While driving back from a business-build appointment last week, I heard about a Wisconsin auto group that is thriving in the face of projected doom. The Russ Darrow Group held a job fair last week to hire 55 new employees. This is a car dealership.  They sell GM cars. They had their best month on record in January.  WHAT??!!   They’re hiring?  How are they hiring?  All the headlines say that we are totally sunk!  Every headline I read says we are on the verge of complete catastrophe.   How can these guys be hiring? Or thriving?!!

Don’t worry, I am not about to advocate the purblind pollyanna approach to positive thinking that seems to be rampant among the social network entrepreneurs.  The harsh reality is that we are in a very bad spot right now. If you are not convinced of this, Marc Faber has now compared the US economic system to Zimbabwe (and yes I know he makes a living spouting catastrophic prophecies) .CNBC video.   This “spend our economy back to health” concept is a bad idea.   We may not end up in hyperinflation problems to the degree Faber predicts, but a potential 12 trillion of debt with a drastically shrinking tax revenue source is a bad thing for a national economy.  We are in trouble, but we are in trouble as a nation.  Each citizen still exists as an individual, and the individual can still thrive even against the slide of the masses.

Russ Darrow is an example of individuals who create their circumstances rather than be dictated by them.  He comments that “A good sales man is recession proof” on the NPR report.  I considered how the Darrow Group’s sales people were creating success in the face of the current auto-odds, and determined that they were probably light years ahead of the average car sales-person in networking.  Every time I walk onto an auto-lot I am  besieged with hungry sales-piranhas.  I bet the good sales people at the Darrow Group are never on the lot unless they are signing paperwork.  I bet they are constantly in the community, networking, making friendships, and helping other people.  There are still a lot of people buying cars out there, there are just too many auto-dealers operating like fly traps for all of them to enjoy success.

This is how business in America is going to be for the next ten years – competitive.  In my opinion, that is good.  I am a little bit of a darwinist, however (in business, not in creation).  I think the time is coming when the nation will no longer be able to borrow enough to create its prosperity illusion through welfare and subsidies.  At that point I want to have created my circumstances and not depend upon favorable winds of happenstance.  There are people who will become much poorer over the next ten years.  There are also a lot of people who will make a lot of money as the US shakes and gyrates itself to stability now that the debt-spend and inflated asset base to its economy has disappeared.   Think about it, the media moguls are making tons of money publishing fear right now.  I prefer creators like myself and other business builders to be the ones pulling in the dollars.  I have more confidence in the real-entrepreneur to philanthropically manage his or her wealth for the benefit of the poor once the welfare tap has run dry.  Thus, my appeal is to those thinking of starting a business, or who have started a business and times are tough – you can make it.  Ask Russ Darrow.  Even in a down economy, you are the master of your destiny.