What if you spent many years putting everything into a dream, only to find it had become a miserable failure. That you had become a miserable failure. How would you deal with the experience of failing and being rejected again, and again and again as you strove to actualise that dream? What’s worse, what if you eventually found yourself pushing 50 years of age, unemployed and with even your partner telling you that you just don’t have what it takes and to give up. Would you just throw in the towel?
Well, this is exactly what happened to me – right before everything sifted and I became a globetrotting expert in my field. So, in this video (see below), the first of 3 on this topic, I am going tell you how I turned it all around, and how years of struggle actually prepared me for success. I will also share with you three crucial insights that I have learned about rising from failure to success, as we seek to live our bliss – as they say. These hard-learned lessons have been taken from both my mistakes and from my wise choices. Because, even though on the surface it would have seemed to an observer that I was experiencing a lot of rejection – a hell of a lot, just between you and me – I also continued to do a lot of things right – and those seeds eventually sprouted. I think these insights will help you to live out your dream, even if you’ve taken many hard knocks, and regardless of where you find yourself right now. I hope you will find the story and the insights I share to be inspiring.
Now allow me to be more precise… My goal for the past two decades or so has been to establish a career as a successful futurist, with a niche focus on the futures of the human mind, society, and technology, doing work that is not only my passion, but which I genuinely believe will assist the human species transition into a more noble and sustainable expression of itself. Because let’s face it, human civilisation is in serious need of some self-corrections.
But, that isn’t exactly a well-trodden career path, is it… and for years and years I experienced often heartbreaking rejection and failure, until … today, where I enjoy a very satisfying career in the very field that I envisioned for myself.
If you are new to this channel, my name if Marcus T Anthony, and I am currently Associate Professor of Foresight and Strategy at the Beijing Institute of Technology in Zhuhai, China . Here I teach courses about the future – that I get to personally create – courses with titles like Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Mind, and Leading the Future. I also write the journal papers and books that I want to write, and consult as a foresight expert to other universities, such as with my recent appointment as a Foresight Consultant at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Also, I’ve just returned from the Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University in Suzhou, near Shanghai where I was visiting research scholar for a month. Oh, and next month I will jet off to Berlin and Suderberg in Germany, where I will deliver keynote speeches for the Ostfalia Institute for Applied Sciences.
And yet for the longest time, it wasn’t like this at all… Quite the opposite, in fact.
So, let’s go back in time a little, 13 years to be precise. The year was 2011, and I had just returned home to Hong Kong from Singapore, where I had been interviewed for a futurist’s position at Nanyang Technological University (which has a world top 20 ranking)… and… I quite literally wept. You see, I was one of just two final candidates for an academic position at that university. It was down to me and the other guy.
They chose the other guy.
In fact, they didn’t even bother to get back to me after the interview, and after my having given a 45-minute presentation there in front of half a dozen senior professors. Now, you might be thinking scornfully: “No big deal, you lucky bastard! You got a free trip to Singapore with free accommodation too, to strut around in front of some dried-up professors, and you didn’t land the job. Boo hoo hoo!”
Well yes, but it’s all about the context, as Claudine Gay might say (wink).
The thing is, this outcome occurred a full five… long… years after I had graduated from my PhD programme – and I was still a mere high school English teacher (because that’s what I was doing in Hong Kong, in between heavy bouts of drinking at Lan Kwai Fong, HK’s famous bar area, to drown my sorrows. But I do digress.)
So, it was on that on that sad Saturday, the head of the department in Singapore finally responded my email begging for the outcome of my interview – and he dryly informed me that I that I wasn’t good enough – yet again. A heavy sense of hopeless futility fell over me. I faced the prospect of having to sign another two-year contact as a Native English Teacher in Hong Kong (including further heavy drinking in Lang Kwai Fong). That was – and still is – a great job, by the way, but after 7 years it was not what I wanted to do any longer.
Let me a backtrack even further, now, to provide more context to my despair. Way back in 2002 I had enrolled in a doctoral programme in Policy Studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane, in Australia. Now, USC was a new institution at that time, and didn’t have much of a ranking , and still doesn’t to be honest – (aside) nice kangaroos, though – but I had a very unusual focus for my intended thesis. Firstly, I wanted to situate it in the discipline of Critical Futures Studies, and USC was perfect, because the emanant futurist Sohail Inayatullah had agreed to be my supervisor. What’s more, my chosen thesis topic was about integrated intelligence – the idea that human consciousness has non-local properties, and that this can express itself as a kind of ability to solve problems intuitively. This subject is more than a little esoteric. Indeed, right at the beginning of my enrolment I was accidentally forwarded an email chain I wasn’t supposed to be CCd in, and one of those emails I read was written by the head of the Social Sciences faculty – (crossing arms) mocking my research focus. And I quote: “What is this integrated intelligence? Is it the hand of God or something?” But to his credit, he let me enrol .
So, by choosing to research integrated intelligence and frame it within Critical Futures Studies, I wasn’t exactly entering a known career path. Indeed, some might have said that I was committing career suicide. But at the time, I didn’t care about perceived wisdom, nor the call of the market. I was going to follow my passion, godammit!, and embody the philosophy of 19th century American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, which I had long admired – and which I shall now quote for you:
I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
And so it was that I decided to put Thoreau’s experiment to the test in my own life, which is what I had more or less been doing up till that point anyway. What I didn’t realise is that there is often a price to pay for taking the road less travelled. And that is, you are very likely to end up lost and alone – for a time. The question is, do you have the self-belief to endure these limbo periods? Consider that my first Key Insight in living your bliss.
At first, all went smashingly well during my doctoral studies. Mine was a purely theoretical thesis, and although it required great self-discipline, my candidature was mostly a joy. I made rapid progress, so much so that a mere six months into my studies I was paid a virtual visit once again by the head of Social Sciences – and this time it was not by accident. For I received an email stating that I was progressing way too fast, and had to slow down! I had already penned about 100 thousand words of mixed quality by that time, using Integrated Inquiry, a process I had developed which combined traditional research methods with a deliberate use of integrated intelligence (aside: and no, I didn’t tell the head of Social Sciences about that, in case you are wondering). Indeed, I would write about 400 000 words within two years, before trimming that back to just over 110 000 (aside – You can learn about Integrated Inquiry in my book How to Channel Your Dissertation, if interested). I also published a dozen or so journal papers during this period, and I also presented at my first international conference at Tamkang University in Taiwan. And when I finally submitted my thesis, my three examiners all loved it, and there were almost no changes required. The late Princeton academic David Loye was one of those examiners, and his report included the following words:
This doctoral thesis is an exceptional document … (and has) leaped ahead and got to where the discourse will, if we are lucky, arrive in maybe another decade or more.
I see this thesis as being the sort of island or rock upon which one can build a very significant career either as an educator or as a writer, or as both. Again, I must stress I see (Marcus T Anthony) as having reached where others will arrive, and most not so well, some years yet ahead in time.
To top all this off, my thesis was accepted for publication by Sense Publishers under the title Integrated Intelligence, and I soon landed my first major popular book contract for Discover Your Soul Template.
But alas (softer), upon graduation, my prospects for an academic career quickly dimmed. I had entered… the limbo zone . I remember that after about three years of repeated rejection from universities, I wrote an online post with the title: “What can you do with a degree in Futures Studies?” It was not so much a hopeful request as a confession of deep despair. I was starting to feel genuinely hopeless, and more than a little depressed. A few futurists expressed sympathy in the comments to that post, but realistically, this was a problem I had to solve myself.
By the time of my rejection by the Singaporean university in 2011, and with about five total years of rejection, I had hit rock bottom . And it only got worse, I’m afraid to say. Even in 2015, and nearly a full decade after gaining my doctorate, I was still getting reject notices by every university position I applied for. After literally many 100s of job applications. And I didn’t just throw out the same cover letters to multiple jobs. I spent a great deal of time on most, and carefully crafted them.
But… I did get some interviews with universities – a total of 16 during that decade. And… 16… successive… interview… failures, despite carefully preparing for each! The situation looked utterly hopeless. But something had changed by 2015, and this is the second of the key insights I want to share in this video. And that is that I had learned to let go, to release the outcomes of my endeavours. Fortunately, my extensive training in mindfulness and personal healing had equipped me to do just that.
Yes, I decided that I would just enjoy the ride. So, the failed job applications and failed interviews kept right on coming, but they typically affected me for only a short time. Indeed, I literally allowed myself about 5 minutes of self-pity after getting each rejection, and just returned my attention to my creative process, and building the life I wanted to live. For, I already knew who I was, and no rejection notice from a university HR department, book publisher or journal editor could shift that. You can count that as Key Insight Number Three. Believe in yourself, no matter what. Yes, listen to the feedback that failure has for you, learn from it, but don’t take it personally.
Of course, some rejections were harder to take than others. For example, towards the end of this limbo period the University of the Sunshine Coast, the very institution that awarded me my doctorate, had four positions open for research futurists, and so I threw my hat into the ring. Given my doctorate was from that very same university, and centred in Futures Studies, I assumed I’d be a ring-in for an interview. And… I didn’t even get one. It was exasperating.
So, by this point, more than ten years after following my dream and enrolling in my doctoral programme to study integrated intelligence and the future, Thoreau’s advice to “follow your dreams and you will find a success undreamt of in common hours” was looking like a sick joke.
Now, I do realise my wobbly tale of failure and ultimate fortune is running long on time, and that the story remains incomplete. I still have several important key insights I’d like to share with you, and some more personal stories that I think you will find either enlightening – or deeply disturbing. But I am going to leave those for the following episode.
These anecdotes will reveal how I used – and abused – my integrated intelligence, how I used failure and defeat to deepen my personal healing and to learn to believe in myself, and how I was able to spot opportunities ahead of others, and thus advance my own career. After all, a futurist without Foresight is about as useful as Donald Trump without a lawyer. All that – next week.
And I invite you to share your story and your insights in the comments section, because wisdom is most valuable when it is shared. Do feel free to ask questions, and I will answer them if possible. Liking this video and subscribing would also help me keep sharing videos like this one.
Marcus T Anthony
