The Optimists, the Multiverse, and You

If you have been joining us on this year-long adventure of futurist thinking, you might be starting to see some changes in how you see the world. You might be attuning to signals more regularly, noticing those things on the margin that are curious and surprising. You might find yourself changing your vocabulary, eschewing words like “ridiculous” and “unimaginable” and replacing them with words like “possible” and “achievable”. You might even notice a new neuroplasticity and open-ness to change and a willingness to look at disruptions like ChatGPT with curiosity and even excitement. These are all natural byproducts of futurist thinking. But there is one more that you might start experiencing: optimism.

Futurists Are Optimists

Futurists are an optimistic bunch. They don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on dystopian scenarios or watching Koyaanisqatsi on repeat. It’s not that they can’t imagine a future where technology has gone awry or where some contagion has taken over human civilization, leaving only a few survivors to rebuild the world. But futurists understand that by looking ahead, they have the power to create the future. 

Take a look at the work of the futurist Thomas Frey, the founder of the DaVinci Institute and the host of the Futurati Podcast. He looks at all the same signals and trends that we all do, but instead of seeing the gloom and doom that could happen, he names the human power of imagination as the key to shaping the future in positive ways. He has assembled Twelve Laws of the Future that help us to understand the aspects of the future that are out of our control, and more importantly, what is ultimately up to us. Frey’s laws are so good, I hope you will read the whole set, but for the sake of this article, I’ve called out a few.

Law # 1. The future is one of nature’s greatest forces. It is a force so massive that the entire universe is being pulled forward in time simultaneously.We have no choice in this matter. The future will happen whether or not we agree to participate. There is no known way for us to either speed it up, slow it down, or even try to stop it.

Yes, that is right - we can’t ignore the future. It is coming whether we like it or not. I find a lot of colleagues and friends seem to keep hoping that somehow this acceleration of technology will slow down (it won’t) and the current volatility will become more stable (it wont). We are along for the ride, so we may as well embrace it!

Many of Frye’s laws are based on the principle of inertia. The inertias of our mind and body as well as the inertias of everyone else are impacted by the force of the future and thus give motion to the present and “the direction of the future.” We are swimming around a backdrop of inertias and within that backdrop the “future is ours to create”. 

Frey’s last three laws help us to recognize that we are not simply passive recipients of the future but rather that our human capacity for imagination will define the future.

Law #10. Thinking about the future will cause it to change.. The “future part of the brain” is like a muscle that rarely gets exercised. But the more we use it the better we get at leveraging the powers and energies of the future.

When you imagine the future you change it. Without humans - you, me, us and we - there is no movement, but the minute we dream about the future, we impact the way the future rolls out.

Law # 11. The future is filled with power and energy.. As humans, we only have the ability to affect a tiny microcosm of change. But our seemingly insignificant existence can have massive implications.

Law #12. Every avalanche begins with the movement of a single snowflake. Our ability to tap into and leverage the power of the future is directly tied to the number of times we think about it. The more we think about the future, the more we expand our understanding of it. And the more we understand the future, the easier it becomes for us to interact with it.

While these laws are not necessarily scientific, they are based on how futurist see the power of thinking about the future and they are helpful when it comes to thinking about how you, as a school leader and as a human being might interact with an unknown future and approach decisions for your school.

When I work with schools on strategic planning, I am often surprised by the resistance to the suggestion of looking ten years ahead and generating possibilities. I often hear that ten years is too far to consider.What if what we imagine seems ridiculous and unachievable. What if generating possibilities only leads to unmet expectations and disappointment?

Frey’s twelve laws reframe our work as leaders and compel us to use our imagination to picture the 10-year future we want to have in our schools and then work backwards to make it happen. The decisions we make today, big or small, will have a ripple effect on that future. That is our power as leaders and decision makers. The futurist and author David Swanson wrote, "Almost everything important that's ever happened was unimaginable shortly before it happened." So why not imagine the things we want to come to fruition.

The Metaphor of the Multiverse and The Futures Wheel

The movie Everything, Everywhere All at Once is the story of Evelyn Quan, a Chinese- American immigrant. When we meet Evelyn she is in a bad state - her laundromat business is being audited by the IRS, her husband has served her divorce papers, she has a strained relationship with her queer daughter, and her elderly, disapproving father is visiting her from China. She is paralyzed by regret and blames herself for a long history of poor decisions tracing back to her young adulthood in China. For Evelyn, her present is just a series of horrible future decisions she made long ago. But as the movie unfolds, she learns that for each of those poor decisions the alternate decision has formed a parallel universe. And in each of those parallel universes there are different versions of Evelyn, some of whom are thriving and living their best lives in roles including a martial arts master and a world famous movie star. In one universe she is the lover and soulmate of her nemesis in her primary universe.

The concept of the Multiverse is a powerful metaphor for futurists and for school leaders to use when we make decisions or plan for the future. The idea that anything we can imagine is possible and that our decisions will have consequences - for better or for worse - is something we should both accept and celebrate. Futurists use a tool called a futures wheel that enables them to map out the secondary and tertiary outcomes of a decision or event. Futurists are not trying to predict the future when they use the futures wheel, but rather they are sussing out a variety of possible futures that could emerge. They are, in fact, picturing the multiverse playing out in front of them. Which universe would they want to be responsible for creating?

The Futurist School Leader Now, Tomorrow, and in the Multiverse

When we make decisions about the future we are setting off a chain of events that will have long term implications. If we don’t look ahead with intention, we are giving up our power. If we look ahead with apprehension, we are shaping the future with fearful energy. But when we optimistically imagine the future, we claim our power and bring forward boundless positive energy to the communities that we lead. Over the next few years we will be faced with a myriad of uncertainties - AI technologies far more powerful than ChatGPT, challenging climate realities, and unstable economic conditions. It might be tempting to ignore or to repel these situations, But if anything, this is the time to think like a futurist - thus an optimist - about school, about leadership, and about your role in the future.