Hey, how would you like the ability to predict the future?
Or if not predict the future, then find great business ideas that become massively successful with little to no work required?
Or predict trends that are happening in your country?
I think I’ve found a way.
No, it won’t work for everything & anything. But this little observation of mine could be used greatly to your benefit to understand trends, things that will happen, and also steal great business ideas that will help you succeed massively.
Here’s how I discovered it:
I’m back in Phoenix now after over a day’s worth of travel from Thailand to America.
One thing that really bothers me about the USA is just how suburban it is.
Big houses are cool, but what’s cooler is not feeling lonely. Big houses & lawns means more size, and more size means longer commutes between any two places.
Explaining the American suburbs to my Asian & European friends is… Difficult to say the least.
In Sofia, Bulgaria the “suburbs” don’t exist from what I’ve experienced- at the very least not like they do in America.
Over in Bulgaria they have “villages,” or places out of “Sofia Center,” but it’s just not like American suburbs!
In the USA it’s normal to have to drive VERY long distances to go between places, and Phoenix is one of the most sprawled out cities there is.
This creates a HUGE problem- loneliness.
Besides loneliness, the whole “car thing” only works if you’ve got a great income. Without that (or family to support you), you’re pretty much trapped in your big home!
To make matters worse, unlike Europe & Asia, it is uncommon to have social places near your home in the suburbs.
You have to drive several kilometers (with no public transit either) to get to the nearest social places like restaurants, cafes, and malls.
This means that you either have to have a solid income to afford… Well, living in the USA.
There’s a lot of weird complications that come from the suburbs- for example, crime is easier to commit when everything is so sprawled out that it would be so difficult to catch you.
I couldn’t imagine robbing a bank in Sofia or Chiang Mai- it would just be so difficult to escape.
Here in America? No problem. A simple vehicle gives you dozens of exit points, and each exit point leads to a few more possible roads you could take (sidenote: that’s why gun culture is more popular too, police take significantly longer to arrive to your home).
The point is this: suburbs are a great idea that turned out oh-so-wrong, and actually make people lonely, depressed, and worst of all:
“Up and coming” people have it harder. It’s harder to escape poverty when you need a car to get to work, yet a reliable car costs $10,000.
My own online business isn’t super successful, hence part of the reason I prefer abroad over the USA- it’s just cheaper & easier to live!
Now, this isn’t a post about the American suburbs. I just had to paint a clear picture for all of those that have never experienced it.
This post is about how to predict the future, so where are we going with this?
This problem, while unique to America, is certainly not unique to the world.
Some countries in Europe experienced a similar phenomenon several decades ago, but they found a solution, and people also changed their values one at a time, affecting the whole nation slowly.
With so much space available, America was originally about expansion. In a way it still is.
People moved farther out from the cities, into new, cheaper land, and then commuted with their cars to get back downtown.
Other countries had this “suburbia” shit for a while, but they started to change.
People felt lonely. Commutes were boring. That beautiful big house became each person’s prison.
The financially struggling needed other ways to get on their feet… And the financially abundant realized that there’s more to life than your bank account.
What mattered most was community. Having connection.
Eventually these other countries adopted. Communal spaces were built with shared public areas, and population density increased as, even despite having extra space available to live in, people desired to live closer to all the action.
A little bit of research, and you’ll see that the same is happening in the United States.
People are finally waking up and realizing that they want to be closer, have more shared space, and shorter commutes! They want cheaper transportation, too.
This trend is not unique to the United States, as we are all human. While we each have a different “culture,” there is also a “human” element to who we are which is driving the world.
So now I’m gonna lay it on you, how to predict the future:
Look at the trends of other nations, and see which nations have not yet had these trends- it is highly like that these nations will experience said trends, which you can use to understand the world, or make smarter business/life choices.
This suburbia example aside, there are tons of other examples, such as taking a very popular food dishes from one nation to another, or implementing systems that another place has.
If you were interested in purchasing or building real estate in the USA, you could now understood that you shouldn’t buy far away from downtown “because that’s how it’s always been.”
Instead you’d be better off purchasing downtown because that’s where the trend is moving towards.
Another example would be the “digital marketing craze” which swept over North America.
This craze hasn’t hit Bulgaria entirely yet, with many establishments still being cash-dependent (they literally don’t accept credit cards in SO many places).
If you start working on your SEO now in Bulgaria, you’ll be riding a great wave of fortune in the coming years as that starts to pick up.
Of course this won’t work for everything, and some things are non-transferable. For example, culture-specific things (ie. a certain religion) will not transfer, but things that are economical, profitable, and human (ie. aversion to loneliness) will.
I’ve observed this happening all around the world!
In the USA earlier this year I noticed “LIME” scooters all over Phoenix. When I returned to Bulgaria later in the year, they were everywhere over Bulgaria despite them having not been there before I left!
Observing trends is really cool for business decisions, personal decisions, and even just for fun.
This is rather difficult to do sometimes though because it’s hard to know that which you do not know you do not know.
For example, you know that you don’t know how to speak Turkish. You know that you don’t know it.
But when you don’t know that you don’t know something, it’s super hard to discover it.
That’s why travel can be so exciting- there’s so much you didn’t even realize you had no awareness of until you went to said place.
Even without travel you can leverage this by observing media, listening to friends / what people talk about, etc. and when you hear something new research if it’s been implemented in any other cities or countries, as if it have, there’s a strong likelihood the same thing will happen in your place.
The whole “let’s go back downtown and fuck the suburbs” movement came decades before in other countries besides USA.
Now the USA is starting to go through this movement, and I’m especially aware of this having realized what has happened in other countries.
What will you use this for? Personal reasons? Business reasons?
Let me know if you have any thoughts hit “reply” and tell me!
In short, observe what works in another place, and if it does work then it’s likely it will work or spread to where you are!
-michael
