Listen up:

The world needs you right now.

It needs your ideas, your hopes, your boundless aspirations. It needs your dreams. It needs the unique insights that only you can bring to the table.

The world needs your patience, but it also needs your persistence. It needs your failures. It needs to watch you fall and then witness your rise as you stand back up again.

Chaos and uncertainty are powerful agents of meaningful change. If anything, the past several months have shown us that progress happens when we are backed up against a wall. Think about it: research has shown that when prospects are favorable, people avoid taking risks. We get comfortable. Why ruin a good thing? However, and just as importantly, when prospects seem bleak, that’s when we take the most risks. Daniel Kahneman summarizes this succinctly in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow:

“When directly compared or weighted against each other, losses loom larger than gains. This asymmetry even has an evolutionary history…organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive.”

COVID-19 has given us a reason to prioritize a great threat as a means to survive. What have you witnessed that could benefit from innovation? What new products or services do we need? How can we improve healthcare and safety measures, or more quickly bring solutions and medications to market? What innovations will make working from home more manageable?

The United Nations agrees that the best and fastest way to reduce poverty, increase community wealth, hire more individuals and promote general economic strength is to invest in small businesses, entrepreneurs and innovative ideas.

Right now, more than ever, we need you. We need your ideas and your innovations to grow together toward the most positive future we could only previously have imagined.

Please share your ideas, and invest in each other’s.