What Could Go Right - by Justin Bean (Paperback)

About the Book

What Could Go Right invites you to ditch cynicism about the future, and build the one you want.

Book Synopsis

WINNER: Book Excellence Awards, 2023 (Sustainability category)

WINNER: Nautilus Book Awards, 2023 (Silver)

AMAZON BESTSELLER (New Releases and multiple categories)

Practical optimistic futurism: a playbook for turning doomscrolling into designing a thriving future.

Instead of worst-case scenarios or Pollyanna optimism, you can envision an ideal world and be empowered to build it. The opportunity of our era is to transition to a sustainable, equitable, abundant global economy. When you rethink your mindset, understand tech and social trends, and design a future you want to live in, you can thrive by building a better future for us all.

From doom to design: a toolkit for leaders who want to build a future of sustainable abundance.

Packed with insights, tools, and ideas for what an ideal future might look like and how to build it, What Could Go Right focuses on these three things.

Your Mindset: Rather than accepting dystopian tropes about our future, we'll look at the reality of our current time as the most abundant and empowered humanity has ever been-and witness it getting better. By focusing on an ideal future, you can switch to an empowered mindset and invite collaborators to build a better future together. You'll explore tools and frameworks like Design Thinking, Three Horizons, Five Dynamics, and more, to turn inspiration into pragmatic thinking, planning, and execution.

Trends and Opportunities: Explore the empowering tools, sustainable shifts in industry and technology, and social evolutions that are making a more equitable, distributed, democratic, cleaner economy possible. The economic, climate, and social crises around us are accelerating the urgency for change. This motivates communities and societies to collaborate. It inspires innovators to create new tools and approaches-all to make the transition to a better future.

Your Vision of a Better Future: Start imagining what an ideal future might look like by making the most of existing technology and knowledge. With thought leaders and industry experts, you'll tour a future that is abundant, a Zero Marginal Cost Society, post-scarcity, and Omni-Thriving. By applying Maslow's hierarchy of personal needs to social needs, you'll explore examples of physiological needs (energy systems), safety needs (public safety and law enforcement), community and belonging needs (models of government), esteem needs (education and entrepreneurship), and self-actualization needs (post-scarcity to post-discontent societies).

You can find deeper meaning, an invigorating mission, and success in business by working to create the world we want to live in ... and leave to our children. It is the biggest opportunity of our time, and this book helps you to seize it.

"We don't get the world we want simply by fighting the one we don't. We get the world we want by building it."

Review Quotes

"A groundbreaking guide to rethinking sustainable design and solving for the future amidst continual change. If you're facing today's problems feeling overwhelmed by the future, you're not alone. This book will lift your vision to a higher horizon and help you see-and design-solutions that reach beyond conventional thinking and into emergent opportunities of tomorrow." -Ellen Petry Leanse, bestselling author of The Happiness Hack, TedX Speaker, Leadership Coach, former Stanford University Instructor, Apple & Google Alum

"What a great read! Justin Bean's enthusiasm and optimism shine through in this well-researched and action-oriented tome." -Kate Drane, founder and advisor to early stage climate startups. Former director at Techstars, Breakthrough Energy, and Indiegogo

"What Could Go Right asks us to rethink the dystopian tropes of the future and instead to envision a more ideal world that we can build stronger together. With this new mindset, embracing the trends around us, and new tools for strategy and execution, we are empowered to build an inspiring sustainable future-for our own sake and for that of our children." -Kelly Dittmann, global C-suite advisor, former chief strategy officer and sustainability managing director

"This book is an antidote for anyone who shies away from taking the positive risks of a life well-lived because they think too much about what could go wrong and not enough about what could go right. Justin Bean shares practical, actionable insights that will help us all face up to the daunting but not insurmountable challenges of an uncertain world." -Michele Wucker, author of The Gray Rhino and You Are What You Risk

"Being able to envisage a positive future, with all the technology, creativity, and innovation required, is THE skill humans need to make this future come true. Justin's book contributes fresh green shoots of insight and inspiration to call positive envisaging to the fore of environmental and climate work. Justin's message will help create a thriving garden of environmental innovation, which is quickly taking over the old wood and climate-doomism so many of us are tired of." -Katie Patrick, author of How to Save the World

"Justin Bean is so very right to point out that we live in fortunate times, and the future could be even brighter ... if we wish. Read this book for a mental tune up/attitude check and find out how to work with optimists who are creating the change you're secretly wishing for." -Ryan Kushner, author of Accelerate This! A Super Not Boring Guide to Startup Accelerators and Clean Energy Entrepreneurship

"Many entrepreneurs are wired to be motivated by seemingly impossible challenges, and climate change is the challenge of our generation. Justin Bean paints a picture of what the world could look like once we've successfully transitioned to an abundant and decarbonized economy." -Cody Simms, coauthor of Levers

"While many others lament about the catastrophes of new innovations, I love how Justin frames the future of technology as opportunity. This book is a north star for current and future leaders who want to have a positive impact on communities and society." -Aaron McDaniel, bestselling author of Global Class

"Justin invites us to envision, design, and get busy building the better future we want. He inspires us, informs us, and gives us the tools to make a difference." -Clint Wilder, coauthor of The Clean Tech Revolution and Clean Tech Nation