Image courtesy – faithwriters.com
When I was in my 20’s, and people asked me, “So, where you will be in the next 10 years?”
I used to ‘think’ and then mumble and jumble some silly MBA type answer.
Last week someone asked me the same question.
I though hard and long and made the person really expect an evolved answer, and then said, “I think in the next 10 years I will have grey hair in my arm pits”.
That dude was shocked.
Well I was not.
A dumb question deserves a SICK reply.
Think about this:
What would Mark Zuckerberg answer if he was asked this question in 2006 when he was in Harvard?
Would he reply, “Well, I think I will own the biggest media company in the MILKY WAY??”.
Or imagine this question being asked to the owners and creators of Rovio who had made 51 games?
Would they would have said, “Yeah, our next game – the 52nd game is gonna be ANGRY BIRDS and that will change the history of mobile games forever”…???
Well, times have changed. Theory and Long Term “goal” settings etc. are passe.
No one – NO ONE knows what’s going to happen in the next 3 years to their business and their careers, so forget about wasting time thinking of 10 years and all that.
Having said that, I think that these are the 5 things that WILL REALLY happen to me in the next 10 years:
- I will survive. I will fight for RELEVANCE and remain VALID in the cyber world.
- I will appreciate that the Internet and Technology are the NEW Gods that we had not noticed before. If Jesus walked on earth and was spurned and taunted, so was the Internet and dot com in the year 2000. Funny ‘coz that’s just 2000 years after Jesus. Now, just in 2012 we see what the Internet does. By 2022, I think there will be ‘Temples’ of the Internet God that I will go to pray to.
- My VALUE ADD will be ‘sparks’ of imagination, creativity and insights, rather than hard labor and day to day operations.
- WISDOM will be the biggest asset I will bring to the table for my life and career. Contacts, connections etc will be things of the Stone Age past.
- There will be PURPOSE BEYOND MAKING MONEY that I will pursue. I will have figured out how to leverage the Internet and help people, make the needy get what they want, use the omnipresent and powerful pulse of the web to connect and help those “who want” with those “who have”.
So help me God.
I think you too should THINK of the next 10 years. Not with a silly academic MBA or job interview hat on, but with an intuitive, soul searching mind….
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