Ari Wallach takes the long view of life, the world, and possibility. Extending the too-common emphasis on the right here and right now, Wallach takes us on a journey in his book LONGPATH for what is possible if you take the really long view, asking "to what end" as you contemplate personal, community, and world-wide change. I felt my own timelines for expectations for myself and my work to stretch and expand as I read the book, such that the urgent and nagging fell away when I turned a long perspective upon them. I've lived the horrific pressure of delivering quarterly sales and profits, even to the point of the weekly numbers over which we had very little control, so this book was a welcome relief and a joy to contemplate and put into effect. I received an early copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Longpath does everything it sets out to achieve; it gives the reader a program to think about the future and prevent short termism.

Why it matters: So many of our problems today come from thinking in the short term.

What I liked: I really liked how the author weaves his own antidotes and shocking facts to draw me in.

What should be improved: Near the last chapters some formatting issues make it difficult to read.

The bottom line: Longpath is a great book to thing about the future while also being short enough to retain the key ideas.

In the book “10-10-10” by Suzy Welch, the author suggests that a good way to consider the possible impacts of a decision are to think of the impacts in 10 minutes, 10 weeks, and 10 years. By doing this, you consider the results of your action from different perspectives. “Longpath” is the same kind of book, recommending the consideration of impacts of your actions and decisions in three different time perspectives. Here, the author choses the immediate past, the individual present, and the long term future. The past timeframe is more of a reflection on the impact to others. The present is defined as the impact on the self, and the long term uses the term ancestry, so you are really thinking long term. I found this long-term thinking to be somewhat ill defined for purpose. When you think long term, you need to understand the many possible directions that the world could go in. I expected the author would talk about scenarios, or discuss that the farther out one goes, the more the imagined future could be anything. No, instead the author suggested leaning on virtues, personal and societal, to make decisions. And there was a disregard for those unintended consequences that could outweigh the virtuous good in a decision. And strangely, when the author mentions an effort to involve all citizens of a Caribbean country in a kind of group study of possible futures, apropos to the ideas in this book, he drops the subject with just the mention. I liked the idea of thinking through decisions based on lenses of differing time horizons, but by placing one so far in the future, the message seems diminished.

This is a quick read and a mostly good one. There are some good thoughts and perspectives, along with a few graphics to illustrate some points and help make the material more memorable. I don't think this will drive a lot of action, but it's still a worthwhile read.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

It's a really heavy book, and I didn't know if it would actually be useful to push people into conversations about long-term consequences and multi-party commitments to a better future. I received a review copy from NetGalley and have left my opinion.

Interesting concept that fails to deliver. The introduction delivered the best message of the entire book: stay the course, look ahead.

This is a strong, timely book. There are man times throughout reading it that I felt called to action in really subtle , yet moving, ways. If a person is looking for broad behaviors to feel active in their ,”longpath,” view I feel this book is a wonderful path to start that process. Great book. I will reference and recommend to fellow readers!

Ari Wallach's "Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs - An Antidote for Short-Termism" expands upon Wallach's life work as a futurist helping leaders more consciously and ethically shape tomorrow. Wallach's TED Talk on Longpath has been viewed over 2.5 million times and translated into 19 different languages.

Now, Wallach serves as Executive Director of Longpath Labs, an initiative focused on bringing long-term thinking and coordinated behavior to the individual, organizational, and societal realms in order to ensure humanity flourishes on an ecologically thriving planet Earth for centuries to come.

The book "Longpath" essentially explores this initiative and puts into print the concepts that serve as a foundation for Longpath and a world where we move away from reactionary short-termism and instead move toward long-term living and leading and, as the title notes, "becoming the great ancestors our future needs."

Wallach asserts that many of the problems we face today, from climate change to work anxiety, are the result of short-term thinking. Wallach also asserts and passionately writes that Longpath is the solution.

If you've ever worked in large systems, you'll likely recognize the world that Wallach writes about. As a project director for a government agency, I see every day how so much of how we lead, fund, and support our social systems is reactionary in nature and geared toward short-term solutions destined to have only a short-term impact. We've become a society of sound byte social systems and Wallach's Longpath aims to create a different way aiming toward the longer path.

As a book, "Longpath" is surprisingly straightforward and understandable. Weaving together information with inspiration, Wallach projects the value of a world where we stop simply reacting and we move toward creating the world that we want future generations to live in.

Truthfully, there's nothing particularly "new" about this information. It's simply that we've moved so far away from it that it feels almost revolutionary.

"Longpath" is both intellectually satisfying and emotionally resonant, Wallach's stories about his father adding emotional depth to these concepts and strategies. Wallach himself is an engaging writer and "Longpath" offers him a chance to expand upon the materials in his TED Talk and to bring to life these ideas that have become his life work.

For those seeking a different way of leading, organizing, and living, "Longpath" is a valuable and vital tool for the individual and organizational toolbox.