You don't need a crystal ball to see that we’re in a period of mass acceleration right now.
“It’s as if we’re driving the fastest race car ever imagined through unknown, unmarked terrain,” observes Fareed Zakaria in Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World. “But we never bothered to equip the car with airbags.” We didn’t get insurance. We have not even put on our seatbelts. The engine runs hot. Parts overheat … there have been some crashes, each one a bit worse than the last.”
There’s growing realization that we are living at a pivotal moment in human history. And we are not ready for vast changes ahead.
I’ve been observing trends and helping my readers and corporate clients discover opportunity in change for over 30 years. Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this.
A confluence of mega-forces — demographic, economic, geopolitical, social, technological, climate — will almost certainly disrupt many millions who are not prepared. Yet these very same trends will be exploited by those who are prepared for these mega changes to catapult their lives forward, revive and rejuvenate their organizations, and strengthen their communities into an unprecedented era of prosperity and abundance.
My question to you is: Which group do you intend to be a part of?
The Most Important Leadership Skill You Can Develop
To navigate the complex, volatile and ever-evolving landscape ahead, you need a certain, little understood skillset. Musk has it in spades. Steve Jobs had it, Dalio and many others. It’s the ability to see what's next — monitor the trends — and the ability to discover opportunity in the way society is changing, by anticipating and creatively responding right where you are.
I’m all for trying to predict trends, but the best way to predict the future is to innovate the future. Too often futurists and innovation experts live and work in separate silos. Futurists (and economists) try to predict and pontificate about future trends while short-shifting how to make money off of strategic foresight. And the innovation people get all caught up in inventing, and are divorced from what will be needed tomorrow.
The decisions you make today — where you invest, what you chose to read, where to live, where to move — will shape your tomorrow. Our vision of the future and how we go about doing what we do - in the workplace, on the boards we serve on, in our communities — will create the kind of tomorrow we'll inhabit.
A Conference About the Future
To look at the shape and requirements of this emerging landscape, I’d like to invite you to join me for my second Elite Retreat one-day conference here in Santa Barbara May 2nd. For the first time, my vision is to bring subscribers of this newsletter together with a few of my fellow futurists and public speakers, to ponder the possibilities and discuss strategies for navigating this new terrain. (Save the date: more information coming soon)
I'm hosting this conference because I'm convinced that those who manage the future will inherit the future. The landscape ahead will require a different way of thinking: what I call the Opportunity Mindset.
To roll with the punches - and there will be plenty of successes and messes ahead — we all need to get better at strategic foresight. At this conference, I will show you how to become your own futurist. And we all need to get better at sparking innovation - finding needs and filling them; turning our visions into reality; getting new things accomplished.
Coupled with the tenacity to execute and actually get new things done right where you are, no matter if you're an aging boomer, a millennial corporate knowledge worker, a business owner, an educator, or professional. The question we'll address is: are you ready to reinvent yourself? This retreat will help you get prepared for the future.
If you’d like to be notified about this conference, please hit reply and let me know. and save the date, we’ll be opening registration in the coming weeks, and I’d love to have you participate.