Thinking On The Future As A Leader

Most people believe that there is only one of two ways to look at the Future.

Either you put your head in the sky and reach toward the impossible...

Or you keep your feet on the ground and focus on what is probable.

Whichever side you talk to will say the other side is wrong.

The Reachers Vs. The Realists

The "Reachers" will say that the only way to reach the impossible is to believe it is possible!

If we want to touch the sky, we can!

The "Realists" will say that touching the sky is ludicrous!

We may as well keep our feet on the ground where they belong!

However, I find that both are wrong in different ways.

The Reachers will never touch the sky if there is no realistic plan to get there.

The Realists will never accomplish anything of note without the goal to get to something bigger.

The end result is two groups, fighting over who is "right" when both are wrong.

The reality is that they need each other.

The Reacher and the Realist must understand each other's strengths and work together.

The Reacher must say, "Let's touch the sky!"

The Realist must say, "We first need to get an inch off the ground!"

When they work together, that is when we begin to see a bridge between what is Impossible and what is Probable.

Applied In The Real World

Of late, I have heard a lot of "Doom" talk.

The Reachers believe that we need to save the planet, and do good for our environment, and if we don't that we're all doomed!

The Realists say that it's too late, even if we move now, we are too small to make any real change.

If things stay this way, both sides will allow a doomed future to occur.

All because we didn't work together.

If there's any way to make things work, we will have to all work together.

It isn't about if "they" are right or wrong.

If that is how you're talking, then you're missing the point.

We need the Reachers to have ideas that could potentially create the change we want to see.

We also need the Realists to figure out a reasonable first step to accomplish those ideas and figure out which ideas will be best to start with.

We all need to work together if the future is to improve.

This doesn't just go for the environment though, it is true of every single point of contention for thinking about the future.

We are all interdependent - we all must be able to rely on each other to accomplish things that we are hoping to see.

Fighting over senseless nothing accomplishes nothing.

But human ingenuity is spectacular, and if we all were to work together towards the common goal...

The things we could do I don't even think we could possibly imagine today.

If you told someone a few hundred years ago that not only could you touch the sky, but you could choose to touch it either by walking straight up there (via stairs) or being taken up by contraptions (via balloons and planes), you would've been called the village crazy person.

But look at how far we've come since then!

It takes unity.

It takes dreams of touching the sky.

It takes goals with realistic setpoints to eventually get there.

Together, we must create a bridge.

That is how we go from Probable to "Impossible".

It won't happen overnight, there will be small steps needed to get there.

But with the right plans in place, what was "Impossible" simply becomes Probable.

What are the goals we need to unite on?

What are the first steps to get there?

Who can you unite with to start figuring these out?

How can we get more buy-in from others to make the Impossible into the Probable?