Having an open mind about the future of possibilities is always better than having a closed mind. Taking on the future with an offensive mindset will have you prepared for the worst possible situations while also being ready to take advantage of any potential opportunities. Being defensive about the future of the world will only leave battered and bruised when changes come your way.
It’s human nature to resist and/or ignore change. When there is a progressive movement being taken up at a grassroots level, there will always be a group of people who are afraid that any change may displace them from their current position of power.
All social, financial, and technological revolutions have shifted power away from one group of people and given it to a different group. Whether it was the 19th amendment to the constitution that allowed women to vote (in the 1920’s) or the more recent #metoo movement that has ousted powerful men in the world as sexual predators, social progression has fundamentally changed the power dynamic between groups of people for the better.
In the same sense, the internet has provided a truly progressive technological revolution in the way media and information are disseminated from person to person. Now, instead of having a handful of powerful news corporations controlling the majority of the content that people consume, people are now free to choose their own media outlet through a seemingly endless supply of media from the internet.
There were defensive people in the past, during the boom of the internet, that said the internet was a ‘fad’ or that no one would ever shop through the internet. Still today, there are defensive people saying that cryptocurrency is a ‘scam’ or that only criminals use crypto. These people will be proven wrong as the world has spoken through their wallets – cryptocurrency market has a $400,000,000,000 market cap.
The future is coming whether or not you’re ready – so, it’s always better to prepare for it.
*****************Defensive Mindset******************
Most people are defensive about new ideas whether or not they are benefitting from the current status quo because… well quite frankly because most people are scared of change. Most people are afraid of what they don’t know and fall back to what they do know out of comfort. I mean who wouldn’t be afraid of robots driving our cars, blockchain technology disrupting the entire financial system, marijuana corrupting the children of America, automation of every procedural job, or Global Warming ending humanity as we know it.
These frightening trends would be enough to get any person to hit the snooze button, throw the blanket over their head, and stay in bed all day.
It is far easier to ignore, denounce, or give up on the future than it is to be prepared for it. Currently, there are 4.4 million people who drive a vehicle for a living. As autonomous vehicles are becoming more and more of a reality, drivers will slowly become displaced as companies/governments adopt this new technology. If I was an Uber/Lyft driver (or any sort of driver), then I would be spending all of my time trying to learn a new skill that wouldn’t be replaced by automation. I would not keep driving with a ‘business as usual’ mindset and ignoring the possibilities of the future as there is nothing ‘usual’ about the autonomous vehicle revolution.
I look at the blockchain/crypto revolution much in the same way as I do the autonomous driver revolution. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies will disrupt the financial world in one way or another (or it already has), and it is probably best not to ignore it.
******************Offensive Mindset******************
Having an offensive mindset is key to survival in today’s day in age. Just take a look at Toys “R” Us, which went bankrupt in 2017 because they did NOT adopt an offensive mindset. As e-commerce and competition from stores like Amazon, Target, and Walmart began to ramp up, Toys “R” Us simply ignored the competition and lost. In a similar fashion, Blockbuster ignored the growing trend of the internet and was eventually destroyed by Netflix. Let us try our best to not become the metaphorical Blockbuster in life.
An offensive mindset allows an individual to see the weaknesses in their current situation. It allows you to think into the future and try to get advantages that many peers would not see. Where a defensive mindset would ignore or reject an innovative idea, an offensive mindset tries to understand and leverage an innovative idea. A defensive mindset would only look at the potential downsides of an idea instead of all the potential upsides.
Take a look at companies like Uber and Lyft that have revolutionized the ‘share-economy’ and even trust to a certain extent. One or two decades ago, it would have been absolutely outrageous for someone to get into a stranger’s car and be completely confident that they would reach their final destination. The mere idea that someone would even be willing to pick up a stranger and have them sit in the back seat of their car was unheard of. But, look at us now…
Think about all the seemingly insane things we do – with an older perspective. Just 10-20 years ago online-dating was frowned upon by most people as abnormal or weird, staying in a stranger’s home was near impossible, and even giving your credit card information to a website was demonized as ‘dangerous’.
Just imagine the seemingly weird things that we will be doing 10-20 years into the future!
******************Leaning Into The Future******************
I am bullish about my future and you should be bullish about yours. We are living in one of the fastest periods of technological revolution in the history of mankind. Technologies like AI, deep-learning, machine-learning, augmented-reality, virtual-reality, blockchain technology, smart-contracts, cryptocurrencies, autonomous vehicles, voice assistance, smart-homes, 5G network technology, and affordable space travel are going to become more of a reality in the next few decades.
Are you looking into any of these technologies? Maybe you know a few I didn’t list.
I for one, am a strong believer that my kids will not need to learn how to drive a vehicle as test data is already showing that autonomous vehicles are far safer than human drivers. Furthermore, I don’t even think that my kids will ever own a car in the future unless they ‘want’ one since the future of the ‘share-economy’ will enable us to order a ride from a car that isn’t even ours. Besides just thinking about this as a fanciful idea, I have invested in Google, Intel, Nvidia, and AMD as these companies will be critical in the future of autonomous driving.
In a similar sense, I am also sure that my kids will also buy their lattes (or another similarly expensive drink) using cryptocurrencies. I am unable to say whether that cryptocurrency is a Bitcoin, Litecoin, Electroneum, or another altcoin but I am confident that the trend of moving off of fiat money and into cryptocurrencies is here to stay.
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Whichever trend you are looking at, it is always better to keep an open mind than a closed one.
Thanks for reading!
-Jack
