Live Lecture Recap: Rethinking How We Navigate Crisis
Key skills to thrive in the Age of Revolutions—transforming Work, Learning & Being
Beyond Crisis: Becoming the Future We Need
What happens when the world feels like it's spinning out of control? When every headline screams catastrophe and every institution seems to be crumbling? Yesterday’s exclusive, monthly live lecture for subscribers built directly on my recent "Navigating the Storm: Thriving in a VUCA World" piece, taking those ideas deeper and exploring what this means beyond today: we're not witnessing the end of the world; we're experiencing the birth of a new one.
This written recap is intended as a companion to the full recorded lecture video so that you can follow along with detail and context. A separate email will be sent to paid subscribers with access to the lecture recording.
If you missed the live session, this recap captures the transformative insights we discussed. But here's the thing about live lectures—the energy, the real-time Q&A, the community connection—it can't be fully captured in text. Consider this my invitation to you to experience the next one firsthand.
The Moment We're Living In
We’re standing at the edge of a cliff, with those who wish to push us off, but instead of falling, we’re just now realizing we can learn to fly. That's where society (and humanity as a whole) finds itself right now—caught between Reckoning and Resistance, between recognizing that our old systems have led us to an unsustainable precipice and the urgent need to say "no more" to business as usual.
But here's the radical reframe that can help us over the long haul: master the 100-year lens. When daily headlines trigger anxiety and overwhelm, zoom out—today's chaos becomes merely a microsecond in the broader arc of human progress. But when the long-term vision feels too daunting, zoom in—remember that every century is built from microseconds, and the small, micro-action you take today matters. This dynamic perspective shift is what moves us from overwhelm to over. It’s not naivete; it’s strategic resilience.
The VUCA Trap (And How to Stop Spiraling)
Our brains are wired for certainty and simplicity. When confronted with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA), unless we’re aware of it, our amygdala (the fight/flight/freeze/fawn center of the brain) naturally wants to retreat into reactive, binary thinking, false dichotomies, rigid ideologies, or paralyzing despair. It's a psychological trap that keeps us reactive instead of regenerative.
But what if we reframed this entirely? In the eye of such turbulence, we each hold agency. VUCA need not be a recipe for paralysis; it can be a clarion call to make conscious choices.
From Volatility to Vision
Yes, daily news feels like an avalanche of chaos. But we can choose to zoom out, ask which long-term trends matter, and work on those instead of reacting to every shock.
Think of it this way: a day trader versus a decade investor. The day trader watching minute-by-minute fluctuations sees only chaos. The decade investor sees the steady upward trend. Today's tumultuous headlines and resulting turmoil are inevitable volatile fluctuations in a dynamic system. Step back, and you'll see the signal: transformation is accelerating.
From Uncertainty to Understanding
Headlines scream daily about what "could" happen, breeding anxiety, endless worrying and knee-jerk reactions. But what if we asked deeper questions? For ex.: Most daily political moves and Trump’s weekly “Friday Surprise” actions aren't isolated shock events—they're often smokescreens for larger agendas. Youth unemployment isn't just economic—it's systemic. When we trace patterns to root causes, we stop spreading our energy thin over every sensational news item.
It’s tempting to fixate on every ominous policy shift. The choice, though, is to dig for root causes—who benefits from this distraction?—and marshal our energy to counteract the structural agenda rather than flinch at every headline.
From Complexity to Coherence
When racism, economic collapse, and climate breakdown intersect, it’s easy to throw up our hands. Our choice is to trace those overlaps, to ask, ‘What organizing effort could address all three simultaneously?’ That decision point is where real power lies.
We've been trained to silo problems: "Climate change is environmental," "Mental health is medical," "Inequality is economic." But reality is an entangled web. Many years ago, while in Kenya, I conducted community surveys with farmers groups, international aid and government agencies on my local area’s HIV/AIDS epidemic - that project taught me this: distributing antiretrovirals addressed the surface as a health issue, but without tackling the wider issues beyond health - the social stigmas, poverty, gender dynamics, and structural economic inequities- infection rates could never truly dip. Real solutions require collaborative synthesis across disciplines.
That’s where coherence goes one step further. Coherence isn’t merely about “combining” insights from multiple disciplines (that’s synthesis); it’s about weaving them into an integrated whole that yields clear priorities, aligned incentives, and continuous feedback.
Going back to my Kenya example, coherence ensures that medical, social, and economic strategies don’t compete for limited resources or conflict with each other. When we move from complexity to coherence, we transform scattered, siloed efforts into a self-reinforcing ecosystem where progress in one area fuels success in others.
From Ambiguity to Awareness
In a world of 8 billion people, there are 8 billion realities based on 8 billion different levels of awareness, as we’re all a unique sum of our individual experiences, circumstances, choices and mindsets. The Trayvon Martin tragedy illustrates this: simultaneously "an innocent teenager walking home" but to a racist, trigger-happy vigilante’s “reality”, he was seen as a perceived threat to a trigger-happy vigilante. Whose “reality” are we now seeing take power to force us to conform to one distorted homogenous, rigid reality today?
No single perspective captures the whole truth, yet many insist on one rigid reality. When we can’t tolerate facts that challenge our worldview, we shut down learning—denying racism or embracing authoritarianism feels easier than facing complexity.
Real change requires the opposite. By sitting with uneasy but necessary facts and holding multiple truths without defensiveness, we resist the black-and-white thinking that fascists want and begin to address systemic injustices. Tolerating discomfort to expand awareness is the first step toward dismantling the rigid narratives that hinder progress.
The Six Pillars of Regenerative Human Capital
Buzzwords like "self-awareness" and "critical thinking" are easy to rattle off. The hard work is executing on them. Here are the six core skill sets that will determine who thrives in our rapidly changing world. Don’t worry- I’ll cover each of these in expansive depth and detail in future posts and live lectures - this is just an introduction:
1. Cognitive Revolution: Learning How to Learn
We must distinguish between schooling (our system is still based on the historical Prussian military model that conditions compliance, originally aimed at creating citizen-solders), education (lifelong discernment in an age of AI-generated misinformation), and skilling (technical competencies that become obsolete annually).
The shocking truth? NASA's 1968 (not peer-reviewed but the principle stands) study of 1600 children over decades found that 98% of children under 5 tested as "creative geniuses," but only 2% retain that trait as adults. We literally beat curiosity out of them. The antidote: embrace interest-based exploration (such as Montessori-style early childhood programs) and cultivate growth mindsets that value "asking dumb questions" for discovery’s sake over "memorizing right answers" for test-taking’s sake.
2. Youth Skills: Curiosity Meets Intergenerational Responsibility
Channel childlike wonder and imagination while employing caretaking wisdom that protects future generations, a concept often found in Indigenous wisdom, such as the Seven Generations Principle: "If I do this today, how will it ripple seven generations forward?" This expands our lens from quarterly profits to centuries of impact—the foundation of truly sustainable decision-making.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
- Albert Einstein, “Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms”, 1931
When we combine the boundless imagination of youth with this caretaking mindset, we achieve two things at once:
Maintain Fresh Perspective
Anchor Innovation in Sustainability
By weaving together unfettered curiosity and deep intergenerational care, innovators and changemakers who embody Youth Skills don’t lose sight of the big picture. They ask bold “What if?” questions while simultaneously asking, “What happens seven generations from now?” This fusion is the cornerstone of truly sustainable decision-making, because only by honoring both youthful innovation and ancestral wisdom can we craft solutions that endure.
3. Social Skills: From Ego to Ecosystems
We only have to look all around us—whether it’s the school bully or the current rise in fascism and their actions— to see that most social harm and hate springs from inner, unresolved hurt and ego wounds projected and misplaced outward. True social transformation starts within. Whether interpersonal or systemic, it stems from individuals who haven’t confronted their own emotional triggers and blind spots. Self-awareness and understanding how a fractured, unhealthy ego drives our behavior, means asking: "Why do I feel triggered? Why do I feel so angry on this subject?" Instead of scapegoating entire groups, we trace wounds back to their origin in our own psyche.
From this self-awareness, we move into larger social systems. Societally, we must break silo thinking. Policy decisions in healthcare, education, or criminal justice are never "just one thing"—they have cascading effects on families, communities, and ecosystems.
At its core, moving from “Ego to Ecosystems” means having the humility to see ourselves within something bigger—dissolving the illusion that any one individual or institution is at the top a selfish, man-made hierarchy. By embracing self-awareness at the individual level and dismantling siloed mindsets at the societal level, we build a social ecosystem in which every element strengthens the others. In such an ecosystem, solving problems is no longer a zero‐sum game—fixing one issue reverberates positively across the entire community and environment. That synergy is the hallmark of truly regenerative social skills.
4. Technological Literacy: Tools, Not Tyrants
AI isn't only generative AI like ChatGPT. It’s reshaping drug discovery, climate modeling and human rights. But with great power comes great responsibility. Becoming truly technologically literate means learning to evaluate each tool’s strengths and limits, just as a carpenter chooses between hammer, saw, or chisel, rather than wielding a single instrument for every job.
Technological literacy means more than learning to code or operate a platform, especially given how fast the pace of change makes one mode obsolete. It means becoming discerning stewards of each tool. We must become more savvy users: "Which tool is right for which problem? When does AI augment human judgment, and when does it dangerously automate it?" Otherwise, a hammer-only mindset will hamper our ability to deploy the right solutions.
By understanding how technology works, how algorithms are built, where they excel, and how they can be misused, we transform AI from a potential tyrant into a malleable instrument for collective good to counter bad actors. Only then can we ensure that human values guide automation rather than the other way around.
5. Entrepreneurship: A Mindset for All
This isn't about having everyone "start a business," as that may not be every person’s choice. It's about adopting entrepreneurial thinking and skills, which can apply to everyone: initiative, out-of-the-box thinking, resilience in the face of rejection, solving people’s needs, and social entrepreneurship to improve livelihoods that serve people and planet, not just profit margins.
Around the world, social entrepreneurs and startups are already marrying business and technology with grassroots innovation to address some of the most pressing global challenges affecting human development—climate vulnerabilities, social inequities, and food security. They're blueprints for regenerative scaling and I’ll be sharing more insights and frameworks from my work incubating these startups in the future.
6. Meaning & Purpose: The Existential Revolution
We all witnessed how the pandemic’s forced pause did more than expose cracks in our systems; it ignited what many now call The Great Reset (and Resignation), with many quitting their jobs to find deeper meaning. For countless individuals, it wasn’t just workplace burnout; it was an existential wake‐up call: “If I’m going to spend a third of my life working, what do I truly want it all to add up to?” In that moment of global stillness, many people realized they had long been operating on autopilot—chasing titles, paychecks, or social approval—without pausing to ask: “Why am I here?” and “How do I want to show up in this world?”
Cultivating meaning‐making is not a soft, optional skill; it is central to our Regenerative Human Capital. It is the heartbeat of the existential revolution. An individual’s ability to align inner values with outer actions, to convert data into discernment into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom, and wisdom into collaborative, lasting systems change. By honing our meaning‐making skills—sitting with discomfort, rewriting limiting narratives, articulating our “why,” and intentionally acting on that purpose within the larger, intergenerational awareness that is our responsibility, we build the personal and collective resilience needed to face the converging crises of our time.
From STEM 1.0 to STEM 2.0: The Hidden 90%
Everyone talks about AI, robotics, and reskilling for the next industrial revolution. That's the visible 10%, the surface skills of STEM 1.0. But below the waterline lies 90% of what truly moves the needle: attitudes, mindsets, cross-disciplinary synthesis, and ecosystem thinking.
STEM 2.0 asks: When we design a medical device, policy, or algorithm, what are all the intersecting factors, e.g., social, cultural, economic, ecological, political? We're developing "Regenerative STEM" that's as concerned with "Who is left behind?" as "What can be built today?"
The Regenerative Revolution: From Competition to Collaboration
The archaic zero-sum thinking ("If I win, you lose") only holds us back. Imagine building a pie so big that everyone's slice grows. This isn't naive optimism; it's biomimicry. Just as rainforests thrive through symbiosis, with all diverse elements having a vital role to play in the grander ecosystem, our organizations and economies must become interdependent ecosystems where destroying one link shudders the entire chain.
We're moving beyond the primitive metric of profit alone. The regenerative approach insists on measuring People (social equity), Planet (ecological health), and Prosperity (economic viability to sustain for the long-term, not necessarily only “for profit” in the business sense).
Core Tenets of the Regenerative Mindset:
Humility to Change: Admit that our inherited systems have deep pathologies. Fight symptoms while uprooting the disease.
Decentering Ourselves: True ecosystem thinking means not seeing humans as the sun around which everything orbits. Learn from Indigenous cosmologies and biomimicry—let nature guide design.
Applied Innovation: Move beyond "We need more data" to the full spectrum: data → information → knowledge → wisdom → synthesis → coherence → action. We need to weave narratives connecting facts to lived experiences, policy solutions, and ethical imperatives.
Collaboration Over Competition: B Corps, cooperatives, community land trusts, and mission-driven startups trading "scale at any cost" for "scaling with conscience."
Your Call to Action: 7 Ways to Prime Your Brain for the Industrial, Cognitive & Existential Revolutions
Change doesn’t happen overnight. Transformation is the sum of daily choices and mindset shifts that add up.
1. Practice Daily Reframing
Next time social media makes you clutch your phone in dread, step back. Ask: "What long-term patterns is this feeding? Is this genuine crisis or manufactured distraction? How can I redirect energy toward building rather than just reacting?"
2. Cultivate Cross-Disciplinary Curiosity
Pick one "silo" you've always ignored—art, ecology, economics, history, technology. Spend a weekend exploring it, then ask: "How would an urban planner armed with biomimicry principles solve traffic congestion? How would a philosopher use AI to combat misinformation?"
3. Embrace Discomfort as Growth
When triggered by people, outrage, or setbacks, pause. Notice the fight-or-flight surge. Ask: "What question lies beneath this anxiety? What deeper understanding is my brain begging me to explore?" Practice "serenity now" (borrowing from George Constanza’s dad in Seinfeld) or any mantra reminding you that reality is multilayered and nuance is your friend.
4. Build or Join Ecosystems
Seek communities aligned with regenerative values—social impact co-working spaces, community gardens, cross-sector think tanks. Collaboration multiplies. As they say, courage is contagious. Your one spark can ignite a hundred others.
5. Reimagine Education and Work
If you're a parent, teacher, or employer, ask: "How can I reward inquiry over rote answers? How can I give people agency to learn rather than just drill?" Consider pilot programs or micro-internships letting learners tackle real problems, such as redesign a local policy, co-design a sustainable garden, produce multimedia stories on misinformation.
6. Center Meaning in All You Do
At day's end, ask: "Did what I do today align with my purpose? Did it build my regenerative capital—curiosity, humility, discernment, courage, discovery, exploration, wellbeing—or feed my fear and narrow metrics of success?"
7. Choose Your Legacy
Facing mortality (as recent events remind us we're all mortal, least of all Iowa Senator Joni Ernst’s “We’re All Going to Die” epithet) requires deliberate choices about how we deploy finite time and energy.
Standing on the Cliff before Us
Our moment demands overcoming both doomscrolling paralysis and false comfort. The choice is tough but clear: let powerful private bad actors and their interests harness AI, data, and public policy to entrench a permanent underclass (as situations like the Memphis AI turbines test remind us), or mobilize to reclaim our collective destiny.
As regenerative futurists, we must be audacious enough to ask better questions, humble enough to listen to ancient and nature’s wisdom, and coherent enough to collaborate across divides. Only then can we chart a regenerative path where every person, every ecosystem, and every future generation has a seat at the table.
From Vision to Reality
Here's the thing about movements: they start as whispers in spaces like this, then become roars that reshape the world. What I’m setting forth now, based on a lifetime of work, isn't just a concept we discussed tonight; it's becoming a living, breathing reality.
If this vision has stirred something in you, if you recognize yourself in these ideas, if you feel the pull to be more than a passive observer of change, then you're already part of the Regenerative Futurist movement. The question isn't whether you belong; it's whether you're ready to step fully into that identity.
Something transformative is taking shape in what I’ve been building, and I can’t do it alone. Where regenerative thinkers, builders, and dreamers come together not just to discuss these ideas, but to embody them. To develop the skills I've outlined here, and more. To support each other through the discomfort of growth. To collaborate on solutions that matter.
You'll be among the first to know when it launches. But for now, the movement begins with you, starting with in how you reframe tomorrow's headlines, in the questions you ask, in the wisdom you show to think seven generations ahead and in the courage you show to help get us there.
With gratitude,
Bian “B” Li
The Regenerative Futurist
Related Reading: All Change Starts with Mindset
Birthing the Balanced Future: How Matriarchal Thinking Can Heal a World in Crisis
A Mindset Reset for International Women’s Day
This is an excellent reframing of VUCA, and I completely agree with your "ego to ecosystems" approach. When we embrace interdependence, we open ourselves and our organizations to limitless potential.