Daily Inspiration: “The only thing that we can use to change the world are the things that we invent!”

“The only thing that we can use to change the world are the things that we invent!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

Take a look around you – what is part of your life today that wasn’t just 10 or 20 years ago? Your mobile phone, a USB stick, a medical device technology of some sort, an LED TV, a connected thermostat, digital maps in your car!

We have witnessed a furious rate of change in the last few decades, and we are only going to see more – at an accelerated pace – as technology and faster science come to drive the speed of change in every single industry.

Each and every new invention has both an upside and a downside, and in this era in which it seems some idiot could launch a thermonuclear war via an angry tweet, there is certainly a lot of downside.

And yet there are huge opportunities ahead of us , to solve some of the biggest problems of our time – having to do with energy, the environment, water, healthcare, education – through radical new ideas and wonderful inventions. We have a lot of ‘grand challenge’ initiatives about such as the XPrize Foundation, which challenge the doers and dreamers of our time to pursue a new future, such as the birth of the private space industry.

What are you doing to be part of the process? Sure, you might not be someone who can get involved in coming up with the world’s next great product -but you can reinvent yourself on a regular basis at a personal level.

Don’t assume that other people will provide you a pathway to the future, or that they will fix your problems and challenges! YOU are responsible. The only one who can really change your future is YOU!

Take responsibility. Adopt a credo that each and every day, you will do what is necessary to provide a continuous platform for change that will turn every challenge into an opportunity, every barrier into a door, and every setback into fuel for the journey.