An Emergency Update About What to Do Right Now

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Hi. How’s everyone? Today we’re going to do a little emergency update. I’m not in an emergency, but America certainly is, it’s spreading, and the world is, too. This is serious stuff, as much as it gets. 

I’m sick with the flu, so I’ll be concise, and we’ll get to a general update in a second, but first I’m going to give you some advice about what to do and what not to do right now, and I want you to listen very carefully.

It goes like this.

For the next couple of weeks…

Don’t panic.

The worst thing you can do right now is panic. And then react, in panic.

In fact, right now, you should mostly be “doing” nothing.

Here’s exactly what not to do, and I’m going to tell you this in exacting detail because a lot of people are going to make these mistakes, and they are going to get blown up. So.

—Don’t, do not, buy or sell. Stocks, bonds, anything. Don’t do it. Let me repeat that, don’t buy a stock or sell a stock or financial contract of any kind. 

—Don’t start or end relationships of any kind, especially professional or personal ones.

—Don’t make any big-ticket purchases or investments.

—If you need to stock up on stuff, you can, but even that, don’t overdo it.

—Don’t quit your job, and if you’re looking for one, and by some miracle you get an offer, don’t get your hopes up, because a whole lot of offers are going to be rescinded over the next week or two.

—Don’t read too much news, because I’m going to tell you exactly what’s going to happen next anyways.

Are you getting the theme here? If you do any of these things out of panic, you will get blown up. By varying degrees, of course, but of course, this is not the time, to, for example, sell off your portfolio in a…panic.

Wait for the dust to settle.

OK? 

This is a super important principle to understand. 

This is how people’s lives really fall apart as we enter implosive phases of history, they make foolish choices, and right now the most foolish choice you can make is to panic and act impulsively. So let me say it again.

Wait for the dust to settle. 

Before you even think about doing stuff that resembles the list above.

How long will that take?

Waiting for the Dust to Settle

Now let’s come to the reason I’m giving you this emergency advice. 

We’re all a little bit freaked out right now.

That is because America has decided, or at least Trump has decided, to do everything from try to take over Canada to reconfigure the global economy not to international relations with a brutal wave of tariffs. 

I’m going to tell you, again, exactly what’s going to happen, in just a moment, but first, I want to teach you what to do. Because this is not some kind of dumb shit intellectual game. This is your life.

Give it about two weeks.

Maybe a month.

In that period, you should not be “doing” much of anything. Especially impulsively and out of panic. All of those things will be mistakes, probably very costly ones, and we’ll get to that in just a moment. 

What you should be “doing” is planning. Thinking your options over carefully. Expanding your Possibility window. All the stuff we’ve been discussing over the last few months, because as you’re now beginning to see, I wasn’t kidding, and of course, no, I wasn’t wrong, either. Just…contemplate, map, plan, open up your options, because when the dust settles is when you can begin to exercise them.

What to Do Right Now

That’s some advice about what not to do. Now I’m going to give you some advice about what to do.

Take a deep breath. Center and calm yourself.

You now have to be a beacon of calm, strength, and wisdom. For yourself, your family, your loved ones.

You have to make wise choices now, or create them, and do the same for those you love.

The world is now going to undergo the most dramatic period of transformation in a century.

Most of it isn’t going to be good for any of us. Many, as I’m going to explain, are going to lose a very great deal.

You can do be this kind of beacon in many ways, but remember how we discussed discipline, focus, and patience? Each of those are necessary right now. Be patient. Think it all over, carefully. Be disciplined and focused. Don’t just read the news pointlessly, begin to make choices in your own life, if you don’t want to Sink With the Ship.

That is all you must do right now. No more and no less.

This is not the time for any kinds of dramatic movements. Unless, for example, you get some kind of miraculous chance to do this or that that will really put your life on a different trajectory, but in this situation? As the world melts down? That’s probably rarer than gold.

Just be calm, exercise patience, discipline, and focus, and make a plan. We’ve discussed this at many, many levels, so go back and refer to those essays, they’re there for a reason.

Every day, every hour if you need to, remind yourself:  I need to be a beacon of calm, strength, and wisdom, for myself and my loved ones. This will help you overcome your panic and fear. Focus on that until you begin to feel it.

Now I am going to tell you what happens next.

What Happens Next

Over the last couple of months, I’ve had numerous powerful and influential and whatnot friends come to me and say, but he doesn’t mean it. He won’t do it. No, he’s not going to push the world economy to the brink. And I’d just sort of chuckle. Are you guys on another planet?

Here we are. He did mean it. Are we really going to go on with the “shock” and “surprise”? I’m not, because I’m not an idiot, and you shouldn’t be one either.

How should you understand what happens next? My dear mother asked me, hi mom, LOL, and I’ll tell you exactly what I told her.

Tariffs raise prices and lower…quantities of everything else. Stuff, goods, jobs, employment, corporations, institutions, money, whatever, doesn’t matter. That’s all you really have to know, to understand what comes next. Less of everything means…a recession…a depression…a crash…whatever, doesn’t matter, those are just formal terms, what you must understand is the dynamics.

It’s a sequence that usually goes like this. Prices rise, interest rates have to, businesses close, there’s a wave of bankruptcies, unemployment spikes, demand craters…and so a vicious cycle kicks off. Whatever we call it today, that was how the Great Depression happened. Along the way, financial markets crash, banks fail, and the system implodes.

Here’s a fun fact I teach people these days. Remember the Smoot-Hawley act? It’s average tariff rate, what was it? Go ahead it, and remember, it was key to hardening the Great Depression.

Just 20%.

This is the sort of meltdown we’re toying with. I’m not saying it’s all going to happen tomorrow. I’m saying that this is the sort of risk that’s in the implosion.

And these are serious, serious levels of risk. A lot of people are going to lose everything, if this sequences ignites, which there’s every sign of happening right about now. They will lose their savings, pensions, homes, assets, incomes, jobs, futures.

We should not be toying around like this with systems so fundamental, but that’s a political and moral point. The real point is that all of that’s what’s next, the risk of this is currently going through the roof, and the entire point of your life right now is to change it so that you’re not exposed to it.

This is why you mustn’t panic, and remain calm, focused, disciplined and patient. The more that you panic, the more chance you have of being one of the ones who isn’t going to make it, and loses a very great deal.

How to Think About the Next Few Months (and Years)

Here is  to think about the next time period. Everyone is going to be at great risk of loss and damage, at an existential level. I am not kidding when I say that a lot of people are going to lose it all—and further, that’s going to happen faster than they can imagine. 

Now the point is to minimize your losses. 

That’s it. The point of everything you do over the next time period is just that, to minimize your losses.

That is your first goal.

None of us, and I mean none of us, are going to walk away unscathed. No, not even the oligarchs and whatnot. Everyone is going to take a hit as the systems around us melt down, particularly financial and economic ones. 

We’ll discuss the ugly business of profiting from all this, but that’s the second point. The first one is to minimize your losses. If you walk away from all this with just a 10% loss? That’s pretty good.

Because in relative terms, a lot of people are going to lose much, much more, right down to everything. You must reorient yourself now in these ways.

Now. Like I said, the second goal, for those of you wish to learn how to do it, is to profit from all this. You can do that, too. It’s an ugly thing, an obscene one, in many ways, and maybe we will all have to do it to survive. I don’t know. I can teach you about that, but not right now, because first you have to understand all the above.

Why I’ve Been Teaching You What I’ve Been Teaching You.

OK? This is how you survive emergencies like this. Actually survive them, not Hollywood movie axe-in-the-zombie’s-head or let’s-all-head-to-the-doomsday-bunker. You reorient yourself and center yourself. You employ many of the principles I’ve been teaching you.

Now you can see why I’ve been teaching you all this. Here’s America on the brink of, what, trying to take over Canada? Is all this for real? Sadly, it is.

Over the next time period, the world is going to change dramatically.

And so will your life.

There is no avoiding that fact. 

The question is whether you will be the one to change it, or whether it will be changed for you, by imploding systems and institutions.

Personal Stuff + Sessions

I’m sorry (really!)—that’s for those of you complaining that I never reply to your emails, who can’t book sessions with me, etcetera.

There’s only one of me. My assistant left over the holidays, and so I’ve been trying to catch up. I’m going to redouble my efforts to catch up on the backlog over the next few days, so just be patient with me. If it’s really urgent, and I get it if it is at the moment, just get in touch so I know.

What I’m going to do is just try and make it so you can book a session with me on the website. That should make things much easier for everyone. Along the way, because like I said, there’s only one of me, we might start doing weekly group calls or similar, so that more of you can interact with me faster. It’ll be less than sessions, I’m not sure, I have to sort of map it out a little bit, but if you guys are really freaked out, just tell me, and I’ll try to have it up and running sooner rather than later.

I’m also going to open up my diary as much as I can because I know that many of you are worried and concerned, to put it mildly, at the moment, as much as I can, remember I have to balance this with all the other stuff I do, but I’ll put as much as I can aside for a while so that we have more time together, because this really is an emergency.

OK? I hope that all helps.

Keep What I Just Taught You With You

Hang in there. 

Remember what I began with. 

It is incredibly important.

The next couple of weeks to a month are going to be deeply unsettling and challenging.

Do not panic. Do not do a single thing out of panic. They will all prove to be mistakes, costly ones, especially where finance is concerned.

Wait for the dust to settle. You will know it begins to settle, and hell, I’ll be here to tell you anyways.

Be a beacon of calm, strength, and wisdom to yourself and your loved ones. Say it to yourself a hundred times a day if you have to.

Make wise and careful plans. All the essays are right here for you. Read them carefully, share them, reflect on them, just sit with them, there is a lot in there, and they will begin to change you just by taking them in.

Lots of love,

Umair (and Snowy!) 

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