Futurist Jim Carroll is running a series that began November 27, 2023, and will end on January 1, 2024 - '24 Strategies for 2024.' Rather than running a trend series for the upcoming year as he has previously, this series will examine a number of his personal beliefs on how to best align yourself with the future. There will be a post each weekday, excluding weekends and holidays, until the series runs its course. You will find it on his blog at https://blog.jimcarroll.com, or on the website https://2024.jimcarroll.com
Do you want to spend 2024 doing marginal things, or do you want to change your life?
"Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" said Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, to John Sculley, then an executive at Pepsi; Jobs was offering him the job. It's one of the most famous - and apt - comments made in the history of business, as Apple went on to change the world (although much of it didn't happen under Sculley's watch, later upon Jobs's return to the organization.)
So what's your plan for 2024?
Soda pop? Or the future?
People who talk about the future are often full of big and bold statements. Things like: "We are going to see more change in the next ten years than we have seen in the last 100." "People tend to overestimate the rate of change on a two-year basis but underestimate the rate of change over ten years." We stand on the brink of a time that will forever change how we live, learn, work, and play.” "If you are feeling overwhelmed today, just wait a moment until tomorrow." "There is so much change happening that in just ten years, you will barely recognize the world you will live in."
Much of it is true - it's just a matter of getting the timing right.
If that is the case, what's your plan? That's why this idea of being bold in your thinking and daring in your actions, is strategy #18 of my 24 Strategies for 2024 series.
One of the most popular pages on my Website continues to be the long-term trend piece, "20 Trends into 2030: Are You Ready for the Massive Transformation of Just About Everything?" - you can find it over at
https://2030.jimcarroll.com.
I open the page with this observation:
"It’s time to get your future on! In the era of acceleration, when everything is speeding up, it’s difficult to imagine where we might be in 10 years. But I can do that – that’s my job. I advise clients around the world like NASA, Disney, the PGA, the World Bank, Volvo, Nikon, Mercedes Benz, Blackrock – on issues related to the future. So let me tell you where we are likely to be in 2030."
I don't have any hesitation about any of the long-term trends I predict on that page; I am just uncertain about the timing.
In my mind, it's pretty clear that we are moving to a world of 24-hour farming; a time of healthcare that is more focused on fixing you before you are sick rather than after; one in which we underwrite insurance based on real-time analytics rather than looking back in time. A time in which most cars and trucks are electric, rather than being based on gas and diesel; one in which most of the world's population lives in cities, not urban areas; a time when we do more construction offsite instead of onsite; in which more of our energy is coming from small, local community energy microgrids instead of big centralized energy utilities, with the majority of that energy coming from renewables instead of gas, coal and nuclear; a world in which more and more of our food is grown in vertical farms instead of traditional farms.
To me, these trends are inequitable and unassailable, although it is fashionable in the anti-futurist futurist set to try to discount them to satisfy their rage against change. To me, their ramblings are mostly noise, the incoherent madness of individuals who cannot admit their hatred of progress.
With that in mind, I keep going back to my favorite phrase about the future, and ask you - what is your goal within the context of this phrase? (And you might know this phrase by now since I use it so much!)
"Companies that do not yet exist will build products not yet conceived using methodologies not yet in existence with materials not yet invented based on ideas not yet imagined by people who do not yet know they are inventing tomorrow, today."
What are you going to do to turn the trends of tomorrow into the opportunities of today?
Are you going to keep selling soda pop? Or take a bold step into tomorrow?
Throughout our careers and working lives, we are always faced with the big questions of change, transformation, and opportunity. At times, we might become stuck, unable, and unwilling to move, trapped in our circumstances of indecision and fear. That was my position from 1982 onwards - I knew that something big was happening in the looming world of massive technological connectivity. I wanted to be a part of it, and through the next few years began following a career path that led me further into this new and exciting world, and away from my traditional financial career background - despite being told by those around me that I was making a mistake. By 1989, I'd had enough - I quit my job, took the leap, started my consulting firm, and abandoned my past for a new exciting future.
From that decision unfolded a career story that to me, in retrospect, was simply magical. Years later, I have ZERO regrets, though I now recognize the scope and the complexity of the decision I undertook; and wish I might have become even bolder in my goals.
I'd encourage you to over over and read my 2030 trends page.
Ask yourself - soda pop, or tomorrow?
The time to confront the question is now - not later.
Choose wisely.
Act now.
Futurist Jim Carroll shudders to think about where he would be had he not made some big, bold decisions throughout his life.