It seems that the most successful product of our time is fear. It’s being sold everywhere in the news, newspapers, TV, and even in everyday conversations with loved ones.

Fear has been used to manipulate people since the beginning of time and it’s been the precursor to many religions, scams, placebos, prescription drugs, and countless other mass marketed, industry-based ideals.

Fear is once again creeping it’s ugly head in the form of world-collapsing economic meltdown. Money is no longer worth anything and industries are falling. Should we buy gold or silver? Should we buy $45,000 worth of dried beans to stack in our bomb shelters?

These stories of the end of times have also been with us since the beginning. I recently read an article from the fifties that stated the exact same things that our news is ranting about today.

Will there be an end to all of humanity one day? Probably. After all, doesn’t everything have an end, a cycle? If we do come to an end, I’m sure it will be our own doing, but I digress.

I would like to propose that our economic collapse is nothing more than a failing industrial age. Just like the other ages that preceeded it, the industrial age is seeing its end.

Mass-marketing and mass-production are products of an industry that has only existed for the past 50 years, and I for one am glad to see it go.

In my opinion, it has led to the demise of families, the demise of individuality and taste, the demise of craftmanship, and the rise of the Jones’s.

The death of the factory system and the industrial age is going to look very painful just like it did in every other major economic shift, but aren’t you tired?

Aren’t you tired of an educational system that doesn’t work? Aren’t you tired of shopping at Walmart and eating food that tastes like plastic and that’s bad for you? Aren’t you tired of having over a thousand dollars worth of car payments every month?

The new age will be drastically different. Rich won’t mean “what you own”, it will mean “freedom of choice”. The new wealthy will be those that are smart enough to create lifestyles that afford them the luxury of making their own decisions on their own time.

We’ll start to see small tribes forming that allow us to find the groups that are just like us. No matter how weird or strange we are, it’s okay. The internet will help you find your peers.

Are you an eye doctor that also likes the novelty of the twenties? It’s cool, there are tons of hipsters and individuals that would love the experience of that kind of office. Are you a paralegal that loves to collect Smurfs? There is no doubt a subculture and yearly tradeshow for that.

No matter how weird or temporarily painful this down economy may feel, take a breather. Be confident in understanding what might really be happening. An industry-based existence that is only 50 years old is on its way out. It came in powered by the ad agencies on Madision Avenue and it completely changed the way we lived.

But that way of living sucks.

We’ve got the best opportunity we’ve ever had to get back to being who we really are.

Don’t buy into the market of fear.

The majority of small businesses out there are in industries where the market is flooded. Remember the days when people knew you as the town physician, the baker, the handyman, the insurance guy?

Where did those days go? Now I have to choose between hundreds of doctors, bakers, dentists, repair shops, gas stations and coffeehouses. Now I go to the coffeeshop for young, hip, professionals. I go to the dentist with the portrait of Elvis Costello hanging on the wall. I go to the baker that has the closest outlook on life as I do, and a passion for the basics and latest trends.

Why? Because I can.

If I’m going to build a relationship with anyone, it might as well be with someone with the same outlook on life, worldview, and taste in music. After all, relationships are built by conversation, and I don’t really want to gab with someone about Lionel Ritchie.

But what does this have to do with business? Everything.

Once you realize that people have organized themselves into tribes, you’ll start to see more and more why a combination of a general business and a flooded market will leave you in revenue limbo.

Do you have a tribe behind your business? Are you a member of a certain passionate type of people?

Religious individuals are good at this, but even they have sub-niches. Tiny communities are good at this, but even the barber runs the risk of a young buck taking over “kids these days”.

Now, for the first time in history, you get to drop the professional speak. You finally get to forget about acting like someone that gets along with everyone. For the first time in business history, the death of mass marketing means you get to be exactly who you are and find the tribe of people just like you to serve.

This is both exciting and scary, but you’ll have to do it. Soon, you’ll have no choice.