S13 E10 How to Stop Fearing the Future and Start Designing It – with Frederik Pferdt

when you stop resisting, stop trying to control the experience, you realize that the joy and growth come from embracing what's right here in front of you. And that is something very hard for our minds to do. Because again, like we always tell ourselves these stories like, oh, I could be here, I could be there, you know, this is going to be better and so forth. But allowing to be in the present moment and just embrace that curiosity and kindness and let go of that fear of missing out instead of focus on the experience that make us feel connected and purposeful and alive. And focusing on them, I think is very powerful.

I'm Patrick J. McGinnis, and I coined the term FOMO. That's short for fear of missing out, and it's why some people end up following the crowd when they should be blazing a trail of their own. But if you want to achieve greatness in business and life, you've got to break free. Come on, I'll show you how. This is FOMO Sapiens, where we explore how entrepreneurial thinkers find the inspiration and the courage to build exceptional lives. Welcome back to FOMO Sapiens, the show for entrepreneurial thinkers. I'm your host, Patrick J. McGinnis, and today we are talking to Frederic Fert, who is the author of What's Next Is Now: How to Live Future Ready. As Google's first chief innovation evangelist, Fert helped shape one of the most fabled creative cultures in the world. He founded Google's Innovation Lab, where he trained tens of thousands of Googlers to develop and experiment with cutting-edge ideas, and taught groundbreaking classes on innovation and creativity at Stanford for more more than a decade. He's also worked with dozens of international government agencies, organizations, and businesses ranging from the UN to NASA and the NBA. Welcome to FOMO Sapiens, Fredrik.

Thank you so much for having me, Patrick.

Uh, it's my pleasure. Uh, we're gonna talk about the future. It's such a good time to talk about the future, but before we do, we gotta talk about the question I ask every guest who comes on the show. And the question is this: Tell me something unexpected you learned about yourself that changed everything.

Wow. Yes, that's such a deep question. I actually was listening to your show with my son this morning when I dropped him at school. And we both listened to that question and we looked at each other and said, oh, wow. It's hard to come up with something in the moment because we have so many unexpected things in our lives that that really shape us, right? It's the small moments, it's the big moments. If you look back in time, there are so many things that really define us, right, if you reflect on it. So, what I would like to do is, could I slightly reframe the question? Instead of something unexpected that changed everything for me, it's actually something I expected. And that's what helped me realize that everything changes. All the time. Okay.

I mean, it's not your show, but I'm going to let you do this because it's manners.

All right. Sorry about that. So, here's the story. A while ago, I went on this 10-day silent meditation retreat in the desert here in Southern California, close to Joshua Tree. So, I expected it to be tough, right? Like 10 days, no speaking, sitting on a cushion for 10+ hours each day. But I also expected it to be transformative, right? Lots of sitting in silence again, lots of reflecting and so forth. What I didn't expect was how much one guy actually with a little cough drop could throw me completely off course. So I think it was on day 3 when I noticed him sitting right behind me, right? Again, you're not allowed to look at somebody's eyes or you're not allowed to talk to anybody and so forth. So he was basically sucking on this cough drop, right? Making this sticky, repetitive clicking noise that we all know, like this, you know.

Oh, dear.

And so right behind me, right in my neck. So in that total silence, it was all I could hear, right? You literally focus on that. I couldn't focus on anything else, and it was painful, I can tell. And I kept thinking, why is this guy here, right? Why can't he just stop? He's ruining everything for me, right? So I started to strategize. Can I talk to him? Not allowed. Can I signal to him somehow? Not allowed, right? Maybe write him a note? Again, not allowed. Or maybe just take this cough drop out of his mouth? Probably not a good idea. So the longer I sat there unable to escape that sound, because every day he came back and he was putting that cough drop in his mouth. And my frustration kept just like elevating. I started to wonder then one day, I think it was day 5 or 6, why is he sucking on that cough drop? And I asked myself, and, and I, you know, some thoughts came up, and maybe he's struggling, maybe he's in pain, or just trying to get through some the same challenges I was having, right? Maybe he wants actually to not cough out loud, not to ruin the experience for everyone. So I thought like, how kind of him, right? And slowly my frustration turned into curiosity and eventually into compassion and empathy. So I went from hating the guy to actually rooting for him. So like, yeah, that's such a kind guy, right? Like he is kind of like just doing that out of out of compassion. And that's when it hit me. The cough drop didn't change. He didn't change. I did. My feelings, my irritation, my anger weren't permanent. They shifted like everything does. And in that moment, I realized how powerful it is to let go, to stop feeling attached to how we think things should be, and instead approach them with curiosity and empathy. So that cough drop became one of my greatest teachers, I guess. It taught me that Change is constant. And when we lean into that reality, when we let go of resistance, even the most frustrating experiences can become profound opportunities for growth. So yeah, it was unexpected in that way, but it was the expectation of sitting with silence that gave me this lesson I'll carry with me, I think, forever. So here you have it.

I like that.

That notion of impermanence, that everything changes all the time, right, really became an experience for me that, that I understood deeply, that feelings will change, your experience will change, everything will change eventually, right? And if you guide you towards empathy and compassion and kindness, better things will happen for you.

There are days where I'm generally a very low-key, happy relaxed person, and there are days when I am not. And I'll go into a setting that I go into every day, the coffee shop in the morning where I get my coffee. Hello, hungry ghost. And I'll be in a— everybody will irritate the guy behind me. Why is he standing so close to me? Why? It's like all these little micro reactions. And I will oftentimes think to myself, like, you didn't mind this yesterday and you probably won't mind it tomorrow. What's going on inside today that's causing you to feel these feelings? Or Meditating in public, you're on a plane, you're trying to meditate and you hear some annoying person. It's like I always think of it, this is the test about whether I am able to do the work of focusing on my breath. And this is all about the environment offers you an opportunity to, like you said, to learn, reflect, reframe. So it is like a daily challenge. Like you're not always going to be on the top of the mountain, right? You're not always going to be in the beautiful nirvana place. Sometimes you're going to be in the poop of life and how are you going to react?

Absolutely. I love that example when like we're in the coffee line, right? And we're just frustrated, right? The line is not moving too fast or fast enough. Like there's people very close to us. And I think in those moments, we have a choice. How do we actually react in these moments or respond, right? Why not like inviting the guy behind us to their coffee, right? Or why not kind of like sharing a smile with someone?

That's too nice. In New York, they won't trust you.

Why not offering kind of like, you know, some, some compliment to someone, right? Those 3 choices we have, and I guarantee all of these choices, these 3 will make your day better and the day of these people better, right?

100%. All right. So we've gotten a little bit into it. We've kind of taken out the old shovel and started digging towards where we're going to plant some ideas, which is the idea that rather than just worrying about the world and seeing the world as something's going to happen to you, how can you actually prepare yourself and focus on building the future? And that's the title— or sorry, not the title, but is the topic of the book that you've written called What's Next Is Now. Tell us about why you wrote this book and what is the big idea of the book.

Yes, and you mentioned that The future is not something that happens to us. It's something we make happen, right? And I wrote the book because I think that we have somehow the wrong relationship with the future. When we think about the future, many of us fall into a common trap, I guess, right? Focusing on what we want to have, right? When we think about the future, we think like, oh, I want to have a better house, a better career. A specific life situation that is improved, right? A better relationship, whatever it is. But for me, the essential question we should ask ourselves is, how do we want to be or how do we want to feel in the future? So ask that question yourself, like, how do you want to feel, right? Tomorrow, like in the next 10 days, in the next year or 2 years or 10 years. And I believe that true satisfaction doesn't come from external achievements. But from inner states like connectedness, growth, or even fulfillment. Yet the world I think we live in often nudges us towards a future centered on wanting or having rather than allowing us to cultivate a future of being or feeling, right? So a truly meaningful future is one that makes us feel wise or fulfilled and valued., right? All things that we are looking for in our future. And it's not about chasing external benchmarks, but pursuing, I think, intrinsic goals, goals that generally make us happy. And you said like you are generally a happy guy. So I think you're already thinking about that question. How do you want to feel in the future? So some examples I like to give is it's not about owning a house, but experiencing a sense of security and fulfillment. It's not about marriage or a relationship, but feeling deeply loved and connected. And it's not about career, but finding purpose and growth in the work we do. So perhaps this is the real art of shaping the future, letting go of the desire to own more and embracing the joy of experiencing more, right? So take that question forward with you in your life. Like, how do you want to feel the next moment tomorrow or the next 10 years? And I think if you find an answer towards that, you already change your relationship with with your future. FOMO.

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Yeah, that's a good question. I think all of the things you mentioned might be a reason for that, right? But it's not something that we should continue thinking about. I think we should just, you know, rethink our relationship with our future, right? And trying to really say like, hey, it's not about owning that house. It's not about, you know, getting in a relationship with that perfect person. It's about the things that we want to experience. It's the things that allow us to feel in a certain way, right? And I think as soon as we shift that, there is something powerful that is unlocked in us. And so I talk about a couple of dimensions in the book that really allows you to shift your perspective and have a different relationship with your future. It's about optimism, right? It's about openness. It's curiosity. It's empathy and experimentation. And all of those really allow you to have a different relationship with your future and hopefully build then or create the future that you desire, that you want to see happening. And when I like to, you know, engage with folks and talk about the future, I like to give them these two Mad Libs that are basically starting points for a conversation or starting points of completing a sentence. And the first one is, the future is, right? When you complete that sentence, what's the first word that comes to your mind? The future is—

I'm gonna do this live for you.

I'm gonna say the future is exciting. Fantastic. Great. And then the second prompt I give them is the future I create is— Mine. Perfect. See, already the words changed, right? Because the first sentence mostly goes towards like the future that is owned by someone else or that is out there, that is an objective thing. But when you put yourself into that picture, the future I create is, right? You immediately start to owning it and you express that beautifully. The future I create is mine, right? And so I want to help people to also take control of their future by understanding that each moment is an opportunity for them to choose, right? Like in the coffee line you described. I can choose in that moment what my future will be like, how I want to feel in the future. If I'm going to be kind to that person behind me, if I'm going to pay for his or her coffee, right? We're going to have a future that makes you probably feel proud, that makes you going to feel happy, that makes you going to feel like, you know, I did something great for someone else. All of those things. And I think that's where you already can take control of your future. And I think that's something very powerful.

So let's look at this. I mean, I, I, so I buy this 100%, and like I always say, and I'm no Pollyanna by the way, but I always say that generally when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, this is going to be the best one yet. Like, this could be the best day, right? And, and I've always been like that. So it's not like I'm here to tell you how to cultivate that because it's just kind of my default setting. But I can imagine we have people who are listening, and I I totally get this opinion that says, listen, that sounds awesome and I want to do that. However, I lost my job, parents are ill, climate change is burning down stuff all over the place. I'm really worried about politics and so on and so forth. And also because of my relationship with digital devices, my mental health is suffering and my kid is neurodivergent and all these, the kinds of things that we all see around us and in our own lives. And so Obviously, like, we can say that we want to do that, but yet doing that in the face of these types of challenges is, it's a project. So how would you work with a person like that to reorient them towards your vision of how they should think about the future?

Absolutely. And thanks for mentioning that. You know, we all, again, like, we live in that reality where we have a relationship with our future that changes, right? Like a good friend of ours just lost their home in the wildfires in Los Angeles, in California. So they are facing a very different reality at the moment, and it's hard for them to see things optimistically, right? It's hard for them to say, this is going to be the best day of my life, right? Obviously. So it's important to meet people where they are. And I think too often we approach the future with fear, with hesitation, even with detachment, either feeling powerless to influence or overwhelmed by uncertainty. But the truth is the future isn't something again that happens to us. It's something we create starting right now. So in that moment when we were faced with the wildfires a couple of years ago, when they were burning a mile from here, we were in a situation where uncertainty was just present, right? We didn't know if we're going to return to our home after the evacuations. And still, you have a choice in every moment. What are you going to do, right? Are you volunteering? Are you helping someone? Are you kind to someone else? Or are you moving towards blaming? Are you pointing fingers? Are you following your anger, whatever it is? So some people really face that deep uncertainty questioning their institutions, right, that you just mentioned they once trusted. But no matter where you are on this spectrum, right, here's what I know to be true. Your future isn't defined with what's happening around you, right? It's defined by the choices you make today in this moment and your ability to shape what's next. And this is something we can train ourselves in, right? It doesn't come naturally, right? Our impulses, our reactions, They're built over the last thousands of years in our evolution. So we're ingrained with a negativity bias. We have all these things that come up in those moments. So you can train yourself literally to respond differently. And there's a great way that everybody can practice. And this comes from a good friend of mine. Her name is Steffi Nord. She's a single mom of three. And she does an exercise with her 3 kids every single night at the dinner table. And we just spent a couple of days together. And so I was watching very closely and engaging actually in that exercise too, because I find it fascinating. So she asks her kids a simple question. Tell me 2 good things that happened today and 1 bad thing. And so she trains her kids in radical optimism. Looking for the good, right? Because there's always things that are good that happened in your life or that you created, right? And when you try to train yourself to look for those things, right, you are preparing yourself for the future because there's going to be things in your life that are happening to you or that are devastating, that are horrific, whatever it is. But then you can choose, like, how do I look into this situation? Do I see something good about it? How do I act in this situation? So I think there's great ways we can train ourselves to really become optimists, radical optimists in our lives. And these are easy practices that really help us to rewire our thinking about the future as well and have a different relationship with that.

As you're speaking and I'm thinking about these exercises in this mindset, it's funny because we were— I was kind of— what I was kind of getting at before, which you heard and addressed, is like, well, is this kind of a luxury good, right? Um, but the thing is, like, find me a luxury good that you can generate yourself. Like, I can't make an Hermès bag, um, for you, and because I'm not a craftsman and that would be terrible what I do, but I can I can spin this up. And if I think about it for myself, and when I think about it, look back on— so sometimes I think back to things that I could have done in the past that I wish I had done. Like, oh, I wish I'd invested in more stocks, or I wish I had bought an apartment when I was— whatever, all these things. It's like, those are things that at the time, had you cultivated this kind of mindset, you might have done and they would have had payoffs later on. You don't know. And it's like regret is kind of useless. But if you think about the present, what are the things you could be cultivating now that 20 years later down the line, when you look back, you'll be happy that you did? And so if you start this now, rather than focusing on what I can't do, but instead thinking about what you can do, the compounding effect of those actions in the future will generate, like, back to your original sort of point will generate these feelings that you want to have. They may not look like you thought they were going to look, but they will generate, in the words of our friend Christian Busch, who wrote The Serendipity Mindset, some serendipity for you too, which is always good. So I get that. I get it. What I do want to talk about, we talked a little bit before the conversation in the green room, a little bit about FOMO. And I think about FOMO is interesting, right, in the context of this conversation because fear of missing out on opportunities, it's decision making. FOMO is a challenge of decision making. And it also— there's this extremely interesting way somebody talks about FOMO. It's sort of like the future is robbing the present moment in a sense, because you're so focused on that theoretical thing you're missing that you aren't focused on what you're doing right now. So, why don't you, given your expertise, give me a breakdown of your take on FOMO? Teach me something new about FOMO.

Yes. Again, like, congratulations on coining that term. It's such a powerful phenomenon in our lives, right? FOMO. And we all experience it. Every day. What's fascinating is that I actually, last time I went to Burning Man, which is kind of like this big gathering of tens of thousands of people in the desert building up a community for a couple of days, there actually was a camp that was called FOMO. So everybody can build up a camp and one thing that you do is you offer something to the community, right? You gift something, right? An experience, an event, a hug, food, whatever it is, right? So that FOMO camp basically offered a safe space for people to talk about their FOMO, right? And talk about how it influences them and so forth and what they can do about it. And it was incredible because in that FOMO camp, it was a great reminder that even in this radically inclusive space, the abundance of choice can create anxiety about missing out. Because you are in a place where everything is offered for free, like, and there's hundreds of events happening at the same time. And these events are geared towards, like, offering something that lets you experience love and kindness, compassion, gratitude, letting go of ego, all of those great things, right? And you definitely don't want to miss out on any of those, right? But what happened is when you let go of that fear and just lean into that moment of like, okay, I'm now here and I can experience something, right? And I truly be present to experience that. It's like the cough drop all over again. When you stop resisting, stop trying to control the experience, you realize that the joy and growth come from embracing what's right here in front of you. And that is something very hard for our minds to do because again, like we always tell ourselves these stories like, oh, I could be here, I could be there, this is going to be better and so forth. But allowing to be in the present moment and just embrace that curiosity and kindness and let go of that fear of missing out instead of focus on the experience that make us feel connected and purposeful and alive and focusing on them, I think is very powerful. So in that camp, again, we talked about that and we just felt like it's okay that there's other things that are happening. And focus on the present moment and the joy you can create in the right here and the right now with the people that you're with. And that is also a practice that you can train yourself in, that you can become better at. And I think we all need to hopefully train ourselves more in that.

Yeah, I think you can. And when you feel the FOMO, Listen, obviously I talk about this all the time. There is a moment where you can, you can, you can always pull away from it.

FOMO.

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Let's get them over with. It's really interesting, this thing about Burning Man. I've seen a similar thing at the Cannes Lions, which is this crazy event in France that I went to last year, where like they have like counselors to help you because you're— for people being overwhelmed, they had like a whole counseling center, um, which I thought was like Pretty amazing. What I will say is I have not been to Burning Man yet. People tell me I should be going. I'm always like, I can't handle it. It's going to be so overwhelming. And so if the FOMO camp, if you're listening, I'd be interested in maybe we could think about how we work together and how to have fun together and talk about FOMO together. So that would get me to Burning Man because that would be pretty cool. Now, Frederick, are you ready for the lightning round?

Uh, yes, I think so. Yeah, you don't know what to expect.

Make your own future, that's what I say. All right, I have 4 questions for you, lighting responses. You ready to go? Let's go. Number 1: What is a favorite quote?

A quote? Um, I think Shunryu Suzuki, um, who is a Zen master here, or used to be a Zen master here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, uh, Shikotsu Zen Center, It's just that in the beginner's mind, there are many opportunities. In the expert's mind, there's only few. And so I really like that because it really reminds ourselves that we should always be in a beginner's mind, right? When it comes to how we approach situations, because then we see many opportunities. If we define ourselves as experts, right? And I think a lot of people do. Either in their jobs or because of their life experiences and so forth, I think you don't see many opportunities anymore, right? So I really like that quote from Shun'ryu Suzuki.

Yeah, and with the world changing all the time, who is an expert? So I think that's a really good way to approach life in general. Number 2, what is your favorite use case for ChatGPT? Or I guess maybe you use Claude because of Google.

I actually use all of them. Yes, Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, and others that are out there. So I like to experiment, obviously. My favorite use case is if I actually ask personal questions that allow me to think differently about my future self. Things like, hey, ChatGPT, what can I do differently in the future based on the conversations we had so far? And I really like that advice because it really, you know, gets me thinking and it gives me something to work with, even if the advice sometimes isn't that helpful. But at least kind of like, you know, you can draw something that might be helpful in your future.

That's a very— I'm going to try that right after this because I feel like I have the British guy on my phone. Because I wanted to feel like a butler. And so, all right, number 3, what's one piece of advice you give to your younger self?

That's a great question. Again, if I'm allowed to reframe that, what advice would I give to my future self, right? Because my younger self is not there anymore. Do it. Past, gone. I think my future self—

I'm gonna do— I'm gonna actually change it for all guests going forward because that's a Great question. Thank you very much. Call it Frederic's question.

Perfect. Yeah, I write about that in the book that I wasn't a big fan of those advice you can give to your younger self because your younger self is already gone, right? But your future self, your older self, that's still someone you can influence. So I would tell my future self that can't wait to grow up. And I want to explore how I can become even more kinder, even more patient. And hopefully my future self will help me to feel in a certain way, feel that I feel wise, fulfilled, accomplished, valued, connected, all of those things that I think make a human being feel happy.

Okay, like that. Number 4, what is your most important— now it's gonna be backward looking, you're gonna try to reframe it, but what's your most important memory?

My most important memory. Oh, let me, let me access that. Yeah, it might take a while. You're not ChatGPT, but helpful. No, like, there's so many memories. I think one of those memories is the birth of my first son. I think that moment, it was very emotional. It was just a powerful memory when I had him lay him down on my breast and just when, when he was breathing, and just our heartbeats connected somehow. And that was a, that was a memory that just, yeah, stuck with me.

All right. All right. The book is called What's Next Is Now. If you want to find out more about Fredrik, you can find him on LinkedIn at FGPferdt. That's FGPferdt, Fredrik Fert. You can find him on Instagram at Frederik G. Fert. Again, that's P-F-E-R-D-T on the last name, pronounced in German Pferd. It means horse. And you can find his website at whatsnextisnowthebook.com. Frederik Fert, author of What's Next Is Now. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for having me, Patrick.

FOMO Sapiens is recorded in New York City and can be found on YouTube at FOMO Sapiens or on your favorite podcast network. Theme music is by Mike McGinnis. Editing and post-production is by Josh Elstroh, and the show is produced by Matt Curtis and me. If you like today's show, please be sure to rate it and share it with your friends. And as always, you can find more about the show and me at FOMO sapiens.com and patrickmcginnis.com. It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear.

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