Evergreen
| The definition of a Black Swan speaks to an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences.
Whether or not you are part of a big corporation, you will want to be able to know about one well in advance and possibly prepare for it. Even if you are already in the eye of the typhoon, remember that moments of crisis are also the greatest opportunities for growth suddenly emerging. 30% of the companies representing 70% of the developed nations GDP rely today on statistical modeling to forecast sales or profits and adjust their production or marketing mix model. |
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| The definition of a Black Swan speaks to an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences.
Whether or not you are part of a big corporation, you will want to be able to know about one well in advance and possibly prepare for it. Even if you are already in the eye of the typhoon, remember that moments of crisis are also the greatest opportunities for growth suddenly emerging. 30% of the companies representing 70% of the developed nations GDP rely today on statistical modeling to forecast sales or profits and adjust their production or marketing mix model. |
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This unpredictability is if you only rely on econometric models fueled by past data series.
These models tend to smooth the output data series and give you the average likelihood that this output will occur, “assuming that all things remain unchanged”. Meaning: trends keep the cyclical nature they have been observed to show. (Considering the data time span they are based on –on average 2 to 3 years– is almost null.)
The limits of this type of model:
As you business owners and leaders may know – all models have failed to identify black swans… except one critical and very polarizing exception: astrology.
I am not inviting you to take a side, change your views or challenge your existing beliefs, simply to observe a few facts and draw your own conclusions. No proselytism, just an invitation to broaden your horizon and options, open up to new promising leads and maximize your chance of being prepared for what many will likely never be able to plan for.
A lot of this market data is cyclical in nature: weekly purchases, monthly paycheck, seasonal events, habits and conditions. But what about the greater cycles?
When you consider that Jupiter, archetype of growth, takes an average of 11 years to revolve around the sun (just check the time elapsed between the 3 last economical or financial crises to see its cycle) and Saturn, archetype of contraction and mastery, an average 28 years, very few of their cycle milestones will be integrated in the classic short to midterm econometric modeling. This is a model that many companies rely on today and in short, make these limits question even their midterm reliability.
The only planet cycles those models will manage to “read” are those of the Sun (ego drive), Moon (mood and primary needs), Mercury (mindset and market trends), Venus (indulgence and luxuries) and Mars (energy levels and drive). And those of Mars are likely to be very limited as only one cycle can be tracked and no conclusion on its cyclicity drawn.
And just so that we are clear, even the heralded application of artificial intelligence to current models won’t solve for something that simply is not in the current data lake.
Of course, many economists have been trying to identify those business cycles from short ones such as Kitchin to long ones such as Kondratiev but none is actually perfectly working on the long run.
Why do these twentieth century business cycles all struggle?
Simply because our human interactions and the law of the universe will never be as simple and dumb as we are currently trying to make them look like. Yes, we evolved since the last century, realizing that several cycles do interact together and consequently changing the shape of the cyclical nature of a given data series but how many cycles actually do interact is a much more complex story.
A story that thousands of astronomers, and then astrologers, have been studying for thousands of years and tried to delineate. They have painstakingly work on this so that we can become better at forecasting when big events are likely to happen, as well at identifying their core nature. Even if for the time being the exact physical manifestation and place which will trigger those changes still remain a mystery, the application of big data to astrology will one not-so-distant day bring us closer to zeroing in on the potential candidates.
In its 1942 science-fiction series Foundation, Isaac Azimov tells us the story of humanity battling against a galactic descent into 30,000 years of barbarism, foretold by the statistical science of ‘psycho-history’. The epic is rife with the struggles of human agency against the “dead hand of social inevitability” — themes still unnervingly relevant in today’s algorithm-driven ‘big data’ society. Azimov had foreseen the advent of internet, smartphones, and so many other scientific and technological developments… his book was definitely a warning, but nature had a greater defense mechanism: black swans. Out of the blue events to break all the models… but also left us clues above our heads.
An invitation to integrate both parts of our psyche and nature, material and immaterial.
Factoring in the rather regular cycles of growth and contraction
Jupiter and Saturn are the last two visible planets of our solar system. One rules our social conventions and common beliefs, the principles of growth and international expansion. The other rules our institutions, rules, agreements, processes, skills, limits, boundaries, authorities and the principles of contraction, isolation, mastery, responsibilities and respect. One is bullish, the other one bearish.
Their cycles and interactions can easily be identified with around 60 years of data.
Spotting its nest and integrating its many blessings
That is if everything remains unchanged… but since the 1780’s we have discovered other planets and started to emancipate ourselves, “free” ourselves from the laws of nature, discovered more in a few centuries within and without than ever before and our evolution at multiple levels has never stopped accelerating since… and will carry on to do so. This was just the first gear.
We have just switched to the second in 2020 and this for the next 200 years.
Black Swans are triggered by the hard angles formed by Social or Transpersonal planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) because they move so slowly their aspects last from months to years and bring deep changes at all levels: economic, political, intellectual, societal and psychological. Their modality is simple and consistent: they invite us to evolve by shaking our very foundations so that we can walk outside of our comfort zone, get rid of the outdated and make space for the new. They follow just like the sun and the moon to the alternance of life and death, summoning us to die to an old part that is no longer serving us and bring a more positive, integrated and creative part to life, one that will better serve the collective.
The time of crisis can seldom be seen for what they truly are when they occur, but there is an immutable consistence in the individual and collective improvements they finally allow. The difficulty we experience in these moments is simply the pain attached to letting go of our attachment to the old and the resistance that always accompany change.
Concrete applications to your business forecast model
Once the above is integrated, there are multiple ways you can improve a right-brain model with a left-brain approach:
However, if you are not relying on any model, understanding the big trends and shifts that astrology always provide can often make the difference between make or break.
The next 10 years will be chaotic, relying on standard models or simply ignoring the signs will expose your business to many surprises. So do not wait until it is too late and start the conversation now!
