Insights February 1st, 2023
In late-2022 I turned 50 years old. Definitely a milestone and – I’ll be honest – it feels like I am just getting started. As I reflect on life and my work as a futurist I want to share 50 short and simple lessons from my life that have fed the passion to explore a life full of love, and imagine incredible futures.
- Have humility and gratitude
- Trust your gut
- Share your excitement
- Do not say ‘yes’ to every opportunity. Qualify.
- Don’t bother with low value social networks – Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snap are all garbage corporate surveillance tools.
- Do get that tattoo
- Do get microchipped
- Become friends with your clients and offer insights and help often
- Be pro renewable energy and the circular economy
- See the potential for change in everyone
- Drive electric
- Build and nurture community
- Write every damn day
- Invest in therapy
- Try shamanic journeying at least once in your life
- Develop your skills as a cook
- Spend more on clothes and waste less
- Invest and be excited about art
- Embrace the countercultures that usher in changes in how the world thinks – music, street art/graffiti, fashion etc.
- Learn from the dystopian stories and realities in which we live
- Know that futurism is activism
- Smash racism and sexism
- Promote women and elders ahead of you
- Listen to the kids – they are wiser than we ever will be
- Read ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’
- Wake early and sleep early
- Realize that you can lose everything and be comfortable with nothing
- Meditate
- Ride bikes
- Snowboard and/or ski
- Promise nothing, deliver over and above expectations
- Realize that everyone will underestimate you
- Create understanding and tolerance
- Know that love is real
- Eat more plant-based foods
- Enjoy that steak
- Be real about where food comes from and always choose organic
- Know that serendipity and magic are real
- Embrace play
- Exercise
- Listen to a wide variety of music – popular to noise to jazz to ambient to hardcore-math-tech-death-metal (and always David Bowie)
- Celebrate the craft of storytelling and cinema
- Have a ‘tickle trunk’ and get lost in a forest with 4000 other people
- Dance
- Walk in nature often
- Invest in lifelong friendships
- Know that this too shall pass
- Develop your own style and never falter from that path
- Know that there are infinite futures
- Embrace deep, lasting love
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Nikolas Badminton is the Chief Futurist at futurist.com. He’s a world-renowned futurist speaker, consultant, author, media producer, and executive advisor that has spoken to, and worked with, over 300 of the world’s most impactful organizations and governments. He helps shape the visions that shape impactful organizations, trillion-dollar companies, progressive governments, and 200+ billion dollar investment funds.
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