"Don't stay in your lane. The future is happening in the blur between the lines." - Futurist Jim Carroll
---
Futurist Jim Carroll is writing his end-of-2025 / introduction-to-2026 series, 26 Principles for 2026. You can follow along at 2026.jimcarroll.com. He welcomes your comments.
---
We are on Day 22. You have built the engine (Day 17), fuelled it with an anti-fragile mindset (Day 18), mapped your portfolio of options (Day 19), and opened your eyes to the road ahead (Day 21).
But here is the problem: You are still driving as if the old road signs exist!
This trend is easy to understand but difficult to comprehend.
Here's what's going on. In a linear world, we had "industries." Banks were banks. Car companies built cars. Hospitals treated patients.
Competitors were the people who sold exactly what you sold.
In an exponential world, these definitions are disappearing - because the boundaries that define an industry are disappearing. Why is that? Because the things that defined an industry were some very strict barriers, and a lot of 'friction' was involved to try to do anything. Today, with faster trends, technology, and AI, those barriers are disappearing because 'friction' is being eliminated.
Technology is not just speeding things up; it is melting the walls between sectors. If you define yourself by your "industry," you are already obsolete, because your biggest threat - and your biggest opportunity - is coming from outside of what you define it to be. From a personal career perspective, this has pretty profound implications - because if you are an 'expert' in a certain industry, what happens to you when the industry begins to blur?
The discipline you must master in 2026 and beyond is Boundary Dissolution.
Why are the walls between industries crashing down?
It goes back to the "Tomorrow's Company Won't Have Walls" idea - the new corporate structure allows companies to bend and shape, mold and modify, shift and change. We are moving from firms as closed, industry-defined “things” to firms as cross-sector systems that route data, payments, identity, logistics, and care across different partners at high speed.
To do a lot of these, they are hiring the people who are experts at the career pivot - people who bring a broad range of skills across a vast number of different knowledge areas, who have worked and can work in multiple different industries.
The new leader of the future is Gumby!
He or she doesn't have bones, but they have ambition. And in a rigid world, they bend the rules of every industry to build the future.
Don't take my word for it. Look at what is happening right now among the world's biggest players.
---
**#Boundaries** **#Convergence** **#Blur** **#Industries** **#Orchestration** **#Flexibility** **#Disruption** **#APIs** **#Innovation** **#Exponential**
Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/12/decoding-tomorrow-mastering-2026-22-boundary-divergence-dont-stay-in-your-lane-the-future-is-happening-in-the-blur-between-the-lines/
