The Fourth Turning | What past generations can teach us about our future

You've heard me talk about the fourth turning. And, I was lucky enough, back in 1993, '94, I had the privilege of working with the president of The United States, Bill Clinton. And you couldn't do this today, but simultaneously I was working with the speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, on the other side. I literally left the White House, went over, passed across the capitol, and worked on the other side at on the same day. And the reason I mentioned it to you is Bill Clinton was the first person who told me about this book called Generations by Strauss and Howe. And this book was basically five hundred years of Anglo American history, and it showed that history is shaped by generations and generations are shaped by history. It was a fascinating book, and it talked about book was written in 1991 that in 2020, there'll be this crisis that we'll be facing. And it was predicted because of how generations raise the next generation, how we then interpret history. You can have events, but they're interpreted differently by a different model of the world. And I thought it was fascinating. And then in 1997, I was going to Borders Bookstore, one of those places. And I always go by the bin where the non popular books are because I'm a contrarian. I found some of my favorite books in those places. And it was in that thing. I'd mark down 70% or 50% of some ridiculous number and I picked up the book and it was Strauss and Howe again. And I picked up this book and it's been one of the guidebooks for me to understand what the hell is happening in our world ever since. It really helped me understand the patterns. Because if you think about it, we talk about power of patterns. What's the most powerful pattern of all? You've heard me talk about it before that changed humanity. That took us from starving, running around as hunter gatherers to where we could stay in one place. It was one distinction. What was it? Recognizing the seasons. Understanding. See, before that, it was looked random. You planted in the winter. You didn't even know it was winter. You just knew it was cold. And for some reason, you worked your ass off and you got nothing for it. And then what I began to look at here is like humanity, once it understood the seasons, it knew when to plant and when not to. If you do the right thing at the wrong time, what kind of reward do you get? Zilch. Nothing. So all of a sudden humanity understood this, and now we could stay in one place. We could build a community. We could build cities. We could build countries. That one distinction changed all of humanity. But there's also the seasons of your own life that's so valuable to understand. Think of it as four seasons of your …