The Secret of Optimism and the New Peruvian Airport

Earlier this week when I arrived in Lima, it was in their brand new airport that is less than two weeks old. People in the city had lots of questions. Did I have issues? All the local news apparently was focused on reporting about the problems. My experience was flawless. The airport was new, fast, easy to navigate and delivered a simple travel experience. That, unfortunately, is a boring story. So the opposite gets reported … and people assume everything is worse than it is.

On stage, after my keynote I agreed to a “rapid fire” session doing 20 second responses to a series of questions. One of them was about the one piece of advice I would give to people who want to imagine the future. My answer was short: choose optimism based on reality.

This week alone I read stories about an ultra-sweet tropical fruit from West Africa called oubli that has a sweet protein called brazzein which some researchers believe could be used at scale as a replacement for sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. It was just honored in Fast Company’s latest fascinating list of World Changing Ideas 2025. Another story featured the promising results of Chinese researchers who figured out a way to bring a dead lithium-ion battery from an EV back to life and restore its lifespan to 98 percent. Yet another focuses on a novel new solution to water scarcity (see the links for additional stories).

These stories alone are potential solutions to some of the biggest problems in the world–obesity, water scarcity and hazardous waste. I read stories like these every week. I also have experiences in real life that are better than what they are reported to be, like traveling through the new Lima airport. Then I talk about them on stage.

That’s why I can see the future with optimism … and why I think more people and leaders should too.