So much of what we hear today is based around negativity rather than opportunity. The world seems to be adopting a ‘King Canute mentality’ where the message is to try and keep the past rather than moving forwards.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Brexit and in the US Presidential Election. When we look at Brexit, the arguments against it have been lost, not once but at least twice and maybe three times.
Moreover the negative arguments for voting remain have not yet provided the apocalyptic outcomes that were predicted in 2016. Indeed, only today a major car manufacturer is considering leaving Europe and relocating all of its work to the UK.
And yet, those that entered into a democratic process in 2016 and came on the losing side are still hoping to say ‘I told you so’. They are behaving like spoilt children and are refusing to use the new coinage rather than getting on with trying to identify how to make the best of the new paradigm. And yet these should be the best brains to maximise the opportunity.
Mind you, the US are not fairing much better. Whether you like him or hate him, the haters are doing their level best to put Trump back in the White House in November.
Not only have the Democrats spent most of this term trying to find abortive ways to reverse the last election, they are now embroiled in in-fighting trying to work out who should challenge him.
Whilst Bernie Sanders is starting to emerge as the people’s choice, the party faithful don’t want him to the point that they are doing Trump’s work for him by rubbishing him.
At the same time, the impeachment process has shone the spotlight on their favoured candidate by raising the issues of his son’s dealings in the Ukraine.
What is even more worrying, is that both the USA and UK are suffering from a surfeit of efforts to thwart the democratic process; this from the so-called bastions of the free world.
So wouldn’t it be better to look at how to be positive about the future rather than negative.
Let us start with the whole issue of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The gloom and doom experts will repeat the mantras of the three previous industrial revolutions that forecast masses of job losses and civil unrest.
No one doubts that AI will eliminate jobs, but the prophets of doom don’t look at the potential for new jobs and jobs done better than now. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the medical profession. AI is already better than humans at identifying diseases at an early stage, and the use of robotics is revolutionising the quality and time to recovery for operations.
As far as other jobs are concerned, we now know that 65% of jobs that children entering school this year will do, do not exist yet. It is a pity we still teach people based on jobs that exist today.
We also talk down climate change as if it is too difficult a subject and that we are all going to hell in a handcart. We praise the negativity of a young girl who shouts about it without offering any solutions while entrepreneurs are finding ways to solve the problems.
Climate change has the creative solution providers on board, and they only need to make their solutions sexier to win people over. Tesla dis not gain great sales by making a car that looked like a Renault Reliant, but by producing an electric car that can do a top speed of 167 mph, can corner brilliantly and which has a range of over 600 miles.
The sooner we have more Tesla type sexiness in climate change solutions, the quicker people will be unable to deride actions as the result of vegan, bearded, long haired, sandaled, tree hugging throwbacks from the 70’s.
Retail stores still bemoan the loss of the high street in towns whilst councils charge exorbitant fees for parking and where online shopping and social media have replaced street advertisements and long walks along pavements. The percentages for online trading are already high and there are already more people with a mobile phone capable of doing trading online than there are people with clean water.
The opportunities for new retail certainly exist if they are willing to embrace technology. There are countless chances to use technology to provide unique high street experiences, such as personalised advertising to individuals as they pass near to your shop, or keeping one size of outfit so that clients can see it and then use technology connected to a mirror in order to see what it would look like in various sizes. Add drone delivery and suddenly people might find your offerings more interesting.
These opportunities present themselves in all walks of life provided that problems are approached with a positive, creative attitude. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, the establishment brains that could be taking advantage of the opportunities are the ones clinging to the old paradigms.
So, I would suggest that the negativity of the establishment is doing far more harm to the opportunities that really present themselves to us and that it is time for the gloom and doom merchants to get behind those who are stepping up to the new challenges and finding solutions.
In other words, remember Einstein and his saying that the definition of stupidity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
