Six-Chart Sunday (#100) – How to Navigate an Age of Disruption
6 Infographics + 1 Video (Hal Brands on the U.S. & China in 2026)
Welcome to the 100th edition of Six-Chart Sunday! I have loved creating these each week and truly appreciate all the feedback, suggestions & encouragement. Thanks for reading, sharing & recommending my work!
I’ve spent the past 99 weeks trying to explain the volatile period we find ourselves in — the seismic technological, geopolitical and cultural macro-trends that brought us here, define our unsettled reality and portend a dynamic future. As we head into the holiday week here are six tips for navigating these turbulent trends… how to maintain your perspective, objectivity & sanity in our age of disruption.
1. Balance Your Media Diet
If “garbage in, garbage out” explains faulty artificial intelligence, doesn’t the same principle apply to human intelligence? If an unbalanced nutritional diet undermines your athletic performance, won’t an unbalanced information diet impair your effectiveness as a leader, investor or citizen? We’re drowning in information sources and media options, making it very easy to fall into the confirmation bias trap – only consuming things that make us feel good. But that’s not balanced. Overcoming the algorithms & media business models takes thought and intentionality… aim for diversity in viewpoint, medium, geography, time frame, subject & format. (graphic h/t Julia Mehlman)
2. Read History
People are naturally prone to recency bias, forgetting the worst from yesterday while catastrophizing about the present. Studying history reminds us that we’ve always faced challenges that felt insurmountable at the time… and consistently made progress. Our society feels epically divided right now, but nothing divides America today as deeply as the Vietnam War did from 1965-1974. The rates of inflation, violent crime & home mortgage rates are all lower this decade than they were in the 70’s, while race relations & campus politics were more fraught back then. (Also: homosexuality was deemed a “mental illness” by the medical establishment until 1973 with no right to marry; cancer death rates were higher, life expectancy lower; and energy efficiency & the gender pay gap were worse, if still not ideal).
3. Be Curious
“What have you experienced that I haven’t that makes you believe what you do?” I love that question from Morgan Housel. Too many of us presume the worst in others, convinced we understand the other side based on our own preconceived notions. We’re judgmental, not curious. And we’re frequently wrong… about who they are and what they believe. Per the authors of an fascinating 2015 study:
“We are in a situation where Americans have sorted themselves into two parties along not just ideological lines, but also by geographical, religious, racial and other social and cultural differences. At the same time, they’ve adopted inaccurate, caricatured views of both parties that overstate these already sizable demographic differences. And they’ve started taking positions on issues based on whatever stance their party adopts.”
4. Reimagine Success
“Would you trade lives with Warren Buffett?… After all, Buffett is worth $140 billion, reads & learns for a living and can meet with anyone on the planet… But there’s no chance you’d trade lives with him. Because he’s 95 years old. You wouldn’t give up the time you have left for all the money he has. Your time has incalculable value.” Such an important idea from Sahil Bloom. People prioritizing status & economic success often forget this, putting short-term gains over long-term happiness, as Clayton Christensen recounted:
Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated from their children. I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them. And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.
5. Play the Long Game
Success compounds over time. Shortcuts rarely do. Great businesses, investors and families play the long game… seeking slow & steady progress while avoiding big mistakes. In politics and life, playing the long game means minding your reputation for honesty & reliability, dealing squarely with a wide array of stakeholders, doing unto others as you’d have done to you and critically, remaining bipartisan… because the pendulum always swings back.
6. Show Up: All Trust Is Local
The radical transparency enabled by the internet has precipitated a profound crisis of authority — people no longer trust big institutions to have their back — they feel “let down by people who ‘run things’” and they’re voting for change. Yet trust is a funny thing. People hate Congress but trust their own Congressperson. They don’t trust big business (Gallup) but trust their own employer most (Edelman Trust Barometer). We don’t trust the “mass media” but trust the podcasters we listen to & Substacks we read. We have confidence in our own doctor but despise the “healthcare system.” Why? It’s based on how we engage them. We don’t trust those things we perceive from afar, through the lens of a media incentivized to keep us reading, watching and listening via drama & outrage… “if it bleeds it leads.” By contrast we trust those things we experience in real life, first hand, offline. If you want to be trusted, you need to show up… to tell your own story
SO WHAT? I remain bullish on the future, optimistic we will make it “through the night with a light from above.” America always has. Admittedly my optimism is based on hope… but it’s a hope informed by history & human nature. As Morgan Housel put it, “The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate.”
Thank you to those of you with me since Substack #1, and thanks to those just signing up. Please keep sharing with friends, family & colleagues… and Happy Thanksgiving week to all!
Upcoming live discussion… Join us Monday Nov. 24 (tomorrow!) at 4pm ET… award-winning national political correspondent MOLLY BALL discusses “Pelosi, Politics & Populism”… register here.
VIDEO
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg columnist. scholar of U.S. foreign policy, Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of ten books and all around great guy. Last week we discussed U.S.-China relations in 2026 and beyond — what business leaders need to know.
Thank you Bruce. I think I speak for many of us when I state that this SCS was really timely, and really needed. Please keep up the great work!
Great read this week Bruce. We need more pieces like this, we should appreciate more of what we have today and where we have come from. Congrats on the milestone post, they are a great Sunday read.