The philosophy towards careers and business has made a tremendous shift in Millennium 2.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s, American business and economics looked very different from the way it looks now. The mentality of this time period was based more on the philosophy that there will always be more. Lifestyles were geared toward working to make as much money as you can. There will always be more. Live in excess, because you deserve it.
A mutual fund manager named Peter Lynch took a $20,000,000 mutual fund and built it into to a $13,000,0000 mutual fund from the 1700% returns that Lynch produced on investments and from the new investments drawn into the fund the Fidelity Investments Magellan Fund he managed from 1977 – 1990.
Some of Peter Lynch’s more famous quotes reflect his confidence in himself and express confidence to his investors. Furthermore, the quotes are reflective of the confidence that many people felt in general toward their lives: the mentality that there will always be more.
- “Absent a lot of surprises, stocks are relatively predictable over twenty years. As to whether they’re going to be higher or lower in two to three years, you might as well flip a coin to decide.”
- “Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot is probably going to run it.”
- ‘If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.”
Peter Lynch preached that financial success is simple, formulaic, and predictable.
The writers and speakers of the era were focused on attitude of you can have it all. The mentality was that anything is possible through goal setting and work.
“You can get everything in life you want as long as you can help enough other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar, Secrets of Closing the Sale (1984)
“If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you.” Jim Rohn.
Peter Lynch retired from his role as the Manager at Magellan Fund Fidelity investments in 1990. Since that time, there have been three recessions.
July 1990 – Mar 1991
March 2001–Nov 2001
Dec 2007 – June 2009
What Peter Lynch, Zig Ziglar, and Jim Rohn said and wrote are as inspiring and perhaps no less meaningful today. Yet there is a new mentality in American business, economics, and lifestyle. New writers and speakers have found success with practicing and preaching a minimalist, more-focused view of doing less of what you have to do and more of what you want to do when it is more effective.
Coincidental to these recessions has come the Internet, which enables us to click from place to place without getting real value out of any place we have gone. So with a knowledge that there may not always be more and more and the exhaustion and lack of production that has come from a flood of information slamming into our think banks, people in American business and in fact the public in general have looked for new thinking. The result these recessions and of the mental crush of technology is that Millennium 2 has found new philosophies and new philosophers.
“By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.” Tim Ferris
“Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.” Leo Babauta
“The ethic of more, bigger, faster generates value that is narrow, shallow and short-term.” Tony Schwartz
