The Adjacent Possible: Opportunities to Shape the World for the Better

Imagine a shadowy future, hovering at the edges of the present state of things; a map of all the various ways in which the present can reinvent itself. This, say the authors, is the ever-present state known as 'the adjacent possible'. In this excerpt from their book (The Upside of Uncertainty), they explain how to tap into this expansive field of opportunity. Their six principles for achieving this include questioning assumptions, considering the worst-case scenario and purposely recombining things. They argue that the adjacent possible is always expanding, both in terms of our own personal creativity and in terms of global innovation. In the end, they show that discovering adjacent possibles requires two things: a willingness to look for them and the courage to pursue them.