Firstly let's address something important, 2020 was not a single event. One year that was different but now it's behind us. Consider 2020 may have been a pivotal year. One in which such dramatic events happened, causing shifts in the normal behaviours of many people and had various economic and political shakeups. The trajectory of the world shifted. We've not seen all the outcomes of that yet.
There are many obvious things, some more subtle things and surely some currently unanticipated things that are likely to be different in the world ahead of us. There's been a lot more wealth concentration, a huge jump in people lacking incomes, numerous business owners experiencing some form of displacement, the feasibility of running business via remote workers better understood (The potential has been there for a long time, but now it's in the public space), a huge boost for the move towards automation of more jobs, dramas between the largest GDP producing countries on the world stage ... All of these are things that can have effects lasting longer than the virus that shook up the norms and brought them about.
Change means opportunity for those who were either well positioned for the change beforehand of those who are willing and quick to adjust and evolve their skills sets and focus to benefit from the change. A lot of people are suffering as a result of these changes. There's a lot of panic. It's sad to see, but for the pragmatic person all of these present opportunities.
Now more than any other time before in our lifetimes we'll have people who have accumulated wealth in the markets looking for ways to spend of invest this extras capital. More people than ever looking for employment opportunities. Highly skilled and motivated people with track records of success in business needing a new endeavour to build up. A wide acceptance of running businesses via a "Virtual office", which gives us less overheads and more flexibility. Big automation will cause further more job displacement (This may be several years away, and that means the time to position is now) which adds more to the HR opportunities. Geopolitical shakeups are going to lead to changes in how things are happening on the world stage, this will bring about volatility - which really means "Fast change". As previously mentioned, changes and chances go hand in hand.
Heading into 2021 people should realise that 2020 has been a pivotal year and rather than waiting for things to return to as they were it's best to start to position to do well in the rearrangement of how things are done, the new trends this will create and what ideas that used to work are now becoming redundant. Never has there been a time easier to either get ahead or fall behind.
Creating an actionable plan for the years ahead
1 - Make an honest assessment of where you are right now. What you have. Things you want. Resources you can utilize, and ones that you lack. Knowledge you have and areas in which you are weak and need to improve/compensate for. Work out ways the changes can play to your advantage or will work against you and adjustments you have to make.
2 - Assess your skills. One of three things happened to people in 2020. Either their skill set became entirely redundant and things got very difficult, or their skill set suddenly became a million times more valuable giving them the opportunity to prosper if they are at the top of their game or struggle against stronger competition otherwise. If you're in the first group, you need to re-skill. Have to begin to learn more things and broaden the value proposition bring to the world. If you're in the latter group you need to step up your game and defend your place in your niche. For those who benefited, triple down on what works.
3 - Decide how you are going to differentiate. A lot of people are all going to end up in very similar situations and when this happens it means the opportunities shrink across the board. More people are going to be going after the same things. Be aware of this before blindly rushing off into things. Often it's better to stand still than head off in the wrong direction to become lost in a crowd. Think carefully about how you are going to stand out. Can you bring higher quality? Do you know how to establish a brand? What do you know others do not, and what more can you find out? You're going to have to learn about these things.
4 - Design an action based set of goals. Make sure you set action goals that you can hit. Never set these goals on factors you can not control, because it makes them far easier to miss and that makes it harder to build up confidence and momentum. So don't set a goal like, "Learn everything about XYZ in 3 months", rather set a goal like, "Read at least # pages of books on XZY a day". Don't set goals to make X$ with a blog, but set a goal to write # blog posts a day. Set goals that are going to ensure you have little steps forward every day. You build your castle brick by brick.
5 - Design ways to measure, track and record your progress. Keeping records of what you do is highly valuable in being able to later improve what you do. When you carefully track your progress you become a lot more invested in it. Are far more likely to be able to spot mistakes you're making or the things that are bringing you most value. You can do this on your own but it also can help to look for things like "Accountability partners" or "Mastermind groups".
6 - Study the underlying psychology of whatever it is you're going to be working with. If you'll be employing people you need to learn about how to deal with the spectrum of personality types that make up "People". How to be able to motivate staff. Resolve conflict between them. Educate them about their mistakes without berating and discouraging them. Bring out the best in them. When you are selling/marketing to people you need to understand the psychology of people's desires, fears and what triggers decisions/compliance. If you want to make money investing into financial markets learn about herd psychology. How it brings about booms in optimism and panics in pessimism. Study the attitudes of the average investor in different types of market conditions. Learn what it really means to be "Fearful when others are greedy and greedy when they are fearful". It may sound weird, but it's helpful to study crowd psychology (A fascinating area of psychology, btw), crowd compliance and riots (Because in a riot the induvial is lost to the attitude of the crowd - and this is very relevant to financial markets). Finally, learn about how your own mind works. Especially when dealing with anything with elements of speculation to them it's important to understand how your brain reacts to pleasures and stresses. Having a wide grasp of psychology gives you an edge. The advantage of perspective. Being able to think from the viewpoints of many people, while few can think from yours. For resources here I'll make a recommendation for Buffet. Not for the markets, that's all kinda 'Yawn', but for the management of people. Buffet is a great HR manager.
7 - Commit to process. Step by step. Brick by brick. Big things start small, and it's the progressive building of them that makes them become great. Being able to commit to process makes it much easier to achieve an end result. You avoid the pitfalls that discourage you by seeking success rather than committing to the process that creates success. A committal to process, and making the process all small manageable steps, gives you a realistic road to walk along and a reason to keep walking. This is important. Of course you can be a "Visionary", with a "Burning desire" and "Born go getter!" and these things drive you on through anything, but these innate traits are rare. The ability to set up a step by step process and take small moves forward every day is common to us all.
I wish you all well in the year ahead. Above all else I wish you good health. The serenity to always be content and the ambition to never be satisfied. The pragmatism to see the opportunities in the problems around you, the shrewdness to benefit from them and the kind heart to share some of your success with those who are most in need of it.
If you found this post useful, you can find more of my posts on Reddit at Earn passive income through various online sources. (reddit.com)
