How to make the most of your future

How to make the most of your future? A question we all ask ourselves occasionally, I’m sure.

We worry about the future because increasingly the world seems such an uncertain place. There are times when it seems completely crazy.

In many ways, the future is uncertain, but then again, it’s a lot more predictable than you might think.

I’m often asked what I think the next 10 years will be like. The answer’s simple; the next 10 years will be pretty much like the last 10 years and the years before that, I think.

Future years:

Think about it. The next 10 years will just be a constant stream of challenges with a lot of problems to be solved.

That’s how life’s always been, surely? And that’s good news for us all. Why?

It’s good news because it’ll ensure that there’s a constant stream of opportunities for enterprising people to exploit.

So we can all make a good living, and all we have to do is focus on those problems we can solve for other people.

Yes, jobs may be in short supply, but there’ll always be plenty of customers with problems to be solved. Customers for goods and services yet to be invented.

If we can all learn to look for customers rather than jobs and make sure we have the skills and know-how to solve problems for those customers, we’ll always have work, and from that, over time, we can build wealth too.

The nature of work:

Work is just doing stuff for other people in return for money. It’s that simple.

Opportunities will always be there, and we can choose to take them or not. For the fleet-footed, there will always be opportunities to make money, regardless of politics and political personalities.

Create your own future:

Find customers you can serve, serve them well, and you’ll always do well.

And it doesn’t matter whether you were successful or otherwise at school either. That’s irrelevant. There are plenty of successful and wealthy people who failed to shine at school.

Skills can be learned and knowledge can be gained at any time in your life.

So look around for people you can help, improve your knowledge and skills as you go along, and gradually enhance your earning ability. It can be done; people do, and you can too.

Today’s assignment:

So let me finish with an assignment for you.

Look around for a problem to be solved. Look carefully, and you’ll find plenty of them, I promise you.

Now, who’s the potential customer? What skills will you need if you are to solve that problem for the customer? And once you’ve identified those skills, how will you get them, and by when?

Now think about this assignment carefully.

By applying your unique talents and know-how, whose problems could you solve? To whom could you be an answer to their prayers?

This is how business people think.