How Do Individuals Peak in the New Global Era?

Your future is dependent on several stacked economic layers of dynamic activity each spinning independently but connected like many records on a spindle. It is also dependent on your skills and your attitude.

In Gordon Brown’s book “Beyond the Crash” he points out the world is out of whack in how money is transferred for production and consumption. The developing countries are receiving a great deal of income dispersed among people often earning only $10 a day. These are not great consumers.

The U.S. and Europe previously responsible for 60% of the world’s consumption and therefore employment are cutting back by the trillions. How long before those receiving money for production become worthwhile consumers? From Gordon’s analysis I see those lines intersecting in maybe 10 plus years.

So the second layer is how do individual countries or the U.S. recover when dealing with reduced global demand? At this point the global demand affects every country’s standard of living.

If we are not producing and selling domestically or exporting, unemployment increases and there is downward pressure on wages. As a nation we are in this together and somewhat helpless individually to affect the forces of global competition.

Big business, however, has recovered and is storing the reserves to ride out the storm. This makes business a shelter in the storm, but their lack of spending increases the duration of the storm.

So how do individuals find their niche with the prospects of continued excess capacity on a global scale?

Big business finds value in employees with traditional corporate skills, technological skills, innovative skills, and collaborative skills. The employee that can incorporate all four into their repertoire have the best chance for continued employment and advancement.

The balance of the populations has to find a niche in which their labor, their management skills, their consulting skills or their entrepreneurial skills can find a piece of the income distribution. The economy needs plenty of third party resources that can supply solutions the big business machine cannot supply internally.

In “Spend Shift”, John Gerzema shows how people are seeing greater prospects in self employment than in looking for jobs. This new generation of entrepreneurs are starting local with neighborhood businesses and creating community.

A new generation of customer is looking for businesses that support the values of quality, kindness, sustainability, and community. There are new opportunities to develop new branding on every product and service. People are considering the combination of service and the process as a company’s total brand.

The third layer an of an individual’s prospects on top of the global and national developments is how they learn to cope with change. In “Spend Shift”,  John Gerzema illustrates how several segments of the population have made a positive change by acknowledging their change in status and developing a new attitude in adjusting their future expectations.

He shows surveys of the Millennial generation’s optimism for creating a better future (than did their parents and current leaders) and their willingness to be the leaders. We can see the glass as half full or half empty.

I see a fourth layer above the coping level and that is the level of happiness we choose to have. In “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor, he shows that a positive attitude, optimism, and happiness make people more productive. A positive mind set creates activated neurotransmitters, endorphins, and dopamine that create a higher level of performance.

Happiness will depend perhaps on seeing that our situation is our responsibility but maybe not totally our fault. We all need some absolution. The Western world has gotten carried away with a dream that didn’t last. Now we have to focus on creating value with a new perspective.

Happiness will be dependent on the appreciation we can develop for who we are, how we are still blessed, and the unfulfilled potential we still carry. We can still be healthy, fit, and find flow. To the extent we can accept our financial potential and also explore our opportunities for personal development, we can find a happiness that may have eluded us prior to the melt down.

More writers about all disciplines are finding that a positive mind set, optimism, and ability to develop flow in activities and life are the best shock absorbers and the key for individuals to find new meaning in this multi layered conundrum.

Developing flow in activities that excite us and lives that could excite us is the highest level of performance and it does lead to the highest level of satisfaction and happiness. We can rise above the lower levels of global performance and make a contribution that does stand out in a world that needs leadership.

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See my suggested  Resource Books for more information on these topics.

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