About ten years ago I was out in Las Vegas at a technology conference, and one of the events I attended was headlined by someone I was surprised by. It was Sinbad, and he was there to provide both insights and predictions on how our future was shaping up. Some of his predictions seemed far-fetched, but many of them were plausible. In fact, the ones that were plausible were the ones I was most captivated by.
Although being able to see and predict what might be happening in the near or long term future, if you had this ability, what if it included both positive and negative information? Could you handle the potential negative outcomes? Or, would knowing this information allow you to potentially prepare to either mitigate the damage in advance, or altogether avoid it?
Now, let’s focus on looking at the positive side to being able to capitalize on being able to see into the future. Perhaps you know someone who has this ability, or possibly this is one of your skills? In reality, the majority of people do not have this ability, but when you come across someone who does, be prepared to have a fascinating conversation. In fact, some of what you might be hearing will either be tantalizing or put you into a state of having to suspend your skepticism to truly pay attention to what they are saying. If you are a good listener, this will be easier for you to do.
When I am in the presence of someone who has the ability to see what I don’t, I have always been thoroughly intrigued by the way they describe what the future looks like. Their descriptions are typically influenced by their level of both life and professional experience, but not always. In fact, I have been most surprised by younger people (e.g., sub 30) who are able to verbally paint a vivid depiction, and provide a highly detailed description of what they see happening ahead of where we are presently. The more questions you ask them about what they are seeing, the more details you will get about how what their predictions are.
Are people who have the ability to see into the future always accurate? Not always, but many of them have an uncanny ability to predict what the proverbial road ahead has in store for us. Upon reflecting back on conversations with the people who have the skills to offer predictive insights into our future, has offered me personally and professionally tremendous advantages. The trick is to pay close attention to what you are hearing, and not make assumptions and twist what you are hearing about to be in your favor. This isn’t always easy to achieve, but I highly recommend you heed this advice.
In terms of whether it is possible for those of us who don’t have the ability to see what lies ahead to help us, how do we know if there are people we interact with that have this skill set? Here are some suggestions to help you to do so.
- The first step is to ask yourself if you are open-minded enough to allow these type of conversations to occur?
- Consider some conversations you have had where the person you were speaking with had a completely different approach to how you think. Were you dismissive or intrigued by their thinking? If you were dismissive, it’s possible you were in the presence of someone who has a “futuristic” ability.
- When you are conversing with someone who has the ability to see into the future, they might seem conversationally as if they spend a great deal of time thinking about what has yet to occur, and appear to be more comfortable with thinking ahead versus living in the moment, and being fully present.
- A few key phrases that you will regularly hear from someone who has the futuristic thinking tendencies, is “Imagine if this was possible…” and then they venture into telling you about the vision they have which supports this statement.
- There is a certain contagious energy people with a futuristic ability possess, and they generally have a positive outlook on what they are describing to you.
- If you think you might have the ability to see into what lies ahead for the rest of us, work on fostering this ability by both verbally, in writing or perhaps both options with the intention of engaging and increasing your talent in this area.
- For those of you who are leaders or sports coaches, I’m going to highly recommend you seek having someone like this on your team, or in your “trusted advisors group” who has this ability.
As a consummate optimist, I’m always excited when I come across someone who has a futuristic capability, and I’m delighted to share with you that I have the good fortune of knowing quite a few of them in my life. All of whom I treasure, and I hope you either have them in your life too, or will soon.
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