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The Hidden Beauty Of Black Friday: 2016 Update

November 24, 2016 By Larry Hochman 15 Comments

Larry Hochman Black Friday

This has been a yearly tradition for a while now. The original came out in 2008. You can click on the “Black Friday” tag below if you want to see more.

*** ***

I’m writing this on Sunday morning, a couple of days after a few tragic incidents on “Black Friday.”

For those of you not in the United States, this is the day after the American Thanksgiving holiday when many stores offer sales with deeply discounted items. These sales have become a phenomenon over the past few years, with stores opening at 5:00 am and people lining up the night before to buy a very limited quantity of deeply discounted items.

In New York a Walmart employee was trampled to death by the oncoming crowd as the doors opened. And in California a customer shot and killed two people in an apparent rage about some item that was in high demand.

Many people are prepared to take these two incidents and use them as a symbol of everything that is going wrong in the world. I’d like to offer a completely different perspective: I think this is a time to recognize just how essentially right things really are.

*** ***

These are sad events, but not unprecedented. As I was telling a friend of mine, I can imagine an out of control crowd rushing to get scarce loaves of bread, or medicine, or any number of things that were once considered necessities for survival.

So the fact that the rush was on for electronics or toys, things that are nice but not necessary is a sign of increased prosperity.

Indeed, this was a case of manufactured scarcity. Collectively, we decide to assign importance to certain items that really has nothing to do with our actual survival. We will continue to breathe in and out whether we have that new computer or not. Our children will love us whether they get the hot new toy or not.

A deliberate condition of scarcity was engineered and created by the stores themselves, to entice people to come in and act out of fear. The media bought into it, with stories about the Black Friday sales and people lining up days before.

I remember attending one of these a couple of years ago. We were at a Best Buy store in Connecticut at 5:00 am, thinking we’d be among the first to be there. We were greeted by multiple police cars, dogs, television news trucks, and thousands of customers who arrived before we did.

That was the end of our Black Friday shopping excursions. Never again.

As I said, the retailers and media co-created the conditions that contributed to these deaths – along with us. Those who lined up outside the doors participated in the frenzy. We have choices in how we think, how we act and what we allow into our consciousness.

So with that, let me leave you with a few pieces of good news….

1. I predict a change in the way these sales are administered, and they may even disappear altogether. The retailers and the media don’t just create public opinion. They respond to it as well. Walmart is no doubt reeling from bad publicity surrounding this event. Black Friday sales are now associated with corporate and consumer greed. No business wants that connection.

2. For every act of chaos, greed and desperation that occurred on Black Friday, there were hundreds, even thousands of acts of civility, kindness and generosity. These weren’t reported in the media.

Doors were held open for senior citizens and children.

Children’s eyes lit up when parents bought special presents for them, and parents hearts melted with the reactions of their kids.

Strangers bonded in a shared sense of humor of the absurdity of the circumstances they were in.

Spouses had hot breakfasts waiting for their partners when they returned home.

Some minimum wage retail workers found a sense of dignity and personal empowerment in being assertive towards large groups of people. Some of these same workers received more money than usual based on the volume of sales they processed.

And some of these workers experienced something unpleasant enough, it inspired them to ask for more out of their lives. Somewhere on Friday a decision was made by a Walmart or Radio Shack worker to go back to college.

It really is a matter of where you choose to put your focus.

Three lives taken and an attitude of greed. Or a self-correcting marketplace and many acts of compassion and grace.

I know where I’m choosing to focus!

*** ***

2016 UPDATE

Black Friday hasn’t gone away. I suppose it never will.

As long as there’s a marketplace subject to being manipulated through bogus sales and artificially high price points, folks will go brave the insanity of lining up for gizmos and gadgets.

I’m sleeping in. That’s not true. I’m likely up early on Friday morning to meet up with an old friend and head to the beach. Peace and tai chi await!

It takes a strong sense of self to avoid being pulled along with the flow of other people’s intention for you.

But the people who are the architects of their own lives are the ones who listen to their own inner voice.

They decide what is right for them. If getting up in the middle of the night for a discounted consumer product is worth it.

Heck, it might be!

I’m traveling light this year. No one is selling love or peace of mind at the big box store.

I’ll be finding in the quiet of courage, compassion and connection.

Happy Holiday Season!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Black Friday

The Hidden Beauty Of Black Friday: 2015 Update

November 21, 2015 By Larry Hochman 2 Comments

shareasimage (21)

I’m writing this on Sunday morning, a couple of days after a few tragic incidents on “Black Friday.”

.

(I’m really not. This is the 2015 update of a piece I originally wrote in 2008. But…keep going. It’s worth your reading time.)

For those of you not in the United States, this is the day after the American Thanksgiving holiday when many stores offer sales with deeply discounted items.

These sales have become a phenomenon over the past few years, with stores opening at 5:00 am and people lining up the night before to buy a very limited quantity of deeply discounted items.

In New York a Walmart employee was trampled to death by the oncoming crowd as the doors opened. And in California a customer shot and killed two people in an apparent rage about some item that was in high demand.
Many people are prepared to take these two incidents and use them as a symbol of everything that is going wrong in the world.

I’d like to offer a completely different perspective: I think this is a time to recognize just how essentially right things really are.

*** ***

These are sad events, but not unprecedented. As I was telling a friend of mine, I can imagine an out of control crowd rushing to
get scarce loaves of bread, or medicine, or any number of things that were once considered necessities for survival.

So the fact that the rush was on for electronics or toys, things that are nice but not necessary is a sign of increased prosperity.

Indeed, this was a case of manufactured scarcity. Collectively, we decide to assign importance to certain items that really have nothing to do with our actual survival. We will continue to breathe in and out whether we have that new computer or not.

Our children will love us whether they get the hot new toy or not.

A deliberate condition of scarcity was engineered and created by the stores themselves, to entice people to come in and act out of fear. The media bought into it, with stories about the Black Friday sales and people lining up days before.

I remember attending one of these a couple of years ago. We were at a Best Buy store in Connecticut at 5:00 am, thinking we’d be among the first to be there. We were greeted by multiple police cars, dogs, television news trucks, and thousands of customers who arrived before we did.

That was the end of our Black Friday shopping excursions. Never again.

As I said, the retailers and media co-created the conditions that contributed to these deaths – along with us. Those who lined up outside the doors participated in the frenzy. We have choices in how we think, how we act and what we allow into our consciousness.

.

So with that, let me leave you with a few pieces of good news….

.

1. I predict a change in the way these sales are administered, and they may even disappear altogether. The retailers and the media don’t just create public opinion. They respond to it as well. Walmart is no doubt reeling from bad publicity surrounding this event. Black Friday sales are now associated with corporate and consumer greed. No business wants that connection.

2. For every act of chaos, greed and desperation that occurred on Black Friday, there were hundreds, even thousands of acts of civility, kindness and generosity. These weren’t reported in the media.
Doors were held open for senior citizens and children.

Children’s eyes lit up when parents bought special presents for them, and parents hearts melted with the reactions of their kids.

Strangers bonded in a shared sense of humor of the absurdity of the circumstances they were in.

Spouses had hot breakfasts waiting for their partners when they returned home.

Some minimum wage retail workers found a sense of dignity and personal empowerment in being assertive towards large groups of people. Some of these same workers received more money than usual based on the volume of sales they processed.

And some of these workers experienced something unpleasant enough, it inspired them to ask for more out of their lives. Somewhere on Friday a decision was made by a Walmart or Radio Shack worker to go back to college.

.

It really is a matter of where you choose to put your focus.

.

Three lives taken and an attitude of greed.

Or a self-correcting marketplace and many acts of compassion and grace.

I know where I’m choosing to focus!

Your Friend,
Larry

*** ***

2015 Update

Well, that prediction about Black Friday disappearing altogether…

Nope, not so much.

It’s become a sport as much as anything else, and so has making fun of it.

We need routine and structure. We need “the sale.”

We need the marketing cycle to trigger our buying frenzy.

And some of us don’t. I don’t hear or feel that, other than to buy for those who do.

And I don’t judge or think less of them for it. I have my own routines and cycles on which I’m dependent.

It’s part of being human.

But I do love the fact that we can poke fun at our silliness.

And with the volume of problems facing us…the fact that a significant part of the world has been programmed to despise liberty…

Who will hate and kill in the name of a God with which they couldn’t possibly be connected….

Who will raise their kids to do the same…

Well, there are lots of answers to that.

Black Friday shopping isn’t my favorite one.

But it isn’t the enemy either.

Not when we still get to connect with our neighbors.

Not when anyone with a phone and wireless connection and enough desire can break through from the programming of generations past.

And change their whole existence.

Be grateful for manufactured scarcity of a Black Friday gadget.

Then go make your own.

They’ll line up to buy it!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Black Friday, How To Receive, Law of attraction coach, Unconditional Love

The Hidden Beauty Of Black Friday: 2014 Update

November 26, 2014 By Larry Hochman Leave a Comment

shareasimage(7)

I’m writing this on Sunday morning, a couple of days after a few tragic incidents on “Black Friday.”

.

(I’m really not. This is the 2014 update of a piece I originally wrote in 2011. But…keep going. It’s worth your reading time.)

For those of you not in the United States, this is the day after the American Thanksgiving holiday when many stores offer sales with deeply discounted items.

These sales have become a phenomenon over the past few years, with stores opening at 5:00 am and people lining up the night before to buy a very limited quantity of deeply discounted items.

In New York a Walmart employee was trampled to death by the oncoming crowd as the doors opened. And in California a customer shot and killed two people in an apparent rage about some item that was in high demand.

Many people are prepared to take these two incidents and use them as a symbol of everything that is going wrong in the world.

.
I’d like to offer a completely different perspective: I think this is a time to recognize just how essentially right things really are.

*** ***

These are sad events, but not unprecedented. As I was telling a friend of mine, I can imagine an out of control crowd rushing to get scarce loaves of bread, or medicine, or any number of things that were once considered necessities for survival.

So the fact that the rush was on for electronics or toys, things that are nice but not necessary is a sign of increased prosperity.

Indeed, this was a case of manufactured scarcity. Collectively, we decide to assign importance to certain items that really has nothing to do with our actual survival. We will continue to breathe in and out whether we have that new computer or not.

.

Our children will love us whether they get the hot new toy or not.

.

A deliberate condition of scarcity was engineered and created by the stores themselves, to entice people to come in and act out of fear. The media bought into it, with stories about the Black Friday sales and people lining up days before.

I remember attending one of these a couple of years ago. We were at a Best Buy store in Connecticut at 5:00 am, thinking we’d be among the first to be there. We were greeted by multiple police cars, dogs, television news trucks, and thousands of customers who arrived before we did.

That was the end of our Black Friday shopping excursions. Never again.

As I said, the retailers and media co-created the conditions that contributed to these deaths – along with us. Those who lined up outside the doors participated in the frenzy. We have choices in how we think, how we act and what we allow into our consciousness.

.
So with that, let me leave you with a few pieces of good news….

.

1. I predict a change in the way these sales are administered, and they may even disappear altogether. The retailers and the media don’t just create public opinion. They respond to it as well. Walmart is no doubt reeling from bad publicity surrounding this event. Black Friday sales are now associated with corporate and consumer greed. No business wants that connection.

2. For every act of chaos, greed and desperation that occurred on Black Friday, there were hundreds, even thousands of acts of civility, kindness and generosity. These weren’t reported in the media.

Doors were held open for senior citizens and children.

Children’s eyes lit up when parents bought special presents for them, and parents hearts melted with the reactions of their kids.

Strangers bonded in a shared sense of humor of the absurdity of the circumstances they were in.

Spouses had hot breakfasts waiting for their partners when they returned home.

Some minimum wage retail workers found a sense of dignity and personal empowerment in being assertive towards large groups of people. Some of these same workers received more money than usual based on the volume of sales they processed.

And some of these workers experienced something unpleasant enough, it inspired them to ask for more out of their lives. Somewhere on Friday a decision was made by a Walmart or Radio Shack worker to go back to college.

It really is a matter of where you choose to put your focus.

Three lives taken and an attitude of greed.

Or a self-correcting marketplace and many acts of compassion and grace.

I know where I’m choosing to focus!

Your Friend,
Larry

2014 Update: Ferguson, Missouri had most of its infrastructure ripped apart for the second time in the past few months. Black Friday is going to look really different in that part of the country.

I don’t know enough about the circumstances to assign blame. The cop was right, the cop was trigger happy.

I don’t know. And neither do you.

We all come in with an opinion…based on our own history, our own prejudice, our own narrative.

40 years ago, in Hebrew school they taught me justice must co-exist with mercy. Too much of one or the other and everything falls apart.

We can all line up behind that.

So whatever else you’re going to buy this year, take a moment and see the best in the people you meet.

Especially when they aren’t showing it.

And if you’re out during Black Friday, it’s a safe bet you’ll see some weirdness.

Justice. Mercy.

The Hidden Beauty.

Shine a light on it!

YOUR TURN!

Got any Black Friday stories or thoughts to share?

Let them rip!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Black Friday, Holiday, How To Receive, Personal Branding, Thanksgiving

The Hidden Beauty Of Black Friday: 2013 Update

November 20, 2013 By Larry Hochman 1 Comment

black-friday-crowd

This article became a pre-Thanksgiving tradition in 2008, the year we started seeing real mayhem in the big box stores. See the end for the 2013 update…

*** ***

I’m writing this on Sunday morning, a couple of days after a few tragic incidents on “Black Friday.”

For those of you not in the United States, this is the day after the American Thanksgiving holiday when many stores offer sales with deeply discounted items.

These sales have become a phenomenon over the past few years, with stores opening at 5:00 am and people lining up the night before to buy a very limited quantity of deeply discounted items.

In New York a Walmart employee was trampled to death by the oncoming crowd as the doors opened. And in California a customer shot and killed two people in an apparent rage about some item that was in high demand.

Many people are prepared to take these two incidents and use them as a symbol of everything that is going wrong in the world.

.

I’d like to offer a completely different perspective: I think this is a time to recognize just how essentially right things really are.

*** ***

These are sad events, but not unprecedented. As I was telling a friend of mine, I can imagine an out of control crowd rushing to get scarce loaves of bread, or medicine, or any number of things that were once considered necessities for survival.

So the fact that the rush was on for electronics or toys, things that are nice but not necessary is a sign of increased prosperity.

Indeed, this was a case of manufactured scarcity. Collectively, we decide to assign importance to certain items that really has nothing to do with our actual survival. We will continue to breathe in and out whether we have that new computer or not.

.

Our children will love us whether they get the hot new toy or not.

.

A deliberate condition of scarcity was engineered and created by the stores themselves, to entice people to come in and act out of fear. The media bought into it, with stories about the Black Friday sales and people lining up days before.

I remember attending one of these a couple of years ago. We were at a Best Buy store in Connecticut at 5:00 am, thinking we’d be among the first to be there. We were greeted by multiple police cars, dogs, television news trucks, and thousands of customers who arrived before we did.

That was the end of our Black Friday shopping excursions. Never again.

As I said, the retailers and media co-created the conditions that contributed to these deaths – along with us. Those who lined up outside the doors participated in the frenzy. We have choices in how we think, how we act and what we allow into our consciousness.

.

So with that, let me leave you with a few pieces of good news….

.

1. I predict a change in the way these sales are administered, and they may even disappear altogether. The retailers and the media don’t just create public opinion. They respond to it as well. Walmart is no doubt reeling from bad publicity surrounding this event. Black Friday sales are now associated with corporate and consumer greed. No business wants that connection.

2. For every act of chaos, greed and desperation that occurred on Black Friday, there were hundreds, even thousands of acts of civility, kindness and generosity. These weren’t reported in the media.

Doors were held open for senior citizens and children.

Children’s eyes lit up when parents bought special presents for them, and parents hearts melted with the reactions of their kids.

Strangers bonded in a shared sense of humor of the absurdity of the circumstances they were in.

Spouses had hot breakfasts waiting for their partners when they returned home.

Some minimum wage retail workers found a sense of dignity and personal empowerment in being assertive towards large groups of people. Some of these same workers received more money than usual based on the volume of sales they processed.

And some of these workers experienced something unpleasant enough, it inspired them to ask for more out of their lives. Somewhere on Friday a decision was made by a Walmart or Radio Shack worker to go back to college.

It really is a matter of where you choose to put your focus.

Three lives taken and an attitude of greed.

Or a self-correcting marketplace and many acts of compassion and grace.

I know where I’m choosing to focus!

Your Friend,
Larry

***   ***

2013 UPDATE…

Have you noticed how stores are now starting their Black Friday specials on Thanksgiving Thursday? Yeah, it wouldn’t be my choice to jump away from the table and grab the newest whatever is on special.

But that’s my choice. The market responds to what the people want, as well as dictating it. You can see this as an assault on the family. Or you can look at it as an opportunity for people not to get trampled (or to get less trampled), then spend extra time with their families on Friday. Hey, we don’t all do it the same!

The other big thing…Black Friday has gone cyber in a major way! You can now get X Boxes, bowling balls and Beanie Babies (dating myself) on line instead of taking your life in your hands at the store. Again, I don’t like to respond to marketing tricks that operate on fear of loss. But for people who wouldn’t have the money for the stuff they want any other way, I’m going to call this an “e-blessing.”

It’ll always be the same: you can choose to curse the reality in front of you, or bless it…and create your own in the process. Your move!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Attraction Marketing, Black Friday, How To Receive, Learning from mistakes, Overcoming fear

Building Your Business During The Holiday Season

November 23, 2012 By Larry Hochman Leave a Comment


Shot on Thanksgiving Day 2012. If you’re waiting for the “New Year’s Resolution” time to build your home business, you know you’re kidding yourself. A quick and goofy but true video about why you need to prospect, promote and present NOW. Those who do the deal in November go into January with momentum. And they also raise their hands and tell Divine spirit… I AM READY!

 

.

BTW…. if you’re ALL IN about building your business, and want to surgically remove the excuses from your life, I’m running a special for the first three people who commit. This is for serious people only.  CLICK HERE for details.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Black Friday, Building your business during the holidays, Home business training, Overcoming objections, Thanksgiving, Video

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