Gaddafi’s Plan B

The hunt is on. No one feels sorry for deposed military dictator Muamar Gaddafi. Somehow it appears to us that justice is being done. Earlier this month we heard that his interior minister had escaped to Egypt with his family. Has Col. Gaddafi done the same thing? The western press had always presented him as a mad man. But our own rational minds told us he couldn’t have been completely crazy because he held power all those years. We know there was some modicum of ruthless ration in that cloudy mind. Near the end of his regime, he was still shouting victory and defiance from wherever he was hiding. Did he really believe his own bull? Surely he saw the signs. Tunisia fell. Egypt fell. NATO forces had destroyed his military installations. Surely he saw. Was he, in his most desperate hour, able to muster up enough IQ to create and execute a Plan B? Or is he hiding in some hole like Sadam, when Iraq fell?
In my investment book, Beyond the Bull, I wrote about the concept of being objective. Holding our minds in an objective state helps us stay rational in an irrational world. I recognize the possibility that Col. Gaddafi’s world was irrational most of the time; but his predicament at this very moment is the result of a rational sequence of events. And his survival now depends of the viability of his Plan B. Beyond his world of power and wealth, beyond the illusion, was a rational sequence of events involving rebels, Tunisia, Egypt and NATO. Now that the man hunt is on, we all see how important it is to objectively see through the illusion of power and wealth and to objectively formulate a realistic Plan B for our survival.
In 1969, when Gaddafi took power, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the year at 800.40. When power was taken from him last week, the DJIA was 11,500. Col. Gaddafi got rich AND America got rich. How have you made out since 1969? Gaddafi’s time of prosperity and power has ended. Some say America’s time of prosperity and economic dominance is ending. (based on the failure of her biggest bluest chip companies in 2008-9 and the long term decline of the US dollar) But let’s stop pretending to be objective – there’s nothing we can do about Libya or America. What counts is us. Will our period of prosperity end? What are the signs we should look for? Do we have a Plan B?
Colonel Muamar Gaddafi is teaching us all we should do.
Lesson One: live in your world. Know your world. Know your strength and your weakness. Know yourself.
Lesson Two: objectively observe the world around you. How does it affect your world? What are the signs that your world is in danger?
Lesson Three: when you see these signs, what will you do? What is your Plan B.
In my book, Beyond the Bull, I write about Five Keys to economic success. The three lessons Col. Gaddafi is teaching us all right now are the first two keys. Now that he is a fugitive, he is involved in the third key: execute your plan.
Our sheltered world, our world of western wealth and peace, is quite different from Col. Gaddafi’s desperate world. Gaddafi’s Plan A kept him in power since 1969. Our Plan A gave us our life style since 1969 too. What we have in common with this hunted man is our need for an effective Plan B. Like him, we hope we’ll never need our Plan B. But when we see the signs, we’ll know it’s time.

To order your copy of Beyond the Bull and the Five Levels of Investor Consciousness CD, or to sign up for Ken’s free monthly webinar, visit www.gobeyondthebull.com (Bullmanship Code = SS32).

This article and others by Ken are available at http://kennorquay.blogspot.com.

Contact Ken directly at ken@castlemoore.com.