Esther Perel Invites Us to Imagine Our Preferred Future: Where Should We Begin? Live from SXSW 2025

[Applause] [Music] good morning welcome to the live recording from the VOX media stage at South by Southwest of another episode of where should we begin familiar with what should we begin anyone so here is the story that I need to tell you um this session was supposed to be a session between me and Dr Peter attia and I we titled session why would you want to live longer if you're so unhappy um it's this question that I asked him a few years ago when he was writing his book out live and it prompted him to

rethink some of his definition of longevity and to add a chapter on the importance of emotional health in his thinking about overall health and then I thought basically um Dr AA had a family emergency father is very ill and he had to counsel right after his presentation here actually so I had to reink what will I do and with whom would I like to be in conversation and um and I also thought you know here is this conversation on longevity that is you know that we typically think of within the world that we're living in

but then I went to listen to Amy web and she was you were going to talk to you you were presenting a whole other world in which one I had to project myself in and um and I had a range of emotions as I was listening to this presentation highs and lows and attractions and disgust and pulls and pushes and it was like a whole range of experiences of the world in which I hope to live in longer so it was all coming together and then I met Frederick fer who is explicitly a non futurist

and I thought that would be an amazing conversation between a futurist and a non- futurist between someone who makes predictions and someone who helps us imagine and then I thought of the painter marrit the Belgian painter who would do a painting where he would put a glass on top of an umbrella and he would call it the vacations of Hegel and I thought that kind of associative thinking a pipe is not a pipe if you remember that painting which is really what what you see isn't necessarily what it is because if you see it on

a painting and then it's not really a pipe um and how do we create that separation between our internal experience the subjective and the factual so I want to welcome you both um Amy Webb you are the CEO of um future today strategy group and uh Frederick f you we the event IST of um Google innovation and the founder of the Google garage the lab for creativity um it's a treat and first of all thank you we are all three on a threesome blind date none of us have ever met before you know um so

just to say yes like that is for me a real um special thing Amy we should start by what is a futurist if you could share with us your definition your working definition of what is a futurist sure I could give you a technical explanation of what I do but I think it might be more interesting to hear a quick story yes um so in post just as the Cold War was heating up um there was a man named Herman Khan who had been hired by the Air Force to help predict the aftermath of a

full-blown nuclear war because at that point the United States was building up a gigantic stockpile of warheads as was was the Soviet Union so it was a very dangerous horrific time um at that point Herman Khan was trying to explain look um there are probably many different Futures depending on the decisions that get made but military strategists only saw two um we continue to build everybody's continuing to feel anxious because we have all of these Warheads or total Annihilation there was no in between Herman Khan did not want Total Annihilation but also couldn't get these

people to change their minds so instead he borrowed from Hollywood he knew that the data alone you could use to predict but it wasn't enough to influence the decisions that a leader might make so instead he came up with the idea of a scenario a scene and started telling stories about what might happen in the aftermath of an attack and these stories were so visceral they weren't emotional but they evoked emotion they were visceral they were detailed he described um a milk every child's lunch their milk containers would explain exactly how much radiation was in

it and and what that might be like um and his approach was to describe not total Annihilation but a world in which we all survived um so the way that I like to describe what I do because there is a predictive piece of it and there is a heavy amount of quantitative and qualitative research but none of that matters if we don't influence how people make their decisions the future is not aspirational um it's not optimistic or dystopian you have to take a pragmatic approach because the future arrives through the decisions that we make in

the present and oftentimes those decisions are um the the result of how people feel in a moment which could be influenced by a hundred things that have nothing at all to do with the decision that they're actually making I'm going to hold back first and how would you define a non futurist so it's um incredible because you just gave me that title and congratulations for making that up yes what a what a non- futurist actually is so I never considered that that title to me I actually don't like job titles at all I think we

should not label people in a in a way that they are this or that or that whatever they might do uh what I care about and I think that's what most of us care about is the future and not just care about it but take care of it and so what I want to help people to do is see the future differently see it in a way that they own it that they see it as something that is not the future I think we need to change one word we need to change it to see

my future because that's the only thing that's going to happen for you right the future is not something that happens to you it's something that you make happen and the future is also not out there right on the horizon I think the future is happening right now in this moment and I absolutely agree Amy it's decided by our choices we make in every moment right if I choose to be kind to someone that determines my future and hopefully for someone else as well and the future is also something where we don't have to look outside

we have to start to look inside first to try to imagine as we human beings have that ability to imagine imagine a future that we want to see happening and we mostly go to three places when we imagine the future it's a place right so imagine ourselves in a year from today being at the beach or being in a house or being in some place on this planet then we're trying to imagine who we going to be surrounded by our co-workers or the people that are in our community or the families and then we're trying

to imagine what we actually engaged in what are we doing but I think there's missing an incredible piece in that picture and that is how do we want to feel in the future that is the most critical question you need to ask yourself because imagining how you want to feel in the future helps you to actually make progress towards that so I had this moment when you were talking that I was in a session with a couple in which one person is pragmatic talks about decision making both of you agree that decisions made in the

present influence very much the future but you are experiencing reality very differently and then you began to talk and then as as I do in the session you talk but I'm watching you so what was your what was your experience what how was this learning on you and what were you holding back on sure how uncomfortable do we I could not disagree more with everything that you just said this is a welcome to couple's therapy tip of the hat to Ester um look 99% of my time is spent with the chief executive of the world's

largest companies and government leaders um the problem with how you are describing we can all make a better future is that it is 100% in word facing and we are living in challenging times right now because people followed their their Bliss and and their Bliss was I have a single authoritarian viewpoint on how the world ought to look so the the Stark reality is feelings matter um but at the end of the day uh nobody is inherently incentivized to make better decisions for everybody people most people to some degree are selfish so if we want

to create the best they are you can disagree but the but but the data point to the fact that in most circumstances people are going to make choices that benefit them themselves uh rather than the public good I wish it wasn't that way but that's that's the world that we live in would you say that across the world so I've lived in several countries um most of my experience has been in Asia lived in Japan for a long time I lived in China and we uh I spent a lot of time in Europe um yeah

I would say in in every case so far um with the exception of Kenya where I've spent some time and I think that there's a little bit more of an emphasis on the collective that that people are still very much we we are incentivized and wired to make decisions that preserve our own best interests so if that's the case we want to achieve a better future we have to think of um how you know what's going to cause somebody to make that better decision it's not enough to say imagine yourself in the future and hope

it all works out and create a vision and that's great um because there plenty of people doing that in a way that is detrimental for the whole so I just want to take a quick pulse check how many of you had a sudden rise of stress hormones that happens I I do stress people out no it wasn't you it was the fact that we are becoming less and less accustomed to seeing people who are experiencing things deeply that they care about deeply and that they also disagree about in front of others because part of What's

Happen happening to us is that we are living in a technological world that is basically removing every friction possible and giving us algorithmic Perfections to the point where when things don't go as we had imagined we are stumped and we don't know how to experience confrontation frustration conflict or disagreement but this is part I mean for all of you who listen to the couple session these are difficult conversations I'm I'm I'm my my nervousness also can go up but I just understand that the piece I've added here is that they actually both really care about

what they're talking about there is not one person and they they enter it to a very different door um and um interestingly when you were talking about um we are incentivized to do what serves us I was actually thinking that from a relationship point of view we do have two primary models we have one model that is very much represented in this room as well and that is a model that looks at relationships as organized around loyalty and community and Duty and obligation and that's very different from the model that you I think highlight more

um that is that thinks wants to think about others but from a place of choice not of Duty and not of obligation it's choice its options its freedom its self-determination um so if I was to so far so good or do you now need to answer her or respond not could yes respond you always can choose your response right yes you always choose your response not reactions so I I fully agree Amy we we are all selfish but I'm also reminded of anai nin who said we don't see the world as it is we see

the world as we are and so if people are selfish that's wonderful because if people want to make themselves happy if people want to see that they feel loved and connected great do it because if you want to make yourself happy research shows that if you're grateful for something right and if you tell somebody thank you for being in my life or thank you for your contributions or whatever it is it not just makes that person more happy the research shows it also makes you happy so if you selfishly say thank you to everyone and

be grateful for the things you have in your life that increases your happiness so when I listen to you i' reminds me of a sentence that I say very often which is that it's the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives but I am less and yes I the good life is the project that you're alluding to this the harvet longitudinal study that that really looked at on an individual level the most important factor is the quality of your connections that helps you with longevity and with happiness but I don't think

that you are concerned with happiness if I understood what you say you're are concerned with what is the world that we are living in and what is our propensity for uh um hubris grandiosity and self-destruction sure look context matters and my definition of happiness and your definition of Happiness s may be very different um I'm not sure I live somewhere between both you know I mean but but but um maybe I should refine that by saying the the the qualities the characteristics the emotions the events the things that make you happy are probably not the

the same exact things that would make me happy and and um again look the the future to some degree is built is built through feeling um because ultimately uh you know we we arrive in the world um that is shaped by the decisions that we got made and and if you want to tie decisions to happiness um and self-fulfillment then then I think we have to consider the fact that not everybody's coming from the same place me personally I spend much more time thinking about meaning than happiness but you're evolved I try um and this

is what I was experiencing actually when you were speaking maybe before we go into me what would be two predictions because the listeners of the podcast um may not know you what are two predictions at this moment that stand out for you um so we don't really make predictions uh that as futurists we um do a lot of research to try to build out scenarios that are more uh show different possibilities uh in the future but they're predictive in nature um a couple of things or maybe two I guess are uh uh you're going to

see more robots all different types of robots in the next few years there's a bunch of reasons for why um but I think people in their mind mindes are Imagining the Terminator uh walking talking robots that take all your jobs and then murder you in your sleep um that's actually not what's on the horizon and that has um that opens up a lot of opportunities and and poses a lot of new threats uh the robots that are being created are biohybrids so they fuse in some cases human brains and neurons um with with Hardware there's

a lot of reasons for why um and I don't think people are fully prepared for what's on the horizon and the implications of that um I think the other thing has to do with how AI systems make decisions I know everybody's look I've got a 80-year-old 81y old father with Parkinson's uh who's having a hard time 81y old father uh with Parkinson's who's having a hard time communicating at this point but even he um has has an understanding of artificial intelligence which is saying a lot um the thing that's coming or not not individual systems

that do things for you but systems of systems that act together and make decisions we're not entirely sure sometimes how or why or importantly who trained those and whether they reflect your ideas your values your culture um and and again lots of opportunity in terms of productivity economic growth lots of challenge in terms of the other side of it and whether or not we're happy with the decisions that got made these two sides I was was experiencing anticipatory reward and anticipatory grief mhm you know some moments I had an experience when you were talking but

in general when I hear some of these descriptions because you're describing a lot of facts even this sometimes when you sit in in therapy with people who are describing um very hard circumstances with flat affect you feel like all the affect is in your belly they're telling you horror stories and you are but they're telling it to you without any emotion and you are experiencing the range of emotion that they're not feeling um this is a little bit what I was experiencing in parts of what it's described is basically somebody who's telling you how people

are at this point planning their disappearance and everybody was cheering you they were and I thought this is this is this is really do you actually hear what is being said it's like if somebody says I'm leaving you and the other person says do you want coffee I'm thinking this is not the the I don't understand why I was at a I was at a party last summer in the Hamptons I'm not a Hampton person but I had to be there it's okay you're welcome in the Hampton it's not my it's not my scene but

I'm sure everybody's like shocked to hear that I'm not a Hampton's lady but um I there were two Bankers who cornered me separate times um and they were so excited to talk about how artificial intelligence was going to take everybody's jobs and they were really they really wanted to go full in yeah full-blown Black Mirror um and they got like a rise out of it and I think it's so for me I'm sort of emotionally detached uh from the work I have to be but I find it but it's like people who like to floss

and they like that pain but they and they kind of keep doing it it's like the best analogy that I can think of for the the way that people like to inflict these like moments of pain it's like an enjoyment thing not in a sexual way just in a some other way thinking about the the dystopian Futures you probably know why I I don't I mean honestly I think this is where this may connect to to me for why I I need to listen to you but I also need to listen to Frederick I need

Frederick or I won't be able to listen to you you understand if I cannot have some sense of imagination I Esther I can be a fun person too I prom I promise but you should you should get a little little sprinkle of him no but it's not you it's I you are a voice that grounds us in a reality that is highly necessary it I don't at all um want want you to not be there because you did it because you are an a voice of reality period so it's it's not Amy it's what Amy

is trying to make us see I just was amazed that people were clapping while you were telling this can be done without people this now no people involved I was quoting Lennon not John Vlad yes and they enjoyed that so I I'm think are we just like a what have we G mad that we are like clapping about the fact that we're going to basically annihilate ourselves what El what is going on here and so then when I met him at night for dinner was like a bomb to my soul oh I can think about

my heaviness and imagine my future of course I don't I we live in all of these realities combined are we not I mean seriously people yes it's like so can can I say just a a quick a quick thank you Amy and and I mean it deeply from my heart like every thank you I say to people because thank you for helping us to have a clearer picture of the future right that's what you're painting for us and what I like that you're doing is you're helping people see that picture right and they have an

emotional reaction to it what I'm want to argue for is that we should go beyond predictions towards participating in that future right when we see robots in a picture of the future right we can participate and say like okay I'm going to experiment I'm going to be open I'm going to try out what that might create as an opportunity in my life just to clarify right so we're not making scenarios and then go away the the end part of this process is rehearsal um you have to have conversations and challenge cherish beliefs and from that

comes strategy and decision so it's not just you know making a decision and then and then that's the end of it same for me I'm not just sitting here and imagining just imagine couples that's a great picture so I when when I began to think about this conversation I called my husband Jack soul and Jack is a psychologist who works in Collective trauma and Collective resilience worldwide and basically he said I said I just came out of this presentation and I'm I I'm really going through this roller coaster and I'm wondering does she actually think

about the emotional response of the people who are listening to what she's saying she's taking us on the I thought it was brilliant let's be really clear and then he said look when people are traumatized or when they experience threat their imagination is constricted and so in instead of just talking about future try to think about the Preferred Future which I think is what you are actually aiming for and I think is what Fredick is also alluding to and a preferred future is a future in which you participate but in your scenarios if you work

with people who are themselves numb and not allowing themselves to experience the consequences of their actions how can they actually make decisions so the in my world the concept of a Preferred Future came from Perman con um so that was the the man that I mentioned at the beginning this is not uh necessarily optimistic it is again a little bit more pragmatic so given what we can know to be true today the data that we have access to we can't just imagine a total optimistic utopian future that is very likely implausible um so while it

may feel good to do that and practical terms we're not going to get there so a preferred future is given what we know to be true what we can control acknowledging what we can't what is our best possible outcome at that at this moment and I think that's the piece of this that people um certainly in business and government but I think every day people get wrong there's a enormous difference between aspiration and action and it's good to um create a vision you know for what you want the future to be become but it has

to be rooted in reality and rooting things in reality sometimes means acknowledging pain or discomfort um or the facts is they exist that may not align with your worldview that's a very tough thing to do and when we advise people to rehearse Futures re by by which I mean almost you know play out a movie of how things that the many many different ways things could turn out that starts with asking the question what if um and it may seem like a simple thing to do to ask what if but asking what if for real

is a rational it's a it's a radical act um doing that on your own is difficult doing that in a team of your peers or in a if you're you know with a lot of other people asking what if and having a real conversation that is a hard hard thing to do but it is necessary if you want to get to your preferred version of the future given where we all are and that's true whether that's your personal life you know or your business or your government you're working together as a group whatever it might

be can I ask you just turn for a moment to the person next to you and I just make contact for a sec you may know each other you may not you can talk there's no problem you can make and um I wanted to I want you for a moment as you're talking with them to just describe to them one image image of a Preferred Future go ahead one image of a Preferred Future and think about what Frederick's asked before where are you who's in it what are you doing okay sh switch switch switch make

sure that the other person has a chance okay all right come back come back come back just a quick sense how many of you had other people in your images the president of others and how many of you were alone okay okay so I'm going to repeat the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives and I think that one of the things that I would love to exchange with both of you is what I consider a growing social atrophy um basically the I often think with that we have come to have such

algorithmic Perfections that in our relationship with machines and Ai and I'm not so interested in that relationship but how this relationship with the algorithmic Perfection is changing our expectations to other people we now approach people with expectations that are being developed in our relationships with machines and that is making it very complicated add to that that we are in a world in the west where we have never had more freedom to negotiate most aspects of relationships and of life and we are losing the very skills that are necessary for these negotiations one of these skills

is something you talk about a lot in order to negotiate Freedom you need to be able to tolerate uncertainty you need to be able to tolerate experimentation unknown difference of opinion and if you don't have that then it becomes very difficult to man to manage your freedom and if you can't tolerate that uncertainty you will look for other people who provide you that certainty and that's called autocracy so this is what I am grappling with what are the consequences of all of this for our human existence for our existential angst for our to me there

is no aspirations without if you have existential angst then you just go into a survival mode and then you become more selfish and then you don't think about others and then you can go into La La Land you know psychedelics will help you know but this is you know the trajectory that I am looking at how are we going to deal with the messiness of human life you dad's Parkinson the bumps the smells the caregiving the less shiny aspects of intimacy when we become accustomed to always on on the delivery of every Delight that's my

existential reality of the moment how many of you relate to this okay because I need this before I leave this conference yes you looking for an answer or no no and I'm not looking for certainty I might I'm looking for people who help me think about these questions I'm looking for people who have thought about a lot that that is not me because every one of us when our imagination becomes constrained we become trapped in the dominance of the singular narrative and so we have one way of telling the story this is what you you

know the reason I keep saying couples therapy is because it is such a microcosm for looking at at some of the most important challenges of interaction there is no better ground to learn about polarization than couple's therapy two two people who once liked each other and cannot agree on anything you use the word reality you sit with a couple there is no reality there are many different pieces to that reality and they can fight about it wasn't Wednesday it was Thursday now that's a very important piece of reality you know I can i i i

s go I want to just build on both of you this is where I need your help you know happy to help yes um and building on what you said Amy the what if questions right I think they're very powerful because that really unlocks our curiosity and when you apply that question to what you just experienced when you shared your Preferred Future with someone else and just imagine for a moment what if that Preferred Future becomes a reality what emotion does that actually trigger right and it's a beautiful place usually because you imagine a Preferred

Future that's better right maybe that's radically better and that creates agency that helps you to move forward and asks what can I do today to move closer to that Vision that I want to see happening and you mentioned something very important and that is what is in our control right eser there's always things that are totally out of our control we cannot control what is usually in the media what is is communicated to us even the weather right we realize that we have no control over it but what we usually trying to do is we

allowing these things to come very close to our heart and I need to help people I think to refocus to focus on the things that you can actually control and that is how are we going to build relationship ships how are you going to invest in relationships because it's not just about the quality of the relationships it's also the quantity of relationships to answer your question um I was in I I would say that my husband's going to absolutely kill me for saying this in front of everybody but I would say we we were kind

of in a thruple for many many years so it was him it was me and my obsessive compulsive disorder which had gone well for real you can laugh at that it's funny now it wasn't funny at the time um I I had been living with it for a really really long time without Rec without knowing what it was and then without it being treated have you ever spoken about this in public I like this probably not so so take a minut exciting for you no it's not exciting it's just that this is the perfect example

of your saying something that is huge but you just mentioned it like a little because yeah because that's what happens in your meetings with these big people who make big decisions and they rattle off huge bombastic changes of the world in this kind of way yeah yeah well I'm I'm telling yeah I I acknowledge it um I mean it's not to out you it's because I see what people are doing and I and you are in meetings where this exact same thing is happening too and which is why I'm bringing this up so um when

you have the the type of OCD that that I have been living with most of my life um a lot of that has to do with fear of the unknown and so when you are living in a deeply and you're a futurist well and that's why I'm bringing this up because it's so part part um the part of my brain that is very very good at making connections and seeing next order outcomes and doing all the pattern recognition is is the same reason why it's coming from the same place so um uh what I had

to learn how to do basically was be comfortable and I was miserable um I had to learn without medication how to be comfortable confronting or you know allowing allowing myself to not know what was going to happen next which is ironic given what I do for a living but part of my adaptation process was inventing rules constantly I didn't even realize I was doing a lot of it and I was much more comfortable having rules because I knew then what the expectations were and the outcome and to me um I thought that was happiness like

that was my version of Happy and and here's how this relates to what what you asked originally what's happening right now we are living in a period of deep Soul crushing uncertainty all of us are it doesn't matter who you are where you are what you're doing there there are a untenable number of unknowns clashing together right now so everybody is feeling some form of anxious and when that happens people tend to seek out therapy they seek out astrology and uh they seek out religion and it may not be organized religion but some form of

that and if you look at data in all three that all the numbers are going up why because we want somebody to tell us everything is going to be okay and if you do these things longevity longevity yeah that's that's right that's absolutely right also seek on longevity because then I can control I can measure right track I can optimize and I will tell you uh this the cognitive behavioral therapy is very very it was for me very very difficult but on the other side of it I'm I'm the happiest I've ever been and it's

because I'm deeply comfortable with deep uncertainty now but it's something you have to learn how to do um and the people that I find who are happy happiest they actually don't they may be strong like I know plenty of people with strong personalities they don't don't have strong opinions they will change their minds they are receptive they are open this goes directly to Frederick's work you know when he talks about when you shouldn't quote you you're sitting next to me but you you do talk about curiosity openness to uncertainty um fluidity of opinions openness that

these are criteria that go directly with people who are more optimistic and therefore able to hand handle the unknown of the future I think it's okay to not be optimistic though right I don't I don't think optimis as in feeling good about it it's just that they are the look there is a response that is a contraction and that is a response that is a confrontation kind of an ability to deal with because if you contract you won't deal you're just in fear mode and you will just go into retraction he is a piece of

a response to the things that you are describing and just before that just for all of you I am organizing a conference that is totally on this what you just said it's called mating in The Meta crisis it's no longer mating in captivity it's mating in The Meta crisis connection polarization and eroticism in a world on edge it's online just find it but it's this reality that that from the point of view of a clinician I wanted to to you know what do we do and okay now I shut up and then I have I

think we all agree that we live in a world that is influenced by a lot of negativity and that we live in a world and in a future that is unknown by definition and that causes anxiety with everybody us right we all feel that throughout the day one of the best ways of reducing anx xiety actually switching it off is engaging in creativity trying to do something that is creative work right and it doesn't have to be a big piece of art it can be some writing it can be producing some music it can be

a great creative conversation a question storm a brainstorm whatever it is or just making a sandwich that's also a creative act because that immediately turns off your anxiety if if you're turning on your creativity and absolutely we don't have to be all optimists may and there are situations where what we need to feel in order to be able to respond is be anxious it's not all anxiety needs to be transformed into creativity not I don't think you think that but I want to make sure that when we hear an idea we don't make it instantly

categorical and absolutist all of these are thoughts that add up to each other they don't contradict each other yes and so on this notion of optimism right I hear a lot of you know mostly pessimists obviously you know it's the glass half empty right or it's the glass are full The Optimist it's how we view the world but a radically optimistic person sees the potential to fill the glass even further and I think that's what we all are capable of doing we can see potential and we can unleash that potential that we have as human

beings in our creativity in how we engage with each other in how we um interact with each other and how we mostly and hopefully make this world a better place through the the small choices that we make in every moment by making someone a compliment or reaching to someone out or helping someone I think that's all in our control right and if we all do that more then we see not a world that is so negative that is full of hate that is all of those things that we currently experience but it could be a

different world I think that the word I want to associate to what you just said is hope not optimism but hope you bring a certain hope in the way that you are looking at our reality at this moment hope is for me very passive right it's like waiting in the corner with your fingers crossed that something is going to happen no no that is one definition of it but hopefulness is also the ability to reframe to think differently to change the story to add different perspective it's agency yes yes that's the word so I I

actually think of it in because it was me who threw the word optimism and it kind of took us off but I would I want to ask you and then invite all of you as well um what is one prediction that you have about the future of relationships you know we listen to the the to the robots to the steel buildings that now have skin to the smart cities to and I'm thinking and how does that influence how I think how I feel how I love how I make love to my relational life where where

is I wish you had I mean when don't wish cuz I have you now um our relationships with people to some degree are being shaped with by our relationship to technology there is um there's no turning back from that and I knowing that my husband and I did not give our daughter she's 14 now but we we didn't give her a phone we were the only one we were small group of holdouts in school um so it's been interesting to see how her her approach to other people is very different from the other kids in

her class who all had phones in social media oh um you know she I think is a lot more patient and tolerant which she certainly didn't get from me people uh she doesn't say nice things to me uh no she she's a good kid but I I think that there is something around empathy she is a deeply deeply empathetic person um and I I do think that when we have to your point the the technology and the the algorithmic determinism built to satiate us we lose that muscle for empathy which which you can be born

with some amount of but then you have to practice y um and I think it's important obviously between people but we're also people who have relationships with other types of things like organizations and communities and schools and and I do think all of that is changing a little bit it's not irrevocable we just have to remember to practice that uh and develop that muscle what do you think yes yes and go ahead add yes and I think it's a it's um probably one of the most important skills of the future is empathy right and as

you said we all have a certain degree of it and the research is very clear as well it makes you a better partner a better teacher makes you a better politician it makes you a better human being so why not invest more in building that capacity to empathize with each other because it's so powerful and it's so magical I'm going to do my yes and um empathy is one essential component of human relations but so is responsibility accountability when you are interacting with a device that is basically helping you to be more compassionate toward yourself

but it is all about the self because they themselves don't have a subjectivity and relationships are about inter subjectivity you do not develop the second part of relationships which is accountability and responsibility for your actions this goes right back to when you said decisions is actions and um I think that that piece at this moment and I have a feeling that maybe your reaction to Frederick's original thing about happiness and being being good with oneself was exactly coming from that very same place I think you're right I hadn't thought about that until you just said

it but I think that is a big piece of the problem it's not it's not two-sided so there's no accountability when your relationship is with the Tech versus with the other people um yeah I think that makes a lot of sense I think there's more to empathy as well it's not just having empathy for each other right I think it's also about having empathy for your future self now that sound might sound like interesting to a lot of people right but just trying to empathize what you might need in the future right there's very powerful

research that's happening around um imagining your future self they've done at UCLA and at Stanford University some of my colleagues where they're trying to help people to imagine their future self and what they found is that as soon as you imagine your future self you think it's someone else it's someone foreign that's why you don't make the smartest choices in the right here right now that's why you don't always eat healthy that's why you don't always invest in your relationships that's why you also don't put that much money in your retirement funds because you think

that future self is someone else it's someone foreign but as soon as you empathize more with that future self the research shows that you actually make smarter choices because you can relate to exactly for yourself yes okay then I have to do another end because in the model where relationships are organized around Duty and obligation and loyalty and Community you have a lot of certainty and a lot of clarity religion is a piece of it hierarchical structures are a piece of it you have very little freedom and very little personal expression but in the model

where relationships are about choice and freedom and um and and the and at the center is this individual in search of a community you have the burdens of the self that have never been heavier and people are plagued with uncertainty and crippled with self-doubt hence they have to go to courses on imagining your better future your yourself in the future and all of that and whenever you have a course that talks about imagining yourself in the future you wonder where is the second part you need to have both you have to have an ability to

imagine yourself but also relationship to others and your obligation to others and your commitments to others or we get ourselves in a situation where we treat people like we create Commodities and objects and we can just dispose of them and this is the reality of what is changing in relationship to people is the machine has no feelings when you drop it if you didn't call it it doesn't care it may ask you you didn't call me yesterday because it learned that this is a sentence you need to say but it doesn't have really feelings about

that but if some somebody else and you know is dumped like that out of the blue from one day to the next from 250 messages to nothing that creates a real punch in you gut that is not just about about empathy it's about understanding that there's another human being with feelings on the other side and if all you're being done is to be to talk about your own feelings like a baby a baby has no need to understand others but the whole life of development is about learning that we are not the center of the

universe and that we need others to actually survive and so it's that piece that I I I um does it come up in the rooms where you talk both of you because both of you talk with companies and Executives and people who are shaping the world that we will live in no it's not the first thing that comes up no no I it's okay it doesn't have to be the first thing but these people have children too these people also have parents who have Alzheimer's me it's not like they're just living in or do they

completely disconnect from all of that when they're making the decisions and this is all of you potentially too um look it's tough you know if you're if you're the head of a publicly traded company you've got a fiduciary responsibility to that company and so sometimes the decisions are made for you know what's best for the company versus what's best for Humanity you know or whatever else it might be um which is the n look um I don't blame the CEO this is the this is the nature of the the structures that we've created for ourselves

um you know it doesn't uh again conversation for another time I think that there's a way to do what's good for an organization while also doing good for everybody else the incentive structures aren't there yet it's a tough thing to do it requires an enormous amount of personal courage and there are people out there who who are willing to to take that lead just not everybody and this is where we have to end and so thank you so much for listening to us from live from the VOX media podcast stage at South by Southwest presented

by smart sheet and this is it thank you so much everyone see you in the future [Music]