Monday October 13 Reality Check Part III: Lessons from Home.

The world is falling down around your ears and you are wondering what will happen next. Well me too. Just remember one thing. You are who you are today because of certain fundamental principles you have followed through time. They are what have made you what you are and they need to be remembered and repeated in times like these.

I am just back from my 30th high school reunion. I did not go to the 10th or 20th, so this was a real treat. Some things were a shock to behold...like the guys who have done way too many drugs and had their eye balls spinning in their heads while they talked to you. But others told me inspiring stories of prevailing in the face of great adversity...children with special needs, spells of severe illness, deceased spouses and carrying on with two kids and not knowing what will happen in the future. Fancy elixirs and potions or magic spells did not get them through to the other side. They stuck to what they knew would work.

As you go forward, let me ask you to ask yourself what it is that defines who you are. Find that out and then stick to it. Because that is what is going to get this economy to the other side too. People rationalized and justified the legitimacy of the tech bubble during the 1990s with the mantra "All the old rules have changed! The old fundamentals don't apply any more!" I don't have to tell you about the internet bubble eh? Folks told me on visits to Florida in the recent past that they could foresee their real estate values sustain 20% per year increases indefinitely because this was a new and different market. Arthur Burns, Chair of the Fed back in the 1970s said the same thing during the recession of 1973-75 "the old rules don't apply anymore." They said the same thing in Japan in the 1980s and in the US during the 1920s hey days. It is a lie that you have to rise above.

Patton was quoted as saying "although I have fought under many guises, many names...in the end...always me."

And me...and you too.