Enter the Slipstream: How to Thrive in the Age of AI

Are you feeling overwhelmed by AI right now?

I am.

I feel like I’m standing on the wing of an airplane in flight — eyes watering, body buffeted, yelling just to whisper —

And I was expecting these technologies.

I can only imagine what it feels like for people who have been caught off guard with the “sudden” arrival of so much change.

Most people are talking about Chat-GPT and the other GenAIs. But far more is happening than those flashy-chatty-mirrors.

If you are tracking multiple lines, like I do as a futurist, then you’d be even more agog at the simultaneous upswell of power and new tools across every facet of human endeavor.

It’s breathtaking, terrifying, and exhilarating all at once.

This is the decade that decides which way the world goes and what we build for ourselves and our descendants.

The preamble is over. The low rumble just over the horizon that you could hear but not see is right in front of you. The game is on now.

Never has it been more important for a Human to be able to Slipstream — what I’m now calling the ability to be Deeply Human, Sync with Others, and Leverage Tech simultaneously, and at the highest levels.

The pace of change will not slow down, it will only get faster.

How then does one have the ability and mindset to survive, thrive, and in whichever way that you can, influence the outcome of the game towards a brighter future?

Why Slipstream?

The definition of Slipstream varies by context, however, it typically is an area of reduced pressure and turbulence created behind a moving object as it passes through a fluid medium, like air, water, or in this metaphor, our technology.

In Slipstreaming, the object disrupts the fluid’s flow, leaving a partial vacuum behind. This partial vacuum allows for drafting, by cyclists, geese, or race car drivers, saving energy and increasing speed.

When Slipstreaming together, we can travel more efficiently, with less turbulence and less effort.

What would that be like for you right now? Can you be a bubble of calm on the airplane wing? Can you join a convoy of like-minded souls leveraging the medium, sharing effort, and traveling even faster, together? Can you also exit the “medium” of tech to recover and then reenter the Slipstream at will? How would knowing you have that ability change how you are experiencing the rapid changes we’re seeing right now?

You’re going to have to find out.

To be a positive change agent – in the world, your company, your community – you’re going to have to become aerodynamic because both your collaborators and your competitors will be adapting to this velocity uptick.

Already, people are taking the GenAI tools and finding productivity improvements of 30-50% depending on the task.

The software line didn’t just rise, it jumped.

MIT did a study and found that while average people are getting increases from GenAIs, high performers who leaned deeply into the tech and brought their taste and high standards with them, were seeing multifold increases above that!.

Yes, there’s a lot to be said and done about “everyone” and the disadvantaged, and I work on that a great deal, but this message is for you.

At minimum you must adapt.

To create a better world, you must learn to enter the Slipstream, join with others who are there, and leverage the tech at the highest levels.

How do you become Slipstream ready?

Physical: This new volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world will require you to become a cognitive athlete, meaning you must take your physical health very seriously as a key part of your mind x body foundation. Health. Fitness, Recovery. Sleep, Nutrition, Hydration, Distraction Management, and Flow.
Mindset: You must attend to your mental, emotional and social health. Any unresolved MDIs i.e. Mommy Daddy issues, get in there and address them so you can reduce your internal friction and get clear about your motivations. MDI’s slow you down, taking up energy and prevents you from truly being able to sync with others. You’ll need to embrace your whole brain and body to access all your intelligence so that you too can be generative. Embodied Cognition. Emotional Intelligence. Sensory Intelligence. Heart Coherence at will. Being able to align your internal motivation and external actions with integrity and empathy will be key.
Skillset: As software eats more and more tasks and roles, humans who can imagine with others will rise. Connection (VIEW – Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy, and Wonder), Communication. Active listening , Shifting your emotional state & Emotional Fluency, Presence, and most important, the ability to sync with others – at will. Biosynchrony, where our biosignals and states align, is a real scientific phenomena that happens mostly without people noticing. Adept Slipstreamers will develop the ability, with the support of technology, to biosync quickly. You’re going to see a normalization of group flow and collective intelligence.
Toolset: You have technology tools available to you now to advance your body, mind, and skills. You’ll need to use those, in addition to human to human coaching, community, and self-reflection. You’ll need to grow and truly come to know thyself. You’ll need to master the fear that keeps you from fully leveraging the other tools that are coming online now. Spirituality, however you define it, will be a key tool to keep calm each time you enter and exit the Slipstream.

You must embrace your transformation into the fullest, deepest, human you can be.

Technology is just a tool, an extension of our planetary ecosystem. love looking at nature when I think about technology. There’s insight there for us.

We’ve forgotten that we are “nature” too. We’ve become so charmed by the “intelligence” of our tools that we’ve downgraded the intelligence of our bodies and environments.

We exist in, and we create, ecosystems.

I see the digital world as an extension of the natural world.

I believe that our core design flaw as Human builders is to see the physical, data, and digital layers as separate from one another, and then again as separate from nature. It creates bad design that doesn’t cultivate human embodiment and planetary integration.

Imagine the ecosystems of nature and the ecosystems of technology flowing together across the planet as one — that’s the connection we need.

We have neglected ourselves for far too long.

The clear path insists that we awaken to ourselves.

I know this message probably feels overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed too.

All the bad actors you fear are acting. You can argue on Reddit as much as you want. That won’t alter the momentum of what’s happening.

But you can learn to use a Slipstream to get ahead of the future you don’t want.

In Star Trek, there’s a Quantum Slipstream Drive that’s an advanced form of FTL propulsion that allows a ship to enter a separate dimension of subspace, where travel across vast distances happens in a moment. It’s faster than just regular FTL. And in the race that will shape the direction of the arc of human progress, we’re going to need that advantage. And we’re going to need you. .

This is the way.

Love,
Nichol

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P.S. Here’s the rest of the series:

Enter the Slipstream: How to Thrive in the Age of AI

Enter the Slipstream: How to Thrive in the Age of AI

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