The Wicked Opportunities Podcast The Futures School

In this episode of the Wicked Opportunities® Podcast, TFSX Principal Frank Spencer speaks with physician, aquanaut, dive medical technician, speaker, martial artist, skydiver, and VP of Immersive Medicine at Luxsonic Technologies, Dr. Shawna Pandya.


Dr. Shawna Pandya has a vision for shaping the future of medicine through transdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. 

Breaking free from conventional thinking, TFSX Principal Frank Spencer delves into futures through an "art-based" lens with ARTEFACTO Founders Andrea Busquets and Pablo Reyes Arellano. Explore their innovative approach, liberating us to envision new futures, "dream ourselves awake," and contribute to cultural evolution through civic participation. 

TFSX Co-Founder Frank Spencer discusses her new book, Combining, in-depth with Nora Bateson. Listen as Nora discusses poems, passages, and concepts from her book that reinforce our need to elevate our sacred connection to the cosmic whole to discover/engage with understand/undergo ancestral and generational transformation.

We know… it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way. (At least that’s what Mac Davis said back in 1980, and when was he ever wrong?). Nevertheless, we all need to realize that we hold only a small part of the larger human, planetary, and cosmic story, and such a realization will attune us to the deeper picture within various situations, as well as helping us to take our personal viewpoints, perspectives, and self-importance out of that picture. When this happens, we are better positioned to see what really desires to emerge for the betterment of the whole rather than designing a future that only serves the few. Or, as Spock so eloquently put it, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” We’re not suggesting that only a Vulcan can practice humility, but we do hope our podcast becomes galactically popular.

When you think about the future, does the idea of connection come to mind? It did for Kermit the Frog! (Well, at least in relation to rainbows, lovers, and dreamers). In reality, connection is a critical mindset when it comes to practicing rigorous foresight. Exploring alternative possibilities through the lens of ecosystems, interconnectedness, and the “larger whole” - past, present, and yet-to-come - is the only way to perceive the deeply emerging realities necessary for robust futures-readiness and futures-empowerment. Join connectors-extraordinaire Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer as they dive into the IDG of Connectedness to surface pathways toward holistic well-being, global community, and positive outcomes. Or, as our favorite green muppet once said, “What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing, and what do we think we might see?” I guess you’ll have to listen to find out. (Thanks Kermie!)

You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop… the Relating dimension! (Thank you for letting us include a Twilight Zone reference - this is a foresight podcast, after all.) Our first stop in this new dimension within the Inner Development Goals: Appreciation, a skill, and trait that enables us to cultivate wonder, gratitude, and awe - important capabilities if we want to become deep imaginariums and generative wellsprings of alternative possibilities and transformational realities. Without the ability to appreciate the unfolding world around us and to recognize the joyous potentialities that reside in spaces that are yet to be, our futures thinking will fall prey to the systemic dominance of a seemingly inescapable “nowism” or a fatalistic vision of self-fulfilling apocalypticism. As the inspirationalist Wayne Dyer once said, “The Universe provides abundantly when you’re in a state of gratefulness.”