In this short spoken monologue, Charlotte Kemp tells a parable about a king who asks his three daughters to declare their love. The two older daughters compare their love to gold and diamonds, while the youngest compares it to salt. Offended, the king banishes her, only to later discover that the kingdom’s food has become tasteless because the cook has stopped adding salt at the daughter’s request. Realizing the essential value of salt, the king reinstates it and welcomes his daughter back. Kemp uses this story as a metaphor, arguing that futures thinking is like salt: it must be incorporated from the beginning of business planning rather than added as an after‑thought. She concludes by inviting listeners to subscribe to the Explorer newsletter, which offers events, products, and resources to help people develop futures‑thinking capabilities and become competitive futurists.
Chapters
I'm Charlotte Kemp. Let me tell you a story. There was once a king who was also a father and did something that no father should ever do. But he had 3 daughters and he called them into his presence one by one and asked them to declare how much they loved him. The first daughter comes in and he says, daughter, how much do you love me? And she says, father, my king, I love you than all— more than all the gold in the kingdom. And he says, oh, you truly do love me. And he sends her out, calls in the second daughter. My daughter, how much do you love me? And she says, my father, my king, I love you then more than all the diamonds in the kingdom. And he says, oh, you do truly love me. And he sends her out, and he calls in his third daughter, the youngest, his favorite. And again, we shouldn't have favorites, but he calls her in and he says to her, my daughter, how much do you love me? And she says, my father, My king, I love you more than all the salt in the kingdom. And the king was offended, deeply offended and disgusted by this cheap declaration of love, and he sends his daughter out of his presence. In fact, he sends his daughter out of his kingdom and banishes her, and he never wants to see her again. But as the daughter leaves, she says goodbye to her friends, and some of those friends are people who work in the kingdom, in the kitchen, and she talks to the cook, and she says, for the next few meals, please do not put any salt into my father's food. So the king is really upset and mourning the loss of his daughter and the hurt to his ego and his pride. And on top of that, the food is just really tasteless, and everyone in the kingdom, in the castle, is really struggling with tasteless bland food and everyone is sulking and nobody wants to complain because the king is already upset, but eventually he can't stand it anymore and he calls the cook into his presence and he says, what is wrong with the food? Why does the food taste so terrible? And the cook says, Your Majesty, my king, there is no salt in the food. There is no salt left in the castle. And the king is astounded, and suddenly he realizes what his daughter meant. So he obviously addresses things at home, gets the salt back into the kitchen, and then calls for his daughter to return to his kingdom, apologizes to her, and really starts to appreciate the value of the love that she was expressing to him. And that is because salt is so essential to our cooking, to every part of our lives, even to our own bodies. I'm not much of a cook, but even I know that salt goes in right at the beginning of the process, and you have to allow it to mix with all the other ingredients in order to enhance the flavor of the food that you're eating. We can't cook an entire meal, you can't bake an entire pizza and then put on all the toppings and then only afterwards sprinkle some salt on top. It's far too late then for that salt to do the work that it's supposed to do. And the same thing applies with futures thinking. It is no good creating strategic plans for the future, for creating business plans and funding plans and staffing plans and marketing plans, and then only afterwards saying, oh, let's sprinkle a little bit of futures thinking on top. Futures thinking is the salt that should be baked into every part of the process of our business. So I invite you, if you're interested in learning how to turn futures thinking into a competitive advantage to subscribe to the Explorer newsletter, where we will talk about the different events that are held, products and resources that are available, and ways that you can start to learn about futures thinking so that you too can be a futurist.
