Comments on: How to Use Economic Downturn to Your Advantage

By: Thriving in an Economic Collapse, Remembering the Poor | WHAKATE

Thriving in an Economic Collapse, Remembering the Poor | WHAKATE — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:53:39 +0000

[...] How To Use Economic Downturn To Your Advantage [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:46:51 +0000

Another thing to do is to minimise one’s exposure to news. If it bleeds it leads and it’s a feeding frenzy at this point in time. Don’t watch the news – go outside and smell the roses.

Cheers

By: Candace

Candace — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:43:01 +0000

nice post

By: Patricia

Patricia — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:24:08 +0000

Nice post.I’m from Argentina. We’ve been through some (not to say a lot) of breakdowns, and my experience has taught me some things.My advice
1) Be flexible
2)Family first (Being together in tough times gives you comfort and relief)
3)Give what you can to whoever needs it (More things will be given to you in return)
4)Make values a way to connect with yourself and others
5)Smile (When you smile at others they feel more confident)
6)You can even start a “trueque” club (there have been a lot in my country,and many people have got things they needed. In a trueque club you offer something and another thing you need is given in return)
I’ve heard something which may be useful:
The difference between a rich person and a poor one is that the poor one knows for sure Money isn’t everything. It can’t buy happiness
Patricia

By: Seamus Anthony

Seamus Anthony — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:27:53 +0000

Excellent attitude, and one I subscribe to. I think it’s a good time to get your financial proverbials together. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’

By: elizabethb

elizabethb — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:43:21 +0000

I particularly agree with the points about reassessing priorities and doing something social – finding out that others are in just as bad a situation if not worse. I would add a couple more suggestions:

1. Do not consider yourself a failure. Many of the suicides/family killings that we hear about are because the person affected (usually the father sadly) felt a personal failure for the change in circumstances and the inability to maintain a ’successful’ lifestyle. Try to work out what responsibility you have for your current situation – what you might have done differently – and learn from that. But accept that for everybody at the moment there are external factors over which we have no individual control.

2. Remember that this is just a stage in life and things can get better. Think of previous examples. For instance, there have been times when I have been in difficulties in recent years but when it feels as if it’s all too much hard work and never going to get better I remember that when my grandmother was my age the Second World War was coming to an end and she and my grandfather had had to deal with the chaos and upheaval on a daily basis with two children.

Every generation faces some serious crisis at some point which changes lives – it’s important to take a long-term view to put things in perspective and believe that in the long term you will come out of it.

Sorry for the long post – don’t normally contribute but hope this may be helpful addition.

By: Amrit Hallan - Content Writer

Amrit Hallan - Content Writer — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:47:37 +0000

Thanks for all the positive feedback. Chris, I agree with you to a great extent that people who spread extreme fears regarding economic downturns are generally insecure in their lives due to many materialistic reasons. But the reality is that when economy goes down it affects all of us in big and small ways and it can help us a lot if we can all get together and fight with the tough times together. One of my clients these days is extremely worried about his business, and so am I (although, not that much). So we are contemplating pooling our respective talents together and start working on a new business.

These days the main problem is that people don’t talk to their neighbors, and others in the community. Solutions can be easily found if we openly interact with each other. Fortunately many Web 2.0 technologies enable us to do that.

By: Chris Edgar

Chris Edgar — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:54:49 +0000

Thanks for this perspective. One thing I’ve noticed about people who are expressing a lot of fear to me about the global financial situation is that they always seem to perceive some crisis in their lives, whether it’s in their careers, relationships, or somewhere else. I’ve found that when they recognize that, in some way, they’re always in “crisis mode,” suddenly they can relax and take themselves and the world a little less seriously. — Best Chris

By: Kent @ The Financial Philosopher

Kent @ The Financial Philosopher — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:07:58 +0000

I second your thoughts on aligning priorities. The very fact that people are spending so much emotional energy on money right now reveals that money is a high, if not the highest, priority for many people today.

“Life is not about making money — money is about making a life.” ~ Mitch Anthony

By: Shanel Yang

Shanel Yang — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:51:14 +0000

This is an excellent time to teach kids about money and to encourage them to not only save, be thrifty, but also to invest in themselves and their own creativity and work ethic. One great family-bonding activity is to brainstorm inventions; and, if a great one pops up, support one another to get a prototype done and test it in the market. See “Kids’ Ideas Make Millions — Yours Could, Too!” at http://shanelyang.com/2008/07/02/kids-ideas-make-millions%e2%80%94yours-could-too/