27 Apr 4 messages to my time-travelling self
A letter to my time-travelling self
I hope you will enjoy this wonderfully whimsical video made by Comedian Julie Nolke. She has a conversation with her January 2020 self. Her video inspired this post. Enjoy a listen, then see if you can relate! Read on …
Monday morning quarterbacking the COVID-19 crisis
It will be easy to write history. When this COVID-19 crisis ends, we will each have the advantage of hindsight, more information, more knowledge and so much data. We will easily be able to connect the dots looking backwards, and see where we could have, should have, would have done differently.
So, if you could time travel …..
What are 4 things you would tell your past self?
- Dream big & bold. Because the world realizes the word impossible no longer exists.
- Make your will. And get cracking on your ‘big projects’. You never know when your time will be up.
- That goal to ‘look good on camera’ before venturing into video creation – don’t sweat it. Focus on the content, not your looks. Your friends & family are quickly going to get used to seeing you sleepy-eyed, grey haired and in leggings.
- Take out the sewing machine and get it serviced.
Would you have listened to yourself?
For each item on my list, I would probably bring a lot of argumentation to my current self – a lot of constraints and boundaries. Many would be related to space & time. Which is funny because when I think about what I do, my favourite activity is to play with time. Which goes to show ….
I think a lot of my resistance was centred on someone else’s SHOULD do list, instead of my JUST do list.
Futurecasting
The FUTUREcasting workshops that I’ve developed are all about time travel, scenario planning and playing with options. Watching for signals. Reading the virtual tea leaves. It is a little like being the proverbial indigenous scout – who knows how to track wildlife based on paw prints and broken twig indicators.
The workshops allow us to visit a variety of possible futures – and creating a framework for operating that will function adequately in all, optimally in some and read the signals so we know when to switch to a different toolkit.
Growth mindset
- Do you have an open mind?
- Are you willing to entertain ideas that others consider nonsense?
- Do you trend towards abundance or scarcity?
- Do you love watching McGyver or Apollo-13 and get a thrill when you read how someone jerry-rigged a ventilator?
We need your ideas as we re-invent and re-imagine a new normal.
What next?
Now knowing which constraints have been so easily broken right across the globe, and how the economy, society and politics are all in upheaval
What letter will you write to your future self?
What we did not definitively know in the middle of February
We now know that this disease is transmitted by touch, but not by food. It is not transmitted sexually. We know it is not airborne but that droplets can linger in the air and fall on a surface that we touch later.
But for a while, we did not know all this. And what we know is changing day-by-day.
We will be able to judge how well some countries planned ahead, the value of testing,
- In the face of a threat to our lives given that Corona or COVID-19 has a R0 – 2:0-2.5 (very contagious) high density locations especially schools and businesses shuttered within the week.
- Anyone who could work from home chose to do so, and soon most organizations & schools enforced that too.
- Governments started repatriating their citizens as country after country closed down their borders.
We forget what it felt like on January 28, 2020 or February 14 when many of us were still willing to fly off on mid-Winter breaks. I flew off to India at the end of February – a journey originally planned for the month of February, but postponed during January because I was working on the SARs timeline, and figured things would sort themselves out by then. In February I felt it was getting under control. Speaking for myself, I was cautious and careful, recognizing that the journey itself would pose the biggest risk.
But how much did we see coming?
Imagining the impossible: Blue Dot & Outbreak science
It turns out that one organization got pinged. Enjoy the link to this very complimentary 60 minutes segment on how a Canadian startup called Blue Dot imagined the impossible on December 31, 2019 …. about the same time the rest of us were creating our New Year resolutions and goals for 2020.
Blue Dot are creating something called ‘Outbreak science’ – using AI algorithms, the huge lakes of data from flight patterns and cell phone tower pings to visualize the possible next steps for the virus.
Here is the link to the video and transcript of the episode that aired on Apr 26 2020:
60 Minutes CBS news Blue Dot Outbreak Science
Jan 1 2020
These were my goals and resolutions on Jan 1 2020
Happily most of them are still in play.
- I wanted to make time for myself – CHECK!
- I talked about slowing down in an accelerating world – CHECK!
- Give the best of you, not whats left of you – in play.
Revisit yours. Are they still manageable? Or have you hit your TILT date when you re-calibrate for the coming weeks and months?
Changing our perspective
Here is your challenge if you choose to participate:
What COVID-19 taught me about the Future:
- The scale of the global response to the declaration of a pandemic on March 9 was whip-lash fast.
- In a crisis we redefine our constraints.
- We will all die. We don’t know when. If it happens this year or this month, have I left a tiny footprint on the sands of time?
My COVID-19 lessons
The Future can only be imagined, never predicted.
Our attitude plays a major part in how we meet our future.
A growth mindset is a positive attribute and a survival skill.
Also in this series:
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