What Is Your
Futures Mindset?
How do you think about the future?
Are you endeavouring to create a business
that solves a significant problem in the world?
How is your mindset impacting the results you get?
The Attitudes
Optimists welcome the future, pessimists fear it. Some people see the future as definable and something that can be actively created. Others perceive the future as less defined and not within their personal agency. Combining these possibilities yields four views:
Indefinite Pessimism: An indefinite pessimist looks out onto a bleak future, but he has no idea what to do about it. According to Theil this describes Europe today, which just reacts to changes and hopes things don’t get worse.
Definite Pessimism: A definite Pessimist believes the future to be known, but since it will be bleak, he must prepare for it. In Theil’s opinion, China is the most definite pessimistic country in the world today.
Definite Optimism: To a definite optimist, the future will be better than the present if he plans and works to make it better. Theil believes that this describes the USA in the 1950s-1960s.
Indefinite Optimism: To an indefinite optimist, the future will be better but he doesn’t know how exactly, so he won’t make any specific plans. Instead of working for years to build a new product, they rearrange already developed ones. Theil suggests that this is the USA today.
