2010 is a pivotal year, a season of transition and great change.
I say this as much from a feeling in my bones as any event I might specifically describe. In 2-3 years you will look back and see the pre-2010 world as strangely different from the one you find yourself living in.
5 years from now you’ll stand in wonder of once mighty empires that have fallen. By 2020, a company you’ve barely heard of today will be more powerful than Facebook or Google.
The sub-prime mortgage industry has ceased to exist in the US and will doubtfully ever return. Increasing government controls on old industries will force creativity to flee to new territories, because entrepreneurs can always innovate faster than bureaucrats can regulate.
In the 20th century, the top 1 billion people were the #1 driver in the world. The 21st century will be marked by the emergence of the “middle billions” – the tier of humanity which, now connected, can participate in the world marketplace. Many of the next wave of billionaires will come from countries we consider to be “underdeveloped.”
You are seeing that now on sites like Elance where an abundance of raw talent is available 24/7 from less developed, rapidly advancing countries. The middle billions will power the economic comeback.
You can use the information age to sharpen your mind and stay abreast of the greatest thinkers in history, or you can dull your senses with entertainment and pleasure seeking. Your choice.
You can use your iPod to tune in, or to tune out. You can contribute to the world you live in, or you can nurse at whatever breast keeps you sedated. Your decision.
Never before has there been a wider gap between those who are awake and those who are sleepwalking. You will only see this chasm widen.
The consequence of this is that politicians will try to get elected by promising to abolish the 80/20 rule. But regardless of their vain attempts, a tiny percentage of people will still drive the vast majority of progress.
You get to decide which side of the 80/20 tracks you live on.
In a world that is drowning in data and information, the most precious commodity is WISDOM – the ability to make sound judgments and harness knowledge. To interpret and use information.
Wisdom comes from the outside. It’s requested and received. It’s not merely a ‘given.’ And it should never be taken for granted. Common Sense is uncommon and it will always be precious. Those who lack wisdom are unable to perceive things that are staring them in the face. And nothing you say will make them see.
I can only urge you to open your mind and your spirit to the things that are new. By this I don’t mean bells and whistles and gadgets. I mean shifts in the culture, new expectations, new paradigms. New rules that replace old ones that don’t work anymore. To live in the “is” world and not the “should be” world.
A thousand warriors I have known. Among them, dozens who’ve had total financial wipeouts, bankruptcies, massive failures. One made $2 million personal income in 2006, then zero in 2009. I know another who’s upside down to the tune of $100 million.
Some are shady characters. Some are among the finest individuals I’ve ever met. One was cleaning up all the messes in his life one by one, rekindling his marriage, shedding his addictions and bad habits, and doing an admirable job at that. It would seem he deserved a break.
It didn’t happen because he was a bad guy. It happened because the world moved on.
In almost every case, they are furiously re-inventing themselves. Which seems like a paradox, because times of economic growth are revealed to be seasons of greatest stagnation, gluttony and sloth.
Lean times produce enormous innovation and industry. 278 of the current Fortune 500 companies were founded by solo entrepreneurs in an economic downturn.
Lean into the leanness.
Forest burns to the ground. Weeks later you return to find nothing but ashes. Yet unseen, below ground, a revolution is underway.
Today is the day the heavens are shifting. Advancing under a guise of stagnancy, this is new a season of healing – physical, emotional, financial, spiritual.
If you find yourself restless and bored of things that used to work and don’t anymore, this is the season to ask and expect old wisdom to take new forms.
The Secretariat movie is prophetic for this year. Secretariat literally had the heart of a champion—a heart almost 3 times as large as a normal horse heart. That heart was the powerful engine that made him a great champion.
This is not the year to declare our history. This is the time to prophesy our future.
Perry Marshall
Thanks to my friend and confidant Sue Towne for supplying much of the inspiration for today.
Re-invent and ignite your business in 48 hours on December 1.
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
73 Comments on “Sweeping Change is Underway”
“Some are among the finest individuals I’ve ever met. One was cleaning up all the messes in his life one by one, rekindling his marriage, shedding his addictions and bad habits, and doing an admirable job at that. It would seem he deserved a break. It didn’t happen because he was a bad guy. It happened because the world moved on.”
I nearly wept when I read this paragraph. Thank you.
Perry,
AMEN
QUOTE: “Wisdom comes from the outside. It’s requested and received.”
True wisdom can only be found inside.
It’s always a result of self-enquiry. You already have it, but your ignorance prevents you from realizing it.
Perry,
This is an outstanding post! You’re right on target. I certainly enjoyed reading this refreshing information. By the way, I saw Secretariat a few weeks ago, and highly recommend the movie. Secretariat was truly a winner, but so was his owner who never gave up despite adversity. All of us can draw lessons from such determined winners.
Great post Perry. The only thing constant is change. Embrace it or get left behind. I personally thrive on change.
Perry
You are a though leader and provide great posts to cause people to think and consider the topics.
This is another great topic to think about. I agree that 2010 is a year which is a turning point. It has been for me. I have taken your courses and learned lots. You said in one of the course or posts that there comes a time when a person can understand enough to be able to see the opportunity.
2010 is the year in which I was knew enough to understand the internet and marketing connection. I can now see the opportunity.
Thank you for your thought leadership.
While I find most of your article to be spot on, I think you are out of your mind to believe the sub-prime mortgage industry is dead and will never come back. It may not come back anytime soon, but as long as you have greedy and shady banksters who are looking to make money dishonestly, and you have people with short memories regarding history, it will eventually come back in some other form.
Having said that, you are absolutely right about the pace of innovation and the entrepreneur. As I look at the midterm Senate race and realize that these politicians will be serving for six years, I think of the fact that Facebook only existed on Harvard’s university campus six years ago, and YouTube and Twitter didn’t exist at all; yet now all of these companies are worth billions of dollars and have drastically altered the social and business landscape. It’s only a matter of time before someone or some group can apply that same type of creativity to solve the issues of jobs, health care, energy and global poverty, regardless of what politicians promise us or how hard the entrenched powers attempt to resist this.
Perry,
Very good article and thanks for sharing. I hope it wakes more people up and pushes them to take action and responsibility for their lives, while realizing these politicians are self serving and think we are puppets on a string. I agree that new rules are going to work better than old ones, however, I think sound principles will last forever.
Stay in motion,
Dana
Thanks, Perry, for a great article! Going to copy the following paragraph and give it to each of my three teen-aged children:
“You can use the information age to sharpen your mind and stay abreast of the greatest thinkers in history, or you can dull your senses with entertainment and pleasure seeking. Your choice.”
perry why do i have a feeling that you maintain or constant walk with god… That you have a personal relationship with Jesus and that your every step is guided by his spirit. you don’t say it..but i can smell a brother and fellow soldier in this journey of faith!!!
Emeka, You nailed it. Great to meet ya. My spiritually motivated websites are http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com and http://www.coffeehousetheology.com.
Perry would you be willing to explore prophesying what the top 5 or 10 trends for the next 5 years will be? I’d like to hear what and where you think the greatest opportunities lie in the coming revolution. Thanks for bringing common sense wisdom back from the dead!
I tell ya what, I will do that at the first of the year. Here’s what I said for 2010: http://www.perrymarshall.com/3118/10-predictions-2010/
Great opinions and insights Perry … yep, changes are coming. I’ve lived in Vegas for the last 33 years and I’m sweating the elections. The “Amazon Tax” may be coming to NV – which means all affiliates here will be screwed.
As marketers, let’s huddle around the campfire for a moment – and talk about the same things the cavemen did … survival and predators. Lurking in the shadows of the aforementioned opportunities are predatory governments – state and federal. They are broke and we and our buyers are their targets. And they are controlled by predators – those that financially control them to fleece us – the banking cartels. Take a good look at the America we have now – the “better good” of the people has been systemically robbed and eroded over decades. Hell, we can’t even enjoy a national high speed train system like other industrial nations have had for 20-30 years. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a drive without truck terror – and not have all the commerce pollution to get our goods to the store. Just basic things are failing – infrastructure, education, healthcare – on and on the dominos are falling. In the future – a question might be: “remember the middle class?” Elections have become a classic example of Einstein’s definition of insanity. We no longer have a voice to prevent or remedy anything.
While we may find our “niche” to survive and innovate, we’ll be doing it in forbidding times. Will someone please give me the 50’s back?
That’s totally true Perry! Maybe u could also forward that Animal Farm analogy onto Obama. Just to goose him a little…hehe.
Perry,
Yet another fire poker! Great article. I love your point of view about 2010 and where we can expect to see ourselves in the future and what we will see looking back.
If only the Politicians weren’t such “good liars” they might actually be open to actually joining the rest of in the 80/20…what do you think?
Best,
Marshall Adler
Actually they politicians are exploiting 80/20 while pretending to eradicate it. Animal farm: “All of us are equal, but some of us are more equal than others.”
Perry,
When you said, ” 278 of the current Fortune 500 companies were founded by solo entrepreneurs in an economic downturn.” I am reminded of when Michael Dell said “Any time is a good time to start a business”.
It is messages such as the one you provided today that keep my brother James and I pounding away at things.
This is no time to quit this is the time to dig in and fight!
Thanks.
Amen! preach it brother!
Perry,
Careful reading all those comments. Your head my get stuck in the clouds.
Peter,
I have all the skeptics at my cosmicfingerprints site helping keep me humble :^>
Those clouds sure look beautiful from close by, don’t they.
Perry, your emails and articles keep getting better and better. I definitely voted for “more” when you surveyed your list recently. Like many above have said, you are one of the few that I open and read.
Keep up the great work,
Craig
Perry, how come your emails are the only ones I always open and usually read? Because you are a great writer.
I will use your sentence
You can use your iPod to tune in, or to tune out. You can contribute to the world you live in, or you can nurse at whatever breast keeps you sedated. Your decision.
It’s a great metaphor and also practical advice.
P.S. How’s that the #1 Adwords Expert writes such an inspiring prose and good business advice? Is maybe because Adwords have become the pulse of business?
Perry, thank you for continuing to be an inspiration in my life.
By 2020 I will look back at my once burnt down, now beautiful and lush forest and see you as a pivotal person in my life who helped keep me inspired, growing and able to move on.
Strength and honor!
Thanks so much Perry. You give me hope in a way that no politician can. You give me new outlooks and concepts that I find myself passing on to others all the time. Of course I give you credit!
Hey Perry,
I really needed this today. In a very profound way I needed this. So thank you. I’m sure I’ll read it ten more times this weekend as I look inward to project outward and revamp my position.
Great post Perry…278 of the current Fortune 500 companies were founded by solo entrepreneurs in an economic downturn…who would have thought?
The internet, Facebook, email, television…all compete for our attention every single day. We have to be frugal with our time and energy and put it into things that will provide us an ROI of some sort…financial, emotional, spiritual…
So many activities make a withdrawal of our time and talent and rarely if ever make a deposit!
Great post Perry.
Yes, change is here, is coming, and we’d better be ready for it. Otherwise we will be confined to the dust-bin of history.
I’m looking forward to reading more thoughts on the subject…and of course wishing the Start-up I am bootstrapping becomes that megalith you mentioned:)
Having been traveling and living in the 3rd world for the past 3 years I have been able to see this change happening from both sides.
America needs to wake up. There is opportunity happening all around us. No jobs, no problem. Look at what people need, and give it to them.
There has been so many “fluff” jobs over the past 3 decades that people just expect that they can get a job with 2 weeks vacation and a few hours at the water cooler every day. Those jobs are getting fewer and further apart.
You have to justify your existence in the workplace. Why are you there? What do you have ownership of? How do you affect the bottom line each month?
If you can’t answer those questions, be on the lookout for a pink slip.
People that are having trouble finding jobs for 6 months and a year …are simply unemployable. A $70k/ year architect can justify that in an upward moving housing market, but now it’s hard to justify $35k, even working twice as hard.
Re-invent, re-invent, re-invent.
When I read the headline, I thought back to a presentation I moderated in November of 2009 – The State of Search. 99% of the people (counting the presenters) who attended that meeting had no real concept for how each of the different elements of the presentations would impact the world of advertising in 2010. I was so glad to be a part of that event because I did get it! I did have a vision and I was right…2010 has been a year of monumental changes and shifts in advertising. 2010 also included tens of thousands of AdWords accounts being slapped/banned…devastating many, many legitimate businesses who got caught up in Google’s massive housecleaning. Many have shut down or moved on to something else. But a few continued to fight and win and found that what looked like a tragedy has turned into an opportunity.
But you added a different perspective. Economics and the innovation that comes with hard times.
I loved this quote: “Forest burns to the ground. Weeks later you return to find nothing but ashes. Yet unseen, below ground, a revolution is underway.” And as always, you have found yet another way to inspire me.
~Shelley
Very poignant, as always…
Great post Perry..
Forwarded this to some friends.
Now more than ever is the time to look hard into our business practices. Times like these separate the wheat from the chaff. Only those with a clear insight into their market, fiscally responsible accounting practices,etc. will survive.
As always.. I look forward to seeing your messages in my box.
Josh
Definite food for thought. I have always viewed the market, as well as, life as dynamic and it is clear it is speeding up.
Great post Perry.
You speak of an important topic here and it is very much needed!
Thank you for all your wisdom and all that you share.
Live inspired.
-Kyle Riegle
Job security is an illusion. I believe everything runs in cycles.
The younger generation saw what happened to their parents, who were put to pasture by corporations, and decided they didn’t want to end up like that.
More people now are looking to be self-employed, and without employees and all the headaches of traditional business. They also want to use technology to work from anywhere, at any time.
This, in my opinion, is part of the sweeping change that is taking place, that you wrote about. Good stuff.
Thanks you for this inspiring post. I don’t know whether to feel personally inspired or feel incredibly sad at what lies ahead for our nation. All politicians should read this post, whether Republican, Democrat or “Tea Party” and take heart. Education makes the difference between “those that are awake and those that are sleep walking”. I agree “the most precious commodity is WISDOM – the ability to make sound judgments and harness knowledge.” Without a sound education, wisdom is lost. The decline in our educational system will spell doom for our nation . . for without it, “the ability to make sound judgments and harness knowledge” is impossible.
PERRY!
You need to put out a book like Ken’s “The System Letters” of your most motivational and ass kicking emails and blog posts like this.
Just Sayin’ G ;)
— Caleb
What can I say? The muse struck. Maybe I should do that……
Perry,
This is not only moving, it’s sweeping. Your words are SO POWERFUL and right on target. We all have a GIANT in us that slumbers and needs to be awakened; 278 and counting have already woken up and made the top 500. There may come a day when all 500 are the solo entrepreneurs of our day. Our problems will only be as big as we make them to be and nothing else. I’m sure 2011 will be a big year but I am still squeezing EVERYTHING I can out of 2010 and it has been AMAZING to say the least! How we react to negativity will determine a lot. Personally, I burned my self out of thinking about it so much. I got so tired that all I can do now is think positive. When you do this, it completely changes the way you think and react. Thanks for the awesome words Perry!
Yeah man, I’m on it. I hate that I don’t have enough free time, and that my cash flow currently sucks, but the opportunity right now is stupendous. Even more so, really, much more so than any time of the 35 years in my opinion. So it’s hammer down!
Wow, is all I can say. This is the reason why I drop everything when I get a message from Perry in my inbox.
Hi Perry,
For a former engineer, you certainly have become quite a literary savant. My hats off to you for today’s piece.
Andy Iskandar
P.S. By the way, I really think you should put the opt-in option for your mini-course below this comment box to un-ticked, instead of ticked by default.
Many people don’t notice it and will just click ‘Submit Comment’ unknowingly. Which results in them getting emails from you that they didn’t know they opted for. IMHO, this borderlines on spamming.
Perry,
Thanks for the early morning fire my friend. Anyone who reads this who isn’t already awake had better watch out since they are going to be pulled into the light.
To Our Massive Success,
John
Dang, I love how you write. Really well said and inspirational. I especially love the “…a revolution is under way…” about the forest after a fire – great visual.
Kudos to Sue as well.
Have a great weekend, always a fun one with kids…
Scott
Perry,
Well written and full of wisdom and great insights. So many great lessons in this article.
In my view, one of the most profound points in the article was “Your choice.” The world is what it is, we all have a choice about how we react to it. It is our choices that make a difference in our lives. The economy is what it is. We will never have things just the way we want them. But we will always have a choice about how we react to what is – or whether we even accept what is.
A great lesson for all. Thanks.
Perry, you really knocked it out of the park. I was moved beyond words. Thank you!
How true, how true. Maybe what you’re feeling is “rapture readiness” :-) Didn’t King Solomon once say “there is nothing new under the sun”… Good times, come, good times go, but as you elude to, the 80/20 rule always remains the same.
Also, it’s good to be reminded that life is a series of choices and each choice ads a stroke to our character portrait…what do we want our portrait to look like when it’s all over and done..
Thanks for the post Perry.
Kev
I agree that wisdom is a precious commodity. However, the underlying foundation of wisdom is understanding. Most of the time, generally speaking, with the vast information that is available to us, we fail to understand. And it’s a journey or process.
Like most cycles, entrepreneurs always find ways to innovate. And as you stated, regulations will ignite the creativity in us.
Very powerfull stuff, Inspire and refeshed.
to paraphrasse Mr Steve Jobs
“We must – to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”
and
“We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.”
Exactly is all i can say.
Go forth and Dent your universe
“The Secretariat movie is prophetic for this year. Secretariat literally had the heart of a champion—a heart almost 3 times as large as a normal horse heart. That heart was the powerful engine that made him a great champion.”
Actually, Secretariat won because he had the biggest stride angle in history, as you can see in our analysis of race horses. http://www.somaxsports.com/SecretariatSA.html A horse (and human) will cover 2% more ground with each degree increase in stride angle.
Nice post, even though what you´re writing is already happening for like 10 years.
Poverty world wide is down big time compared to 30 years ago and this process has especially been fueled by the Internet for the last 10 years.
Perry,
I wanted my first post to stand on it’s own.
Your call to be vigilant and ahead of the trends keeps us focused on the positive control we can have on our individual lives.
Thanks for the inspiration at the personal level.
Lee
Thank you for another great post. I love reading your thoughts and wisdom. Yesterday’s email from Tom Hoobyar, Fern Named Lazarus was great except I missed your notation at the top it was from someone other than you.
As I began to read thought, when did Perry move to the Sierra mountains? Is he old enough to have a 30 year old plant? Multiple spouses? Huh?
Great chuckle discovering Tom Hoobyar at the end.
Perry,
Extremely well written and a wise and pragmatic assessment. In just a few short paragraphs you expressed what I wish we as a nation could discuss openly.
The phrase “once mighty empires have fallen” sent shivers- while you reference facebook, I wonder how we’ll adjust to slipping into history as so many other nations. We’re witnessing the country of the 20th century giving way to China and others as they ascend to the countries of the 21st.
Lee Schwarz
You truly are an inspiration. Your words keep me going and always seem to find me the moment I need them.
Perry,
This is a beautiful post. I totally agree. Success brings with it laziness. I never worked harder than when I felt my business was going downhill. 2010 was my best year. Now, I’m actually feeding fear into myself to spur on new activity and energy. May 2011 be good to you.