Reviewed by Natalia Infante Caylor, PhD, President, Infante Consulting and Research, Fort Collins, Colorado, natalia@infanteconsultingandresearch.com
If you’re looking for a fresh and positive perspective about all the COVID-19 pandemic changes that have impacted all our lives, then Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change is the book you will want to read.
The author, April Rinne, is a Fulbright scholar, holds a JD from Harvard Law School, is an Estonian e-resident, a yoga instructor, and very relevant to this book, a world-recognized futurist. Rinne is also an advocate for mental health, and she brings an array of personal experiences with real-life problems to Flux. In her early twenties, while struggling with depression and anxiety, she lost her basic support system when both her parents died in a car accident. This exacerbated Rinne’s mental health issues and forced her to redesign her future. Looking for inspiration and a deep desire to understand how other people around the world live, she traveled to more than one hundred countries searching for guidance. Through her personal experiences, Rinne discovered that as human beings we all have the same needs, but the hierarchy of those needs shifts over the course of our lives, and these shifts are what make us unique. This new understanding helped her learn to be resilient, forge a new mindset, and rewrite her new life script or model to follow based on her own expectations of happiness and how to deal with changes.f you’re looking for a fresh and positive perspective about all the COVID-19 pandemic changes that have impacted all our lives, then Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change is the book you will want to read.
Throughout her book, Rinne reminds us that there is an old script and a new script. We all have a script that acts as our guide or set of expectations we follow, and each is as unique as the individual. However, this script is old. It is based on fixed ideas and, to move forward, we need a new script. When drastic changes come to our lives, the world of flux becomes a reality, and when we no longer get to choose how we want to live our lives, that is our new script.
I believe that one of the important messages shared by Rinne, as we still try to navigate the uncertainties of the pandemic, is the value of reconnecting with ourselves and other people, and rediscovering what we have always known, including understanding that some things will not be the same. The author emphasizes the importance of focusing on our values to get the strength needed from them without forgetting that a new way of thinking is what will take us into the future. As moderators and researchers, we are all used to changes to improving and learning. This book was written with the intention to help people and organizations restructure the way they see insecurity and shifts in their lives, which is something individuals and organizations can all relate to.
According to Rinne, we look at vulnerability in different ways. For instance, in the “business sector, vulnerability is associated with weakness,” and in the personal side, it is considered a treasured trait, as it represents authenticity. In this new world, Rinne recommends making vulnerability part of our system, where vulnerability should be seen as an asset, not a liability.
In her book, very relevant to our pandemic times, Rinne shares eight counterintuitive superpowers for thriving in constant change. Some of the most relevant chapters for me were “Run Slower,” “See What’s Invisible,” and “Let Go of the Future.” At the end of the book, readers will find a detailed discussion guide to help us examine each chapter better and assist us to deeply discover how our lives fit into each chapter—a guide for deeper thinking and personal analysis. This book is about reconnecting with ourselves, recognizing our values, adapting to a new way of thinking, and letting go of the future.
