A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.

Albert Einstein
Physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1921

‘I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment…’

Elon Musk's statement shocked me. Greater collective enlightenment? Musk is one of the founders of PayPal; the creator of Tesla Motors, SpaceX and Solar City. He was the inspiration for the screen persona of Tony Stark, the whisky-swilling, billionaire playboy engineer-turned-superhero in the Iron Man films. Then suddenly, it all fell into place… Just as he'd used PayPal as a stepping stone to fund Tesla (electric cars), SpaceX (space exploration) and Solar City (solar energy), these three ventures are in service of a much larger vision: ending our reliance on fossil fuels, solving the global warming problem and making humanity a multi-planetary species (one of Musk's aims is to start a colony on Mars). To what end? Musk's purpose is the evolution of human consciousness. He's using technology, insight and action to succeed where governments and legacy industries are failing. In the process, he and his team are disrupting the status quo, with remarkable results. His companies attract top talent; purpose-driven high performers exhilarated by the chance to make a difference in the world. The factories rely on advanced robotics to build automobiles, space vehicles and solar power cells. The fleet of Tesla cars is a ‘learning network’, leveraging sensors, wireless connectivity and artificial intelligence to collect and make sense of vast amounts of data. With every mile travelled, the fleet gets smarter, and the domain of driverless cars gets closer.

The exponential nature of technology is transforming our world at an ever-increasing pace. Robots are becoming more versatile and artificial intelligence is becoming more commonplace. According to MIT Sloan School of Management professor Erik Brynjolfsson and his collaborator Andrew McAfee (co-authors of the book Race Against the Machine) repetitive jobs are being automated more quickly than new jobs are being created. As computing power continues to get faster and cheaper, whole categories of employment are likely to disappear. The jobs at the highest risk of automation are those involving repetitive tasks and expertise that can be specified and codified. The jobs at the lowest risk of automation are those requiring high degrees of perceptiveness, creativity and social intelligence. There's an obvious conclusion you can draw from this…

The capacities you need to prosper in the twenty-first century can be summarized as perceptiveness, creativity and social intelligence.

The data shown in Figure 24.1 have been ‘cherry-picked’ from a list of over 700 jobs spread across the range from low probability of computerization to high probability. This has been done (a) for reasons of brevity and (b) to shine a light on the extremes, highlighting the jobs with the lowest and highest risk of automation.

Perceptiveness, creativity and social intelligence

Many professions which we may not ordinarily think of as having these qualities are actually rich in them, for instance…

• Scientists and engineers need to be able to think creatively to solve problems.
• Trial lawyers need to have a high degree of social intelligence to influence judges and juries (and public opinion, in some cases).
• Surgeons need to be perceptive, thinking systemically and working with high levels of manual dexterity to operate successfully on a patient.

NB: the fine motor skills required to perform surgery are another thing that can be particularly difficult to automate. However, Oxford University has recently agreed to run human clinical trials of PRECEYES, a system for robot-assisted eye surgery that will give surgeons an unparalleled degree of precision.

The rise of the transformation professional

A large number of the jobs at an extremely low risk of automation involve transformation professionals (e.g. psychologists, clergy, physicians, nutritionists, coaches); roles where bedside manner counts, and much of the value is created through connection, creativity and insight. The ‘wellbeing industry’ is growing by leaps and bounds, and the past decade has seen hundreds of thousands of people drawn to the ‘profession of transformation’. As our global consciousness continues to rise, industries are disrupted and working patterns change. More and more people are seeking greater independence and freedom. We're being drawn to values-based, purpose-driven work that utilizes our gifts and passions. And when it comes to perceptiveness, creativity and social intelligence, there's something important you need to know…

You're already connected to the source of creativity and innovation.

You're already optimized to thrive as a socially intelligent being.

You're already endowed with the powers of perceptiveness and persuasion.

You already have these capacities. They're as integral to your nature as your ability to see, hear or feel. The only thing that slows your development or gets in the way is contaminated thinking, arising from the outside-in misunderstanding. The reason people have struggled to teach these ‘emotional intelligences’ until now is because they've been trying to do it using additive approaches. But remember: embodied understanding is subtractive. As your understanding of the principles behind clarity continues to increase, your capacities for creativity, perceptiveness and social intelligence automatically come to the fore.

Clarity of understanding gives rise to the qualities you need to thrive, prosper and create meaningful results in the twenty-first century.

Closing the gap

The philosopher Gregory Bateson wisely pointed out that ‘The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think’.

You can view the evolution of human knowledge and understanding as a process of closing the gap between how reality already works and the way we believe it works.

The closing of that gap is a reflection of the increase in our collective level of consciousness; humanity's clarity of understanding. And as humanity's level of consciousness continues to rise, we see the external expressions of that evolution…

• The infant mortality rate has declined dramatically over the past 100 years.
• Rates of murder and other violence continue to fall; we live at the most peaceful time in human history.
• Billions of people are able to communicate with each other.
• The number of countries adopting democratic systems continues to increase.
• Tolerance and acceptance of alternative lifestyles is on the rise.
• People are demanding greater transparency, authenticity and integrity from businesses.
• Companies are scrabbling to bring more ‘emotional intelligence’ into the workplace.
• More and more people are inspired to do values-based, purpose-driven work.

The move towards greater independence, freedom and purpose is an expression of this increase in humanity's clarity of understanding.

Remember, for practical purposes, you have the ability to perceive yourself as distinct and separate from the rest of life. But you are never actually separate. You are inseparable from the intelligence and oneness of life, part of an undivided whole. I invite you to open to the possibility that the reason so many people are seeking values-based, purpose-driven work is because our collective consciousness is continuing to rise.

Steam-engine-time

Charles Fort famously wrote ‘A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time’. Science fiction writers use the phrase ‘steam-engine-time’ to describe the phenomenon of a large number of writers independently coming up with the same idea at roughly the same point. There are a variety of explanations for why the steam engine (and countless other innovations) arrived when they did. These range from their reliance on the development of supporting innovations and inventions through to the development of the concepts, ideas and social structures. But there's another possibility…

As we continue closing the gap between how reality already works and the way we believe it works, we discover new problems to be solved, and new opportunities to be developed.

As our collective level of consciousness continues to increase, MIND – the intelligence behind life – brings what the world needs into being through us.

In September 2015, the United Nations announced a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the aim of massively transforming the quality of life for all life on the planet. Here is a summarized version of the SDGs:

The SDGs represent massively transformational results for the whole of humanity. A quick analysis will reveal that the achievement of these goals will be the result of the level of consciousness of the people involved in them, and the actions that level of consciousness inspires.

Our collective clarity of understanding is the ultimate leverage point for creating results in our own lives, and for all of humanity.

Transforming negative VUCA to positive VUCA

Futurist and former president of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), Bob Johansen, suggests that there's a counterpoint to the often overwhelming ‘negative VUCA’ of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity; the ‘positive VUCA’ of Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility. And what transforms negative VUCA into positive VUCA?

Foresight… Insight… Realization…

The IFTF creates scenarios to give leaders ‘foresight’; a ‘feel’ for possible futures. As leaders reflect on these future scenarios, they often have insights and realizations relating both to the present, and to the way forward. In the face of insight, volatility inspires vision, uncertainty resolves to understanding, ambiguity gives way to agility and complexity yields to clarity.

In times of transformational change, it's easy to be comforted by the opiates of habit, tradition and business-as-usual. It takes courage to step into the unknown, and tread purposefully in the domain of experiment, exploration and transformation. So I'll tell you what I often tell my clients at the start of my one-year programmes…

On the one hand, I want you to be wildly successful, whatever your definition of success turns out to be…

And on the other hand, I want you to become the fullest expression of who you really are.

Because it turns out that becoming the fullest expression of who you really are…

Is the surest path to becoming wildly successful…

Whatever your definition of success turns out to be.

We're all on this journey together, hurtling through space at 67,000 miles per hour. The fact that you're reading this book means that you're already increasing your understanding of the principles behind clarity. As you get a deeper embodied understanding of how the mind already works, who you really are will be showing up more and more of the time. This is the path to the kind of results worth creating, and the kind of success worth having.