created the greatest opportunity for the greatest number of its people.  This has been accomplished by a free market economy operating in a somewhat capitalist system; certainly not pure and full of compromises, injustices, corruption, greed, manipulation, and abuses not mentioned.

Yet without our free market capitalist economy, the USA would not be the place where others have come and continue to come to improve their lives.  With all of its ills, our country still provides opportunity for everyone to move upward.  This has all been made possible by businesses, and let’s remember that all businesses start out small.

I love business and freedom because one supports the other.  I founded my company, Partners Through People, for one purpose  -  to help develop people so they can create more wealth in their businesses.  I feel that wealth creates the best opportunity to preserve freedom.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a greed monger, in fact quite the opposite.  I am a capitalist with a conscience.

In my next post, I will further explain…

By Samuel J. Lucci III

Those who fail to acknowledge and learn from the trends that shape history will fall prey to the lessons they failed to learn.

It has been my experience that most people dislike history. I have always loved it and the events of life that appear to be a mystery to most are as obvious to me as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

No democracy has ever survived for more than a few hundred years. Isn’t that the challenge we face?

When I was 20 years old, my father and I got into a discussion about the Presidential election of Nixon vs. Humphrey vs. Wallace. He told me that the people are not smart enough to elect a President. He said that when it was done in smoke-filled rooms, it was a better system. My attitude at the time was 2,000 percent All-American defender of Grandma, apple pie and the American flag, and my father’s words made my red blood boil.

I told my Dad he was crazy and ridiculous, but thirty nine years later I see that he had a point. It’s not the democratic system that is flawed, but the people charged with running the system. They are unprepared to accept the burden and responsibility self-governance demands.

Every post I contribute to this Blog will stem from and relate back to this position.