The Secret of Optimism and the New Peruvian Airport

Earlier this week when I arrived in Lima, it was in their brand new airport that is less than two weeks old. People in the city had lots of questions. Did I have issues? All the local news apparently was focused on reporting about the problems. My experience was flawless. The airport was new, fast, easy to navigate and delivered a simple travel experience. That, unfortunately, is a boring story. So the opposite gets reported ... and people assume everything is worse than it is.

On stage, after my keynote I agreed to a "rapid fire" session doing 20 second responses to a series of questions. One of them was about the one piece of advice I would give to people who want to imagine the future. My answer was short: choose optimism based on reality.

This week alone I read stories about an ultra-sweet tropical fruit from West Africa called oubli that has a sweet protein called brazzein which some researchers believe could be used at scale as a replacement for sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. It was just honored in Fast Company's latest fascinating list of World Changing Ideas 2025. Another story featured the promising results of Chinese researchers who figured out a way to bring a dead lithium-ion battery from an EV back to life and restore its lifespan to 98 percent. Yet another focuses on a novel new solution to water scarcity (see the links for additional stories).

These stories alone are potential solutions to some of the biggest problems in the world--obesity, water scarcity and hazardous waste. I read stories like these every week. I also have experiences in real life that are better than what they are reported to be, like traveling through the new Lima airport. Then I talk about them on stage.

That's why I can see the future with optimism ... and why I think more people and leaders should too.