“Optimism: It’s that thing we do so that our hopes for our future outweigh our fears!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
A short, simple message – Happy New Year to all, and here’s to a year that will see a bountiful harvest from our optimism!
Video: A Quiet Reflection: A Look Back at my Daily Inspiration Posts Through 2021
I close out this year noting that I have put together 266 of these Daily Inspiration posts, including this one.
What kept me sane through the twists and turns that defined 2021? Mindset matters! And one of the ways I accomplish that is by pausing with a moment of reflection, each moment, as I start my day. That involves writing one of these each Daily Inspirations each and every workday. It’s ALWAYS the first thing I do as I start my day, between 5 and 6 am… my laptop, some coffee, some quiet thinking, as I reflect my thinking on our world, innovation, creativity, future trends, or just plain inspirational thinking.
The backstory? These Daily Inspiration posts go way back to August 2016, when I wrote my very first one after a complex set of difficult personal circumstances in my life. In a short time, the simple act of spending a few minutes in the morning to calmly reflect and think before starting my day became the spiritual balm that I needed to move forward with a commitment to an important purpose. Since that time. I have put together 1,440 of them – not missing one single workday.
For the fun of it, I rolled all the posts from 2021 into this little 18-minute video, with a backing track of some inspiring tunes. Most were based on images from within my virtual studio, while others were a look back at past presentations, and a few others near the end of the year were of a new format that I’m experimenting with. Not that anyone will watch it, but I found it fun to put together – and to also reflect on that which I have shared.
We all need some type of ‘thing’ to keep us going through a complex world, particularly through these pandemic times. Oddly, I’ve found mine with this unique thing. It works for me! And based on feedback from people who get these via various social media, it works for others as well.
You can always sign up for them and find the archives at https://inspiration.jimcarroll.com
And of course, as you know, they are posted here each workday.
I would encourage you to share them with your friends and encourage them to sign up. My list keeps growing!
Daily Inspiration: “Define the next year by the things you will do, not by the things you will avoid!”
“Define the next year by the things you will do, not by the things you will avoid!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
The funny thing about the future is that is going to happen to you, whether you plan for it or not. Given that fact, it would make sense to align with it! That involves acceptance – an understanding that things are going to change, many of them perhaps uncomfortable, some of them wildly exhilarating. The future is always a roller coaster of opportunity and threat. It’s what you do with that fact that matters.
There is no doubt that the coming year will be filled with much uncertainty. With that being the case, keep in mind this key statistic I’ve often used on stage – only 10 percent of people, when confronted by challenging circumstances – ARE prepared to move forward despite uncertainty – call them the ‘action oriented’. 10 percent! Too many other people are stuck, frozen, locked in panic, and recoil from acceptance with active avoidance. Who are you? Do you avoid, or do you do?
Some years back, I spoke about this on stage in New Orleans. Aggressive indecision – is that you? Are you part of the 60%? The 30%? Or the 10%? Who are you?
Be action-oriented! Make a conscious decision to be one of the 10%. That involves setting yourself a mindset of the things you will do- not the things you will have avoided.
As an aside, I close out this year noting that I have put together 266 of these Daily Inspiration posts, including this one.
What kept me sane through the twists and turns that defined 2021? Mindset matters! And one of the ways I accomplish that is by pausing with a moment of reflection, each moment, as I start my day. That involves writing one of these each Daily Inspirations each and every workday. It’s ALWAYS the first thing I do as I start my day, between 5 and 6 am… my laptop, some coffee, some quiet thinking, as I reflect my thinking on our world, innovation, creativity, future trends, or just plain inspirational thinking.
The backstory? These Daily Inspiration posts go way back to August 2016, when I wrote my very first one after a complex set of difficult personal circumstances in my life. In a short time, the simple act of spending a few minutes in the morning to calmly reflect and think before starting my day became the spiritual balm that I needed to move forward with a commitment to an important purpose. Since that time. I have put together 1,440 of them – not missing one single workday.
For the fun of it, I rolled all the posts from 2021 into this little 18-minute video, with a backing track of some inspiring tunes. Most were based on images from within my virtual studio, while others were a look back at past presentations, and a few others near the end of the year were of a new format that I’m experimenting with. Not that anyone will watch it, but I found it fun to put together – and to also reflect on that which I have shared.
We all need some type of ‘thing’ to keep us going through a complex world, particularly through these pandemic times. Oddly, I’ve found mine with this unique thing. It works for me! And based on feedback from people who get these via various social media, it works for others as well.
You can always sign up for them and find the archives at https://inspiration.jimcarroll.com
And of course, as you know, they are posted here each workday.
I would encourage you to share them with your friends and encourage them to sign up. My list keeps growing!
Daily Inspiration: “It is what it is – until you make it into what it is isn’t!”
“It is what it is – until you make it into what it isn’t!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
“It is what it is.” This seems to be one of the phrases we have adopted in the pandemic, the others being “it could be worse,” “it will be better one day soon,” we just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing” and “let’s just get through it.” Among many other similar phrases – we seem to seek personal motivation by muttering to our inner selves, knowing that constant hopeful reinforcement is critical to getting through, one day at a time.
But in a larger context outside of the pandemic, this is the type of phrase which is often indicative of a creativity ditch, an imagination deficit, an idea shortage. When we come to accept the status quo, we set ourselves up for inaction. At the moment we established that we aren’t moving from where we are, we solidify our position to the current reality in the face of relentless change. It’s precisely when we decide to stand on a platform of indifference that the foundation of our future will begin to shift.
“It is what it is” is when you think about it, an absolutely defeatist phrase, steeped in the consciousness of complacency. It signals to our inner selves that we don’t need to change, that we can continue standing still, that we can adapt to a lack of progress as success. And this is when our future will truly begin to go off the rails because it will continue to rush at us with speed, while we stand determined to resist its advance – because we have convinced ourselves otherwise.
Often, it is what is – until you make the conscious decisions to turn it into what it is not. Once you do that, things begin to change.
And within the ongoing acceleration that is Omicron, it means continuing to keep a mindset focused on getting through the day, aligning to tomorrow, keeping a mindset of optimism, and doing the small things that matter – because, in the larger context, it’s the small things that matter that then become the big things that count!
Headlines: My Tesla Life 5 Months In: They Own The Future – But Have a Long Fast Way to Go with One Aspect of It!
Just under five months ago, I picked up my Tesla Model 3. It was an exciting moment – I’d been speaking and writing about the disruptive impact the company has been having on the auto industry since 2010. Further back, I actually predicted parts of its business model way back in 2003 while speaking at a leadership meeting for DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Germany.
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to experience many different aspects of what it means to own an ‘electric, hi-tech rolling technology battery platform on wheels,’ as I often describe a Tesla vehicle on stage. I decided to roll this into a video from my virtual broadcast studio that gives a ranking to the many different aspects of what constitutes a vehicle in the 21st century: electric/battery, self-driving, charging infrastructure, technology platform, upgradability, and more.
Here’s what I’ve learned, ranking a full set of features in the video as to where they are on the Gartner Hypecyle which I will often use to judge the maturity of technology or timing of a trend:
- they definitely have set the pace with electric vehicle technology
- there is no such thing as ‘range anxiety
- they own the space in which cars have become computers – no other automotive company is even close when it comes to design, features, upgradability
- the coolness factor is extreme – just after I filmed this show, Tesla rolled out a feature which will let people program customizable light/music shows for their car. Why? Why not!
- the cost savings are even extreme! I use a service called TeslaFi which analyzes all the data thrown off by my car, and know, based on local electricity rates, that I’ve spent just about $100 on charging, but have saved $40 with free charging – for a net cost of $60 for 6,000 km
For almost all the features with Tesla and the infrastructure around it, I rank it as being on the “Plateau of Productivity” except for one feature, discussed below. They certainly do own the future, and it is going to be difficult for mainstream car companies to catch up. (But I’ve been saying this consistently for well over a decade now!)
On the other hand, I did invest heavily to migrate an electric car life. We had to upgrade the panel at our new home, and run wires to our garage as well as our chalet – I figure all in, we spent about $8,000. The panel upgrade had to happen regardless, so let’s say I spent about $5,000 to support the car. Based on the electricity cost, all my driving from this point will essentially be close to zero.
So it’s all a plus …. except for one big missing piece – full-self-driving technology, or FSD as it has become known in the Tesla community, is just not there. I didn’t expect it to be – but my opinion on when it will actually be here has become more pessimistic. Like many folks, I ponied up and paid the additional money for the feature – knowing that it was still very much in development.
But my conclusion to this point in time is that I’ve essentially paid money to be a part of a beta test that is still very much in its very early stage. Elon Musk talks of the inevitable of FSD, but it is nowhere near mature, albeit while being extremely impressive at the same time. Perhaps this is my location – the feature is limited in Canada to highway use only, while only a small subset of drivers in the US have been granted access to the latest iteration of FSD – receiving regular software updates, as well as the loss of beta-privileges if they show aggressive driving behavior. My opinion is further clouded by my use of the basic Autopilot feature – which is a free feature on all Tesla’s – which is found in a number of other vehicles. It continues to suffer from a number of flaws, most obviously what is known as “phantom braking.” I’ve had multiple instances of driving the car under Autopilot when a truck approaches from the other direction in the other lane – and the car decides to violently apply the brakes, beep, and slow down. Very unnerving. And it’s a common problem:
You can see many Tesla fans post their attitude towards this issue on Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere.
So that’s a negative. But how fast will they get there? I’m of mixed feelings – watching this unfold in real-time as new software releases occur makes me appreciate that we certainly cannot use old models of innovation to judge the pace of change that is occurring here. To judge that, I follow an esoteric fellow on Twitter who carries the handle “WholeMarsBlog” – and this particular post caught my attention.
I have learned that the Tesla community is rabidly fanatical about the car and infrastructure – I have become that way too. Many will dispute my opinion, but such is a world of leading-edge technology – there are rabid fans, raging skeptics, and the rest of the folks, like me – big fans, but cautiously skeptical of some aspects of what we have.
Daily Inspiration: “Active Inaction: That thing we do when we fall prey to the uncertainty that surrounds us…”
“Active Inaction: That thing we do when we fall prey to the uncertainty that surrounds us, leading us to become trapped within an ongoing pattern of action followed by inaction, which is repeated regularly as we seek some sort of elusive clarity!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
I spent some time yesterday working on my blog post, “10 Phrases That Define 2022” – go give it a read.
It’s modeled on the routine I established in 2005 with my ‘10 Great Words‘ post, which then morphed into a series of mindset-oriented action plans each year.
This year’s list reflects the ongoing nature of our world of muddled clarity as the pandemic continues. We’re all weary, wondering, wary, worrying perhaps, as reflected in my opening comment:
What’s going to happen in 2022, when it is pretty evident that volatility is the new normal? I find myself wondering about that as we start to enter our third year of the global pandemic – and living in a reality that involves a strange contradiction of attitudes towards where we find ourselves at this very moment in time.
And with that, I launched into the 10 phrases that define our attitude as we go forward into this complex and uncertain future, including the ‘paradox of active inaction‘: ‘the ongoing trap of action followed by inaction followed by much of the same…’
Inaction is a dangerous barrier, a complex prison within our minds that we must actively work to escape from. Falling into ths mindset is not new – back in 2002, after the complex realities of 9/11, the dot.com collapse, and an economic downturn, I coined a similar phrase: ‘aggressive indecision,’ which drew such a degree of attention that it became a newspaper column within the Globe & Mail:
I think that we are somewhat in a similar mindset right about now – we don’t know exactly where we are going, and so the motivation and drive to keep moving forward can sometimes be elusive. And it is by recognizing and diagnosing our malady of active inaction that we might be able to confront it head-on.
At least, as always, that’s my theory! Your mileage within your own voyage of uncertainty might vary!
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