Brave.New.World.

BRAVE

Bravery or courage is defined as

the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery.

“she called on all her courage to face the ordeal”

strength in the face of pain or grief.

“he fought his illness with great courage”

On a recent episode of ‘Paperback by The Open Library Project’ we had Gyan Nagpal, Author of Future Ready Organisation, How Dynamic Management Is Reshaping The Modern Workplace, as a guest.

Gyan spoke about how for transformation to happen, ‘letting go’ is the first and most essential step. Giving examples of M. K. Gandhi needing to let go of his tailored suits to transform into Mahatma who wore only clothes he spun himself from cotton, to demonstrate his non-violent civil disobedience, and in nature of how a caterpillar or ugly ducking, transforms into a butterfly and beautiful swan, respectively.

In the context of an organisation, to transform into a future ready organisation, Gyan says ‘letting go’ of the past process and structures is essential to building an efficiently organised company.

In the context of the human species, Gyan also says that we are hard wired to be more receptive to fear, and often our decisions are driven by fear rather than courage. (This is only cause of the human bodies conditioned response of self protection. When a certain event triggers fear in us the brain responds automatically with self protection mechanisms)

The bravery required to do things in ways not conforming to successful ways that organisations were previously organised is significant.

Gary Vaynerchuck, CEO of VaynerMedia and New Age Thought Guru, always speaks about bravery in a different context. One of the things often discussed with Gary in his talks is how to deal with the familial and peer pressure when building new things.

When it comes to family, especially your parents, Gary says “The biggest fear I have is that you guys (millenials) are going to pander to it (your parents opinion of what or how you should be doing things) because they are going to financially subsidise your opening act”.

When it comes to peers, opinions and advise are often tainted with biases toward either end of the spectrum.

The bravery required to go against the opinions and advise of your family and peers is underestimated, but again essential and significant.

NEW.

Gyan says “The world is moving so fast that we have few true experts on tomorrow. All we have is experts on yesterday.”

When building new age organisations, and new age products and services, there often is no previous blueprint on how to build something that hasn’t existed before. Therefore there cant be any expert opinion about the subject

The way a young entrepreneur gains knowledge and experience though, has remained the same. You learn from your mistakes. And you learn to make smaller mistakes. If you don’t have the confidence, to back your decisions, with logic and reasoning that you have acquired individually, through your own experiences, you will not be able to build a new age organisation.

What works for your parents, what works for your peers, works for them because they are different individuals than you, so you need to find your own sphere of execution, that is individual to you. Experience (making mistakes, failing and learning from mistakes) is what will allow you to make decisions when the stakes are much higher.

This is what Nicholas Naseem Taleb speaks about in his book ‘Antifragile’.

WORLD.

Dr. Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and populariser of science (science communicator). Dr. Kaku has expertise in several fields such as hadronic physics, supersymmetry, supergravity, superstring theory, and quantum physics among others. He continues his works based on Einstein’s earlier findings, and Michio Kaku is known as one of the founders of string field theory.

Its safe to say that Dr. Kaku is one of the smartest people in the world.

I watched ‘The World in 2030’ video by Dr. Kaku somewhere in 2011, it was first released in 2009. The reason that i follow Dr. Kaku closely is because in this video (i’ve seen it multiple times every year), clearly describes the new world we would be living in, in 2030. Whats even more surprising is that even the most ostentatious science fiction idea, expressed in the videos and subsequently in Dr. Kaku tv series ‘The Physics of Tomorrow’, have gotten closer to science fact as we’ve moved through the last few years.

The invention of Tinder, Hyperloop and many more technologies are discussed, much before they were actually invented.

When talking about Artificial Intelligence and its significance for the world, Dr. Kaku, Gary Vaynechuck and author Gyan Nagpal are optimistic about a human machine partnership that allows humans to be more human by eliminating the repetitive processes that can be automated, and are more natural to machines in any case.

In the context of the fear of losing control to robots, dystopian world views have been constantly promoted by Hollywood and since our minds are hardwired to remember things that cause fear, genetically, as a whole this, has become one of the major fears we have as a civilisation. A good remedy is to watch Star Trek in all its forms, which deals with the philosophies and consequence of human choice in a far futuristic and utopian world. It will at least add some balance to a fear ridden, one sided point of view, propagated by science fiction movies and books over the years.

Through the continuing Corona virus pandemic, our whole civilisation has been brought to a standstill. The repercussions of the whole world’s economy being closed will no doubt have far reaching and terrible consequences in the near term.

Fear levels are at such an extreme now that the courage required to move forward is also elevated, and the effort required to do anything has increased exponentially.

Although it may seem like all our dystopian nightmares have come true, what is also true is that humanity has always found a way to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.

If you are the driver of your own life, then fear needs to be put into its rightful place, which is in he back seat of your car. You are aware of, and acknowledge it’s existence, but you don’t want to hand your fear, the wheel of the car, because it’ll drive you of the cliff!

Those individuals and organisations, who can move, beyond, and inspite of, fear, will be the ones that build the Brave New World.

Gyan Nagpal’s book :

https://www.amazon.in/Future-Ready-Organization-Capability-Management/dp/9353570093

Gary Vaynerchuck on parenting :

“GET OFF YOUR PARENT’S PAYROLL” — Motivational Video | Gary Vaynerchuk Motivation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN2ZISLfENA&t=6s

“The World in 2030” by Dr. Michio Kaku

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY&t=2588s

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

https://www.amazon.in/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto/dp/0812979680

Brave New World is the title of a science fiction novel by Aldous Huxley which outlines a utopian/dystopian state of existence.

https://www.amazon.in/Brave-New-World-Aldous-Huxley/dp/0099477467