I had a great post planned but after hearing and reading that Bear Stearns was sold for just $2 per share, I am in shock. $2 per share? This subprime mess is destroying our economy and is destroying many lives as droves of people are losing their ‘safe and secure’ jobs. And forget about all of the people who are losing their homes – that’s another story.
If Bear Stearns can go under any company can go under and anyone can lose their job. Only a year ago Bear’s shares were $170. JPMorgan bought Bear, once the 5th largest investment bank in the world, for about $236 million. In 2006, Bear earned $2 billion in profit! This is absolutely insane.
It comes down to this. The only way to be in a recession proof job (or business) is to be remarkable.
Remarkable begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Being remarkable is about training yourself to leap over this barrier. Being remarkable is about training yourself to tunnel under this barrier. Being remarkable is about driving through this barrier. And, after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.
It’s so easy to just keep coasting along. It’s so easy to just accept the status quo. Change is scary. Safe is comfortable.
The bottom line is this: The riskier your work appears to be, the safer it really is. It’s the people having difficult conversations, inventing remarkable products/services, and pushing the envelope who are building a recession-proof future for themselves.
It’s your choice. It’s your life.
How do you know about sooo many different things???
Amazed – Not sure what you mean…but thanks, I guess?
Fully meant to be a compliment!!
Anonymity is what is destroying the web. If people couldn’t be anonymous, there wouldn’t be any spam.
If people couldn’t be anonymous there wouldn’t be phishing scams online and people stealing identities online. It’s so easy to hide behind a computer screen and make up a name and email address.
If people’s email addresses had to be their real name the world wide web would be very different…in a great way.
If people couldn’t be anonymous online, there wouldn’t pointless comments on blogs that add no value to the point of the post.
Think about that Amazed.
-Adam Gilbert
The Bear Stearns loss is sad. And I’m not a fan of JP Morgan either… I won’t be surprised when Bear Stearns employees get their pink slips. But that’s what happens in acquisitions I guess.
Hi Monica,
What’s truly amazing to me is how a company that had $2 billion in profits was sold for less than $2 per share and a year ago their shares were $171 a piece.
There are a lot of very smart people out there without jobs these days. It’s pretty crazy.
Adam-
If people couldn’t be anonymous, they would self-censor and some of the best ideas might never be shared for fear of ridicule or embarassment, now or later in life. 7
Comments may be fleeting, but Google can find them years later.
Think about THAT Adam.
Oh, and the Bear Stearns thing happened because they got greedy and overextended themselves to the point where they couldn’t “pay their bills” and no one wanted to do business with them anymore. Cash flow is the life blood of any organization [just ask Robert Kiyosaki–he’s made millions preaching about it]. What happened to 8ear Stearns COULD happen to any company, but shouldn’t happen to any company that pays attention to what’s important, and it isn’t profitability above all else.
Jake,
Thanks for the comment.
Here’s a question for you.
Tell me one idea that’s been invented by someone you never heard of (anonymous) that has changed the world for the better. I really can’t think of any.
I think the World Wide Web would be much better if everyone had to use their real identity. I don’t see any negatives actually. Only positives. That means every piece of spam would be from an individual person…not a machine. Every phishing scam would be traced back to an individual person…not a machine and so on and so forth.
Also, the Bear thing happened for many reasons but I believe it’s because they had such terrible loans out there that they bought and repackaged and couldn’t get rid of them.
-Adam