What's Coming?

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from Jim Cathcart 00:17 a variety of industries. Speaker A 00:19 And our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Jim Cathcart 00:38 Here we go. Yes, sir. This is Wisdom Parlor. And I want to welcome everybody to the New Year. And welcome everybody to the Wisdom Parlor. And we're going to, I'm going to throw it over here to Trigger in a moment and he's going to kick us off. And oh, by the way, let me brag about my new new toy. This was my Christmas gift. Got a brand new cowboy hat and a role model for the cowboy hat. In other words, when I was shopping, who do I want to look like? Rip on Yellowstone. Speaker C 01:17 But doesn't cover your ears like it's supposed to because it goes right to your ears, you know. And you know, you don't want that sunburn right there, man. You know, you're out riding. Jim Cathcart 01:24 Yeah, well, I like it kind of curled up like this. A lot of people like, you know, with, with it out like that. Hey, Laban, how are you doing? Merry Christmas. Happy New Year to you all and thank you. Great to see everybody. Well, Trigger, letter Rip, yo, let me Speaker C 01:46 get this set here. And welcome. Welcome to 2024 and the Wisdom Parlor, the first episode of 2024 here. My name is Rich Bontrager, co hosting with Jim Cathcart, the Wisdom Parlor. And as we open up today, Jim's Jim Cathcart 02:02 going to have us all stop and Speaker C 02:03 ponder and consider the big question of what's coming. That's it. So as, as, as we can go on today, start thinking about that. Prepare your thoughts a little bit. But as just as we get rolling here, once again, as Wisdom Parlor opens back up, the forum is to discuss important ideas. It's not a debate, it's not a forum for political religious issues. Is a place where wisdom will emerge from people who are committed to making the world a better place. And don't we all need that? Jim Cathcart 02:29 Right? Speaker C 02:30 Please do not self promote or campaign for any company or any issues. Just really enjoy the thoughtful conversation and speak up and share. By the way, the show is sponsored by the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy, a 12 month mentorship that results in people receiving the CPE, the Certified Professional designation. And to book a call with Jim and determine if you're grateful for that, you can email Jim at. Jim Cathcart.com and we'll also put a link in the chat as well for you to book a call directly or get a free copy of Jim's book, what to do when you are the speaker. And that's free.cathcart.com Yep. All right. Jim is our hope. He's got 25 books delivered for three, Jim Cathcart 03:13 3,000 foreign highly paid lectures around the world. Speaker C 03:17 He's received the top. He is the top 1% of the 1% of the world's professional speakers. He's a leader, he's a mentor, he's an influencer. We all know him, we all love him. Here's Jim Cathcart. Jim Cathcart 03:29 Thank you, Trigger. Good job on that. Good job. I can't wait to hear me. Oh, welcome everybody and happy New Year again. Wow. I'm going next week. Not next week, Saturday. I'm going to China again. I got a call from my agent over there, Dr. David Chu, and he said, jim, we want to bring you back. And so it's kind of a big deal for me because that was a huge, huge, successful run from 2015 through December of 2019. So I'm going back January 8th. I'm speaking in Yang something. You know, one of the, one of the minor Chinese cities that only has 10 million population. It's it seriously, it's a town I've never heard of and I've been in 23 major cities over there and this one's got 10 million. So it's considered a second tier city. And I'll be speaking all day long and staying for a week. I'll be back home on the 15th. Today's topic, what's coming? Several years ago, no more than several 2001 after 9 11, I was in Thousand Oaks, California. The world was in a panic. Certainly America was. People didn't know if we were in World War 3 or what was going on. But we did know all airplanes had stopped flying and anything we were going to do, we were going to have to do it within either walking distance or bicycling distance of our home because we didn't even know if we'd be able to get fuel for our vehicles to go any further than local area. So I put together the 101 leaders alliance and I got the Ventura county sheriff and the head of the dean of the School of Business at Pepperdine, the dean of the School of Management at Cal Lutheran University. I got the head of the Reagan foundation, guy named Duke Blackwood, the Reagan Presidential Library. And I got a number of others involved and we held a summit called 101 Leaders Alliance Summit and we brought all of the non profit people from the 12 different communities that were in a 43 mile area of Highway 101 between Woodland Hills and Carpenteria, which is on the way to Santa Barbara. And in that 43 mile stretch there were these 12 communities, each of which had a mayor, each of which had a school board, you know, and sheriff or whatever. So there were lots of the obvious offices that a city would have represented in those 12 different towns. And I figured if we're going to do anything and make a difference, then we need to get all the people that are doing a duplication of what their neighbors are doing together and say, hey, let's join hands and teach people how to thrive and survive in their own neighborhoods. Let's teach ground level leadership. And so they all agreed to do that and we held this event. So I've got, I don't know, 100 plus people in my audience that day in Thousand Oaks, California. And I stepped to the mic and I posed the question, what's coming? Now consider what I just told you. Everyone had just been through the experience of September 11, 2001. We didn't know if we were at war with the world or what was coming. We just knew there was a tragedy and everything had shut down way worse than Covid. But it didn't last like Covid did. So I posed that question and they sat there looking kind of deer in headlights, stunned. And I said, let me answer my own question. We don't know what's coming. There's no way we could know what's coming. You know when people say I'm envisioning the future, what they're doing is guessing because we don't look toward the future and see it coming. The future is a mystery to us. All we can look at is the present and the past, and the future surprises us from behind. So if you realize we never know what's coming, then how on earth could a person reasonably go about their day to day living? Well, you place your bets and you take your chances that people were. Shouldn't you bet wisely? Yes. What do we know is coming? We know winter's coming, but we don't know if it'll be a bad one or a good one. We don't know exactly what day the cold weather starts, but we know what day on the calendar is officially considered winter. We know spring is coming. We know lots of things are coming. Because in life and in business and in society, there are cycles. But Those cycles are imprecise, so we can't know exactly when. We know our business will ebb and flow and there will be boom times and times of, of scarcity. So if we know what's possible that could be coming, then the best strategy is to prepare for as many of those things as we reasonably can. And that way, when it arrives, we're better prepared, better equipped, better positioned to take advantage of it than anybody else. This morning I got a call. No, I didn't. Got an email from a guy I'd never heard of before. He said, I'm a production company and I'm doing a program for a, a large agricultural company. Turns out it's International Harvester Case International Harvester. And they're holding a conference coming up and they said the theme we're using is our season is here and we would like to know what you might do as our keynote speaker for that conference. So I got inspired and I just sat down and wrote the whole speech in outline form, not in verbatim. And I built it around this theme of what's coming, you know, you know the season's coming. So what do you do to make sure it's our season? Well, years ago I did a Toastmasters Golden Gavel speech. I received that big award from them back in, coincidentally, 2001, the month before 9, 11. In that speech, I said, what you expect determines what you get ready for. What you get ready for determines whether it's your opportunity or somebody else's. Because if opportunity arrives and you weren't paying attention or didn't have your act together, then that opportunity gets captured by somebody else and you missed your moment, your window of opportunity. Right. So question number one, what's coming? Question number two is what can we reasonably get ready for to put us in a position so that whatever comes, it ends up being our opportunity. Now I'm going to throw it open for, for questions and discussion here in a minute, but during that time, I want you to actually talk about what you think may be coming. You know, this could be a scary dialogue or it could be an optimistic dialogue. Let's just look at both sides of the equation. What do we know is probably going to come and how can we determine that? Maybe we could twist that to our advantage instead of disadvantage. My co author of the book relationship selling 2024 edition. Pause. What? Jim, I thought you wrote that in 1985. I did. And rewrote that in 2002. I did. And rewrote THAT in 2015. I did. But Victor Antonio powerful sales trainer colleague of mine, he and I connected at the NSA convention this year and he said we ought to do something together. I love your book Relationship Selling. I said, let's do that. Let's revise it for 2024. Because Victor's specialty is AI and technology and speaking, and mine is relationship selling, obviously. And so we're doing Relationship Selling subtitle treating human connections as business assets. And so we're using the leveraging of technology as a feature to revise that content. So he wrote an article that I got an email about this morning. I just want to read you the headline off of it, 10 reasons why selling in a Recession Is Good says Number one. Milton Friedman, the economist in his book Free to Choose, said most of your competitors will struggle or better yet, cease to exist if they're a main competitor during a recession. So less competition makes means more opportunities. Also, it's easier to reach people in tough times because not as many are calling. And when things are going well, the clients tend not to buy new things. When things are not going well, they tend to look for new things. So, you know, lots of, lots of reasons why selling in a recession is a positive thing, not necessarily a negative thing. And here's another factor. What's coming News, newspapers. The number of newspapers being published has declined precipitously. I mean, it, it's enormous. The number that have gone out of business. Let's see, just a second. I'll decline in news outlets. This is AP Associated Press. Just yesterday, I think decline in local news outlets is accelerating despite all the efforts to help. Since 2005, the nation has lost one third of its newspapers and 2/3 of its newspaper journalists. An average of 2 1/2 newspapers closed every week last year compared to two a week the previous year. At the current pace, the country will have 3,000 newspapers closed in two decades as of sometime this year, with just other 6,000 left and 43, 000 journalists losing their jobs. That's kind of a big deal and it's got implications. So let me stop talking about news and things that are coming and let's throw it over to you and let's find out what you think is coming and what your observations are about some of those things I just shared. Speaker C 15:37 Laban, jump right in here, man. Jim Cathcart 15:40 Thank you, Rich. Speaker D 15:43 The timing of this is really interesting, guys. We're in Medellin, Colombia now. We've been traveling for the last couple years. We're going to sit over here for the foreseeable. My wife's visa was Denied to the US So we had to get out of there quick. Smart. I met a guy here who's become a coach. Jim Cathcart 16:00 He's a spiritual coach. Speaker D 16:01 And I've been meditating a lot. And what's been coming up in these meditations is to delete all of my social media. And so I did. The reason being there's a few reasons, but I was becoming addicted to the doom scrolling, trying to educate myself with what. What was the truth. And I realized so much of it was out of my control that I was just causing myself great levels of anxiety. Where we should be. I don't, you know, we were in Melbourne during the lockdowns. Australia, which is, you know, two years of lockdowns nearly. There's some PTSD from that I realized and I was just like, I've had enough. So I deleted a 17 year Facebook account, 12 years of Instagram, my ex. My Tick Tock account. And the only reason I haven't deleted my LinkedIn is because it wouldn't let me yet. And I'm taking that as sign from the universe that I should probably maybe hold onto that. And I have kept my podcast and the YouTube channel, which is where I post all my things still, because I, I think that would be disrespectful to the 200 something guests that I've interviewed. To delete that. Jim Cathcart 17:25 Yeah. Speaker D 17:26 So that. Jim Cathcart 17:27 To be active on it, to have it, you know, you can be inactive and not checking it and just let it sit there. Speaker D 17:34 Yeah, exactly. Right. So none of the apps really exist on my phone at all. Jim Cathcart 17:39 Well, that's a pretty. What are, what are the implications? What, what have you felt as repercussions of tuning out that way? Speaker D 17:51 Honestly, immediate relief. I felt like a huge weight come off my shoulders. And the part of the other reason that I've done this is that I need some time to recreate Laban 3.0. For those that know me, you will know my story. For those who don't, I've already gone through a big transformation. I've already done the big sobriety thing and I need another iteration. So now it's because I don't have the distraction of social media or the escapism component. I've already come up with unbelievable ideas about how when I do decide to reemerge if on social media again, it will be with the Cal Newport be so good they can't ignore me kind of thing. Jim Cathcart 18:38 Yeah. Speaker D 18:39 And. And I don't want to officially launch anything today, but literally the idea that's come to me and I've spent the last two hours before I jumped on here was launching what I'm going to call the Honesty Project. And the Honesty Project is a movement that will, and I don't know all the details yet, but it's around through the power of vulnerability. And the first line that I wrote is Monday, January 26, 1998. President Bill Clinton is about to address the world. You know what, folks, I'm sorry, I did have sexual relations with that woman. Jim Cathcart 19:23 Miss the whiskey. Speaker D 19:25 Like what, what ramifications would have that had, what flow on effect would that have had in all of society if he had done that? And so that's kind of the I, the ideas thinking behind it. And just when you talk about what's coming, I don't know. So I'm going to focus on controlling what I can control. Otherwise I'll go and slip my wrist. Yeah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 19:52 What's the old side? I don't remember the, the source, but it's control what you can control. Oh, it's, it's a serenity prayer. God grant serenity to control the things I can control, to accept the things I cannot control, and the wisdom to know the difference. Yeah, yeah. Pamela, I'd love to get your observations on what we're talking about, not just hitchhiking on each other's comments, but the topic overall as well. Speaker E 20:25 So what I hope is coming is a lot more consciousness about leadership because culture flows from the top of whatever mountain you're on. It always comes down into the. It seeps in through whatever enterprise is under that leadership. And that's just a universal principle. So I've been putting a lot of time and energy myself into the leadership mindfulness realm. My promise to the world is that leaders lead with integrity, with love, and listen to people's greatness. The last of those two is really hard to do. If you've ever tried to listen to somebody's greatness whose opinions you don't agree with, that's not so easy. But when you talk about looking forward, Jim, if I look forward with hope that I'm to your point, I'm probably going to see some hope. And if I look forward with despair, I'm probably going to feel some despair. I'm about as excited about 2024 as I've been excited about anything for a really long time because I invested a lot of creative energy in 22 or 20 that I'm now ready to manifest. So I have a positive view on 2024, but I can certainly turn my head that way and get really negative in a hurry, can't I? Yeah, right. Or look over there. Oh, no. Right. And so. And so I have to be responsible in 2024 for where I look. That's to your point, Laban. I have not gotten off of Facebook. I just never go there. Every once in a while I'll look at somebody's post, but that's about it. I don't have. Well, I have a Twitter account. I don't go there either. I have an Instagram account. I don't go there either. I don't think I ever got on text, but, you know, like that. It's like. It's like. Yeah, no, those are not the places I would go. But I definitely keep LinkedIn and YouTube for the same reasons that you would do it. But not with the population of followers you seem to have. Jim Cathcart 22:42 Well, yeah. However, what I was going to say, there's optimist, pessimists, and then there's a third group that call themselves. I'm not an optimist. I'm not a pessimist. I'm a Speaker E 22:54 realist. Jim Cathcart 22:55 Realist. And I've found through extended study that a realist is a pessimist and won't admit it. That's right, because an optimist looks at reality, and that wasn't a joke, by the way, although it's funny. An optimist looks at reality and sees the possibilities, or at least seeks s E e k s the possibilities. A pessimist looks at reality and sees the limitations and assumes, based on that, that inaction or defeat or, you know, given up earlier, whatever is the best way to proceed. Unrealistic assessment of the situation doesn't lead to optimism or pessimism. It leads to delusion. So an optimist needs a real assessment of the reality, but with the assumption somehow, somewhere, with somebody's help, there's a way. Pessimist just needs healing because they're looking at it and all they can see is the obvious, you know, the things right in front of them, and they assume those are permanent. And by the way, limitations are never permanent. Every major limitation we've ever run across, every major barrier, impossibility we've ever run across, sooner or later gets eliminated. And they go, oh, well, it wasn't possible when I was doing it, you know, maybe it is now. Yeah. Speaker E 24:26 Yes. I think. I think the Bible said, as you believe, so shall I, so shall it be done to you or with, for you, or as you. Jim Cathcart 24:35 And that's whatsoever you ask him, believing you, shall you Know you shall receive. The point in that is not to focus on prayer, but belief. Right? Speaker E 24:49 Yeah, yeah, same person, other chapter. Right. I mean that's the, that's the prayer principle under which a lot of what comes along comes on. That's why everybody's got a different experience in the same space. Jim Cathcart 25:05 Exactly. Speaker E 25:05 Because there's got to be something we could act upon that creates our own version of reality. I mean I walk past the homeless every day and they're not, they're not looking the same place as I am for reality. Jim Cathcart 25:18 Truly, truly not. Dennis, I know you've got views on this because we've been communicating about it wisdom with us today. Speaker F 25:33 I don't know exactly what's coming other than a, a new baby granddaughter next month. So here at the Madden household we are super excited about that. And she will have a three year old big brother. And so he's a lot of fun. You may hear him every now and again outside my door screaming while he's playing. That I do know for sure is coming. Jim Cathcart 25:59 Kind of interesting. Speaker F 26:00 We talked about, Le Bon was talking about getting rid of his social media and Pamela mentioned that she doesn't get to it very often. I try to put a limit of one hour of screen time on my phone and Jim knows I've been working on that for quite some time. So I'll look at it pretty regularly to make sure that I'm, I'm staying on track. But I don't get too caught up with social media. Although I, I just recently Learned how powerful LinkedIn is for business. And so I have struck up some conversations with people and sort of getting my feet wet. I haven't used it to speak of until about four or five months ago. And so I'm fostering some relationships and, and having some business discussion and, and something Jim, as you were, were talking about what's coming and you know, the seasons. I wrote down the word preparation while you were doing that and I. Wow. Because then you said it right afterward. And that's my approach for 2024 is to be as well prepared for opportunity as it happens. And one thing I've learned is opportunity is everywhere. We just simply don't recognize it when we see it. And so sometimes if I have something in particular that I want to work toward, I've made a habit of putting it on my bathroom mirror. And so every morning when I get up I see it. And every evening when I go to bed I see it. And what it does is it keeps my mind constantly focused on that and it might sound silly, but when opportunity that aligns with that arrives. Guess what? I got a hold of it. Jim Cathcart 28:05 That's right. Because you're ready. Speaker F 28:07 So that's my approach for 2024. I don't have a too much of an idea of what to expect. I do have three books that I'm working on. So I have to make a decision Jim Cathcart 28:19 on, you say, working on you writing them or reading them? Writing them. Okay, very good. By the way, Frank McGuire, who some of you will know, Frank was. He passed away a few years ago. He was professional speaker, but before that he was an executive with FedEx. And he's the guy who was leading the focus group where a guy in the audience that day said, hey. He said, I. I don't know how to tell you what I need or what I want the company to do, but here's what I do want. I want to know if I give you guys a package at FedEx, that it's absolutely positivity, gonna be there overnight. And Frank went and that became their company slogan when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. So Frank McGuire, one of his slogans used to be, opportunity is now here. Now, if you spell it without the space, its opportunity is nowhere. But if you put a space between the W and H, its opportunity is now here. And it's just a matter of perspective. Same letters, same words, different meaning altogether. And you're right, Dennis. So if, if we know sooner or later there's going to be a recession, you know, sooner or later, the $34 trillion of national debt is going to be such a burden that our economy is going to have to go belly up for a while? Okay, how long? Who knows? How bad? Who knows? But it ain't going to be comfortable. So what can we do today to be in a position where when that occurs, we jump forward instead of falling backwards, instead of building up defenses and creating more things to hide behind, build up assets and put yourself in a better position to bail forward if you're going to fail at anything and get yourself more visible in the marketplace, more present as being seen as a solution source, not just as a provider trigger. What are your observations on this? Speaker C 30:50 So when you were reading the part about the newspapers, slowly dissolve it. But of course, I've been in the media space most of my career, but I actually did work for two different newspapers for a while. And while in Georgia, they literally not just restructured, they let go of two major buildings. Jim Cathcart 31:11 Wow. Speaker C 31:12 And said, gone, like now. And you can see it. And this is now five years ago you could see it even then that the brick and mortar print space was completely crumbling and going to online online and it even I mean exhibited like, like those numbers. So it's interesting that Laban you kicked off that you're dissolving and pulling back from social media as regular media is literally being redefined as we watched all that. So what's coming next? I, I, I really my heart heart please be going to have a completely different structure of communication for business life work. I, I think people are over done by social media and I'm and I make a lot of my career in that business. So I say that knowing what I'm saying that I, I think there's a lot of burnout. We're all hypersensitive to it like layman was talking to But I think we're at a point where relationship is going back up again at a high level of interpersonal. Let's get to know you and no more short conversation. Let's have deep long lasting ones and one of the last time that collectively we've had that. Jim Cathcart 32:25 Yep. Speaker C 32:25 What was that? Jim Cathcart 32:26 Parlors instead of interviews. Yep. Speaker C 32:29 Yes. And the tide swinging going, going that direction. So how do we prepare for the fact that. And there was another CEO I was talking to. He said we've gotten so good at being non personal. This is painful to learn how to be personal again. Jim Cathcart 32:46 Yeah. And that's very painful. You know impersonal. That's pretty much discounting the presence of the other person. Non personal means just acknowledging, not acknowledging the right impact on the other person and, and personal is where all the joy and power is. Absolutely. I saw in line with your comment and continuing the newspapers going out of business concept in that article a couple of days ago in the AP it was talking about the fact that people still want the news and they want it regularly but they tend not to have switched over to social media and seeking news in the way that they were getting it from newspapers and magazines and the traditional sources in the past. They tend to switch over and explore intelligently or intentionally I guess a better word only when there's a need. You know like when some emergency has occurred or when they were stuck during COVID and they didn't have any other options. Of course they went online seeking human engagement. John Nesbitt years ago wrote the book let's see Future shock was Alvin Toffler. John Nesbitt was megatrends and megatrends. The sort of the keeper quote out of that whole book was in times of high tech People seek high touch. And that's happening more and more and more because we're getting to where Alvin Toffler's book 1970 Future Shock, he said, in the future, the biggest question we will have, and he's correct, by the way, is what can I trust? Who can I trust? Okay, I'll go on top three. Speaker C 34:46 I was going to go to next. Jim Cathcart 34:47 Where is honesty? Yeah, go ahead, Trigger. Speaker C 34:49 No, no, that's exactly. I was going to go next because there's major studies coming out and education experts are really, really, really concerned what the shutdown did with students who have not gone on the college. The way behind studies. Social skills are off the real. Those bad, terribly bad with social skills. And so the question is, how do they get back in the game of relationship? And they don't trust anybody at all. And they're our future leaders. Yeah, you're, you're touching on exactly what I was going to bring in next was who do you trust and how do you know you can trust them now? Because we've all been fooled. And as the old song by the Hugos, don't get fooled again. Yeah, we've all been well fused too many times. That's a huge issue right now across the globe, I think. So it impacts all of this and the generation. Jim Cathcart 35:39 They've got a new name for the generation. The kids that are 13 years or older at this point. I've forgotten what they call them. But, but it's, it's not Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen X. It's not another iteration of that. It was a totally new twist on naming lost for it. It's kind of like Generation Skeptic is what it boils down to. They, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I've seen that before. Yeah, that's a I or yeah, okay, Boomer, you know, or whatever. They discount the source just without even looking at the information. By the way, quick, quick illustration for your mind. I saw a picture of a bunch of people on a commuter train. Everyone doing this. You know, every single one of them was into their cell phone and the comment at the bottom was something like, oh my God, isn't social media awful? Okay. And then one of the comments on it included a photograph from 50 years ago from a commuter train. Every person was buried in a newspaper, every single one of them. We've just changed the form of what we're immersed in. But the difference was newspapers covered a wide variety of subjects. So you got kind of a liberal education day to day. It was great breakfast thinking because people would sit there with their morning coffee and they would read their newspaper and they would find out what's going on locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, usually in that order. And there were two newspapers in town, minimum. One was more of a liberal point of view and one more conservative point of view. And now today, if there's a newspaper in town, it's one. So there's only one point of view. Like when I grew up in Little Rock, it was the Arkansas Democrat Liberal and Arkansas Gazette Conservative. Well, today that newspaper is called the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. And they do not represent two points of view. They represent one point of view. So, you know, that's it. Plus there was the comics. You know, the funny papers was a reason to get up in the morning, not breakfast. There was the comic strips. Laban, you had your hand up. Speaker D 38:14 A quick question for everyone. Has everyone here heard of Project Mockingbird by quick show of hand? Jim Cathcart 38:21 Nope. Speaker D 38:23 So Project Mockingbird, this is all public domain. Don't take my word for it. You research, this is all Freedom Information act. So the CIA, post World War II, infiltrated all of the media in North America to subvert the ideologies and the agendas that they had. And they've been in there ever since. And so when you talk about what's coming, for me, hearing all those newspapers shutting down is actually, I think great, great news because if you, if you get that system out and rely on more independent media to actually share the truth. And this is why this, this because my whole philosophy is I just want to know the truth so I can make an informed decision. Speaker F 39:18 Right. Speaker D 39:18 Most people think everyone in the area. Yeah, everyone, yeah, everyone seeks the truth. And I, and this is why. And I've been, you know, I've lived in, I'm in my eighth country now and I've been to 30 odd and I've witnessed things that have been reported on in the news. And I, and I'm like, that didn't happen. So imagine if, if what they did report actually happened. Jim Cathcart 39:41 Yeah. Speaker D 39:42 And you talk about the gen, the young generation that are completely disillusioned. Like that's. I think that's one way of starting to heal the, the damage done from the huge amount of malarkey that's been perpetrated. Yeah, My thoughts. Jim Cathcart 39:58 Yeah, there's certainly bias in the media and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole and talk about the media bias and all that. I want to stick to the main theme though, that was relevant. So thank you for sharing that. The main question is what's coming and how can we get a general sense so that we can prepare intelligently? Greg, what are your thoughts on all this? Speaker G 40:25 You know, the way that things are rapidly changing is so much so that we're having a hard time keeping up. Right. And so in order for us to be effective, right, in whatever we're doing, we need to go ahead and just use the technologies, use the processes that are in place. But yet, in my view, we also need to be have forward thinking of what's coming next. Right. We see AI coming down the pipeline. Right. We've just scratched the surface. There's going to be a lot of negative, you know, things on AI. There's going to be a lot of positive just like anything else. So what we need to do, instead of digging our heels in to the ways that we've done it, go ahead and use the new advancements to our advantages so that we can actually do the right. The things the right way so that it'll be effective for us to grow our businesses and add value to, to civilization, basically. Right. Jim Cathcart 41:30 Remember when the Internet was new and everyone was afraid that it was all about porn, you know, that you were going to get drawn into some, some pornographic black hole or something like that? I remember even, oh, gosh, quick little joke. This is the truth, but it's funny. Tony Alessandra, my former business partner, he and I were in San Diego, La Jolla. We had built our business and Tony had some videos that he had done of speeches and he wanted to get them reproduced to send out as products to sell to clients. And so he sent them to a duplication house and they duplicated like hundreds of these things. And he fulfilled an order placed by IBM headquarters in New York for his videos. So he sends them all off. IBM calls him and says, tony, we need to have a serious talk. And he said, what, what, what's wrong? Didn't. Didn't you get the videos? We got the videos. They said, well, I don't understand. They said, we sent out the videos and all our trainers started using them in their classes. And then they realized at the end of the video, if you would leave it running, you would see the rest of the porn show that it was recorded over. The duplication house had used previous footage of hardcore pornography and put Tony's white Bread America training video on top of that. Oh, my God. I mean, we were so humiliated and Tony was just mortified and of course, you know, refunds and everything. But that didn't make it go away. It was just, it was a Horribly embarrassing moment. But, you know, if you don't have integrity and that happens, you're toast. If you do have integrity and that happens, you can build back. But the bruise will be felt for a while. Trigger, go ahead. Speaker D 43:47 Yeah. Speaker C 43:48 Craig said something at the very beginning that the rapidness of change. Just think about the AI. All the rapids have changed that we've had just in this one last year. Jim Cathcart 44:02 Yeah. Speaker C 44:03 How many of us saw, how many of us expected AI to go from here to here? I didn't. Jim Cathcart 44:10 Yeah, I was surprised by it. Till September or something like that. You know, ask a question. What is it all of a sudden straight up. Right. Speaker C 44:20 So. So your question of what's coming is. I don't think we have a sticking clue what's coming, to be really honest. I think it's changing that fast, like Craig was saying. So how do we prepare for a landscape that is changing and we don't have any pre notices. Jim Cathcart 44:37 Exactly. Speaker C 44:38 Really? That's how fast some of this is coming on. I mean, think about those. I was watching old TV show last night and it's only maybe 10 years old. They were still using VCR. Jim Cathcart 44:50 Yeah. Speaker C 44:52 A student today doesn't know what a VCR was and that's like 10 years old. Guys. Jim Cathcart 44:57 I know. Speaker C 44:57 Do we know what's coming on the line and how do we help being the wise owls, being the boomers, as Jim said, how do we be the wise owls in the room to say it's okay, don't panic, because we don't know either? Is it okay to admit that we don't know and we don't know, but we're okay? Jim Cathcart 45:17 I think so. By the way, we know in 2024 that election's coming. So we know there will be an overload of misinformation from both sides of the aisle all year long. And we will be, you know, lied to, manipulated, positioned to believe things that aren't necessarily so, and there will be little ISIS of truth hidden within all of that that will be in need of gleaning because most of us aren't like Iowa and New Hampshire. We don't have face to face time with all the candidates and local caucuses and open discussions. And, you know, we're not nearly that enlightened. We are like a hundred times less so, if not a thousand times less so in most of the states around the nation. So we know that's coming. And we've got a world that's gotten dangerous enough with the, the, you know, millions of immigrants, with the crime rampant on the Streets with the homeless situation with, you know, name your poison, all those things piling up all around us. We got plenty of threats, that's no problem. So can we afford to make any of our voting decisions, local, regional, state or national? Can we afford to make any of our voting decisions based on the candidate we like? I propose we can't. I think we need to be able to figure out how to suspend how we feel about people and look at what policies are likely to be put in place by those people and vote for at least one season in that way, suspending the other. Dennis? Speaker F 47:13 Yeah, I'm convinced, being a native Californian who recently escaped to Nevada, I'm convinced that when the governor recall vote took place a couple years ago that Gavin Newsom remained in office because he has great hair. Jim Cathcart 47:32 Yeah, yeah. Because he looks good on camera. Speaker D 47:36 Yes. Jim Cathcart 47:36 And he's articulate, of course. Yeah. Speaker C 47:38 But, yeah, there was a news clip last night that really stuck with me. Very emotional, younger generation guy, probably in his late 20s, 30s, and they're asking him this whole conflict with Trump and he's like, I think, I know I'm going to vote, but I don't want to waste my vote because right now he's running, but he could be excluded from the majority of states, but I want to vote, but I don't want to waste my vote. He was, you could see the emotion on this, this guy's face of what do I do with my vote? Because it's important. Jim Cathcart 48:13 Yeah. Speaker C 48:13 Now that's just one example because you don't know what's going to happen, what other political mayhem anyone's going to get in. And everyone's now realizing it matters greatly. But how do you evaluate, Jim? Jim Cathcart 48:23 How do you prepare for this? Go ahead, Dennis. Speaker F 48:27 Yeah, sorry to keep talking, but Trigger reminded me of something earlier and just now reinforced it, and that is, I was talking to a friend of mine this morning who has several 20 somethings who work for him and what he's discovered is they are so terrified of failing that they do nothing. It goes right along the lines of what you said, Trigger, that being concerned about the, the result of their actions so the, it paralyzes them. And I, I found that absolutely amazing. I never would have thought of that. Jim Cathcart 49:10 Yep. Except in a book I read recently, Dramatic Pause. The Loser by Dennis Madden, the Man who Just Spoke, he explores that at some depth. How abject failures can lead a revolution. Follow the Loser by Dennis Madden. It's a fascinating read. It's a good book. Speaker C 49:35 Hey, Dennis, how much do you pay him every time he pumps you out, you know, do you have some sort of residual contact? You know, they eat a little fee for Laban. Jim Cathcart 49:45 Go for it. Speaker F 49:46 Between Jim and I. Yeah, no, I Speaker D 49:48 said I was just going to say. Wife and I were in the US Predominantly Tampa for about five to six months before we came to, to Medellin. And one dramatic difference. Obviously, it's a Spanish speaking nation, but the exposure to politics, especially coming off social media, has dropped by about 999%. And I incidentally, I feel about 999 better. Jim Cathcart 50:20 That's all that you're back to normal experiences. Speaker D 50:24 And I'm not encouraging people to up and leave, you know, the United States. But what I would say is that the quality of life on 2500 US dollars a month in this country is phenomenal. So if you are, if you're earning more than that, you can live like a literal king. Jim Cathcart 50:48 Remarkable. I've not been to Medellin, but I. Well, except the airport. I've been to Bogota a number of times and so I've got a fairly good familiarity with the country. I've been to Cartagena. Yeah. The medical system. Speaker D 51:05 The country's rated, I think it's about 26th in the world and the United States is 54th. Just to give you an idea, get your teeth done. Jim Cathcart 51:12 So neck, nothing remote. Speaker C 51:16 Jim, let me turn the tables on you, as you've been hearing from everyone here. Jim Cathcart 51:20 Yeah. Speaker C 51:20 What's your take on what's next? Jim Cathcart 51:24 I think that we are in for a big economic adjustment sometime in the not distant future. It could happen suddenly, like, like a market crash, or it could happen, you know, stretched over a longer period of time. But I think that's inevitable because, you know, I've been in business 46 years full time, doing what I do today, and I've ridden through all those various crashes and recessions and cutbacks and whatever else you call them. So I know that's coming sooner or later. And I think we need to be positioning ourselves to when that happens, push forward instead of falling back. I think the insanity of the election this year is going to be as great as it was in the past. I personally predicted that Joe Biden will not be the final candidate for the Democrat Party, nor will Kamala Harris, although they might be in the mix. Personally, I seriously doubt Trump will end up being the candidate for the Republicans, but all the indicators today would say that's absurd. Jim, of course he is. Look at the numbers. But then again, you know, look at the numbers on a Lot of things going backwards. So I think it's going to be a different world. I think AI is going to scare that out of us. In case you didn't hear that word, that's because it wasn't there. But I really think it's going to terrify us with its. Its potential. And we're going to be looking desperately for who can I trust? What is real? How do I know? Oh, my gosh, how do I protect myself from. You know, up to now, we've called it spam. There may be a new name that comes about once AI is fully weaponized by all the bad guys, but I think it's got the potential to counteract itself in the hands of the good guys. If you look at what Elon Musk is doing, man, you know, you get a few people like him out there and things turn out quite profoundly different. Let me read you just a quick little item from a post today done by Elon Musk versus Elizabeth Warren. But it's not about that. It's talking about makers and takers, and it was written by John Stossel and it was published this morning. Warren says tax the rich, especially Musk, because he's the richest man in the world. And she says he paid zero federal taxes in 2018, which is true, but he paid 12 billion in taxes, not for personal income, because his personal income was in stock options and he had no income, formal income. But that same year, he paid 12 billion in government taxes, which is more tax than anyone has ever paid in history. And it goes on to talk about all the good things that he's doing and all the like. When SpaceX built a rocket, NASA had spent $1,500 on door latches. Musk's team built the same part for 30 bucks. By modifying a latch that was used on bathroom stalls, and by reusing rockets, he can cut the capital cost of a rocket per launch over time down to about 50,000 bucks and so forth. You know, created 110,000 jobs, and it goes on and on and on. But the point is, with AI, with all the possibilities in the right hands, we've got some great things to look forward to. So I think it's going to be a year of high anxiety and high opportunity, enormous opportunity. There will be some billionaires made this year and certainly more millionaires, and we need to be among them. So purpose of this, this podcast today is stimulate a discussion that gets us on our toes and makes us more alert, looking for what seems to be coming. But more than that, preparing for what might be coming. Trigger, back over to you. You got to bring us in for a soft landing here. Speaker C 56:06 A great conversation today, as always on what's coming. And one of the biggest things about as we've been discussing a lot of it was unseen. What's the unseen thing that's going to come out of nowhere in 2024 and going to add to this whole conversation. So again, a great conversation. Thanks for joining us today for another edition of the Wisdom Part with our host and expert and mentor, author, speaker Jim Cathcart and sponsored by the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy, a 12 month membership that results in people receiving the CPE, the Certified Professional Expert designation at the book A call with Jim and determine if you are a fit for this exclusive program. Email jim@jimathcart.com next month. We're back again February 7th at 3pm Eastern Time. We're opening up the doors to the Wisdom Parlor for more engaging, lively and intellectual conversations with Jim Cathcart and friends. Come and join us once again for now on the trigger. Rich bottrager. Speaker D 57:05 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 57:05 Bring your ideas. Yeah. Speaker C 57:06 Now I'm Rich Bottrager, the Trigger. We'll see you next month. Speaker A 57:12 Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.