Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads

As I sat to write this week’s article that famous quote from Back to the Future popped into my head from out of nowhere.

It’s the scene from the very end of the first movie. Doc has just returned from “the future” and now he’s taking Marty back to the future.

Marty: Hey Doc, you better back up, we don’t have enough road to get up to 88.
Doc Brown: Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.

Then you see the car lift off the ground and fly through the air, effortlessly disappearing into its time jump.

The context of this scene for me now in today’s post-pandemic world are the rules and how we went about things have permanently changed. What worked yesterday doesn’t apply. Trying to take the established “road” won’t work anymore. The sooner we can abandon even needing to take that road, or any road for that matter, the better.

As someone who has never taken the established road in my life, I feel like I’ve got some very distinctive history to work this out again in this new reality.

Writing this article, I came up with some examples:

• As a DJ I found success by promoting a new type of music no one had heard before. When no one else was doing it I did it myself.
• I landed a record deal with the biggest electronic music label at the time even though I had no experience but I had the audacity to try.
• In the 1990s I was inventing “e-commerce” before any tools existed – people would email me their credit card numbers and I would run their numbers through a friend’s store’s credit card machine and he’d give me a cheque once a month. That was how I did it!
• I had a hit online radio show in 2000. The iPod didn’t come out till 2001. There were no podcasts. This was completely new territory with very complicated yet primitive technology.
• I created a new concept to present recorded webinars as if they were live. Something no one had tried before. I did it with no formal training or education. I didn’t know enough to think I could fail at it, so I just did it and figured I would see what happens.
• I was creating online communities 10 years before Facebook existed, and no one even knew what purpose they would have until they existed.
• When I got into Stage Hypnosis, I got myself booked as a guest on TV shows without having any experience. I also booked 10 high school shows before I ever performed at one.
• I created automation software tools to run my various businesses as a one-man-show from home many years before such tools could be had much more easily. Even today I see that most small business owners aren’t automating as much as they could be.
• With no writing experience, I wrote my memoir by myself with no ghost writers or assistance. I knew I had the stories but I didn’t know if I could write a good book. The reviews say I wrote an amazing book.

The consistent thread with the above examples is that I was trying things that didn’t exist prior. There was no road to follow. There was no way for me to know what would work. All I could do was give it a shot. The less people trying it the better, and even better still was if no one was attempting what I was doing. Then I was guaranteed to stand out – if it worked.

And if it didn’t, well, on to the next thing.

So my challenge again today is to continue to try new things. What’s new for me this time is that simultaneous to that I share my stories and experiences with others to help them find their new things.

This is a historic time. There are no roads to follow. We can freak out about it, or we can adopt Doc Brown’s philosophy.

The whole point of this article is that I can’t tell you what your path ahead is. And no one else can and I would steer really clear of those saying they can. But perhaps I can give you some permission to abandon traditional thinking and try something else.

Imagine you found something that meant not needing a road at all? Something completely new and different.

I’ll leave you with this thought:

What problem is out there that is needing to be solved right now that you know about and no one else does? Something you have distinct experience with, that draws on the tools, skills and resources you have.

What one thing could you do today to test and experiment with it and see what happens?