Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Think Forward EP 132 - Disruptive Futures with Roger Spitz
Welcome to episode 132! We sit down with Roger Spitz of the Disruptive Futures Institute.
Roger Spitz brings a refreshingly different perspective to the future of business and leadership. As the former global head of Tech M&A who pivoted into professional futures work, Roger's journey represents exactly the kind of transformation he advocates for—bold, purpose-driven, and responsive to a changing world.
What sets Roger apart is his holistic approach to disruption. While most futurists focus narrowly on technological innovation, Roger delves into the systemic changes reshaping our entire landscape. His Triple A framework—Anti-fragile, Anticipatory, and Agility—offers a practical operating system for navigating uncertainty that goes beyond standard playbooks.
The concept of "meta-eruptions" that Roger introduces challenges conventional thinking about trends and forecasting. As he explains, we're living in a world where "unprecedented" has become the norm, requiring fundamentally different approaches to preparation and response. His global perspective, having lived across nine countries by age 18, combined with his unconventional study of disciplines like improv comedy alongside traditional futures methodology, creates a unique lens for understanding adaptation and resilience.
In this fantastic talk, we cover:
- Developing the Triple A framework: Anti-fragile foundations, Anticipatory thinking, and Agility to reconcile long-term vision with immediate action
- Understanding "meta-eruptions" as constant, often surprising systemic changes that require a new approach beyond traditional megatrend analysis
- How global perspective and varied experiences (including studying improv comedy) enhance futures intelligence and adaptability
- Creating the Disruptive Futures Institute to address the gap between specialized fields and build a new operating system for decision-making
- Applying futures thinking to complex challenges like climate action and sustainable market transformation
- Emphasizing relevance as the ultimate test for individuals and organizations in a rapidly changing world
- Recognizing our agency to create virtuous tipping points even amid accelerating disruption
Find Roger Spitz online through LinkedIn, the Disruptive Futures Institute website, or his book "Disrupt with Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World."
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to the Think Forward Show. Let's explore the future together. Welcome to the Think Forward Show. Today we're diving into the fascinating realm of disruptive futures with a guest who's been literally everywhere in the future space these past few years.
Speaker 1:Roger Spitz isn't your typical futurist. He comes to the field from a completely different angle. As the former global head of TechM&A who made a bold pivot into professional futures work, roger founded the Disruptive Futures Institute and wrote the acclaimed book Disrupt with Impact. It's where he introduces a game-changing framework called the Triple Approach. It stands for anti-fragile, anticipatory and agility.
Speaker 1:While most of us futurists talk about technology disruption, roger takes a broader view, focusing on systemic changes and meta-eruptions that are reshaping our world at an unprecedented pace. From his unique global perspective having lived in nine different countries by age 18, to his unconventional study of improv comedy to enhance his futures thinking, roger brings a refreshingly different approach to navigating uncertainty. We'll explore how his financial background gives him a special insight into board-level decision-making, sustainable futures and how organizations can help develop futures intelligence as an operating system for the 21st century. So get ready for a mind-expanding journey where we'll discover why unprecedented is becoming the norm and how you can prepare your organization to thrive amid this constant disruption. This is episode 132, disruptive Futures with Roger Spitz. Roger, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hey, steve, great to be on. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So, roger, you've been seems to be everywhere these last few years. You and I met at the. You've been seems to be everywhere these last few years. You and I met at the University of Houston Foresight Program and I've just seen your trajectory has just been awesome. You know, you really kind of captured a part of the space. You know, I talked to a lot of designers, talked to a lot of different futurists, innovators, different parts of the field. You come at it from a finance background and economics, but a lot of people may not know who you are. So why don't you? Let's just start kind of with your journey, like, how do you go from being like a global head of tech and tech M&A to being a futurist? You know your focus on systemic disruption, so how does how of accidental futurist journey come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no good point. It's probably not super common of the different things. I'm not sure there are many or any ex-M&A bankers that are kind of professionally qualified futurists or what have you. I kind of stumbled upon it and then connected the dots in certain ways. That seemed to make sense for me. I was interested in various things other than the city and banking and finance. Um, initially I was interested in philosophy and various things at school in the french educational system which I did a few years of it's. It's broader than just kind of, you know, sometimes the us or uk. So I did study philosophy and all that at a very basic level. But at some point one has to make choices. And certainly when you go I was in London when you go to move into investment banking, like you know from your own consultancy work and that it's 200% right, you have very little if no time for anything. So at that point you make choices. You sell you know there's a nice book and opera and everything called Faust about that and it was. You know these are good professions and M&A is quite forward looking and you're thinking about the future.
Speaker 2:I was global head of M&A covering tech, so advising CEOs, boards and investors on their most strategic divestments or acquisitions, covering it globally. Initially in London, and in 2017, I was asked to sort of reinforce and kind of develop the team in San Francisco and I promised myself to go down the rabbit hole of things that are starting to notice, and the main thing was what was keeping clients up at night was no longer the conventional playbooks or cookie cutter strategy or market share or what have you. It was something which I call disruption. It's not a word I like, although I haven't found a better one, so I do use it, but then we'll come back to it but it's really non-linear, complex change. It's systemic disruption. It's something else which over the past five, 10 years, I think has exacerbated although that's a negative connotation has kind of reinforced, and I decided to go down that rabbit hole of change. So indeed, we met at Houston. I did another course in Foresight as a Institute for the Future. I did some courses at Santa Fe Institute of Complexity, courses on stand-up comedy and things like that, courses at the D School in Stanford on design thinking and AI and strategy, and I basically did 10 to 12 micro learning courses over a period of four or five years.
Speaker 2:When I moved to the US in 2017. And at some point, I realized two things. One is that things were changing a lot and probably the assumption the world was making of a stable, linear, predictable, controllable world. Not only was that assumption wrong, but the cost of relying on that assumption was increasing for humanity, for companies, for countries, and that's basically one realization. The second realization is I felt that I was very interested in these topics and that carving out 10% of my time didn't cut it anymore, so I took the brave or stupid decision to professionalize it a few years ago, to move full time into spending time thinking about these topics, writing about it and what have you, and we can unpack that and the journey since, but that, effectively, is kind of the trigger and inflection point, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:For those who are listening along those micro learning things you mentioned. You did a comedy, so you usually get the. I did the business education or the futures courses or this or that, but I think you're the first one that mentioned comedy or improv. So can you explain that and why and how it's benefited you, especially public speaking too, I would gather?
Speaker 2:Yeah, these are great interventions, or whatever the word is. Yeah, no, and like a reaction. No, you're right, maybe it is an intervention, but no. The thinking was the following In Silicon Valley and many places, when you think about change or disruption, you immediately bring it down to a technocentric product, innovation or technology discrete, and we can talk about that separately. And I was sensing that the changes that I was observing were much broader and I was interested in taking different vantage points and benefiting from different vantage points around change.
Speaker 2:And stand-up, comedy or improv are different aspects of looking at surprise, at discontinuity, and I thought that it would be interesting to add that to the various ways of perceiving and experiencing change. More specifically, when I did the dschool in Stanford, I did a one-week executive education. Again, these are not real degrees or anything. This is like micro-learning and dabbling and just planting seeds to then connect the dots and that. But in D school I was very lucky to have, and also at Singularity University, I had an executive program. I was very lucky to have a professor from Stanford on improv and I, you know, I did a few hours, no big deal.
Speaker 2:But I just thought it'd be interesting to do a bit more of that in a more structured way. And you're right, it helps with public speaking although in investment banking you're quite familiar with that but it kind of broadens it. It helps with thinking about discontinuity and change and disruption, for want of a better word. It helps how you respond and the yes and mindset and it really brings a lot of things together.
Speaker 2:And the most interesting thing for me maybe and we'll unpack that with maybe some other topics around our work and that is improv, intuitively, when you first think about it, or for me anyway, I imagine that it was something which was completely you can't practice it and it doesn't help with new situations because, by definition, it's novel and it's improvised. But what's interesting is that it has this kind of paradox and tension and contradiction which is, yes, it's novel because it's improv, it's a new situation constantly, but by virtue of improvising more, you somehow get better versed at dealing with the unexpected and uncertainty. And I felt that actually the connection with foresight and with what's happening in the world and the areas of interest. It was extremely useful, I wouldn't say more than some of the tools, but certainly up there in terms of relevance and usefulness.
Speaker 1:Well, you had a recent keynote in Paris and it's interesting. You brought up the unexpected and you talked about how unprecedented is becoming the norm. I see COVID is a I would call that a major trigger, because everyone had everything going along for decades and then everything is completely just upended and we realize how fragile things are. But is it always kind of in a state of unprecedented? I mean, obviously, look at the last few weeks when this is being taped about AI and deep seek in China, all kinds of things that just seem to be popping up. So could you unpack that a bit Like how you think it's becoming that norm?
Speaker 2:There are two aspects to it, I think. One is what is or isn't happening and two is how one perceives it and reacts to it and prepares for it right. I'll start with what I think is happening, which we can unpack if we wish, and which create cascades which have more extremes, not just polarization, but just simply because they're exponential. It can be positive, it can be negative, it can be the speed with which you discover things or have great ideas. It's not necessarily a negative connotation per se, but effectively a combination of drivers of change which we can unpack are leading to what I see as constant change, cascading, greater speed and frequency of inflection points and where things are systemic, so you can't separate a specific event, so you know climate then leads to to social, then can lead to wars, to lead to inflation, pandemics, and that basically at some point I think, for society or decision makers or anyone, when you're reading about unprecedented never happened before, daily for different things, you have to ask yourself whether you need to reframe the way we think about the meaning of unprecedented.
Speaker 2:Is rare, becoming less rare, if extremes are becoming more common. What does it actually mean? The never happened before and unprecedented Does it help with you prepare that, it's just unlikely. And I think what's important for humanity is to observe that actually there's no such thing as being protected from these things, and therefore that leads you to, if you sort of think, ok, actually change is quite frequent and quite surprising, and more and more so. Maybe the issue is how you see the world, and then how you see the world will inform, how you prepare for it and then how you respond to it, and maybe the issue is not necessarily per se what is happening in the world, but the way we see it, prepare for it and respond to it.
Speaker 1:So you've lived in multiple parts of the world, and does that influence your perspective on this? Does it modify that versus those who maybe have just lived in the United States or lived in Europe or lived in I don't know China? How does that influence your perspective on things when you look at it?
Speaker 2:I think, the two aspects which for me were instrumental. I can't comment on how it might help others, but for me, the two aspects that were instrumental, I think one is the specific fragments of life and lived experience, which may potentially be more varied through broader exposure. So, whether it's Africa, western Europe, some aspects of Asia in terms of philosophy, in terms of philosophy in terms of mindset, in terms of cultural references, in terms of just accepting that things are different, et cetera, so there's the lived experience of what you observe and the dots you may or may not connect. And then the other thing I think and this is probably builds on that and it's pretty fundamental is that in a way, change is a constant, because I lived in probably eight or nine countries by the time I was 18 and nothing horrendous, I mean, I wasn't a victim of anything. I just had a father that was very international and doing well and you know absolutely nothing untoward.
Speaker 2:But it it does mean that when you're eight and you have to move schools and completely country and lose all your friends and build from scratch and go to a place with a different language, you adapt differently, you see change in a different way, you might connect things in a different way in terms of the read across. So I think that in environments where I believe that change is a constant and systemic, in that the varied experiences whether it's living in different places or changing ecosystems or whatever it is, there are many ways of achieving the same thing are probably helpful in terms of dealing with the linear way. As humans, we don't like change, we like things that are quite predictable, etc. I'm not saying that it makes you like them, but you're certainly more used to dealing with them, if that makes sense absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean you moved a lot, I mean that disruptive to a child especially. Just you know making friends, getting you know social circles and things like that, but at the same time you now have a. You have a global perspective that many children do not and would not. It, by by the time you were caught, you know time for university. I mean, did that? What are the? What are the major places that you move that you were kind of remember the most that kind of had impact on you? And there's a lot of places I know you did, but what are some big ones?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think I left south africa at the age of six and my father moved back there. Um, he passed away a few years ago but he had moved back there. Our parents divorced and so I spent the past, you know, 15 years reconnecting with south africa, going there, you know, yearly at least that. And I think it's a part of Africa which is very important, first of all for most people, just knowing that it exists and the virtues of it and the amazing richness and all aspects. But then culturally, and then, whether it's music or philosophy or just a million things are the humanity of it, the potentiality even from a business perspective, and of course the sadness and you know things one sees and the tensions and that.
Speaker 2:And then I didn't spend tons of time in India but it kind of influenced me a lot visits and exposure in different places which weren't necessarily Asia was then Buddhism and some of the Indian philosophy and Sanskrit, and I think those are kind of also linked to change and different perceptions on change and transience and that. And you know I spent a lot of time in France as well and of course there's some stereotypes you have of France, but as a kid, for me one of the biggest things was the educational system. Right, because you spend a lot of time at school and when you're at school in Houston which I was at the age of eight or nine and you're asked to do multiple choice set of questions and spend all Wednesday on a baseball, it's not the same as having to write a four-hour essay on God is dead comment or something like that Exactly.
Speaker 1:Can you tell me the inner workings of Dumas', both the Musketeers and the kind?
Speaker 2:of Monte Cristo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine as a kid that would be like no, I know, I think it would be fun, but I'm not. It's not for a 12-year-old probably. But yeah, no, it's interesting. You bring up those very particular countries. I've personally been to them and I love South Africa. I spent a good deal of time there and you're right, there's such a tapestry of different history. You think about the thousands of years that even the French is a country, is a nation. It's changing borders, but how that changed, but the work you've done. Why does someone say like I must start an institute, like I'm going to just start an institute? What motivates you to have the Disruptive Futures Institute, tfi? Like, so what for you is this? What was that drive? Like you know, you've, you've got this background, you've got all this experience and you've seen all these things and you're like, did it? Did it? Just kind of come to you, just where did that kind of like I must? What's what's driving you right? What is the calling to do that or something?
Speaker 2:yeah, so there are a few things and I'm just going to make one one wrap-up comment on the different cultures.
Speaker 2:That because yeah which then feeds into to your question now and some other things, is, of course, in France you have some of the stereotypes and that which many of which are true and justified around you know food or cultural intellectualism, et cetera.
Speaker 2:But one of the things in particular for me which was striking was it allowed me to get exposure to existential philosophy.
Speaker 2:And existential philosophy is one where you sort of prime in particular Jean-Paul Sartre, and we can talk about that later existentialism prime agency, freedom and choice and the agency you have, you exist and you create yourself, and so that strong sense of agency is something which I've kind of felt very assimilated to.
Speaker 2:And coming back to your question around, what was the impetus to suddenly start Disruptive Fusion Suite or what was the vocation or what have you, when I went through that rabbit hole around different micro and then I took the decision to move out of investment banking I mean investment banking, as you know, these are pretty good, well-paid jobs and these are sort of what Bezos calls one-way doors. Right, you don't kind of leave M&A after 20 years and just pitch back up a few years later because you think, oh, it was actually quite good. So when you move you think about it very hard. But one of the reasons I decided to move is because one I earned okay, although I still needed to earn a living and be sustainable. It's one thing to have some savings, another thing to live for decades on end and that.
Speaker 2:So I needed something that I thought I could make a living out of, but I saw a gap. When I went through that rabbit hole and that micro learning, I thought the courses I did were all extraordinary, but I saw a gap. I saw the gap, which is the following One, which is they were quite specialized. It's interesting because, you know, things like foresight are multidisciplinary, but it doesn't mean that they're necessarily connecting the dots and that they're really transdisciplinary and that they're sort of capacity building for a particular way of thinking. They're still relying on specific playbooks, and interdisciplinary doesn't necessarily mean transdisciplinary.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing is I wasn't always so. They were a bit specialized. And then there was a so what question? What do I do about it? So I think foresight and futures is a bit different. I think there's a lot of very important tools in that, but some others not necessarily. But I still think, even when they're multidisciplinary, some of these can be slightly dogmatic. In other words, this is the playbook, this is how to think as a futurist, or how to do design thinking or how to do whatever. And I felt that in the world which I perceived it as constantly changing, where pretty much the whole world was making the wrong assumptions, relying on them, and that the cost of relying on those wrong assumptions was going to increase. I felt that you needed a new operating system. You needed a new operating system in terms of how to make sense of the world, how to make decisions, and that was from a governance perspective boards to strategic, to energy, transition, it's, you know, to really pretty much, to education, to everything, and once you think systemically, none of this is is separated anyway, as as you know no, very, you know, even better than me
Speaker 2:so I saw this gap for a system of content, from education to publications, to executive programs, to thought, to executive programs, to thought leadership, to basically, you know, help the world with new paradigms, knowing that both leadership programs, incentives, governance structures and education were failing humanity in terms of what it is to be relevant in the 21st century and I'm not saying that alone, and that the Institute is able to address that. But I did feel that the potentiality of it was important, both in terms of what the world really needs and aligning with interests I have as well as areas. I thought I had a point of view and could contribute, as well as something which had a business potential. So it was reconciling sort of you know what does the world need, what interests? You know it's the ikigai, what does what? Can I be paid for what?
Speaker 1:I forget the three you know the ikigai and what's you know interesting before is that you mentioned and I've had this conversation and it's been on. It's a couple of different episodes with different people, is it's um, and there's a upcoming episode with dr alex frignani, or maybe one of what already been out. There is we talk about the difference between futures and foresight. You mentioned that. What do you see as the difference between that? And I think people use them kind of interchangeably and I think more academia they try and differentiate that. But what's your take on that?
Speaker 2:I mean, listen, I know some people try to be quite structured and academic around distinctions of that and I don't intend to at all.
Speaker 2:But I would say that futures thinking in terms of futures intelligence, in terms of being future prepared and building resiliency, in terms of being future prepared and building resiliency, is really a capacity and an operating system and it can take absolutely any shape and it doesn't rely just on the future studies of foresight per se. That's why we can talk about it if you wish. I have things like the AAA and things which are not just relying on foresight. I think foresight, in my interpretation of it, tends to be slightly more structured, slightly more specific tools which we're drawing on, often around scenario building, often around strategy, sometimes on a sort of institutional or corporate plane than necessarily individual, whereas I really think that there's a capacity building and an operating system and a futures intelligence which helps one be future prepared, future savvy and build resiliency for shocks, future savvy and build resiliency for sharks, as well as seeing gaps, which may not necessarily fit in a specific box around certain of the foresight tools or approaches per se.
Speaker 1:But listen, I know it's a live debate, even within the field and outside, and most people don't care or don't know, but yeah, anyway, anyway yeah, I always differentiated futures and foresight is um research and thinking or, you know, theory uh to application, like use right, the and and different kinds of foresight. But you have within the dfi and with you just with your book, you know you've got some really interesting frameworks and I think people should be really if they're not aware of them already. I think it would be really great to just kind of get a little nerdy for a minute, kind of talk about some of the terms you've kind of coined which are being used in a lot more places. I think the term meta, meta-ruptions, it's like meta, could you kind of go in that Like, because I know you've linked it to like megatrends and things like that. But it's like, how do you differentiate, like what is? It's an interesting term, especially in the world. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks for picking up on that and listen, we all have. You know, again, it boils down to language and semantics and perceptions. You know, again, it boils down to language and semantics and perceptions. But the way, the way I kind of thought about it is, initially, when I entered the futures field, I felt that the big aha moment and distinction, which was extremely valuable and still is, it's really the difference between, you know, strong signals and weaker signals and horizon scanning versus environmental scanning, so the horizon being broader and you're trying to pick up very specific early signals and that. And then you move to performing a view and building different plausible scenarios and all that is extremely essential and frames how I think a lot in that and in that I was trying to kind of think for myself the connection between the signals, whether stronger or weaker, the trends, and what we do with that. And I know that in the futures field we consider trends to just be the starting point and because they evolve and once they're already trends it's not necessarily the same as a scenario which would be more surprising than just the trend. So I got all that, but I still felt that when you look at you know, I think it was John Naisbert in 82, in the 80s that wrote megatrends. And then there's also sometimes like metatrends, reading those books for myself and looking at the definitions and the future in terms of a direction and trajectory, because you're aggregating a number of things and putting together, putting a label on it and that kind of said OK, this is what is going to happen, but it's just a broader category as opposed to just a specific trend or what have you.
Speaker 2:The second thing is that I felt that these megatrends or metatrends, in the way I read them and again might be a misinterpretation at my end is that even when they're unrelated the individual constituents or the different megatrends, the way they're presented and used, is often on the basis that they will interact in a predictable manner. So you bundle them, you kind of project some direction that will probably continue, and then you consider that a bit like the risk, like you know if you take the 10 biggest risks or the World Economic Forum risk reports, and that these are very substantial, real, relevant et cetera. But the real trick is how do they interact and what that creates? And the fact that you kind of have them in a sort of siloed and specific way might give the impression that you can just take them one by one and look at the ramifications of them in their sort of siloed and specific way might give the impression that you can just take them one by one and look at the ramifications of them in their own right, each megatrend or metatrend. And the third element is that they don't necessarily take to my mind the second or third order implications of change. So when you look at the black jellyfish and some other things, we all know that what we and I know that a mega trend is already meant to embed some next degree implications, but with the understanding we have at that point in time, at some point you don't know what, how it unfolds to second or third order implications. So, long story short, I felt that in the end it was slightly a little bit like looking in the back rear view mirror. Once you could define it, articulate it, understand the implications, project it, understand the ecosystems, put labels on it, I felt that that gave some degree of continuity that was probably greater than the reality of our world, where change is a constant, and so, to contrast it, I put a lot of emphasis in our work on systemic disruption.
Speaker 2:I just felt well, maybe it's meta-eruptions.
Speaker 2:Maybe it is often surprising Rares, as we discussed earlier, becoming less rare, you know, never happened before, et cetera is happening quite a lot, and maybe that's what meta-eruptions are.
Speaker 2:Maybe we should think about not labeling what a meta-eruption is. Now, don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean that there are things in the future that will continue. I mean, I still believe in the three laws or what have you, that things that are in the present will continue in the future. Then the third thing is there'll be new things and things will drop. So I'm not suggesting that there isn't value in history and in some understanding of fundamental drivers understanding of fundamental drivers but that is in parallel to meta-eruptions, and the meta-eruptions might dominate what stays absolutely the same and constant, and so I felt that it was potentially a healthier way than the obsession we all have at the beginning of the year of thinking what are the latest meta-trends and what does that mean, and just taking those as kind of that will help me derive my strategy. No, maybe to help you derive the strategy should be change as a constant. Yes, there's certain things that are probably kind of safer than others to assume some degree of continuity.
Speaker 2:Anyway that was kind of the rationale around that.
Speaker 1:It's really good because it links to I think when you and I were, you were first starting out with this and you kind of launched dfi and one of your first things out of the gate was the triple a framework was anti-fragile, anticipatory and agility. I remember that because it's like I was like that's clever triple a. I'm like who hasn't? Why didn't they come up? Hasn't anybody talked about triple a? I was like because it's everyone's got the framework, everyone. There's so many things out there. Everyone's kind of got their approaches to it.
Speaker 1:But because of your economics background and your finance background, I thought it was interesting because you're instead of kind of the tech futurist route or even I'm a design future, so I'm looking about how to synthesize prototype, like I want to pay, I want to help people touch, taste, feel it. What I love about your approach is that you really get into the boardroom like people are like the anti-fragility message. You People are just really trying to deal with digital transformation initiatives. They're trying to deal with constantly shifting sand and how it happens, and this really goes to the heart of it and I think it's a really resonant message. I've always wanted to ask you like where that kind of came from? Where did it incubate in your brain? Did you see things happen Like you just explained it really beautifully about meta-eruptions, like did it just kind of pop in your head? Were you just playing with words Like where did that really?
Speaker 2:come into play for you. Yeah, like many things, it's a journey right, and then at some point, you connect the dots and AAA came afterwards in terms of the labeling, and I discovered to my horror that there were 8 million AAA frameworks of some sort out there.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I know what you mean In the model of like in the futures, futures, foresight, innovate. You know kind of this part of the space, yeah, there's AAA everywhere and I'm going to use AAA if I get my tire goes flat. But in terms of, like you know, everyone's got this method or that method, I just thought it was fresh. It was fresh, it's just kind of it was a really nice framing.
Speaker 2:So I literally spent probably, you know, let's call it half a decade reading a million things and doing the micro learning, and all that in a concentrated way. Not that others don't and that, but one thing that I think there was actually an inflection point, if I had to label it, when I started doing a few courses on foresight and futures. Foresight and futures, where I thought it was the field, was a little bit dogmatic in terms of you know, those who believe, you know, you do scenarios, long-term planning, and those who believe it's emergence and you know, and no criticism, because these are phenomenal brains and academics and better than I'll ever be. But but who who believe very firmly around you know, like, take the Kinevan framework with Dave Snowden or Riel Miller, it's very much emergent serendipity and how to manage that, and nothing wrong with that. These are frameworks I abide by and the uses are infinite. But what I didn't fully understand and took me time to grapple with it is why did we sometimes need to have either, or why was it sort of? Did we, you know, not just this field, but why is it sort of you know more emergent and complex systems and this, and therefore you shouldn't bother about scenarios because it's too long-term or therefore, you know you should think more about scenarios and we spend less time worrying about the here and now, because only the present exists. And that is something I was just struggling with in my mind in some of the master's course, some of the modules of the master's courses and others. I just struggled with that.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing is, if I come to kind of our discussion around meta-ruptions, it's fine to tell people, listen, it's all unpredictable, anything can happen, enjoy life. It's like well, okay, but what do you do about that? How do you build that in? Because you know you can't prepare for that. So what does it mean? And so, long story short, it meant for me, in my mind, three things. It meant these are not either all decisions.
Speaker 2:First of all, you need foundations that are resilient, or maybe even better, to shocks, because you can't predict. It's unpredictable for some of it. You need that and therefore, having read Nassim Taleb's five volumes of Concerto and focusing in particular on anti-fragility, I thought that makes sense. Those are the foundations we need to find ways of applying whether it's institutions, companies, your personal life some degree of resiliency or even maybe better. And you need antifragile foundations. You don't know what happens, simple as that. And that's not necessarily foresight or futures or anything, it's just that's intelligence, antifragility.
Speaker 2:And then I thought it's useful to think long-term, it's useful to do visioning. It's useful for all the reasons we know and for you and I, having studied all this and applying it and being interested in it, it has a million uses which we can talk about. But there is legitimacy in the debate of only the present exists and the here and now and the emergent and the unknown and unknown and how to respond. And somehow I felt you needed something to reconcile the long-term thinking with the here and now. It wasn't necessarily just apply this OODA loop or whatever you know feedback loop framework or it was something else.
Speaker 2:And in my mind I thought, well, so thinking long-term is anti-sympathy, the foundations are anti-fragile. You need that cognitive, strategic and emergent agility to reconcile that long-term future with the here and now, because only the present exists. And that's where I kind of thought of agility. You need that agility which I don't use in the design sense, or you know another word that's used in many different contexts. For me, agility is cognitive, emergent and strategic agility, to reconcile the longer-term visioning with the here and now, how do I make decisions? How do I use OODA loops, feedback loops, kinvan frameworks, different things that are emergent in the here and now not to the exclusion of long-term thinking and scenarios and the anticipatory and how do I make sure that I have the right foundations so that whatever happens because of meta-eruptions and the world, basically it's okay, it doesn't matter. And not only does it not matter, but maybe you can strengthen and benefit from that. And so that's effectively why I thought AAA is antisubitry and anti-fragile and agility.
Speaker 2:And then I thought of two enablers to be AAA+, what we call being AAA+, which is I spoke earlier about agency and existentialist philosophy and that and I sort of thought, you know, having the right foundations and all that, it doesn't really necessarily or thinking longer term, or it doesn't necessarily help unless you have the agency to exercise it. It's like an option. Unless you exercise it and do something and have the agency, it's worth nothing that option. So I thought agency was important as an enabler and so it's like a fourth A in a way, and alignment. It doesn't mean that you need to agree with everyone. You need dissonance and disagreements to kind of be. You know, think of new ways of doing things, etc. But somehow you need enough alignment for it not to be polarized and dysfunctional. And so I sort of thought that's a AAA framework anti-fragile foundations, anti-supertree, the agility to reconcile the longer term with the short term and then the two enablers, or you need agency and some alignment for the AAA to be of any value and effective.
Speaker 1:That's great. I mean, it leads me to kind of the book which you released a few months ago, but you mentioned Jean-Paul Sartre and all the other existentialists. Which is you use the term existentialism?
Speaker 1:which is you use the term, uh, texastentialism which is another, another nice fusion and uh, so let's talk about the book. So, and give it to that term as well so like, where did the kind of you know you speak a lot, you talk, work a lot of clients, did the book kind of organically evolve? You're like I must kind of put all this together so that people can consume it. That maybe couldn't bring me in. You wanted to kind of democrat all this together so that people can consume it. That maybe couldn't bring me in. You wanted to kind of democratize it, evangelize it. Where did the idea for the book come and what's it about? Let me start with that. What's the title of the book, what's it about and where did it come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the title of the book is Disrupt with Impact Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World. Disrupt again is not used necessarily in the technocentric sense. It's really just change either just the status quo as it is for humanity, or for what have you to get out of our most complex challenges? The status quo is probably not going to fly. So the idea of disrupt is we need to drive change and be able to sustain change, whether we like it or not, unless people. You know we feel the status quo as it is in the world is great, but I personally don't. So you need to change, and with impact. It needs to be effective. You don't want, you can't have just change for change. You know, like it or not, many things that one does, even well-intentioned, are just simply not effective. So disrupt with impact simply means that how do you drive change in an effective manner and then achieve business success in an unpredictable world? It's come back to the meta-ruption. Business is because, like all publishers, they kind of put you in a box and so that they felt was more of a business book. I personally like to think of it as more smart thinking and broader and applicable to anyone, but effectively. That's the name of the book.
Speaker 2:Now, maybe just as a kind of brief intro, I introduced my personal life and the Institute. But basically I have a foresight practice called Tech Essential, which is foresight, advice. I work with organizations, the decision makers, and that is advisory. It's real world, it's everyday. I'm on situations and then the institute, the Disruptive Futures Institute, is content, education et cetera, and the two inform each other. So the idea is that I think we should never be disconnected. I think anybody who works in these fields and interacts should have real world practical case studies and feedback loops and see what works doesn't work, whether people use it.
Speaker 2:And I was fortunate a few years ago when I started the Institute and with the pandemic and all that, that there was a lot of demand for our courses and so I had written four volumes, quite detailed, slightly arrogantly called the Definitive Guide to Thriving, on Disruption. And there were four volumes one on frameworks, one on you know, et cetera, and that was all B2B, it was all enterprise, corporate, doing very well. It still is, it's scaling like crazy and it helps build capacity for futures, intelligence and resiliency with organizations and driving change, et cetera. But during that journey, which continues, I constantly get interest and a lot of following from individuals, and so this book was basically a way of kind of updating some of the ideas, putting some of the real world case studies, introducing what we call the disruptive thinking canvas in a way which, if people are interested, they can get it for 20 bucks or whatever it is, as opposed to having to spend the time or the money on executive education programs if their company, you know, because we don't today have a B2C program offering.
Speaker 2:We get a lot of demand and we'll launch it within the next 12, 18 months and we're doing one in Brazil on climate, but we don't today have much B2C and a book is a way of, to your point, democratizing it, sharing the ideas, and that the important thing for me is really that it's applied, that there's nothing there that isn't from my experience, from situations we get involved in, from advice we've done, we've given, from mistakes we made. Most of it is kind of you know, fed from concrete real world case studies and and things that you can you know, touch and feel the audience for this book is.
Speaker 1:You says is it really b2b? Is it anybody like it's a futurist? Is it anybody in the the business uh, executive space like who would be the targets that really would this? You think this uh has appeal, it has appeal to.
Speaker 2:Or you think it's it's it's uh designed to so, so deep down, it's everybody, it's eight billion people, because the fundamentals eight billion people's not a bad market. Even $1 or $2 per person is not a bad market for some, but the fundamentals of building resiliency, being future prepared, are essential for everyone and I think that, whether you're an organization, institution, personal, thinking about your career, most people need some way of reconciling. It's not a bad word to realize that we need to have some monetary exchange or value to earn money. Unfortunately, that is the world we live in. So most people, even if you're an individual, a kid at school, just thinking about careers or anything you need to think about how is the world, what opportunities are there, where is the world going?
Speaker 2:These, for me, are all fundamental and the business in the label achieve business success is just because publishers push you into a particular box. So there are slightly more examples and case studies that have business applications. But the way I approach the writing and the interests I've seen more importantly, people bought on that has been pretty broad. I mean I have a lot of people I know who said that. You know I bought it for my friends or I gave it to a student or I read it for this, and the reviews. I was, you know, very pleased with. The reviews Also seem to recognize that it is not another book on disruption, innovation, product development or Silicon Valley, 10 books a day kind of thing. They see that it's broader and more applicable to really what it is to stay relevant in today's world for the better and the worse in today's world, for the better and the worse.
Speaker 1:You mentioned in this explaining the book, explaining the courses, that you're doing something in Brazil around sustainable futures. I know that's a rapidly growing space. I think in the last two years especially, I think the ESG has kind of burned everybody out because of the requirement, but the core essence of it is like using anticipatory and participatory foresight methods, futures methods. What do you see as this kind of intersection between like we'll call this hard kind of nosed esg thing which I think is really gone from the, the message?
Speaker 2:so explain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of, can you break that down? People like sustainable futures, I think, make people feel like, well, isn't everything just wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be naturally sustainable? But this is, this is a bit different in that yeah, no, listen, I mean these are.
Speaker 2:These are extremely important topics, and especially in today's kind of environment, you know political and you know these are funny and very challenging times. So let me take a step back and mention one or two things. I should have maybe mentioned that around the book. So the book there are four main sections. One is why is change different today? You know change has always existed. Why is it different today? Change has always existed. Why is it different today?
Speaker 2:The second run is around systems innovation and transformative change, and that's where climate fits in and we'll talk about in a minute. So what is systems innovation and transformative change? Ai and technology. And here, when I say the future of decision-making, I'm not meaning to algorithmize decision-making. On the contrary, I'm thinking about what humanity needs to do to stay relevant and to make decisions and not delegate to machines. So the future of decision-making and AI. And then the final section is really what we call the disruptive thinking canvas. Now to your question on sustainability and sustainable futures, and that you're right.
Speaker 2:It's one of those terrible situations where 50 years ago, when the limits of growth and all these books came out and they were kind of killed by the think tanks and oil and gas industry and everyone to discredit it. It was easy for the world to, unfortunately, to kill because it wasn't tangible enough. People did not notice it, see it relate to it. There was no legislation forcing organizations to do anything, so you could kind of just sort of say you know rubbish. Now, what happens over the past 10, 15 years was encouraging. You had, you know, the big investment funds, the Black Rocks and others that were sort of you know the Paris Accords, sort of saying you know, no, it's serious, people are starting to relate to it more, it's more tangible and so the urgency is there. You know it's kind of burning, but you don't notice it in your backyard, but it's kind of like hard to dismiss. And then, indeed, over the past you know year or two for some things and past week for other things it's almost been like it's a U-turn. It's like you know the world's completely blind to the central reality of some of these. You know existential risks, not least climate and biodiversity, and that my hope and my personal view is that two things. One is that and I was in LA when the fires broke up Once you start reading about something and I wasn't directly affected or anything, but just it's still. You see things in different light. Once you read about potential threats and then you see it on TV, and then it's in some whatever country, and then you're the one filming it on your iPhone or seeing it from your kitchen. You kind of start seeing things in a slightly different way. And when it's your house that's affected and where your kids are going to school, et cetera. So I think you know, even though we have a problem with disinformation and denialism and some of our leaders, unfortunately, and corporates, my hope is that the reality is that it's so urgent and burning, pun intended that somehow you can't not do anything.
Speaker 2:The second hope and this is the focus on the book is that you can have sustainable value creation. You can find ways of doing effectively, of driving change. That is a huge market because you know sustainability will be the new digital. It already is. There is some legislation. Some legislation will stay. There'll be some requirements, some legislation will stay. There'll be some requirements and the world will need to transform the way it operates, the way it produces, the way it consumes in ways that are different and it's not just going to be a tick the box, esg or whatever it's going to be, I think, less news flow, yes, less fuss, but still fundamentally it's not going to be acceptable to a lot of the customers who buy and that to just let companies do whatever they want and there's a certain degree of scrutiny, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So my hope is that, despite the you know we often push things by extremes around certain things, you know, rights and wokeism and et cetera but things also swing back. And my hope is that, even though we're at an extreme in terms of pushing back against regulation and government in the US, etc. Is that that is not necessarily a reflection of the reality of some of the fundamental changes that I'm seeing take place, and so the only thing is that it just will take shape in a different way, it will create value in a different way, it will be enforced in a different way, there are certain choices that will be made differently, it will be communicated and shared in a different way, etc. But it doesn't mean that it's disappeared and that the world is off the hook, in terms of both the urgency of the matter and what organizations will choose to do or need to do or be required to do to transition. So the sustainable futures is really thinking about some of the risks and challenges humanity has for which we have agency and the ability to change. We can't necessarily easily change an asteroid falling on us, although we do have technology to deflect a bit, but some of the risks if there's a major earthquake or whatever but some we really do have control and we have less and less scope for mitigation for climate, but more and more scope for adaptation and resiliency and so effectively sustainable futures and climate foresight is thinking about what is anticipatory governance. What is it? To be a bit more resilient in terms of adaptation for humanity, for cities, for buildings, for factories? How do you still create sustainable value, meaning you still create value in the sense that moves the world, whether we like it or not, which is a capitalist world where people need to write checks and be prepared to invest in things, but in a way that is more likely to work in the longer term. Sustainability intentionally used both for climate, but also just simply sustainable over time. Not a quick fix Now.
Speaker 2:Just to kind of wrap up very quickly on that, just to give a very concrete example of some of the work we're doing and it's one of the topics in the book is it's really looking at how do you drive change in complex systems. It's education, it's structures, governance, regulations, incentives. It's disclosures, it's the way you produce things. It's a number of things. You have different levers for change, as you know from the studies in systems thinking, and some are more effective than others.
Speaker 2:And there's a company, for instance, full disclosure in the south of Brazil, in Blumenau, called Lux Carbon Standard, which is the first carbon credit certifier in Brazil and the carbon credit market, as you and many of your listeners will know, is a little bit dysfunctional today. There's, first of all, the belief that it doesn't serve any value because you're just kind of offsetting carbon. It doesn't mean it's actually effective in terms of supporting the energy transition. And then there's a lot of fraud, because unfortunately there's fraud in many parts of the world not only the Amazon in Brazil, but everywhere. And then if you're not pricing the assets properly, then the people who are buying the credits and can't trade them. They're liquid, they're dysfunctional, so it basically is a problem for all those sort of parts of the value chain.
Speaker 2:Now this particular company started working with me two years ago and they're building a higher integrity carbon credit certification and the question they had and the work I've been doing for the past few years, which we use as Climate Foresight or Sustainable Futures with them, is how do you apply those levers for change when you're not just trying to do something better yourself and the sort of conventional strategy, but where you're trying to transform the carbon markets? And basically, long story short, you know we went through exercises of looking at the futures wheels. What are the sort of possible next door implications of certain things happening? What are the stakeholder dynamics? In whose interest is it to drive change, to accept change? Who are the people who have the weight, not the weight, et cetera, in terms of decisions? We went through exercises around looking at the different levers for change, from education to structures. To you know where can we intervene and how, with what constituents?
Speaker 2:With the human and financial capital that the company has, you know it can't just do anything right. It's not a government, it's not, and we took that on us. And you know we're seeing early ways of it working and the objective is higher integrity, carbon credit. So you're monitoring the projects after you've certified it. So you're monitoring the projects after you've certified it. So there's something untoward. People are aware of it. You have more scrutiny and care around the projects you take on so there's less likely to be fraud. You're using some technology like blockchain for it to be transparent and you can't tamper with the rights of the land. You're democratizing it so it's more cost effective and indigenous populations and others are cared for. They have an alternative to just selling to the biggest, highest bidder of the land. They have an alternative that can monetize. You're working with the banks and the legislators on future legislations and this company has certified its initial credits. It has its own triple C protocol, which is a much higher integrity carbon standard.
Speaker 2:But, most importantly, the world is paying attention. Brazil in December, weeks ago, just put through legislation huge fundamental change in legislation around carbon credits and all these topics which will force higher integrity along the lines of the things we're talking about and basically this is a concrete case where you know Brazil will start having high integrity carbons and the banks will be expecting that, and the trading markets and the buyers and sellers and, little by little, the whole world, because once you're changing one country and you're changing the market, you know no bank is going to accept to buy a carbon credit that's kind of dysfunctional, illiquid and ill-priced, when they could have something of high integrity. And then you bring in things like anti-fragility. You know we brought in the AAA framework. We worked with them, with thinking about the AAA framework. Like you know, they're doing like conservation and nature-based solutions in terms of just preservation. They're looking at some of the complex systems and the biospheres and the six biomes of Brazil.
Speaker 2:It's like how do you do for the project so that you're not just preserving or ticking a box or making sure that you don't burn or deforest, but actually have that project benefit from the carbon credits?
Speaker 2:And what happens then is that once you start doing that, carbon credit offsets can be effective because they can be regenerative and we all know that it's better not to pollute and emit carbons or have a factory that is sustainable and net zero but that doesn't exist and not everybody is going to replace the factory and net zero, but that doesn't exist and not everybody is going to replace the factories.
Speaker 2:So what happens is that countries will have regulation for certain targets of emissions and the only way to get there will be that there will be some buffer which will be requiring carbon credit. So that will happen anyway. Companies and organizations will need to use that. So the question is do you then have just a tick the box or do you have something that might be effective? So, anyway, it's a slightly long kind of story, but I hope it makes it more relatable in terms of some of the tools from Foresight and the AAA framework. In terms of, literally and this is not the same as a dating app you can write a $300 million check and sort of say, the best measurements for carbon or whatever is not the same as transforming a market in complex systems, and that's where you need to understand systems and foresight and do things differently from it's not.
Speaker 1:No, that's interesting the way you use tinder.
Speaker 1:It's like going to swipe right for for a clean environment, for um exactly, you can't no, your, your point is well taken, because I a lot of times we'll talk about theory or, you know, we'll talk about in, you know, approaches, innovation or just just the way people think about things. But this is a really excellent. It's a real application of it, right, and then of your work, your book, and I think what it is is. You know, in the innovation space and any, especially in the future space. We're looking at possible futures, right, these there's, there's things you can control.
Speaker 1:There's external factors, right, regardless of your politics, or like here in America, we may take a regulation but we can't control what China does. Like China might do things with their coal and it's going to the atmosphere is going to be affected, it's going to drift this way, like, how do we deal with that? Right, if we do the things we do and the things we can control to make, because people will make that in their purchasing decisions, they'll make it in their, obviously the shareholders and the things that they the values of the company. But at the same time, it's like the climate may, the temperature may go up, I mean it, it's, it can be man-made things that we can't affect. There's can't change solar cycles, like that's in pots, just the universe and that can also like so at the same time, if these, these things, these possible futures or outcomes, how do we maneuver?
Speaker 1:And that speaks directly to futures and foresight. So it was a beautiful way you've explained that and I think you know, as we kind of like move toward, you really get through, like how leadership and how you can get into the what you would call like kind of talk about, get into our kind of rapid fire thing is looking ahead, what do you think people should prepare for? I mean there's so much to look at. I mean sustainability, I mean you've seen a broad spectrum.
Speaker 2:What do you think people should be really kind of taking the time right now to really, you know, to use futures, foresight, work to prepare for yeah, I mean, this is where I was, you know, interested in the work I'm doing, not just from an economic perspective, but I have a deep conviction that we're at inflection points where, you know not without wanting to sound too too kind of stereotypical cliche where the future is now, and I think that when it's a very, I think.
Speaker 1:I think what's happening is before. Things would happen slower, the rate of change would be slower and we'd be able to have some retrospective look at it in terms of the impact or the extrapolation in possible futures and the rapidity of it is. You feel it directly. So you're not wrong, it's not hyperbole. I think anyone listening would definitely agree that things are shifting fast.
Speaker 2:And in that you know, for which, you know 100% there's the multiplicity, how systemic it is. So, instead of having, just you know, tech crash or COVID or financial crash, these are not isolated events. That's why our focus is so much on systemic disruption and, effectively, what it means is that that future is now means, in a way, it's kind of both positive and negative, and one of the things about disruption and change and a lot of things we're talking about is actually the duality of it. Right, and what I mean by that in terms of the future is now is that there's also things from the opportunity. You know I'm not the biggest fan of AI and techno. You know, despite being in Silicon Valley and involved in some of these things, I see a lot of challenges with them. But, yes, drug discovery is incredible and AI platforms that can develop drugs in, you know, a few months as opposed to a few years is incredible, and there are potentiality for some incredible advancements around disease and around cures and around many things. And it's not an accident that DeepMind got a Nobel Prize in I forget what chemical science or whatever a Nobel Prize in I forget what chemical science or whatever Because these intersections.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, when it comes to this, there's some existential problem, other risks with AI, and then there's climate, and then there's wars, and then there's nuclear and all these things. So in the future of now is now. The good thing is that some of it is opportunity and it raises the urgency. Humanity no longer has the option they had 50 years ago, with the limits of growth, to sort of park it, because you're seeing it every day in front of you. So that urgency, my hope is that while some of it is frightening and a lot of it is frightening, is that it also forces the kind of agency and to realize that we do have agency and that we can actually drive virtuous tipping points. Tipping points don't have to be just negative. The same features that create inflection points can also be used for virtuous things. And anyway. So that would be the kind of message you know, if you ask me for me.
Speaker 1:No, that's great. It kind of makes me look also like when you started this, even your career. Like what do you wish you knew? Like if you could tell your younger self I always love it's a question we hear a lot but like what do you wish you knew when you started all this?
Speaker 2:I think it's this thing about specialization and expertise. Think it's this thing about specialization and expertise. You know, for me I come from a world where a lot of my family are academics and phds and professors and also practitioners, and father was a tax attorney. But, but I valued and I thought, you know, the more experience and expertise I developed, the the more value and more and more as I think more systemically and I think about the limitations of knowledge and what we don't necessarily know, and more and more as I think more systemically and I think about the limitations of knowledge and what we don't necessarily know and emergence and unknown unknowns, and that the more I realize. That you know, to our early discussion on improv, that that specialization and expertise is useful in certain configurations but but in many others is not actually of benefit in unknown, unknown situations.
Speaker 2:Uh, what we call advice some special, you know it's not actually of benefit In unknown, unknown situations. What we call advice some special, you know relying it's not that it's not useful, it's just that you can't rely exclusively on specialization. And because to solve our complex, unknown, unknown challenges, if we knew how to do it, we would have done it, and so you need new ways of thinking about things and that is not coming from additional year to experience, and so you need new ways of thinking about things and that is not the, the, the sort of uh, biggest value, and had I done that 20-25 years earlier, I think I could have benefited from it and I, but who cares about me? But to your question, I think the read across for others is not to rely so much on on just that expertise and narrowness and all that and they're wonderful books of written about these things and studies and a million other things.
Speaker 1:Well, what continues to inspire you, like you know, as you're kind of moving in this, you know the book is done, you're out there like what inspires you in general, like beyond the confines of business too, that included, but what gives you that purpose and inspiration?
Speaker 2:I mean, the biggest thing is really the potentiality and pathways for being a changemaker and multiplying that for others right who go through courses, the feedback I get or read our stuff, or the aha moment for individuals, organizations, in terms of opening the door to what I think is a survival mode for today's world, the changes we're making, companies like Lux, Carbon Standards or others we're working with. For me, this is what gives me hope and, to be honest, it's hard every day. Right, I mean, you know as much much not better than me. It's hard to write. It's hard to get people to read, to sign up for courses, to pay for whatever you know.
Speaker 2:Every day is a ginormous challenge, but the thing that keeps me going is to realize that it is so needed and that it can be helpful, if not necessary. And I wish it wasn't, because I'm not saying that I'm doing an amazing job to change the world, but I wish that the governance systems, incentive structures, the educational systems meant that you didn't need to go to someone who just discovered this five, 10 years ago and who's trying to roll it out. I wish that most people in the world would simply go to school and work for companies and read things and be aware of what operating system is required to stay relevant in today's world. But the reality is that for a number of reasons we can unpack, that is not the case, and so it does keep me going to see that hopefully it helps in a small way, and yeah, over.
Speaker 1:You know, kind of now, let's, let's flash forward, we flash backwards, kind of what's in the, in the present and, uh, the ghost of christmas future, um, what is um looking back on on what you've like done, what? What's the impact? What do you hope? What do you hope it'll have on the world? Like, what do you want, how do you want to be remembered with the work you've done in the life? Like that reflection, it's not just this epitaph, but it's more of just like you know the favorite beverage, just really a life well lived, you know, a, a purposeful career. Like what? What are the things that you want to be remembered for and when you want to be proud of?
Speaker 2:you know, there's a word which I I fell in love with, um, which I think is more important than anything. You know, you come across words like innovation and disruption and successful and whatever you want, and the word I think which is really very meaningful to me is relevance. Not just for me, but for humanity, for whatever, and to be and to stay relevant is difficult, right, it's a Darwinian world. It's like Alice in Wonderland. You know the Lee Choo. So for me, that is really the word If I can do something that is relevant for me, for my own sustainability, for my own economics, for my mindset, for the things I enjoy thinking about, and then also relevant in terms of relevance for the world. That is the biggest litmus test of anything. Are you relevant, are your ideas relevant? And if you're not today, you can still be tomorrow, but if you are today it doesn't mean you are tomorrow. So it's a brutal test that constantly needs to be rolled out, tried, tested. It's a constant challenge.
Speaker 1:Relevancy- yeah, it's a great perspective because I think relevancy I don't think I've heard that from people. I've asked this question to a lot of people and you're right. I see a lot of friends in the design space and other spaces, especially with automation, ai, that they have to retrain. What is their relevancy to the next five, 10 years of their career? Maybe it's toward the end of their traditional career, maybe it's a new one. It's interesting. I think that's a great way of framing it. So, as we kind of wrap it up, where do people find you? There's a lot of different things and how can they learn more about the work and the new book, like an order. That, which I think, is a wonderful. It's a great, great book.
Speaker 2:So thanks for asking. I think so. The book is called Disrupt with Impact. If anybody Googles it, they'll find easy ways of buying it. If you want to learn more about it, there's a website which is disruptwithimpactcom, which has reviews, a synopsis by chapter, a lot of articles, media. If people are just interested in learning about the topics, whether they wish to buy it or not, so that's Disrupt With Impact.
Speaker 2:Linkedin is probably not a bad source for me. Follow the Disruptive Futures Institute or myself, or both, and then, if you Google Disruptor Futures Institute, you'll stumble upon the website. We have a YouTube channel. We have offerings. One thing I try to do is to have a lot out there that can be consumed for free, for whatever level people wish. It can be an image, can be a visual, can be an illustration, can be a short post, can be a free article. So in our model there is an element. I'm not pretending to be Mother Teresa or the Red Cross or anything, but there is a model whereby we generally try and share, on the more generous side, some of our ideas and tools and and have them available for whoever wants at any point.
Speaker 1:Um, that's great, roger. Thanks so much for uh being on the show today. It's been great having you on and I know we have so much more. We didn't even really get to another conversation. It's definitely in the future for us, um, but uh, but, uh thanks and uh thanks for being on.
Speaker 2:No thanks. I think Ford podcast is is is a absolute favorite. Steve, amazing what you're doing and, uh, my wish is that when we launch our own, to have you on, because the richness of your own experience and ideas and thoughts and your own upcoming books and a million other things, um, so hope to reciprocate very, very soon.
Speaker 1:Very kind of you and I look forward to it. So thanks a lot and we'll talk next time.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Thanks for listening to the.
Speaker 1:Think Forward podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
