Aim For The Moon

Author and motivational speaker John Sanei aims to encourage the ‘futureproofing’ of his readers’ careers, but what’s beyond the buzzwords?

- Bruce Dennill

‘Future-proofing’ is an amorphous concept: today is yesterday’s tomorrow, for instance. When you were writing, how did you aim to ensure that your philosophy remains useful?

How do you stay thin for the rest of your life? The same sort of discipline applies – there’s a methodology involved. It’s necessary to understand the future in bite-size portions and to determine whether your mindset is that of a victim or a victor. Because it’s about mindsets, thinking this way, and using tools that allow you to be forever profitable, works for governments as much as it does for individuals.

Many people only innovate as far as their own capacity allows, but if they moved from that space to what gave consumers an advantage, they’d do better. They might need to create a system that works for them; to ritualise the way they do things, including the more frivolous aspects of their lives.

The definition of success differs from person to person, meaning that someone who apparently settles for less might be, using your system, seen as a ‘victim’. Are the extremes you’ve identified – the ‘martyr’; the ‘arrogant superior’ and others – more of an issue in this regard than the general middle ground, who are people who may be satisfied with their lot?