To imagine, challenge, story-weave. And hope.

E24: Job title: Futurist. But what are the verbs that describe it?

I’ve said it before: I am so inspired by our younger generations. These are the consumers and workers of 2035 and leaders of 2050. (Actually, at the rate they are going, probably way before!)

They show initiative, creativity and leadership. They don’t back down from a challenge and are willing to voice their opinions. Most importantly, they care about their communities — the broader ones around them, and each other.

From what I can see, our future is in good hands.

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Queens and Kings of Impact

It’s 2:00 PM on the Friday before President’s Day long weekend. As I flip the zoom switch I teleport myself from Toronto into virtual meetings rooms filled with students, teachers and superintendents in schools across Queens, NY. No matter how many times I do this, it still feels somewhat surreal. More like the Jedi High Council than anything I could have imagined in my strategy sessions 20 years ago.

I join Juvoni Beckford, co-founder of Personal Development Nerds and a former Software Engineer at Google, Kevin Carter, a Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager at Fiduciary Trust International and Melissa Southwell Archie, CEO and Founder of the Collective Lifestyle Group, a marketing agency based in NYC.  Together we will judge the six finalists in the Queens and Kings of Impact Hire Cause Cup.

We’ll be judging fundraising and awareness campaigns designed by these students to support local not-for-profit groups helping those in the homeless communities, mental well-being programs and healthcare serving children, victims of domestic violence, and local residents in senior care. I am excited! (As soon as I get the necessary permissions I will share as many details as possible about the organizations these students supported, and the projects they created.)

MBK/MSK challenge - the ultimate win/win

“Fitting choice of date,” I muse to myself. President Obama’s Foundation launched My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) to create safe and supportive communities for young men of colour, creating opportunities to help them “go as far as their dreams and hard work will take them.”

Little chapters of MBK and My Sister’s Keeper (MSK) have since sprung up in schools across the USA. Little chapters, but big-time inspiration. They offer these young students the opportunity to develop their overall confidence by accessing the broader set of leadership, networking and life skills that will help them as they advance through life. All key 21st-century skills.

Hire Cause, founded by David Dvorkin, is running this challenge. To help the students develop this broad set of skills, each chapter was tasked with selecting a local charity to partner with. They had to raise awareness for the cause and funds to support them. They are offered a range of tools, and mentorship to guide them. But ultimately, these projects offer them a chance to test out the full range of professional skills they will use in higher education and work.

We were here to pick a winner. But as Mr. Swift and Mr. Banjo from NY Dept. of Education stated, everyone here was already a winner. The students had added to their skill set. And communities in need had benefitted from the 25 schools that had participated in this initiative.

Why am I so inspired?

They show innovation under pressure

These high school students are studying and graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic. They had to figure out how to meet, how to create their projects and how to deliver results. What was already a challenging timeline was made more difficult as the Omicron variant shuttered schools in NYC.

• They created fundraisers and awareness campaigns that had to respect their own health and the health of the communities they were hoping to help.

• The closures made it more challenging to find ways to meet and organize as groups. Some teams went virtual, using group chats to organize when tech challenges meant not every team member could meet over Zoom.

• Most teams had learned early on to have a Plan B in their back pocket to deal with the inevitable uncertainty. The planned 5K got cancelled due to bad weather? - Well how about 1:1 information campaigns? Can’t pull together a car show within the timeline? - How about a toy drive?

Isn’t that so inspiring? These young people are maturing into a world of complexity and constant confusion. Their generation will not be short on problems to solve. They show that they have embraced uncertainty as their travelling companion.

They are grateful

This is probably one of the elements that I noticed in presentation after presentation. The appreciation of these young adults to see the abundance in the little that they themselves have access to while supporting those who need more.

“My conversation with D. was so reminiscent of old times I had with my grandfather. … Though my grandfather is no longer with me, my conversation with D. is something that I will forever hold to my heart.”

“Though we were there to make their day better, she ended up blessing mine.”

“Even if the fundraising was nerve wracking, I am glad we were able to raise money to help children in need. We were able to understand how depressing mental health issues can be.”

“I realized how much I have.”

This simple humility is a superpower. Civic engagement projects like these foster a sense of community. And we need that to make connections that help us stay human in a world run by AI algorithms.

These are the leaders of tomorrow

They are not shy. They meet challenges head-on. They care for their community and have created deep supportive connections with their own friends.

They are good people. A generation that their families and teachers can rightly be proud of.

I may have been invited onto the panel to offer this young generation some encouragement, but I am the one who walked away with a renewed sense of purpose for my task. In these young people, I see enthusiasm and energy — our hope for tomorrow.

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What are the verbs of your job?

David Dvorkin, Founder of Hire Cause, had prepared some questions for each panelist. The intent was to expose the audience of young students to the broader world of work that awaits them.

I found this question particularly interesting. Intriguing enough that it has taken a significant portion of my resting mindshare this past week. David found it in Anthony Spadafore's career guide, Now What?

Job titles often don’t tell the whole story.  What are your job titles and what are the “verbs” of your job?  In other words, what do you DO every day as part of your job?

Take two minutes. Grab a pen or keyboard, and work alongside me:

1. What is your current job title? Here are some that I have “owned” over the past few decades: Coder. Parent. Strategist. Small business owner. Blogger. Podcaster. Author. And Futurist.

2. What do you DO every day? I found this really interesting. On the first line under Futurist, I wrote “to imagine” “to challenge” “to connect - ideas, concepts, people” “to story weave” “to hope”.
   The role of a Futurist is exciting — but also lonely. You see possibilities that others are not yet ready to accept. Part of my “doing” is discovering possibilities. But the real value in this role is sharing those ideas with others. That requires confidence to engage — and a thick skin.
   It also requires a nature that continues to see the future as a refillable glass of optimism. Events like the MBK/MSK challenge last weekend are the elixir that keep refilling my glass and offering me encouragement and hope.

I sense there is material enough for another essay from this question. I’ll be writing this one for me. But I am intrigued — does it get you thinking about your job title and your job “doing”?

How can you imagine your job being the same, and being different, thirty years in the future?

More importantly, if you were asked to explain your job to a young student, what part would be the title, and what part would be verbs? Of the verbs, which is the one that stands out to you as counter-intuitive?

This is edition 24 of the Tilt the Future newsletter. It is a weekly dose of hope that lands in your inbox, dear Tilter. Was there a phrase today that lifted your spirits? Please share it back with me. Or share it forward, if that is your thing. And I’ll see you again next week!

Karena

P.S. I am passionate about creating as smooth a transition into the new world of work for all ages, but particularly for our youngest generations. Please contact me as David did if you see an opportunity for me to share this message with a wider audience.