Inspired by LinkedIn’s list of “24 Big Ideas That Will Shape 2021”, we asked attendees of this past weekend’s Meeting of the Minds to share with us their high-level tips, trends, and strategies for getting a strong start to the new year.

If you’re building a remote-first business, serve a diverse set of clients as we do, and/or find yourself in a position of “thought leadership” in your industry, then you’ll want to think through the following…

As always, I’d love to hear from you too. Please reply back with any additional trends we should keep in mind for 2021 and beyond and perhaps I’ll share your ideas (along with links back to your website or social media accounts) in my next newsletter.

1) Double Down On Your “Zone of Genius”

One of our annual Meeting of the Minds members (Mandy Barbee Lanier, Founder of Palladium Mind) recommends taking unnecessary pressure off your shoulders as we head into the new year.

As a pain alchemist, executive / life coach, and clinical hypnotherapist, Mandy works predominantly with middle-aged men and women who’ve achieved great success, yet find themselves unfulfilled, lonely, or hurting in some area(s) of their lives.

This year, we had to be business owners, but also therapists or shoulders-to-cry-on for loved ones, trainers for our at-home workouts, risk mitigation specialists in determining how comfortable we were seeing family, friends, or clients even at distance versus staying in our own bubbles, and so much more.

While the rest of the world balances multiple roles, responsibilities, and facets of their lives, if you’re one of the privileged few who can “keep things simple” and focus only on leveraging your Zone of Genius, you’ll provide greater value to your clients, achieve more fulfillment at work, and clear headspace to make strategic decisions.

It’s OK not to be all things to all people. No one’s watching you. Do YOU.

2) Build More “Passive” Income Streams

The following is 100% real, “hidden camera” footage of me happy dancing when Squarespace sends me a notification that someone pre-ordered my new book :).

But in all seriousness, if we learned anything this year…

…It’s that life can be UNPREDICTABLE.

By doing the hard work now to create future “passive” income streams such as books, online courses, rental properties, automatic monthly investments into stocks or bitcoin via dollar-cost averaging, or anything else that you can build once and sell multiple times thereafter, you can steadily build a baseline income for your business.

Through this Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), you can make longer-term decisions on who to hire, where to invest your time and any additional cash flow, or even when to take a few days/weeks off to enjoy life.

For future market downturns, black swan events, and pandemics, you’ll be better prepared if your revenue tank as you’ll have more “regular” and diversified streams of income to smooth out the inevitable feast or famine profits your business may experience currently.

Plus, with more people spending endless hours online, learning new skills and spending more money (side bar - roughly 20% of ALL money in circulation was printed this year, so where do you think it’s all going?!?).

Capture some of those dollars via digital products and other passive income streams.

3) Ponder The Exodus From Flat Screens, Powered By XR

Taylor Freeman, founder of Axon Park and founding council member of XR Inclusion is working with dozens of the world’s top hospitals, Fortune 1000 companies, and higher education institutions on “pre-visualization” technologies through virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

Imagine if healthcare workers could practice putting on PPE in the safest, most effective manner through VR headsets before being put in the line of fire.

This is happening right now, and soon real estate developers will be able to see their buildings or planned communities in great detail through high fidelity digital worlds.

Firefighters and police will be able to train in dangerous situations without putting their lives on the line, so that when those trying “moments” arise, they are better prepared.

This technology will impact any complex or heavily “visual” industry including tourism, healthcare, real estate, construction, and more.

Perhaps our future Meeting of the Minds summits will be held in a mix of in-person and VR attendance, so start thinking now about how your business will be impacted by an exodus from our “flat screen” smartphones and computers as add virtual, augmented, and mixed reality into our lives.

Episode 5 Vr GIF by Portlandia - Find & Share on GIPHY

4) Learn (or Hire For) Coaching Capacity To Take Care Of Your Community and Team’s Mental Health

Yuri Kruman (founder of HR, Talent and Systems and Master The Talk), who is also an annual member of Meeting of the Minds, posed this question to the entrepreneurs who joined us this past weekend.

How are you taking care of your own mental health, and that of employees, in 2021?

While mental health has been on the HR bingo board for years, given the likelihood that the first 6 months of 2021 will continue to be entirely remote for most teams, there are still massive challenges ahead for keeping your team(s), contractors, and yourself engaged, supported, and upbeat.

As leaders, we must develop basic coaching capacities and check-in with our staff, clients, and overall community to ask them about:

What do they value?
What’s driving or motivating them to be successful?
What negative scripts are they running internally which may get in the way of their performance and/or fulfillment?
What’s going on personally that may be impacting their professional lives, both positive and negative?
How do they prefer to receive feedback?

And so much more…

This can be a tall order for you, so Yuri recommends building systems to constantly check-in, evaluate, offer feedback, and otherwise support your team.

How Is Your Day Going GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

If you wish to follow Mandy’s advice for 2021 (see #1 above), then you may want to hire a coach for yourself and/or bring someone in to work with your team.

Personally, I’ve invested over $10,800 in executive coaching annually since 2019 and it’s made me healthier, more effective, and more prepared to handle adversity among other benefits. Consider investing in your own success and mental health via coaching, masterminds, etc in 2021.

5) Adopt More Objectivity And Consistently Evaluate Yourself When Evolving Your “EQ”

2020 reminded us that we live in a world of “haves” and “have nots”, and that certain minority groups have been treated unfairly in the workplace, by government, and societally for generations.

Diversity and Inclusion has become a hot space for companies looking to add more women, people of color, and other minority groups into leadership positions, and this coming year will be one of accountability.

For you and your business, Joanne Giang (Founder of Braindom and President of the LA chapter for the National Association of Asian American Professionals) suggests:

1) Practicing more objectivity and treating everyone the same (think of “the golden rule” or treating people how you’d wish to be treated).
2) Turning your attention inwards and asking where you can improve if you come across an uncomfortable interaction, conversation about the lack of diversity in your company or communication, and/or inter-personal skills.

At the end of the day, being more objective and practicing Extreme Ownership will lead to more collaborative, diverse, and empathetic communities.

In 2021, let’s pour energy into where we can improve instead of reacting to other people’s feelings, agendas, or fluffy social media posts.

While others talk, we will LISTEN and then ACT.

Of course, there’s a lot more to predict, plan for, and popularize in 2021.

What are some trends we didn’t discuss above that you think Meeting of the Minds members, alumni, and followers should know about?

Reply to this email (or comment below) and let us know!

-Jared

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Jared Kleinert is the founder of Meeting of the Minds (motm.co), as well as a TED speaker, 2x award-winning author, and USA Today's "Most Connected Millennial".

Meeting of the Minds curates "super-connectors" and subject matter experts as invite-only attendees to 3 day summits in places like Napa Valley, Bermuda, and elsewhere, as well as “deep dives” such as this Marketing and Biz Dev strategy & implementation workshop. Members of the MOTM network include CEOs of 7, 8, and 9-figure businesses, creators of globally-recognized brands and social movements, New York Times bestselling authors, founders of pre-IPO tech unicorns, c-suite execs from Fortune 500 companies, and others.

Jared's career began at 15 years old when he started his first company, and took off at 16 while working as the first intern, and then one of the first 10 employees, for an enterprise SaaS company called 15Five, which today has raised over $40M and has almost 2000 forward-thinking companies as monthly recurring clients.

Later, Jared would become a delegate to President Obama's 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Malaysia, write multiple books including the "#1 Entrepreneurship Book of 2015", and speak at TED@IBM the day before he turned 20.

As a highly-sought after keynote speaker and consultant, Jared’s clients range from organizations like Facebook, Samsung, Bacardi, Estee Lauder, IBM, Cornell, Berkeley, AdAge, and the National Speakers Association. His insights on entrepreneurship, networking, marketing, and business development have been featured in Forbes, TIME, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, NPR, Entrepreneur, Mashable, Fox Business and more.

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