Morris Misel

Have you noticed how decisions slip away faster than they used to? One day you think you’re steering, the next you’re adjusting to choices that somehow already got made by the market, by a competitor, maybe even by the AI you quietly let into your workflow.

I sit with leaders across industries and the same thought comes up, though they rarely say it aloud: are we really leading, or just reacting?

It’s not a lack of information. You have more than enough dashboards and “future trends” decks. The problem is simpler and more uncomfortable: you can’t tell which signals matter. So you freeze, or you double down on what worked last time. That’s not foresight. That’s rehearsing the past.

I call this PTFA™ — Past Trauma, Future Anxiety. Old shocks colour new choices. Fears inflate risks. Comfort disguises itself as strategy. Until you name it, you keep circling.

And that’s why prediction doesn’t save you. It looks useful, but it stops you from preparing. Real preparation is Immediate Futures™ work looking at the edges, mapping the Ripple Effects, deciding what to do when the weak signal you noticed today becomes tomorrow’s headline.

So let me ask you:

what small signals are you ignoring because they feel absurd?

What ripple effects are quietly building while your focus stays on quarterly metrics? And which decisions have you already outsourced, to habit, to history, or to AI, without making the choice explicit?

These are uncomfortable questions. They should be. Because the leaders who thrive are the ones who live in this discomfort, notice it, and use it.

They don’t wait for predictions. They prepare.

The Known Tension

Let’s ground this in what you already feel.

• Information overload. You’re not short of data; you’re short of signal.

• AI at the door. It’s not “coming.” It’s already in your systems, shaping hiring, risk, product design, even without you naming it.

• Markets that don’t pause. Volatility is normal now, not the exception.

• Human unease. From your graduates to your executives, everyone is wrestling with uncertainty. Anxiety bleeds into productivity. Fear shapes culture.

You know this.

It’s familiar.

But here’s the problem: when things feel this noisy, the natural instinct is to cling to prediction, to hunt for a single forecast, a trendline, something to make the chaos feel predictable.

That instinct is understandable.

But it’s not useful.

Why Prediction Fails

Prediction gives you a chart to stare at. Preparation gives you a set of moves.

Prediction narrows your view to a single possible tomorrow. Preparation keeps you open to multiple futures and helps you act across all of them.

Prediction gives comfort.

Preparation gives courage.

And courage is what leadership demands when the ground doesn’t hold still.

Foresight as a Practice

Preparation isn’t abstract. It’s a practice, one I’ve used with leaders across 160 industries. Think of it as learning to see through different lenses.

Ripple Effects

No signal stays in its lane. AI isn’t just technology. It ripples into jobs, regulation, culture, even how people talk about ethics at dinner tables. Spotting a signal is only step one. The real foresight is asking: what else does this touch?

HUMAND™

Work isn’t disappearing; it’s devolving. Tasks are breaking apart.

Some belong to humans - creativity, empathy, wisdom.

Some to machines - speed, repetition.

Some to AI - augmentation, pattern recognition.

HUMAND™ is a way to sort the chaos into clarity.

PTFA™

We carry scars and shadows into strategy. A board that once suffered a tech failure will over-invest in the next one. A team that missed a disruption will overcompensate for the next fad. PTFA™ makes those ghosts visible, so you stop mistaking reflex for foresight.

Decision Trust Zones™

From my foresight study Who Decides?. The insight is simple: some decisions must remain human. Others can be shared. Some can be ceded. Leaders who map their trust zones move faster and with more confidence. Leaders who don’t hesitate when they can’t afford to.

These aren’t theories. They’re practical lenses.

Try them, and the noise around you starts to sort itself into patterns.

Questions Worth Wrestling With

If we were sitting together right now, these are the questions I’d put in front of you:

• Which decisions are you comfortable giving to AI? Which are non-negotiably human? Have you ever made that line explicit?

• When did your organisation last name its PTFA™? Which past shocks or future fears distort the judgment of your board?

• What’s the weakest signal you’ve seen this month, the one that felt too absurd to take seriously? What happens if it isn’t absurd?

• When was the last time you ran a ripple map across your industry? What happens if a regulation in Europe cascades into your supply chain in Asia?

Preparation isn’t a slide deck. It’s these kinds of questions, asked regularly, out loud, across your teams.

What You Can Do This Month

You don’t need to overhaul your strategy to prepare. You need to build small habits that make foresight part of your rhythm. Try these:

1. Horizon Search. Once a week, note three signals outside your industry. A cultural moment. A startup launch. A regulatory whisper. At the end of the month, read them back. Patterns will show.

2. Ripple session. Take one new development, maybe a generative AI tool, and ask, if this is true here, what else might it change? Map across workforce, customers, regulators, competitors.

3. Decision Trust Zones™ workshop. Write down ten recurring decisions. Label them: human, machine, mixed. Share it with your team. You’ll be surprised how much implicit trust has already been given away.

4. Name your PTFA™. At your next board meeting, ask directly: what past experiences or future fears are shaping how we’re acting now? Call them out. See what changes.

Small practices, big difference. They move you from reacting to shaping.

Why This Is Human Work

Technology is brilliant at processing data. But only humans process meaning. That’s why foresight is human work.

Preparation is not about outcomputing AI. It’s about out-humaning it. Creativity. Empathy. Ethics. Wisdom. These aren’t soft skills. They’re the skills that will decide whether you use disruption, or disruption uses you.

When leaders embrace this, uncertainty becomes navigable. Complexity becomes human. Tomorrow becomes a choice you make today.

Choose Forward

Leadership in times like this isn’t about predicting. It’s about choosing.

Choose which signals you’ll notice.
Choose which ripple effects you’ll explore.
Choose which decisions you’ll trust to AI, and which you’ll protect as human.
Choose to name your PTFA™, so your strategies stop circling.

These are choices you can make now. Not in 2030. Not when the market stabilises. Now.

That’s what I mean by Choose Forward.

The leaders who do will stop reacting to other people’s futures and start creating their own.

Next Steps for You

If you want to build preparation into your leadership, start here:

• Signal scan. Ask your team to bring one surprising signal to your next meeting. Talk about it for 20 minutes.

• Ripple map. Choose a current technology. Spend an hour tracing how it could cascade into your people, customers, and industry.

• Decision audit. Map out who is really making the big calls, humans, machines, or AI. Where are you comfortable? Where are you not?

• Reflection. Write down the past trauma and future anxiety that most shapes your judgment. How would your choices change if you named it?

None of this requires new technology. It requires new conversation. That’s the essence of foresight: not predicting tomorrow, but preparing today.

Because the future isn’t waiting. It’s already unfolding. And your only real choice is whether you prepare to shape it or inherit someone else’s version.

Choose Forward

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Morris Misel is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and creator of Immediate Futures™. Heard by millions each year, he helps leaders prepare, not predict, the future.

Location: Global (Travels from Melbourne, Aus    Fees: US$20,000 in-person / US$15,000 vir

Service Type: Service Offered

Location: Global (Travels from Melbourne, Aus    Fees: US$20,000 in-person / US$15,000 vir

Service Type: Service Offered

Location: Global (Travels from Melbourne, Aus    Fees: Starting from $15,000 USD

Service Type: Service Offered