Getting Results Magazine Getting Results Magazine Fall 2018 | Page 13

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITIES TODAY. YOU CAN DO MORE THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE! crawler that streams across the bottom of the TV picture. The 24/7 news cycle places a great emphasis on the most extreme content, further amplifying the media’s negativity bias, and our own. The best way to counteract negativity bias is to surround yourself with positive people and information. For a more accurate understanding of our world today, I recommend the following resources: OurWorldinData.org, HumanProgress.org, and Gapminder.org. I also want to show you why now is the best time in human history to be alive. OUR WORLD TODAY The longevity, peace, free trade, abundance, and technological advances we are experiencing today all make for a better world to live in than ever before. Let’s dive into each of these a bit deeper. LONGEVITY One hundred years ago during World War I, 16 million people died. In the flu pandemic that same year, 50 million people died (and the population was much smaller then!). Since then: • Human lifespan has doubled • Literacy has gone from 23 percent to 86 percent worldwide • The cost of food has fallen 30-fold • Your chance of being killed in war is only five percent as likely as in 1917 PEACE A person’s chance of dying due to violence is the lowest it has ever been. The 1928 Peace Pact was signed by every country in the world. What happened next? World War II. What happened after that? No more world wars. Global per-capita military spending is down 28 percent since 1988. Nations used to go to war to get land to grow food to eat. Now it is cheaper to buy goods and resources than to go to war to acquire the property to produce those goods and get resources. FREE TRADE Free systems of trade and technology produce more extreme inequality but are overall beneficial to most people. Global trade is generating greater opportunity, tolerance of diversity, social mobility, commitment to fairness, and dedication to democracy. The long arc of progress shows us these trends are unlikely to slow down—even if nationalistic movements are currently in vogue. Another benefit of expanded trade is that trading partners have an incentive not to kill each other. For instance, the Chinese South-North Water Transfer Project (a $90 billion Chinese aqueduct that is the largest engineering project in the world!) could be wiped out by the US in a few hours. China has made that investment because they feel safe from attack. ABUNDANCE Will we see a world of abundance for all? In China alone, 750 million people have risen from poverty in last 25 years—more than were alive in the world the day the Declaration of Independence was signed! More people live in cities than outside of them. Urban settings (as compared to rural settings) provide greater access to education and opportunities, and urban citizens have a smaller environmental footprint (e.g., less driving, more modest homes, etc.). TECHNOLOGY Computer storage is 25 million times cheaper than when I graduated from college in 1980. Your smartphone has more computational power than all the governments on the planet had just 30 years ago. Telecommunications advances are going to connect every single human on the planet with a gigabit connection speed, effectively for free. TECHNOLOGY BECOMES SAFER OVER TIME Driving is one fourth as dangerous as it was in 1973. Advances in seat belts, airbags, guardrails, and even EMT coverage have all contributed to an increase in safety. Automatic sensing technologies in current cars are making driving even safer. The automatic elevator was invented around 1900, but it took more than 50 years (due to the 1945 NYC elevator operator strike) before the public became comfortable and automatic elevators became ubiquitous. Now we never have to worry about riding in an operator-less elevator! FORECASTING THE FUTURE Here is my guaranteed forecast of the future: • Change is coming faster than you think • There will be winners and losers • You’ll hear more from, and about, the losers than the winners • Entrenched industries and ways of thinking will resist the change • Having accurate information about the state of the world will increase your confidence, success, and happiness My goal is to inspire people to trust the future tomorrow and to take advantage of all tremendous opportunities today. You can do more than you ever thought possible! u FALL 2018 | 13