“What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind, of sacrificing one’s ease or vanity, or uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully.” – Victor Cherbuliez
So much of daily human thought is dedicated to thinking about and planning for the future, yet there’s very little discussion in popular culture on how to better understand and improve the process. Great foresight is a distinguishing quality in almost any successful businessperson, leader and artist. The ability to engage in and shape future events is a very powerful thing.
This blog intends to explore the role of foresight in our lives, to identify the use of foresight in our culture and to share a method we’ve developed to improve foresight.
Some of our entries will be observational, tying in current events with our understanding of foresight; some will be nuggets of insight we’ve gleaned from great thinkers. Please check out recent entries below, organized by topic.
We invite you to leave comments, so that together we can start a dialogue.
Literary, History & Biography
The Extraordinary Eleanor Roosevelt
Matilda, the First Queen of England
Cyrus the Great, Leadership, and the Importance of Foresight
George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, Mature Relationships and Foresight
The Last Great Emperors of the Roman Empire, Justinian and Theodora and the Dark Ages
Catherine the Great, Women as Leaders, Child Raising and Foresight
Captain William Bligh, His Wife, Mutiny and Foresight
Ben Franklin, His Son, the American Revolution, France and Foresight
In Praise of Older Women, Mentors and Advisors
Influence, Margaret Thatcher, the Cold War and Foresight
Will Rogers, Congress, Statesmanship and Media Influence
Nabokov on Becoming a Good Reader
This Was Their Finest Hour, These Are Times That Try Men’s Souls, Can We All Get Along?
Health, Nutrition & Longevity
The Cheese Paradox and Happy Hormones
Happiness, Status and Your Immune System
Longevity, Loma Linda, Okinawa Diet, Goya, Hayflick Limit
Your Brain on Coconut Oil, and a Healthy Diet, Dr. Mary Newport
The Secret Lives of Lobsters, Bowhead Whales and Longevity
My Aunt was Right, but would she approve of Poutine?
Quality of Life, Relationships & Psychology
Our Sensory Switchboards and How Our Initial Response is Often Unreliable
How reliable is your intuition? What unconscious biases influence your intuition?
Outsmarting Our Desires: the Marshmallow Experiment & Delayed Gratification
Why can’t we predict our happiness?
Breaking the Habit Loop and the Four Step Method of Foresight Improvement
Sailboats, Donkeys and Household Duties in the First Week of Marriage
Practicing Laughter and Norman Cousins
What is Life?, Erwin Shrodinger, Consciousness and Problem Analysis
The Ulysses Contract: Tango and Our Future Selves
Story Power and Social Aptitude
Love and Laughter: The Role if Humor in Relationships
Brain, Memory & Science
The Female Brain, the Male Brain, Hormones and Relationships
Thinking Fast and Slow, Intuition Problems, Moneyball, and the Four Step Method
Exercise and the Brain, the Naperville Experiment, Education and Alzheimer’s
Love and the Subconscious Mind
Economy
Compressed Natural Gas Prices, Implications for the U.S. and Your Budget
Fool’s Gold, Gillian Tett, Credit, Risk and Foresight
California Cap and Trade, Sea Level Increase and Deep Geothermal
Greece, Black Friday and the Elephant in the Room
