FALK REPORT: Issue No.1 - Inflation Highs and Emotional Lows
This Report’s Agenda:
1990s Wolf of Wall Street Era to Now
Why Strategic Maps Matter for Your Business
Inflation Highs: Personal Debts + Economic Honesty
Inflated Value Woes: Entrepreneur Success Traps
Importance of Patience During Times of Deceit
How to Get Out of Your Own Way: Change the Lens
Inflation Highs and Emotional Lows
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Inflation Highs and Emotional Lows 〰️
FALK REPORT: ISSUE 1 | 22 NOVEMBER 2022 | 8:30 PM ESTBuy low, sell high. Etched into my infant mind.
The sliding scales, moving numbers: glowing red, glowing green, arrows up, arrows down. Just like a slot machine. As a toddler, there was nothing cooler than watching Maria Bartiromo on CNBC’s Squawk Box. The whole screen was a crazy dopamine rush—a phenomenon that preempted social media’s slot-machine-derived hypnosis.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Squawk Box was the OG Shark Tank. Business leaders show up, share why their company and its trajectory is the best in the market, and pray to the money Gods that their stock price shoots sky high.
The dopamine hit keeps you sucked in, like an entrapped trance or virus of the mind. That is, until the closing bell rings and NYE style confetti—signaling success, hope and joy—reminds you to get off of the ride.
It’s no wonder why I loved staring at that TV screen, and no wonder why today I grow + manage social media feeds—they’re both designed to give you a dopamine rush to make you feel alive.
1990s Wolf of Wall Street Era to Now:
Dopamine, social media, and the promise of exponential growth.
As I got older, nothing made me feel more alive than when I was analyzing a business or a market sector’s potential. I was back on that NYSE TV-derived rollercoaster ride.
By the time I was a teenager, I was taking courses in economics and the legal ramifications of business operations and tax collection at Harvard through their Summer School Program—and ultimately went on to attend Boston University’s School of Management, which at the time was ranked within the top 10 schools for business globally.
Choo-choo, I was on the train headed towards success—but my naivete let me believe success was just about enjoying the ride, not about prioritizing a key destination.
Your Destination Matters
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Your Destination Matters 〰️
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re unlikely to achieve success.
Studies found that those who commit to ambitious goals are the ones that see improvement towards their desired outcomes. The key concept here is to use ambition to your advantage.You set the goal, you know it will be challenging, and you take charge to create change. Even if you don’t hit your target, you still shifted your behavior in a positive way.
Do you know what studies show doesn’t work?
Easy goals, or no goals at all. It leads to stagnation, complacency, stuffiness—nothing magical.
While I still love to hear Maria Bartiromo’s insights, I’ve had trouble finding her new content—and my other usual inspirations, like Bethenny Frankel, seem to have gone off the deep end into virtue signaling for views without really investigating pros-and-cons of surrendering our personal freedoms for what global “gurus” label as good for public health.
Pick a worthy destination.
Personal and business goals matter more than you’d expect. Set those goals high and make sure your subliminal messages come from experts and leaders who value reality over content view counts.
In that limbo, I’ve been inspired by the work of Jim Rickards, The Epoch Times, Palm Beach Research Group, Zero Hedge, Brownstone Research Institute, Paradigm Press, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Patrick Bet-David, and more.
You may find that you’ll gain valuable insights from their books, research papers, and podcasts—and I want to share those resources because it seems like it’s getting hard to find quality content these days.
Inflation Highs, Personal Debts, and Emotional Lows
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Inflation Highs, Personal Debts, and Emotional Lows 〰️
All the reports and top-notch insights I’ve been reading over the last 2 years are geared towards investors in the stock market, bonds market, and physical assets.
It’s all tied to personal wealth management, and none of it seems to offer any insights to actual business owners.
I’ve made a career for myself building, branding, and strategizing the marketing plays for small businesses in New York City to boost their income, cultural relevance, organic social media followings, and genuine communities in the health, wellness, beauty, and fashion arenas.
It’s been fun, but I’ve never experienced challenges like the ones we are facing today: Stagflation, economic impairment caused by economically abysmal ‘public health’ policies based more on emotion than scientific research, and a collective depression amongst friends and foes.
Today when you walk down the streets of New York City, stores are closing at random times on random days.
Solid ground can’t be found in the air.
In a fast changing world that’s been propped up by economic stimulus, it’s hard to plan for the future. Many people are pretending, avoiding, and wishing rather than actually creating the reality they desire for their businesses.
A strange occurrence that leaves one winded with uncontrollable panic-attack style heaving.
Thoughts start racing, “What’s going on here? Is it because businesses can’t afford to pay their staff? Or are their sales too low to keep the doors open? Why are coffee shops closing while the sun is still out? Isn’t this the city that supposedly never sleeps?”
The economic stimulus many received was not enough to keep standard profits seen prior to the pandemic’s shut downs. Many businesses pivoted, others cut costs, others fund-raised, and a handful of brands insisted that they are doing “just fine, never better.”
But is that true?
Fake it, fail it
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Fake it, fail it 〰️
We’re living in a world where people lead with ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ mentalities.
You see individuals building social media followings based on their self-proclaimed knowledge of what works in an ever shifting algorithmic masterpiece, where they know how to execute their fool-proof master plan to grow influence and follower counts like you’ve never seen before. They’ve gained 100k additional followers in the last 2 months using the exclusive tips they share with you for free, but are their tips working for you? Or are you falling for the scam?
In other realms, work-from-home gurus tout themselves as life management experts, yet they lack certifying credentials and real-life experience. But who cares? Throw those gurus up on Well+Good or The Atlantic. Let them proclaim their expertise, and let us fall for the flip-flopping lies.
Now sprinkle in all the disruption caused by social justice warriors, and it can be hard to see what’s really the problem, what’s really the scam, and what’s based in reality. We’ve had Black Lives Matter leaders embezzling millions for personal gain, stealing the well-intended donations for their cause to lead a ‘baller’ lifestyle.
We’ve seen the lavish lifestyles of entrepreneurs, like WeWork founder Adam Neumann, turn out to be funded by investors rather than their industry disrupting profits, like a new-age Ponzi scheme… but what about business? Real business? Planning for profit margins? Following through on the strategic investment of those profits back into the business?
Be stronger than a house of cards.
We’ve been sold success stories that are all lies! Be stronger, more stable, more reliant than the facades that fall to show failure, lack of courage and moral character.
Is that still happening, or are we living in an age of smoke and mirrors with no tangible substance?
Is this a sheer mirage of success? Sheer because any independent thinker can see through it like an American Apparel top from 2012 (note: google what happened to american apparel in 2012).
So what’s the difference between the mirage and a successful reality at best? My answer is that the mirage cannot last forever, and once the projector that streamed the mirage is broken, those who participated in the deceit will have sacrificed their potential for genuine success long-term.
You see, success will not come from a social media following or engagement alone. It comes from proper structural planning, strategic direction, and an unshakable value system that prioritizes genuine improvement of mankind that outlasts the facades of fads.
the cream always rises to the top
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the cream always rises to the top 〰️
Early on in my career, an account executive at one of the leading publishing houses in New York told me, “the cream always rises to the top.”
Interesting analogy to think of today because we all know that when you shake the jar, the cream blends in with the crowd.
That shaking and blending is what we’ve been experiencing for the last 2 years and 7 months.
A shake that caused the majority of the cream to blend with a few extra drops of cancel culture chemically engineered to stop independent thinkers from rising.
A society now chemically altered with no extra shaking required, like a genetically modified masterpiece.
Now, I’m not saying that social change or personal accountability should be swiped clean.
Release the need to be liked by everyone.
The Joneses are unhappy, in debt, and struggling to keep it together emotionally. Don’t blend with the crowd.
I’m merely suggesting that we should be open to new voices, and by new voices I don’t mean the same opinion with different faces that seem to match the ad campaigns of the United Colors of Benetton.
I’m referring to differing opinions from independent thinkers who have something to say about business, our progress forward, and how you and I (small business owners) can thrive today in a world with more psychological conflict and deceit than we’ve ever seen before.
All aboard, choo-choo!
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All aboard, choo-choo! 〰️
This is not a stock trading report. This is not a financial report. This is not a trend forecast.
This is an exploration of where our current standing point mirrors pivotal times in past history, what we can learn from it, and why we can implement strategies based on our own independent conclusions to map out a clear path for economic survival to thrive in the new-world-order apocalyptic era of 2020-2023 and beyond.
You may love this report, you might criticize this report, but you will not read it in its entirety and leave 100% unchanged.
I have cultivated the priceless skill of independent thought formation, and I hope that you will continue to cultivate your own independent thoughts as well. One of the best ways to do this is to take on a character, and look at this report through their lens.
Whether that character is the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, inviting you to get ‘curious and curiouser,’ or the 900 year old vampire, Niklaus Mikaelson, from The Vampire Diaries—let their lens open the door to the unseen possibilities that lie dormant in your mind.
With that said, welcome to the FALK Report. Your success flows beyond you; which means it’s not just for you, it’s for all loving kind.
With that, let’s go.
All aboard. Choo-chooo!
NEXT REPORT’S AGENDA
FALK REPORT: ISSUE NO.2 | 6 DECEMBER 2022 | 8:30 PM ESTIssue No. 2 will cover the topics listed below:
Historical Comparison Points to the 2022-2023 Recession
Economic Winners and Losers Within Those Comparison Points
Actions to Take Today for Emotional and Financial Endurance
Come prepared to our YouTube live stream debrief with your homework from the Intro Issue, and your take on what this means for you and your small business in 2023.
Don’t forget, the next issue of the FALK Report will hit your inbox one day before it’s released to the public when you sign up for our email list. Get access by subscribing below.