313 Strategies to Help You and Your Organization Thrive in a Fast-Changing World by Anticipating What's Next with Futurist Daniel Burrus | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Daniel Burrus. Welcome to partnering leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with 

[00:00:05] Daniel Burrus: me. Oh thank you so much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to this. 

[00:00:09] Mahan Tavakoli: Daniel, 

I can't wait to get some of your thoughts and insights, both on the anticipatory organization and also where we are headed. But before we do, we'd love to know a little bit first about you. Whereabouts did you grow up, Daniel, and how did your upbringing impact the kind of person you've become? 

[00:00:26] Daniel Burrus: I grew up just outside of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area.

So that's in the upper Midwest. And my dad was an engineer who didn't know how to talk to kids very well. So when I was a little kid and asking him, why did the sky change color as the sun gets lower? He actually knew and told me as if I was a graduate student, so I think actually was a good thing.

 And something that really shaped me. I'll share and I've shared this not. Too often, but during my sixth, seventh, eighth grade time period, I talked my parents into putting me on a train, went down to Texas, got on a bus, went to a little old town that my grandmother picked me up, and I worked on farms in the summer for about three summers.

And I didn't work for money. And it was hard, hot work just to be of service. And it was shaping. I learned the power of being of service to others, and I learned about the cycles of life. Through farming.

Frankly, I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't had that experience. I could say that right now. That's 

[00:01:33] Mahan Tavakoli: wonderful that you got a chance to experience the hard work, the farm, but you've also. Started businesses, you've been a teacher , including having been a science teacher.

So we'd love to know how some of those experiences form your thinking, Daniel. 

[00:01:50] Daniel Burrus: I started out wanting to teach teachers how to teach science because I could see that they were teaching a subject instead of turning students into scientists. They really were so subject focused rather than also being process focused and helping them get the right kind of inquisitive problem solving mindset.

When I was an undergraduate, I directed federal research and I was already published before graduating with my bachelor's degree. So instead of going straight for a PhD teaching teachers. I always ask myself, what's the ideal? By the way, I always ask that. And the ideal to me was somebody who is already taught.

So I decided while I was working on my advanced degree to teach in a variety of settings. So I taught everything from a university level down to actually junior high level. And my very first teaching job. I had choices because I had done quite a bit as an undergraduate. I chose to teach in an inner city junior high because I figured that if I was in a school where the kids already had great parents, great background, affluent, good teachers, a lot of equipment, I could help them that much.

But if I was in a school where some of them only had one parent at home, They didn't have much money. Their grades were bad. You know what? I could help them a lot. You get a little idea of where I like to go. And then after a number of years, I had an idea for a airplane design. So I spent the summer building it, test flying it.

And I ended up with 37 national locations in the first year, profitable in the first year. Obviously I left teaching, started another company and another company within four years, I had four different companies going all at the same time, but. I miss teaching. It was what I was put on the planet to do. And I was about to open up a West Coast manufacturing and I asked myself something that is really important.

I'd like our listeners and viewers to do this. I thought to myself, if I'm in my late nineties and I'm looking back at my life, at the professional part of my life, and this is how I led it. Am I happy in the answer? No. So I sold all of those companies. And then I thought I don't want to go back to teaching because you can never go back.

You can only go forward. That's why I drive a Harley Davidson motorcycle. There is no reverse. So I can't go back. I can only go ahead. So what I did was one of the principles I teach. I call it problem skipping. So I skipped all the things I didn't like about teaching. I didn't like the limitation of the classroom.

So I decided to make the classroom planet earth. I decided I didn't like the limitation of an educational institution or university. So I didn't work for one. I started my own business. I skipped all the things I didn't like and went back to what I was put on the planet to do. And that is not to tell, but to teach, which is why I'm excited to talk with you today, because.

I do want to teach some principles that can help our viewers not just try to predict the future, but more importantly, how to actively shape the future to make it better for yourself and for others. 

[00:05:13] Mahan Tavakoli: Oh, I love so much about what you shared, Daniel.  Your purpose is very clear and you have aligned with that. Your background and experience in business and your purpose drive for teaching married together futurist. 

[00:05:31] Daniel Burrus: I think so too, and thank you for that. One other thing I'll share that has been important for me, but I think it's something for all of us to consider. And actually is one of the things that I shared in a commencement speech recently to all of the new graduates getting their various degrees.

And I started out by saying, I don't want you to focus on being successful and living a successful life. And then I stopped for a second to let that sink in. And I said, here's why, because success is all about you. It's about how many degrees you have. It's about how much money you make. If it's a company, it's about your growth and income and all of those things.

It's all about you. What I'd like you to do instead. Is live a significant life because significance is not about you. It's about what you do for others. And if you can elevate your personal and organizational significance every year, you know what, you'll find yourself more successful. So instead of success being the goal, significance is the goal.

Success is one of the outcomes. And by the way, only one, that's a 

[00:06:40] Mahan Tavakoli: beautiful way of putting it. Now, one way you're doing that. Daniel is,  you are known as a leading futurist, and what you mentioned is it's not predicting the future. We can create that positive future I've had conversations with different futurists.

One of them who I adore and his insights have impacted me a lot is Bob Johanson of the Institute for the Future. What is your definition of a futurist? What do you do in order to be able to guide people and leaders to create the kind of futures they want to create? 

[00:07:20] Daniel Burrus: There's two parts to that, for sure.

The first part, what's a futurist? In a way, we're all futurists. The minute you make a prediction, you're being a futurist. Now, if you want to be a professional futurist, you have to be right some of the time, at least. It's like the worst futurist in the world is your nightly weather.

Because they can be wrong and still have a job. But if you want to be a professional futurist, you have to have something. And what I developed very early is a methodology. And I'm going to take a few minutes to teach it right now, rather than tell it to you, because I want as many of us listening right now to actually try to use this.

So this is based on. 40 years of research and working with companies of all sizes all around the world and There's no shortage of trends The trouble is which ones will happen and which ones won't because we know some happen and some don't Which is why a lot of people don't pay attention to trends.

The second problem is When will they happen? So I solved both of those problems through extensive research on my end. And that is, all trends can be divided into one of two categories. They're either what I call a hard trend based on a future fact that will happen. Now look, what that means is it can't be stopped.

No matter who you are, what you are, how much money you got, you can't stop it. It's a hard trend, future fact. Or it is what I call a soft trend, which is based on an assumption that may happen. But may happen and will happen are two different things when it comes to innovation and planning and so on.

 So two things, one, either a trend is a hard trend or a soft trend. And then secondly, a trend by itself is academic and boring, who cares? Until you attach an actionable opportunity to it. What's the opportunity of a hard trend? A hard trend is based on a future fact and the beauty of it is, It's giving you certainty in a seemingly uncertain world.

Strategy, whether it's a personal strategy or a business strategy, if it's based on uncertainty, man, you got a lot of risk there. But if it's based on certainty, it flips. The risk is not taking action on it, because it's going to happen anyway, and if you don't do it, someone else will. So what hard trends do is they let you see disruptions.

Before they disrupt so that disruption becomes a choice, I just want you to have a choice rather than it always is incoming Secondly it lets you see problems before you have them how many times of all of our listeners out there Said to themselves. I knew that was going to happen and I would say then why did you let it?

So actually, you're pretty good at this. You already know, but you're not acting on what you know. That's because you don't have the confidence. I got a methodology that can help you with that confidence. So hard trends, they'll let you see disruptions before they disrupt problems before you have them.

So you can pre solve them and move forward, faster, soft trends. I love them to love soft trends. Why do I love a soft trend? If you don't like it, you can change it. See, I can't change a hard trend, but I can change a soft trend. I'll give you an example. Let's pick a U. S. example, although we have people from all over the world with us today.

But in the United States, health care costs have been rising every year by a lot. And it's been going on for way over a decade. By the way, that's called a trend. And it's going higher every year. Now I've just started to teach you this. And I'm actually going to put you on the spot now, and it's okay if you're right or wrong because this is a learning opportunity, right?

Is the rising cost of healthcare, is that a hard trend or a soft trend? What do you 

[00:11:19] Mahan Tavakoli: think? I would guess a soft trend because I think AI is going to have an impact on it Daniel. But we'd love to get your thoughts on it. 

[00:11:29] Daniel Burrus: Very good. You did excellent. It is definitely a soft trend.

However, politicians and a lot of people in government and frankly, Most individuals actually think it's an unstoppable hard trend. That's why all of our health reforms are in reality payment reforms. How do we pay for the mess the baby boomers are going to create as they get older? But in reality, we could use, you mentioned AI, surely that can help.

Let me give you another tool. Blockchain. Right now, you didn't know that the aspirin in a U. S. hospital, eh, costs probably 25. If you knew that, you would have had your spouse bring it. You didn't know that artificial knee that you're having put in because you played so much tennis. The same knee, made by the same company, and the same exact size can vary in price by hundreds of percent in the same system.

There's no transparency. But if we used blockchain, everything would be transparent. By the way, we'd have more security and what would happen? We would start to have some competition and we'd see some choices and prices would go down. Now I'm just giving you a example. I could give you many examples of how we could dramatically lower the cost of healthcare.

Once we realize, you know what, that's not a hard trend. That's a soft trend. So I love both. I love both and just to continue our learning just a little bit more There are three categories of hard trends It's not 50 not a hundred you see that part that I did that was difficult is I took Something that's really hard and simplified it so that you could remember it.

So there's all trends are either hard or soft Okay, you can remember You gotta have an opportunity with the trend or it's just academic. That's what bursts it into actionable life. Okay, I can remember that. And there are three types of hard trends. One is technology. We went from 3G wireless to 4G wireless to 5G wireless.

Is that it? No, it's going to be followed by 7G. And we're putting more and more in the cloud. Is the cloud getting full? No, the cloud's not getting full. And if you don't like AI, can we just turn it off? No. As a matter of fact, it's growing it beyond exponential speeds as we speak.

However, you can shape how it's used. And how you use it and how you protect yourself. AI is going to create a mess. I can't control the mess it'll create for everybody else, but I can control the mess it might create for me and for my organization, because that is soft.

It getting more powerful is hard. Going back to tech. Tech is a fantastic predictor of heart. And I also mentioned something in the beginning about timeframes. How have I been accurate? Because if you look at my predictions over, oh my God, 40 years I've been doing this. Holy cats. I've had an amazing track record of being right.

How do I do that? I leave out the parts I can be wrong about, but it's amazing how much you can be right. You can go back to one of my 1983 predictions and I made many back then, including email and fiber optics and lasers and talking about AI. But one of them was we would sequence the human gene code in the year 2000.

By the way, that's when we did that. That was a 1983 prediction. How did I do that? What I did is I used what I call the three digital accelerators. Computing power, Started out with Moore's law, but now Moore's law exists in the cloud ecosystem, alive and well up there which is exponential. And then we have, bandwidth, which has been increasing at an exponential rate and we have processing power bandwidth.

And again, I don't call it processing power. I call it computer power today. And the third one is storage. So when you put those three together. You can actually plot them on a graph and see exactly when these things will happen. So, let's go back to the other two. I mentioned technology is one, right?

Second one is demographics. It's huge. Baby boomers. 68 million of them. Now you might remember the phrase 78 million. 10 million have passed away already. They're on the older side of this curve versus Gen Z and Gen Y and Gen X. But anyway they chronologically will get older and they will be retiring.

So let me give you an advanced course, all of you right now on hard trends and soft. And that is I'll make a statement, a trend statement. There will be a lot of people retiring in our organization over the next several years, and they will take their knowledge and wisdom with them when they leave.

Now, that might give you trouble at first until you realize the tip I'm giving you. When you're stating a trend, If there's the word and or a comma, you probably got a hard and a soft together. Probably the hard is first and the soft is second. Let's review what I just said. You're going to have a lot of baby boomers retiring in your organization.

Guess what? Hard trend, guaranteed. And they're going to take their knowledge and wisdom with them. You could do something about that. You could have a mentoring system. You've got a database. You've got an information base. I want you to ask yourself right now, Do you have a wisdom base? I I'll tell you right now, There's no such thing as artificial wisdom.

Maybe having a wisdom base would be worthwhile. Do you even know what wisdom is? Maybe that'd be good to find out. Do you have a knowledge base? I'd rather have knowledge and wisdom than data and information. I don't know about you. There is what? Opportunity with a capital O in shaping a positive future.

So we've got demographics. Let me give you an idea of how you can invent things around what I've talked about. We'll combine those two. And that is let's take a lot of people love to go fishing. They love to go boating, but as they get older, it's hard to launch the boat. It's hard to even get in the boat.

Maybe you know an elderly relative that is having that trouble right now, but they loved the boat. So what if you and I created the easy launch trailer for seniors? And we did a good job on it. Would we have a actual numbers of who could be buying that each year and how it would be growing? Yeah.

Would I know exactly what countries to export it to and which countries not to export yes. Matter of fact, I could go to a bank. Because of hard trends with solid numbers that are undeniable future facts. When they hear it, they're going to go, wow, what a great idea. Let's give you the loan. And by the way, if you don't make that trailer, someone else will.

By the way, right now, no one has done that. There is no trailer for seniors. I want you to ask yourself, will there ever be one or is that just crazy? And you and I know you know what, there will be one because the opportunity is too big. I'm named in dozens of patents because I share this kind of information and they get the idea from my speeches when I give examples like this.

We've got the demographics and it isn't just about baby boomers. If you've got trouble with attracting and retaining talent. The problem is how do I find good people? One of the things I teach in my learning systems and books is opposites work better. Why are you working so hard at trying to find them?

 Why don't you create an organization that would get them to find you? And if you're have a protect and defend the mindset, In your organization, you're going to have trouble finding people. But if you've got an embrace and extend, we're not changing. We're transforming our organization based on these hard trends.

And by the way, we need your help at all ages. You know what? You're going to find people jumping in on that. So there's ways you can use this, and of course you would communicate differently to the different generations. You would be surprised at how many companies have one way of recruiting, one way of advertising, instead of no, different generations need many different ways and different avenues and different tools to use.

The third, I did say there were three hard trends, and this one will freak you all out, I know it will. It's regulation, government regulation. And by the way, regulation is in every country. There's regulations of some kind. And once there is a law, a regulation in place, there's amazing opportunities.

Like in the United States. Government isn't in the business of creating business, what they're in the business of doing is creating regulation and creating some money to encourage other companies to do it. Like with electronic patient records. They wanted us to have electronic patient records. So they set aside billions of dollars for any company that would create e patient records.

There's a lot of companies that started off getting government, Elon Musk has used this to start every company he's started. He didn't use his own money, he used government regulation money. So what do we do when we read a regulation? Most of us don't like them. So we look for all the things we don't like, and by the way, it's an endless list.

But one of the things I teach is opposites work better. Don't start with what you don't like. Start with what you do look for the money. And you know what? You'll find money in them bar hills. And you might say to me in the United States, we're so divided. Surely you can't predict any kind of regulation.

And I would say, Oh, yes, you can. You just can't predict them all. For example, ask yourself right now, Will we get more regulation around cybersecurity? Yeah. Why? Because there's some hard trends at play that Democrats and Republicans can't ignore, but there's some other stuff they can debate. I don't want a list of things I can't predict, that doesn't empower me.

I'd like a list of things I can predict. I'd like a list of hard trends that give me certainty. 

[00:21:32] Mahan Tavakoli:  You've given Daniel an outstanding framework for leaders of organizations as they are thinking through their organization strategy. I love the differentiation. What are the hard trends? What elements of the hard trends can you take advantage of?

And what are the soft trends? Therefore, how can you adjust and develop your strategy based on those trends? What I wonder though, as leaders are listening to you, whether it is for themselves, their teams or their organizations, how can they actually apply some of these in their lives and in their organizational planning 

[00:22:17] Daniel Burrus: as well?

One of the things that you need to know is that you're going to spend the rest of your life in the future. In other words maybe you ought to think about it a little bit. And we're at an amazing point in human history right now. Look, we're doing things today. That was impossible two years ago.

Hey, two years ago students weren't using AI to do their homework. Microsoft teaming with MIT just reviewed 84, 000 different elements and came up with the top 10 that could replace lithium for batteries that is sustainable. Holy cow. AI was just recently used.

And couldn't have done this two years ago. To develop the first new antibiotic in 60 years. We're doing things today that was impossible just two years ago. By the way, we're going to be doing things two years from now that are impossible today. How would you like to know what some of that is?

When you apply the hard trend methodology, you can start to see those things and see the opportunities. So let me give you all advice on what you should do that is Doable. And that is, I'd like you to commit to one hour a week. Now, I didn't say two or three or four or five. One is doable. Remember, you're spending the rest of your life in the future.

And I don't want you to be a crisis manager. I want you to now be an opportunity manager. Of your life, and of your career, and of your business, and by the way, also of your family. And in that hour, instead of looking at all the things you're uncertain about, all the things you don't know, all the things you can't do, let's look the opposite direction.

Let's look at what you do know, what you are certain about. What are those hard trends? Remember the categories I gave you. So look at demographics, look at regulations, look at technology and ask yourself, what are the things that I know will impact me, my career, my job, my organization, my family, my future.

So you can see these are different layers. It's like peeling an onion that you can look at it. What are the hard trends? And then you decide which one of those you want to dive into. And then. What is the opportunity? Remember, trend by itself? Worthless. What is the opportunity for you? Now that you know that you have that hard trend identified.

You will, indeed, get a list. Now it depends on whether it's personal, whether it's career focused, you might say AI is going to take my job. No. AI is going to take the definition of your job that you have had all these years. Thanks. Your job will be disrupted.

You know what? I want you to disrupt your job. I want you to create it. An interviewer asked me about a year ago when generative AI was just starting to really get going, they said, will humans be replaced by AI? My answer was, humans will be replaced by humans using AI. Can it do unbelievably wonderful things?

Oh yeah. Can it be doing unbelievably bad things? Oh yeah. So here's what I want you to do. I have a feeling everyone here is a good person. Why don't we use AI to do amazingly good things and protect ourselves? From the amazingly bad things. Now we could do a whole program on how to protect yourself.

And you should be doing that. But that doesn't mean not using it. Head in the sand does not work in a transformational, beyond exponential time that we're in right now. By the way, if you're older You might remember an old saying, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Good news, we're not dogs. Actually, humans are infinitely upgradable.

You can be 90 and learn new things. Or not. I'm suggesting you be open minded to learning new things. Re become an expert. You did it in the past, do it again. Don't throw out everything that you were. I mentioned I write a Harley Davidson. The power is in the tire behind me.

That's where the power is. But the tire in front of me is direction, right? And if I'm only looking a few feet ahead of me, I'll probably end up with an accident. I got to be looking down the road further. I want to be looking out farther. Why? Because I'm moving forward, maybe 60, 70 miles an hour. So I need to be thinking ahead.

I want your vision to be like bright lights. Get the dimmers off, put the bright lights on, illuminate more of the future for yourself. So in that hour, what are the hard trends and the opportunities that you can take action on? You'll get a list. Then, don't stop there, are there some soft trends?

Remember, these are the things that may or may not happen, and you'll find those. We're in a downturn in my industry. We're laying people off. Does that mean that you have to be laid off? No, that's a soft trend. Does that mean that your company has to ride it down like all the other ones like you?

No, you could do some different things. You could realize that's a soft trend. Let everybody else write it down. I'm going to actually write it up. I'm going to use some things to my advantage and take advantage. Cause every positive as a negative, every negative has a positive looks for the up when it's down.

And by the way, if it's up, look for what could be the thing that'll bring you down. Look for that. What are the soft trends and the opportunities to influence them? Third, and I'm only going to give you three beyond three is too many. And that is. Based on those hard trends, what are the predictable problems you're going to have?

And then I'd like you to develop what is the opportunity to pre solve it, so I don't have it in the first place. You will get some lists in that hour of power. And in that hour, here's another thing, big lists never get done. So I'd like you to boil it down to one thing, one, and take action on it. And what's going to make you want to take action on it?

Certainty actually, here's another big insight. When the cost of not doing it is higher than the cost of doing it. If it's based on a hard trend, why? Because if you don't, and this is going to happen anyway, you really want to be the last to be doing it. You want to be the last one to catch on. You want to be in the back of the train.

Matter of fact, I was working with a global company the CEO said, I think we're in the back of the train right now. I'd like to be in the front of the train. And what I said to him is, no, you don't want to be in the front of the train. You want to know where the train is going. See what I'm talking about?

I want to see the direction it's going. And by the way, we've got some tracks laid out already. We can see much more than you think. So I've spent my career on a couple of key things. One. Getting people to actively shape a positive future for themselves and for others, rather than be passive receivers of the future.

Let's wait and see. Let's wait and see what AI is going to do. Let's wait and see. I've read a lot of bad things about it. Let's just wait and see. By the way, you can wait and see yourself right out of business. Look, the best way is to dive in and start learning and use certainty to get the confidence to make the bold move because that's what certainty does.

It gives you confidence to make a bold move. Just one thing that will get you going. So try that one hour. Let me give you another little coaching on this. You're not going to do it if you don't put it in your calendar and make an appointment to do it. It's like exercise. Yeah, I'm going to exercise tomorrow, but then I got busy and I never did.

But if I know at 3 30, if it's an afternoon that you want to do it or it's seven in the morning or whenever it is and you make it an appointment. You know what? You'll do it. Put it in your calendar. You're going to spend the rest of your life in the future. You ought to be thinking about it. I said there were a couple of things that I've devoted my career to getting you to actively shape a positive future rather than passively try to receive it.

But the big thing I'm after right now, and I've been doing for quite a while, Actually, the title of my last book, The Anticipatory Organization, I'm trying to get as many people on the planet to be anticipatory versus reactionary as possible. If we're not identifying and pre solving predictable problems, In a world of beyond exponential change, you and I are not going to be happy campers on planet Earth, and neither are your kids or your grandkids.

We better be identifying them and pre solving them now, instead of waiting for them to happen, because some of them are going to be really big, predictably. Or, we pre solve them. I would like you to also, again, become a positive disruptor. Now let me take a second on that, I just dropped another idea bomb on you.

Let me just get into that a little bit. Most people see disruption as negative. Why? Because it happens to you. And now you got to react and put out fires. But, does a guy like Jeff Bezos who started Amazon, does he see disruption as negative? No, it's all the people he's disrupting. You know what?

You can do that. You can do that. I would like you to be a positive disruptor, creating the transformations that need to happen to elevate your relevance. and accelerate positive growth and change. I want you to disrupt your career. Why? You don't someone else will. I want you to empower yourself here.

You may not like how they disrupt your career. I would like you to do it yourself, or whether it's a business. I would like you to disrupt your business. Why? Because it's going to get disrupted. You thought the disruptions in the past were big? No, they were little ripples. That was nothing compared to the big waves coming.

We got a tsunami of waves coming. By the way, you can see a tsunami way out in the distance, way farther than your eyes. We've got sensors out there that can sense a tsunami miles and miles out. And it's actually a very small little wave moving extremely fast. It doesn't get big until the energy of its speed slows down because of the shallow water and now that energy is converted into what?

Height. Height of that wave. I'm telling you right now, we got multiple tsunamis coming. They're completely visible and you can use them to surf into the future or drown choice is yours. 

[00:33:24] Mahan Tavakoli: I love the thinking Daniel from so many different perspectives. First of all, there is the Positive perspective that we can have that control.

 Many  leaders say there is so much uncertainty I can't see into the future. You are giving us ways to first discipline ourselves to spend time thinking about that future. That we are living in and then also being able to control some elements and shape the elements of what we know is coming rather than being blindsided by it.

So I really appreciate the discipline it takes and also the mindset. And the frameworks you have shared in doing that. You talk about both and principle rather than the either or mindset would love to know how that plays a role into the kind of thinking that it takes for leading ourselves and anticipatory organizations.

[00:34:30] Daniel Burrus: That is another good one. I develop principles based on my own personal experiences and then I share those in books and blogs and so on. The both and principle is really powerful because we default mentally to an either or mindset. For example, the either or mindset is we're gas and oil now, and it's going to be solar and green in the future.

There will be no gas and oil, or we say to ourselves, it's all electric cars, or it's gas cars, one or the other is going to win or lose. Instead of actually, no, we're going to have both. See, we had maybe one choice in the past, now we have multiple choices. Not to mention hydrogen and some others. And I've used this both and principle for accurate predictions for all of the 40 years.

I'll give you an example. I'm going to turn back the clock back in the 80s around 86, 87, 88, right in that period, we started to get CD rounds. That was the beginning of a CD ROM, storing information on a CD ROM. And everybody was saying, Oh, paper, we're going to be paperless by, 1992, 1993.

Seriously, that's, everybody was saying that, except me. And I was saying, Oh no. We're not going to be paperless by 93 or 2003 or 2023. We're not going to be paperless at all. We will have more paper. And by the way, we'll have more digital. It's both. And by the way, here's the way you can be accurate.

I'll give you another little tidbit here you didn't ask about. I said, and I'll tell you exactly the best way we can use that CD ROM. Am I going to put the book Moby Dick on a CD ROM? And I said, no, but I might put a dictionary on there. I might put an encyclopedia on there. I'm not going to sit down and read an encyclopedia.

I'm not going to read a dictionary, although actually those are cool things to read, and I've done that. But those are not normal person's reading material. So when it comes to electric vehicles Elon Musk made a prediction in 2005. For 2025. 

And his prediction was by 2025 there will be no car sold with a steering wheel, a brake, or an accelerator. It's all gonna be self-driving cars. And back then, 2015, including today, I'm saying, sorry Elon. You will be wrong. First of all, can you imagine. Lamborghini and Porsche selling a car you can't control.

What are they going to do? Say the high price is because it's got nice seats. I don't think so. Secondly, I've been driving a Tesla Model X since 2017. I got a lot of experience here and it's not fully self driving, but it can drive itself pretty good. Most of the time, I don't use that. I like to drive.

I enjoy driving. You know what I don't like? Accidents. What we're gonna see is, oh, we will have self driving cars, we already have some, but what we're gonna have more is semi autonomous. For example right now we have features on our new cars. So when you're about to change the lane, and let's say somebody's in your blind spot in that area, maybe your steering wheel vibrates.

Some of them do that. Maybe there's a beep, maybe there's a light flashing, but humans are really good at ignoring all that stuff. And we have the accident anyway, the new systems. I can predict this. How do I know? I'm helping the car companies do this. So the new systems are going to not let you have the accident.

They won't let you have it. It won't let you have that accident. So sorry, can't have that accident. What are you going to say? Yeah did you know that close to 80 percent of the people in emergency rooms are because of people that have an accident that it could be avoided if they had a system like that?

By the way, that would free 80 percent of the emergency rooms. It would empty him so the doctors could treat it. Other things whoa that can actually lower health care costs see all this stuff is connected when you start thinking about it If you just take a little bit of time do we want a School bus for elementary school kids to have no adult on board.

Self driving. I don't think so. I think I want adult on board. By the way, if they're on board why don't we put them behind the wheel? But I want to have it semi autonomous so that bus cannot have an accident. See where I'm going? By the way, does that mean I'm suggesting we won't have any autonomous vehicles?

Oh, yes, we will. One of my clients I actually work with the three largest pharmaceutical companies, as an example. I work with a lot of big ones, and one of them has a campus, it's like a city. It's all their property, many big buildings, and they have a bus that goes from building to building to building, carrying people that want to go have their meeting in the next building.

Perfect for autonomous. I don't need a human on that. There's a lot of places where autonomous fits. So here's the principle that can help you use the Bovan principle and predict the future accurately. Regardless of the subject, whether it's autonomous vehicles or anything else, ask yourself, what is the ideal use of it?

By the way, that's how I was able to predict that we would put dictionaries and encyclopedias on CD ROMs first. By the way, I was right on that. How did I know that? That's the ideal use at that point in time. And by the way, I'm still right on paper. We got a lot of paper still, why we've got more to share.

Although let me help you with a little strategy. You got to ask yourself, what's the goal here of the communication? Some things are better served with actual paper. Good, then use paper. But don't use paper for the things that aren't ideal for paper. Some things are ideal for digital. Some things are ideal for interactive digital.

Some things are better for video right now. Everybody's doing everything on social media and video. That's another either or either you get rid of text and now it's all video. That's crazy I got actually a couple of million followers on linkedin most of what I put in is text And not as much video why because actually text works great If you're saying the right things, if you're sharing the right things.

It is both and is a great principle. And I have principles like doing time travel audits opposites work better, take your biggest problem and skip it. Actually, in my anticipatory organization learning system and book, I've got 27 principles like that, that are in there. Hard trends is one, soft trends is another.

So I have a lot of things that I like to teach. 

[00:41:08] Mahan Tavakoli:  The principles you share in the book are outstanding and I highly encourage everyone to read the Daniel and then reflect on it because at first glance, it seems simple. But it's taking it and applying it as you did with both end to everything from self driving cars to digital media, helps you understand better because a lot of times in forecasting, we are looking for certainty in the wrong places. I've been involved in strategic planning with organizations for a couple of decades, and it's incredible how everyone gravitates toward that binary thinking of either or mindset. So this one principle can elevate the thinking strategically, whether it is for ourselves, our environment, our teams, or our organizations.

[00:42:06] Daniel Burrus: Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned strategic planning. Most organizations they'll say we do scenario planning. And my response to that is, Oh, you mean you're doing soft trend planning? I if any of those things you knew that were going to happen, that wouldn't need a scenario. So they're only doing half just like agility.

Agility is not the same as being anticipatory. Agility came from sports. It's reacting as quickly as you can in sports. It's reacting in business as quickly as you can to a disruption after it disrupts. Reacting as quickly as you can to a problem after it occurs. The more agile you are, the better. And that's good, however.

In a world of beyond exponential change, driven by technology, it's becoming less valuable. Not no value. You need to be agile. But that's why you need to be anticipatory, anticipating the problems before you have them so you can resolve them, anticipating the disruptions before they disrupt. If you looked at my 1993 book, Technotrends, back in 93, in Technotrends, there's a section that says Blockbuster is busted.

You read underneath it, you'll see a description of Netflix with You know when that would happen. By the way, did I know they would call it Netflix? No, you got to leave out the parts you can be wrong about but I knew the tools and the time frame Thanks to the digital accelerators and the hard trends.

You see I don't want to be the only accurate forecaster on the planet I want you to be able to do this That's why we spent the time going through this and I've rattled along and one of the things that you mentioned about the book Anticipatory Organization, I didn't do what a normal author does because I almost never do anything in a normal way.

And I used my opposites work better. So what I developed is the anticipatory organization learning system. first, and then after I had it out there, it became a product of the year award winner in its first year. And it's done really well. Then I developed the book as a complimentary piece to go with it.

So the book came second. Usually you do a book first and then you come up with other things to spin off of it. So actually they work together really nicely because it helps you learn how to apply it. And if anybody wanted to find out about it, they can just go to Burrus, B U R U S. com and. There's blogs thousands of them.

You can search and get the subject you want, load away, have fun. 

[00:44:25] Mahan Tavakoli: You have lots of outstanding content. Now, before we wrap up, I know you do something special when you speak to get people to reflect and act. And would love for you to share that with our audience. So we get more action based on the wonderful insights that you have shared, in addition to reading your book, reading your blog getting involved with the course, taking as much advantage of all the brilliant content you put out as possible.

Daniel. 

[00:44:59] Daniel Burrus: And don't forget the hour a week start that when we're done. So in every speech and I've had some large ones in 2023, the largest audience I had was 20, 000. So I've had some big ones. I've had 35 different languages being translated. So I've had some biggies, but I have small ones as well.

And no matter how big they are, what I do towards the end is I ask everyone in the audience to take out their smart device, I give them a website that they can go to, it's a form to fill out, and I have them write in, by the way I'd like all of us to think of doing this right now, I have them write down one hard trend certainty they know will happen.

And impact either them personally or professionally or their organization and a related opportunity so doing that now can really help you remember the categories that I shared with you now in an audience, whether it's 500 or 5000 Regardless of its size for example, I just recently had a thousand CEOs , all in the tech sector.

I gave them two minutes to write down a hard trend on opportunity, but I said, make it a good one. Why? Because we got a thousand CEOs in the room that are going to write down one hard trend and one opportunity. I'm going to collect them all. I'll review them all. I'm going to create a report of the hard trends.

There probably will be some soft in there. I'll put them in the soft file because those are good too. And we'll give you that two weeks after the event as a report. Why? Because just like I told you all, I wanted them to take an hour a week. And in this case, they can start with what their peers and they came up with.

And just like I said to you, big list never get done, pick one and do it. So when we're finished with this, we turn this off. Why don't you write down a hard trend, demographics, technology, regulation, and an opportunity for you. And maybe you'll come up with more than one. Maybe you'll spend that hour a week.

Maybe you'll start to see how powerful this really is, because it is. 

[00:47:01] Mahan Tavakoli: It absolutely is daniel. How can the audience find out more about You your content and your book. 

[00:47:09] Daniel Burrus: If you go to burrus b u r u s dot com You can find the books in their newsletters follow me on linkedin.

I share a lot of content on there. I've got a newsletter on there just for linkedin i've got hundreds of thousands of subscribers there. So join the conversation and join me on this anticipatory journey. Because it's better than being reactionary. And let's create a positive future for yourself and for others.

You can do that. Let's do that. 

[00:47:41] Mahan Tavakoli: What an incredible joy, Daniel. Having read your book, read your blog posts. I'm a big fan. Most especially because you enable people to have clarity into this fast changing future and to be able to shape it through your purpose, through your passion for teaching and making a difference, you have made the difference for countless people, including me and the partnering leadership community.

Thank you so much for joining this conversation, Daniel Behrs. 

[00:48:16] Daniel Burrus: It was my pleasure. Thank you.