As we are in the last month of 2020, I will tell you what concerns me the most as we focus on our technology platform rollout. The primary concern I have is the mindset of ADOS in 2020, and it may be too weak, too substandard to sustain in 2021 when a lot of things because to take shape as a new paradigm and era. That is what bothers me the most right now, and I see it coming.

I saw it coming back in 2008 after President Obama's election, and we were going through economic devastation in the Black community. ADOS did not know how to adapt quickly, we got caught slipping with no back-up resources, and some of us went from good jobs to homeless with no social security established. It got terrible on Black folks real quick in 2008 and for several years after that. Most did not recover, becoming a permanent marginalized underclass.

Our current situation is going to be worst than the last two recessions. In 2005-2008, global outsourcing was putting a lot of middle-class workers out of jobs. In 2021, we are looking at digitalization+outsourcing, obsoleting jobs that will never come back. A new paradigm, COVID-19, and government lockdowns are causing small enterprises to close shop while super corporations are taking more market share, becoming close to monopolies.

There are a lot of opportunities out there as well. As many of you know, I created a mobile-first ecosystem capable of starting and running operations.  Others in Asia are competing with me, so this paradigm is manifesting. We can scale down business ecosystem systems such as micro-exchanges, micro-logistics, and gig/sharing economy models. So with the bad things coming, there are a lot of good things coming.

But what I get back as feedback here at Dream and Hustle a lot is when someone mentions Ed Dunn or Dream and Hustle to our people, they get indifference or some "theory" talk. I have been around a long time in this game to be on theories – Nah, folks just ignorant and fear what they don't understand because the mindset isn't right.

Let's talk about the negative mindsets and positive mindsets among our people in this changing landscape. The goal is to recognize thought patterns to improve yourself and your situation and be ready for whatever. Another goal is to avoid people with negative mindsets and seek out people with positive attitudes to create a tribe of lively minds where you all can thrive in this transformative period.

Negative Mindsets for the Downfall

Fixed Mindset. When people believe everything is going to be the same status quo when they wake up every morning. They focus on who is who, what is what instead of realizing life is always an increment of changes. You see this among clout-chasers who talk about who rich not noticing the others rising their empires.

Covetousness Mindset. If you look up Morgan DeBaun of Blavity, this is her mindset. These are people wanting you to admire something about them, like a made-up accomplishment or narrative they wish to project. They are obsessed over the optics of looking good when, in reality, they a joke. Multi-level-marketing programs use this mindset to manipulate weak-minded people to join their programs.

Defeatist Mindset. There is a saying, "Nationalism is the last resort of a scoundrel." People who don't have the capacity or belief to grow and expand resort to a fixed mindset because they are defeated. Focus on the past instead of a plan for the future. ADOS has a big problem with this right now and have a very negative Twitter culture that harming their movement. We have many fringed "black groups" who hide behind Black nationalism with defeated mindsets going nowhere.

Upfronting Mindset. I see this in a lot of comment sections and among African/Caribbean immigrants. These are people selling a lot of upfront about something until it happens. They exaggerate their position until someone calls them out on it. You see it coming, but they want to argue that it will not occur to claim against you being right about something. They always disappear when things go down.

Platform Dependency Mindset. On Twitter, we got many folks who base their position on being a blue-check and having the ability to block/mute someone else. Twitter got them believing they superior and gained power on a social media platform versus their real life. YouTube is no different, as well. The problem is depending on a platform while ignoring rising platforms that will eventually supersede existing platforms. Then we see people with their platform dependency on one platform allow themselves to become obsolete with the platform. It's cats obsoleted because they depended on Yahoo as a platform, real stuff.

Rent-Seeking Mindset. Like platform dependency, a rent-seeking mindset is looking to position themselves in a space they don't own but just "renting." Tristan Walker is an example of a rent-seeker; he was never a tech talent; he was rent-seeking off Silicon Valley culture looking for a black token to prop up. That's why you saw Tristan Walker looking weird in tech articles talking about peddling Black men's beauty products all awkwardly. Rent-seeking is someone actively looking to being a sellout in a given space. We see many non-Black jokers come into the Black culture and rent-seek off Black music or Black lifestyles for their gain.

Emotion-First Mindset. This mindset is the biggest problem in the Black community, keeping us down and getting us killed. Some dude challenges another dude in a parking lot about looking too hard as "his woman," and it escalates into violence, and someone got killed. Black people get emotional about voting against Republicans while the Democrats take their vote for granted and pursue power for themselves thanks to emotional-driven Black people. During adversity, some of us start blabbing about Jesus watching over us instead of handle the situation at hand. We have folks consuming "motivational" and "inspirational" stories instead of putting in the work. An emotional-driven mindset is the most dangerous mindset to be around, they will get you caught up or killed, and I'm very serious telling you this. Never date or marry an emotion-first person.

Appeal to Wealth. A logical fallacy where a person assumes logical conclusions based on a person's wealth. These are mostly loser fanboys and fangirls observing the game and have comments and opinions. The appeal to wealth mindsets is useful idiots to the Covetousness Mindset, who created optics to convince folks to focus on net worth. The appeal to wealth mindsets are impressed with someone driving a luxury auto and use social media to admire a wealth-based lifestyle.

Positive Mindsets for the Growth

Adoption Mindset. Always looking at success patterns and practices and adopt these practices into their lifestyle or skillsets. Japan and China rose to great nations very fast, adapting patterns and practices becoming the 2nd and 3rd largest economies. Always look at how the world turns and discover something new to incorporate into your life to run it better. You unlock possibilities for you and your community when learning new patterns and practices to implement.

Continuous Improvement Mindset. This mindset replaces the concept of failure. Look at setbacks and lowered expectations as a discovery point to search for a better approach. Never allow others to refer to you and what you do as a failure as they are trying to project to you their endgame of you. When you fail, fail fast and quickly focus on recovery, stabilization, and improvement and keep going. The reason why technology is advancing faster is people are getting smarter about handling setbacks.

Compartmentalization Mindset. Learning to break thing downs into modular functions will help you manage and improve where needed. For example, instead of saying you cannot find a date, you break down where you place yourself, how you encounter, how you follow up, and other dating workflow steps. You see where you are winning or having problems and can focus on specific functions/steps/tasks in your flow. As we move to microservices, this mindset is critical to learn how to grow and adopt technology operations.

Preparation Mindset. Making sure your tomorrow is ready today. This mindset is stocking up on food and materials like toilet paper in case things go wrong. They are looking at job openings and learning the skills listed in those job openings. They sell off depreciating assets and use that revenue to buy hedged assets. Always set up your future to be better today, from cleaning the house to learning new techniques so you can focus on bigger and better things for the upcoming tomorrow.

Efficiency Mindset. This mindset manages time and resources to achieve a quality lifestyle. Waking up time and sleeping time is a habit; cooking time and exercise time are always part of the day. But most important is knowing whether to buy or build something or order online or take a trip to the store. Even further is evaluate if it matters if a product purchased is new or used. Always looking for more efficient approaches to time, money, and effort increases productivity and value retention.

Growth Mindset. This mindset is the most significant mindset missing within the Black community – think big, going large. We have too many lightweight thinking people around us that are scared to take us where we need to be and be on some settling for less stuff. Opening a black-owned beauty shop is cute and noble but is not growth. Someone moving to North Carolina to source materials enables manufacturing and establishes the supply chain to support beauty shops in the big picture for black-owned beauty shops to thrive. Focus on the big epics, and the value stream will flow down like water as a growth stream.  

2021 Will Be a War on Mindsets

Social Media firms and corporatists are all focused on controlling mindshare. The year 2021 is going to be a year of reckoning for the year 2020. The eviction crisis is going to be massive and disruptive to everyone's life. Small businesses will throw in the towel as big corporations become more dominant in the market share. A lot of jobs will become obsolete due to working from home and automation.

There will be massive opportunities. For example, someone can create an EV space where cars can park and enjoy a space to study or work or relax for 3 hours. We all know this model will rise and will replace gas stations. But do you think big oil companies will allow corporate media firms to tell you about this opportunity? The corporatists' goal is to turn people into docile consumers with an appeal-to-wealth rent-seeking mindset to worship the rich and admire the affluent lifestyle.

We are going to lose a lot of people in 2021 to the mindset war. You will see opportunities but run into people around you with an emotional mindset, getting emotionally mad at your success. You will try to prepare like Noah and the Ark and see people with an upfronting attitude try to tell you no rain is coming. These people with these weak mindsets will be your friends, your family, people at your place of worship, and your professional colleagues. You have to learn to start looking at mindsets instead of relationships in 2021.

I had women I know for 20 years as a young man to a grown mature man who is now looking at these women who wasted their whole life chasing garbage dudes.  I had argued with one of those ladies repeatedly about this as if I could change her. But I realized I could not change her mindset, and I should not wait for anybody to change their mindset. I met other women with positive mindsets - that's when I was able to move on and be happier and progressive.

Prepare the year 2021 for a positive mindset. Remove negative mindsets from your life, harming your productivity and progress. Stay away from people harboring negative perspectives from your life. Find and embrace people with positive mindsets. Learn to associate yourself with mindsets, not just people anymore these days.