It is easy to believe the world is getting worse. The news cycle thrives on crisis, social media amplifies division, and uncertainty can make the future feel daunting. But what if we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture? What if, instead of focusing on the headlines, we examined the real data that tells the story of human progress?
On this episode of Life + Leadership, I had the privilege of speaking with Don MacPherson, researcher, futurist, and host of the 12 Geniuses podcast. Don has spent decades studying workplace culture, leadership, and global trends, and he shares an eye-opening perspective on why we have more reason for optimism than we think.
By looking at long-term data rather than short-term fears, we can see a trajectory of remarkable human progress in health, innovation, education, and quality of life. Don challenges us to zoom out, break free from the doom loop, and embrace a future that is full of opportunity and abundance.
“When you step back and look at the full arc of history, there is no denying that we are making enormous progress. But as humans, we have a tendency to focus on what is right in front of us. That means we are often overwhelmed by short-term crises rather than appreciating the long-term improvements happening all around us,” Don explained during our conversation.
Why a Data-Driven Perspective Matters
One of the most powerful takeaways from this conversation is the importance of viewing progress over time. Don highlights key areas where data shows tremendous improvement.
Lifespan and health have improved significantly. A century ago, global life expectancy was around 30 years. Today, it has more than doubled. Advances in medical research, vaccines, and public health initiatives have led to significant declines in infant mortality and the eradication of diseases that once devastated populations. Despite the challenges that remain, humanity has never had greater access to healthcare and life-saving treatments.
The workplace is evolving in ways that benefit both employees and organizations. Companies are increasingly prioritizing employee well-being, engagement, and leadership development, creating better environments for people to thrive. Organizations are investing in professional growth, flexible work arrangements, and mental health resources—things that were once considered luxuries but are now becoming standard practice.
Global prosperity has expanded in ways that are often overlooked. Despite ongoing challenges, poverty rates have declined dramatically over the past few decades. Don shared that, “If you go back to 1800, 90 % of the 1 billion people on the planet were living in abject poverty. And that’s day to day looking for food, insecure, not access to clean water, absolutely no access to health care. 90 % living in abject poverty. Now it’s fewer than 10 % with 8 billion people.” Literacy rates have increased, and access to technology has created unprecedented opportunities for education, innovation, and global connectivity.
Don reminds us that progress is not always linear. There will be setbacks and challenges along the way, but the broader trajectory shows a world that is moving forward in meaningful ways.
The Role of Leadership in a Changing World
As leaders, it is critical to cultivate an informed and optimistic perspective. This does not mean ignoring challenges or pretending that everything is perfect. Instead, it means using facts and data to guide decision-making, inspire teams, and navigate uncertainty with resilience.
Don shares how today’s most effective leaders are those who balance short-term realities with long-term vision, use data to challenge fear-based narratives, create workplace cultures rooted in optimism and possibility, and encourage curiosity and adaptability in their teams.
Rather than getting caught up in cycles of negativity, strong leaders focus on opportunity, innovation, and the bigger picture of what is possible.
“Leaders have a responsibility to look beyond the immediate challenges and see what is actually happening over time,” Don said. “If you lead with fear, you stifle creativity and discourage people from taking risks. But if you show them the long-term gains, you give them a reason to keep pushing forward.”
This approach not only creates a more resilient workforce but also fosters a culture of innovation. When employees see that progress is possible, they become more engaged in creating solutions rather than dwelling on obstacles.
Reframing the Future: A Call to Action
If we only focus on what is broken, we miss what is being built. The challenge for all of us, especially leaders, is to break free from fear-based thinking and embrace a future that is full of potential.
As you reflect on this conversation, consider how your perspective shapes your leadership. Are you viewing the future through a lens of possibility or fear? How can you use data to make more informed and confident decisions? What steps can you take to inspire a mindset of growth and optimism in your organization?
Leaders who embrace a broader perspective set the tone for their teams and organizations. They create environments where people feel empowered to think big, take action, and contribute to a shared vision of progress.
The future is not something to fear. It is something to shape.
Tune in to this episode of Life + Leadership to hear Don MacPherson’s perspective on why optimism is not just possible but necessary.
People In This Episode
Resources From This Episode
- 12 Geniuses
- 12 Trends That Are Changing the Way We Work and Live
- Home at Home
- Lifespan by David Sinclair
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Think2Perform Future Leaders Academy
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- Enlightenment Now
- What We Owe the Future
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This transcript was autogenerated.
Tegan Trovato
Don MacPherson, welcome to the podcast.
Don MacPherson
Thanks, Tegan. Excited to be here.
Tegan Trovato
I was very much looking forward to having you on because you have such a mindset of optimism as a futurist. and in times that are difficult, like they are at the moment for a lot of folks, it is really important for us to tap back into what is also true in addition to temporary hardship. And so I think today, a lot of that will come out, to set the stage. Why don’t you tell listeners what you do with your life and your work? And who you’re spending time with that’s helping to inform some of those optimistic minds that you have.
Don MacPherson
For work, I have a company called 12 Geniuses and what we do with 12 Geniuses is explore trends that are shaping the way we live and work. Those trends can be technology trends like AI, quantum, space exploration, biotechnologies, that sort of thing. And then a lot of attention is paid toward social trends as well like aging, addiction, immigration, those types of things. Privacy and trust fit in there as well and I’ve been doing that podcast for seven years. So this is our seventh year We’ve done 160 episodes or so. I also started a company recently called home at home Which helps to keep seniors in their homes to help them age gracefully So we assess for safety and for functionality and for smart technology opportunities their homes And then we also look at their mobility
And then we make recommendations for how they might think about changing or remodeling their home, maybe moving their laundry room or switching their tub from a tub shower to a walk-in shower, that sort of thing. But it’s all around safety and helping them live where they want to live. And then I also have two daughters and that’s where I spend a lot of my free time. And that’s just fantastic. I love being a dad. I’ve waited a long time to be a father and it was definitely worth the wait.
Tegan Trovato
Oh, beautiful. I bet that resonates for a lot of us parents out there. let’s let’s talk for a minute about home at home. Because you know, the way you described it, I think conceptually, we’re all like, Yeah, that makes sense as a business. Knowing you, though, there’s a deeper purpose connection here. So how did this land on your radar as an appropriate business to launch right now?
Don MacPherson
A lot of it was the demographics of aging. So in 2034, there will be more seniors in the U.S. than there will be people under 18. And so that’s where the demographics are moving. But 77 percent of people over the age of 50 want to stay where they are, want to live in their current home. And it can be overwhelming to modify a home
Tegan Trovato
You. Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
to age in place, installing grab bars and railings and ramps and things of that nature. If somebody has a knee replacement and they’re living on the second floor and laundry’s in the basement, that can be a nightmare. Things don’t get done. We have neighbors two doors down who are in their 80s and they moved in 30, 40, 50 years ago and it’s just become overwhelming for them and they’re not alone.
And so as I was thinking about what do I want to do for the next 25 years? I’m I was 55 last year, just turned 56. I was thinking the next 25 years. So I want to work until I’m 80. And I’m thinking I can get behind this great purpose in helping people age gracefully and age with dignity. And so that that fills me with a great amount of purpose. There’s a need there. And so that’s why we choose to do and choose to do what we’re doing.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. What I love though, about what you’re doing, if listeners can reframe this beyond just you talking about a business is you’re actually modeling for us what it looks like to plan to live longer than we thought when we were all earlier in our lives. I am a big longevity nerd myself. So I personally have adopted the belief that I’ll probably live to beyond a hundred, given the medical advancements ahead and I often ask of our leaders that we coach our C the CEOs, I personally coach, if you had another 40 years to work, what do you want to do with it? so I’m curious if you have any more you might like to share as a futurist and someone who’s thinking about your own life as being longer than we originally thought.
Don MacPherson
Well, let’s go back to 1900 in the US. Life expectancy was about 42. Now it’s in the upper 70s. It’s fallen two or three years in a row. But we’re at this inflection point where there are terms being thrown around like longevity escape velocity, which essentially means that for every year that you live, once we reach this longevity escape velocity, if you live a year, your life expectancy will increase by a little bit more than a year. So you won’t be closer to death at the end of the year than you were at the beginning of the year. That’s what longevity escape velocity is. And Dr. David Sinclair and others are talking about aging as a disease, a disease that can be managed. Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens introduced me to this concept of a mortality, which is you’re going to die.
Tegan Trovato
Interesting.
Don MacPherson
But it’s not going to be from cancer. won’t be from diabetes. It won’t be from neurological diseases. It won’t be from the common things that kill us. It might be from an accident. We might die from a meteor. But a mortality is you’ll die, but not from the causes that have killed us in the past. And so these ideas have been circulating in my head. And like you were saying, with the technology advancements that have been made,
Tegan Trovato
Right.
Don MacPherson
And are being made and will be made using AI and quantum. And if we get to fusion it eventually, we’re going to live much, much longer. I tell people if I can make it to 70 and I just turned 56, if I can make it to 70, 120 is a layup. And I’m sure you feel the same way as well. I feel great. I feel very healthy. Cancer is moving toward to manage disease. A lot of the things that have killed us in the past have moved to manage diseases or are on the trajectory of moving toward manage diseases. And what I like to say is that people really have poor imaginations. So one statistic I saw is people were asked if you could live to 120, would you? 56 % said no. But they’re thinking 120 is 120 in 2025 years. Decrepit, declined.
Tegan Trovato
Right.
Don MacPherson
All their friends are gone, it doesn’t have to be that way, and that’s the future that we are going to inherit. And it’s very exciting, it’s scary, of course, but it’s a very, very exciting time.
Tegan Trovato
It is. How does purpose connect to that?
Don MacPherson
in an AI aging world purposes, all that matters. And we’ll talk about abundance because I know that’s an important theme on your podcast here, but we are moving toward abundance for all eight billion people. And many of us have achieved that. I’ve achieved it. You’ve achieved it. And I’m not talking opulence. I’m talking abundance, which abundance to me is you have electricity when you flip the switch, you have
Tegan Trovato
Say more.
Don MacPherson
Refrigeration, you have something in the refrigerator. You have food to eat for the next couple of days. You have money in your pocket. Your needs are basically met. That’s not the case for all of us, but it will be eventually. And so when we have abundance and getting our needs, meeting our needs was our purpose for thousands and thousands of years. And that’s no longer our purpose, won’t be our purpose moving forward. And so we’re going to live a lot longer. We are going to have this abundance, but I can’t imagine living to 120 without knowing my purpose, without living my purpose. And so to me, purpose becomes so important for us to identify and execute.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. for, for listeners to know, there’s a bit of a backstory about abundance for Don and I. as we were preparing for the podcast, formal interview, we did a quick meetup and I shared with him that our vision at bright arrow is to listen carefully to these words, create a more abundant and equitable world because of great leaders. And Don sort of paused and, and, and I’m going to paraphrase, but Don, feel free to chime back in.
His response was something along the lines of, well, I might be a little further along the abundance journey than you because you’re trying to create it. And I believe we already have it. Right. So and I just I sat there and thought this guy just coached me like a master executive coach to reframe my thinking. And thank you, because it was a mind set shift for me.
Don MacPherson
Ha
Tegan Trovato
I don’t know if there’s more you’d like to say there since I’ve kind of aired out our story behind that, but it really did change my mindset about kind of questioning my own story about what I believe the truth is of where we are today. And when you shared the historical view of what we used to not have versus how many have now, it really does shift the perspective about abundance for many of us, right?
Don MacPherson
For many of us, yes. So if you go back to 1800, 90 % of the 1 billion people on the planet were living in abject poverty. And that’s day to day looking for food, insecure, not access to clean water, absolutely no access to health care. 90 % living in abject poverty. Now it’s fewer than 10 % with 8 billion people. So fewer people today are in abject poverty than…
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
than 200 years ago. So we’ve made dramatic, dramatic strides and that will continue. It can continue and it should continue with all of the technologies that we have. One of the things that gets in the way of us understanding our abundance is what our expectations are. So what are your expectations for life? If all you know is the last 20 or 30 years, you might think
Abundance is guaranteed and maybe I should want more than abundance. I should want more than, I’ll just shift gears for a second. Last weekend was really cold here in Minneapolis, probably 20 or 30 below, and my daughters climbed in bed with us and all four of us were in bed and it was a cold day, nobody wanted to go walk the dog.
We were watching these videos on National Geographic and I said, know, girls, do you know what I’m grateful for? What, what daddy? I said, I’m grateful for electricity. I’m grateful for grocery stores. I’m grateful for refrigeration. It’s 20 below zero outside. It is not safe out there for any animal. And this is the world that we have. And so when we expect more than that or when we don’t understand or
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
Appreciate how many people had to sacrifice for what we have now that we lose sight and we think well we need more. I don’t think that’s the way that we should be living. I think the way that we should be living is how can I help other people? How can I help them overcome their barriers and their obstacles? That’s the life that I want to live. And I wasn’t always this way. I wanted to fill my own cup first, but
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. Right.
Don MacPherson
You know, now that I realize, how wonderful we have it, I want to help other people reach their potential and achieve fulfillment. That’s exciting to me, and that’s where purpose comes in.
Tegan Trovato
Beautiful. And coming back to your part of your purpose and the 12 geniuses podcast and the work you’re doing in research, one of the things you have out there, which we’ll find something to link to some of your interviews about the 12 trends that are changing the way we work and live. And I know this has to be what informs your optimism.
Don MacPherson
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. think about AI is probably the biggest invention. It’s like electricity. And many people on the show have said that in the past. know, prior to electricity and prior to machines and motors, anything that needed to be done or moved had to be done with muscle, human muscle or animal muscle. And now we have machines that do these
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
the heavy lifting, transportation, and that sort of thing. So think about what life was like before electricity or motorized vehicles or machines.
That’s where we are with AI. It’s going to do the same thing for cognition and for our brains and for thinking. So much of our lives that was dependent on our brains, that’s going to be done by machines now. And so I think that we are in the midst of a human evolution. And that’s very frightening and that’s very exciting at the same time. And it’s the first time that a species has controlled their own evolution. so, you know, I think that’s what…
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. No big deal when you phrase it like that.
Don MacPherson
Yeah, I think that’s why a lot of people are anxious about the future but as many of our guests have talked about on these 12 trends for the future 12 technologies for the future We have agency humans have agency and and these technologies Don’t necessarily have to function in the most dystopian way they can be used in the way that we want to use them and that’s really an important thing to keep in mind. Because otherwise, we’d all be freaked out. We’d all be running for the hills and have this level of pessimism. But I just don’t feel that way. I feel like humans are going to do the right things with these magical technologies.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, that comes back to your point about having a better imagination, right? Our, always say that fear and excitement are close cousins. Like sometimes our nervous system can barely tell the line apart between the two. And I think there’s a lot of that prevalent right now. and so what comes up for me is you, as you share that is the encouragement to have that better imagination. It’s time right to not be wired into fear as we imagine what technology is going to do but but leaning into that thinking about longevity and what how does this serve us and imagining the positive ways we can create impact with all of those things seems so important right now.
Don MacPherson
It does. And it doesn’t help that many of our leaders, whether they’re on social media or they’re elected officials, are manipulating our fears and they’re doing it to sell products or to get themselves elected or whatever. But they’re tapping into these fears. And a lot of the people who have been on the show say we have these chimpanzee brains, but we have all of this magical technology.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
And that leads to a lot of cognitive dissonance. So we have to, through a lot of the things that you talk about, I’m sure with your clients, self-awareness, self-regulation, we have to be aware. That to me is the secret to the future, is managing our emotions.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
Self-awareness, self-regulation. If we could teach our children those things, they’re going to inherit an incredible future. And I know lots of people who are involved in that. In fact, I was involved with the thing to perform Future Leaders Academy. And what we did there, I was the executive director for a period of time, and then I was on the board of advisors or board of directors. And what we do is we take these incredible high school and freshmen and sophomores in college and we teach them about what it is to be a moral leader, a purposeful leader, an emotionally intelligent leader. Now we need to start rolling that back to our elementary schools. Then we’re gonna have a great future.
Tegan Trovato
Yes. Yes, and in an accelerated way, right by getting it in their hands sooner. So most of us who went to coaching school and had formal training in this, there’s a lot of what you’ve listed there as part of our training, right. And what’s different from coaching school versus a lot of psychotherapy training is as coaches, we have to work the process of our own healing and development as we’re becoming certified. And so most of us, when we went to school for coaching, end up saying, we got to teach the kids this stuff. Like, I wish I had known this, the ability to be curious and ask really great questions and the ability to control my internal psychological hygiene and narrative. I wish I had this as a kid or a young adult. And so I’m with you on that. And I share that vision for you of getting some of our human development earlier. And the things you listed also hit me as being extremely human. So we’ve got this great tech, but you said the key to the future is managing our emotions and self-regulation. And that is so striking in a time where we’re so hyper-focused on tech.
Don MacPherson
It is. Yeah. Well, what differentiates us from the machines? And it’s our emotions, without a doubt, and our ability to connect with one another. And that’s what makes life worth living, as far as I’m concerned. It’s love, it’s sharing, it’s growing together, it’s achievement, not self-achievement, but achievement as a team, as an organization. That’s what’s…
Tegan Trovato
Yeah, right, it is. Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
Really exciting.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah
Don MacPherson
And when you don’t have that, it’s probably not a life worth living or a life that I want to
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. Well, you know, so interesting in our work inside of organizations, there’s been a big change over the last 10 years about what really makes for a successful leader and how we talk about it. didn’t talk about emotions before, and we had these narratives like, it’s not personal, it’s business. You’ve heard this phrase, right? And those things are falling away. And we really are becoming as a people more conscious that leadership is about how we’re making others feel, how we compel people to act, how we take care of each other.
And that feels like it’s accelerating as technology is accelerating. And I’m excited about that. That feels like purpose, right?
Don MacPherson
Yeah, it does. And there are lots of leaders who are focused on this. And I think that’s quite shocking to me. So I’ll just give you an example. Reading Man’s Search for Meaning, which is my favorite book. And in the book, I may not get it exactly correct, he Victor Frankl says everything can be taken from a man. But.
Tegan Trovato
Mm.
Don MacPherson
I have to think about how he says it. Everything can be taken from a man, one thing, the freedom to choose in any given set of circumstances. And I read this when I was 30 and I’m like, oh, you get to choose? You get to choose how you respond to what happens to you? And I was in my 30s and now we teach this to young people all of the time. And that’s really exciting. It’s not what happens to you. It’s
Tegan Trovato
Hmm. Right. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
It’s the response that matters. wow, that’s really impressive. Why do we have to learn these really important lessons in our 30s and our 40s? I’m still learning many of these emotionally intelligent type lessons that would have benefited me as a teenager and how I would have treated other people during that time or even treated myself during that time. And I’ll just finish with this thought. Yesterday I was talking to my…
Tegan Trovato
That’s right. Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
two girls before they went to school and I said, who’s the person who’s gonna tell you what to do the most? And they kinda looked puzzled and they said, you? And I said, no, I said, it’s you. And I said, who’s the most important relationship you’re ever gonna have? And they said, I don’t know. With each other, with my sister, I’m like, no, no, it’s with yourself. And they’re like, wow, and I said, so it’s really important that you say kind things to yourself, that you’re…
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm.
Don MacPherson
you manage your emotions, you are able to self-regulate.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah.
Don MacPherson
We all need to learn these lessons.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah, we do. And to your point that you’re still learning some of them, we all are. takes a, we can spend our lifetime going deeper in all of these places. So, I love that you’re giving your children the gift of an early start in their consciousness. So it’s beautiful. since we’re talking about leaders and work, if you had to give some advice, what would you tell leaders to do with their own energy to best contribute to this optimistic future?
Because we wield a lot of power and authority and money as leaders. And so I’m curious what you might advise.
Don MacPherson
Well, the first thing is, how do you see the world? Do you see the world as moving in the right direction? Many of us don’t see the world as moving in the right direction. The book that has had the biggest influence on me and my optimism is called Enlightenment Now. It’s written by Steven Pinker, and he looks at a couple dozen, a few dozen different metrics.
Over a long period of time, sometimes hundreds of years, infant mortality, workplace deaths, car accidents, longevity, poverty, every single one of them is trending in the right direction. Every single one of them with the exception of one and that’s the planet. That is, we have not treated the planet very well. But,
Tegan Trovato
Hmm.
Don MacPherson
If you believe in human ingenuity, if you believe in human resilience, you have to believe that there’s no problem that we can’t overcome, including the climate, including AI anxiety, including some of our geopolitical disagreements. We can overcome them if you believe in humanity and if you believe in human ingenuity.
Tegan Trovato
Right. Yes.
Don MacPherson
And so I think that’s a good place to start, is with yourself and your belief system. And then it’s your actions. Are your actions supportive of being optimistic? I think that’s a good place to start.
Tegan Trovato
Beautiful. Yeah. I love it. Thank you. Let’s talk about happiness. You know, we’ve talked a lot. We woven in optimism for sure. We’ve woven in the fact that people are feeling a lot of fear right now and that there’s a lot out there playing to our fears. So let’s talk about the positive. Let’s talk about what happiness has for us if we can take advantage and some of your thoughts on that core emotion.
Don MacPherson
Well, much of what I’ve learned is from experience, unfortunately. So I didn’t learn about happiness when I was a teenager or even in college, but it was just over time reading things. And a couple of things that I have learned is one is what do you expect? Ask yourself, what do you expect? And do you expect to be given things or to earn things. If you’re expecting to be given things, you’re probably not going to live a very happy life. But you can live an incredible life if you have this mindset that I earn things. So that was one of the first things that mind shifts that I needed to make because I thought, the world owes me something. When I was much younger, the world didn’t owe me anything, nothing.
Tegan Trovato
Right. Right. Right.
Don MacPherson
In fact, I was blessed with so much loving parents, being born where I was born, during the time that I was born with the technology that we had, I was given so much, such an… But then I started to read really deeply into this topic of happiness and Martin Seligman was influential, Viktor Frankl of course. But then I saw this model by a professor from UC Riverside, Sonja Lubomirsky. And if you draw a circle on your paper, just draw a circle and cut that circle in half. So you have pie that’s cut in half. She said that 50 % of our happiness is based on a genetic set point. It’s like, that’s interesting. So you know, there are people who have chemical imbalances and are depressed, clinically depressed. Yes, they lost the genetic lottery.
But then the other half of the circle, she said, there’s a lot more control that we have there. So she says, okay, take a small slice of the top part of the circle, 10 % of the overall circle. She says that’s circumstances. 10 % of your happiness is dictated by your circumstances. Now a lot of people don’t understand that. A lot of people think, I’ll be happy when.
I’ll be happy when I graduate from college, when I get married, when I have this house, when I get promoted. No, no, no, no, no, no, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong. Right, most people do. So the remaining 40%, remember 50 % is genetics at point, 10 % of circumstances, the remaining 40 % is intentional activity, the choices that we make, so.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. I would have thought that’d be much higher. Very interesting.
Don MacPherson
Are you going to sit there on the couch watching reruns, eating chips, or are you going to go for a walk and talk to your mom and enjoy nature? That’s an intentional activity. You have that choice. 40 % of what you, the choices you make, that’s great power over our happiness. Our activities are four times more powerful than our circumstances. That’s why you see
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Don MacPherson
people who may not have a lot of money, who are joyful, who are happy, people who have everything, maybe the life that looks absolutely incredible, the best car, the most beautiful spouse, the greatest job, and they’re miserable. 40 % intentional activity. And so that means, and to me, intentional activity. Am I gonna volunteer? Am I going to achieve my purpose? Do I know my purpose? Am I going to engage in activities that fulfill my purpose? Am I going to connect with people on a real, real personal level? You know, all of these things like coffee.
Tegan Trovato
That’s inspiring, Don.
Don MacPherson
$7 for a latte, we can spend an hour together sharing our lives together. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, but it can give us incredible joy. More so than flying off to Atlanta and seeing a concert and spending thousands of dollars on that sort of experience that might be fleeting. That can be great too, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And a lot of science is…
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
proving that you only need to make a certain amount of money for happiness to be possible. After that, it doesn’t make a difference. And I saw that too in my life. There were times when I made $60,000 a year. I remember in college, I made about $6,000 a year and I’ve made much more than that. Pretty much the same guy, pretty much same level of happiness. So it’s not money, it’s not our circumstances.
Tegan Trovato
Right, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Wow. That is powerful. It is exciting. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
It’s so exciting when you start to figure these things out. Like, this is, that’s a real
Tegan Trovato
Yes, it is. It sure is. And today, these times, these are the things we need to be thinking about more than ever. So thank you. We’re going to edit this part, Don, but I just want to pause and reflect on where we’ve been and just see if there’s a place you want to go deeper or somewhere else you want to go that you feel inspired from the conversation, sense of completion.
Don MacPherson
you know, there’s one thing that we haven’t talked about that I have been thinking about a lot and that’s, you know, I kind of alluded to it before, which is there are eight billion people alive today. It has taken a hundred billion people who have died to get us to where we are. And there’s many, many, many people who will come after us.
Tegan Trovato
Mmm.
Don MacPherson
It could be related to purpose and it could be related to, know, basically I think about it as what we owe the future. So a sense of gratitude to people who have brought us to where we are and then what we could do to make humans of the future appreciative of our contributions. Because I think so many of us are wrapped up in just taking what we can.
Tegan Trovato
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well, I’m going to bring us back then. What I’m going to do is cue you with the question of, as we’re closing, what are a couple of things you really want listeners to be thinking about? And then that can open it for you to just flow and go as deep as you want on those two places. Sound good? OK. Don, as we’re coming to the end of our time together, I’m just curious. want to leave this open for you to say whatever feels important.
Don MacPherson
Sure. Okay, sounds good.
Tegan Trovato
What do you want us leaving here really thinking about as we march into the future and as we lead people into the future as leaders?
Don MacPherson
Much of what I’ve been thinking about over the last two or three years is we know we’re inheriting this magical technology that is going to change humanity. And I said that we are on the precipice of human evolution. And I truly believe that. And we should wake up grateful every day for where we are, when we were born. And we have a huge debt of gratitude. All eight billion of us who are alive today, we have a huge debt of gratitude to the 100 billion people who preceded us. So that’s what people estimate the number of people who have been on earth and who have died. It’s 100 billion people. They brought us to where we are today. And it’s amazing. If you think about living at any time during human history, you would choose no other time than today. I guarantee you that, right? So now what has…
Tegan Trovato
Mm. Yeah. Mmm. Wow. That is powerful.
Don MacPherson
happened to me as I’ve toward thinking about the future that other generations are going to inherit. And there’s a philosopher out of Oxford named Will McCaskill, wrote a book, What We Owe the Future. And it’s been highly, highly influential on how I’ve been thinking about not only my future, but the future after me and after my family. He said that the average mammalian species can live up to a million years, and we’ve only lived a fraction of that. So we have hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us as humans. And he estimates that there are more than a trillion people who can live, humans who can live, whether it’s on this planet or other planets. And I won’t take us on the interplanetary route, but I believe that’s where we’re going as well. So there are more than a trillion people who can be humans. What kind of world are we leaving for them? That’s what I’ve been thinking a lot about. And we each as leaders can play a role in creating a ripple that can influence humanity for many, many, many centuries and millennia forward. And that’s what really excites me about being a leader and having conversations with people.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Don, thank you so much. As we’re closing, one of the things that’s striking me about our conversation today is that I think we are so in need of a positive reframe about where we are and where we’re headed and the opportunity that that is, not just how hard it can feel. And so your presence and your work is so timely because we do have a lot of the other side served up to us. So thank you for that. The other thing that’s feeling real for me right now is, I think it can be, there’s a lot of also what I will call like spiritual bypassing happening out in the world when people are trying to be positive, where we aren’t acknowledging the hard. And I feel like your platform, the way you’re approaching things for us and helping us reframe is rooted in science and fact and history. And there’s a lot of like safety and trying to imagine a future from this place of realness and fact and that feels really unique and important. So thank you for serving it up that way for us. Yeah.
Don MacPherson
Thanks for having me. love having this type of conversation and having bright people who are curious about not only the past, but the future as well.
Tegan Trovato
Yeah, Don, thank you so much.
Don MacPherson
Thank you.
