The Trouble With The Future Is It Ain't What It Used To Be!

By: Michael A. Aun, FIC, LUTCF, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame

The great Italian philosopher, Berra… Yogi Berra, once said, "The trouble with the future is it ain't what it used to be!" How true a statement!

I can remember the day when a President chose a Supreme Court and yet in 2000 it was just the other way around. My… how things change.

There have only been three major revolutions since the beginning of time- the agricultural revolution (from nomads to farming). The second was the beginning of the 1700's, and it began in England (the industrial revolution). We went from making things by hand to making them by machine. The third happened in the 1960's, the technological revolution.

Did 9/11 end or severely modify this? No, it stunted it, and it stalled the business of speaking and consulting for many of us. The survivors found a way around it, understanding that the future isn't what it used to be.

Here are some truths. TRUTH: The Enrons and Arthur Andersen's of the world have undermined society. We need to get back to truths, and it's not a hard fix. We just need to make "stealing" illegal again.

TRUTH: most of us refer to our customers as clients. Only two businesses in the world refer to their clients as users- the computer industry and guys based out of Colombia, South America.

TRUTH: The dot com's of the world that crashed were actually a "thinning of the herd." Many weren't really our clients at all- they existed as an idea only.

Over 100 years ago, the automobile was invented and over 2000 automobile companies sprang up, only to be thinned down to the big three a century later. Did this mean the automobile was a bad idea? No, it simply meant we didn't need 2000 companies building them.

Every guy with the latest, greatest dot com idea doesn't succeed. The truth is many go the way of the other 1997 automobile companies. Disasters in the tech markets won't change this; they will simply change the names and numbers of the players.

TRUTH: globalization is not a new idea. The new cardinal sin is to allow a competitor to "globalize" your idea and then use it against you. A computer company in Texas has its computer programmer's work on an idea from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It then turns the ideas over to its programmers half a world away in India who work on it while the other guys sleep. They were able to bring the idea to fruition twice as fast. It didn't make it a better idea; they just got it out quicker.

TRUTH: the free market system holds many answers, but not all of them. It has its flaws. Having just visited Cuba, it occurred to me that Havana is like a "Six Flags Over Communism," where the National Anthem is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Just because education and medical care are free there, it doesn't mean they are "better." I think children in some of our worst ghettos get a better education than those kids. Communism doesn't work; free markets do. It's our job to sell this message within our message.

TRUTH: China has been the world's leading economic power throughout history. The last 90 years has just been a blip on the screen. The Chinese will regain number one economic status. Having worked a lot in the heavy equipment industry, over 50% of the world's construction equipment is in Shanghai.

TRUTH: as big banks continue to merge and eat smaller competitors, they closely resemble dinosaurs mating. Bigger doesn't always mean better. The highest profit banks today are many of the smaller state banks that have carved out a niche for themselves.

TRUTH: oil and water will become the two most important resources in the new millennium.

TRUTH: Communism to capitalism without "cronyism" won't happen.

TRUTH: the triad- the United States, Europe and Japan, all have an aging population. The most dangerous concern in any society is to have a large population of its young people without opportunity. Why is Osama Bin Ladin so evil? The more important question is "why do they follow him?" Because they lack opportunity and they have nothing to lose. We will have to nurture trade with these emerging societies or we'll face more 9/11's in the future. It's the only way to make those societies self-sufficient and to ease the immigration problem for North America.

TRUTH: those societies that deprive women of an education deprive themselves of half of its most valuable resources. Women live longer and are emerging as the world's decision makers. In my local Home Depot, there's a sign: "men choosing colors must have a note from their wives."

As Yogi said, "the future ain't what it used to be."