Tonight's guest, Watts Wacker co-authored the Visionary's Handbook(1), which examines some of the paradoxes involved in preparing for the future, both in a business context and in one's life. "The smallest guy has got to think big and the biggest guy has to think small," Wacker said in an interview(2) with Government Technology. Wacker stresses the importance of having a vision, because if you don't, you're liable to get swept up in someone else's. One thing he's learned about visioning is the "difference between bacon and eggs. The hen is involved but the pig is committed. In the end, your vision is only as good as your commitment to the execution of it," Wacker said.
"Life has never been easier, and because it has never been easier, life has never been more hard," Wacker writes in his book. He also talks about learning to live with the future but expressed in the present tense, because the way a person conceives of the future will determine how that future will play out.
The future will be played out with a given set of events, regardless if one is pessimistic or optimistic. "What isn't given is how we react to unknowable and unpredictable events as they arrive. It's the response, not the events, that determine both our future and our satisfaction in the present with the future we expect," Wacker writes.
--L.L.(3)
1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0066619882/ctoc
2. http://www.govtech.net/publications/visions/aug00vision/Interview-Watt/index
3. http://archive.coasttocoastam.com/info/about_lex.html