Think differently to deal with an uncertain future

Fundiin - a technology company providing smart consumer solutions to support millennials and Gen Z millennials, successfully raised capital from Zone Startups Ventures and 982 Ventures during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Source: TechinAsian, E27

When I was young, I didn’t fully understand this sentence: " If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life”. That day, I embraced the flames of invincibility as you do today, I only knew one thing: "work defines who I am".

Special generation, different thinking  

COVID-19 pandemic is a very ruthless but also very practical test in terms of flexibility and proper preparation for   individuals and organizations. And neither young people nor   older ones are immune to this pandemic. Those who want to pass the said test, need 3 conditions: updated knowledge of a new world, integration approaches, and future-opening skills. 

The 21st century knowledge does not only result from schools, but also from many sources, of which school is one channel. The remaining channels are from online sources, conferences, books, real projects.... Whoever only focuses on what is learned at school, will become extremely outdated. Integration skills are the most important soft ones of the 21st century that include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and new multi-channel communication skills. As for   the future-opening skills, especially in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, the most human qualities are the leading key such as flexibility, resilience, empathy, self-startup... The 21st century is the century of self-movement. 

I like GenZ-the younger generation. They are a special generation, because they are neither afraid of being themself, nor   of different people, and express a very strong personal opinion on common issues of the community and society. They are very well versed in social media, internet, and technology. They tend to pursue their passions, desires, and ideas with their personal experience, rather than to listen to stereotypes like previous generations. This will allow them to be creative, dare to do, dare to try, dare to be wrong and thereby build for   themself a very rich personal experience. Therefore, GenZ will easily integrate into the future and the world, because they are those who create the future world in their own way.

However, the gap between GenZ and other generations is very big, easily resulting in a major   conflict in cooperation and companionship. GenZ’s advantages of technology cause them to lack future-opening skills such as empathy, resilience, effective collaboration... For   GenZ, training them on the said skills will be the most important if you want them to firmly and successfully step into the future.

In response to an uncertain future

All of us have been facing an extremely uncertain future. If I used to mention the globalization and fourth industrial revolution as the main driving forces, we would face one of the most terrible pandemics in human history. 

In a volatile world, no one knew in advance what would happen, how the future would be, but it is important to prepare our internal strength to face what is unknown, unprecedented, sometimes unrelated to the past and present. 

In such an uncertain future, nobody was able to predict what would happen. The uncertain future ignores all past and presents human understandings. It has been cruelly interrupting, redefining, and replacing anything. And at this time of intersection, it only allows us a single opportunity with very limit    ed time to refresh ourselves to prepare for   integration into a very different future. 

Therefore, whoever was stuck in the present or   the past by struggling with outdated knowledge and experiences and holding on to the aura of a bygone era, would remove themselves from their future. Whoever is the most flexible, humble, able to re-start with a beginner’s spirit, can learn and integrate into the future.

There are 3 things that young people and even older ones in Vietnam often face, hider them from keeping up with future changes. 

First, it is thinking. We are born, raised, and educated in an environment where everything is framed, modeled, and limit    ed to one or   more approaches. This makes Vietnamese people vulnerable to the trap of "having to be like that to be right", or   "there is no other way". When thinking is framed, we cannot do, think differently, and thus lose our creative thinking and collaboration skills. How can a person with such a closed mindset integrate into a future creative economy?

Second, I find that Vietnamese people tend to have small and short-term thinking. Many of them only do what is beneficial in the short term. They are in lack of long-term investments for   bigger values. Such short-term thinking resulted in short-term relations, thus making money fast and going away... This approach keeps us from investing or   ignoring very different preparations for   the future. And when that future comes to life with crisis, we are stunned, unable to keep up, and exclude ourselves from the future.

Finally, I find that Vietnamese people cannot learn for   life. We can focus on social media gossip for   a few hours a day, but we don't have time to learn a new skill, new knowledge, or   update the latest news about science and technology. It caused no preparations for   the future, preventing us from future integration.

The multidimensional crisis and the 21st century test will exclude anyone. You have only two options: the first one is to press F5 to refresh yourself, the second one to let yourself get stuck in the past. The choice is yours. The responsibility is with you. Never blame anyone!