Tag Archives: prediction

Wisdom in Action

The Future Habit

By Jim Selman | Bio

It is almost impossible to turn on the television or read a newspaper or a magazine without encountering one pundit, expert or “man on the street” either talking about the future or trying to blame someone for something. Our media commentary is rarely about what is happening now: mostly it’s about what happened in the past or what someone thinks is going to happen in the future. Combine the establishment media with all of the blogging and chatting going on, and it is incredible

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Fearless Aging

Fear and Risk

By Jim Selman | Bio

Our relationship to risk and our fears is closely related. Most of our lives we’ve made decisions based on some formal or informal process for assessing ‘risk’. In our conventional way of thinking, this means trying to predict what will or will not happen and with what probabilities based on some scenario or course of action. It is a ‘forward looking’ posture and, as with all predictions, draws on historical data or experience and projects it into the future. In other words, we take our past, project it into the future and then make our choices and commitments based on what our predictions (the past) tell us will probably happen.

Anyone who is even mildly
paying attention can easily grasp that the predictions are wrong more
often than they are right. Particularly now, when the world is changing
around us so rapidly, we can no longer rely on this mode of
decision-making. At best, we maintain the status quo and, more often
than not, we are completely blindsided by something unexpected that
wasn’t taken into account when we were assessing risk and making our
decisions.

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Leadership

Back to Work

By Jim Selman | Bio

Today is ‘back to work’ for most of us. We’ve eaten too much, survived another holiday season and are now preparing for what’s next. This year is different for many throughout the world. The economy, climate, war and poverty are continuing sources of suffering. I hear more and more people expressing their fears about the future and predictions that 2009 will be ‘very tough’. Unfortunately, if enough people have a pessimistic view of their future, then as I have said on this blog many times, we are creating a self-fulfilling reality. We will get what we resist and fear unless and until enough people create a critical mass to create a different, unpredictable future.

This isn’t just about being pessimistic or optimistic, which are mostly just positive or negative predictions for most people. This is about the capacity we all have to create (not predict) the future. Creating the future is the essence of leadership and the source of possibilities throughout human history. It should be obvious that we are creating our current ‘reality’ all the time anyway. Our actions today are causing tomorrow, just as our actions yesterday created today.

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Leadership

Clinton and Obama

Well, it looks like Hillary is bowing out—actually more like accepting the fact that she can’t win. Polls in that league are realists above all else. I assume we’ll get the inside dope on whatever backroom deals were made in the weeks ahead. Now the healing and reunification of the Democratic Party must begin.

However, before we relegate Hillary to the political graveyard, I want us to stop and reflect on what an incredible process this has been and acknowledge her for her strength and courage.

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Fearless Aging

Futurists

In the 1970s, I belonged to The World Future Society. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a ‘futurist’. I vaguely recall that there was a magazine on the subject and various intellectuals were trying to get prediction raised to the status of a science. According to Wired magazine, the Society still exists and there are people who call themselves professional futurists, but the numbers are shrinking and their status seems to be less than in the past—primarily because the future

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Wisdom in Action

Creativity II

Read Creativity I.

Now it’s easy to hear this conversation about ‘standing in possibilities’ of what the future might be as some sort of optimism versus pessimism discussion—the “Just be happy” versus “There’s no hope” maxims. I am not suggesting this at all. Optimism and pessimism are grounded in positive or negative predictions of the future. Changing how we observe is not a function of prediction: it is a function of commitment.

I predict that the future is likely

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