The Futurist's Playbook: Adapting to Acceleration and Change
Today, we’re diving into the mind-bending world of futurism with the one and only David Houle, who’s not just a friend but a bona fide visionary in the field. Now, if you've ever wondered how to navigate the ever-accelerating landscape of change—especially with technology sprinting ahead like a kid on a sugar high—David's got the goods for you. He’s been dubbed one of the most influential futurists around, and trust me, he’s earned that title with over 1,200 presentations across the globe. We’re talking about everything from the impact of AI on business and society to the necessity of being more adaptable than a chameleon on a rainbow. So grab your favorite drink, sit back, and let’s explore how we can all be parents of the future, not just offspring of the past.
Takeaways:
- The speed of technological change will only accelerate, impacting every entrepreneur and business.
- AI, or as I like to call it, technological intelligence, will redefine human existence as electricity did.
- Adapting to the shift from physical to screen reality is crucial for modern entrepreneurs.
- Unlearning is as vital as learning for business owners to keep pace with rapid changes in their industries.
- Future-proofing your business isn't about avoiding change; it's about embracing necessary transformations.
- Entrepreneurs need to focus on transformative solutions rather than just iterative innovations to succeed.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Vistage
- CBS
- MTV
- ChatGPT
- Amazon
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody.
Speaker A:Parnell Woodard with another episode of the Pivot Point.
Speaker A:This is a special one, guys.
Speaker A:You're gonna like this.
Speaker A:Really excited to bring to you a former colleague and.
Speaker A:And someone that I call a friend from a number of years back, David Houle, who is a futuristic and a little different than some of our normal podcasts and some of our normal sessions where we talk a lot about business owners and what it took for them to get over the hump and their pivot point into business ownership.
Speaker A:David is a futurist thinker.
Speaker A:An active speaker.
Speaker A: years, he's delivered over: Speaker A: organization of CEOs back in: Speaker A:He has been called the CEOs Futurist and has spoken to or advised more than 4,000 CEOs and business owners in the past 11 years alone.
Speaker A:Welcome, David.
Speaker A:Great to have you with us.
Speaker B:My pleasure, Parnell.
Speaker B:And again, as I said to you before we started this recording, that you go way back to when I was the beginning, starting out my career as a futurist almost 20 years ago.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I'm thrilled to see us feel old.
Speaker B:Well, you know, we are.
Speaker B:You know, I have no hair, and yours is kind of turning gray.
Speaker A:That happens, right?
Speaker A:I think it's all the entrepreneurialism and stuff that we get into.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:Well, let me jump right in.
Speaker A:So you've been called one of the most influential futurists of our time.
Speaker A:Can you share a bit about your background and what.
Speaker A:What being a futurist means in today's world?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Well, early on, in my 20s, I was exposed to who, I think the three great futurists of the last hundred years.
Speaker B:Marshall McLuhan, R.
Speaker B:Buckminster Fuller, and Alvin Toffler.
Speaker B:And so I appreciated futurism and what was being written and, of course, future shock.
Speaker B:Toffler, the medium is the message.
Speaker B:McLuhan and.
Speaker B:And operating manual for Spaceship Earth.
Speaker B:Fuller changed my life.
Speaker B:I also read a lot of science fiction.
Speaker B: s,: Speaker B:I was a top sales guy at CBS to join the.
Speaker B:The 20 or 30 people at the time who were going to launch MTV.
Speaker B: hinking as a futurist, it was: Speaker B: orces in popular culture from: Speaker B:Television and rock and roll.
Speaker B:So how could this fail?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And then in the late 90s, I was part of an Internet 1.0 startup that was the first company to create online courses.
Speaker B:Oh, that'll never happen.
Speaker B:So, you know, rock and roll, television and online courses, two things that are now mainstream, which at the time were not.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:I had a sense that I was capable of feeling and seeing the next big thing.
Speaker B:And I was doing corporate consulting in the first four or five years of this century, and it was just boring.
Speaker B:You know, I was doing well, but, you know, the pathology of the CEO becomes a pathology of the company.
Speaker B:So if you can't change that, you have a problem.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So then I just said, well, I'm going to become a futurist.
Speaker B:And I did, and it worked out.
Speaker B:A futurist is somebody who writes and speaks about the future.
Speaker B:My credibility is based on the direction.
Speaker B:In other words, I'm directionally correct.
Speaker B:Like 100% of the time where I get things wrong.
Speaker B:Parnell is scale and timing.
Speaker B:An example I usually give.
Speaker B: I think it was: Speaker B:I said that over the next two years, 15% of consumers would cut the cable cord and it was 12%.
Speaker B:So I was wrong on that.
Speaker B:But directionally correct.
Speaker B:Yeah, so.
Speaker B:So that's what I stand on.
Speaker B:Is that the high level.
Speaker B:I am.
Speaker B:I am clear as to where humanity is going.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Right now, your work typically focuses on the acceleration of change.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What are the biggest shifts you're seeing shaping the business world for the next decade?
Speaker B: years ago, in: Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker B:So for any entrepreneur that listens to your podcast, understand that the speed of technological change is only going to accelerate.
Speaker B:The primary accelerant on the horizon, of course, is artificial intelligence.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:And I think that I have gone on the record saying intelligence is the product of the 21st century.
Speaker B:It will be and will continue to be a radical change.
Speaker B:I call it technological intelligence because I personally, and I know I'm swimming upstream on this because AI has already become the moniker.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But I ask anybody who listens to this podcast, when in their life has something artificial been better than something real?
Speaker B:So on a sub, subliminal, sublinguistic basis, calling something artificial intelligence means that it already starts out with a negative.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:I call it technological because it's intelligence that exides in technology.
Speaker B:It's real intelligence.
Speaker B:It's not artificial.
Speaker B:It's real.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:That's an interesting thought, too.
Speaker A:And you know, I think you and I have been fortunate enough that to have seen really in the past 25, 30 years, two to me, major shifts in what has happened in our society.
Speaker A:And that was the advent of the Internet and now the advent of AI.
Speaker A: s and: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's going to be that kind of thing.
Speaker A:You know, people talk about agentic AI, kind of this next iteration of AI.
Speaker A:A year from now we're going to look at AI that we have today as basically a calculator.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's that kind of profound change.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker B:The way I, the metaphor I use is electricity.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I think that artificial intelligence, technological intelligence will transform how humans live on the planet as much as electricity has.
Speaker B:And the reason I use that metaphor is that when electricity first happened, it was a flickering light bulb.
Speaker B:And the profundity of that, extending the day, bringing outside light inside in the evening, things like that, was so profound that they didn't see microwave ovens, elevators, coffee makers.
Speaker B:So anybody who, and I'm sure most of your listeners have, have sampled ChatGPT, for example, Chat GPT is to the future of AI, what that flickering light bulb meant to the future of electricity.
Speaker B:It's that simple.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Many, many of my listeners are business owners, right.
Speaker A:Aspiring entrepreneurs.
Speaker A:So are there some trends that you see impacting how businesses are started and scaled in the next five to 10 years?
Speaker B:Scaling is going to be the key.
Speaker B: ve written three books on the: Speaker B: The: Speaker B:And so disruption is what is the landscape going forward on any single sector.
Speaker B:So the only way to deal with disruption is to be resilient and to be adaptive.
Speaker B:And I truly think that you know the, the best quote about the future.
Speaker B:And I'm sure, I mean, when I first met you, I had written my first book and it was the thing in the first book, we should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.
Speaker B:So it's incumbent on any entrepreneur to not use the legacy thinking of the past.
Speaker B:This is how we've always done it.
Speaker B:This is what I know it's going to work.
Speaker B:You can't know that now.
Speaker B:Everything is such.
Speaker B: I always say that the: Speaker B:How we worked changed, how we socialized changed, how we shopped changed, how we communicated changed.
Speaker B:So that's what it's going to be.
Speaker B:If you are not prepared for fundamental adaption, you're going to sink.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So much so.
Speaker A:You know, the.
Speaker A:We hear the adage that, you know, people's jobs are going to be replaced by AI.
Speaker A:And then the counter to that is people say, well, no, the people who use AI are going to replace people who don't use AI.
Speaker A:But I, I really think that AI is going to force us to increase our critical thinking skills because I think AI is going to be able to replace a lot of our more mundane tasks and mundane skills, if you will, that we, that we do throughout the course of the day.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I think I.
Speaker B:The way I describe it to audiences is that on a personal level, you know, it's kind of like AI is going to be your wingman, you know, your angel on your shoulder.
Speaker B:You know, Parnell, you usually make a left at this intersection.
Speaker B:You made a right.
Speaker B:You make sure you want, I mean, that type of self corrective behavior.
Speaker B:And then, and then the larger aspect of, you know, when you go see a doctor, it's just that one doctor with AI, that doctor is going to say, so what are your symptoms?
Speaker B:Let me type in to the world database to get all the doctors and all the results right here in the exam room.
Speaker B:So it's transformative.
Speaker B:Yeah, it will be.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, we've heard a lot about the great resignation, quiet quitting, you know, these shifting workforce trends.
Speaker A:How do you see the nature of work evolving for business owners and employees alike?
Speaker B:Higher level.
Speaker B:In the Shift Age, which is the name of the first book that I wrote, and the age that we're in, there is a reality of two realities.
Speaker B:The screen reality and the physical reality.
Speaker B:And until this century and until the shift age, that didn't exist.
Speaker B:So what entrepreneurs are going to have to deal with is the reality on the screen and the physical reality.
Speaker B:When I started speaking, around the time I met you, I was speaking to a lot of CEOs and they all had their laptops, they understood it.
Speaker B:And it wasn't until Covid that we realized that everybody has the screen reality and it can replace the physical reality.
Speaker B:So the real question becomes, what reality are you focusing on?
Speaker B:Are you an online only reality?
Speaker B:Are you a screen reality or are you a physical reality?
Speaker B:And I think, you know, the future shows up first on the screens and then populates physical reality.
Speaker B:And I think that I think that that's going to continue.
Speaker B:And obviously the screen reality morphs much more quickly than the physical reality does.
Speaker B:I think that for anybody who is in your audience, who is in retail, I would be very concerned, you know, because I think the United States is still way over retailed.
Speaker B: And I said this In: Speaker B:So I think.
Speaker B:I think the reality is that what reality are you in?
Speaker B:Screen reality, physical reality.
Speaker B:And how do you blend the two?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, very clearly.
Speaker A:You know, it's interesting you bring up the retail side of things, too, because, you know, in.
Speaker A:Particularly in business ownership and franchises, where there's a lot of structure, the disruptions we're seeing and the innovations we're seeing are impacting huge impact, obviously on retail.
Speaker A:Are there other industries that you think are going to see those kinds of disruptions or innovations that are going to really affect them that profoundly?
Speaker B:Name an industry, Parnell.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, seriously, it's that transformative.
Speaker B:We are at a time where everything is in a state of shift.
Speaker B:I would say that, you know, AI is going to most obviously affect medical, financial and logistics, for sure.
Speaker B:So I think that anything.
Speaker B:You know, there's a great phrase and you know it, and you've probably used it.
Speaker B:Disintermediation.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And yet it's not in the dictionary.
Speaker B:Disintermediation is removal of the middleman simplification.
Speaker B:So anybody who's in any type of a middleman business is at higher risk than Interesting everybody else.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So don't be a middleman.
Speaker B:Don't be a.
Speaker B:Don't be a.
Speaker B:Will translate this for you.
Speaker B:We'll do this for you, because technology will soon disintermediate those people.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:You used a phrase earlier, and I really liked it.
Speaker A:You said, be the parents of the future, not the children.
Speaker B:Rather the offspring of the past rather.
Speaker A:Than the offspring of the past.
Speaker A:And I think it was really kind of reflective of being.
Speaker A:Embracing the ability to adapt and to change.
Speaker A:Are there other mindset shifts that you think business owners really need to embrace to stay ahead of the curve, other than just being adaptable?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm going to use a quote on you from.
Speaker B: rom Alvin Toffler in the year: Speaker B:So he's the one who wrote Future Shock and Power shift and the third wave.
Speaker B: And so in the year: Speaker B:And he said, the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those that cannot read or write, but those that cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
Speaker B:So what I say to CEOs is you're going to have to actively master the concept of unlearning because the speed of change is so fast that if you are not in the.
Speaker B:In the position of unlearning what you knew, you can't learn what you need to know for now or for the immediate future.
Speaker B:So unlearning is an.
Speaker B:Is a verb.
Speaker A:Yeah, Great.
Speaker A:That's great counsel.
Speaker A:You know, given the speed of change, how does a business owner future proof their companies against economic and technological disruption?
Speaker B:Yeah, future proof is a phrase that is overused.
Speaker A:It sure is.
Speaker A:I kind of hate it myself.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I don't like it, but it's standing in a.
Speaker B:An adaptive, resilient, unlearning mindset.
Speaker B:A state of being is what's needed more for entrepreneurs today because this, because the change is so fast, you know, it's kind of like drinking from a firehouse.
Speaker B:Do I do this?
Speaker B:Do I do that?
Speaker B:And I want to caution entrepreneurs to not just change for change sake, change for the necessary change that needs to be made.
Speaker B:You know, there's a lot like when Covid happened, well, should we have remote learning or should we bring them back in the office?
Speaker B:And so it was an either or conundrum.
Speaker B:And that is a superficial way to think about it.
Speaker B:Well, you know, maybe HR should be in the office more and salespeople shouldn't.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, you have to completely adapt.
Speaker B:So I think it's much more of a state of beingness and a state and a mental mindset of unlearning.
Speaker B:What is it that I need to let go of to be able to take advantage of this opportunity?
Speaker B:Am I bringing legacy thinking into this new market where it will fail?
Speaker B:So, yeah, right.
Speaker B:Initially, for example, when online learning start.
Speaker B:I've been a fan of Amazon since day one, but the thinking was, well, they'll never have the customer service that you get in person.
Speaker B:Well, Amazon knows me better than any store person I could ever walk into.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So, so knowledge of the consumer is superior online now because the workforce is changing so rapidly in retail, you know, and so there is nothing, there is no market that's not going to be changed.
Speaker B:So the absolute thing, I'm being redundant here, but what is the state of mind?
Speaker B:What is the state of being?
Speaker B:Are you going to win at all costs, or are you going to win by being flexible and adaptable?
Speaker A:Yeah, no, that's good counsel.
Speaker A:And you're right.
Speaker A:I think things are going to change so fast.
Speaker A:I talk with people all the time about technology and the application of technology, and there's a lot of people that, you know, embrace technology for.
Speaker A:Just for the sake of technology.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But there has to be an application.
Speaker A:You have to be solving a problem, you know, to be able to really move forward with that.
Speaker A:So, you know, like, to your point.
Speaker B:The cliche of the last 10 years is, oh, let's just create an app.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Maybe you don't need to.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:So you're sitting down across the table from somebody having a cup of coffee.
Speaker A:They're an aspiring entrepreneur.
Speaker A:Maybe they're.
Speaker A:Maybe they're thinking about starting something from scratch or getting into franchising.
Speaker A:What's one piece of advice you would give them?
Speaker B:Why is this needed and who needs it?
Speaker B:And how are you going to reach those people to tell them that they need it?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, you know, we all know, you know, I want to, you know, Steve Jobs said people will know what they want when they see it.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's not a lot of Steve Jobs in the world.
Speaker B:So how are you going to get the customers that you're creating this product for to see it?
Speaker B:Yeah, and I want to.
Speaker B:I want to make a little point.
Speaker B:I have a.
Speaker B: I'd say started around: Speaker B:The title was Innovation is Out of Date.
Speaker B:Because everybody uses innovation in a time of disruption and transformation.
Speaker B:Innovation is only iterative change.
Speaker B:If Steve Jobs was an innovator, we would have had a BlackBerry with a bigger screen.
Speaker B:Instead, he was a transformative, disruptive agent, and he created the iPhone.
Speaker B:So he was not an innovator.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:He was a disruptor.
Speaker B:He was a transformer.
Speaker B:So don't just think as you, as the entrepreneur that I'm having a cup of coffee with, that you can just make an iterative change and it'll be a big success.
Speaker B:What's the transformative statement or product for this market?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, there's a.
Speaker A:There's a great story about how Chrysler came up with the fourth door of the minivan.
Speaker A:And they, you know, for years, people, during research and focus groups, they would sit down across from folks and they would say, well, what do you want more of in the minivan?
Speaker A:And the consumers would only say what they were, what they were, what they had known.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You only know what you know.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And somebody at Chrysler was watching people get in and out of these minimum said, why don't we put a door on the other side?
Speaker A:And obviously when they did that, huge success.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Chrysler blew the, no pun intended, blew the doors off the minivan market.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But it wasn't because they were asking consumers what they wanted, because consumers didn't know what they wanted.
Speaker A:They could only answer in the context of what they knew.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Somebody had to have the vision to be able to see that there was a need.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So to your point, is it needed?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What problem is it going to solve?
Speaker A:You know, who are you going to reach?
Speaker B:Right, exactly.
Speaker B:This is such an important point because the ipod solved the piracy problem.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It solved.
Speaker A:And the big CD problem, carrying around these big bulky CDs.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So what is it?
Speaker B:I think in.
Speaker B:I think entrepreneurs need to stop using the word innovate and use the word transform and disrupt, because transformation and disruption is what's going on in the world today.
Speaker B:So if you're only iterating, you know, innovating, you're doing iterative change.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's iterative.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you've been known obviously to predict some pretty major shifts accurately.
Speaker A:Is there one bold prediction that you have for business and society that most people aren't talking about yet?
Speaker B:Well, I mean, the two big ones are climate and intelligence, but people are talking about that.
Speaker B:I think we're at a tipping point relative to both climate and intelligence, that mindsets have to change or humanity will sink further into the negative.
Speaker B:And I'm very optimistic.
Speaker B:I just gave a Zoom presentation to about 75 people the other night, and people said, how do you maintain your optimism?
Speaker B:Well, you know, I'm looking into the future and I think at the largest, Cornell, there is no place on the planet, which means there is nobody who's not going to get affected about climate change.
Speaker B:So the history of humanity has been, if we can set up a common enemy, we can come together and fight that enemy.
Speaker B:So I think that we're at the moment, and I'm going to try and lead the charge on this consciousness, which is, let's take the climate crisis as the opportunity to transform humanity, because we have no choice right now.
Speaker B:Humanity is on a trajectory of 100 to 200 years.
Speaker B:100 years until the end of civilization as know it, and 200 years to extinction.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The average mammalian species lives for a million years.
Speaker B:We've been taught that we're at the top of the pyramid of mammals, and mammals are the top of the pyramid.
Speaker B:So if.
Speaker B:If we're as good and we've been around for 150,000 years, so we have 850,000 years more to go.
Speaker B:So we have a choice of 100 to 200 years trajectory, which is the one we are on, or 100,000 to 200,000 years, if we're as good as raccoons, field mice, dogs and cats.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So the human opportunity of which entrepreneurs are a part is really that.
Speaker B:My mind is overwhelming me here.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:That, that we have to completely alter how we look at each other.
Speaker B:We have to move from money first to humanity first.
Speaker B:You know, hashtag money first, hashtag humanity first.
Speaker B:For example, one of the big things in the press today is the early part of the Trump era.
Speaker B:And what they're doing is they're just hacking away at the government.
Speaker B:Well, the interesting thing about that is there's going to be consequences.
Speaker B:What are those consequences?
Speaker B:And maybe this change is what we need, but people can't see it yet.
Speaker B:I'm reserving judgment because I've been saying that the biggest change is disruption and the acceleration of changes.
Speaker B:So maybe we can't judge this type of change.
Speaker B:It might work, it might not work.
Speaker B:I want to say that, I mean, in this century, it's the climate century, it's the intelligence century, it's the end of nation states as we know it, and it's the beginning of a new environmental evolutionary change in humanity.
Speaker B:We are going to evolve as much in the next 60 years as the last 150 since Darwin published his book.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Clearly, David, I'm conscious of time and I know that we got to wrap.
Speaker A:Where can our listeners find out more about you, your work, and stay connected with you?
Speaker B:Sure, you can go to davidhul.com or you can go.
Speaker B:And I encourage people to really do this.
Speaker B:Go to evolutionshift.substack.com it's where I publish my newsletter and I've been publishing it for a couple of years there.
Speaker B:And I know substack's blown up, so evolutionshift.substack.com sign up for free if you like.
Speaker B:Cool, cool.
Speaker A:Well, thanks very much for having me.
Speaker B:And all my books are available on Amazon pretty much is the easiest way to do it.
Speaker A:And I can speak to that.
Speaker A:So I have a couple copies of the Shift age from early on.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Okay, folks, Parna Woodard from the Pivot Point.
Speaker A:I hope you have found this fascinating and provocative.
Speaker A:Look forward to seeing you guys on a future episode.
Speaker A:David, thank you again.
Speaker B:Oh, my pleasure, Parna.
Speaker B:It was good to see you and anybody of your listeners that want to reach out to me to learn more about the future certainly can.
Speaker A:Will do.
Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker B:Thanks.
