Video Transcript: What Will 2021 Look Like?
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with this week’s “Let’s Get Growing” tip…where I help you take charge of your plans and accelerate your initiatives as you head into the end of this year.
This will be my last tip for 2020; I’m going to take a little break until the new year. So in this last time you’ll see me for a while…I wanted to share a little inspiration as we wind up what’s been a strange and challenging year for all of us.
I want to share a story that I heard someone else tell this past week when they were talking about what 2021 might possibly look like.
This person was relating the story of his daughter’s recent graduation from high school. After the diplomas were handed out, the commencement speaker took the stage – an older woman who was an alum of the high school. She started her speech like this:
You who have just graduated are from the class of 2020. I am from the class of 1968. Many of you probably don’t know what a tumultuous, often terrifying year that was in our country and in around the world. But as bad as 1968 was – 2020 is even worse – because of the widespread, everlasting impact that the pandemic has had on all aspects of our lives.
So what happened in 1968 that made it so terrible. Here are a few things:
- The Vietnam war was still raging, and the US had its highest casualty count that year
- There was the Prague Spring and riots in Paris
- Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated
- There was widespread unrest in the country – student protests all over the world
- Violence at the Chicago Democratic convention
- Protests at the Olympics
There’s more on a national and global level. A very trying year for so many.
And yet….what happened in the following year – in 1969?
- Apollo 11 – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon
- The Boeing 747 made its debut, and the Concorde made its first test flight
- Woodstock attracted 350K to a small farm in upstate New York
- The Beatles came out with their Abbey Road signature album
- Sesame Street debuted and led to the launch of PBS
- Will Mays became the first ballplayer since Babe Ruth to hit more than 600 home runs
So that was her story. And my point? We are a country that rebounds, that is tremendously resilient, that is full of promise – if we are able to be hopeful, to see what is possible – and to inspire that in the people we lead.
That’s my “Get Growing” tip for this week. Don’t lose hope. Stay strong, stay safe, stay true to yourself.
Happy Holidays to you and your family. I’ll see you in 2021.