INTRODUCTION

WHO MOVED MY FUTURE?

“April, are you sitting down?”

In the early evening of June 6, 1994, I was standing in the foyer of a rambling Victorian-era house in Oxford, England, home to a motley crew of students from around the world. I had spent the afternoon doing laundry and packing, preparing to lead a student trip for the summer. The sun dappled the window with a view to the garden. I had one more year of college and was so excited for this next adventure.

The voice on the phone was firmer this time: “April, I need you to sit down.”

My sister had called out of the blue, from halfway around the world. We were not close, and I couldn’t figure out why she would be calling. I had so many things I wanted to do before departure. Didn’t she know that?

“April, Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident yesterday. You need to come home now.

I sat down. My eyes glazed over. The ground gave way beneath me. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Then I tried again, and it shook the house.

You might imagine where this story heads: my entire world was thrown upside down (or today I would say, it was thrown into flux). My roots were uprooted; my guiding lights went dark.

In that moment, time stood still: the future was going to be wildly different than I’d imagined, or than my parents imagined, or than it had looked a year earlier, or even an hour earlier.

In that moment, my sister and I were suspended in the unknown, not really knowing what to do next.

Never did I imagine that so many other people might someday feel like that.

OUR NEW-NOW-NEXT-NEVER NORMAL

Fast-forward to today: at home and around the world, it’s an era to remember. Globally, we’ve witnessed the worst pandemic since 1918, some of the worst economic straits since the early 1930s, the greatest food insecurity in decades, and a climate catastrophe unprecedented in modern human history. In the United States, this is compounded by social tensions on a scale not seen since 1968. Any one of these crises is enough to shake things up. All of them happening at the same time … is something else entirely.

We’re living in a world in flux. The workplace is in flux. Climate is in flux. Organizations are in flux. Careers are in flux. Education, learning, and schools are in flux. Public health is in flux. Planetary health is in flux. Social cohesion is in flux. Financial markets are in flux. Weather patterns are in flux. Family life is in flux. Democracy is in flux. Dreams are in flux. Expectations are in flux. And I have no doubt you could add several more examples to this list. The sheer scope of what’s shifting and unknown is simultaneously awe-inspiring and downright daunting.

And it’s not just what is changing; it’s how fast the world we’ve known is evolving. The pace of change has never been as fast as it is today, and yet, it is likely to never again be this slow.1 (Pause for a moment and let that sink in. I’ll wait.)

The world feels upside down not just because of a pandemic, or a catastrophic natural disaster, or the upcoming academic year, or a job in limbo. This book isn’t a magic wand that—poof!—makes these things disappear.

What is most in flux right now?

This is a simple exercise to get your creative flux juices flowing.

1. Without overthinking it, write a list of all the things that are upside down in your life right now. Think micro and macro, from small shifts in daily routines to future unknowns.

2. Rank them, if you’d like. Do you notice any common themes?

3. What emotions come up? Excitement, anxiety, curiosity, confusion … these are all equally valid.

4. Notice if different kinds of flux yield different responses, or if your responses change at different times.

Hold on to this list as you read this book.

This book is rooted in the simple fact that around every corner, there is more change. The future is not more stable; the future is more uncertain.

The future itself is in flux.

Humans are not accustomed to this degree of upside-downness. We can be incredibly adaptable when we’re forced to be, but on the whole, we much prefer stability and familiarity. Even people who embrace chaos tend to do so knowing that they can rely on some things not changing. Yet if flux is our “new-now-next-never normal,” then we need to be ready for—and have the tools to flourish in—this new reality. This book is designed to help you do just that.

WHAT THE FLUX?!

Flux is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, its most common contemporary definition is “continuous change.”2 As a verb, to flux means “to cause or learn to become fluid.”3 Hence we’re living in a world of flux (noun), and we’d do well not merely to flex our mental muscles but to flux (verb) them too.

Take a moment to observe your life and the world today. In some ways, life is unfolding at warp speed. You had a life program and now it’s stalled, or maybe gone. Your company had a strategy, your team had a plan, your family had a schedule … and it’s been flipped on its head, overnight.

Yet in other ways, it’s as though the world were standing still: paralyzed, unsure of what to do or what comes next. And it’s not just the world: perhaps you feel stuck, frustrated, anxious, and in limbo too.

Taken together, this reality—of speeding up and slowing down simultaneously, of chronic uncertainty and unknowns—can be infuriating, disorienting, and unnerving. But do not despair: it’s simply time to learn how to flux.

NOT ALL CHANGE IS CREATED EQUAL

To be sure, “change” is not one-size-fits-all. There are big changes and small changes, internal changes and external changes, personal changes and professional changes, family changes and company changes, changes in nature and changes in society. Changes can be completely visible or nearly imperceptible—yet still have significant effects. The same change can be marvelous for one person and miserable for another. You may love change in your personal life, while you may hate change in your workplace. Or vice versa. And of course, it may depend on changing circumstances.

There are many kinds of change that most people undertake willingly, even joyfully: entering a new relationship, moving to a new city, starting a family, trying a new sport, and so on. However, choosing to change is a very different experience than having change imposed externally. Decades ago, renowned family therapist Virginia Satir developed a five-stage model of change, which underscored the fact that humans typically go along with change so long as it benefits us.4 We willingly embrace change when we’re given a choice and we like the perceived results. Or, as systems thinker Peter Senge says, “We don’t resist change. We resist being changed.”

But here is the hook: by and large, a world in flux is about those changes you don’t get to choose. There is no opting in; they just happen, ready or not.

In an ideal world, of course, change is a choice, both individually and organizationally. If we’re really lucky, we’re prepared for it: it’s expected change. But this kind of neat-and-tidy change that’s easy to deal with and often even welcome reflects only a fraction of the changes we must grapple with today. What about the rest? That’s what this book is about.

In a world in flux, we must learn to be comfortable with the reality that around the next corner is more change, much of which is unexpected, beyond our power to choose, or both. It’s about a shift: from struggling with such change to harnessing and developing an eagerness to use it well.

THE THEORY OF FLUX

A world in flux did not magically show up one day. Change has been a universal constant since time immemorial. But our understanding of it, and how we’ve been taught to deal with it (or not), has evolved over time, driven largely by cultural norms, expectations, and available technologies.

As with most things in life, how we think about change is influenced by how we are socialized. Where, how, and with whom did you grow up? What were you taught to believe is important, and what was frowned upon? How were you taught to define success and failure? Were you taught to fear change or to embrace it?

Each and every one of us, for our entire lives, in some way has been following a script. There’s not one script, of course: there are myriad scripts, each unique to your own experience, though this can be hard to remember sometimes—especially if you feel stuck inside your own head, just trying to get through the day as more change bangs on the door and walks in, uninvited.

Your script may be shaped by being part of an immigrant family or a family that’s been in your hometown for generations. Your script may be shaped by immense privilege or by accidents of birth that are the opposite of privilege and set you up to have to work harder than other people. It may be shaped by chronic pain, or trauma, or perfect health. It may be shaped by a sense of belonging, or being chronically overlooked, or outright inequality. It may be shaped by living through war, times of peace, or an existential crisis.

Although each person’s script is different, everyone’s script is shaped by the same forces unfurling and the universal experience of being human. And with rare exceptions, your script is clear.

For many people, your script tells you to work hard and stay the course—whatever that “course” may be. It probably tells you to get good grades, go to a prestigious university, and get hired by a prestigious company. It may tell you to follow in your parents’ footsteps. For a big subset of people, your script tells you that success is at the top of a corporate ladder, so you should climb it rung by rung and become CEO. Voilà: the definition of and recipe for “making it.”

This script probably also teaches you that more is better, vulnerability is a sign of weakness, and the fastest person wins—so you should run fast. It may teach you to go where everyone else is—you need to fit in!—and that no one (other than perhaps blood family) can really be trusted.

Oftentimes, your script applauds you for acquiring money and toys. It usually doesn’t pay more than passing attention to Mother Earth or ancient wisdom, however, while it does tend to see new technologies as a sort of panacea.

In many ways this script cheers you on for achieving goals set by society. By and large it doesn’t ask you what you want; it takes care of that for you. Perhaps you’ve tried to consult your inner voice about this, but your script drowned that out. In fact, for this script to work, your inner voice must be silent.

This script doesn’t tell you everything, of course—especially when you’re young. For example, it doesn’t tell you that a corporate ladder can also be a kind of escalator that can trap you. When you want to get off the ladder, you find you’re stuck: beneath student debt, mortgage payments, an expensive car lease to keep up with your colleagues, or your next promotion. It doesn’t tell you that privilege is a head start up this escalator. It doesn’t tell you why it’s so hard for many people to get on this escalator or how many people desperately want to get off it.

In fairness, the script just painted is a bit of a stereotype, and that’s intentional. (Another twist: until recently, this was overwhelmingly a man’s script.) I get that reality is far more nuanced. But the point is: every single person has a script. And for quite some time this script held. It’s been passed down so often that it’s taken for granted.

And then.

And then, the way things worked flipped upside down. A world in flux arrived. Boom.

Some of this change has been creeping up for years, yet we’ve been (or pretended to be) blind to it. Some of it hit like a full-speed locomotive, an instantaneous body blow. Some of it may have been hard to grasp, even if your inner voice had long felt uneasy.

Whatever the case, the old scripts broke. Your script, my script, and many other people’s scripts are no longer fit for today’s world—or one could say, they are fit for a world that’s no longer there. But even so, they have a really long tail. Old ways of being and seeing the world tend to stick around long after they’ve lost their utility. They’re still in our consciousness, and we still make decisions according to outdated filters because we haven’t actually swapped them out yet.

And this is where Flux comes in. Individually and collectively, we are in the early stages of writing new scripts that are fit for a world in flux.

While the old script was written by others for you to follow, your new script is written by you, for you to become. Your new script contains what grounds you and orients you and makes you, you—even when everything else changes.

The Theory of Flux reveals the relationships between your old and new scripts, specifically how to transform an old script into a new script that’s fit for today’s world of constant change. This theory can be summarized in three steps, each of which is explained below and shows up throughout the book:

Step 1: Open a Flux Mindset

Step 2: Use your Flux Mindset to unlock the eight Flux Superpowers

Step 3: Apply your Flux Superpowers to write your New Script

Remember: just as everyone’s old script is unique, so will your new script reflect what is uniquely you. The Theory of Flux demonstrates how you can best groove a Flux Mindset and develop your Flux Superpowers to thrive, no matter what change comes your way.

MINDSET ORIGINS: NERVOUS SYSTEMS, ANXIETY, AND GROWTH

Before digging into a Flux Mindset, let’s explore how one’s mind gets “set.” Where does one’s mindset come from, and what drives it?

One answer comes from our neurobiology. We humans have two major nervous subsystems that work in tandem: the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. They regulate the same set of internal body functions, but they have opposite effects. The sympathetic nervous system controls what many people know as the “fight, flight, or freeze” response and prepares the body for intense action, while the parasympathetic nervous system seeks to calm the body, sometimes known as the “rest and digest” function.

Normally, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work together as allies; each has a set of activities that it governs. At the risk of oversimplifying, if you’re being chased by a tiger, the sympathetic nervous system takes over; if you’re meditating, the parasympathetic nervous system is in charge. For most activities, however, a combination of the two is in play.

Our ever-accelerating world has thrown these systems out of balance. Specifically, we perceive ever more and more dangerous stimuli, which present ever more opportunities for the sympathetic nervous system to hijack our ability to respond appropriately. We are not being chased by tigers, but our bodies respond as if we were. Too many perceived tigers, and we lose the ability to calm down.

Today, it’s not just our individual nervous systems that get hijacked. Anxiety is now manifest at every level: individual, organizational, and societal. Many people feel anxious about their careers, family, well-being, bank accounts, children’s futures, or when the next calamity will strike. We have anxiety about our organizations’ values, resilience, culture, competitive landscape, and how business is done. At the broadest level, there is enormous societal anxiety around global warming, inequality, intolerance, and injustice. Moreover, digital technologies are correlated with increases in anxiety: the mere presence of your own smartphone reduces your available cognitive capacity.5

Leaders today face an onslaught of very good reasons to feel anxious. In my experience, anxiety and concern are part of many if not most leaders’ daily lives, even if they don’t express them externally. And even if you don’t personally self-identify as anxious, chances are extremely good that you have a colleague, friend, or family member who does.

I can relate. For the first forty-three years of my life, I didn’t know what not being anxious felt like. (I realized this only when I was asked to recall my first anxiety-free memory and came up empty-handed.) Not only that, but the more “successful” I became by external standards, the more anxious I felt inside. It was a never-ending and self-sabotaging spiral.

The fear, confusion, and shame that I felt led me to research anxiety further. What I learned was sobering. Close to 10 percent of the world population suffers from diagnosable anxiety, costing the global economy an estimated $1 trillion each year.6 In the United States, this figure rises to one in every four adults, while 63 percent of college students report having felt overwhelming anxiety in the last year.7

All of this was true before a pandemic, protests, natural disasters, lockdowns, disinformation, melting ice caps, social tensions, or take your pick of other shocks served to accelerate the loss of any sense of normalcy.

Of course, to some degree it is natural to feel anxious when the world is on edge. But if we’re looking at a future of constant change, then we must treat this as a society-wide anxiety crisis: an unspoken epidemic, which many people don’t want to believe so we don’t talk about it, yet the statistics and lived experiences tell another story.

In my case, the wake-up call about my relationship to anxiety was also a catalyst to better understand my own fraught relationship to change. I had been digging into flux already, but this experience blew the doors open on my learning and growth. This is also where a Flux Mindset comes in. A Flux Mindset knows how to flux in a world in flux.

STEP 1: OPEN A FLUX MINDSET

The first step in putting the Theory of Flux into action is to open a Flux Mindset. A Flux Mindset sees change as an opportunity, not a threat, by being clear and grounded in your values.

As we’ve seen, change is universal, but one’s experience of it is personal, contextual, and rooted in your script. For instance, you may love a change that someone else hates. Or what feels like change to you might feel like the status quo to someone else. Or a change that’s easy for someone else might be really difficult for you, and vice versa.

The challenge today is that in a world in flux, a vast range of scripts are breaking. It’s not just you: many, if not most, people are having to radically reassess this. We’re still clinging to an old, outdated script, when what’s actually needed is to write a new script. Opening a Flux Mindset is where and how you begin to do this.

You can think of a Flux Mindset as the state of mind, body, and spirit that grounds you and holds you when everything else changes. In practice, a Flux Mindset has several essential elements, including core values, comfort with paradox, and the ability to see uncertainty from a place of hope rather than fear. Keep in mind that these things play out at personal, organizational, team, community, and societal levels. While our primary focus is on your personal relationship to change and your own script—what grounds you?—we can also imagine, for example, cases of organizational flux in which a company’s core values are tested. (We’ll revisit these different layers of flux throughout the book.)

My own Flux Mindset took time and effort to develop. My Flux Mindset is rooted in an unwavering faith in humanity, which is related to a commitment to service and a deep, clear appreciation for diversity. (As you’ll learn, these values go back to my childhood, though I still had to learn how to align them with my script.) So when change hits, for example, or I’m racked by uncertainty, I immediately look to the wisdom of many different cultures (not limited to the ones I was raised in), and I reach out to help others. These things don’t automagically resolve my situation, but they do shape my relationship to change: other cultures help me see differently, including my expectations and goals, while serving others underscores humanity’s interdependence and helps me better understand my life story in context. Both tend to fill me with hope and wonder, rather than fear. Both remind me that there is no one way to “do” change. And both underscore that an effective relationship with change always begins from within. (Again, we’ll pick up these ideas throughout the book.)

Table 1 illustrates how some of the elements of a Flux Mindset play out more broadly. How do you typically see, or think about, these themes today? If any of these make a light bulb go off in your head, or trigger an intense reaction (good or bad), pay attention: that’s a signal that tells you something about your current script and relationship to change. I call this your “fluxiness.”

Flux Mindset: Oriented towards Change

A Flux Mindset builds on the concept of a growth mindset, developed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck more than thirty years ago and primarily applied to children’s ability to learn. A growth mindset reflects “the understanding that abilities and intelligence can be developed.” It is characterized by a belief that (1) you can get smarter, and (2) effort makes you stronger.8 This understanding drives motivation and achievement in profound ways. But it doesn’t address what happens when change hits. The Flux Mindset takes that step.

One of the key insights of a Flux Mindset—indeed, what gives it such tremendous power in today’s world—is its grounding. With a Flux Mindset, you are so grounded in your values and your new script that when change jostles (or even clobbers) your world, you can’t help but see it as an opportunity. Change is no longer threatening; it is both expected and often welcomed.

Table 1. Open a Flux Mindset

HOW DO YOU SEE OLD MINDSET FLUX MINDSET
Your life story Written by others, for you to follow Written by you, for you to become
Life A ladder to climb A flowing river
Career A path to pursue A portfolio to curate
Expectations Determined externally, by others Determined internally, by you
Goals Set in concrete, yet hard to attain Emergent and often blurry, yet rich with opportunity
Measurements of success Rungs of the ladder Next steps and new insights
Leadership Manage and control other people, “me” Unleash potential in others and yourself, “us”
Power Top-down, guarded Bottom-up, dispersed
Peers Competitors Allies and collaborators
Vision Certainty Clarity
Change Threat Opportunity
Emotions associated with change Fear, anxiety, paralysis Hope, wonder, curiosity

Keep in mind that being grounded isn’t just about what is beneath you or what you stand on. Being grounded means having both stability and clarity. Stability gives you courage and helps you trust; clarity enhances your vision, guides your direction, and helps you focus. Both are part of your orientation, to change and the world. Your orientation includes what is around you, above you, and beyond you. It includes knowing where help is and where potential dangers lie. It is the basis of how you navigate: a day, a situation, a new place, a delicate conversation, or change in the world at large.

Your Flux Mindset Baseline

“Finding” your Flux Mindset isn’t as easy or obvious as you might think. If it were, I wouldn’t have written this book, and you probably wouldn’t be reading it. One place to start is by identifying your Flux Mindset Baseline.

This baseline is less a definition of your Flux Mindset than a diagnostic for your current relationship to change: your fluxiness. It is a tool to help guide you as you read this book, to help you see what triggers you (or not), and to identify which Flux Superpowers may be most helpful. Don’t worry about getting the “right” answers; there are none. Rather, pay attention to whatever comes up—including “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about that before!”

Values / Inner Compass

▪ What gives you meaning and purpose? Has this changed over time, and if so, how?

▪ To whom and to what do you turn in times of uncertainty?

▪ To whom and to what are you committed, no matter what?

▪ What would “make you, you” if you were stripped of all your privilege?

▪ What would “make you, you” if your home and most cherished possessions burned up?

Reactions

▪ When something takes longer than expected, do you feel agitated, or do you appreciate the delay? (Chapter 1, Run Slower)

▪ If something can’t be measured, does it exist? (Chapter 2, See What’s Invisible)

▪ When you take a wrong turn and end up somewhere you’ve never been before (and had no intention of going), do you feel frustrated or intrigued by that new place? (Chapter 3, Get Lost)

▪ Can the average person be trusted? (Chapter 4, Start with Trust)

▪ When you give someone a gift, is that a loss or gain for you? (Chapter 5, Know Your “Enough”)

▪ What would be your professional identity if you lost your job today? (Chapter 6, Create Your Portfolio Career)

▪ When your smartphone is out of reach for an entire day, do you feel jittery or peaceful? (Chapter 7, Be All the More Human)

▪ Who and/or what do you believe is in control of your life? (Chapter 8, Let Go of the Future)

And finally:

▪ What one word best describes your relationship to change today?

Hold on to whatever comes up now. Come back to these questions as you read the book. See whether and how your baseline changes.

Consider for a moment how different cultures have learned to orient and navigate. For example:

• For centuries, the North Star and Southern Cross have helped explorers orient and guided their journeys. What is your North Star or Southern Cross in times of flux?

• Seafaring cultures learn how to read horizons, decipher clouds, and track waves. There is no “ground” to speak of, yet these sailors are intimately oriented with their surroundings. How do you surf the waves of change?

• In yoga philosophy, drishti is a focused gaze whose purpose is to develop concentration and keep your balance. The object of your drishti can be a dot on the wall, an object on the floor, or a pinpoint on the horizon. What is your drishti in a world in flux?

The North Star is above you. The horizon is beyond you. Your drishti is in front of you. None of these things is defined by physical land, yet they all orient you to your landscape and ground you within it.

When we get overwhelmed, we often feel disoriented. We lose our bearings, direction, and perspective. The more change hits, the easier it is to “lose your way”—and often the harder it is to find your way back.

Think of a Flux Mindset as your newly minted compass for change: it grounds you, orients you, and guides you when everything around you is moving. It’s your North Star, drishti, surf-board, and terra firma all at once. It is grounded in your core values, reflects your true self, and enables you to be yourself whatever changes may come.

If you’re wondering, “So what do I do about my Flux Mindset?,” you’re in the right place. Keep reading.

STEP 2: UNLOCK YOUR FLUX SUPERPOWERS

Once you’ve begun to open a Flux Mindset, or at least opened yourself to the idea that it’s time to forge a healthier relationship to change, you may be feeling antsy. Now what?

The next step in putting the Theory of Flux into action is to use your Flux Mindset to unlock the Flux Superpowers: the essential disciplines and practices that are fit for a world in flux, applied and integrated into your life.

The eight Flux Superpowers are:

1. Run Slower

2. See What’s Invisible

3. Get Lost

4. Start with Trust

5. Know Your “Enough”

6. Create Your Portfolio Career

7. Be All the More Human (and Serve Other Humans)

8. Let Go of the Future

Each of the Flux Superpowers helps you see change in new ways, develop new responses to change, and ultimately reshape your relationship to change. Together, they help you live your life with hope rather than fear, wonder rather than anxiety, and curiosity rather than paralysis. As each chapter makes clear, each superpower is useful on its own, and together they amplify each other.

In many cases, you already have these superpowers (or at least the seeds of them) within you. But they are often hidden, buried, or invisible. They have been socialized out of you by forces, people, and institutions defending the old script. With a Flux Mindset, it’s now time—and eminently possible—to uncover, rediscover, and apply them. Table 2, on the following page, provides a closer look.

The Flux Superpowers are like a Japanese bento box for the mind: each superpower is an exquisite, nutritious delicacy that can be consumed (practiced) on its own, and together the superpowers provide a nourishing, delicious full meal. Each superpower underscores your fluxiness in different and complementary ways. They represent a menu, not a syllabus.

Table 2. Scripts, Habits, and Superpowers

OLD SCRIPT / OLD HABITS NEW SCRIPT / FLUX SUPERPOWERS
Run Faster Run Slower
Focus on What’s Visible See What’s Invisible
Stay in Your Lane Get Lost
Trust Nobody Start with Trust
More = Better Know Your “Enough”
Get a Job Create Your Portfolio Career
Technology Knows Best Be All the More Human (and Serve Other Humans)
Predict and Control the Future Let Go of the Future

For most people, certain Flux Superpowers will be easier (and harder) than others to develop, depending on what you bring to the table and the nature of your script. Similarly, each Flux Superpower can hold different weight for each person at different times in their life. For someone struggling with burnout, for example, learning how to run slower will likely be more important at the outset, while someone struggling with feeling out of control may wish to focus on letting go of the future. (As you learn to run slower, you’ll become more adept at letting go, and vice versa.) Regardless, none of the Flux Superpowers requires anything you don’t already have within you: no fancy technology, no genius IQ, not even an app.

The relationship between the Flux Superpowers and Flux Mindset is similar to a hub-and-spoke structure: the Flux Mindset is the hub, and the eight Flux Superpowers radiate from it (see Figure 1). The superpowers exist independently of one another, yet they are connected through the hub. When your Flux Mindset is opened, the Flux Superpowers can get to work.

Figure 1. Flux Mindset and Flux Superpowers

Images

Perhaps you’ve already noticed that there’s an unconventional twist to this: the Flux Superpowers are superpowers only if you have opened a Flux Mindset and believe that a new script is your best path forward. If you are stuck in the old script, then you will see the Flux Superpowers as liabilities, or unhinged somehow. You will say that to run slower is to be lazy, or to let go of the future is to give up. But this is not what the new script says at all.

Similarly, the new script does not say that you should never run fast or use technology at times. Nor does it imply that jobs don’t have merit or that we shouldn’t work hard. These charges take the Theory of Flux entirely out of context.

Rather, the new script—and by extension, the Theory of Flux—recognizes that we’ve been running far too long and too fast after things without stopping to consider whether doing so is wise or sustainable, or what we really even want. What are you running after, and why? Whose goals are you working towards, and do they truly reflect your best self?

The Flux Superpowers don’t manifest in the ways we’ve typically been taught, because they are part of a new, emerging script. But Flux Superpowers are just as much disciplines as their erstwhile counterparts, the Old Habits (that die hard). There is just as much (and some would say, far more) discipline involved in running slower than running ever faster on the hamster wheel. There is just as much (and again, some would say even more) discipline in letting go as in hanging on to assumptions that are past their prime. Peace is not passivity. These aha’s can be jarring, especially if you’ve got the old script etched in your mind. But with a new script, look out, world!

So let’s talk about that new script now, shall we?

STEP 3: WRITE YOUR NEW SCRIPT

The third and final step of putting the Theory of Flux into action is to apply your Flux Superpowers to write your New Script. Your new script enables you to transform your relationship to change and bring your best self to the world.

Just as each person’s old script is unique, based on each individual’s life experience, so will your new script reflect what is uniquely you. That’s one of the most exciting things about your new script: only you can write it! No one can write it for you, and no one can write the same script as you. It’s a custom fit!

I can’t predict exactly what your new script will say, but here are a few ways in which I often see Flux Superpowers translate into new scripts that are superadapted for a world in flux:

• When you learn to run slower, you begin to crave a calmer pace. Silence becomes a friend.

• When you learn to see what’s invisible, you discover marvelous new universes of opportunity—and that the old script made you blind to things you genuinely care about.

• When you learn to get lost, you begin to feel delight when things don’t go according to plan, when plans change, or when you have no clue what will happen next.

• When you learn to start with trust, you yearn for more trust. You’re better equipped to earn trust and allow others’ trustworthiness to shine through.

• When you know your “enough,” you begin living in abundance and take better care of yourself and others.

• When you learn to create a portfolio career, you immediately stop seeing work merely as “having (or getting) a job.” You no longer fret about losing a job and can position yourself confidently towards the future of work.

• When you learn to be fully, wholeheartedly human, your relationships with other people (and your mental health, and your sleep) improve. You’re finally able to recalibrate your relationship with technology too.

• When you learn to let go of the future, you find it looks brighter than ever.

Sounds pretty awesome, doesn’t it? And that’s not all.

Over time, these things—your new script, your Flux Superpowers, and your Flux Mindset—mutually reinforce one another. The more you develop one, the stronger and clearer the others become. You might think of this along the lines of 1+1=11.

The more you practice and hone your Flux Superpowers, the better you groove your Flux Mindset. By nurturing and cultivating your Flux Mindset, the more you can put your Flux Superpowers to full use.

I like to think of your Flux Mindset as a booster rocket for your life and your relationship to change. Your Flux Superpowers are rocket fuel. Both things are essential to bring your new script to life. They work in tandem: offering a never-ending, ever-evolving, incredibly exciting (and even out-of-this-world) journey through flux.

So whether you’re sizing up your career or taking a hard look at your values, rethinking a product design, leading an entire organization’s transformation, trying to inspire your colleagues, or simply trying to show up more fully in the world, applying your Flux Superpowers to write your new script empowers you to flux better.

MY JOURNEY TO FLUX

Ever since that pivotal June afternoon when my sister called, I’ve been fascinated by how we adapt to change: individually, organizationally, and societally. My crash course in grief included anxiety and panic attacks, as well as rebuilding my life and finding meaning—all different ways of adapting to change. Later I was exposed to futurism and complexity theory, which also seek to better understand and adapt to change … yet whose starting points are a world away from grief. Through it all, I continued to find inspiration and insight through travel, through learning about other cultures and what connects us: our shared humanity. I began to layer, mix, and blend insights from very different places.

My starting point was bumpy, to say the least. Shortly after my parents’ deaths, I developed an irrational-yet-fundamentally-real fear that I had less than a year to live. If the two people closest to me had disappeared without warning, why wouldn’t that happen to me too—or anyone? And if I were to die tomorrow, would my existence on this earth have mattered? Never mind that I was twenty: it might as well have been a full-blown midlife crisis.

Less than two years after my parents died, I graduated from college, which threw me into yet another kind of tailspin: it was time to enter the “real world” (as if I hadn’t had enough reality) and make something of myself. Not only that, I had to fulfill my parents’ wishes for me and honor their legacy. I had to know exactly what I was supposed to do and then do it to perfection: beyond what they or anyone else could imagine. I felt like I had to do all of this as quickly as possible, too, because I might die tomorrow.

Right?

I was so wrong.

As we’ll explore in the coming chapters, in many ways this time in my life planted the seeds for Flux. When my parents died, I had a grand total of zero Flux Superpowers, and my Flux Mindset was anything but open. I ran a massive flux deficit. I was tightly wound in the old script and didn’t know many people who had written their own new scripts. My parents were open-minded, and even a bit rebellious, but they were living their own old scripts too.

My relationship to change—and especially, opening my Flux Mindset—has improved as I’ve experienced change from more directions. When my parents died, enormous change was thrust on me: life changes, family changes, future changes. I had no choice: I had to deal with these upheavals, like it or not, difficult or not, tragic or not. My Flux Mindset began to crack open. Since that time, I have also sought out change, sensed change coming, and witnessed change in myself and many others. Each of these experiences has taught me that every “kind” of change, welcome or not, opens one’s Flux Mindset further. The more change is thrown your way, the stronger your Flux Mindset can become—if you lean into it.

The new script for leadership in flux

If you’re reading this book, you’re likely both a leader and a seeker. But what kind of leader?

The old script has a fairly narrow definition of leadership: leaders are the people at the top of the ladder. Leaders manage, direct, command, and often control the actions of others. Leaders are expected to have answers, hold power firmly, and pursue the spotlight. In a business setting, leaders crush the competition.

But in a world in flux, and with a new script in hand, what makes a good leader discernibly changes—in terms of both hallmark characteristics and who qualifies as a leader. Being a “great leader” under the old script is no guarantee of great leadership when the world flips upside down. In fact, the old skills can be handicaps. It all depends on your relationship to change: your ability to lead yourself and others in, through, and beyond flux.

For example, a 2019 study by Leaders on Purpose found that the top leadership skill needed today is comfort with risk and ambiguity. The best leaders can live with, navigate, and trust ambiguity in ways that others can’t.9 In other words, great leadership in flux seeks the opposite of certainty. Rather, the goal is clarity of vision, which also means knowing when to take leaps of faith that defy old-script metrics.

Moreover, the new script makes it clear that many people are leaders, not just those making their way towards the top of the ladder. Leadership in a world in flux can come from any direction: it is not confined to the top. It harnesses the principles of “new power” of networks, ecosystems, and collective wisdom.10 (Remember: The strongest node in a network isn’t the biggest, fanciest, oldest, or most credentialed one. It’s the most connected one.) Flux leaders seek to lead with others, not lead by themselves.

For example, Greta Thunberg would fail almost all old-script leadership metrics: she’s young and scrappy, and cares little about what other people think. However, her clarity of vision about catastrophic climate change and her desire to galvanize others—not for her own benefit, but to achieve a collective goal—make her the kind of leader that the new script understands.

To get started assessing your own flux leadership capacity, and how you may wish to improve it, here are a few fire-starter questions:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your personal ability to lead in flux today? How would your best friend?

Do you tend to think in terms of “me” or “we”?

How do you feel about sharing power with others?

How would you rate your organization’s ability to flux? Are certain topics trigger points? Are select people, teams, or departments fluxier than others?

Five (or two, or ten) years from now, what kind of leader or seeker do you want to be? Of what kind of organization?

Keep these answers nearby as you read this book.

As my Flux Mindset cracked open, I began to consider my Flux Superpowers. It felt overwhelming. I had so much to learn. So I opted to focus first on the superpower I couldn’t ignore: how to let go of the future. Losing my parents also meant losing what I thought my future would look like … until it didn’t. But gradually, as the years passed, I started experimenting and imagining and talking to new people, and in the process began to see just how poorly my old script fit my personality. I began to paint a different picture of my future: different career paths, different priorities, different ways of being. When society said turn right, I learned to listen to my inner voice—which often nudged me to turn left.

Mind you, there was no perfect science to this back then—nor is there today. But the more I practiced, the better I got. Today, I can paint dozens of different pictures of my future (or any future!). And yet, as only one future ultimately unfolds, I’ve become adept at letting go of the rest (which is to say, most possible futures and most of the time).

Around the same time, I began testing my luck with trust and getting lost. There is nothing like senseless tragedy to feel like the world can’t be trusted. Yet what kind of future would it be to live trapped in fear and mistrust? Not the future I wanted. So I started digging into my old script again and realized I had trust backwards. I started cracking open—both to heal my bruised heart and to see if trust just. might. work. I have never looked back. (As you’ll see, starting with trust does not mean naive trust, nor does it mean things go according to plan. It simply sets a different default that allows you to greet change with confidence.)

My ability to get really, really lost got a jump-start thanks to two forces: emotions and travels. My parents’ deaths were the first deaths I’d ever known. My first funeral was theirs. Emotionally, I was in over my head without a compass, roadmap, drishti, or whatever else. Day by day, I learned new ways to gain my bearings, from journaling to discovering wonder (rather than fear) in the depths of my soul. Later, as I ventured from one far-flung corner of the planet to another, I found wonder (rather than fear) in not knowing who I would meet on any given day or where I would rest my head that evening. Time and again, I saw that we create fear, or make fear go away, depending on the stories we tell ourselves.

Today, more than two decades later, I have a portfolio career that reflects my new script. Developing this superpower took quite a few iterations. However, although my career journey has been unconventional by most metrics—one might characterize it as jumping off a new professional cliff every few years—my guiding, and grounding, question remains the same: If I were to die tomorrow, what would the world need me to do today?

(This question comes with an added bonus: each year on my birthday, I still marvel that I am alive.)

Other superpowers took longer to identify and hone. I’m still working on every Flux Superpower every day. Writing my new script is a lifelong quest. But I’ve learned that although nothing is certain, I’m probably not going to die tomorrow … so what better quest to invest in for life?

YOUR ROADMAP TO FLUX

Over the past twenty-five-plus years, I’ve had numerous opportunities to reflect on my own journey to flux—not least, what tends to work and what doesn’t—and to guide others through change too. A few observations and insights tend to stick out. I think of these things as landmarks for navigating your own change landscape and writing a new, flux-forward script: your roadmap to flux.

Values come from many places. One’s faith, commitment to service, dedication to a cause beyond individual self-interest or “winning,” and love of children and human-kind are all frequently cited.

Your relationship to change begins within. Many people get their relationship to change backwards. They focus on “change management strategies” or “investing in uncertainty” in the external world. Yet they fail to recognize that every single strategy, investment, or decision you make fundamentally depends on, and is filtered by, your internal world: your mindset. (Do you see change from a place of hope or fear? That’s not strategy; that’s mindset.) Take care of the internal part first—that is, your relationship to change—and the external dynamics make sense and have clarity they lacked before.

No one except you can write your new script, nor can you write anyone else’s script for them. There’s a lot we can learn from one another, especially those who have already written their new script, but no one can ever be “fully you” except you.

Learning to flux is exhilaratingly hard work. It pays off, for you and the world, in more ways than perhaps anything else you’ll ever do.

Life will give you plenty of opportunities to practice opening your Flux Mindset and developing your Flux Superpowers. Don’t over-think things: start with whatever change-related challenge is facing you at the moment. And no matter what, remember: these aren’t skills just for today, or just this year, or just the issue that flipped your world upside down yesterday. These are superpowers you can harness forever.

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

The structure of Flux is simple: each chapter is a Flux Superpower. You can read these chapters in whatever order you wish; from beginning to end works well, though it is not required. You’ll find references to the other superpowers throughout, so head wherever your curiosity pulls you. Each chapter contains exercises and questions to help you develop and practice a given superpower, strengthening your Flux Mindset and seeding your new script in the process. At the end of each chapter are five questions that distill key themes and provide a pause for additional reflection.

This book enriches our language by offering a nascent lexicon for flux. Your new script and the Theory of Flux are part of this foundation. Constant change, an ever-faster pace of change, and navigating unknowns are things many people have been feeling, but on the whole we still lack a rich vocabulary to talk about them. Of course, simply defining a problem doesn’t solve it, but it’s hard to surface a meaningful conversation about something if we don’t have the right words. This book serves to raise awareness and spark discussions about learning to flux, together.

Flux is the term of our times and of the future. Flux is also a book for our times and for the future. May it help you and everyone whose lives you touch.

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