None of us expected 2020 to turn out the way it did in 2019. You cannot expect 2021 to turn out any particular way, either. So you don't have any vision to talk about creating a vision board for 2021, and no one around you got the answer as well. Many big picture plotting goes on that is more significant than you, such as layoffs and hiring freezes, and business shutdowns. Many people are smiling in your face right now, getting ready to turn on you in 2021. Some opportunities will manifest themselves in 2021 that none of us saw coming in 2020. You cannot vision board anything about 2021.

There are things you can change, things that you cannot change, and it's time to have that wisdom to know the difference. Anyone talking about a vision board should alert you to avoid people who do not realize how serious 2021 is going to be for all of us. Stay away from goofy people trying to act normal when there is nothing normal about what we are going through. In 2021 you need a survival plan and sustainability plan to make it through 2021, and we are going to cover this.

2021 Challenges We are Facing

If we understand anything about 2020, we experienced a strike and response. The coronavirus hit us; governments shut down cities and businesses. The action was layoffs, business closures, and the resulting deaths of people. One of the responses we must accept was there was action taken to delay an economic depression.

Most of those actions expire at the end of 2020. So we are going to have to face those realities in 2021. You should expect companies to downsize and engage in mass layoffs, especially with commercial buildings closed down. You should expect an evictions crisis, homeless crisis, crime crisis, and drug crisis. You should expect to see people around you turn to desperation and even turn on you. They will turn on you for doing okay, and they will turn on you if you are not doing okay. You better get used to getting betrayed in 2021, trust me.

In terms of geopolitics, you see schools locked down in America while schools are in session throughout Asia. Asian GDP are growth-positives, while American and Western GDP are in negative declines. You see the rich getting richer through the stock market, creating a huge wealth disparity gap. You will see politics still favor the rich while the middle class and poor are used as prop tokens by the rich. You will be driving a car you are trying to make payments on and see a newly rich person driving in a 2021 Mercedes S-class smiling at their life.  Radicalism and uprisings will continue to rise – that is your 2021 challenges.

The Opportunities We Facing

Keep in mind there are diamonds in the rough – one person's oppression is another person's opportunity. If people are getting laid off, creating a job training/recruiting service will be in demand. If businesses are shutting down, consulting fees will be in demand to help companies re-open and stay open. If people getting evicted, professional eviction servicing and reselling abandoned office equipment via auctions is an opportunity. If people are skipping out on rent, acting crazy, then create a callout/cancel culture platform with paid bulletin boards and "do-no-engage" lists people can subscribe to for a fee.

We are facing a few massive opportunities in 2021 you should make yourself aware.

Supply Chain and Logistics. There is a massive opportunity to create products to sell on Amazon and Wal-Mart supply chain or push through your local markets. Distribution warehouses are needed more closer to major cities to develop multiple hubs instead of one central hub getting clogged up. Last-mile distribution using small trucks or scooters – you can run your terrority instead of letting some Silicon Valley app take over corners and routes in your hood.

Data and Cryptonomics. The business world needs faster data to stay competitive. That means new paradigms such as event sourcing, data streaming, and working with private key infrastructure and distributed ledgers will be in high demand. These are skills you can learn by watching YouTube and buying a computer from the pawnshop.

Resale and Upcycling. Learning how to fix broken/torn Louie Vuitton bags, learning how to take apart kicks and use treatment to make them new, learning how to switch out bands on vintage watches and re-fabric furniture after stripping it down to the wood base are trade skills that will be in demand. Buy used stuff, tear it apart, put it together, keep learning, and then sell it because these items were already desired on the marketplace.

Digital Media Distribution. You can set up platforms and networks to accommodate digital streaming and digital distribution and become your own channel. Setup pay-per-view networks, run advertising streaming networks, create information radiators to stream real-time metrics to business operations – these are all needed as businesses and other sectors need to become more efficient.

Creating a Survival Plan

A survival plan is preparing yourself for what is ahead of you. There are two things you do – you avoid risks and seize upon opportunities. These are the two things Black people are not taught in Western societies, and you see our people get trapped or caught up all the time because they fail to survive properly.

When creating a survival plan, emergency plan, sustainability plan, or continuity plan, you focus on what are known as vectors – how they will come at you. You will have to identify threat vectors of how things will come at you and opportunity vectors of things you need to seize to get you to bigger and better places.

You want to create a board with three columns that list the event, the threat vectors, and the opportunity vectors.

In the example in the diagram above, you see the eviction crisis, an event you have no control over. What you do have control over is the actions you can take to avoid the threats you identified. You can create a monetized blog tracking evictions where people upload other people getting evicted and you allow people to add comments like "damn!" or "that's f*cked up!" or "Lord, cover your arms over these people" to create engagement and push pay-per-click ads for revenue.

You should realize you already created exactly what you need to do in 2021 – move away from the eviction crisis so you don't become a target; look at creating a letting service to fulfill a demand of screening tenants for landlords, and look at running blogs under a pseudonym making money off someone else pain as voyeurism for eviction-watching sickos making crude comments.

Once you identified the events and looked at the threat vectors, you will begin creating the real-world things you can do. You will not be wasting time on visions and vision boards because you don't know what's ahead. All you do is prepare for events and not allow circumstances to be unforeseen - you prepare to dodge whatever goes down.

Survival Plan Sessions are Better Than Vision Board Sessions

Avoid hanging out with goofballs still talking about vision boards for 2021. Instead, be around people who are realistic that 2021 will be a fallout year and worst than in 2020.

You should create your own Zoom sessions to develop a 2021 survival planning session where everybody identifies threats and opportunities to events as a consensus. Someone may bring up the auto repossession crisis, and you think of ways to find threats and opportunities. Maybe create a car-sharing service or buying out people's car title loans, and you charge less interest.

You probably can get paid running Survival Planning sessions where whole families, entire interest groups, or a group of friends book you to host it for their people with you being the guest. You have to learn how to survive and hustle through 2021 – a vision board will not work for 2021.