Yeah right, you first professor…

Writing about his preparation to hike the Appalachian trail in the eastern United States Bill Bryson describes his research into bear attacks and how best to avoid them. At one point he quotes an expert professor: “To ward off an aggressive black bear, Herrero suggests making a lot of noise, banging pots and pans together, throwing sticks and rocks, and ‘running at the bear.’ Bryson’s response to this helpful suggestion is “Yeah, right. You first professor.”

Many lifetimes’ worth of accumulated experience endorse the wisdom of running from danger and in difficult times it is natural, often necessary even, to take some form of defensive or evasive action. On the other hand, without any suggestion of abandoning responsibility, if the danger is of an economic nature it can be that ‘running at the bear’ is not such a crazy idea.

Here are a couple of examples:
Western economies are languishing in the worst slump for a very long time but has that reality remotely stemmed the flow of hopeful and tenacious economic migrants going to extremes to get here and find a better life for their families? Hardly.

In parts of the USA where house prices have fallen far further than our worst worries certain programmes are offering 96.5% mortgages (yes that’s right just 3.5% down!) to people at the bottom of the ladder. And guess what, things (and people) are moving. This is not the old irresponsible ‘sales commission driven’ system and there are rigid criteria in place but the point is this; people in senior positions are actually looking practically at situations, identifying a market still full of qualified buyers and providing solutions to thousands of people rather than just pulling up the drawbridge, blaming the ‘Global crisis’ and perpetuating the slow-down.

We never have to look far to find the ‘prevailing view’ on any given topic. That view can be right as often as it is wrong and most of us are actually more capable of using our own judgement to decide than we’re given credit for by the media, politicians and ‘institutions’. Henry Ford said “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.”

Being a contrarian doesn’t mean going against the crowd on every single issue as much as taking the time to look outside beyond the immediate environment and apply those observations in our current situation. For example the first person to say “when everyone is selling buy and when everyone is buying sell” was living in the same world as everyone else but they stepped back and looked from a different angle (180 degrees different to be exact!).

Back to Henry Ford who also said “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.” If things are difficult for some of us the certainty is that they won’t be that rosy for many others too. What if there was a way to encourage a more optimistic attitude? An exchange of experiences and a communal pursuit of solutions, pooling resources. It is most annoying to hear that “cash is king” if you don’t have much cash. How annoying is it to find a great opportunity only to know that it’s just out of reach and will be snapped up by the guys with the bags of money? If those with meagre, or stagnant, resources knew how many other people shared the same frustration and were able to pool together with them things could be really different.

The Ant fund aims to solve exactly this problem. To enable individuals to get the type of results normally available to only an elite minority and make real progress towards prosperity. Amounts of anything from £1000 are combined into a larger working fund which can take on the type of projects giving high returns.

Fear resulting from the current economic climate has placed many obstacles in the way of individuals whether they’re savers or investors. The traditional institutions are not offering solutions. What is our goal? If it’s growth then let’s remember to look for that and not be held up by the obstacles!

Russell L Ackoff said “My preoccupation is with where we would ideally like to be right now. Knowing this, we can act now so as constantly to reduce the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Then, to a large extent, the future is created by what we do now.”

A really good way to continue progress toward your goal of prosperity is to follow the ant trail. You’ll find the start here.