Happy 2018…

There is something about beginning 2018 on a Monday.  Perhaps that is a sign of an efficient year ahead.  Where everything swept under the carpet creeps out into the open.  Where all grey becomes more black and white.  Where inefficiencies become efficient and that applies to the big picture.

I have always been a fan of reinventing myself over the course of my life. Perhaps it is just at my core.  I love change, I am pretty fearless, I have scaled more non-physical mountains than I care to name and I thrive on challenge.  Or maybe it is age or maybe it is not but as I think about entering this new year, I am being more reflective and feeling freer than ever.

My gut is 2018 will be a good year for the start-up world and start-up means any new businesses regardless of what vertical they are in.  We will see less new start-ups get funded and more companies who were funded over the years become mature and that means being less volatile.  There will be more IPO’s and more M&A action.  Valuations will reflect that.  We will start to see a climbing backlash to the ever ending in your face social media with other ways to connect to each other.  What that looks like, I am not sure but people are burning out and no longer trusting of these platforms.  Crypto-currencies, as volatile as they are, is the guiding light towards a flat world where capital shifts from the powerful banks to the people.  With that will come a rise of the people against the Governments that are controlled by dictators.  Just as women have begun to speak out against bad male behavior, we will see those voices in other places.

I have always been a believer that whatever one generation messes up, the other one fixes.  Issues like our environment and global warming, food waste and overuse of unhealthy products in our food supply such as antibiotics and even data security are a few of the ever ending problems that needs to be resolved to make things better for future generations.  That is what freedom allows us to do.

The long tail of this first year of the Trump administration will begin to show it’s ugly head on the economy sometime at the end of 2018.  It is 2019 that could be a tough fiscal year on many levels.  But for right now, I am looking forward to the year ahead particularly with a lighter bounce in my step.

Comments (Archived):

  1. kirklove

    “I have always been a believer that whatever one generation messes up, the other one fixes.”Interestingly (and cynically) as I grow older and learn more about history I’m often blown away about how different generations keep making the same mistakes. It’s remarkable how little we learn from history and how often it repeats itself for better or worse.

    1. Gotham Gal

      I’ve definitely grown more cynical as I get older but I’m also an eternal optimist. Perhaps a clash of thoughts but it is the constant change that moves us forward. Sometimes bad but generally good wins out.

  2. awaldstein

    A great New Year to you as well!I’m approaching the year with a huge amount of drive and excitement and more focus on personal goals as the key to larger successes.Have a great one!My thoughts late last evening after watching Casablanca and All About Eve and the house was quiet.Thoughts I’m taking into 2018 http://arnoldwaldstein.com/

    1. Gotham Gal

      Great post. I like this…..The contextual relevance of what we contribute is the new acid test. And agree, we are just getting started

      1. awaldstein

        Thanks!We need to build the world with us in it, not in the way of it. I work hard at that.Have a great New Years Day. Almost too cold to take a walk here.

  3. Sunchowder

    Happy New Year to you and your family!!

  4. daryn

    Happy New Year, hope you have a great 2018!

  5. Erin

    I was just reading this morning from an astrologer I follow that it’s going to be a serious year too. Here’s her forecast: Just a few days ago on December 21st, Saturn went into the earth sign of Capricorn where it will remain for the next two and a half years. This is a shift to a more serious tone, and is a time when we need to stop relying so much much on outer authority (or patriarchy, the establishment, conservative values) and take charge ourselves as individuals, finding confidence in our own authority.Saturn and Capricorn are teachers. They sometimes provide hard lessons that make us stronger, more wise, and more effective. How we respond to those lessons are what determine the future.In 2018, Uranus, the planet of authenticity and change, will go into Taurus after spending 7 years in Aries. Also an earth sign, Taurus represents the need to implement, maintain, and generate routines.So 2018 will be about grounding the work of change and keeping it moving forward. Doing this work with love and joy will make it more powerful.— Marina Ormes

    1. Gotham Gal

      Wow. Really interesting

  6. Kirsten Lambertsen

    Happy New Year! Agree with your predictions. I think it’s going to be very interesting as some of these decentralized technologies and models are picked up by young tech savvy activists and organizers.I think (just on a hunch, gut-level type thing) we’re going to find out that Bitcoin (or some other crypto currency) is going to play a starring role in the findings of the Mueller investigation.And, this may be the year that we find a legit way to break out of the subscription vs ads revenue model online.

  7. Donna Brewington White

    Funny that you mention reinvention. This has been a theme in my life for most of the past decade and I am ready to shift this person I have become into high gear. But first a week in Mammoth. :)What you say here makes a lot of sense. I hope you are wrong about the “long tail of this first year of the Trump administration” but I am holding everything loosely and plowing ahead. What we learn with age is that who we are and who we are becoming plays a larger role in determining our outcomes — but I could sure use some help from a robust economy in getting to the next level in my business and personal life. As I commented on another blog (haha, Fred’s) given the uncertainty we are facing, “More than ever, this is a time to keep an open mind and to be a keen observer.”Happy New Year, GG!