Jack Uldrich on the unlearning, regenerative futures, nurturing creativity, and being good ancestors (AC Ep64)

“Each of us is creative in our own way. We have the ability to create our own future, but we must first understand that we are creative.”

– Jack Uldrich

About Jack Uldrich

Jack Uldrich is a leading futurist, author, and speaker who helps organizations gain the critical foresight they need to create a successful future. His work is based on the principles of unlearning as a strategy to survive and thrive in an era of unparalleled change. He is the author of 9 books including Business As Unusual.

Website: www.jackuldrich.com

LinkedIn: Jack Uldrich

Facebook: Jumpthecurve

YouTube: @ChiefUnlearner

X: @jumpthecurve

Books:

Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money through Environment Friendly Stocks

Foresight 20/20: A Futurist Explores the Trends Transforming Tomorrow

Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker: Leadership Lessons from George C. Marshall

The Next Big Thing Is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business

Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies

Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition

Business As Unusual: A Futurist’s Unorthodox, Unconventional, and Uncomfortable Guide to Doing Business

A Smarter Farm: How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing the Future of Agriculture

Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future

What you will learn

• Embracing humility in future thinking
• The power of silence and meditation
• Navigating low-probability, high-impact events
• Why asking the right questions matters
• The role of AI in shaping human history
• Building resilience for uncertain futures
• Unleashing creativity to create a better world

Episode Resources

• OpenAI
• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Pi
• Anthropic
• Cascadian Subduction Zone
• The New Yorker
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Regenerative future

People

• Ray Kurzweil
• Nassim Taleb
• Suleiman
• Harari
• Jonas Salk

Film

• The Black Swan

Books

• The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
• Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Transcript

Ross: Jack, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Jack Uldrich: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Ross: You’ve been thinking about the future and helping others think about the future for a very long time now. So what’s the foundation of how you do that?

Jack: The foundation, I would say, is silence. First, it’s meditation. I actually try to get to the thought beyond the thought. And what I mean here is, I’m always looking for insights, but in order to do that, I first have to free myself of all my old habits, assumptions, and other ways of thinking. And so on a daily basis, I do try to meditate on that, and then I look for insights. And I want to make this clear, I’m not looking for conclusions. As soon as you’ve locked yourself into a conclusion or what you think the future is going to be, you’re going to get yourself in trouble. But insights, I do think we can come to insight. So I’ll just sort of step back and say that’s where I start — silence, contemplation, meditation,

Ross: That is absolutely awesome. I think this goes this idea of fluid thinking, as in, there’s a lot of people whose thinking is rather rigid, as in, think of a particular way, and ask a year or two or 10 later, and they’re thinking the same way, whereas that doesn’t quite work when the world is changing around you.

Jack: No, that’s right. And so the next thing I would say is, and I hope to sort of disabuse people of what they think futurists do. I’m quite clear in saying, first, I definitely don’t try to predict the future, but nor do I say I have the answer to the future. But having said that, that doesn’t absolve any of us of a more important responsibility, and if none of us have the answer to the future, we have to be sure we’re asking the best possible questions of the future. 

Frequently, when I see why businesses or organizations miss the future or why they became bankrupt, it’s not because they weren’t bright and intelligent, nor did they have capable C-staff, but they’re primarily answering the wrong question. They just didn’t understand either how technological change had shifted their business, their business model, their customer expectations, or they didn’t understand what their competitors were up to. So I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I’m asking the best possible questions of the future, while at the same time always having humility to the idea that there’s got to be a question I’m missing. And so I fall back on this idea of humility quite a bit, because it’s not what we know that gets us in trouble. It’s what we think we know, that we just don’t. And so we have to have humility as we approach the future.

Ross. Yes, yes. And that’s something that we don’t see quite enough of in the world when we look around. 

Jack: No, really. You don’t. I wish there could be a course on that, or just trying to help people. How do you actually embrace humility in a real way? I mean the Greek root of the word is hummus means close to the earth and so again, this sort of goes back to silence, but I think that I spend a lot of time in nature in order to do better thinking. I actually try to get away from my smartphone, the laptops, and all of this other stuff. 

I love your background. And I think one