"Your future won’t be defined by the setbacks that might sideline you, but by what you decide to do with the velocity of your recovery!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Next week, I will be standing on stage in Toronto at the Canadian Automotive Dealers Summit.
As I prepare that keynote, this quote is the central pillar of my message.
The automotive industry is currently navigating a series of high-speed "sideline" events: interest rate volatility, a turbulent EV transition and pullback, Tesla's essentially deciding to leave the market, and the arrival of aggressive new global competitors. In Canada, that also involves the looming arrival of more Chinese-built EVs, as well as fast-moving turmoil in the automotive manufacturing sector (with resultant brand destruction) due to tariffs.
It's easy for a dealer to feel injured, battered, and bruised by this pace of change!
But as I’ve learned personally over the last few months of my own physical recovery, the injury itself isn't the defining moment.
The defining moment is the velocity you choose once you decide to get back in the game.
What's happening in the auto world right now is a massive widening of the "Resilience Gap" - that's what I write about in my book Dancing in the Rain. Some are still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the "old normal" to return. And then there are the leaders who are engineering a new future right now. They aren't just recovering; they are using the momentum of this current setback to a faster pivot toward software-defined vehicles, a faster adoption of hybrids in light of the EV pullback, new digital customer journeys, and hyper-efficient service models.
One group is frozen - the other is moving.
I'm in the latter camp. Yesterday, I went back to the gym for the first time since my spinal injury. It’s a literal manifestation of this principle. I wasn't going back to where I was; I was going back to build the strength required for what’s next.
The automotive industry is at the same crossroads. You can’t control the volatility that sidelined you, but you have absolute control over your recovery speed. In Toronto, we’re going to talk about how to stop looking at the rearview mirror of "what happened" and start focusing on the "velocity" of the next logical move.
Strength doesn't return in the absence of struggle—it returns the moment you decide to show up and accelerate.
You need to think the same way.
Let's get moving.
Futurist Jim Carroll spoke at the same event in 2012, and will be doing a retrospective look back and forward in his keynote.