The country’s bank regulators are launching an unprecedented plan to undo some of the damage done by mortgage servicers, compensating victims of shoddy or illegal foreclosure practices. Part of the plan involves a massive outreach effort to contact the potentially millions of borrowers affected.

Exactly how this will unfold is, for now, unclear; if regulators hold true to form, the process figures not to be transparent. Homeowner advocates applaud the idea of the banks righting their wrongs but are skeptical the process will be thorough and fair. The regulators don’t “have a good track record at identifying or fixing servicer misbehavior,” said Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center.

ProPublica will be watching closely. We’d like to hear from current and former homeowners who wrongfully faced foreclosure in the last couple of years [1]. Much as we’ve tracked [2] the administration’s mortgage modification program [3], we’ll be tracking what happens with these cases.

Last week, regulators released “consent orders” that laid out problems at many of the country’s biggest servicers (see sidebar for the list), which collectively handle almost 70 percent of the country’s mortgages. The orders followed an investigation [4] prompted by widespread revelations [5] last fall that servicers were regularly filing false affidavits signed by so-called “robo-signers [6].” According to the orders, regulators found that servicers weren’t properly evaluating homeowners for loan modifications, had wrongly foreclosed on some homeowners, and in addition to doing a generally poor job, had broken the law. (None of this should surprise those who’ve been reading our coverage [7].)

You can see the regulators’ report on their investigation and all of the orders here [8].

To fix the ongoing problems, the orders lay out broad principles that servicers should follow — basics such as having sufficient staff, training them adequately, not losing documents, etc. But because the orders are so general, borrower advocates have been vocal [9] in saying they won’t be enough to fundamentally change the industry’s cost-cutting ways [10] or to ensure that homeowners are properly evaluated for a modification.

The orders include a requirement for the banks to do foreclosure reviews to address problems that have cropped up during recent years. The process will start immediately but won’t culminate until early 2012.

Each bank is required to hire an outside firm to review all of its foreclosure actions in 2009 and 2010. The firm will be tasked with looking for certain violations (see our list below [11]), ranging from robo-signed affidavits and forged documents to foreclosure sales that occurred without a proper review for a modification. Based on those findings, banks will compensate the victims, or as the orders put it, “remediate all financial injury to borrowers caused by any errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies.”

So, how exactly will this work? Many of the details remain unclear, but we spoke to regulatory sources who provided some additional information.

Over the next couple months, the banks will hire the outside firms to conduct the reviews. The actual reviews are expected to begin this summer. They are supposed to cover all mortgages that were in the foreclosure process at any point in 2009 or 2010, but because that involves more than 3 million loans, the firms will use sampling to do their analysis.

The process won’t be strictly internal, however. Regulators also will require some form of outreach. It’s likely, for instance, that all the banks will be sending letters to every homeowner who was in foreclosure in 2009 or 2010.

Of course, some of these people are likely to be former homeowners who may well no longer reside at the same address. There might also be a kind of ad campaign, but regulators acknowledge these people will be tough to reach.

However it’s done, there will be some way for homeowners to submit their complaints to banks. Those who think they might be eligible for reimbursement or remediation should “get their documents together,” said one regulatory source. When the reviews launch in the summer, it should become clear exactly where those complaints should go. (You can be sure we’ll post that information when it’s available.)

It’s still anyone’s guess what will happen after complaints are submitted. Among the important unanswered questions: whether the review will involve homeowner interviews; how the outside firms will investigate claims of violations; whether those who complain will receive some sort of explanation if they’re denied; and how banks and regulators will calculate what victims are owed.

Thompson, of the National Consumer Law Center, said she worries the reviews will “shift the burden onto homeowners” to prove they were wronged. Homeowners won’t necessarily have kept the documents that demonstrate harm, she said. Even those who do have documentation may not know they were wronged, she added. They wouldn’t know, for instance, whether the fees they were charged were improper or whether they were considered for a modification.

If the reviewers do no investigation of their own and simply reply on homeowners to submit proof of wrongdoing, she said, it will miss most of the problems: “The process and remediation will serve as a whitewash for servicer misbehavior without actually either remediating past errors or preventing future ones.”

The reviews are expected to culminate late this year or early next year, when checks are scheduled to go out to victims. Regulatory sources told us that the total amount sent to eligible homeowners would likely be disclosed. Even before this phase, observers may get a hint of what’s happening if, as expected, regulators levy financial penalties against the banks. The findings of the reviews will determine the size of those penalties, regulatory officials said.

Regulators have done similar reviews in the past to compensate victims of bank wrongdoing, but not on this scale. In 2008, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (one of several regulatory agencies for the biggest banks and servicers, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank), oversaw a process that resulted in Wachovia Bank issuing $150 million in checks [12] to more than 740,000 consumers for the bank’s role in a telemarketing scam. Regulators acknowledge, however, that the foreclosure reviews, which will involve 14 banks, millions of consumers, and billions of dollars in claims, is in a class of its own.

If you think you’re a borrower who should be compensated through this process, we want to hear from you [1]. We also want to hear from homeowners who have mortgage servicers not covered by this process (there are some large ones), because they might be covered by efforts from other regulators down the line [13].

Here’s the language from the Consent Orders that describes the scope of the foreclosure review:

The purpose of the Foreclosure Review shall be to determine, at a minimum:

(a) whether at the time the foreclosure action was initiated or the pleading or affidavit filed (including in bankruptcy proceedings and in defending suits brought by borrowers), the foreclosing party or agent of the party had properly documented ownership of the promissory note and mortgage (or deed of trust) under relevant state law, or was otherwise a proper party to the action as a result of agency or similar status;

(b) whether the foreclosure was in accordance with applicable state and federal law, including but not limited to the SCRA and the U.S. Bankruptcy Code;

(c) whether a foreclosure sale occurred when an application for a loan modification or other Loss Mitigation was under consideration; when the loan was performing in accordance with a trial or permanent loan modification; or when the loan had not been in default for a sufficient period of time to authorize foreclosure pursuant to the terms of the mortgage loan documents and related agreements;

(d) whether, with respect to non-judicial foreclosures, the procedures followed with respect to the foreclosure sale (including the calculation of the default period, the amounts due, and compliance with notice periods) and post-sale confirmations were in accordance with the terms of the mortgage loan and state law requirements;

(e) whether a delinquent borrower’s account was only charged fees and/or penalties that were permissible under the terms of the borrower’s loan documents, applicable state and federal law, and were reasonable and customary;

(f) whether the frequency that fees were assessed to any delinquent borrower’s account (including broker price opinions) was excessive under the terms of the borrower’s loan documents, and applicable state and federal law;

(g) whether Loss Mitigation Activities with respect to foreclosed loans were handled in accordance with the requirements of the HAMP, and consistent with the policies and procedures applicable to the Bank’s proprietary loan modifications or other loss mitigation programs, such that each borrower had an adequate opportunity to apply for a Loss Mitigation option or program, any such application was handled properly, a final decision was made on a reasonable basis, and was communicated to the borrower before the foreclosure sale; and

(h) whether any errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies identified in the Foreclosure Review resulted in financial injury to the borrower or the mortgagee.

Hosts of federal agencies and regulators, along with the 50 state attorneys general, are hard at work on laying out new rules for banks and mortgage servicers. Those rules will likely require servicers to transform their approach to handling homeowners facing foreclosure.

But this wouldn’t be the first time the government tried to lay down the law. The administration’s mortgage modification program has a 170-page handbook [1] of servicer guidelines. What’s been missing is enforcement. [2] Servicers have broken the rules without fear of any penalties.

Will things be different this time?

The answer to that so far is…maybe. On two different tracks, government officials are developing rules that, they say, will have clear penalties attached. But crucial details remain unclear, including when these reforms will go into effect.

There have been lots of headlines lately about one of the two tracks, the negotiations to settle claims related to the largest servicers’ foreclosure abuses [3]. The state attorneys general, together with a number of federal agencies, sent the servicers a proposal last week. The document [4] was obtained and posted by American Banker [5].

The terms would require the servicers to review each struggling homeowner for a modification and provide one when doing so would bring a higher return to investors. But they go much further than that. Over 27 pages, the terms describe how a servicer should behave — just about the opposite of how they have behaved over the past couple years [6]. It would be a different world for the homeowner seeking a modification.

In the world we live in [7], if you’re a customer of one of the biggest servicers, you call in to a 1-800 number and are connected with a poorly trained employee [8] who knows nothing about your file, can’t tell you why you haven’t yet received an answer after months of waiting, but then says you should fax your documents (again) to another 1-800 number, where they will likely be lost.

In the world imagined by these proposed terms, you’re never in the dark. You submitted your documents through the online portal provided by the servicer [9], and you can track your modification application’s progress there the whole time. The servicer responds to all your submissions and queries within a strict time frame [10] — certainly no longer than a month. And if you do choose to call your servicer, you just ring up your specially designated contact [11], a well-trained employee who has handled your case from the beginning.

But this mortgage mod paradise would happen only if the terms were enforced. And there are a number of question marks. The proposed settlement says that servicers breaking the rules would face “monetary penalties,” [4] but it doesn’t say what they are. And while enforcement would ultimately be in the hands of both the attorneys general and the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [12], the proposal essentially leaves the details of how violations would be handled for a later date.

One detail that’s been under discussion but that doesn’t actually appear in the draft settlement is language making it clear that homeowners could go to court to stop a foreclosure if the servicer violated the agreement. One ongoing issue with the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program is that this right isn’t apparent. The program is based on contracts between servicers and the Treasury Department, but homeowners aren’t explicitly included, creating an additional legal hurdle for homeowners who go to court to address a violation of the program’s rules. “Some level of accountability from private individuals often changes corporate behavior,” Alys Cohen, of the National Consumer Law Center.

Another open question is when the settlement will happen — and when the changes will actually go into effect. The proposed terms are just the first move by the government — and there are already plenty of signs that servicers see a lot [13] they don’t like [14]. Speaking earlier this week, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said [15] he hoped to come to an agreement within two months. The settlement also relies on the CFPB, which was formed by last year’s financial reform bill and is still in its ramp-up stage. It won’t gain many of its authorities until July [16].

Even after an agreement is struck, some requirements likely won’t kick in immediately, said sources familiar with the discussions. Given the sweeping changes envisioned by the proposal, servicers might be given as long as a year to meet some of the terms.

Meanwhile, while these negotiations are occurring, federal regulators are pursuing servicer reforms on a separate, but related, track. They’re considering issuing new regulations that would affect all servicers, not just the largest, and are likely to incorporate aspects of the final terms of the settlement agreement. Draft outlines produced by the two big banking regulators, the Federal Reserve [17] and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [18], show many similarities to the proposed settlement terms. Regulators have an unambiguous authority to financially penalize banks when they break federal rules.

A person involved in the rulemaking process said the regulators hoped to produce their proposed rules by the middle of this coming summer and have them in place by the end of the year. Along with banking regulators, the CFPB and a number of federal agencies are also involved.

With the new federal rules in place, homeowners would have a much better shot at getting fair treatment from their servicer, said Kathleen Keest of the Center for Responsible Lending. (The Sandler Foundation is a major funder of both the Center and ProPublica, which operate independently of each other.)

Currently, if a servicer is threatening to wrongfully foreclose [19] on a homeowner, the homeowner’s options to stop it are limited. First, it’s often not clear where to go to complain. For the biggest banks, the homeowner can file a complaint with their regulator, the OCC, but dozens of homeowners have told ProPublica that hasn’t been effective. The OCC has often been criticized for going easy on the banks [20]. The Treasury Department has also set up a help hotline for homeowners, but since the program is voluntary and servicers face no penalties, its authority is decidedly limited.

Once new servicing regulations are actually in place, said Keest, homeowners would be able to complain to the CFPB or their own state’s attorney general about servicer abuses. (One of the CFPB’s central purposes [16] is to be a center for consumer complaints.) Both would have the authority to enforce the new federal rules. Instead of the bank-”coddling” OCC, she said, “You’re going to a regulator whose job is to protect the consumers and not the banks, and where the states can act as a back-up.”

That’s the idea, at least. It all depends on the possible settlement and future new federal regulations.

In his article, “Myth, Politics and the Erosion of The American Dream,” Paul Stoller gives this myth definition.

“To paraphrase the words of the late Clifford Geertz, one of the great anthropologists of the 20th century, myths are stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Powerful narratives based upon fiction — not fact — myths shape our perception of the world. They create frameworks for our behavior. They are impervious to logical or factual critique. As such, myths are powerful political tools that the powers-that-be have long used in their attempt to control social behavior.”

This article raises a question that has long fascinated me. How is that people can be persuaded to act against their own best interests? The article by Stoller addresses exactly this question.

“In practice, the mantra of limited government and lower taxes has provided political cover for an unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the super-rich. According to a 2009 study in the International Journal of Development, J.B. Davies and his colleagues found that 1 percent of the US population controls 50 percent of the national wealth. If you look at the data in this and other studies of wealth distribution, it is clear that people in the bottom 60 percent bracket of income (the middle, lower-middle and working classes) control only a minimal amount of our wealth — perhaps 5 percent. These disturbing statistics suggest a strong erosion of the middle class and an unchecked movement toward plutocracy.

“Despite these scientifically validated facts, millions of Americans, who continue to believe in these mythical fictions, repeatedly vote against their interests. How can that be? I think some of the misplaced persistence can be traced to the power of myth” (Myth, Politics and the Erosion of The American Dream).

This is the power of story, especially money stories that take on mythic proportions.  People in positions of power use the power of myth to persuade people to act against their own best interests.

For Your Financial Success,

Kalinda

Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator Of The Story Transformation Process

[Cross-Published as The Power Of Myth To Persuade You To Act Against Your Own Best Interests on KalindaRoseStevenson.com]

Making the argument that the Treasury Department has done “very little” to improve a foreclosure prevention program that has failed to meet its goals, the government’s TARP watchdog testified at a hearing on Wednesday that the case for keeping the program alive has worn thin and is “all but exhausted [1]” [PDF].

We’ve documented many of the major weaknesses in the government’s loan modification program—not least of which is its failure to hold banks accountable [2] for withholding permanent loan modifications from struggling homeowners that the program was intended to help.

House Republicans are now considering a bill to end the troubled program [3]. As the Washington Post reports, consumer advocacy groups have argued for fixing the program [4] rather than ending it at a time when so many homeowners still need housing help.

That’s also what the program’s watchdogs have advocated—though they’re now voicing doubts that Treasury will make any meaningful fixes.

“Treasury, it seems, stands alone in defending the status quo,” testified Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the TARP program. Barofsky noted that last month, a Treasury official attended a Mortgage Bankers Association conference to discuss enhancements to the loan modification program and said there would be no “major new programs coming out.”

“We may tweak around the edges [5],” HousingWire reported the official as saying.

The Treasury Department has continued to defend the program, arguing that while the program has fallen short of its goals, it has still helped modify about 600,000 mortgages. Ending the program, Treasury has argued, would hurt the housing market [6].

“It would cause a huge amount of damage to a very fragile housing market and leave hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans without the chance to take advantage of a mortgage modification that would allow them to stay in a home they can afford,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said yesterday.

Geithner may be right about one thing. As our data shows [7], by the end of last year, the program had given nearly 1.5 million households “a chance” of a mortgage modification through a trial modification. For most, that chance never turned developed into permanent help.

The Obama Administration Hamp program was originally advertised as a program that would help 3 to 4 million homeowners modify their bank mortgage loans.  

Has Mortgage Loan Modification Worked?

To say that it hasn’t worked out that way is to dramatically understate the problem. 

Arthur Delaney, in Obama Administration’s Foreclosure Program Shambles Along, provides statistics demonstrating how many homeowners who were looking for mortgage help with mortgage modification of their bank mortgage loans made their situation worse by seeking help from the HAMP program.

The Real Problem With Bank Mortgage Loans

The heart of the problem is succinctly stated in these words by Prentiss Cox.

“The fundamental flaw from the beginning was presuming the people who caused the mortgage crisis were somehow going to act in the public interest,” said Prentiss Cox, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “What was needed was, ‘We just bailed you out with a trillion dollars and in return we’re going to hit you in the head with a two-by-four if you don’t [act in the public interest] Obama Administration’s Foreclosure Program Shambles Along.

This is as clear a statement as possible that the mortgage lending practices of banks are the real cause of the mortgage crisis, and up to this point, the banks have only enriched themselves with public money rather than providing genuine mortgage help for people facing foreclosure.

Do You Need A Mortgage Loan Modification Program That Really Works?

If you want a mortgage loan modification that does not hold you hostage to banks, see Mortgage Debt Reset.

For Your Financial Success

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

P.S.  My ebook, Why Banks Went Broke Making Money: The Money-Making Magic That Triggered The Global Recession, explains how banks changed the mortgage game and are the root cause of the financial crisis. The ebook is available as a free bonus with purchase of No Money Limits For Real Estate Investors: Discover The Money-Making Secret In The Real Estate Game That Transforms Your Money Struggles Into Financial Abundance

What the Federal Reserve does is to control the flow of money in the economic system. This means that the Federal Reserve plays an important role in one of the fundamental functions of government, which is to control the amount of money in the system.

Changing Federal Reserve Interest Rates

The most widely publicized way the Federal Reserve controls the money supply is by changing its interest rates.

You will see all kinds of speculation about what the Federal Reserve will do before Federal Reserve meetings. You will also hear media reports about how rate changes will affect interest rates for consumer items, such as mortgages and credit cards.

Despite this kind of media attention, the decisions of the Fed do not directly affect consumers. These rate changes refer to the interest rate the Fed charges commercial banks to borrow money from the Federal banks.

Federal Reserve Discount Rate

Even the language is a bit confusing because the “interest rate” is also referred to as the “discount rate” because the rate of interest is discounted in relationship to short-term market interest rates.

The Federal Reserve Banks offer three discount programs to commercial banks: primary credit, secondary credit, and seasonal credit. Each type of loan has its own rate of interest.

Changing The Discount Rate For Primary Credit

The rate change that gets all of the media attention is when the Fed changes the discount rate for primary credit, which applies to loans from the Federal banks to commercial banks with good credit. These are very short-term loans, usually overnight.

Whenever the Fed changes the discount rate, its purpose is to make it more or less profitable for the commercial banks to borrow money from the Fed to make loans.

Why The Fed And The Banks Exist

The two critical points to remember are:

1. The Federal Reserve system exists to control the amount of money in the system.

2. The banks exist to make money by loaning money to their borrowers.

How The Fed Uses Interest Rates To Control The Flow Of Money

If the Fed makes money more expensive for the banks to borrow, the commercial banks cannot make as much profit on loans they make to their customers.

In contrast, when the Fed makes money cheaper for the banks to borrow, the commercial banks are more willing to loan money to its customers.

Fed rate changes matter because they increase or decrease the amount of money available for banks to loan, which in turn increases or decreases the amount of money in the economic system.

How The Federal Reserve Interest Rate Changes Affect You

All of this means that a Federal Reserve rate change might affect the interest rates on your credit cards and adjustable mortgage, but it is not a direct result. If the interest you pay on your credit card decreases, it is because the bank decided to lower the rate, not because the Federal Reserve changed its discount rate.

For Your Financial Success

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

HSBC North America Holdings is another bank that expects to be punished for wrongful foreclosure on bank mortgage loans.

In his article, One Of World’s Largest Banks Warns Of Punishment For Improper Foreclosure Practices In U.S., Shahien Nasiripour explains why “HSBC expects to be subject to a regulatory order banning certain mortgage and foreclosure practices.”

The hard truth is that many people have lost their homes in wrongful foreclosure by banks that have violated mortgage loan process rules.

You can read the whole article here.

And if you are underwater in your mortgage and want to find out if your bank violated loan process rules, see Mortgage Debt Reset.

For Your Financial Success

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

There are fundamentally three different ways to create money in the United States economic system.

How To Make More Money

The first way to create more money is by fiat, which means “by decree.” Fiat means “let it be done.” Only the federal government can create money by decree.

The second way to create money is by fractional reserve lending. Only banks can use this method to create new money by making multiple loans on the same deposits.

The third way to make more money making is to sell something at a profit. Anyone is free to use this money making method.

Money Rules To Create Money Out Of Thin Air

The significant point here is that the government and banks have specific money rules that allow them to do what the rest of us cannot do. These money rules allow governments and banks to make money out of thin air.

All national currencies are now fiat currencies. Fundamentally, this means that there is nothing tangible—such as gold—backing any national currency.

Focus On Fractional Reserve Lending

My focus in these posts is not on the role of fiat money in economic systems, but the effect of fractional reserve lending in our current economic crisis.

The money rules that allow banks to create money out of thin air gives banks an enormous advantage to make money and an even greater advantage to misuse their money rules to create massive profits.

Bankers Running Amok

The following series of posts will demonstrate how the economic crisis that affects all of us, one way or another, is primarily a case of bankers running amok, because they have misused the money rules that allow them to make money out of thin air.

To be continued…

For Your Financial Success

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

Making More Money Secret

The secret of making more money is contained in the word “currency.” Water flows in river currents. Money also needs to flow and circulate. Imagine you deposit $1000 in cash into the bank. Contrary to the images I had as a child, the bank does not take the cash and stash it into a vault somewhere. Instead, it keeps your deposited funds moving by loaning the money again and again. It creates profit from your funds while you earn interest.

Banks And Savings

Compare how the bank treats your deposited cash with the typical financial advice given to consumers. Financial experts advise you: “Save your money.” “Lock it up.” “Hang onto it.”

Benjamin Franklin said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” A case can be made that Franklin had it wrong. These days, “A penny saved can be a penny lost,” because of the economic concept called, “The Time Value of Money.”

In simplest terms, this concept means that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar will be in the future, because of inflation. When you “save” your money, it stops moving – for you. The bank will pay interest on your “saved” currency, but the interest rates tend to be very low, and almost never enough to match inflation.

This means you can watch the number of dollars in your account increase all the while the value of your dollars decreases. Your “penny saved” today is not going to be worth a penny in the future.

Make More Money Difference Between Saving And Investing

If your goal is to “make more money,” it is critical to understand the difference between saving and investing.

Saving money changes its nature, because the flow has changed the essential nature of money as energy. The definition of energy is the capacity to work. As energy, money is also dynamic and has the capacity to work. When it stops moving, it stops being energy. The essential point is that “saving” turns money from energy in motion (kinetic energy) to potential energy. In contrast, “investing” puts the energy of money to work.

Making More Money By Investing

What is the practical implication of all of this about kinetic and potential energy, and “The Time Value Of Money?” In simplest terms it means that you can increase your wealth more when you put your own funds to work by making your own investments than you can by handing your funds to others. While you “save” your money in a bank, they use your money to invest. The bankers make the lion’s share of the profit and give you a tiny portion in the form of interest.

For Your Financial Success

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

In Joe Versus The Volcano, the hero in Joe—Joe’s authentic self—had gone into hiding because Joe was afraid.

How Joe Became Afraid

We find out in the session with Dr. Ellison that Joe had worked in the fire department. He left the fire department because he didn’t feel good. Dr. Ellison diagnoses Joe’s problem this way.

Dr. Ellison: “My guess is that your experiences in the fire department were extremely traumatic. You experienced the imminent possibility of death several times?”

Joe: “Yeah.”

Dr. Ellison: “The cumulative anxiety with those brushes with death left you habitually fearful about your physical person.”

This little scene tells us two facts about Joe. He used to be a fireman. We also know that he got really scared.

Trying To Find The Hero

After Joe quits his job, he gets a visit from Mr. Granamore. Mr. Granamore peers into Joe’s eyes and says:

Mr. Granamore:  “I’m trying to find the hero in there.”

Joe: “What do you mean?”

Mr. Granamore: “You dragged two kids down a six story burning staircase. Now that’s brave. Then you went back for the third kid. That was heroic. Come on now. You’re a hero.”

Joe: “Well, that was a long time ago.” 

Mr. Granamore: “Yes, it was.”

And this is the real truth about Joe before he started to feel bad all the time. He had been a hero, a long time ago, before he became afraid.

Why did Mr. Granamore choose Joe for his business proposition? He needed someone to jump into a volcano to save the Waponis from the angry fire god in the volcano. Who would be better than a man who had a history of jumping into burning burnings to save people?

Why Would I Jump Into A Volcano?

Mr. Granamore, for his own selfish purposes, is appealing to Joe to again become the hero Joe was before he became afraid. The hero in Joe hadn’t really gone away. He had gone into hiding in the bowels of a dismal factory—a factory that is the “Home of the Rectal Probe,” by the way.

If Mr. Granamore is going to get the boobaroo for his superconductors, he has to sell Joe on the idea of jumping into a volcano.

Joe asks an obvious question. “Why would I jump into a volcano?”

In an inspired sales pitch, Mr. Granamore gives Joe a renewed vision of his authentic self. He answers Joe’s question by appealing to true self, the self that has been hiding in the depths of the dismal factory and the dingy apartment.

“Because of your exploits in the fire department, I think you’ve got the courage. All I know is that when you’re making those calls you’re up in the high country. From your doctor you know you’re on your way out anyway. You haven’t got any money. I checked.”

“Do you want to wait it out here in this apartment? Sounds kinda grim to me. Not the way I’d want to go. I tell you that. Live like a king, die like a man. That’s what I say. Waddya say?”

Joe answers simply, “All right, I’ll do it.”

Is There More To The Story Than Doing What You Are Afraid To Do?

From one perspective, Joe Versus The Volcano is a story about the need to do what you are most afraid to do. About summoning up your courage and taking leaps of faith. What could be a better symbol of doing what you fear than choosing to jump into a volcano? This is the most obvious conclusion, but there is something even more significant going on in this story than simply telling you to do the thing you are most of afraid of doing.

In this story, Joe is not really afraid to jump. Joe has a history of courage and a history of leaping into burning buildings to save people. After Joe makes his decision to go to Waponi Woo, to die a hero, he never backs down from the decision.

Joe is resolute, even when he falls in love with Patricia. He will die as the hero that he was before he became afraid.

Becoming Your Authentic Self

And this is the most essential truth about Joe Versus The Volcano. The hero’s journey is not about changing yourself into someone you aren’t, but becoming who you truly are—your authentic self.

For Your Financial Success,

Kalinda

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

The Story Transformer 

Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”

[Cross-Published On KalindaRoseStevenson.com]

This is the fifth post in a 5-Part series.

Do You Sell Your Soul For Money?

A Money Story About Trading the Priceless For Orange Soda

Can You Change Your Money Story By Becoming Soul Sick?

A Money Story About The Life Changing Gift Of Knowing You Will Die

How Do You Have To Change Your Life To Be Your Authentic Self?