Where Leaders Learn

One of the pleasures of writing Quantum Aikido was the community it drew in — practitioners, peacemakers, and innovators who recognize that the principles governing the mat also govern the boardroom, the negotiating table, and the classroom.

David Pearl is one of those people.

An innovator at the intersection of business, the arts, and social change, David contributed to this book and has spent decades exploring how leaders can show up with more presence, creativity, and courage. His work starts from a premise familiar to anyone who trains in Aikido: that real effectiveness isn't about force or strategy. It's about quality of attention.

His latest venture, Future School, co-founded with Arne Gast of McKinsey, brings together 50 leaders from across the Benelux for an intensive program built around a single question:

That question is, at its core, a Quantum Aikido question.

It blends receptivity with action, not-knowing with deep preparation. It asks leaders to set aside the instinct to control outcomes and instead to sense what's emerging — to meet the future the way an Aikidoka meets an incoming force: not by bracing against it, but by blending with it.

This is harder than it sounds. Most leadership training prepares people to project confidence, assert vision, and drive results. Future School asks something different: to become genuinely curious about what isn't yet known. To let the future be a teacher.

That takes presence. It takes the willingness to not-know long enough for something real to emerge. It takes, in other words, exactly what decades of practice on the mat develops.

I recommend it without reservation.