Are you repeating yesterday because you’re afraid of tomorrow?

Right now, I see a lot of people leaning in on business and marketing ritual for comfort. It’s understandable. The economic impacts of Trump, the rise of AI, greater shift towards Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), social media dissipation and market fragmentation, and continued inflation in Australia means a whole lot of change is headed our way.

Most of us are exhausted. 2024 hasn’t been easy. It’s the icing on six years of continued pressure, change, huge impacts, and hyper-speed navigation.

So, we’re doing what people do best – we’re clinging to comforting rituals.

Stick to the timetable. Keep doing what we know.

Keep marketing. Someone will see it, eventually.

That idea looks good. I better try that, too.

While we live like checkbox Charlies feeding the routines and algorithms, there’s magical thinking. ?

It will right itself in the end.

The flux will stop.

Just hold steady, steady, steady.

It will end soon, surely?

We believe the pace of change is unsustainable, so it has to stop eventually.

But it won’t stop. We’re experiencing the biggest technological shift since the invention of the internet. And we’ve got more in common with bygone eras revolutionised by technology than we realise.

Who manages the flow of information manages opportunity. ?

That’s a truism throughout history.

Living through that is both exciting and terrifying. ?

We’re asking for recipe tips from a technology that’s altering our approach to industry, business, marketing, production, the economy, employment, everything. ?

I’m not sure most of us understand the scale of the change we’re experiencing.

Coping with history while you’re making it

Are we waiting like the obedient school children for someone to tell us what to do next? I guess that’s human nature. We need someone else to take the action so we can learn from it and copy it.

It takes the first monkey using a river to wash the dirt from skin for the rest of the monkeys to realise the alternative to eating orange pieces covered in crap from muddy peeling fingers.

But then comes along a big change. A collision between technology and human beings. ?

We resented, fought over, embraced, feared, and finally accepted the technology that was:

·?????? the first book

·?????? the printing press

·?????? the radio

·?????? the telephone

·?????? the tv

·?????? the internet

It was by no means perfect or easy.

These inventions give so much but are also still problematic in many ways. Each saw seismic shifts, unexpected consequences, changes to power, and reinvention on a global scale.

It is easy to believe these things are good and even great when you are a member of the dominant hegemony. Or that little generative query you did this morning to get your speech finished or pump your Monday tyres is hardly revolutionary.

But let us never forget that each of these inventions transformed cultures, enabled colonialisation, industrialised production and increased its scale in a way that drastically impacted the environment while decimating local industry. It radically altered the speed we received ideology, doctrines, and information. It revolutionised work, politics, art, and our deepest cultural levels.

Books on a boat changing the beliefs of the world as it colonised it. Poetry in language altering history. Can you imagine the upheaval the technology we have will bring?

Teetering on the edge

An unexpected consequence of drowning in information and working at a robotic speed is that we’re so busy doing, we’re not doing much thinking.

But more than that, we have become surfers of productivity’s waves to the point where thinking for ourselves is a luxury with these kinds of time limits. ?

Then emerges another threat. The more you retreat into your shell, the tighter the shell shrinks around you. The more you focus on surviving, the less you zoom out to thriving level.

This creates the conditions to become even more risk averse and powerless with exhaustion.

We become stuck by inaction.

It becomes easier to maintain an ever-shrinking shell than to speak out, jump up, or take a risk. And before you know it, the everyday "keep the lights on” stuff becomes a challenge to do.

Before long, you are:

1.?????? Panic-maintaining your current lot

2.?????? Cutting yourself off from opportunity

3.?????? Justifying questionable tactics

4.?????? Feeling the dissatisfaction to grow

5.?????? Inviting the failure you’re so desperate to avoid

This is the nature of anxiety. It makes us fear the future of almost everything. But underneath that increasing anxiety is a moment of clarity.

If you’re anxious keeping time and doing the bare minimum to survive, you may as well take a risk, even if it means you go down swinging. ?

If you’re ready to be brave and make a change:

·?????? Catch me talk about risk taking for Rachel’s List this Wednesday

·?????? Create the conditions to make it possible with my Creative Change Program

·?????? Take the pressure off by letting me map out your 2025 Strategic Spark Sessions

·?????? Bring me your ideas via in person coaching at Windang beach or online via Zoom ?

And stay close to the people helping you navigate change in 2025, like:

Google demystifying SEO content specialist, Liam Carnahan

Rural business innovator and changemaker, Jo Palmer

Ex-agency big gun, now storytelling machine, Jamal Hamidi

Grant writer and evaluation specialist, Martina Donkers

Education specialist and advocate for inclusive learning, Dr Amy McKernan

The woman who encourages you to f*ck around and find out with small business, marketing, podcasting and social media, Rah Gardiner

Forget what you thought you knew and find what makes you inventive and brave! The business world might be changing but now is when we need more of the creative, optimistic, disruptive, and edgy work. It is the time to go deeper with knowledge and use it to our best advantage. Embrace what is original, especially if it isn’t following a pre-determined, pre-canned path of comforting ritual. Are you with me? ?

Get in touch now and I’ll help you out with ideas, introductions, and what you need to take the right kind of risk in 2025. ??????

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