It is Sunday, August 9th, 2020 and I have finally mustered up the energy to write my 2nd blog post for 2020! You see, if I am to be totally transparent, this year has been a female dog if you know what I mean… The struggle has been real on all levels. I am sure you can relate.
If you are like me, you woke up this morning to another day in “The Matrix”. The world as we knew it in December 2019 seems to have vanished into thin air. Even watching TV really doesn’t provide an escape because it feels like we are living in early stages of “The Purge” with a window into how life used to be, the way we were… It really isn’t helpful or satisfying.
Think about it. There is now a permanent gap in time… a gap that started on the 29th of February with the first diagnosed case of Covid-19 in the United States. Since that time, it has swallowed up 730,000 lives globally, and over 165,000 in the USA, and counting. In addition, the gap has swallowed our economic prosperity, safety, and security lock, stock, and barrel.
The Covid-19 Pandemic gap in time is now part of the historical record of the evolution of the world, a window in time when movie and television production suddenly and abruptly ceased, then pivoted to record it for posterity. Wow!!! A gap where Zoom became life, and life became Zoom - life in perpetual self-quarantine, isolation – life in “The Matrix.”
Will we ever get back to the way things were in December 2019? Even if we can safely cross this chasm - this gap in time between the way we were, and the way we are going to be - will the new way of being even come close to the way we were? Or have we entered The Matrix never to exit? Hmmm…
All of this brings me to the difference between “Sight” and “Vision”
Sight – noun - the power or faculty of seeing; perception of objects by use of the eyes – dictionary.com
Vision – noun - the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be: (prophetic vision; the vision of an entrepreneur.) – dictionary.com
Today, I would venture to say that 100% of us use “Sight” in our daily lives. It is the ability to see things right in front of our eyes. It helps us to avoid danger. Sight is critical to survival in the here and now. Make no mistake, we are all in survival mode. But if we are to truly survive this pandemic and its attendant economic depression it will be critical that we find a way to add “Vision” and her sister “Imagination” to our daily operating reality.
This should be easy to do, right? Wrong. The sad truth is that well less than 5% of the world’s population include Vision in their daily routine.
As the definition states, Vision is “the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be”. Vision is necessary to the development of a solid view of a future-state reality different from the present one. Vision is what the "Architects of Society" live on daily. They are actively using Vision and Imagination to create a picture of what the new world order will be.
Vision and Imagination enable us to take our eyes off of the chasm, and look up and out into the future to see and shape a future-state reality that we want to experience on the other side of the pandemic induced chasm over which we are currently attempting to navigate. They help us use our properties of Sight much better and more efficiently.
Let me give you a very concrete example. The current pandemic has forced everyone to retreat into our homes and move our daily lives online as much as possible. This includes work, personal / social / dating, dining, education, shopping, and play among many other activities that we formerly included in the physical world as the fabric of daily living.
This move to “life online” has created all kinds of losses and has brought with it a healthy dose of depression as well, forcing everyone to focus on surviving Covid-19 without going crazy or becoming suicidal. In the middle of all this, many industries, including travel, hospitality, cruise, vacation / resort, restaurant, personal service, and others have tanked. However, other industries, such as telecommunications, e-commerce, e-learning, e-gaming, etc. IT consulting, and software engineering have exploded overnight.
Wise investors and entrepreneurs alike “people with Vision” have seized the opportunity to look at ways to turn what most people are just using Sight to survive, into guideposts for the creation of future-state reality. They are getting involved in creating the solution, and in so doing they are helping usher in the new future-state reality. This new future-state reality will not simply appear but will spring forth from seeds that are currently being planted and are sprouting within the fertile soil of the Covid-19 Pandemic induced gap in time. These are people who have seized upon the daily use of Vision and its sister Imagination.
Recently a friend introduced me to a webstore that pays its shoppers for their loyalty to shop for higher quality, wellness-oriented, more cost-effective life, and home maintenance products. This store is innovative in that it also pays its shoppers for referring other people to shop the store. We were having lunch one afternoon when I asked how she was surviving the pandemic. She proceeded to share how she was minimizing her excursions outside of the home as much as possible to keep her son and herself safe and healthy, but also using this quarantine time to look for ways to amplify the return on investment in her in-home activities to help shape her new future-state reality.
It was with that focus that she found this online store and began moving as much of her shopping as possible there for the obvious reasons I stated earlier. She found a way to amplify the use of Sight to survive the pandemic along with Vision and Imagination to define a new future-state reality and begin creating it now, in the middle of the pandemic. Of course, I immediately became a customer. :-)
What is interesting though, is that since most people rarely use Vision and Imagination she went on to say, when presented with a simple opportunity to shop online at a store that is cheaper, smarter, better, and safer, most can’t see it. So, they continue plodding along looking down to avoid the next pothole, hoping to just get through to the other side of the chasm where they can put on the T-Shirt that proclaims, “I Survived The Pandemic!”
The way she saw it (and the way I see it as well) is that if everyone is shopping online anyway, why not help them do it in a more innovative, personally, and financially rewarding way?
Sadly, less than 5 people in 100 have the Vision and Imagination necessary to see the transformative potential associated with how such a small change in their daily survival behaviors can plant seeds that will begin to help shape their future-state reality.
In my last post (at the beginning of this year), I made reference to the transformative character of the decade of the 2020’s where we will see the digital revolution redefine life as we know it. Digital transformation is being powered by innovations like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data science, machine learning, the internet of things - IoT, wireless mobile smart-phones & wearables, virtual/augmented reality, and social media. Built on the foundation of the last 50 years of digital innovation, I postured that life as we knew it would be fundamentally altered in profound ways by what takes shape during the decade of the 2020s on the digital landscape. Little did I know that a global pandemic would be the catalyst to accelerate that very transformation!
So, there you have it. Sight, Vision, Imagination. Sight says do not fly, but Vision says now is a great time to invest in the airlines. Sight says the malls will become ghost towns, but Vision and Imagination say let’s convert empty JCPenney and Sears stores into Amazon fulfillment centers!
As I close let me ask you a question - how much are you leveraging Vision and Imagination to drive your daily routine? Do you have a Vision for your future-state reality? If not, why not start today to create one. Take a pen and piece of paper and write down August 9, 2022 at the top. Then create a word picture of what shape you want your life to be in on that date. Think about your life in the following 8 categories:
Spiritual
Fitness and Health
Self-Improvement (Programming your Mind)
Relationships
Vocation (work, career, business)
Financial
Lifestyle
Recreation
Where are you living, what kind of work are you doing. What is the state of your finances, etc. You will be surprised at how much this simple exercise will awaken your sleeping powers of Vision and Imagination.
And oh, by the way, if you are interested in learning how you can shop the store I mentioned in this post just message me here on the site or email me at markgoalscoach@gmail.com using the "Contact Us" form below.
I’m back! Stay tuned for more good visionary content coming soon!