I achieved an unprecedented experience in human history!
Last week, I achieved a small personal feat: I overcame jet lag in just one night after returning from Hong Kong.
While congratulating myself on this unusual accomplishment, I realized something mind-boggling…
Jet lag was first identified in 1931. Before that date, it was simply impossible for a human being to travel far enough and fast enough to disrupt their internal biological clock.
Think about it for a moment: out of approximately 9,500 generations of Homo sapiens, only three and a half generations have been able to experience this strange sensation of desynchronization with the sun. Our technological prowess has created a completely unprecedented biological experience.
The dizzying acceleration of our world
Jet lag is just one symptom among many of this incredible acceleration we’re experiencing. Here are some concrete examples:
- Language is evolving at breakneck speed. Our grandparents used the same 1,000 words throughout their lives. Today, the 1,000 words you use are already far removed from those you used just a few years ago. Not so long ago, you didn’t “download,” you didn’t “chat,” you didn’t “tweet,” you didn’t “podcast,” and you certainly didn’t “zoom”!
- Financial transactions approach the speed of light. A few centuries ago, it took weeks or months on horseback or by boat to trade between continents. Today, stock market orders are executed in 150 millionths of a second. Nearly half of the orders on CAC 40 securities are executed through High Speed Trading, algorithms that make decisions faster than you can blink.
- Information circulates instantaneously. Information that took months to cross the world in the 18th century now circles the planet in seconds. A rumor launched on X can trigger a diplomatic crisis or cause a stock to crash in minutes.
- Production is exponentially automating. What once took weeks of artisanal work can now be produced in a few hours by machines. Artificial intelligence is beginning to accomplish in seconds tasks that required years of human training.
And yet…
And meanwhile, it still takes nine months to make a baby. Fifteen to twenty-five years to raise a mature adult. An entire season to grow certain fruits and vegetables. Years to build a deep relationship of trust. Decades for a tree to reach full maturity.
Our body still needs seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Our brain needs time to assimilate new information. Our emotions need space to unfold and heal. Our wisdom needs experience and reflection to develop.
The friction that creates chaos
It is precisely this friction between what accelerates incredibly and what cannot accelerate that makes our world so chaotic.
This friction generates tensions at all levels:
- At the personal level: we are overwhelmed with information but lack time to digest it. We communicate instantly but struggle to create authentic connections.
- At the organizational level: companies must constantly adapt while their teams need stability. Technologies evolve faster than our ability to master them or understand their implications.
- At the societal level: our institutions, our laws, our education were designed for a stable world. They struggle to keep pace with a world in permanent transformation. Generations no longer speak the same language, no longer share the same temporal references.
How to navigate this friction?
The good news? This friction is not a bug. It’s a characteristic of the system we’re operating in. And chaos theory offers us concrete tools to transform it into opportunity.
Here are two tools from chaos theory that you can apply today:
1. The strange attractor: your north star in chaos
In a chaotic system, the strange attractor is the point toward which the system naturally tends, even if the path to get there is unpredictable and non-linear. Like the fixed point you look at in the distance to avoid falling off your bicycle. For you, it’s your long-term vision, your dream that attracts you.
Concretely:
- Identify your attractor: What vision makes you vibrate? For me, it was contributing to human evolution. For you, it could be creating a regenerative business, writing a life-changing book, building an inspiring community… or a loving family.
- Let it guide you without fixing the path: In a chaotic world, the path is never linear. Your attractor allows you to stay oriented even when you must take detours. Steve Jobs hadn’t planned that his calligraphy course would serve to create Macintosh fonts, but his attractor (creating beautiful and intuitive objects) guided him.
- Use it to make your decisions: Faced with an opportunity or difficult choice, ask yourself: “Does this bring me closer to my attractor?” If yes, it’s probably the right direction, even if the connection isn’t obvious.
2. Exponential routines: your small gestures that create big changes
In a chaotic system, tiny changes can have exponential effects over time. It’s the butterfly effect applied to your daily life.
Concretely:
- Identify 2-3 daily micro-routines aligned with your attractor. For example: 10 minutes of reading each morning (which becomes 60 hours and 20-30 books per year), 5 minutes of meditation (which transforms your relationship with stress), or contacting one inspiring person per week (which builds an extraordinary network in a few years).
- Do them every day, without exception: Power comes from consistency, not intensity. Better 10 minutes every day than one hour once a week.
- Observe the unexpected effects: In a chaotic system, these routines will create opportunities you cannot predict. The book you read will give you an idea for your project. The person you contact will open an unexpected door. Meditation will help you perceive a hidden pattern.
And now?
You have never had as much power as you do today. In this world of permanent friction, those who understand the patterns of chaos can accomplish in a few years what took generations before.
The question is not whether the world will continue to be chaotic (it will be), but how you will use this chaos to your advantage.
Define your attractor. Install your exponential routines. And observe what emerges!
→ 5 tools to thrive in uncertainty
Bruno Marion is an expert in chaos theory applied to leadership and management. An international bilingual English-French keynote speaker, he works with executives and organizations in more than 40 countries. He is the author of Chaos, A User’s Guide and Not Everyone Will End Up with an Axe in the Forest.
