Heart-Centered Thinking: After more than two decades of working as a professional and corporate futurist, I am changing and broadening the focus of work. In short, I intend to to bring my whole heart, my whole soul and my whole mind to my work. Unless we reunite the material world with the wisdom of the spiritual world, I fear we fail in our collective responsibility to one another as well as future generations. You can read more here: A Change of Heart–Truly.

Think Fast: I remain convinced that regenerative agriculture–a trend which I have written about in the past–has the chance to grow significantly in the near future. An additional reason I’m optimistic that this trend will grow is that it has recently fallen into the sightline of venture capitalists. This is important because if you want to stay ahead of the future, it helps to follow the money and big money is now pouring into the field of regenerative agriculture. (To my many friends in the agriculture sector, this article on gene-edited tomatoes which use less water may also be worthy of some of your “thinking time” this week).

Think Different: A Dutch start-up, Elysian, is now working on a new all-electric plane that can fly 90 people for 500 miles. This won’t necessarily transform all of aviation but it could transform regional transportation habits and patterns–think short trips such as Washington, DC to Boston, LA to San Francisco, Minneapolis to Chicago, London to Berlin, etc.

Think Optimistically: To more effectively create your desired future, it helps to see the world from different perspectives. Today, I find too many people are pessimistic about the future. While this pessimism can motivate some people to work harder on behalf of a better future, for too many folks pessimism leads to apathy. Personally, I prefer optimism and, as hard as it is to believe, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about 2024. Looking for another reason to be optimistic about the future? Checkout this article: New cancer treatment method destroys 99 percent of cancer cells.

Think Again: For years, I have enjoyed the work of fellow futurist Simon Anderson. Recently, he turned me on to an idea which I like to believe I have instinctively used but which I admittedly never formally defined.  This is the idea of “always challenging your own ideas about the future.” Simon’s prefer method is to create a “counterpoint file.” Here’s the first article going into my counterpoint file: Food from Urban Agriculture Has a Carbon Footprint 6 Times Higher Than Traditional Farming. (The reason has to do with the large carbon footprint of the physical infrastructure necessary to build vertical farms.)

Afterthought: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is — infinite.” –William Blake

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