Upbeat and ready for anything

A millionaire in his twenties and bankrupt when he reached his thirties. The setback transformed John Sanei’s thinking and it became a game-changer for him. His second book, Magnetiize, aims to help you change your future, writes

SOMETIMES the greatest success stories are born from the most profound setbacks. Everyone processes upsets differently, with their outlook on life being the key determining factor in their approach. John Sanei, the author of

feels passionately about sharing the knowledge he harvested to help empower people to step out of their comfort zones.

The trend and innovation specialist has released his second book,

Of the eye-catching gold cover, flecked with bold black print, he said: “What I realised after the first book is that you’ve got to look at your book cover as it stands on a bookshelf. And that’s very different to choosing a book cover when you are just looking at it at arm’s length. Imagine it far away, what do you need to see? You need to see it almost stick out from all the books out there. So gold says, ‘pick me’.

“Also typography. To have fonts that are oversized, you can read it comfortably for a few seconds. Pretty much like a billboard. We applied some of that science to it and we came out with this.”

Sanei continued: “The two ii’s to make it more remarkable. How do you become remarkable in a world of noise?

“The first thing you do is catch attention. Once you catch attention, you need to make it intriguing. Once you make it intriguing, you have to start adding value. Oversized typography is hot at the moment.”

While it took a year for him to publish his second book, the third is “already bubbling in my head”.

“The first book was very much around my exposure to the future and, after being exposed to the future quite a lot, I realised that, as individuals, we have the same power, the same reach and the same ability as organisations in governments did in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, without access to billions of people online, without access to crowdfunding.

“We can create any business and really shoot for the moon. My first book was really about how big, how bold and how courageous your questions about yourself and your future are. By exposing yourself to the future, you build an optimistic mind.

“By not exposing yourself to the future, you become a natural pessimist because what you don’t understand, you want to boo.”

“Stop the chase. Understand the change. Take control of your future” – this is the tagline of A powerful statement. Throughout out tête-à-tête, he couldn’t emphasise enough the need for individuals to expose themselves to the future.

“Every day, we get the opportunity to choose what we want to look at, what we want to focus on, what we want to see.

“If we choose to just listen to the radio on the way to work, we have exposure to only that. If we choose to listen to a podcast about the future, we start learning about autonomous vehicles. We start learning about biotech, which gives us the opportunity to live up to 180 years. It’s our choice, what we want to expose ourselves to.

“For me, it’s how often are you future-proofing yourself ? How often are you future-proofing your family, your organisation, your colleagues?

“What does future-proofing mean? It means, exposing yourself; watching a video, reading a blog, listening to a podcast that exposes you to what’s coming. That puts you in an upward spiral of becoming optimistic and ready for the future.

“Rather than, when you hear about autonomous vehicles, your first thought is, nah, that’s so far away, I don’t want to think about it. Or AI taking over my job. Nah, that’s not going to happen to me. That positions you as a pessimist because of your lack of exposure.”

Taking a leap out of one’s comfort zone isn’t easy.

“I call that capability advantage. It’s when people ask questions about their future based on their capability. I want to ask questions based only on my understanding of myself and how I fit into the future. Not what is happening in the future and how I can adapt to become relevant and thrive in that.

“Businesses do this. Banks ask to be better banks. Finance companies ask to be better finance companies. And that’s the wrong question. The question is: how do we become relevant in the future? Do we have to stay a bank or do we have to become something else?” The idea of turning to a self-help book for answers might appeal to some and repel others. The latter stems from an aversion to anything sententious. Sanei’s approach comes from a more relateable perspective, where he allows his vulnerability to surface along with his strength. “I speak about my stories and how I went through a process of not wanting. When you read the book, you will see when I was in my twenties, I was very wealthy and, by 30, I had lost everything and went bankrupt. “The reason I went bankrupt is that I didn’t innovate, I didn’t change. I didn’t become flexible. I did what I was always doing, which was just push a bit harder and cut costs, like most businesses are doing. “I use myself as an example and my vulnerability comes through clearly in my books, which relieves the reader of me not being preachy.” Who is the target market for the book? “Everybody,” he said, without hesitation. “Whether you are in a corporate job THE KEY: John Sanei’s forte as a trend and innovation specialist is wonderfully manifested in his latest book, Magnetiize. or an entrepreneur, do you know what possibilities and potentialities are out there for you?

“If you don’t, you are not exposing yourself to the future. There’s an incredible, abundant future coming at us.

“How are we positioning ourselves differently? Are we doing the same job, going through the same processes, following the same corporate ladder as we always have? Why can’t we pop out for a bit?

“Look at what’s coming and understand that we have this incredible power that we have never had – and it’s getting bigger and bigger.”

In getting his point across, he touched on how Instagram had given individuals direct access to share their voice and opinions and, in so doing, attract a following.

Previously, such exposure was through traditional media channels.

Sanei also touched on adaptability becoming a useful skill set.

“What I wanted to cover in the book is what are our motivating factors as human beings, to be doing what we are doing. Most people are driven by security. Most people are driven by anxiousness to make sure we survive in the future.

“Nobody is realising that we could be thriving in the future by doing two things: one, dealing with our psychology and, two, exposing ourselves to the future.

“If we don’t have the right mindset, we cannot expose ourselves to the future.”

He drew a distinction between accomplishment and purpose.

“Most people think they can’t make money out of their passion when in fact you can become the most profitable you’ve been when you follow your passion.

“Why? Because when you follow your passion you have access to endless energy. You have access to endless creativity; there are no boundaries.”

Sanei provides much food for thought in

He ends our chat with these parting words: “When you follow this process and you expose yourself to the future, you start magnetising your reality. Synchronicity becomes the norm in your life.

“When we have this clear purpose that you are driving towards, it’s a flow state and the right people pop up at the perfect time to bring about what you are here on Earth to do.

“Mark Twain said it best: ‘The two most important days in your life is when you are born and when you find out your why?’ When you find out why, it starts to make sense.

“And that is the point of the book. It’s about how we change our decision-making process. How do we make decisions based on courage in order to become the best version of ourselves?”