Step Into Your Future

"What does your future hold?"

Three, five, 10 or 20 years from now, what sort of world will we live in? What will the economy be like? What will the sales environment be? No one knows.

Nils Bohr, the Danish Nobel Prize winning physicist, famously said “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

In fact, the only thing we can know for certain about the future is that any predictions we make about it now will almost certainly be wrong.

In the face of this uncertainty, I believe that it is more important than ever for sellers to proactively take steps to future proof your mindset, behaviors, habits and skills in order to position yourselves to have fulfilling and successful careers now and in the future.

You might be asking what does it mean to future proof and how can you future proof yourself against an unknowable future?

To future proof does not mean to inoculate yourself against the future. There’s no vaccine for that! No living being is immune to the future. It’s coming for us whether we like it or not.

Consider future-proofing as the opposite of child-proofing. As new parents we all install child locks on kitchen and bathroom cabinets to keep curious minds from exploring their contents.

Future-proofing means to figuratively take the locks off your mind and indulge your child-like insatiable curiosity to explore your world and constantly learn new things to help you master your environment.

In other words, to future proof means to learn.

You have to seek out new knowledge to prepare yourself to take advantage of the opportunities the future presents.

In short, to become future proof is to learn how to prosper and be happy and healthy in the face of uncertainty. I don’t mean “uncertainty” in a pessimistic manner. It’s just that the future is unknowable. Personally, I find that to be a hugely exciting proposition. Do you?

What are you doing to prepare yourself for a business environment that can’t be predicted?

- Andy Paul