Crunch Time

Eight Black Swans

About a year ago I read a fascinating book entitled The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In he describes the impact of the improbable in life and our capacity to cope with it.

The term Black Swan comes from the 17th century European assumption that 'All swans are white'. In that context, a black swan was a symbol for something that was impossible or could not exist.  The Black Swan Theory (according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb) refers to high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations.

Taleb's purpose in the book is to build robustness to the negative Black Swan events while exploiting the positive ones. 

The August/September 2009 issue of National Geographic's Adventure magazine describes 8 black swan events and how to survive them.  It's an interesting read.

Tsunami

Could the Cascadia subduction zone, a 680-mile fault line running off the West Coast, unleash a 2004-scale tsunami right here at home?

Drought

The American West is drying up fast. And the next megadrought may bring on the Super Dust bowl.

Avalanche

Last year a perfect storm of conditions killed three skiers, the most avalanche fatalities on ski runs in 30 years. Will climate change bring more slides to a ski area near you?

Megafire

For two decades, western wildfires have grown hotter, burned longer—and become ever more unpredictable. As the climate warms, could big blazes turn into a common hiking hazard?

Power Grid

America’s power supply is primed for an end-of-days blackout

Pandemic

Swine flu? Pffft. Epidemiologists are bracing for a far more lethal bug—one that’ll stop global travel in its tracks.

Failed State

There’s a fine line between off the beaten path and out of control. Sometimes you find it.

GPS System

Satellite navigation works best with 24 functioning orbiters. If several were to switch off, thousands of adventurers could go off course.

How respond to these and other inevitable black swans makes all the difference in the world.

The constants of change

My main focus over the last twenty years has been helping people effectively migrate through the quandaries of contemporary change.  Without a doubt, the recent perplexities we are encountering are unprecedented in their scope and the challenges for us is extraordinary indeed.

I've discovered too the irony that change is consistent in its effects.  The larger the scope of the change the greater these constants seem to become:

1) It is frightening: Change makes the world seem less predictable.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address took on an unusually solemn, religious quality, and for good reason. By 1933 the depression had reached its depth and the nation was struggling. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined in broad terms how he hoped to govern and reminded Americans that the nation’s “common difficulties” concerned “only material things.”  It is in this address he uttered the now infamous words, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". 

We must learn to harness fear's energy and make it our heart's ally and not its enemy. 

2) It is threatening: Change implies that what exists now is inadequate

-We can get so confident in the way we've done things in the past, that it is can be a surprising and agonizing moment to discover that it no longer works for our current condition.  When we are threatened by change we usually choose one of three stances in reponse: Retreat, Retrench, or Relaunch.  For me relaunching is the most adventuresome and leads to richer discoveries and deeper redemption.

3) It is embarrassing: Change requires admitting and understanding our past errors.

-Being vulnerable is one of the most powerful attributes we can harness.  I believe it requires two elements: Humor and Honesty.  Laughing at ourselves is one the most mature defense mechanisms human beings have at their disposal.  In spiritual terms, it is the closest we can come to confession. Being vulnerable forces us to get to the heart of the matter in deliberately open ways. It means not pointing fingers at people or the past.  It means taking responsibility. Honestly interrogating our hearts during change is the first step in moving through change unencumbered by anxiety, insecurity and blame.