What do you (I) want out of 2017? And what does your (my) decision mean for the future of our lives/country/region/world?

My brain tends to veer away from anything that starts looking too trendy, that seems to get co-opted by pop culture, or that starts looking, sounding, smelling like a cliche. The problem, though, is that sometimes cliches and trends have some sense to them. Sometimes.

In my circles, “intentions” have become a hot topic of conversation over the last few years. Whether about work, family, relationships, personal health, entertainment, social media, partying, or consumption of food, alcohol, or other substances, or otherwise, it was no longer relevant just what you were doing, but what was your goal behind it, and how conscious you were of the decision to be doing that, in that way, at that time, with those people. “Intentions” are the newest recipe in the “self-help” cookbook, and their fast rise in regular discourse made me suspicious. It sounded cliche and overused within a short period of time.

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” (Yogi Berra, ~1962)

The funny thing about life, meaning, and intentions, though, is that your own self-awareness of those things, and both what you want and what you are doing to get there … actually that’s everything.

People rarely get anywhere of great value, meaning, or importance totally accidentally.

As part of my effort to build a stronger organization, be a stronger support for the wonderful people I work with, have stronger impact in Lebanon/MENA/the world, and find greater meaning and happiness in my own life, I went on a sort of binge-reading spree the last few months on personal and organizational psychology. Thus far I’ve read:

• Deep Work (Cal Newport)
• The ONE Thing (Jay Papasan, Gary Keller)
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey) (Some great tips, though a bit cliche. Some of the most important things here many of us already know, but rarely do. There’s a super-abbreviated article about it here)
• Smarter Faster Better (Charles Duhigg)
• Zero to One (Peter Thiel, Blake Masters)
• The Effective Executive (Peter F. Drucker)
• The Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz)

… plus various journal and online articles around related topics. A few other books and articles are on my reading list.

All of them have wonderful insights into how we as individuals and we as groups live, think, work, find meaning, grow, and compete in a fast-changing world full of distractions, flashy lights, and social media. This is part of my effort to become a more intentional leader. And FYI, almost no “secrets of success” are actually secrets. These books are largely based on publicly available research, and have sold tens of millions of copies. They just take conscious awareness, focused work, and building those activities into habits and routines that are normal parts of your life.

(I particular enjoyed the aspects of these books that are based on rigorous research and evidence, citing valuable research in areas of psychology, communications, business, nutrition, and how groups and organizations operate.)

One critical component that came up again and again, especially in “Smarter Faster Better”, “Deep Work”, and “The ONE Thing”, was how the nature of our world is changing rapidly, and our ability to think, learn, create, problem-solve, and do important work will be a strong determining factor in the direction the world goes in the next few years, our roles in shaping where the world goes, and our future role and position in the world in 5, 10, or 20 years.

Newport says in “Deep Work” that with the fast-emerging trends in automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, self-driving cars, etc, that there are three kinds of people who will succeed in the near future:

• The High-Skilled Workers
• The Superstars
• The Owners

And then there’s everyone else, who will likely see their job opportunities weaken, or get replaced by robots or software entirely.

It was back in 2011 that Marc Andreesen, partner in the famed and massively successful Andreesen Horowitz venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, wrote his well-known piece on how “software is eating the world”. Those who don’t (or can’t) adapt are in trouble. “Many people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution” Andreesen said back in 2011. “Many workers in existing industries will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again. There’s no way through this problem other than education, and we have a long way to go.”

More and more jobs will get sucked up by software … and if you don’t want to lose your job in 10 or 20 years, you better be in one of those positions that Newport highlighted (above). One of the smartest minds in tech and trends, Fred Wilson, says in a recent blog post: “If you are in your twenties, AI will define your lifetime.” Get ready.

(I’m going to write a separate blog post about my fears related to “the basic income” approach to potentially massive waves of unemployment that we will likely face in the next 10–20 years.)

So how do technology and economic trends relate to personal growth and “intention-setting”?

Much of it comes down to social media, and social media as a stand-in for the many other sites, tools, distractions, and addictions that are rotting our brains and killing our abilities to think, communicate, and create.

These tools of Silicon Valley (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, crappy news sites, click-bait, YouTube, and tons of other apps and sites) are scientifically optimized to suck your attention and keep your eyeballs glued for longer. It’s not just an issue of time, though, they are actually physically, emotionally, and intellectually draining us. They are physically changing how our brains are wired, our habits, our abilities, and are dramatically reducing our ability to think, communicate, learn, and be competitive in the current and near-future world.

In a state of mass distraction, hundreds of millions of people are physically and psychologically eroding their brains, and making it more likely that they will lose competitiveness against Silicon Valley and the software of Silicon Valley in the coming years. The already massive imbalance of power that exists between Silicon Valley and much of the world (even much of the US) is even further enhanced as many people are addicted to and affected by those tools that Silicon Valley is selling us.

And this is happening in a massive way in Lebanon, around the MENA region, and much of the world, even in the US.

It takes substantial will power, training, enthusiasm, and focus to overcome the science, creativity, sugar, and massive research in psychology and human behavior that many social media and other mass-distraction sites employ on us vulnerable people (thanks Joe Edelman).

It takes self-awareness of what you want, and what is meaningful for you, and how your daily actions fit into that, to help you fight off many of the distractions that surround us (thanks Tristan Harris, and TimeWellSpent).

My personal intentions for 2017 are below, in basic terms. I thought this might be helpful to share as I work to improve my own life, to improve my organization and support the people I work with, and to contribute in whatever ways I can to improve current and future conditions in Lebanon, MENA, and the world … and maybe this could be helpful for you as well:

• More intentional learning: Make more conscious choices about what I want to learn, and how, and engage others I work with and beyond so we can all collectively learn more, learn more effectively, learn more that we can actually apply on critical issues, and learn more from each other.
• More intentional leading: I’m fortunate to work with a bunch of great people, on issues that I think are important for our community, the country, the region, and the world. I need to keep exploring ways to help them be as amazing as they can be (as they are), and to help our work be as impactful, scalable, and as amazing as possible. If we’re successful, and others working on these issues as well, maybe we can avert some of the worst of the disasters I see looming and that I touch on in this post.
• More intentional caring: I love my family and friends, but I’m not always that good about showing that and being that. I believe that many things we think are nouns (love, balance, health, knowledge, etc) are actually veiled verbs that need constant attention … to be loving, to be constantly balancing and adjusting, to be acting in a healthy way, to be learning and listening and reflecting. I also need to sort out some issues that have gotten in the way of other personal relationships, and that plague much of the world (relationships have always been challenging, and I think they’re even more so these days. Maybe another topic for a separate post.)
• More intentional living: If you don’t take care of your body, where will your mind and your heart live? I need to be better about some of the basics, to help me be physically, mentally, and emotionally the best I can be, such as better eating habits, sleeping, yoga, meditation, exercise, my living environment, and making more time for nature and downtime … both alone and with family/friends.

Perhaps most essentially, I’m trying to make more intentional decisions around how I spend my time, since that is the most limited resource that any of us have. I’m likely going to be even less active on Twitter and Facebook in the coming years.

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What are your intentions for 2017, and beyond? What are the essential steps that you can take to get there?

While there is no one right way, and the books above offer different (sometimes similar) approaches to help people make more conscious decisions and steps in their lives, it’s less important exactly how you start out on that path, and more important that you actually start doing, and then keep reflecting and adjusting and improving things as you go.

I’l’l plug in some other sites and links to explore below.

Good luck to you, and all of us, and best wishes for an amazing 2017.

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• Tristan Harris, and the TimeWellSpent.io movement
• Joe Edelman’s site (and on Medium)
• Umair Haque
• Have other suggestions of people, sites, or other links? Please put in the comments below or ping me on LinkedIn.

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Thanks to Bilal Ghalib (twtr) for feedback and some links for this post.