Alan Watts wrote, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

What kind of story do you want to tell about the future? Professional futurists often classify scenarios into one of four kinds of stories or archetypes: growth, constraint, collapse, or transformation.

To help you imagine this future more clearly, skip ahead in your digital calendar to ten years from today. Now, fill in the blank space. What do you have planned, ten years from today? Who are you doing it with? What will you be wearing? What supplies will you need? Why is this activity important or exciting for you? And how do you feel now that th

RULE #9: Heal the Deeper Disease. Find the social challenges that fill you with the most urgent optimism. Which inequalities, injustices, and vulnerabilities do you personally feel called to help heal? These challenges will connect you to our collective post-pandemic, post-traumatic transformation. They can be a springboard for your own personal gr

Experts say that roughly 50–60 percent of people who endure a trauma will go on to experience at least one area of post-traumatic growth.3 Paradoxically, the best predictor of post-traumatic growth is having experienced one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. That’s because post-traumatic growth is not the opposite of suffe

IN THIS CHAPTER, WE’LL PLAY Stump the Futurist. I’ll be the futurist. You try to stump me. Your goal is to make a list of things that cannot change, will not change, in the next decade. What do you think is true about how the world works today that you believe will definitely still be true at least a decade from now? For example: In ten years … gov

After you’ve stretched your imagination to answer these questions, you’ll be asked to make a choice: “Now that you’re in this future, what decision would you make if …?”

Living concrete: Traditional concrete is responsible for nearly 10 percent of global carbon emissions today, but a new technology that creates living concrete bricks out of bacteria, gelatin, and sand absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Living concrete self-regenerates; one brick cut in half heals and forms two bricks; those two can be cut

Opportunity detection is like an actor showing up for rehearsal and asking, “What’s my motivation?” In other words: What do I want in this scene?