"Growth doesn't avoid chaos. It emerges from it." - Futurist Jim Carroll

You don’t rebuild for the future by protecting the past - particularly during a downturn.

So let's recap. In the first ten posts of this series, I've covered how belief, vision, action, and momentum create forward motion, even amid chaos. And yesterday, I pulled back the curtain on why many organizations fail to make that motion: fear, inertia, denial, and outdated thinking. You know, organizational sclerosis stuff!

Now we turn a corner.

Because once you’ve cleared the internal barriers…once you’ve named what’s been slowing you down… the next step is this: growth. And growth doesn’t come from optimizing what used to work. It comes from disrupting it. As they say, if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got! This will become exacerbated even more in the wild year that is 2025.

Fact is, In a downturn, many companies fall into a dangerous trap: they tweak the old playbook, hoping that what worked before will work again. So they shave budgets instead of rewriting business models. They cut costs without realigning purpose. They focus on “efficiency” instead of rethinking how they create value. They keep trying to sell the old product or service when the market suddenly needs a new one.

That’s not a strategy. That’s maintenance. And it fails every time

The companies that grow during volatility? They do the opposite. They redesign, not refine. They reinvent, not recover. They know that you won’t win in the next economy by trying to redo the last economy better. Here’s how high-performing, future-ready companies build through disruption—not despite it:

- they create new value, not just cut costs

- they launch new offerings that solve urgent problems in emerging markets or underserved segments.

- they reallocate skills and teams aggressively to solve problems, fast

- they implement a strategy of focusing on core customers to defend key revenue

Talent, capital, and attention all shift. They move decisively away from underperforming bets and double down on future-ready opportunities. They break their assumptions.  They don’t ask how to make something slightly better. They ask what it would look like if they had to build it from scratch for today. They eliminate internal friction.  Bureaucracy, bloated processes, and clunky systems are removed. They rebuild for speed and simplicity. They accelerate decisions with small, empowered teams that test, launch, and adapt.

They don’t wait for perfect clarity—they create clarity through motion.

They shape what comes next.

They grow.

#Growth #Disruption #Innovation #Action #Reinvention #Strategy #Chaos #Opportunity #Momentum #Leadership

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/04/decoding-tomorrow-your-daily-future-inspiration-growth-doesnt-avoid-chaos-it-emerges-from-it/

"Inertia feels safe. Until it isn’t. Innovation feels risky. Until it wins." - Futurist Jim Carroll

Uncertainty rewards the inventive, not the indifferent.

Recessions test everything—strategy, structure, and above all, mindset.

You are going through all that right now with the wild whiplash of this moment in time. You can't easily define strategies straight in a world in which one moment the world is up and the next is down. You can't figure out a path forward when the path keeps changing. You can't plant a flag on a foundation of certainty where there is none.

But what you can do is commit to investing in your future through innovation.

Think about it - when the world turns volatile, most companies do the typical thing - they freeze. They cut everything. Delay everything. Protect what was. Go into a mode of delay. But others take a different route: they innovate—not recklessly, but intentionally. They adapt their offerings, reframe their markets, and lean into change.

History tells us who wins.

In past downturns, the most resilient companies continued to invest in R&D, product development, and digital transformation, even as they restructured costs elsewhere. They embraced frugal innovation—creating smarter, leaner, more relevant solutions with limited resources. They used the moment to reimagine offerings for evolving customer needs.

They didn’t innovate in spite of the crisis. They innovated because of it.

These companies weren’t reckless. They were strategic.

They used volatility as a forcing function to rethink how they deliver value—and to whom.

And the results speak for themselves - they:

- captured market share: Outpaced competitors by staying relevant during volatility.

- deepened customer loyalty: Met changing needs with smarter, faster solutions.

- reimagined offerings: Pivoted products and services to fit the moment.

- streamlined structures: Transformed operations to move with greater speed.

- accelerated disruption: Fast-tracked innovation that would’ve taken years otherwise.

Meanwhile, those that chose inertia? Most never caught up. Because innovation isn’t a luxury for good times. It’s a necessity for what comes next.

In the end, volatility favors those willing to reinvent—while inertia quietly takes the rest out of the game.

Which side of the curve will you be on?

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Futurist Jim Carroll spoke on resilience and innovation in uncertainty at dozens of leadership meetings post ’01, again in ’08, and guided organizations again in ’20. He’s developed a comprehensive overview of how to move forward, not back, during an era of uncertainty. It’s being shared here and documented at https://tomorrow.jimcarroll.com

**#Innovation** **#Uncertainty** **#Resilience** **#Adaptation** **#Strategy** **#Crisis** **#Volatility** **#Future** **#Growth** **#Reinvention**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/04/decoding-tomorrow-your-daily-future-inspiration-inertia-feels-safe-until-it-isnt-innovation-feels-risky-until-it-wins/

“If you want to be part of what’s next, leave your nostalgia at the door" - Futurist Jim Carroll

You need to commit.

Yesterday, or tomorrow?

I know where I'm going. It's in my job description.

Think about it - at this very moment, we’re witnessing a battle playing out everywhere—across boardrooms, governments, industries, at parties and sports events and family get togethers. The battle is being  driven by a vainglorious and ill-fated desire to try to take things back to where they were - not to where they are going.

And one of the most important things you need. to do is make your decision - and stick to it - as to where you are headed.

It's a battle of vision vs. nostalgia.

Of strategy vs. sentimentality.

Of building what’s next vs. longing for what was.

It's really not a fair fight.

We’ve reached a point where the familiar is failing - old industries are dying, old skills are becoming irrelevant,  old knowledge is going out of date, old jobs are disappearing. In the context of that? New industries, skills, knowledge, jobs - and new opportunities.

It's called disruptive change, and it is very real. The new rule is that older stable ideas aren’t stable. Playbooks that were once reliable aren’t playable. Assumptions and strategies that served the past no longer serve the future. The fact is, the world’s moving faster than our old systems were designed to handle.

And yet—some still cling to the comfort of past success like it’s a security blanket.

But nostalgia is not a strategy. It’s a sedative.

Recessions and disruptions are not the time to shrink your ambition.

They’re a time to reshape it.

So ask yourself: Are you holding onto what used to work—or reaching for what could?

The future doesn’t wait for comfort.

It rewards courage.

#Nostalgia #Future #Change #Innovation #Adaptation #Leadership #Disruption #Vision #Strategy #Reinvention

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/04/decoding-tomorrow-your-daily-future-inspiration-if-you-want-to-be-part-of-whats-next-leave-your-nostalgia-at-the-door/

"Urgency demands optimism" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Five years ago, just about this time, millions of people found that they suddenly had to reinvent their future, due to rapidly emerging, unforeseen circumstances. One hundred years from now, those weeks and that year will be viewed as a pretty seismic event in human history; the reverberations are still shaking the foundations of everything around us, often not in a good way.

I certainly did my part to reinvent my reality, building a pretty sophisticated virtual green screen broadcast studio, the second version of which is still found in my basement. Although demand for virtual presentations has collapsed, it is still in use - later today, I'll film a short video for one of my speaker bureau partners for a marketing campaign they have underway.

One of my projects in late 2020 and early 2021 was to explore the mindset of those who were busy 'reinventing' their reality during these trying times. I ended up interviewing eight individuals about their efforts - a rock star, a fireman, an event planner, a magician, a fitness coach, an ex-con, and a pastor.

All of the video interviews ended up on a Website that lives on to this day, found at https://reinvention.jimcarroll.com

Sometime after the series concluded, I realized that there was a book to be found within all of this marvelous insight. My wife and I rewatched all of the videos, extracting the personal wisdom of each person, and eventually compiled those into my book Now What? Reinvention & The Role of Optimism in Finding Your New Future.

Fast forward: we now find ourselves with a vast set of AI tools, and I've been busy exploring how these can be used as a knowledge and productivity tool. I've mentioned that my go-to favorite is Google Notebook, which allows us to create our own little personal AI tool to examine documents, videos, Websites, and other sources of information.

I decided, as a way of looking back and forward, to create a Notebook that would 'watch' all of the original YouTube videos from this reinvention series, and compile a 'notebook' that I could then query for additional insight.

Once I linked all the videos, I asked a simple question: what is the key message to be found in all of these hour-long videos about reinvention? It popped back with today's quote - urgency demands optimism!

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The interviewees in the sources suggest that urgency is a key factor that drives individuals to reinvent themselves. The sources highlight the importance of acting fast, embracing new realities, being optimistic, and continuously learning and evolving in the face of rapid change

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That was really intriguing, so I then suggested what else it 'saw' with the idea of 'urgency.'

Read on!

**#Urgency** **#Reinvention** **#Adaptation** **#Resilience** **#Innovation** **#Action** **#Leadership** **#Transformation** **#Optimism** **#Change**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/02/daily-inspiration-personal-growth-reinvention-urgency-demands-optimism/

Daily Inspiration: "Presume, in the absence of constant action, your obsolescence"  - Futurist Jim Carroll

In 2025, as in other years, I'm going to presume that what I know at this very moment won't cut it tomorrow.

The same holds for you. Not to start this motivational bit of insight with a bit of a downer, but here are some facts that should guide you,

Not only should you presume your obsolescence, you should be guided by other realities.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your irrelevance.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your stagnation.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your vulnerability.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your insignificance.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your redundancy.

Presume, in the absence of constant action, your regression.

Worse, presume, in the absence of constant action, your downfall.

Ok, so what's with that?

The fact is, relentless change means you can't presume that anything you are doing today will be relevant tomorrow, and so you need to be cognizant of a need to relentlessly reinvent.

In the context of the previous post about knowledge acceleration, consider a few tidbits.

(lots of stuff in the post)

I could go on - every single career, profession, skill, trade, and knowledge set is going out of date faster

Why is all of this happening? Because technology is coming to be the core of almost every industry, and technology is moving faster than ever before. But it's not just that - science is moving quicker, consumer preference is changing faster, and regulatory change evolves at a rapid pace. The tools we use, the vehicles we drive, the equipment that is part of our skill set - existing things become 'things from the olden days' faster while new things emerge.
The fact is, we live in a whirlwind of change, and what we did before won't cut it for what we need to do next. Constant action is needed to avoid obsolescence, regardless of our skill, profession, or role.

#Obsolescence #Change #Action #Reinvention #Technology #Skills #Adaptation #Progress #Future #Disruption

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2024/11/daily-inspiration-25-things-for-2025-4-presume-in-the-absence-of-constant-action-your-obsolescence/