Monday, December 13, 2010

Brazil's economy.....what global economic crisis

Most people wouldn't know it but Brazil has an economy growing at 7% a year, practically full employment and a two term president that has a fourth grade education! That's right a fourth grade education. Twenty years ago, Brazil had 2000% inflation. Today, full employment and the third largest GDP in the world. Oh, and did I mention, they have not fought in a war since 1870?

How does a country do that? Alignment, that's how. No conflicts in over 140 years is a good start. In general, the collective of Brazillian people are chill, "let's go to the beach" is a mainstream attitude. They don't get caught up in stupid stuff that takes them out of alignment. They don't worry about stuff and they don't care what other people think about them.

For instance, the outgoing President, when he first took office 8 years ago, the first thing he did was give the poor a stipend of $150.00 if the parents took their children to doctors and made sure they attended school. His critics said it would never work, they said the parents would buy drugs and kids would not go to school. He proved them wrong, kids went to school, and the parents gave the economy a huge jolt because they began buying goods with the money and not drugs.

The President was true to his own feelings about what the country needed and acted on those feelings, most of the time in direct conflict with the pundits and some of his advisors. He wasn't worried about politics or if he would be reelected, he just did what he felt needed to be done and the country is thriving, though still not without it's critics. Oh, and this is the President with a fourth grade education that was labeled a socialist. He jokes now that for capitalism to work in Brazil, it needed a steel worker socialist to make it work.

So, what would you do if you were not worried about what others think? What would you do if you followed your intuition or your gut feeling rather than what you are expected to do? Try it on one small thing and see what happens.

You don't get what you want, you get what you are. Be true to yourself, not to what the norm is or what your expected to be. If you are compromising on what you truly want because that is what is expected, your only getting a fraction of the life you deserve. Be real and be true to yourself. Period!

Last week I was talking with a lady that said she was having trouble trusting men. She had been hurt and betrayed in past relationships and knew that in order to have true love she needed to be bale to trust and let a man in. She said she was most frustrated by the fact that she couldn't trust. I Told her that wasn't true, that she absolutely could trust and she was actually trusting every moment of everyday. She looked at me like I was crazy (which can happen occasionally). I told her that she was trusting in the fear of being hurt and having history in her relationships play out. She was stunned as she realized that in fact was the case. She was getting what she was not what she wanted. By being afraid and actually trusting in the fear of being hurt, that is exactly what happened. Sometime by the men she was involved with and other times by her sabotaging the relationship. She got exactly what she was, a woman that trusted fear rather than Love.

It all comes down to perspective, and the solution is always the same as the problem. As in trusting in the wrong thing when you don't think you can trust. Or not following conventional "wisdom" on economic reform. If your not getting what you want, ask what beliefs you hold that are getting what you are getting and how they need to be changed.

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