Today, I’m tired.
I don’t know about you, but lately it feels like the world is changing faster than I can breathe. But then I realize I don’t want to breathe too fast, because I’d be hyperventilating… it’s a conundrum!
Every week there’s something new to absorb… a tech breakthrough, a political crisis, a headline that makes me wonder if maybe this time we’ve really, truly gone off the rails.
And the thing is… I don’t think it’s just a feeling.
I’m a Millennial — a Geriatric Millennial, apparently — which means I’ve had the pleasure to live through at least THREE “once-in-a-lifetime” events already — the Great Financial Crisis, 9/11, and a global pandemic.
That’s three “never-again” moments in one lifetime… and I’m hopefully not even halfway through mine…!
So if you, like me, feel tired lately — tired of constant change, tired of running face-first into the next “new normal” before even adjusting to the last one — I think you’re right to feel that way.
And I don’t think it’s weakness.
I think it’s physics.
We’ve entered what I call The Age Of Compound Change.
What Is Compound Change?
Let’s start with a thought experiment.
You’ve maybe heard that if you could fold a piece of paper in half 42 times, it would reach the moon.
That sounds impossible.
But the math checks out.
Every fold doubles the thickness: once, twice, four times, eight times. At 42 folds, you’ve actually gone beyond the 239,000 miles it takes to reach the moon.
That’s how exponential growth works. It sneaks up on you.
It looks slow — until it’s suddenly impossible to ignore.
About a year ago, I wrote a short piece about this, called Gradually, Then Suddenly: How The Future Actually Happens. The idea was that change builds invisibly for a long time — under the surface, out of sight — and then all at once, it breaks through.
That “suddenly” moment?
That’s the tipping point of compounding, exponential math.
It’s when “gradual” finally compounds enough to become “sudden.”
You’ve maybe heard of Moore’s Law in technology. Back in 1975, Gordon Moore noticed that computing power roughly doubled every 18 to 24 months. The math has held true since then, so now we just call this a “law.”
Well, with artificial intelligence, we’ve stacked another exponent on top of that. Machine intelligence is now compounding on top of machine speed. It’s exponential on exponential — and we’re just beginning to glimpse what that means.
This is one of the reasons why futurist Ray Kurzweil said he expects the 21st century to deliver the equivalent of 20,000 years of progress.
Twenty. Thousand. Years. In ONE century.
We used to talk about change as a wave.
Now change is like a wave that’s somehow riding on top of the last wave.
This is physically impossible in the ocean, of course, but it’s absolutely possible in the world of math.
It’s compound change… acceleration that accelerates itself.
But like I wrote in Gradually, Then Suddenly, these moments of sudden transformation feel crazy, but they aren’t random. They’re the inevitable result of years or decades of small, compounding shifts that finally reach critical mass.
The Human Mismatch
So why are we so tired?
In a nutshell, the problem is our biology doesn’t “do” compound math.
We evolved for linear change: cause, effect, repeat.
We hunt, we gather, we rest.
We get cold, we build a fire, we get warm.
Simple feedback loops.
But exponential math makes those loops too big to process.
Our brains just can’t track it.
Psychologists call this “exponential growth bias” — it’s our built-in tendency to think linearly and underestimate compounding change.
Futurists sometimes call this exponential blindness.
We expect tomorrow to look mostly like today, maybe with a few new features. But this isn’t often how it works. The “graduallys” build up over time and then — suddenly — we’re living inside math we can’t metabolize.
That’s what’s going on right now.
So no, you’re not crazy if it feels like life keeps speeding up and your nervous system can’t keep up with the constant downloads.
And I’m not crazy, either.
We’re just humans living in exponential times.
When Confusion Becomes Systemic
Here’s the other kicker, though.
It’s not just our brains that can’t keep up — our world-organizing systems can’t either.
Right now, in the United States, we’re experiencing what economists are calling a “data blackout.”
Because of the ongoing federal government shutdown, critical labor statistics — unemployment data, wage growth, job creation — aren’t being released.
That means business leaders, policymakers, and workers are all flying blind in one of the most strange and volatile moments in recent history.
Think about that.
In an era when we have more computing power, more visibility on information than EVER, we’ve managed to blindfold ourselves.
In a world of dashboards and real-time analytics, we’ve literally just turned the lights off.
And that, to me, is the perfect metaphor for this moment.
We live in a time that promises infinite intelligence, but we’re still making decisions on partial information.
Our organizations are drowning in data but starving for meaning.
We are craving leadership but our “leaders” are obfuscating.
This isn’t really new. The corporate way has always been to hide things to obscure the “why,” to protect power, to avoid accountability. But in exponential times, hiding information isn’t just bureaucratic — it’s deeply dangerous.
Because in The Age Of Compound Change, confusion has a cost.
A big one.
When data disappears — whether because of a shutdown or a culture of opaqueness — trust erodes, alignment fractures, and energy drains out of the system.
And when the lights go out, people don’t move faster.
They freeze.
That’s exactly what’s happening in a lot of our workplaces right now.
People aren’t burned out just because they’re working too hard.
They’re burned out because they’re working in the dark.
Clarity Can Compound, Too
But here’s the hopeful part.
If change compounds, then clarity can too.
Every moment of clarity — every shared metric, transparent decision, or honest conversation — multiplies trust and energy.
Clarity compounds.
It builds momentum the same way confusion drains it.
Each small act of transparency adds up over time, creating exponential alignment.
This is why Future Design™ has a deep connection to human energy and energy intelligence. When teams know what energizes them (and what drains them) they can allocate work more intentionally. They can stop wasting energy on guesswork and start investing it in what truly matters.
And when organizations do this systemically — when they build “human dashboards” alongside their financial ones — they create clarity loops instead of confusion loops.
Because while change may be uncontrollable, clarity is designable.
Clarity is a choice.
And the more intentional we get about designing for clarity, the more resilient we become in the face of compound change.
How To Live & Lead In Exponential Times
So how do we actually live inside all this?
How do we lead when the pace of change keeps doubling on itself?
Here are four practices to, well, practice. These aren’t things we check off a list, they are things to keep trying to do better.
First: Slow the input.
You can’t metabolize infinity.
We essentially have infinite access to information now — and that’s the problem.
Curate your feeds, set boundaries, take real breaks.
You cannot and will not lead clearly if your mind is constantly buffering.
Second: Anchor to principles, not predictions.
Predictions expire fast in exponential time.
Principles don’t.
When in doubt, come back to what’s true and timeless: respect, curiosity, reciprocity, regeneration. Whatever is real and lasting for you.
Third: Design for transparency.
If your team can’t see what’s real, they can’t move with confidence.
Clarity isn’t just nice to have — it’s a necessity for thriving.
Transparency is what keeps the lights on… figuratively and literally.
And fourth: Organize for energy.
The future doesn’t belong to the fastest or the biggest — it belongs to the most energized.
Because in the long run, sustainable energy always outperforms short-term effort.
Work should ultimately energize us, and we should view it as a system failure when it doesn’t.
The Ultimate Flex: STFD
So yeah — right now we can feel tired.
But neither of us are broken.
We’re just living inside math problems our bodies haven’t evolved to process.
We’re trying to make sense of exponential systems with linear minds and still somehow show up for work, raise kids, be a halfway-decent partner, cultivate friendships, care for aging parents, pay bills, and plan for a retirement that might include robot assistants and climate volatility all in the same decade.
It’s a LOT.
But remember this: You can always take a breath. You can always slow the scroll.
Clarity is a kind of power that also compounds.
The clearer you are about what matters — to you, to your team, to your company, to the world — the more leverage you get against the chaos.
You don’t need to control the rate of change.
You just need to stay oriented inside it.
So this week, pick one place to add a little clarity.
One thing you can make more visible, more honest, more aligned.
Because in The Age Of Compound Change, confusion is expensive… but clarity pays dividends.
That’s math that actually works in our favor.
And I think that’s how we start to feel a little less tired.
Not by stopping the change, or pretending we somehow could, but by seeing what’s happening more clearly. And then by stopping ourselves long enough to make sure we’re aligned with the choices we’re making.
Because the ultimate flex in The Age Of Compound Change is to STFD…
Slow The F Down.
