ICYMI: Solving 2023 Problems with 2019 Paradigms

The COVID pandemic caused a massive shift in personal and professional lives, and as the world opened up in 2022, it presented a surreal reality. The pandemic was a disruptive force that turned everything upside down and inside out. If leaders and organizations are going to solve 2023 problems, they can’t do it with 2019 paradigms.

FINANCE

The pandemic caused the economy and consumers to behave in unusual ways. People were stuck at home, which changed their spending habits. Online retailers and streaming services experienced increased demand, and supply chains were clogged. 

The so-called recession is simply the economy contracting to something resembling normalcy. The Federal Reserve interest rate hikes are significant, but they are a myopic view of the state of our economy.

The Fed can increase interest rates to slow down spending, but it can’t hire the nurses, doctors, teachers, factory workers, construction workers, and retail workers needed to cool the job market.

In 2023, solving employment issues will require creative thinking beyond compensation and interest rate increases.

BUSINESS 

Covid didn’t cause the Great Resignation or Quiet Quitting. These disruptions have been years in the making. Businesses have gotten by with a burn-and-turn model that takes workers for granted, but burnout is bad for business. 

People were indelibly marked by their pandemic experiences, and they brought those experiences to the post-pandemic workplace. In 2023, benefits will attract workers, but a balanced business culture will attract top talent.

CRYPTO

Crypto has the potential to bring economic equality to echelons of society who might not otherwise have access to it, but it was abused by those who saw it as a get-rich-quick scheme.

The Crypto Crash of 2022 flushed out the greed, but it was on such a massive scale that it is now entering a Crypto Ice Age. If crypto makes it to the other side, it must be rebuilt on a more noble foundation.

THE HIDDEN ECONOMY

While Wall Street is fussing over interest rates, twelve-year-olds are getting their allowance in Robux and developing a new economy in its primitive stages.

We may be on the brink of the crypto ice age, but there still appears to be a future for digital currency. The people who are building that future are still in middle school.

When it comes to fruition, it won’t be the Wild West of rampant greed and speculation of the last few years. It will be an authentic community coming together on shared values.

TECH

Disgraced crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried traded his palatial house in the Bahamas for a jail cell. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Holmes faces eleven years of her life in prison.

Tech wunderkinder are not as brilliant or as altruistic as they make themselves out to be. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have committed massive amounts of fraud. In 2023, we need leaders and role models with life experience that lends them wisdom and humility.

From chaos comes creation. A new world inspires new paradigms, and 2023 is the year to take the chaos of the pandemic and create something new.