What if the future makes more sense when we treat it like a game?

In this episode of How We Future, Lisa Kay Solomon is joined by Jeffrey Rogers—futures facilitator, lifelong learner, and co-founder of PROJECTORY—to explore how play, prospection, and curiosity help people prepare for inevitable uncertainty. Jeff is an expert at designing experiences, workshops, and games that help leaders feel the future, not just think about it.

Together, Lisa and Jeff unpack why the future is “too important to leave to the futurists,” and how all of us can build their capacity to imagine, experiment, and act with more confidence.

Jeff shares stories from youth leadership trips, corporate workshops, and global facilitation work that reveal how people learn best when they’re invited to experiment, reflect, and play their way into new futures.

You’ll learn:

• Why prospection, or an ability to imagine forward, is a superpower we’re all naturally equipped with
• How games create low-stakes environments for exploring high-stakes ideas
• How simple imaginative activities (like interviewing a child about their future) promote agency and perspective
• Why designing your future self is just as important as designing future strategies
• Jeff’s favorite books and games, so that YOU can put his great ideas into action

This episode will encourage you to stay open, curious, and willing to try things that might not work (yet). Jeff’s approach makes the future feel expansive, collaborative, and wonderfully human.

Links from the show:

• Chair Zombie Game
• Gamestorming (practices by David Gray and Sunni Brown)
• Hal Hirshfield’s work at UCLA
• PROJECTORY

Bonus! Jeff’s recommendations for diving into futures practices:

• How to Future by Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby – an accessible toolkit for futures facilitation
• Timefulness by Marcia Bjornerud – a geologist's perspective on thinking across vastly different time scales
• Borne: A Novel by Jeff VanderMeer – science fiction that builds deep empathy for non-human entities (and yes, he cried at the end)