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What Everyone Can Do Next
NEXTletter is your practice for shaping what’s next. More than a newsletter, it’s a space to pause, reflect, and experiment. Every other Friday, you’ll get one question, two perspectives, and one experiment — to help you create the future you most want to live in.
Frederik Pferdt
February 13, 2026
Prefer to listen 📻 > click Every morning, the world arrives before we do.
It comes through headlines and push notifications.
Through words that feel heavy in the body before they make sense in the mind.
Geopolitics.
War.
Climate crisis.
Polarization.
Leadership failure.
Systems under strain.
Even before coffee, many of us are already bracing.
I recently spoke with a leader I admire deeply. Thoughtful, caring, responsible. She told me she often falls asleep with the news playing in the background. Not because it soothes her, but because she feels she has to know. As if missing a headline might mean missing responsibility itself.
In the morning, the ritual continues. News first. Body second.
She’s not alone. Most of us aren’t.
And yet, just this weekend, something different happened.
At the Super Bowl halftime show, a stage watched by millions around the globe became a canvas not for conflict, but for unity. A message blazed across a screen:
“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
In that moment, joy and belonging weren’t distractions. They were answers. It reminded me of something deeply personal. My mother recently joined a demonstration against racism in Germany. My son walked in a protest in our hometown of Santa Cruz.
Two generations.
Two continents.
Same quiet decision:
Not to scroll.
But to stand.
And that’s where this NEXTletter begins.
ONE QUESTION
What can I do next when the world feels too big to hold?
Not: What should governments do?
Not: What will happen next?
But: What is mine to do next?
A Valentine’s Invitation
If there’s someone in your life who feels overwhelmed, stuck, or quietly asking “What can I do next?”, you can gift them something different this year. How to Fall in Love With Your Future is 50% off for Valentine’s Day – eight days, practical exercises, and FutureIK AI guidance. Use code LOVEYOURFUTURE50 (valid through February 14) here. Because sometimes the most powerful gift is not something they hold, but something they become.
Future Being Coaching (1:1) is also 14% off a full Future Being journey. Use code FUTUREBEING14. Not to fix someone, but to stand beside them as they design what’s next. For more information, contact Tabea.
TWO PERSPECTIVES
1️⃣ When Being Informed Starts to Cost Us Agency There’s a quiet assumption many of us live with: That consuming more information makes us more prepared. More responsible. More in control. But research tells a different story. Studies from the American Psychological Association show that prolonged exposure to crisis-driven news increases anxiety, helplessness, and sleep disruption. Neuroscientists point out that our nervous system does not distinguish well between danger that is immediate and danger that is informational. We stay alert. But we don’t move. Psychologist Martin Seligman called this learned helplessness — when repeated exposure to problems we cannot influence slowly erodes our sense of agency. We are informed. But frozen. Connected to everything. Yet unable to touch anything. And so the question quietly shifts from What’s happening in the world? to Why do I feel so tired, anxious, and small? | 2️⃣ Why Small, Local Action Changes the Future Faster Than We Think Research from Harvard and Stanford shows that small acts that help others lower stress hormones, increase connection chemistry, and restore a sense of control. Not because the problem is solved. But because you are no longer just a witness. Action doesn’t require certainty. It creates it. I’ve seen this again and again. In refugee camps, where the hardest part was waiting. In organizations navigating uncertainty. In families who stopped asking “What will happen?” and started asking “What can we shape together?” And sometimes, it looks like this: A mother stepping into a square in Germany. A son walking down a street in Santa Cruz. A halftime stage choosing love over outrage. The future doesn’t arrive through headlines. It arrives through choices. Often small ones. Often invisible ones. |
ONE EXPERIMENT
For the next 24 hours: Pause the global feed.
Choose one small act of creation.
Help someone.
Write something honest.
Fix something broken.
Cook.
Listen.
Notice what changes. Not in the world. In you. Because the future doesn’t change when we know more about what’s wrong. It changes when more of us ask:
What can I do next?
And then do it. Your future doesn’t need you anxious. It needs you engaged.
A Valentine’s Invitation
If there’s someone in your life who feels overwhelmed, stuck, or quietly asking “What can I do next?”, you can gift them something different this year. How to Fall in Love With Your Future is 50% off for Valentine’s Day – eight days, practical exercises, and FutureIK AI guidance. Use code LOVEYOURFUTURE50 (valid through February 14) here. Because sometimes the most powerful gift is not something they hold, but something they become.
Future Being Coaching (1:1) is also 14% off a full Future Being journey. Use code FUTUREBEING14. Not to fix someone, but to stand beside them as they design what’s next. For more information, contact Tabea.
Podcast - with Markus Koch
This week on The Future Is HOW, I sat down with Markus Koch in New York. We recorded this conversation after walking through Wall Street — a place built on movement. Markets up. Markus is often called the face of Wall Street in Germany. Every day he answers the question: “What are the markets doing?” But I wanted to ask something different. How do you stay steady when everything moves? Because money doesn’t just move numbers. A gain can inflate you. So we talked about something rarely discussed in financial conversations: Inner stability. |  How do you have results without becoming them? Markets will move. The deeper question is: What moves inside you when it does? If you’ve ever felt your mood change with a number, You can listen to the conversation wherever you get your podcasts. |
A Reframe That Changes Everything
What if the most future-ready move right now
is not to consume more…
…but to create something local, human, and real?
Anaïs Nin wrote:
“We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.”
If that’s true, the future isn’t first shaped by headlines. It’s shaped by our state.
Anxious people create anxious systems.
Grounded people create grounded movements.
Engaged people create engaged communities.
The question becomes: Who am I being in here?
And from that place: What can I do next?
With love
Frederik
My recommendations
You might have noticed something while reading this.
None of this requires a recommendation for where to go next.
It asks a different question.
How do you want to feel in your future?
That question is at the heart of my Future Being Coaching. Not about making big life moves, but about shifting your inner posture toward what’s ahead. So your future feels more spacious, more intentional, more like yours, no matter where you are standing.
The same is true for the 8-Day Future Mindstate Training. It doesn’t ask you to go anywhere. It meets you where you are. At home. On a train. Between meetings. One small daily practice at a time. The journey comes to you.
And then there are my books. They’ve traveled to many places I couldn’t. Different countries. Different climates. Different lives. You can take them anywhere you want to feel differently. Sometimes that’s the most portable future tool we have.