Faith and Trade: Why Some Economies Thrive While Others Fail
If our savings were hot air balloons then faith would be the hot air that makes them fly through the sky. If marriages were played then faith would be the actors and actresses that make the scripts come to life. If the shores were pools, then faith would be the water that fills them. If our currency were understood to be worthless, thin green pieces of paper with elaborate printing, then faith would be the belief that we would all have to give that currency its value (wait a minute… our “fiat” currency is meant green sheets of worthless paper with elaborate letters on them). If someone were to write us a check, faith would be our belief that he really had money on deposit with the bank from which his checks were written. So what if the person writing the checks doesn’t exactly inspire faith?
What if you knew that person and learned that they routinely bounce checks? Would you accept the check? What if you knew world history and knew that the Germans inflated their currency by printing money faster than their people could actually earn it? What if you knew that the Germans printed money so fast that people began to lose faith in its value? What if he knew that once the people lost faith in currency, they began to lose faith in their government? What if you knew that once people lost faith in their currency, they started using wheelie barrels filled with paper money just to buy a loaf of bread? What if you knew that once people started not being able to afford food, they started turning their allegiance to the first charismatic leader they could find? What if you knew that this leader used the desperation of the people as a tool to manipulate them and almost exterminate an entire race? wow! It’s good that you didn’t know.
My friend, who speaks optimistically, faith plays a very important role in business, leadership and almost every aspect of your life in the United States. The brutal truth and reality is simple. If you don’t inspire confidence, you inspire pessimism. If you sound like a clumsy idiot who doesn’t know what you’re doing, then people think you don’t. If you dress like you’re the newest member of the Wu-Tang Clan, you’ll immediately be written off as worthless in our economy. It’s fair? Do I mean that people really judge other people based on their faith in them? Yes. People judge you every day.
Look at this. Think about the last time you went to the mall. Did you see an attractive woman or handsome man there? Did you see someone pull up to the mall in a new Hummer? Did you see someone wearing expensive clothes? Did you see someone who was extremely fit? Did you see someone who was morbidly obese? Did you see someone in a late 90’s Buick with huge chrome rims that probably cost more than the vehicle before the rims were added? Did you see a guy with a great haircut? Did you see a guy with a Mohawk? Did you see someone who looked happy? Did you see someone who looked angry? What judgments did you make about these people? Did they inspire you to have faith in them? If you were offered a job, would you be skeptical? Would you believe them if they told you a surprising fact? Friend, faith is a huge component in our economy and in our lives. If you can’t inspire faith, you simply can’t succeed in our world and in our economy. Let’s analyze this a little more.
Faith is almost the entire foundation of our society. Although I believe in God, I am not referring here to religious faith. I’m talking about faith from the point of view that faith is something living, moving, powerful, mind-changing, life-altering, almost tangible. Faith is at the core of almost every business. Did you know that over 90% of the trade and commerce that takes place in the world today is done on credit? I already knew this, but a few months ago I spoke with a group of senior credit managers in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and was shocked to see how much credit is used in the world today. All the work of these credit managers was based on lending money to chemical companies so that they could sell their products to plastics manufacturers, who would in turn pay them on credit, who would then sell this plastic product to retail stores, who they would pay them on credit. I then, in turn, sell this finished product to consumers like you and would now have an average consumer credit card debt of over $12,000 according to recent research.
How leveraged are these chemical companies? Oh, they only borrow about 90% of all the money they use for payroll and chemicals? 90%? What? Really? Do you mean that if the American people suddenly lost a little bit of faith in our economy and started pulling their money out of the mutual funds and stocks that financed these companies, they would be broke if just 11% of their investors disappeared? Yes. Look at our current economic situation for proof.
My friends, if the public ever lost faith in our paper money, our paper money wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s printed on (because you couldn’t really use it to take bills very well). If the public began to lose faith in the overall sustainability and soundness of our money markets, the stock market crash would immediately follow (hence the 2008 economic crisis). If terrorists really wanted to wipe out our economy, they could simply create a computer virus that would cause all of our online bank accounts to show a zero balance. People would start to wonder, is my cash really in the bank?
Soon, one by one they would discover that their cash was not deposited in their account. Soon, average people would learn about the banking practice called fractional reserve lending and simply freak out. People would go crazy as soon as they realized that most banks only hold between 3% and 10% of the cash that we have deposited in the bank at any given time. Soon it would be sprinting to see which 3 out of 100 customers could get their money out of the bank the fastest. Once customer 4 showed up and found that his money was not in the bank, he would ask where my money is. The bank teller would explain to them, “I’m sorry, sir. The money you deposited with us has been slow to someone else for profit.”
My friend, I am not a doomsday theorist. I am not a historian. I am an award-winning businessman and I am a man of faith. I am a man who is well aware that faith is truly the basis and foundation of any functional and non-third world society. Without solid faith that my wife is being faithful to me, I couldn’t trust her. If I couldn’t trust her, our family would fall apart. If my employees couldn’t trust me to pay them, they wouldn’t work with me. Without the faith of your people and without faith in yourself it is simply impossible to achieve anything worthwhile in our world.
The greatest value and virtue you must develop to be successful is to become a person of faith. Become a person of faith. Become a person who inspires faith. Become a person who believes in others and in the potential of others. Lifelong academics, professors, and college nerds have debated faith forever and will continue to have these pointless debates. I personally don’t care about your opinion of faith or my opinion of faith. What matters to me is that faith is essential for success. Faith without works is dead, because no one will believe that you have faith in something unless you act on it.
Do you want me to invest in something? You invest in it first. Do you want me to invest in that real estate deal? You invest with me. Do you want me to invest in that business? You also have an in-game skin. Do you want me to believe that you love your family? Let me see you act on that love for your family. Do you want your partner to know that you love them? Do something about it. Show her that you love her. I challenge you to take action based on your faith. Do you have a political belief? Do something about it. I dare you. Do you have a religious belief? Do something about it. Act on all your beliefs in a spirit of faith, or you are fake and people will not believe you.
Here is the problem. Most people never consciously work to develop their faith. So we just have a bunch of talking heads talking about business plans, diet plans, and plans for their future. We have almost an entire society of people walking around saying that “someday when I retire, I’m going to spend more time with my family.” This is false. We have from Monday to Sunday, but some day will never come. If you want to do something of merit, size and notoriety, you will have to inspire others to follow you and no one will follow a person they have no faith in.
If you saw yourself in the mall, would you like to work for yourself? If you saw yourself at home, would you believe that you are a good family member and a good spouse? Are you fake or are you real? Faith without actions is dead. Show that you are alive and act according to your convictions.
Final Thought: “Don’t waste your time asking a person what they value, just watch how they spend their time.” – Coworker Cody Aldrich