This is the second and final part of You Can’t Handle the Change.
“People will NEVER trust a stranger and get in their cars.”
Isn’t that what they all said?
You remember how you tried to explain that change is part of life, that these inventions are born out of necessity, and it’s because the cab licences were too damn expensive that it would require a lifetime to payout their debt that above all were caused by the ridiculous incompetence of the central planners.
But your arguments mostly drew blank stares. In fact, you were just wasting your time back then but you didn’t know it.
The game was over before it has even began, because back then, you miss-read the game entirely.
But now for the first time, you’re starting to learn the nature of the game.
No one was interested in learning more and picking each other’s brains.
Confirmation-bias is what they were looking for.
Facilitated to them by the usual suspects: Mainstream media. The undefeated heavyweight champion of wrong predictions and failed apocalypses.
If they say that a currency is doomed, then you know it’s gonna boom. If they say that Gold is going to boom, then the prices would probably tank. If they say that the real-estate market is as strong as ever, that means that a big crash is coming...
It’s fascinating how many times they keep getting it wrong and it never slows them down from delivering all sorts of inaccuracies all day every day.
What’s even more fascinating is how they keep a straight face while doing it.
Sometimes an industry can generate billions of Dollars in revenue, hundreds of millions of customers worldwide… And they keep claiming it’s just a phase.
It’s mind blowing really.
The largest transportation system in the world, and it’s just a phase. And the same with Amazon or Airbnb… What’s the song the media and society kept banging on?
“Oh, yeah! People will never trust strangers in their homes! Can't you see how dangerous this thing is ?”.
Here we go again.
You’re still at the window and your friends are still trying to convince you that cryptocurrencies will never replace the monetary system we were born into, that there will never be any alternative to central banking, and that this is crypto-thingy even though it’s reaching millions in users and billions in transactions... It’s all just one big phase.
Pretty sure, we’ve heard that song before.
Earlier than that when most businesses refused to launch a website and start selling their products online to generate an extra income source.
This is not how people buy stuff! They claimed time and time again.
This is not how people do business! Why can’t you see that e-commerce is just a phase?
And their arguments were pre-packed arguments as well, arguments such as
That people would always want to see the merchandize first and touching, instead of just ordering it online.
Oh yeah, do the Blockbuster mistake, refuse to buy Netflix for a small amount of money because people will never change the way the rent movies.
"People will never accept change!"
Fast-forward a few years...
You see, it’s always the same song, “People will never change the way they do things” which really means “Change terrifies me, and I need to wait until enough people accept change first… Then I’ll accept it as well”.
Now it’s cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, before that it was online commerce.
“People will never trust their credit card information on the internet”. Do you remember that one?
And before that it was plastic credit cards and digital money.
In the 1990s. very few businesses in the accepted credit cards in most part of the world, and despite their convenience most people would rather wait in line for hours in the bank then use the ATM machine right outside.
Until they saw enough public adoption that was.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to technology by the way, it’s in every industry or aspect of life. Even in Hollywood the very same thing is taking place, new independent studios, new production companies, DVD-on-demand..etc.
Do you remember how a few years ago it was almost a shame or a perceived step-down if some A-list actor took a role in a television series?
People could not see how fast TV shows were improving and how fast they could get to their fanbase to such point that those who saw this early reaped most of the rewards, while their contemporaries were thinking it was a downgrade.
Let me give you an example, this from when Matthew Mcconaughey won the Emmy award for True Detective.
That was back in 2014, but it’s curious to observe that in this very night the 2017 Emmy awards are taking place. so it’s really not that long ago.
Nowadays, almost every A-lister is taking roles in TV Show, from Dwayne Johnson to Robert De Niro, everyone is moving to TV now.
And just like everything else in life,it’s those who identified the opportunity early and accepted change are the ones who will reap the bigger rewards, because they saw the change and adapted quick despite the insistence of their contemporaries that… Well, just a phase.
Take Gary Vaynerchuk for example, it may be hard to imagine but Gary was not born the social media mogul we know today. In fact, he used to run a wine store before all this innovation came along.
So a few years ago when social media just came out, no one wanted to learn new skills or open social media accounts for their business. But not Gary.
Instead of refusing change and listening to what everyone around him was saying. He embraced the change and he adapted, he launched wine.com and started selling online when everyone was saying that e-commerce would never work.
He also created a presence in every social media platform for his products.
When Youtube came around, he was amongst the first people who create wine channels… And he also invested in a lot of new companies that everyone was assuming would never work because this is not how we’re used to do things.
Instead of fearing change, he embraced it, and his story speaks for himself.
Closing Thoughts
Innovation is part of life, for most people however, it always seems to be something that is always hard to entertain, let alone accept, though sooner or later they will adopt it.
Not until they see everybody else doing the same.
But here’s a question for you, would you rather be early or would you rather be late?
