We are at a rare moment in time where the future is up for grabs and the following realms are in a state of upheaval: Environment Economics Society Education Politics Technology

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, others build windmills” – Chinese Proverb

This book and this innovation show are about this windmills and the people who are building them.

We talk about the heroes of innovation and disruption, those people sacrificing so much to make the World a better place:

Jamie Heywood’s nonprofit PatientsLikeMe portal – modelled after dating sites and his fight to find a cure for ALS after his brother Stephen contracted and died from the illness.

Samir Brahmachari, India’s highest ranking scientist who is fighting for a cure to fight antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. TB kills 4,000 per day worldwide and 1 person per minute in India. There hasn’t been a front-line drug since 1970.

We talk about Dr Erika Syger who was suffering death threats for her drive to disrupt and implement new food systems.

We discuss Peter Dearman’s “liquid air” engine, which brings food refrigeration to the developing world.

We talk about the energy trilemma and the clash between environmentalists and fossil fuel lobbyists. We discuss the great story of former professional basketball player Reinhard Koch and Mayor Peter Vadasz and the town of Güssing, Austria, which experienced a massive revival when it went green.

We mention the case of “Open Utility” and James Johnson who was inspired by Ethernet co-director Bob Metcalfe and built a smart grid based Ethernet, an uber for energy.

Ashley Atkinson and KGD (keep growing Detroit), which uses “urban farming” to achieve urban renewal.

In education, we talk about Carl Jarvis and how he turned around one of the UK’s worst-performing schools in spite of the education system who bullied him.

In politics, we mention Maria Ines Naha and Fernando Pimental of Brazil and the idea of participatory budgeting, where citizens decide where the budget is assigned.

You can find out more about Mark Stevenson and his books here:

https://markstevenson.org/

John Warrillow is the creator of The Value Builder System™, a statistically proven methodology for improving a company’s value by up to 71%.

We talk about the many pitfalls facing companies including “The Owner’s Trap”, where the revenue cannot grow beyond the owner’s time. We talk about how businesses falter because of over-exuberance by the entrepreneur owner and how this leads to employee churn. John demystifies many issues around possible acquisition. We talk about how to position your company to look attractive by a likely acquirer, but in doing so make it a better business for yourself.

We talk about making it a more compelling business for customers and even the tweaks that should be made to language surrounding your business.

John is the author of the bestselling book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, which was recognised by both Fortune and Inc Magazine as one of the best business books. Built to Sell has been translated into four languages. John’s latest book, The Automatic Customer: Creating A Subscription Business In Any Industry was released in February 2015. Before starting The Value Builder System™, John started and exited four companies, including a quantitative market research business that was acquired by The Corporate Executive Board (NYSE: CEB) in 2008.

Dale Archer M.D. is a Psychiatrist and Founder/CEO of The Institute for Neuropsychiatry and NYT bestselling author of two great books: ‘The ADHD Advantage’ and ‘Better than Normal’.

We talk to Dale about how ADHD can be a huge advantage if we society reframes ADHD-ers to see it as an advantage and not a sickness. We talk about the perfect storm of overdiagnosis, the profits from ADHD medication and trigger-happy prescriptions of ADHD drugs. We talk about how the ADHD brain works and is challenged by our one-size-fits-all education system. We talk about the ADHD gifts of resilience, “Bingo-Brain, non-linear thinking and multi-tasking. Dale shares some tips for parents of ADHD-ers and we celebrate some of the heroes of ADHD.

You can find out more about Dale Archer and his work, including where to buy his books here: http://drdalearcher.com/

From Buddhist monks to the early stages of psychology, attention has been deemed a vital element of success.

In a world vying for our attention, if we can become masters of this attention, we can lead happier more present lives.

Dr Joseph Cardillo is this week’s guest. He is a martial artist, doctor and author of: ’Body Intelligence – Harness Your Body’s Energies for Your Best Life’, ‘The Five Seasons’, ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’,  ‘Be Like Water’, ‘Bow to Life’ and the focus of today’s show Can I Have Your Attention? How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus and Sharpen Your Concentration’.

We explore some of the attention building exercises and processes outlined in his book and how we can reset our increasing attention deficit. We discuss how we can maximise our attention at work, in key moments where we are about to “lose our mind”.

We discuss how we can give our children the tools for better sleep as well as ourselves. We touch on how we can be victims of unintentional bias. Finally, Joseph emphasises the merits of meditation and the myriad benefits it can give us.

We speak with Andrew Keen, the pioneer of calling into question the impact of technology and the resulting new business models on society.

He has been called a luddite and a technological Antichrist for calling out such concerns.

Today, no-one calls him that today.

He is the author of the fantastic books:

‘The Cult of the amateur’

‘Digital Vertigo’

‘The Internet is Not the Answer’ and the focus of our chat:

‘How to Fix The Future’

Andrew’s book “How to Fix the Future” outlines a map of how we might approach the future of humanity amidst a world of ai, technology, algorithm and tech behemoths.

Andrew looks at how humanity has overcome huge change in the past and how we can use what we have learned in the past to fix the future.

We explore:

1. Legal regulation, where innovation and regulation are symbiotic. Andrew discusses some of the exemplars of regulation and how we can learn from them. We also discuss governments driving change such as Estonia, Singapore and even China.
2. Innovators and innovation diving change
3. The role of consumers and social responsibility, where consumers shape society with their needs.
4. Philanthropists, non-profits and committed change makers like Edward Snowden and you Andrew Keen!
5. Education and our roles as parents, teachers and educators of every kind.

You can find more about Andrew and where to buy his books here:

http://www.ajkeen.com/how-to-fix-the-future/

The anti-bullying movement has been full throttle for 18 years since Columbine shooting in 1999. The efforts to stop students from becoming victims of bullying have been solely focused on changing the world around the victim to create a less hostile environment. This has failed.

Brooks Gibbs has flipped the approach to bullying and empowers victims to be emotionally resilient so they are not hurt in the first place. This is a simple solution to a complex problem and the only approach that can keep children from killing themselves or others in retaliation. 

So we will be contrasting a direct versus indirect approach to help kids. A legal versus psychological approach.

More on brooks here: https://www.brooksgibbs.com/ and his programme here: https://brooks-gibbs.mykajabi.com/store/97335cvs