Jul 3, 2020 | Anticipation, COVID-19, Strategy, Thinking Tools
The successive health, economic, and social crises of this year underscore the need to be prepared for uncertainty. Follow this Five-Step Playbook to be Future PROOF. 22 years ago, I was staying at a friend’s house in San Diego and I couldn’t sleep. In perusing his...
May 26, 2020 | Anticipation, COVID-19, Mega Trends, Social Commentary
So many aspects of lives operated on autopilot until recently. Not anymore. The second and third-order effects of C-19 are — for good and for ill — breaking centuries-old habits. The Coronavirus just pressed CTL-Alt-Delete. Let’s embrace this fresh start. Almost...
May 13, 2020 | Anticipation, COVID-19, Mega Trends, Perpendicular Thinking, Social Commentary, Strategy, Thinking Tools
Mindset Shift We live in the world C-19 has permanently changed. We need to pivot now from a crisis mindset to a coexistence one. Next, we’ll need to figure out how to capitalize on it. In early March (after SXSW was canceled, before the NBA shut down its season) I...
Mar 9, 2020 | Anticipation, Mega Trends, Social Commentary, Strategy
Everyone is comparing COVID-19 to 1918 and the Spanish Flu. But I think that the better historical analogy is a century earlier, in 1816. I went to see a theatrical rendition of “Frankenstein” with a friend last night – in part to escape the scary reality that...
Apr 21, 2019 | Perpendicular Thinking, Reinvention, Routines, Strategy, Thinking Tools
“If you are considering a change, you are past the point where you should have made it.” Tyler Cowen, Economist When was the last time you did something for the first time? When was the last time you took a risk, or even diverged from your usual routine? Don’t feel...
Apr 14, 2019 | Personal Brand, Reinvention, Strategy
To quote the great urban philosopher Ice-T, “don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” Some people might not like to think that we are “products” that have “brands”, but wishing it away does not make it so. If I say the names “Justin Trudeau” or “Oprah Winfrey”, certain...
Mar 14, 2019 | Acceleration, Strategy, Thinking Tools
What maps, plans and Mike Tyson have in common Maps — whether mental ones or cartographic ones — give the illusion of accuracy. But, as the saying goes, the map is not the territory. Only by recognizing the limitations of these constructs can we use them effectively....
Feb 14, 2019 | Acceleration, Deep Work, Routines
Here’s a trick borrowed from pro athletes that you can incorporate to become more consistently excellent: have a ritual. You probably don’t watch much rugby, but if you’ve ever seen the New Zealand All-Blacks you no doubt were stunned by their pre-game ritual: the...
Apr 22, 2020 | Anticipation, COVID-19, Mega Trends, Modern Life, Social Commentary
I’ve been thinking a lot about how this current phase of the pandemic – and the one that follows – will change us. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we are close to returning to normal. We are instead, to borrow a Churchillian turn of phrase, reaching the...
Mar 31, 2020 | Anticipation, Mega Trends, Modern Life, News, Perpendicular Thinking, Social Commentary, Strategy, Thinking Tools
Are you surprised that the whole US economic system has essentially collapsed in a matter of weeks? I am. This is an enormously disruptive shock, to be fair. But the speed with which the health of the American economy has gone from healthiest in history to gasping on...
Feb 11, 2020 | Acceleration, Habits, Lifelong Learning, Productivity
Did you know that there is a Japanese word for buying books that you don’t read? This habit – one that I exhibit, sadly – is actually so universal that they created a term for it: 積ん読 or tsundoku. It combines the words “tsunde” (meaning “to stack things”),...
Jan 25, 2020 | Acceleration, Perpendicular Thinking, Thinking Tools
If there was a holy trinity of crucial 21st-century skills, I would personally nominate the following: lifelong learning, stillness (of mind as well as of body) and contrarian (or least critical) thinking. The first one is obvious and the second is becoming more so....
Aug 7, 2019 | Attention, Deep Work, Modern Life, Stillness, Thinking Tools
Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” As a reaction to fast food (and its more modern incarnation, fast-casual ), a countermovement rose up a number years ago extolling the virtues of ‘ slow food ’. Since then, we’ve seen the emergence of slow fashion, slow...
