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 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 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...
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...
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...
