Never Lose Ambition
Even if you think the world is about to end.
Changing the trajectory of our personal, organizational or societal futures.
All these require us to step out of our current minds (& monkey suits) and imagine a future that is not constrained by our crisis-mode thinking, one that a lot of our present-day headlines would like us to stay in. For good reason, of course (for many stakeholders) — it allows them to profit from our staying glued to the twists and turns of the present. The psychological pull of fear and scarcity appears stronger than ever.
In a recent article, Gap International talks about how ‘our constraints often appear to be a function of what is happening around us. They seem beyond doubt. In reality, how we describe our situation is what constrains us…. Becoming aware of our constructs gives us the power to free ourselves.‘
And without this reframing, future possibilities can’t be ‘caught’ or leveraged. Possibilities are being accelerated by a convergence of exponential technologies. Possibilities that are Google-like opportunities, backed by meta-trends that will shape the next decade, as masterfully described by Peter Diamandis in a recent blog.
Possibilities that will live alongside the ‘Great Reset’ that world leaders pledged (at least rhetorically) at the recent Virtual Davos 2021. Possibilities that economies like Saudi Arabia are attracting and nurturing through platforms such as the Future Investment Initiative.
The process sounds deceptively simple.
Study our current language (and biases). Challenge it to ascertain what still serves us and what has to be discarded. Redefine (and re-create) a new construct, aligned with a vision and ambition, co-created in partnership with the relevant stakeholders — the likely and unlikely actors. Get into momentum and look for (small) first wins.
As my coach says, “give me access to someone’s calendar and I can predict their future.”
In a similar way, let me ‘listen’ to someone’s speech and I can tell you how likely they are, to get to their envisioned future (assuming, of course, they have one…). And more importantly, whether it’s one fighting for.
In a world beset with fights & wars at all levels, I’d rather be in an interstellar spaceship, one I think is likely to take me the furthest.
As Chuang Tzu said:
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”
Never lose ambition. Even if you think the world is about to end.
