In business, life, the World and the Universe; the one thread that is constant throughout is change. The state of the World will never be the same as it was one millisecond ago. To place some perspective on this point think about the collective milliseconds that have been experienced/lived one millisecond ago by every human being and you will gain an appreciation for the impact that collective time has on your environment and why there are no constants in life.
Yet, often times we make our decisions based solely off of what has happened in the past. While, the past is all that we have to go off of, we must keep our minds open to the reality of how quickly and exponentially what we once thought we knew can change in an instant. Hence, here are three hacks to help you stay ahead of the curve and ready to ride the waves that come your way.
Play the role of a contrarian.
When looking to chart a course for the next big initiative, look through the lens of a contrarian. Allow yourself and others around you to poke holes in your idea and processes to refine and gain a true bearing on where reality genuinely lies. Making decisions in isolation will lead to false starts and half-baked plans. Instead, open your eyes to what is around you and know as soon as your idea is hatched, it is already antiquated and obsolete. Therefor, rest assured that job opportunities for strategists and thinkers will likely be in high demand for the ages.
Let your mind move like water.
Let your mind be flexible enough to move like water. It is essential for your mind to remain fluid and your model must be able to take into account different variables when such variables change. If your mind is made of stone, your walls will slowly crumble with each earthquake or change that happens beneath your foundation. Instead, let the fluidity of your plan change course as expediently as the information you assimilate. The more rigid your thought processes, the greater the likelihood you will be caught off guard by the collective milliseconds lived by the World.
Accept and anticipate change even when you think a situation is static.
Much like keeping your mind open to the contrarian way of thinking; it is just as important to anticipate change even when a circumstance is seemingly static. The Great Recession was not anticipated by the masses, yet having the mind to realize that your World will be turned upside down in an instant permits you to be more prepared than those around you and thus allows you to seize opportunity that others are not able to comprehend in that moment.
Our brains are wired for flexibility (the formal term is neuroplasticity) and is brilliantly designed to create new neural pathways due to changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, and emotions. Thus, we are inherently prepared to handle ambiguity if we train our minds to expect and anticipate that our World will change in a skelp.
Conclusion.
When you resign yourself to knowing nothing, you are poised to learn the most and thus have the greatest impact on your environment. Self proclaimed experts in any field are rigid and are often times victims of change and the vicissitudes of circumstance as they lack the flexibility to see how quickly environments and so called “truth” can change.
Therefor; (a) realize that you know nothing and when you think you know something, think about how what you think you know might/will not be so, (b) let your mind and thoughts remain fluid and (c) accept and anticipate change at every turn; nothing is static thanks to all of the collective milliseconds lived by the World. Above all else, enjoy the ride!
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