Welcome to the December issue of The Exponential Executive.

In this Issue

	Cultivate a Beginner's Mind
	10 Reasons You Might Live Alot Longer Than You Think
	Can Education be Rekindled by Technology?
	Want to Spur Innovation? Award a Prize.
	Meet the Queen of Paradox: Robyn Waters
	Innovations and Opportunities

In Other News

In my continuous effort to stay abreast of the latest trends, I am always reading and this month I read and reviewed three interesting books. The first was Mark Penn's new book, Microtrends, which takes a look at how 75 small trends could grow into larger trends. (The full review can be read here.)

I also reviewed John Naisbett's book, Mind Set! Naisbitt believes the future is embedded in the present. I agree and you can find out why by clicking on this link.

Finally, as a precursor to my forthcoming book, Green Investing: Making Money Through Environmentally-Firendly Stocks (which will be released in March 2008), I reviewed The Clean Tech Revolution. If you want to know why clean energy could be "the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century" click here.

Pass it on

Know anyone who might be interested in our newsletter? Click here to forward this email to up to 5 friends at once.

Cultivate a Beginner's Mind

Thomas Huxley once encouraged people to: ”Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” If you're looking for suggestions on how to spur creativity by ”thinking like a child,” you'll first need to relearn how to cultivate a "beginner's mind."  For some hints, click here.  

10 Reasons You Might Live Alot Longer Than You Think

Last month, I encouraged readers -- especially when contemplating the future -- to "think 10X, not 10%,” and the more I think about health care, the more I have come to believe this line of thought applies, in particular, to this field. I recently came across this article entitled "The man who will help you live for 1,000 years.” It is about Aubrey de Grey’s new book "Ending Aging” and if you're interested in learning why you might live a lot longer than 100 years -- maybe even 10X -- I'd encourage you to read this piece.

Can Education be Rekindled by Technology?

Late last month, Amazon unveiled its new electronic book—Kindle. At first glance, it appears to be a substantial improvement over past e-books in the sense that it is easier to read, lighter and can store up to 200 books. Like other e-books, however, it probably won’t do well commercially—at least in the beginning—because it is expensive ($400) and because most people resist change.

Nevertheless, I believe that Kindle has the potential to do very well because future versions are only going to get better, faster and cheaper. To better understand how Kindle might transform education, click here.

Want to Spur Innovation? Award a Prize.

Although it is little recalled today, one of the 18th century’s most vexing problems—that of discerning the longitude of a ship—was solved in large part because the British government was willing to award cash prizes to those innovators who successfully tackled the issue. In a similar manner, the Orteig Prize encouraged Charles Lindbergh to become the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane.

The awarding of prizes is a tradition that is growing in popularity and I believe it will lead to an amazing array of innovations in the fields of robotics, genomics, as well as the automotive and aerospace industries. Access the full article.

Meet the Queen of Paradox: Robyn Waters

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of participating in a “jamming session” at one of this country’s premier strategic planning groups, The Prouty Project. The event’s keynote speaker was Robyn Waters, the president of RW Trend and author of "The Hummer and the Mini”—which was recently named one of the best business retailing books of 2007.

It was one of the most enjoyable presentations I have had the pleasure of attending in sometime and Waters’ talk epitomized the importance of being able to think counterintuitively. To learn more about her book, her ideas and how to "enhance paradox," click here.

Innovations and Opportunities

As regular readers know, I write a weekly column entitled "Innovations and Opportunities" for the online financial investment newsletter, The Motley Fool. In the column I discuss how key scientific and technological breakthroughs from the past week could lead to some profitable opportunities in the near future.

This past week saw interesting breakthroughs in voice recognition technology, self-healing plastics and drought-resistant crops. The previous week witnessed startling advances in data storage technology, robotics and fuel cell technology, and the week before that practical breakthroughs in neurotechnology, nanotechnology and "printable organs."