Happy 2023.

We are tripping into this year with a bit of anxiety: 2022 wasn’t great for most of us, we are still in year 4 of the pandemic, uncertainty on the horizon and ChatGPT ruining our memories of writing high school papers.

There are very few things that make me think that 2023 is going to be a “good year.” And that’s because most of the time I’m looking externally for things to be good. One of the biggest changes I foresee is that many of our expectations and assumptions, especially in the US, are going to be massively disrupted. 

Yet fear not! There are ways to cope and attack. The world changing isn’t a problem – it’s a circumstance to respond to. Therefore, I’ve come up with the “Four I’s” of 2023 to help you manage along. 

First, Identity. When we must make change – whether it’s a resolution or forced change, we must identify with it for us to manage it well. Our end game and result has to become core to who we are. If your resolution is to lose weight, we have to make “skinny people decisions.” If we want to get a promotion, the identity of that role has to be core to our personality. 

The reason is must become core to our being is for when things get crazy and stressful, we default to our basic level. This is why resolutions fail. Our default choice must become the one that changes. And this default is going to be especially necessary as we anchor ourselves for the technological change being thrust upon us. 

Second, Intentionality. Presence is a big word. And so is intentionality. Without it, we are aimless. With things like OpenAI arriving and finally, fundamentally, changing the way things get done, we need to be intentional about how we use this technology to better ourselves. We can’t shortcut things anymore – for AI to work, we have to think in new ways and get better results because of it. Ironically, this is different than how we operate today. 

Finally, three and four: “Inquisitive Intellectuality.” We need a new way to learn through questions. Yes, we are capable of great things, but it’s going to require us to think in very new ways, with specificity and providing parameters to elevate our way of being. AI will help us in 2023 get there. 

Looking ahead, there is a lot more on the horizon. The people who will do well will be those accountable to themselves; those who take ownership and responsibility for their actions and are willing to have the uncomfortable conversations with themselves. Lots of excitement is around the bend – so let’s embrace it and enjoy the ride!

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Click Here for an Unedited Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Bellwether. Happy 2023 Whole new Year. Uh, same old podcast, but it’s still gonna be really good stuff. Today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about 2023, the big plans for the year, what I think is gonna be, uh, incredibly influential for 2023 and what to look out for in 2023. I’ll do a quick recap of 2022 because that, uh, informs much of what I think about 2023, because this is an ongoing cycle and, uh, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be good. 0:34 Um, it’s gonna be hard, but it’s gonna be good. And this episode I think is really important and I’m really excited about it. Cause there’s really good things, uh, coming up for 2023. Um, let’s start with last year. Let’s start with 2022. It sucked. <laugh> 2022 sucked. And when we look at 2020, 2021, 20 22, we’re three years of pandemic. We’re entering our fourth year of the pandemic, and it’s probably going to suck as well. 1:04 And you know, I remember back at the beginning of the pandemic, people were talking about how it’s gonna be a 10 year challenge, and people laughed, but that was kind of prescient because we’re now entering, you know, the fourth year of a pandemic, which is crazy. And so, um, coming out the other end, we’re coming into a completely different world, and the amount of change that’s happening is immense. Um, 2022, the third year of the pandemic was a bunch of garbage, uh, war going on. 1:34 Um, this big stupid debate on remote versus hybrid work versus back to the office. Um, this ongoing fear of a recession, the economic downturn that started last year, it’s gonna really kick up, I think in 2023, although some people now are saying it won’t. Um, stupid sayings last year, like quiet quitting and quiet firing and, and all that other stuff. And, um, if you were to package all that up, I would almost say it was just this year of trying to find a place, trying to find relevancy, um, trying to figure out where we fit and come up with something that that would, would resonate. 2:16 And when we do that, it’s just a year of just unknown stress. I call it the fear of the unknown. We know something is coming, we just don’t know when, and we know the facts. We know what’s gonna happen, they just haven’t been realized yet. So it’s always what’s around the corner, what’s around the corner, what’s around the corner? And that’s really been, um, troublesome for a lot of people in 2022. 2:38 It’s gonna continue into 2023. And the challenge with that we have is that we forget about what’s happening today. It’s always what’s around the corner, what’s around the corner? What’s around the corner. So, um, the challenge is, I think general agreement 2022 sucked. Not many people would say, yeah, 2022 was a great year. Um, but mindset has shifted and I think it’s probably laid the groundwork almost like a pain threshold, right? 3:05 The more pain you experience, the the tougher you get. I feel like we have shifted, behaviors have started to change. Uh, mindset has changed. We’re seeing many of the things that we took for granted aren’t actually there. Like everything we took for granted, all the assumptions we had are, were really kept together by like chicken bones and band-aids. And, um, a lot of our expectations and assumptions are going to be disrupted in 2023. 3:33 And it’s not new normal, it’s stupid. Um, but we’re, we’re a little slow to get these new realizations and, and confusion. You know, you go through the grocery store and, and shelves are empty. Um, and, and different things as well. You know, just the things that we would normally have and, and we’re gonna be pinching pennies and, and everything else. And so, you know, is the age of abundance in America over is, is a philosophical question to ponder that I’ve been thinking a lot. 4:03 And what’s the cost of abundance? What have we paid to have everything so readily available, and are we prepared to change for that? And I think that’s a lot of the consumer behavior, it’s big for the US is going to change. It has to change. Um, we are a consumer nation. Uh, even Mr. Rogers used to talk about that. And, and that was his big thing like 40 years ago, was, you know, we’re raising little consumers, but we have to change that. 4:26 We have to change that mentality. And, you know, it’s a personal help of mine that we can kind of change this consumer fashion. But, um, so that’s 2022 that I think that’s the beginning of 2022. And what that means for us for this year, let’s talk about it because in addition to what the ongoing pandemic is going to teach us, um, we have some cool stuff that just came out that’s going to blow our socks off. 4:50 This AI is here, open AI chat, G P t, um, and more. It’s creating the stir. And that’s, um, they’re creating a stir, not for what they can do. Everyone’s talking about, ooh, they can, um, they can write high school kids news, uh, uh, reports and essays, and they can do, you know, they can make our, our meal schedule for the week. It’s more about what’s possible and what they’re going to do. 5:14 And it’s giving us this little glimpse. Uh, we’ve been talking about AI for 20 years and it’s now here, here, like here, here in tangible and, and accessible. And, uh, it’s incredibly unsettling. Uh, but it’s awesome. And so, um, people are scared about what it means and people are very afraid of it. And I’m here to say, don’t be afraid, uh, because it’s here. It’s not going away. So you may, you may as well embrace it. 5:45 Um, but we’re focused on the wrong things. You know, we’re not, I’m, I’m not terribly concerned that high school kids won’t have to write papers, right? We have to go beyond that. We have to say, you know, why do high school kids write papers? Is to show that, that they know how to think and that they understand, uh, concepts and that they can formulate thought. And so we just have to figure out a new way for them to express that. 6:05 And we have to figure out a new way to teach, and we have to figure out a new way, uh, to think. And that’s what’s really amazing about it. And that’s what is really unsettling, is that we have to teach ourselves a new way to think. And that’s what 2023 is gonna be all about. We’re gonna be teaching ourselves a new way to approach challenges. We have to think in terms of how to give instruction. 6:25 We have to think about, um, how to give parameters and how to make specific requests for what we want. And it’s the way we should have been thinking for a long time. When we think about management, we think about leadership. We have to think about specificity. And, and in order to get what you want, you have to be very specific in how you ask for it. And AI now is that way, and it’s almost kind of that little jolt that we needed. 6:50 Um, but we all have to create something now using AI as the backbone and where this evolves is fun to really think about. But that’s not relevant for today. You know, everyone’s gonna have their own AI and your own ai, your personal AI and all that other stuff, and that’s great. Um, and that’s cool. It’s, it’s scary as well. But, um, we have to now create and challenge in a new kind of way. 7:13 Like, when I think about work and what this means for work, yeah, it’s gonna make jobs irrelevant, but that doesn’t mean anything, right? We’ve been saying that forever. Um, it’s going to be uncomfortable to work. And you know, when we hear coaches and people talk about how you have to embrace discomfort and you have to embrace the challenges, this is almost, you know, this is the manifestation of that. And, you know, when we think about work, there’s comfort in the stupid busy work that we do because it’s easy. 7:45 We can turn our brains off, we can give them a rest, we’re good at it. You know, that little kind of shuffling papers and doing whatever. Um, and it allows us to procrastinate. We can just kind of go and do whatever. And, um, it’s our excuse as to why we’re not gonna get after it today. And we’ve been getting after it for so long that we’re just exhausted. Ai, that changes. Now, AI is gonna do your busy work and you know, we always talk about how we’re busy. 8:12 We always talk about all this work that we’re doing. We’re not really busy, we’re not doing smart work. Uh, some of us are, right? Some of us are, and sometimes we are. But AI now is going to eliminate a lot of that stupid procrastinating. There’s really no excuse to fill your time with this stuff that I used to love doing. Um, and it’s that busy work. And so how do we respond to that? 8:33 And how do we embrace that? And, and how do we use that? And what does that mean for us as individuals? And so when I think about 2023, I’m, I’m calling this, the year of four i’s the letter I, and I don’t know if it’s cuz my kid’s in Sesame Street right now. You right? The letter of the year is, I, um, and it just settled that way, whatever, it’s not, you know, it’s not like the, the stupid marketing kind of the four eyes of 2023. 8:58 Um, but here’s what it means for you as an how you as an individual can respond. So that’s all theory, that’s all theoretical, right? This is exciting and this is going to change things and it’s great and it’s here, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you respond? What’s important for you? That’s the important stuff. So let’s get to that. Number one. The first eye of 2023 is identity. Uh, we have not done the work. 9:21 Many of us have not done the work, uh, in term, uh, we haven’t done the work of who we are. We’ve scratched the surface a little bit. Um, we think about it, sometimes we reflect, but when we must make change, and that’s what this is, this is force change upon us. Um, but it’s the same. You, you wanna make resolutions, right? A New Year’s resolution, we’re at the beginning of the year. 9:40 New Year’s resolution is a request for change. And we’re trying to make this change, whether it’s a resolution, whether it’s force change, the only way it’s going to work for us is if we make it part of our identity. And so, for example, what do I mean by that? It, it’s gotta be core to who we are. If you, if your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, your identity has to be, you now have to become at your core, a skinny person, and you have to make decisions that a skinny person would make, right? 10:10 Skinny people eat skinny things. Fat people eat fat things. And I know I’m making overly simplistic, and that’s not, you know, it, it’s, it sounds a little insensitive too. But ultimately that’s, that’s what you’re looking to do is what decisions are you making each day that would allow you to lose the 30 pounds you’re looking to lose? Um, and, and that’s fine. You could do that for a sustained period of time. 10:32 But resolutions, the reason they fail isn’t because we don’t have good discipline. It’s because we don’t, we haven’t made them core to our identity. When things get difficult, when things get stressful, we default back to our identity just to make quick decisions. And so how do you make your quick decisions that of a skinny person? Or if you wanna be a new executive, you wanna get a new job, you wanna get a promotion? 10:52 How are you making decisions as that person? You wanna be a chief marketing officer? What decisions do a chief marketing officer make at the organization? And how are you thinking like that so that when difficult things happen, you are elevating to that level so that it’s automatic and that’s part of your identity. And that’s, you know, that’s resolution stuff. But when change is being forced on who it is that you wish to be, um, we have to anchor ourselves to this identity because this change is being thrust upon us. 11:22 And so we have to figure out what is, and I’ve, I’ve beaten the dead horse on this so many times, but what is the belief system? What do you believe? Who are you as an individual? It goes beyond just simple resolutions. It goes beyond diet, it goes beyond, you know, I’m gonna resolve to go to sleep earlier. I’m gonna go to the gym every week. It’s, what do you believe that’s part of the identity that, that we as individuals are going to have to answer for ourselves. 11:46 And that’s one for 2023 because technology is going to disrupt it. It’s going to change who we are, are as an individual. And, and you know, for most people, their biggest part of our, their identity is their work and the busy work’s going away, and AI is about to disrupt it, and we fear that. And so we have to really think through and identify who it is that we are as an individual so that we are comfortable or at least more comfortable making this change. 12:12 So that’s one, that’s identity number two. The second eye of 2023 is intentionality. We now have to be incredibly intentional with what we’re doing day-to-day. And here’s what I mean by that. Presence is a big word. All right, we’re, we’re talking, that was the big word last, like maybe five to seven years, maybe 10 years about being present in the moment. Don’t worry about tomorrow, it hasn’t happened yet. Don’t worry about the past. 12:40 It’s the past. Be present on today. Um, and, and so presence is a big word, but someone’s intentionality. And, and without intentionality, someone once told me, without intentionality, you’re just spinning wheels. Um, and that’s true. But without intentionality, we’re not getting what we want. And I think about this through the lens of technology and ai. Um, the world is changing around us. So intentionality, we used to just hire someone to do something for us. 13:11 And that was great, right? We would say, Hey, go create this social media calendar. Go, um, do I dunno, put together this project plan, go do whatever. Um, and we assume that they know they, they knew what they were doing. And a lot of times, and I could tell you this, you know, I’ve hired marketing companies and they didn’t know what they were doing, right? They just blew a bunch of smoke. 13:33 And it’s probably the same with coaching and, and a lot of other things is do they know? Do people know what they’re actually, um, promising? Well, with ai, a lot of those things that people are selling, you can use AI for, but in order to use it appropriately, you have to be very intentional in what you ask. And it’s the same with management, it’s the same with outsourcing to other organizations. We have to be intentional with what is that end vision that we wish to see. 14:00 Um, I’ve trusted too many people to get work done, but my problem wasn’t that they weren’t good enough. My problem was that I wasn’t intentional in my request and I didn’t know how to do that and, and talk about what I wanted and how to elevate them. And so, um, once I’ve learned that with a, with ai, I’m going to be incredibly intentional and I’ve been incredibly intentional with the other people that I’ve, I’ve worked with. 14:23 I’m getting better results. And so intentionality, being specific in terms of what you want in terms of being successful is going to be very important this year. When you pair that with identity, it’s incredibly powerful. So let’s talk about numbers three and four. I, the the other eyes. Those were the two big ones. And then I was like, you can’t just have two eyes for 2023. So I came up with a third, but then it ended up being like three, four. 14:50 So it’s inquisitiveness, <laugh> and I, I go with an inquisitive intellectuality for three and four. Um, we have to learn a new way to learn through questions and we are capable of using AI and doing incredible things. Um, and we are very smart, but we have to ask really good questions. And we shouldn’t be fearing things like ai, we shouldn’t be fearing. I’m very heavy on AI this, this week. But, um, we need to embrace it and we need to ask questions and become familiar with it. 15:27 And that’s going to make us smarter. Uh, we can use AI to improve all of these other things. We can. We can see all of these things that are changing. We have to embrace it. There are people right now who are diving in so deep into this AI technology on a consumer level, on a day-to-day level that you’re being left behind. Uh, but we can learn from it. It’s not gonna like completely leave you, leave you behind, but your life is going to get better when you understand it more and can talk about it more. 15:55 Whether it’s something like crypto, whether it’s something like blockchain, whether it’s something like ai, these are the things that are, these are not going away. They’re not going away. And uh, they’re nerve wracking. Um, but when, you know, I don’t know if there is an I word for, for accountability, but, um, the people who do well in 2023, there’s a lot more on the horizon. Accountability. It’s up to you to answer those four eyes. 16:21 The identity, your identity, the intentionality, and being specific in what you want. And then being that curious, that intellectual, that inquisitive intellectuality, um, it’s on you. And the people who take ownership and responsibility for that, uh, are willing to have the uncomfortable conversations with themselves. Those are the ones that, that are gonna come out. Okay? Um, and that’s it. That’s 2023 in a nutshell. It’s, it’s a big one. This one’s, this is a big year and it go, time moves on, right? 16:55 I mean, time is just a concept. You could say it doesn’t exist if you want, but time will move on. And come June, you’re gonna be like, wow, I can’t believe half this year is over. And you’re still gonna be stressed out and you’re still gonna be worried. And, uh, new things will come out and new things to distract us. But if you want to be focused on you and, and making your world better, those are the areas that I’m talking to clients about. 17:18 Uh, when I’m working with executive leadership teams, those are the things we need executive leaders to be intentional. We need executive leaders to know who they are so that they can lead other people. Um, that’s, that’s the work in a nutshell. So have a great week. Have a great year. 2023 is it? We’re gonna do it. Uh, <laugh> co-team, go, uh, call me. I’m happy to help. Uh, more to come this year. 17:44 I’m, I’m kind of taking off the gloves on the podcast. I think the next one, one of the next one’s is gonna be what to do with all the white guys in the office, because there’s a lot of change there. That’s another big thing. So that, that might be next week or the week after. Um, so tune in for that and if you want anything you want me to cover anything, let’s talk about it. 18:03 It’s, uh, too much is going on to, to kind of dance around the flowers. Let’s just hit it head on. So have a great week. I’m looking forward to a lot of really good stuff this year and I’m always here to help. So thanks. Talk to you soon. Bye.