Make It So: Futurism Is a Practice

Make It So is my new eight-week seminar, and this episode is the full walkthrough — what it is, who it's for, and why I built it around practice instead of prediction.

The name comes from Jean-Luc Picard: you're telling me you want to do something, so do it. And there's research behind that instinct. Herminia Ibarra at London Business School has shown that identity shifts when you apply what you're learning — you can think about something extensively, but real learning starts when you make it real. Leadership programs hand you a framework. This is a practice, and preparation starts with examining what you're already assuming to be true. That's my Assumption-Ground Audit: it doesn't start with strategy, it starts a layer back — what are we treating as settled that we haven't even looked at?

Everyone has a history, a present, and a future, which means futurism doesn't require a crystal ball. It's woven into your life already — how you respond, how you plan, how you envision what's ahead. And there's no one future. There's futures.

For decades, Canada operated on the assumption that the US was its biggest trading partner and a great neighbour. This summer, that's not proving reliable. Tariffs may be temporary. Repairs may not be. Whatever your version of that assumption is — in your work, your business, your family — you can't build for the future until you've looked at what you're assuming will hold.

In this episode:

• Who this is for: people who sense things before the room catches up — not the "this is the way it always was" crowd
• Building across a permacrisis: climate, economic uproar, geopolitical drama, technology upheaval — how do you adapt when your strategy stops being realistic within 90 days?
• Why so much of change is rooted in identity, which assumptions are load-bearing in yours, and why letting go of a story you tell about yourself can feel like grief (my neighbours' US-centred retirement plans, my husband's shift as our kids moved to university)
• Trust: who you trust, why, what disrupts it — and how you repair it when the breach is cultural and underlying-values level, not day-to-day
• What's a true signal and what's just noise: how you scan, what bias impedes your noticing, and how you make meaning out of what you notice
• Scenario thinking as a leadership tool, not just a planning exercise
• Language and power: who gets to name things, who respects the reasons for a name, and what the Lake Ontario / "Lake America" drama says about hierarchy and identity
• Embedding: setting up a practice you run in your own life — almost like configuring a tool stack for a world that's shifting in real time
• How I used these skills myself: implementing work from home a full decade before the pandemic, and moving away from working for an American division ten years before this summer
• A note for American participants — what I'll ask you to be able to sit with before you join
• Why this is a moment to invest in Canada and be chosen for the Canadian perspective, not because the historical choice has always been an American expert

These skills are transferable — they'll apply to your work, your parenting, your relationships. It's not a straight line; it's learning to work with the currents, the waves, the disruptions, and get closer to where you want to be. More of what you want, less of what you don't. That's the hope and possibilities in the future of work.

The details:

• Eight weeks, starting Tuesday, September 8
• Runs through Telegram and is designed to be asynchronous — live sessions are recorded, time zones aren't a barrier, and it's open to participants anywhere in the world
• Twenty seats total, across three tiers: Program (fully asynchronous, CAD $1,600), Program + Office Hours (CAD $2,400), and Program + 1:1 (CAD $3,200, two private sessions with me, by application)

Enroll at nolasimon.com/make-it-so

The future isn't predicted. It's practiced.