The Top 10 Things to Listen for at the Millennium

Originally Submitted on 6/10/99.

The times aren't just "a changin'" -- they've changed! What hasn't yet changed is simply our way of thinking! Here's a list of things to listen for that will help as the reality of a new millennium begins to take hold in people's consciousness. Enjoy!

1. Excitement

Although the next millennium doesn't officially begin until midnight on January 1, 2001, the majority of people will observe it a year earlier simply because of all the "zero's." The huge "Lennox crystal ball" that will drop to mark the next "New Year 2000" in Times Square is being readied even as I write! There's no sense fighting it, once every thousand years IS a big deal!

2. Economic Anxiety

Everyone knows the old law of gravity within the earth's atmosphere also applies eventually to the financial markets of the world, i.e. "Whatever goes up must come down." Some economists, and others, are predicting an economic slowdown or even an economic depression, early in the new millennium. True or not, it serves to erode people's confidence in the present state of things. Listen for it just below the surface of many business and family conversations.

3. Spirituality

People are both discovering and rediscovering the spiritual dimensions of life that give meaning, purpose and direction. Major corporations are inviting spiritual speakers and theologians to speak on a variety of topics, and encouraging workers to discover balance and harmony in life. Look for this trend to continue.

4. Religious Fervor

Virtually every major religious group has it's radical fringe groups whose adherents are forecasting the "end of the world" in one form or another at the turn of the century. The same thing happened a thousand years ago. My personal opinion is, if true, I only hope it happens before tax season so none of us have to face that again!

5. Increased Educational Opportunity

Everything is going "virtual" from traditional college classes to business training sessions over the telephone and the internet! The "old ways" of learning are quickly being replaced. Information is fast becoming the "currency of choice" in the new age, and traditional educational institutions are presently straining to keep up! Today, everyone on the planet is merely some 6 calls away from everyone else! One result: we can learn virtually anything from the very source of the information!

6. Increased Globalization

The so-called "Information Age" began with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and has been expanding at ever increasing rates due to the world wide web and the internet. An entrepreneur who offers a free sample product from a home computer based in Fargo, North Dakota receives an initial request from a prospect in Stockholm, Sweden! Colorado High School students in danger use cell phones to call local television stations and police. Albanian residents and refugees of Kosovo use the internet and cell phones to beam news to the outside world which is reported live in minutes. It''s reality.

7. Technical Wizardry

Travel computers the size of a credit card? Your own personal satellite in orbit? Holographic images of yourself and others "attending meetings and even dinner together" while you remain at home or office? Why not? Technology is increasing exponentially. It was less than a hundred or so years ago that Orville and Wilbur Wright were being taunted in North Carolina while attempting to get a "flying machine" off the ground! They did so in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on Dec. 17, 1903, because they had "the Wright stuff!"

8. Shift to Abundance

Remember when Western nations worried that the world would run out of oil? That there wouldn't be sufficient food supplies because the family farm was doomed? That there would be a run on silver or gold? In the information age, technology continually increases our "physical resources" and even changes their definition! Don't have enough oil? Run your vehicle on natural gas! 30 million farmers fed 100 million people in 1930 America ... By 1980, some 3 million farmers fed over 300 million people here, and in other nations. Technology has replaced silver, gold and platinum as the world's currency of choice.

9. Increased Financial Intelligence

Remember how your banker said your house and car were your biggest assets? That's because these items show up as "assets" on their institution's balance sheets! On your personal family's balance sheet, they show up as "liabilities," because they take money away from you and give it to the bank or mortgage lender! In the new millennium, financial intelligence will be on the rise for masses of people who now, because of technology, have access to most (if not all!) of the same information and tools that were once available only to institutions.

10. Increased Choices

Instead of wasting time, energy and wealth struggling to improve personal weaknesses and dislikes, we're now increasingly able to network and form alliances with others whose passionate interest is our worst nightmare! As I compose this piece from my home office in Southern California, my "Virtual Assistant" is working on establishing and updating my year-to-date receipts so they can be sent electronically to my accountant in Wyoming! If this is the present, I can't wait to experience what promises to be a terrific future in the new millennium! Be listening for it!

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