Valuable Accounts

Have you ever noticed that some people manage to find the worst in everything? Or how the grass is greener on every other side of every other fence?

The great philosophers have always recognized this. And I heard it from one of them this morning on my drive to work. This great philosopher was famous for his works in the 1970s and 1980s. His name? Meat Loaf.

In one of Meat Loaf’s hits which has become a cult-like classic, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, near the end of the song in a line that is repeated many times, he laments:

                        It was long ago and it was far away,
                        And it was so much better than it is today.

Meat Loaf, no surprise, wasn’t talking about a great macroeconomic environment or business trends, but it sums up how many people think about the situation we find ourselves in.

Here’s a bit of a contrarian view—I think we are better off today than we were 2 years ago. Here are a few reasons I think that…

·         Because a defeatist attitude will get you one thing—defeat.

·         Because 2 years ago things were so heated—overvalued, overleveraged, oversold, overbuilt, etc.—that there was only one way to go. And we went.

·         Because today we have a base to build on that is much more solid. A base we can grow from. Instead of treading on thin ice waiting to fall, we are now in a position to slowly, steadily, fundamentally grow again.

·         Because now we have all been through Marine Boot Camp. The Marines “knock ‘em down to build ‘em up.” We’ve been knocked down. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve survived and it will make us stronger.

So, as we head into 2010, I am very bullish. I am excited about the things that we are going to see in the coming years. I am excited for steady, controlled, fundamental growth that creates a stronger economy and more wealth for more people.

Best wishes for a prosperous 2010. We’re headed in the right direction now!