Futurist and Behavioral Scientist Chris Marshall on ”Decoding Change”

“With change comes uncertainty, fear, and anxiety, and the tendency to cling to the status quo—perhaps the last thing we want to do in a fast-changing world.”

Watch this episode on YouTube here https://youtu.be/Bru26OZnlmI

Chris Marshall, from his book, Decoding Change, Understanding what the heck is going on, and why we should be optimistic about our future.

We will cover:

✔  Do we ALL feel intuitively that the world is going through radical change?

✔ What happens to our creative and decision-making ability during times of change?

✔ Strategies and mechanisms to help us to prepare for a better future.

✔ Current trends and mega-trends.

✔ The mindset needed to achieve quantum leaps with our results.

Welcome back to Season 10 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (that’s finally being taught in our schools today) and emotional intelligence training (used in our modern workplaces) for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren’t taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I’m Andrea Samadi, an author, and an educator with a passion for learning and launched this podcast 5 years ago with the goal of bringing ALL the leading experts together (in one place) to uncover the most current research that would back up how the brain learns best, taking us ALL to new, and often unimaginable heights.   

For today’s EPISODE #296, we meet up with Chris Marshall[i], a Professional Futurist, Behavioral Scientist, and author of "Decoding Change: Understanding what the heck is going on, and why we should be optimistic about our future.”[ii]

The title of his book should give you an idea of the direction of this conversation. A bit about Chris. He’s the

• Head of Investment Strategy at Dragon Investment Managers where he leads global market insights across all asset classes including equities, real estate and credit markets
• Founder & Chief Storyteller of Snowdonia Distillery (first copper distillery in Wales)
• Masters in Psychology and MSc in Behavioural Economics 
• Host of the Transitional Matters Podcast[iii] where he covers trends, mega-trends and transitions going on in the world around us and how they impact our life.

Let’s get right to this conversation, where I’m looking forward to what we can learn together about the world from Chris’s point of view: the point of view of a behavioral scientist, and futurist, who looks at “how the world is changing, not just from the visible elements, but the things below the surface.”[iv] Let’s meet Chris Marshall and look at the trends and mega-trends, that he says are the drivers of change around us.

INTRO:

Welcome Chris!! Thank you for joining me today, all the way from Wales (is this right?) Now, you’ll understand this as a fellow podcast host, but what I enjoy the most about this medium is how far a reach we can have with our content. While we are now in 182 countries/193 I like looking to see where people are tuning into the podcast from around the world, and I noticed we’ve only had 3 downloads in Wales this month. Maybe after today’s episode we can get this number higher, especially since I was born in the UK (Worthing, Sussex).  Our numbers in England are much higher. Tell me something I might not know about Wales[v] (other than what I can see on my map here—it’s a country in Southwest Great Britain known for its rugged coastline and mountainous national parks”

Do you look at your podcast stats? What do you notice as you look at your work around the world?

Q1: So Chris, I watched your keynote introduction on YouTube[vi], and I think your book Decoding Change[vii] should be required reading for anyone who wants to plan for the future, which is pretty much everyone on the planet. You ask your audiences all around the world one question, and I was captivated to learn more. Can we start with this one question, but I’d like to know what YOU see?

“Do YOU intuitively feel like the world is going through radical change?”

Q2: We focus a lot on this podcast on ways to strengthen our mind, through healthy lifestyle choices, understanding how our brain health impacts our mental and physical health…all building us towards creating stronger, 2.0 versions of ourselves. You talk about it as our superpower, or ability to be creative. But what happens to our creative ability in times of change, stress or uncertainty?

Q2B: What does uncertainty do to our decision-making ability and our brain?

Q3: I listened to your podcast episode with Gregg Guerin[viii], and while I’m not going to have any questions around the ESG movement (since I don’t know anything about this topic) your discussion opened up my brain to think, and it started with your book and about the idea of “being curious” which is where I think innovation begins. I always want to learn, and understand “why” we do what we do. I’m fascinated by those who innovate, and create new ideas, that completely change the world. Like Steve Case’s book Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future[ix], where he described his vision for the future of the internet after founding AOL (which is an insane story if anyone wants to read his book). When I had a vision for change in the field of education, I used to wonder how technology would be a part of shifting the way our students learn in the future.

Can you share what you see today, as Waves of Innovation, driving the world forward, that would help us to embrace, learn more about, and understand? Something that will transform the world, like the 3^rd Wave of the internet that Steve Case predicted?

(I’m guessing you will talk about AI, and how we can use it as a collaborative tool).

Q4: What is your world view of cultural diversity and the workplace?

Q5: I know you cover some important transition phases on your podcast (horse/cart to steam engine), or (candle/light bulb), or how Airbnb reimagined travel, Facebook and social media reimagined communication, and Uber reimagined how we hail a cab. You said “innovation and the pace of change is non-linear.” How does a creator/innovator make such huge quantum leaps (explosive jumps) with their thinking and ideas? What do you think is behind creating something entirely new that shifts the way the world operates? Or even for an individual going from where they might be used to working, to doing something that feels like a quantum leap? How can we prepare ourselves for change?

Q6: For this next question, I went back to some notes I took from an educational conference way back in 2016, where they were highlighting Gordon Moore, Intel’s co-founder and author of Moore’s Law, that states that “computing power will double every two years.”  These numbers have shocked Gordon Moore (Intel co-founder and author of Moore’s Law) himself, as shown in this image.

So what’s next for this next generation of students with these current trends (thinking of Moore’s Law)? How are we preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist? How do we ensure that “every person has an equal opportunity to participate in the future?” (when we know not every person has access to the internet, let alone their own computer. What should we all consider about preparing our next generation (globally) for the future?

The only answer I have is to think of ways to apply imagination to come up with ideas to solve big problems that take us beyond where we have ever been before.

Q7: What would say are the “mechanisms” that will help us to prepare for a better future? When you speak to audiences, in your keynotes, what do you suggest we all do or think about?

Q8: Final thoughts? From listening to you speak, and reading your book, I wonder, what is the “invisible world” or what do you see that many of us who don’t think about or how can we shift our thinking to see the world the same way as you as a futurist?

Thank you, Chris, for coming on the podcast, and sharing your vision for ways we can all improve our thinking for the future and Decode Change in our lives. I know your ideas will challenge us all to THINK in an entirely different way.

For those who want to contact you, is the best place through your website?

FOLLOW CHRIS MARSHALL

Website: https://www.theuncertaintyscientist.com/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshall-christopher/

FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI: 

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi  

Website https://www.achieveit360.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/ 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com  

Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/ 

REFERENCES:

[i] Chris Marshall website https://www.chrismarshall.uk/

[ii]Chris Marshall, author of Decoding Change: Understanding what the heck is going on, and why we should be optimistic about our future  https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Change-Understanding-optimistic-future/dp/173911700X

[iii] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/transitional-matters/id1588304623

[iv] Chris Marshall Keynote March 23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yx27y8FcQ

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales

[vi] Chris Marshall Keynote March 23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yx27y8FcQ

[vii] Chris Marshall, author of Decoding Change: Understanding what the heck is going on, and why we should be optimistic about our future  https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Change-Understanding-optimistic-future/dp/173911700X

[viii] Chris Marshall Podcast EP17 with Gregg Guerin https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-seventeen-why-do-you-believe-that-the-big/id1588304623?i=1000616984393

[ix] Steve Case Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future https://www.amazon.com/Third-Wave-Entrepreneurs-Vision-Future/dp/1501132598/ref=asc_df_1501132598/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312111908051&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9764342533194039782&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030068&hvtargid=pla-433370111480&psc=1