In lieu of a crystal ball, the next best thing to get a glimpse of what’s ahead is by tapping a futurist. Professional futurists study trends to help people understand what’s coming next and how to shape the future they want.
Who better to brain-pick than futurist Rebecca Ryan, whose credentials include being a member of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)? Rebecca works primarily in the public sector and with economic development agencies, including Chambers of Commerce.
Rebecca shared her thoughts in our latest podcast on three key trends to watch out for in the next 10 years. Here’s a summary of the highlights:
The futurist points out that leaders care about making aligned, value-led choices—but this can be challenging if you’ve faced a large amount of turnover on your team, or if you’re new to a team yourself, which reflects many leader’s situations at the organizational level.
“This is happening darn near everywhere,” Rebecca said, noting that because these changes can disrupt a team’s culture, churn needs to be carefully managed. “Culture doesn’t just happen,” she said. “So what are the things that you can do to demonstrate, reward, inform, excite people around the culture that you want in your team?”
She emphasizes that rather than trying to determine a perfect balance between stability and innovation, it’s the leader’s job to “feel into what’s needed,” since leadership is happening moment to moment, week to week, and month to month. “Sometimes your teams do need to be fired up and sometimes they need to be hosed down,” Ryan explained. “It’s not just one thing. We shouldn’t just moderate for more stability or just moderate for more innovation.”
While we may assume that certain parts of growing older are inevitable, an area of research called senolytics explores whether our presumed limits on the length and quality of our lifespans and health spans are really foregone conclusions. “When I think about how our country is aging overall, senolytics really does have the potential to turn back time,” Rebecca says.
Senescent cells are “zombie cells” that cause inflammation and tissue damage, degrading the cells around them. While scientists used to believe there was no way to avoid this process, they’ve now seen that senolytics has the potential to slow down or reverse aging-related problems.
“The nerds at Scripps and Mayo have been doing some research that says, ‘Hey man, if we can actually flush these senescent cells out of our bodies, that’s great because then they don’t turn all these other cells around them into zombie cells,’” Rebecca says. “It just opens the field so that the healthy cells can once again flourish. So some of the early research is showing that, yeah, you can stop or in some cases reverse signs of aging.”
Rebecca envisions that senolytics may ultimately bring about changes in the workplace model and beyond, in influencing what we think about how our brain changes over time. “I think of it as sort of like the fireworks display of intellectual energy, right?” she says. “And then after 50, we’re really good at consolidating and seeing the patterns in things. And we have more patience to like train other people and teach other people.”
She hopes that people will stop focusing on “midlife crisis” as a given, and shift the role of people over 50 and the stereotypes about how they are viewed. “Could those of us who are older embrace this time in our life as like, ‘Okay, now my job is to teach and to mentor and to be the person that a younger person might call when they need a pep talk’ instead of thinking I have to army crawl until I retire?” she says. “It keeps us from being human if we can’t embrace these very natural life stages.”
Quoting Arthur C. Clarke—“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”—Rebecca shared her prediction that over the next decade, AI will make a gigantic impact across society. “The two vowels in magic are AI,” Rebecca says, noting that over the next 10 years, she expects that “we’re going to get really clear on the things that human beings are much better at.”
“So far, we know that human beings have an absolute edge in empathy. They have an edge in problem solving, complex problem solving, motivating others.” She stressed that while holding a hand when somebody gets a cancer diagnosis is an “irreplaceable” human trait, she believes there are other areas where AI will outperform humans, which we’ll continue to learn more about.
“The Venn diagram overlap is where we have humans and AI working together on things,” Rebecca says. “But I am not one of these futurists who’s like, ‘AI is the be all and the end all, and it’s going to be all good or it’s going to be all bad.’ No one knows. But I think if we can continue to get clear on what it is that humans are uniquely able to do and continue to figure out what AIs can do exceptionally well, we’re going to have a better chance at the future.”
Rebecca encourages leaders and others to get off of the sidelines and experiment with AI for themselves to determine its usefulness in their work and life. “This is why we have people who are so afraid, because they haven’t used anything,” she says. “There are a few companies who are really leading, and they have some very clear, user friendly, anybody-can-use AIs. So try them all.”
She explains that “watching and waiting” isn’t a smart strategy with this technology. “I think you should get in there and use the tools because if you don’t, then everything that you’re going to receive is going be second party and third party, and we’re going to consultantize AI,” Ryan says. “When it comes to a critical technology, I would never want to outsource this kind of decision. I would want to have the experience myself, put it in my own body, figure it out, and go from there.”
When asked by podcast host Tegan Trovato, Bright Arrow’s CEO and founder, about one word that embodies how she feels about the future, Ryan says she’s “optimistic.”
“What I feel and sense and hear around me is a lot of dread,” she says. “But then when I look at people’s media diets or where they’re spending their online time, like I get it. Because the algorithm around social media is meant to keep your eyeballs there. And most people now know that the algorithm is that enragement is engagement.”
The futurist shared that she consumes a different diet of information, which includes talking with her clients, being a member of her neighborhood and her Zen dojo, going to her bakery a couple times a week, and being out and about in the world asking people what they’re excited about and working on.
“When I hear what real people are working on and doing in their communities, it is impossible to be pessimistic because the people around me are working on things big and small, and striving for brighter futures,” Rebecca says. “They want the world to be better for their kids and for their grandkids. And you never read about this stuff in your media social media feed unless you’re really trying to, and you don’t read about this in the news unless you watch the very last news part of your local news program. So I’m optimistic about the future because the real work that’s happening is flipping fantastic.”
Rebecca concluded by sharing these three words that she would put on every billboard in every US city: “You will die.”
“Left to our own devices, we are selfish people,” she says. “And in my work over these 26 years, when I have asked people to work on behalf of their children and their grandchildren, we get much different results—we get much better results. ‘You will die’ is just an invitation to stop centering on yourself.”
Rebecca Ryan: LinkedIn
Tegan Trovato
I’m delighted to welcome Rebecca Ryan back to the show. As a refresher, Rebecca’s a top 50 futurist, economist, best-selling author, and keynote speaker who wakes up daily hell-bent on making the world better for future generations. Through foresight experiences that transform her clients into future-ready leaders with bold plans, Rebecca empowers organizations to thrive in uncertain times. A graduate of Drake University and the University of Houston’s Strategic Foresight program, she’s also a proud member of the global Association of Professional Futurists.
In our discussion today, Rebecca will address urgent challenges like leadership turnover, team culture in the face of high attrition, and maintaining a balance between innovation and stability. For directors and leaders determined to excel amid unpredictability, her wisdom on aligning values, fostering resilience, and leveraging the synergy between human capability and emerging technology is invaluable.
So, grab your favorite brew, settle in, and prepare for an in-depth conversation that will elevate your leadership perspective.
Without further ado, here’s Rebecca Ryan.
Rebecca Ryan, welcome to the podcast.
Rebecca Ryan
Hi, Tegan.
Tegan Trovato
Hey, listen, listeners, you are in for a treat. If you’ve been following the Life and Leadership podcast since our inception, you’re going to recognize Rebecca Ryan. We have had her on before. And I was super excited when I reached out to say, hey, would you mind returning and being a repeat guest that she said yes. So thank you again.
Rebecca Ryan
It was an easy yes, Tegan. think all of your listeners know you’re just a, you’re a great guide. You care about people. Like, let’s do this. Come on.
Tegan Trovato
Thanks, you’re the best. I already told you this, Rebecca, but for listeners to know, we’ve all been through so much since Rebecca was on the podcast. This was like five years ago, it was pre-pandemic. All of us have probably lived a million lifetimes in that time. I know when Rebecca and I were catching up, we were both like, wow, we have lived a lot of life personally since we last connected.
As a futurist, I was super curious about her view of the world and what is to come, especially on the back of a really tumultuous and fascinating last several years. So for our listeners, Rebecca, just to level set, tell us what a futurist does, and at least at a high level, how you go about doing it.
Rebecca Ryan
Okay, so I think the easiest way for people to understand what a futurist does is first think about taking history classes in school. You all have this experience of learning about history or at least one textbook’s telling of history. And so that’s sort of the study of the past. And then journalists…they take a commitment to report on the facts of the present. So now we’ve got history in the past, journalism in the present. And as a futurist, I and my colleagues who do this professionally we study the future.
And some of you might say, but the future hasn’t happened. How do you study it? Well, what we do, and I think this gets to the second part of your question, Tegan, how do we do it, is we study trends. We look at, for example, right now I am preparing for a big economic summit, and I’m looking at the projections for labor force trends, what this state is going to become by 2040, by 2050, who their residents are. Are they getting older? Are they getting younger? How is the economy changing? How is it predicted to change?
I look at trends and projections for the future and then I help clients shape their future.
Tegan Trovato
Beautiful. And what industries do you end up working in the most these days?
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah, the vast majority of our work hits in a couple of buckets. One is like public sector, so cities, counties, regions. The second are economic development organizations or chambers of commerce. So these are organizations who care a lot about the future and making sure they’re future ready. And then there’s the bucket like public utility districts. these are.
Public utility districts are sort of run a bit like school boards. So they have an elected body that, you know, directs the utility. But some of you live in areas that have investor owned utilities. Some of you live in areas. Maybe you’re run by rural electric co-ops, very innovative groups. And then there are public utility districts. So basically anything that affects a lot of people at scale is where we work.
Tegan Trovato
I’m curious why? Why did you end up, you know, with a groundswell of clients in these areas?
Rebecca Ryan
Well, the public sector part of it, I think, is from my childhood and my growing up. So I was raised in a very religious family and they were very service oriented for the church. And when I was in elementary school, my mom ran for Alderperson. That’s what the city council people are called in Wisconsin. She ran for Alderperson in her district. And I just was I’ve always really been struck by that public sector service. So there’s a childhood reason, but there’s also a very pragmatic reason, which is I don’t want to have a big firm. I just don’t. I’m not made for managing people. I always want to work on the front lines with clients. And so to have a small firm, you know, like we’re four or five people and to be able to make the most difference with our lives, we have to work like an acupuncture needle. It’s like, where can we put our dab of good where it can do the most? And for us, you know, if we can work with large cities, you know, or tier two communities, you know, between 500,000 and a million people or utility districts that affect millions of consumers, that is a really good ROI for us. You know, we’re able to have a hopefully a positive impact on a lot of people.
Tegan Trovato
What I mean, I’m just going to share that back that that resonates so much with what we’re doing here. So we’re a small company, as you know, and our mission is to create a more abundant and equitable world because of great leaders. And we posit that we would have solved famine and inequity if leaders were making the best decisions in alignment with values. Right. And so we also say something similar to what you just did, which is we’re making our small impact.
As much as we can, our ripple in the pond in a hope of creating a better world that way. And when I hear you talk about the industries you’re serving, I’m so glad you’re helping them think about the future, because we’re all so served by those organizations and those industries. So just a fan moment of, hey, look, we’re kind of doing something similar and thank you. And I appreciate that.
The quote you just said which is where can we put our dab of good that it can do the most good? What a great statement
Rebecca Ryan
That’s wavy gravy. can’t take credit for that. So wavy gravy, was, those boomers who listen to your podcast, you will remember wavy gravy. He was kind of front and center during the last age of Aquarius. And he talked often about just putting your dab of good, you know, where it can do good. And that’s pretty simple and straightforward and resonant.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. And I would just encourage listeners to ask yourselves the same question. I mean, let’s squeeze the juice out of all of this right off the bat. Where can you put your dab of good that it will do the most good? So beautiful start. Thank you, Rebecca. So for listeners today, we’re going to focus on some questions I have for Rebecca that are based on a piece, a thought piece that she and her team have put out. And we’ll link to this in the show notes, but 10 trends for the next 10 years.
And as someone who is often thinking about the future with leaders, I would had a really hard time choosing which we would focus on today because we can’t do all 10. And so I’ve come to a handful that I’m just nerdily most interested in myself just because of the way I live my life.
Rebecca Ryan
Let’s do it. Well, listen, yeah, 10, you can’t go wrong. Pick the ones that are right for you. Yeah, good. I like it. I like it.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah, yes, good. And of course, for our listeners by proxy, right? So churn is one of your top 10. So what would you have listeners know about the trend of churn and what might be right under their noses related to this that they’re missing?
Rebecca Ryan
Okay. Well, first of all, you know, your target audience is leaders. You want them to make aligned, you know, value-led choices. And what I would say is if you have had more than 10 % of your team turnover, if you yourself are new to a team recently, and certainly if you’ve had, you know, half or more of your team turnover, you are living in this time of churn. And that’s just at the organizational level in our cities and states.
There is a ton of churn happening as well and I think this is one of the long tales of COVID. People recognized that life was not infinite.
And so they were like, ooh, where am I gonna put my dab of good? Or how do I wanna spend what might be limited time that I have left? And leaders have made this choice too. Challenger Grand Christmas every fall is coming out with data in 2023, now in 2024, saying more leaders have voluntarily left their organization than since the time that they’ve been measuring. So what I want leaders to know is if you have left or if your people have left, you are not alone. I think we suffer when we think, it’s only happening to us. This is happening darn near everywhere. And the second thing that I would have you know is that culture walks on two feet. I mean, you know this, but okay, let’s say you’re a leader who has a group of 25 people in your group. Let’s say 20, because I’m not good at doing math in public. Let’s say 20. And let’s say that you 10 people left and 10 people have come in. you’d be like, well, my team is unchanged. I still have 20 people. Your team is 100 % different, because the 10 people who left could have been your culture keepers.
You know, the ones who were sort of the straw that stirs the drink, you know, just kept everything cooking and your new ten people, because they’re new, they don’t know how things work. And so that can be very upsetting to the culture of a team. So what I would have, you know, is that churn needs to be managed and it culture doesn’t just happen.
And you’re probably aware of that. You probably are painfully aware of that. But you set the tone. The flavor of the Sunday starts at the top. So if you’re not getting more cooperation with your team, OK, what can I do as a leader to reward and still more cooperation? Or if you’re not getting enough pushback, if you’re like, God, everybody just agrees with what I say.
I mean, unless you have like a mental illness, you know that that is not healthy either. So what are the things that you can do to demonstrate, reward, inform, excite people around the culture that you want in your team? And then the final thing I just have to say is, I was on LinkedIn the other day and you know how sometimes they have like, you are one of the most qualified people to answer this question.
And the question was something, I took the bait.
Tegan Trovato
They were counting on it, Rebecca.
Rebecca Ryan
And the question was something like, exactly, well, it worked. You’re welcome, LinkedIn. The question was something like, how do you balance on a team between innovation and stability? And I just think the wording of the question is so messed up because leadership is happening moment to moment, week to week, month by month and sometimes your teams do need to be fired up and sometimes they need to be hosed down. It’s not just one thing. We shouldn’t just moderate for more stability or just moderate for more innovation. As a leader, it’s your job to feel into what’s needed.
Tegan Trovato
What I loved about that answer is how complex it is, which is leadership in a nutshell. It’s complicated. So here we are calling out that disruption is happening quickly. Teams are turning over. Churn, by definition, is happening for all of us. And yet we’re trying to create this sort of slow to form culture and protect it. And while we have to be nimble and agile as leaders, we still have to try to build this thing that takes time to build and nurture. And it’s so complicated now, or it can be. So I just want to be pay some reverence to that. That’s a tricky one. Yeah.
Rebecca Ryan
100%. So Evan, we’ve been talking, I’ve been talking with some of my colleagues about what is this Challenger Grey and Christmas CEO turnover telling us? And I think the most insightful thing I heard was from Don McPherson, who is the, I mean, he’s a podcast host of a podcast called 12 Geniuses, but I met him because he came to our Futurist Camp. And he’s just as…
Like he’s a smooth thinker, you know, he does long form thinking and we talked about this and he said, I think the job of being the CEO is much harder. It is much harder than it was. And so there you have it, you know, more burnout, more just throwing your hands up in the air. So a little bit of grace for ourselves as leaders. It’s a hard, it is a hard job.
Tegan Trovato
It’s harder than it’s ever been. One, love Don. He’s joining us on the podcast in a couple of months. but he has to, isn’t that funny? But he’s got to walk in your shoes or come in behind you. Okay, Rebecca. So good luck, Don. Just kidding, just kidding. Yes, you do. You do. I love that you two know each other. And of course you do, right? Such a small world. But I agree with you about how he thinks. That’s precisely why I’ve asked him to come have a chat and
Rebecca Ryan
I didn’t even know that. That’s awesome. Hey, I create a big wake. Everyone’s welcome.
Tegan Trovato
And I agree with his thought on CEOs. So as someone who is in private counsel with them, what I’ve come to appreciate, and as one myself, hi, I’ll just throw myself in the mix. There is so much ambiguity. And what’s so terrible about the model of the CEO role in the organization, I’m sure you’ll agree, is you’ve got the board here pulling up on the CEO. Here’s what we want, here’s what we need. You’ve got the community of employees and leaders below the CEO pulling and pulling. And it’s just like this terrible finger trap that they’re in with sometimes vastly different values that each of those really big buckets of stakeholders want from one single individual.
And then we’ve thrown them into a time where there is no predictability like there used to be. used to do economic forecasting by five and tenure cycles and be able to build businesses based on that. And now it’s what happened this week? What’s your best guess? Which bet do you want to place and let’s all cross our fingers, but hey, while you’re at it, prove to us you’re thinking the right way. I mean, it is just such an unwinnable model at the moment. So I agree that we need to be kind.
Not just to our CEOs, but to ourselves because that ambiguity trickles down, right?
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah. Do you think that if leaders so that the image that came to mind was like a Pat Summit or Gina Oriama? So like I follow women’s basketball, Pat Summit, one of the most winningest coaches of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, Gina Oriama, I think now the winningest coach, Yukon Huskies. And they would scream at the referees and they would scream at their players.
You know, so it’s like they were in the finger trap too, right? Because, yeah, so, and what I’m wondering is, like from your perspective, Tegan, is this the reason why leaders have to be so clear about their own values? So clear, because then they can say to, and this happened to me recently with a client, a leader said, if you need me to be X to his board, if you need me to be X,
I will quit. I will not do it. So it’s like he had a clarity about what his values were. And I think it has made that relationship with the board easier. He’s less of like a marionette or maybe not in as much of the finger trap there. What do you think about that?
Tegan Trovato
I well, mean, I think we should all be very clear on our values and which ways we’re willing to stretch against and for them on occasion. What came up for me when you said that were two immediate thoughts. One, before you finished your story, one, either this person earned a ton of respect and it built things for them or two, he’s out of there and good luck finding another job. Because depending on how a board terminates a CEO relationship, that could be it for them, for the duration of their career. That’s how serious that can be, which is terrible. Again, just another reason that job is so hard and people will never understand unless they do it. But what I love is that story demonstrates what it looks like to fully live in our values and say, hi, my values are also my boundaries for you. So while I will go and earn the valuation we need and I will go and have our revenue hit the targets we need to hit, we will deliver these products while I’m doing it.
This is what I will not do. And I think that that gains more respect than it would anything in what I’ve seen in the world. But it all depends on your board’s makeup. They have their own culture, right, Rebecca? The board is its own company in a way in terms of how it behaves and governs and thinks and its norms and its ways of operating. So I think it’s, I always, always say yes to values alignment.
Rebecca Ryan
I am.
Tegan Trovato
Pf what makes us human. It’s part of what makes work feel good or not good is how well we get to align. So big yes and also high risk in that seat if the values alignment isn’t there with the board, right? So any other thoughts on that now that I shared back?
Rebecca Ryan
Mmh. Yep.
Well, I’m not thinking so much about corporate boards. I’m thinking more about, you know, like elected boards and you, you are right. Yeah. Like city councils or public utility boards. And while you are right that they have their own culture, it feels like a culture that is more.
Tegan Trovato
Mm. So community boards, other words, yeah, uh-huh.
Rebecca Ryan
Like malleable because they don’t work together 60 hours a week. You know, they work together sort of on occasion and they rely so much on the staff. And so I do, I just, think for those kinds of boards, they may have a culture.
Tegan Trovato
I see.
Rebecca Ryan
But I think their culture in a way can almost be more impacted by the values of the organization or maybe by the CEO. But man, that is money to take to the bank, Teigen, values as boundaries.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. It is.
Rebecca Ryan
And I think boards like all of us, like we will, I think we will mostly listen to what people’s boundaries are and try to try to, I mean, if we’re decent humans, we’re going to try to respect what those are as well.
Tegan Trovato
I appreciate you pointing out the, you know, what can feel different about a board in terms of how it’s appointed, elected, who they represent. and it’s a nice reminder in the world that some are really already aligned to the communities they serve in more alignment than what we see in profit-driven organizations oftentimes. So that’s beautiful. And yeah, I mean, just to demonstrate what you know, how values alignment makes us feel like anger is a is a core emotion we have. And the key definition of anger is that we experience anger when our values have been violated. Like that’s the definition from emotion researchers, right? So that doesn’t tell us what you know, they’re either it’s our boundaries, whether we realize there are boundaries or not. But they certainly evoke really clear feeling in us when
Rebecca Ryan
Mmm. Wow, yeah.
Tegan Trovato
We’re being treated in alignment with them or not aligned with them. So yeah.
Rebecca Ryan
Yep. Wow, that’s interesting. mean, the thing that I think of as a Zen practitioner, anger is very useful. Anger is very useful. Like I don’t, I’m not in a tradition that tries to like pretend we don’t have feelings or we’re just these neutral stones. you know,
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Good. I’m supportive of that. Yes.
Rebecca Ryan
Right on. Well, it’s the human experience. Like if you live with hands and feet, you’re going to have some anger from time to time. But I like that. So so for me, the practice is, OK, what in my anger is useful? And to go to that question, the question I would use after you raise this issue is like, what can this teach me about my values and my boundaries? Thank you. This has been great.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Anger is such a motivating emotion. It helps us get unstuck and get moving and make a difference when we wanna use it that way. well, while we’re on the jaunt of human behavior related to churn, as I was reading the thought piece on this particular section, the word welcome came up several times.
And just to kind of give a glimpse, the thought piece is broken down really nicely into a couple different buckets for each, you know, focus area. you know, one of the things Rebecca talks about is what to watch for related to this trend. So when she’s talking about churn, one of the things that she said was new neighbors, welcome them, new hires, welcome them, right? And so, you know, as someone reading this with fresh eyes, I was like, wow.
What’s our ability to welcome look like now? know, after we went into this isolation and we’ve got a lot of data telling us that, you know, we’re not humaning too well in community anymore and, you know, organized religion’s fallen off. So the ways we get together aren’t the same. And I have sat with the question myself about how well do we commune? And so when I see welcome said so many times, I just sat back and I thought, I wonder what Becca thinks about our ability to welcome in our culture, you know, lately and what you’ve been seeing because we can have these trends, but if we don’t have the skill to actualize or internalize them or personalize them, then it’s just interesting information. So when you think about the ability to welcome, what have you been seeing in your work?
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah. Well, it’s been asleep for a little while. were told to put our social interactivity in IRL. We were told to put it to sleep. you know, I was just convening a board meeting yesterday and, excuse me.
Tegan Trovato
Hehehe.
Rebecca Ryan
I was just convening a board meeting yesterday and this is a board that meets on Zoom. We’re all over the world. Our time is finite and yesterday in my world was a Sunday. So it’s also like a day that people are with their family or it’s a weekend, right? So there’s a tendency to just dive bomb in to what’s on the agenda. And I just refused to do that. We just went around alphabetical order by first name. How are you? That was a question. This is such a human question. And it both makes us human, it allows us to express ourselves. And one of the things that makes us human is our desire to connect. So what is welcoming? What welcoming is, is making an overture from the native person, the person who’s lived on this block to the new person to say, welcome, welcome to this new block that you live on. I am here, that is where I live, pointing across the street. I always have flour, I always have sugar. You know, I’m always available to you. If you’d like my cell phone number, I’d be happy to share it with you, right? That is such a simple gesture. And I’m gonna tell you right now, that is a kind of shit that you get remembered for when you die. It is not how many emails you pumped through today. It is, Tegan is the first person I met on my block.
Tegan Trovato
Mmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. And as you say that, the piece I would add on is when Rebecca gives you her cell phone number and offers your sugar and flour, find an excuse to need some sugar and flour and send the message back. That’s the piece, you know, like you can’t have a bunch of community starters trying to, you know, reignite our humaneness.
Rebecca Ryan
Yep.
Tegan Trovato
and then miss the cues or miss the bids for a relationship, right? We have to sort of be looking for them. I think they’re rare these days. And so I would encourage listeners as we think about this future we’re in, what is it we’re going to do to return the ball, right? And be on the lookout for those precious invitations out in the world. So I love that. That’s really beautiful.
All right, so let’s talk a bit about senolytics. So Rebecca, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I am a longevity nerd. I’m one of those people that gets blood work done every year to find out my internal age and then change my diet and my exercise regimen to try to reduce it like a weirdo. And I can’t get enough of it. I’m so excited to be alive right now in this age of science. I’m an older mom, right? Like I had a kid at 40.
Rebecca Ryan
You
Tegan Trovato
I need to live a long time and not just live, but I want to be helpful and vibrant. So I was really stoked to see Suntitlelytics hit your top 10. And that’s nerd speak for what? us, tell our listeners about Suntitlelytics and humanize that for us a bit.
Rebecca Ryan
Okay, okay. So for for a long time, we have studied aging. And this is what has brought about the ability for UT and to be like, a nerd about longevity, right? Because we know so much more now about how the meat suit ages. So one of the things that scientists have found is that as we get older, senescent cells, S-E-N-E-S-C-E-N-T, senescent cells accumulate in older bodies. And what are senescent cells? They’re basically zombie cells. So if you, they’re the opposite of a healthy cell. So a healthy cell, as you may remember from biology in school, a healthy cell divides you know, and just continues to divide and creates more versions of itself. And ideally, those are healthy versions of itself. And it’s what allows like your liver to be a completely new liver in seven years is because of that natural genesis of cells. Well, senescent cells are not healthy cells. They’re zombie cells. They’re cells that are like squished, icky, sick versions of healthy cells. And here’s what makes them very unattractive or unwanted is like a true zombie, they turn all the cells around them into senescent cells as well. So we now know that senescence is tied to things like, you know, a failing eyesight wrinkly, you know, skin that wrinkles over time. You know, some of the other sort of hallmarks of aging, like how does it impair balance or, you know, make your skin get thinner, et cetera. So, but the nerds at Scripps and Mayo have been doing some research that says, hey man, if we can actually flush these senescent cells out of our bodies, number one, that’s great because then they don’t turn all these other cells around them into zombie cells, but it just opens the field so that the healthy cells can once again flourish. So some of the early research is showing that, yeah, you can stop or in some cases reverse signs of aging. So, senolytics, I mean, when you think about in the United States, as an example, how many people, know, 1100 people are turning 65 every single day. You know, this is the baby boom generation. So we are going to have a whole bunch of much older people and much like Teagan, they want to stay active and vibrant for as long as they can. And so senolytics, put it in my top 10 because when I think about how our country is aging overall, senolytics really does have the potential to turn back time.
Tegan Trovato
Hmm. What gets me so excited about this from a work standpoint and a purpose standpoint is the invitation it creates for many lives within our life. Right. So if we think that those of us in our 40s, certainly those in your 30s are going to live to be 100, 120 hands down. Like we’re going to experience technology that helps with senescence, cancer, dementia, like it’s all on the way. But what do we want to do with that time? You know, we’ve all planned and our insurance policies are aligned to us dying by 85 and we need to retire by 60 or 65, you know, like the future of work is going to be so opportune and enriching. I’m curious your thoughts on how that may change our model.
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest change it’s gonna make in possibly in the workplace model is what we also know about how our brains change over time. So up until the age of 50, we can really join a lot of different information together. And it’s kind of the, I think of it as sort of like the fireworks display of intellectual energy, right? And then after 50, we’re really good at consolidating and seeing the patterns in things. And we have more patience to like train other people and teach other people. And so, first of all, my hope would be that everybody would, you know, maybe stop having this midlife crisis that makes them idiots for a period of time and start to embrace this, you know, sort of under 50, older 50. These are very gross demarcations, but this is like what Arthur C. Clarke and others who study this have found. And so could we move, could those of us who are older,
I’m 52 as we’re recording this. Could those of us who are older embrace this time in our life as like, okay, now my job is to teach and to mentor and to be the person that a younger person might call when they need a pep talk instead of thinking I have to army crawl until I retire and that’s just, I just.
It keeps us from being human if we can’t embrace these very natural life stages.
Tegan Trovato
Yes, I’m so hopeful for that. I can imagine a future of work where we have augmented work hours, where people don’t need to work so many hours at a certain point financially and just for other purpose-oriented reasons. And may we go ahead and just change that for everybody anyway. Why do we have to wait till a certain age to reduce our work hours? So I think that invites us to reimagine what is a work week? What is our purpose at work?
What is it like to have folks who have gone decades before us staying on decades longer, who know where the bodies are buried and have this wisdom that we, know, in that pattern spotting ability, right? So as our brains change to your point, what if we kept them on board longer and in some model, how rich would that be for our clients and for us? So I think that’s, we’ll see, and that’s coaches.
Right? Like a lot of the coaches with Bright Arrow are in their 50s and 60s and going to keep on working because they love the work. And that’s, they’re bringing that wisdom into the workplace and into leadership. Right? So I think this is going to be an interesting, I think coaching could be part of that future. And I could see that embedded inside of organizations as one of the ways we contribute as we’ve gathered decades of experience under our belt. So I can’t wait to see what happens there because I have helped a couple of CEOs retire and we have two or three in our ecosystem that are preparing for retirement, Rebecca, and the panic that I watch these leaders go through as they know they’re preparing to exit hurts. mean, it hurts to just watch that their entire being has been and their families have rallied around them to serve in this particular role, which is ending. And so to have to pivot and create a brand new what feels to them, like a brand new identity kind of overnight is scary. And arguably, we don’t need to do it that way. So.
Rebecca Ryan
No, yeah, mean, yeah, you’re I’m with you 100%. I mean, there should be a way. I’m thinking about like climbing sort of a ladder of work, and I don’t mean it in the latter sense that you guys might be thinking about it. I’m not talking about promotions and more pay, but the idea being that in the same way that you climb up it, you ought to be able to climb down it.
And what we do is when you retire, we just push your ladder off the building. I mean, it’s so rude, right? So like, I think about my colleague Charlie, who he is in his 70s now. And, you know, at the point that felt natural to us both,
Tegan Trovato
Ugh, yes.
Rebecca Ryan
I was like, how do you wanna do this moving forward? And he was like, I don’t wanna come to the weekly team meetings, but I wanna come to the first one every month, because that’s the one when we do our scorecard. was like, okay. He’s like, and I wanna be brought in on things where you think I could add some value, okay. So we continue to see him several times a month. We miss him. I know he misses us, but it’s the time. And we didn’t just cold turn. And by the way, we’re taking our whole team to Tucson in February, where he lives. The team meeting is coming to him. They are a lot of more graceful, graceful might be too much of a fallback word, but kind, kind ways that we can honor somebody who wants to work differently or work less. Yeah.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yes. Well, thanks for spelling out what that can look like for listeners. It can be that simple. So, and the value you will actualize from your continued relationship with him, I know you cannot even quantify, can tell by the look on your face as we’re talking about it. So, win-win, beautiful. Well, as we’re imagining the future of work.
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah.
Tegan Trovato
We’ll stay on that bend and talk about magic. So I love that you call it magic. And the quote that brought you to call it magic, you said in this piece was Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And so I think we can all feel AI is that at this point.
Rebecca Ryan
Mwah! Yep.
That’s right. The two vowels in magic are AI and I have I think I have a different perspective on AI than what you may have heard anyone else talk about because I do think there’s a fetishization of this. think especially the tech bros think we’re going to create sentience. There is no woman I’ve ever spoken with Teagan who has watched the movie X Machina and thought, that was definitely a lady. But every dude
I talked to is like, can you believe how realistic that woman was in X Machina? And I’m like, wow, wow. OK, but but here’s what I want to say about the future of AI, where I think this is going to play out over the next 10 years is we’re going to get really clear on the things that human beings are much better at. And so far we know that human beings have an absolute edge in empathy.
They have an edge in problem solving, complex problem solving, motivating others. So I think about, for example, my friend’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. And her non-AI, non-robot doctor made everyone a cup of tea and brought it into the room and said, let’s talk about this.
That is like a human at their peak potential in a caring profession. Is that doctor gonna use AI? Is that doctor gonna, I don’t know, maybe be able to use protein folding or some of the amazing things that AI is doing in medicine? God, I hope so. You know, if it’s available, I hope they use it. But the very human holding a hand when somebody gets a diagnosis like that, that’s humans. Irreplaceable.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah.Irreplaceable, yeah.
Rebecca Ryan
Irreplaceable. And then there are things that AIs do better. And we’re going to continue to learn more about what that is. And then the Venn diagram overlap is where we have humans and AIs working together on things. But I am not one of these futurists who’s like, know, AI is the it’s the it’s the be all and the end all and it’s going to be all good or it’s going to be all bad. No one knows. No one knows. But I think if we can continue to get clear on what it is that humans are uniquely human to do and continue to figure out what AIs can do exceptionally well, we’re gonna have a better chance at the future.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. You know, one of the things we’re seeing with our clients is that a lot of individual leaders and executives are waiting for the enterprise to make a decision about AI. And they’re ready, like they’re eager. They’re like, let’s figure out what we want to do. But I’m not seeing a lot of personalization in the adoption of AI, not consistently at least. And so I’m curious your thoughts on how we might develop a more personal relationship with the tech. What you’re seeing out there. And these are early, mean, someone might listen to this a year from now and go, that was a dumb question. Who knows how fast this is gonna move? I think we know how fast actually, but I’m curious your thoughts on like, what are you seeing in terms of individual leaders and organizations, you know, at the human level and their personalization of the tech as part of the journey for the enterprise?
Rebecca Ryan
When you say personalization of the tech teak and what do you mean by that phrase?
Tegan Trovato
Meaning I’m watching them sit back and watch this. lot of folks watch the science as if it’s this thing that they’re going to make a decision if they touch it or not. And at the individual level, I’m not seeing a lot of like I’m using it. I’m experimenting with it. Not the way I thought I would. Like it’s still like a concept to a lot of folks rather than something that’s present in their lives. Does that make sense? Better sense? Okay.
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah, interesting. Well. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that helps me understand what you’re saying. So, and this is why we have people who are so afraid because they haven’t used anything. So, you know, there are a few companies who are really leading and they have some very clear user friendly. Anybody can use some of these, you know, AIs. So try them. Try them all. If you could see my browser window right now.
I have chat, CPT, Claude, Gemini, co-pilot. I also have my mom’s dog business, a few good dogs up there, and Jason Larson’s the check-in method. But the idea being like, get your hands dirty, make it a point to see what is happening out there. We just had a Nobel Prize winner win the Nobel Prize in 2024 for what they have been able to do with AI. So.
Tegan Trovato
Yes.
Rebecca Ryan
I’m just not a believer in watching and waiting. I think you should get in there and use the tools because if you don’t, then everything that you’re gonna receive is gonna be second party and third party and we’re gonna consultantize AI. And I just don’t think when it comes to a critical technology that, I don’t know, I just don’t believe it’s, I personally, for myself, I would never want to outsource this kind of decision. I would want to have the experience myself, put it in my own body, figure it out, and go from there. So the organizations I respect a lot are doing this widespread. They’re telling everybody, try it, try it.
Tegan Trovato
Beautiful. Well, as we’re coming to the top of our time together, I’m to ask you a question. Actually, two more personal questions. One is, first, how do you feel about the future personally? Like if you had to give us one word that embodies like, here’s how I feel about the future. What would you say? Good.
Rebecca Ryan
Optimistic. Optimistic. Do you want to know why? And to explain this, what I feel and sense and hear around me is a lot of dread. But then when I look at people’s media diets or where they’re spending their online time,
Tegan Trovato
Yeah, you knew it was coming. Thank you. Please proceed.
Rebecca Ryan
Like I get it. Because the algorithm around social media is meant to keep you posted there, to keep your eyeballs there. And most people now know that the algorithm is that enragement is engagement. So I understand why people feel dreadful. They’re perfectly programmed. And you versus a three trillion dollar industry, you’re going to lose to industry every single time. So my diet of information is much different than most people’s diet of information. And the primary part of my diet of information is talking with my clients, being a member of my neighborhood, being a member of my Zen dojo, going to my bakery a couple times a week, being out and about in the world, and just saying to people, like, what are you excited about? Like, what are you working on?
When I hear what real people are working on and doing in their communities, it is impossible to be pessimistic because the people around me are working on things big and small, you know, and striving for brighter futures. They want the world to be better for their kids and for their grandkids. And you never read about this stuff.
You know, in your media social media feed, unless you’re really trying to and you don’t read about this in the news, unless you watch the very last news part of your local news program, which is like the human interest story or the one page in the paper that is like the person of the week. know, everything is being fed to keep us watching. And unfortunately.
Those are the parts that do not feed our better angels. So I’m optimistic about the future because the real work that’s happening is flipping fantastic.
Tegan Trovato
That’s so inspiring. So great to hear. Thank you for that. And finally, if you had a billboard and you could share one message with leaders, we’ll see how this juxtapositions well with the former answer, but what might you post on that billboard to really create some sentiment inside of people?
Rebecca Ryan
Yeah, so the three words that come to mind, and then I’ll do a quick explainer, because I don’t want to trigger anybody, but I would put three words on every billboard in every US city. We can start there. And the three words would be, you will die.
And I’m not trying to trigger anybody, but the reason I want those to be the words is because left to our own devices, we are selfish people.
And in my work over these 26 years, when I have asked people to work on behalf of their children and their grandchildren, we get much different results, we get much better results. You Will Die is just an invitation to stop centering yourself.
Tegan Trovato
Beautiful. And think about our legacy and what we’re imparting. Rebecca, thank you. And I love that we can mix the feeling of optimism with the sentiment that we are all going to die and what do we want to do with this time? So you wouldn’t see those two things in print and think those are related and balanced, but they sure are with some explanations. So thank you so much. And just thank you for the work you’re doing in the world and in industries that enable us all to live comfortably here and to grow economically. So appreciate you. Thank you for coming back with us and spending some time.
Rebecca Ryan
It’s my pleasure, Tegan. We’re united in what we’re trying to do. We’re different feathers on the same wing. So thank you for the opportunity.
Tegan Trovato
Indeed. Beautiful.
I hope you found Rebecca Ryan’s insights as stimulating and profound as I did. Her perspective on leadership challenges, team culture, and the importance of focusing on legacy over self, serves as an example for all of us navigating the complexities of modern leadership.
Rebecca’s concept of leaders embedding their values deeply, managing high turnover, and embracing the duality of optimism and mortality offers invaluable wisdom in an era where the stakes for effective leadership have never been higher. We can contribute to a more resilient and enriched future by fostering a culture of empathy and forward-thinking.
I invite you to reflect on these ideas and consider how they can be integrated into your own leadership journey. Let this episode inspire you to lead with clarity, adaptability, and a deep commitment to the greater good.
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Life & Leadership podcast. If you enjoyed our conversation, don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music, and share it with anyone who might benefit from it. We’ll catch you in the next episode!
In this episode of the Life + Leadership podcast, Dr. Elizabeth joins Tegan to discuss how leaders can use neuroscience as a tool during times of change.
Kisha Wynter, CEO of Wynter Rich Enterprises, joins Life + Leadership to share transformative insights on authentic leadership, navigating workplace biases, and practical strategies for career advancement.
Today’s leaders are under pressure to drive performance while creating workplaces where people actually want to be. But none of that happens without strong communication. When communication falters,...
