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Practical Futurism for Daily Life · Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight

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  Find yourself in.
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  Thank you for joining me.
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  I'm Nola Simon.
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  I'm the host of the Hope and Possibilities podcast, and today I actually wanna
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  talk about how you actually incorporate futurism into your daily life.
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  There's a lot of different ways to practice futurism, but
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  my interest has always been.
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  How do you incorporate it into your daily life and make steps towards
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  the ideal future that you want?
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  Some companies called this Future back, so I did my original futurism
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  training with Institute for the Future.
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  So they use that future back concept, which is 10 years from now.
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  What is.
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  It that I think ideally could be a future I want to live.
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  And then you look at the decisions that you have to make to actually
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  reach that point of view, and that's how you make it happen.
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  So again it's not necessarily a straight shot to that ideal future,
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  but it's if you are navigating a path.
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  And you've got that in idea in mind.
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  How do you make choices along the way as things change and move?
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  And technology gets dec decided people, other people make decisions around you.
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  How do you navigate that path so that ideally you look and end up
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  close to where it is you want to be?
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  That's my interest in futurism is.
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  I am not necessarily looking at from a societal level, it's how do
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  you incorporate it at an individual level that gets you closer?
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  And then, if lots of people are doing that, then you
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  have impact on larger issues.
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  So how do you navigate that together to have an actual impact overall.
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  You start out by doing a variety of noticing.
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  So a lot of futurism is really about paying attention and directing
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  your attention and your focus into what's actually happening around the
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  topics that actually interest you.
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  So there's multiple possible futures on every topic you
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  could possibly think about.
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  But.
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  Not every person who's interested in futurism is going to be interested in the
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  same thing, and there is no specific one answer for each individual topic because
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  it's influenced by your perceptions, your knowledge, your information, your
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  relationships, your location, all of that.
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  Is very different.
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  And that's where it becomes very interesting when you get into
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  scenario planning and simulations.
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  What can you actually learn by doing that on a mass level to understand
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  where the commonalities are, right?
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  So this is where it can be become very interesting.
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  The individual experience and expectation is then translated into something that's.
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  Larger and more influential that we can learn from and then work towards, right?
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  You start simple by scanning for signals, so articles art
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  stories, experience media pieces.
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  A lot of it is personal experience.
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  So you're walking the dog and somebody tells you a story about something
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  that happened to them, right?
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  Something that you notice trends in fashion and cars, and, all these different
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  things are little signals that indicate to you something that's happening, right?
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  You start paying attention and you start collecting it.
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  A lot of it is really just noticing.
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  It doesn't have to be.
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  Really super intellectual.
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  Everybody processes this kind of stuff differently, right?
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  So a lot of times I trust my intuition with it.
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  It's like you notice it and you go, oh, that's interesting.
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  I wonder why.
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  And then you start noticing it and it's about more about how you direct your
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  function and your attention, your focus.
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  So that's scanning for signals.
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  And then do those signals actually transfer?
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  Fur into a trend.
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  So what are you seeing in terms of trends longer term, right?
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  Are you noticing it?
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  Have you been noticing development?
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  How is this changing from year to year?
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  When does it actually become a trend that's actually going
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  to have influence longer term?
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  And then is it a trend or is it an actual change?
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  So for example, cell phones.
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  I had a cell phone when I first graduated university in 1994 because I
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  went to work for a cell phone company.
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  My cell phone at the time was in a bag like it was heavy.
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  I had to carry it around.
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  It probably weighed 10 pounds.
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  And now we use a cell phone that's so tiny you can put it in your pocket,
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  and it really takes the place of a laptop the majority of the time.
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  So that starts out as a signal then becomes.
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  A trend and then becomes a significant change to how we
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  do business, how we conduct our lives, how we direct our focus.
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  But it also has impact on relationships and, how people communicate and interact
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  and it's got longer term consequences that when cell phones first started,
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  I don't think people understood.
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  How does that work from here?
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  Because we know where we are right now, but what does
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  that look like going forward?
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  Is it going to translate into something like Google Glass?
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  Probably not because Google Glass, you have to wear on your face.
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  It really becomes part of your identity.
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  It's something that you actually have to physically put on.
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  Could I be wrong?
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  Absolutely.
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  Everything that I've seen indicates to me that is not a trend that's gonna take off.
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  So what do you pay attention to?
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  And then it becomes, once you notice these things happening, how do you strategically
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  plan for the fact that you've noticed this and how it's going to inform how you
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  incorporate into your life and your work.
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  So for example, I'm noticing right now that.
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  Governments, banks public service in general, right?
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  Anything that's really directed by organizations and individuals that
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  own a lot of commercial real estate.
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  They don't like that story of commercial Real estate is going
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  to lose a lot of value because of work from home, work from anywhere.
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  That workplace flexibility and their business model doesn't run very
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  well that way if commercial real estate significantly becomes less
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  of a factor in daily work life.
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  So there's a push for return to office.
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  Now, push for return to office is nothing new.
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  I experienced this.
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  I started working remotely one day a week.
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  Work from home essentially back in 2012.
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  I started advocating for it in 2011.
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  And then I was forced back into the office
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  in 2013.
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  I actually end of 2012 beginning of 2013, and that lasted exactly a year
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  because there's a significant benefit to.
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  Having flexibility, especially for, people who do actually have to provide
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  caregiving and elder care and all kinds of different things where they need to
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  really blend their life and their work.
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  It's like, how do you weave your life and your work?
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  What's that negotiation look like?
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  And it's a lot easier when you have the autonomy and flexibility to choose where
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  it is you're going to be on a daily basis.
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  So that.
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  You can be the person who's controlling
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  what happens in your day.
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  That's essentially the definition of autonomy and agency.
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  People like that.
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  People really like that.
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  And to take that away for the benefit of the commercial real estate
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  investment that's perceived as a loss.
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  So human beings are really wired to avoid loss.
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  And.
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  It's going to be a significant battle because the people who own the commercial
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  real estate are also wired to avoid loss.
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  And so this becomes a significant change in how they've perceived the
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  value of their investments, how their work is going to actually change, if
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  it's going to change, and how that accommodates so they have a vested
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  interest in not losing that value.
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  Whereas the time loss for the individuals who work for them who are forced by
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  employment law really to either comply and show up for at those offices or find
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  some alternative employment, that's really
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  challenging.
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  So this again, is nothing new.
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  I experienced it like over 10 years ago, 12 years ago now.
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  My kids don't even remember me working in an office because of the
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  choices that I made along the way to allow me to be home for them.
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  They remember me being the mom that I always wanted to be, which was,
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  I wanted to be the default parent.
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  I wanted to be the person who would come to the school, go to school meetings.
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  I would be the person who was home so that their friends could come over and they
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  could go swimming and have sleepovers, and I wanted to be the person doing.
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  The, the car runs if they wanted to go to the store and just,
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  I would be that parent in the neighborhood who could be relied upon.
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  My daughter has a friend, she spent so much time here.
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  Her mom calls me the second mom, and so I achieved that because
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  of decisions that I made when she was two, because I aim towards.
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  What I wanted that experience to be, and it's not that I had any certainty
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  about the decisions I was going to make, but it was knowing ahead
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  of time which choices would get me closer to what it was I wanted to be.
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  For everybody who's actually working in a situation where you are constantly
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  being mandated back to the office.
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  Now, COVID has been over, it started in what, 2020?
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  We started really getting out of it in 22.
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  Now it's 20, 25 every September.
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  Since.
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  2022. Really?
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  21 maybe if you're really early.
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  People have tried to force their employees to go back to the office
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  because it's impacting downtown.
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  It's impacting the subways ridership is down.
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  It's impacting the stores around it.
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  So the people who live down there are actually having their experience affected
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  because there's not enough foot traffic, because there's not enough commuters.
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  To keep their dry cleaners and their restaurants and their cafes running.
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  So neighborhoods are changing, all because people are working from home.
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  And so it becomes
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  a situation where you either comply because that's what
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  you're obligated to do.
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  Based on the terms of your employment contract and employment law,
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  or you make decisions that actually support your goals.
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  Now I've been.
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  In financial services.
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  I've worked in wealth management.
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  I didn't actually work in the insurance division, but I did work for an insurance
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  company and then I worked for a bank, also owned by that same insurance company.
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  So I understand that, and the attraction of an industry that has been around
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  for a long time, that is perceived to be stable, that has history to it.
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  The company I worked for was actually the first.
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  President of the company was the first Prime Minister of Canada.
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  That's a significant legacy.
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  So there's a perception that company is safe and that then
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  translates into stable employment.
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  But it's also the credibility brought by the brand name.
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  And a lot of times when people ask me what I did I didn't actually
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  tell them anything about what I did.
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  I just told 'em I worked for the company and that was sufficient.
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  So I understand the attraction of that type of work.
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  Because you've got benefits.
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  Your pay is going to be fine.
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  You understand that the company is going to exist in some fashion
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  or rather long term, right?
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  Because it's always been around, or at least that's the perception
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  right now as markets changed and reinvention becomes a thing.
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  That may not always be true.
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  There are financial challengers coming to big banks in Canada now.
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  Things are changing because a lot of people don't necessarily even need to
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  walk into branches of banks anymore.
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  They do everything online, and so that, that relationship with the
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  local branch is being impacted.
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  The small town that I grew up in, in Setton, all of their banks are closing.
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  The town council is actually challenging the last bank that's leaving because
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  every bank is abandoned the town, right?
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  And they have an older population.
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  And that population is used to that level of service.
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  It becomes problematic, right?
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  But this is the thing.
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  What is that future going to look like?
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  And if you are not noticing these trends and you're not paying attention and
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  you're not thinking about what possibly could be happening five, 10 years from
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  now, you are gonna be caught off guard.
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  You're not going to be changing, you're not gonna be upskilling,
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  you're not going to be planning for what that could possibly look like
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  now, right at the moment in my work.
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  I, up until now, although I've called myself a futurist, I've also called
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  myself a hybrid remote futurist.
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  And so what that meant was, my goal was to actually help companies
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  and organizations and individuals do workplace flexibility better.
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  And a lot of companies are still doing that.
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  The companies that are startups, the companies that are smaller who
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  don't actually have a significant real estate portfolio, they're
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  not choosing to really invest in commercial real estate because they
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  understand that's not necessarily the best future play.
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  Okay, so who hires somebody who's invested in hybrid remote futurism?
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  That's really the companies that are those smaller companies.
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  The big companies, the governments aren't necessarily the types of companies,
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  although they have the budget, they're not necessarily inclined to hire somebody
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  that's going to actually deliver a message that commercial real estate is gonna die.
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  So how do I adjust my business knowing that right at the
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  moment we're in this cycle?
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  Because this does tend to be cyclical because there's a lot of
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  resistance to that whole mindset.
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  It's that fight against, loss.
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  How do I pivot my business?
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  And that's the thing.
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  Futurism is always an ongoing practice.
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  You have to adjust to the reality of the present.
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  It's navigating a river, right?
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  There's a, there's an obstacle ahead.
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  How do you navigate around it?
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  Think about it like a video game.
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  You're simulating how you navigate like a course, right?
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  So there's gonna be obstacles, there's gonna be alligators that try to eat you.
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  How do you move and pivot and make those choices that are gonna get you closer
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  to what it is you wanna do, right?
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  I'm considering how I use futurism in a way that's broader
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  than just hybrid, remote.
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  How do I expand my practice so that it can adapt to the cyclical nature of
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  what's happening in business right now?
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  And how does that look in terms of transformation and reinvention?
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  That's where I'm at.
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  So anyways, I wanted to.
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  Just put that forward as an example of how we can use futurism as a way
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  to really inform our daily lives.
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  And then if as a whole, everybody is actually geared towards that.
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  And realistically, I know that's not going to be a thing because the future
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  you is often a stranger to yourself.
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  You assume that things are going to stay the same that.
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  That what's happening in your present is often going to stay the same.
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  It's neuroscience.
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  The majority of people don't necessarily think about what their
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  future self is going to like.
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  That's why it's so hard to stick to an exercise program or, to eat in a
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  different way or to save, because.
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  That mindset of prioritizing future over present is a challenging one, right?
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  So
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  if you can adapt it in such a way that it's helpful and you do it in small doses.
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  Does that investment in mindset shift, even in a small level, then
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  translate into something bigger?
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  And that's where it's like, what small practices can we implement to start to
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  pay attention to those mindset shifts that really help us invest in the future year?
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  And that's really why I am running the 21 day challenge
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  that I'm running to practice.
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  Futurism and how do you incorporate that in your daily life?
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  So anyways, thanks for listening.
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  I'm interested to hear how you practice futurism.
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  If you were asking for my advice on how to start, I would say pay attention to
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  what it is you notice, and then question what if, so if something that you are
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  seeing happens, what does that mean?
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  What if this happens?
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  What if.
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  And do you react positively or negatively?
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  How does that idea feel in your body?
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  Are you automatically resistant?
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  Does it make you excited?
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  Does it make you hopeful?
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  What type of futurist do you tend to be?
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  Because there are people who really focus on the hopeful futures,
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  and there are people who really focus on the dystopian futures.
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  I tend to lean towards hopeful with the awareness that not everything is going
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  to be perfect, and so that shadow side of futurism, it's good to be aware of, the
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  priority is on the hopeful because if you don't have optimism, what do you have?
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  Yeah.
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  So that's where it's like this.
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  I call the podcast a love letter to the future of work.
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  Chances are work will suck in lots of ways in the future as well too.
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  But what are the good parts and can we actually change it so that there's
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  more good parts than bad parts?
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  Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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  Thanks.
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  Find yourself in.