Don't read this...

In fact, stop taking any notice of anything you read in the newspapers, or see on TV, or hear on the radio.

Because 99% of it is damaging your brain. That's right - all those negative messages are filling your mind with the thought that it is inevitable our economy will soon be in the grip of recession, if not deflation, depression, drought, famine, plague and possibly pestilence.

The other day I asked an eminent international banker to explain to me what caused the so-called global financial crisis. He explained it thus: The banks forgot the basics that they need to balance risk against reward and lent a whole lot of money to people who spent it instead of investing it wisely. Some of those people can't repay the loans, which have been turned into complicated secondary market financial instruments and sold on to unsuspecting institutions. A kind of toxic, pass-the parcel of debt. Now the margins of these banks have been decimated (and the full story might not yet be out on all of that), so now the banks are suspicious of anyone who needs to borrow, and will only lend money to people who can prove they don't need it.

Sounds familiar. But the key thing is that people still need to eat, wear clothes and keep a roof over their heads. They still need medical care, they need to travel to work and home again, and they need to be entertained - so while some businesses will be doing it a bit tough, most are going to survive just as they did before.

The most obvious response for businesses would be to abandon all marketing and business development work until the worst is over. To hunker down and batten the hatches, cutting all but the most vital of costs, and slimming the operation down, right?

Wrong! Companies that do that wind up so slim they are effectively atrophied. When the good times return, they don't have the capacity to walk, let alone run. The ironic thing is many of those companies then fail just as the economy goes back to the boom cycle.

The smartest managers are looking at ways to increase market share when everyone else is simply trying to maintain profitability. Market share increases in a down economy translate to much larger market share - and commensurate profit increases - when the upturn occurs.

So, don't do the obvious. Think - and act - counter-intuitively, and thrive. The economy might be down. But it isn't out. As the song goes in Spamalot - "I'm Not Dead Yet".