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”
This is a great post on how we need to pull up our pants and compete in the global workplace.
The days of working for the same company and retiring with a pension and gold watch are finished.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Perry, great insight into the current times. People are awakening, all over the world…to the realization that life ain’t going to be easy in the 21st century.
The new way of doing things will further consolidate businesses into the hands of the few, with everyone else having to scrounge and scrape just to get by.
We have to reinvent ourselves into sleek creatures that can adapt to whatever the system throws at us next.
Great post!
Perry.
I hear Robert Kiyosaki coming out of your mouth. Well written, scary stuff and so true. I follow you and learn from you so that I can build my own list.
Roy
P.S. – You have given me the courage to speak out prophetically too!
Thanks!
A heart of a champion! (like Secretariat)
Blessings,
Dee
Hi Perry,
I posted your post on my facebook page. My comments: This is the best ever post I have read on the change that is coming!
I especially like the prophetic sign of the movie “Secretariat”! I cried from the very beginning and I just sat there sobbing watching the credits at the end.
It truly is the prophetic sign for this next decade. I am really connecting with you on all venues. (especially prophetically)! Keep going, Perry! Show is the heart of the champion! I have already signed up for everything you have, including the FastTrack Facebook course. I am lovin it! Wish I could come to Austin in November, but too close to Thanksgiving, however, I am praying about it! Blessings, Dee
Look forward to meeting you someday!
If you beleive in God then everything will be okay, that’s what I think. A few years ago when I was but still young, I was led into the field of marketing and internet marketing etc, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but circumstances threw me in. Now I can see that it was God, getting me ready for the GFC so that I can get my Parenta and family through it, and so I can help poor people through it too. “God sees the end from the beginning” as the bible says. We humans don’t have a clue what surprises the future economy holds, but God does, and I think that he is preparing us to help others
“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.”
What if the following years we will witness events developing with such a speed, that until decision is made and act upon, the input data has changed?
Beside WISDOM we will need INTUITION. Silencing the mind and listening the inner voice.
And we need the ability to alternate states at will.
Thank you Perry for all the WISDOM shared with us!
Perry,
As usual, thought provoking!
Born in & living in Africa has shown me just how true the statement “as a man thinks, so is he” is. But even here in Africa, thoughts are changing. Possibly the biggest enabler in the last 10 years in Africa has been the mobile phone. A fair about of trade in rural areas is carried out by transferring airtime instead of cash. Hmmmm! Now where is that heading? Our local banks have cottoned onto that idea & now allow cash to be drawn from an ATM where no bank account exists, just a mobile phone with a virtual wallet. As smart phones find their way down the ranks, imagine what markets will open up to the well positioned mobile internet marketer.
My experience is that it takes determined courage to step through ideas that are so cemented in our thinking. This courage is often preceded by the clarity of the vision one holds of the future & our willingness to let go when necessary.
One thing that hasn’t changed much though, and I doubt will change much, is the underlying – “the mind justifies what the heart has already chosen” – aspect of our humanity. So I guess (as posted earlier) the base principles are fairly static, it’s the “how it is applied” bit that merits some unpacking.
Great Post
My daughter aged 15, is trying to decide on her career direction and as we try to advise her, I find myself thinking that we don’t have a clue what kind of ‘work’ place’ will exist my the time she finishes university in say 5 years time. I’m not yet 50 yet the workplace I joined from school is unrecognisable today – it’s hard not to be frightened by all the change – but you just can’t be – the opportunities are limitless – but so is the competition – bring it on I say!
David
David,
For what it’s worth, I got an electrical engineering degree and some of my liberal arts profs said half a technical education would be obsolete in 10 years. Well, that would’ve been true if I’d spent my time learning Pascal programming or something. But I learned physics and chemistry and math and analog and digital circuits and very little of it is obsolete. I learned principles.
Had I gone into liberal arts and the humanities and read the classics – ie Shakespeare and not Margaret Meade – I would have also got principles. (I did study Shakespeare actually). I don’t think a real principles oriented education ever goes stale, as long as it focuses on things that are at least 50 years old. That’s why we have bits of Scientific Advertising all over our Google book. Because some things are timeless.
I saw this yesterday but didn’t take the time to read it – just left it on my screen. Now I know why – today I was feeling less than hopeful. Today I needed it.
Isn’t it great how God works?
Thanks for your insights and thoughts.
“A thousand warriors I have known”
Was driving me mad trying to remember where I heard that but remembered – Deep Purple Perfect Strangers. I guess Ian Gillan may have nicked it from something a bit more ancient :-)
Great post Perry – you say what I think very eloquently.
Shaun.
BINGO. I had actually been listening to a Dream Theater cover of that song while I was writing.
Really great post Perry. Change is one thing we cannot change. It just keeps happening regardless of what “karma” points we may have asssessed in our lives.
We can work harder and smarter but a small amount of luck is paramount.