Build for Tomorrow

How do you thrive when everything around you is changing—your job, your industry, your relationships, your routines, even your sense of self? In Build for Tomorrow, Jason Feifer argues that change is not a curse but an opportunity. He contends that discomfort and uncertainty can become the most powerful engines of growth—if we learn to navigate them consciously instead of panicking or clinging to the past.

Feifer, best known as editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, draws lessons from the most adaptable minds he’s encountered: startup founders, innovators, historians, and even psychologists. He noticed they all move through four distinct phases whenever confronted by disruption—Panic, Adaptation, New Normal, and Wouldn’t Go Back. These phases mirror emotional evolution, from fear of change to gratitude for transformation. His promise: if you master these stages, you’ll discover that progress doesn’t destroy what came before—it builds upon it.

The Age of Constant Upheaval

We live in what Feifer calls an age of “warp-speed innovation.” Technology reshapes industries overnight, pandemics reset priorities, and cultural shifts rewrite norms. Your present life—job security, habits, even your living situation—will inevitably disappear in a few years. That sounds terrifying, yet as Feifer reminds us, it’s always been true. History is full of crises that looked like the end of the world but ultimately ushered in periods of acceleration. The bubonic plague, for example, killed 60% of Europe but sparked labor rights and created the modern employment contract. Feifer sees this as proof that breakdown precedes breakthrough.

The Four Phases of Change

Feifer organizes the book into four sections that correspond to how we emotionally and practically respond to upheaval:

• Panic: The moment something upends the familiar. We freeze, lash out, or make rash decisions. Feifer uses the butter industry’s war on margarine and John Philip Sousa’s campaign against the phonograph to show how fear of change wastes opportunities.
• Adaptation: When the dust settles and we realize we can’t return to “normal.” Change is inevitable; we must start learning, experimenting, widening our perspective, and modifying the story from “something happened to me” to “I’m happening to something.”
• New Normal: The adjustment phase. We build new systems, relationships, or routines—but risk oversimplifying complex shifts. This is where Feifer encourages curiosity, challenging assumptions with questions like “What is this for?”
• Wouldn’t Go Back: The destination. You realize the transformation was ultimately liberating, even if painful. You see the benefits of innovation, new habits, or perspectives—and you’d never trade them for the comfort of the old world.

Together, these stages form not just a roadmap for resilience but a model for how societies evolve. Feifer argues that the same mental patterns that make entrepreneurs thrive can help anyone handle personal upheaval—from career shifts to global crises.

Why This Framework Matters

Feifer’s core insight is that resistance isn’t rational—it’s neurological and cultural. Humans evolved to equate change with danger, but modern life rewards adaptability. As psychologist Amy Orben explains in the book, our brains respond to novelty with anxiety because ancient survival instincts misinterpret it as threat. Yet those who reframe uncertainty as opportunity—what Feifer calls “building for tomorrow”—unlock exponential growth.

Moreover, Feifer balances history and psychology with business pragmatism. From restaurants that reinvented themselves during COVID to leaders who thrived by ditching short-term thinking, he shows that transformation isn’t accidental—it’s structured. Each example reminds readers that every “old normal” was once a “new normal.” If you learn to see change as cyclical, you can ride the wave instead of fighting the current.

Seeing Instability as Opportunity

The essence of Feifer’s argument is simple yet profound: instability is the foundation on which tomorrow is built. Like entrepreneurs pivoting when markets collapse or scientists discovering breakthroughs by accident, progress emerges from instability. The challenge is emotional—the need to quiet panic long enough to think creatively. If we cultivate curiosity instead of fear, reflection instead of reaction, we stop clinging to the past and start shaping the future.

Core Message

Change will always come. You cannot control its timing, but you can control your response. When you replace panic with inquiry, adaptation with action, and acceptance with innovation, you create a life—and a career—you’d never want to go back from.

Ultimately, Build for Tomorrow isn’t just about handling disruption. It’s about reprogramming how you define stability. Feifer wants you to realize that the most productive mindset isn’t “survive the future”—it’s “create the future, starting now.”

The first emotional response to change is panic—the adrenaline-filled jolt that shuts down rational thought. In Feifer’s view, panic turns smart people and entire industries into reactionary defenders of the past. It leads to attempts to stop change rather than understand it. Through historical examples, he shows how that instinct limits both creativity and success.

The History of Mistaken Reactions

Consider Napoleon III’s butter problem. In the 1800s, the emperor offered a prize for a butter substitute that soldiers could carry easily. The result was margarine—a practical, affordable innovation that soon fed working-class families. But the butter industry panicked, lobbying to dye margarine pink and outlaw it in several states. Rather than innovate to compete, Big Butter tried to erase its rival. The outcome? Margarine became even more popular, symbolizing progress. Every fear campaign ultimately made butter look regressive.

A century later, musician John Philip Sousa made the same mistake. When phonographs and radio arrived, Sousa feared recorded sound would destroy live performance and even parental bonding (“Will mothers stop singing lullabies?” he asked). He fought progress, publishing essays against phonographs. Yet history proved him wrong: recorded music expanded creativity, birthed new industries, and allowed musicians to earn money in their sleep. Panic never pays—it only delays adaptation.

Recognizing the Pattern

Feifer’s “You Come from the Future” theory reframes panic. Every generation fears change—be it the telegraph, mirrors, or the internet—claiming it will corrupt morals or human connection. Yet we are the product of all those changes. If we think of ourselves as good, then by logic, the new must also produce goodness. Understanding that lineage keeps panic in perspective.

Breaking the Sisyphean Cycle

Psychologist Amy Orben’s research calls this behavior the “Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics.” From radio to Facebook, societies repeat a pattern: paranoia, politicization, bad science, and eventual normalization. The media amplifies fear (“Facebook Depression,” for example), politicians exploit it for votes, and scientists rush to study it under pressure. Eventually, time reveals that the dangers were overstated. To stop the endless repetition, Orben argues for starting research—and reflection—before the panic begins.

Lesson

When you feel panic rise, pause. Ask: what’s really new here? Has something similar happened before? This mental distance allows you to see warning signs not as threat, but as information.

Feifer reinforces that panic isn’t something to harness—it’s something to overcome. Rational analysis, curiosity, historical context, and humility are antidotes to impulsive fear. The next stage—Adaptation—begins when you replace “What if this kills us?” with “How can this help us?”

In short, panic blinds, while inquiry enlightens. As Feifer says, “When someone tries to stop change, rather than understand it, they only hurt themselves in the long run.”

Once panic fades, humans face the harder challenge—adaptation. Feifer argues that adaptation is where growth begins. It requires a shift from helplessness to agency: stop saying “something is happening to me” and start saying “I’m happening to something.” Change doesn’t just happen—it must be shaped.

From Helplessness to Control

During his interviews, Feifer noticed that entrepreneurs adapt faster than most because they reject learned helplessness. Drawing on psychologist Nir Eyal’s research on “tech addiction,” he warns that labeling challenges as uncontrollable trains us to give up. When people say technology is addictive, they absolve themselves of responsibility. But addiction researchers like Liam Satchell (University of Winchester) note that what’s called “tech addiction” is often just distraction or overuse. Once you redefine the problem, you reclaim power to change behavior.

Discovering Your Why

Adaptation also involves identity work. Feifer describes how entrepreneurs define themselves not by what they do but by why they do it. Using Foodstirs cofounder Greg Fleishman’s example, he shows that when the pandemic derailed their new product launch, Fleishman didn’t despair. His ‘why’—bringing joy through baked goods—was unshaken. The ‘what,’ baking mixes or treats, could change. This mindset keeps people fluid in times of disruption (similar to Simon Sinek’s principle of “Start With Why”).

Experimentation and Flexibility

Adaptation thrives on experimentation. Feifer borrows behavioral economist Katy Milkman’s research on decision-making: adopting an “experimenter’s mindset” helps reduce fear of permanence. Labeling a change as trial eliminates paralyzing pressure. When evaluating big moves, Milkman suggests “pre-morting”—imagining what failure might look like beforehand. By identifying risks early, you make wiser decisions without the illusion of control.

The Zigzag Path

Feifer notes that adaptive careers rarely move straight. They zigzag. Someone exploring side projects is “working their next job,” even before leaving the current one. Like an accountant starting a comedy podcast that unexpectedly leads to a new career in audio production, every side experiment expands future possibilities. Feifer’s own zigzag—from editor to podcaster to speaker—illustrates this compounding adaptability.

Lesson

Adaptation is both mindset and mechanics. It starts by asking ‘Why am I doing this?’ and continues by embracing experiments that develop new skills. Change before you must—because voluntary transformation is easier than forced reinvention.

Ultimately, Feifer’s message is empowering: you have far more control than you think. Change can hurt, but it also hands you the tools to build yourself stronger. The future isn’t optional, but participation is.

After adaptation comes stabilization—the New Normal. Here, Feifer warns, people often oversimplify change, assuming we’ve reached equilibrium. In reality, the New Normal is temporary. It’s a reconstruction period where we reframe meaning, rewire habits, and ensure lessons stick.

Avoiding Oversimplification

The danger of every New Normal is mistaking it for permanence. After Russia’s 2016 election interference, pundits called the event “unprecedented.” Historian David Shimer proved it wasn’t—Russia had done similar things for decades, only using new tools like Twitter instead of radio. This pattern shows how societies forget prior lessons and misdiagnose novelty as crisis. The same behavior happens personally: after we adapt to a new job or technology, we assume it’s the final form of progress. Yet Feifer reminds us that almost nothing is unprecedented—only unrecognized.

The Bridge of Familiarity

To rebuild meaning, we need anchors between old and new. Feifer’s concept of the “Bridge of Familiarity” teaches that every innovation succeeds only when people recognize something familiar within it. Electricity was embraced not because it was revolutionary, but because it improved light—something people already understood. Similarly, early cars were marketed as “iron horses” to soothe skeptics. In personal transitions, building your own bridge means linking what you’re learning now to what you’ve always valued. The new becomes an upgraded version of the old.

Reframing Purpose

Feifer pushes readers to ask one small but transformational question: What is this for? Everything—from your work to your relationships—serves evolving functions. When you ask this, clarity emerges. A brick-and-mortar wig shop hit by lockdown redefined itself: it wasn’t “a storefront,” it was “a safe space for clients.” That reframing turned loss into gain, boosting profits through private appointments and virtual consults. The question upgrades stagnation into movement.

Lesson

The past isn’t to be resented—it’s to be repurposed. New Normal means learning from yesterday without reliving it, using familiar frameworks to integrate revolutionary possibilities.

For Feifer, the point of creating a New Normal isn’t comfort—it’s confidence. Once you recognize that change is cyclical, you stop waiting for stability and begin mastering renewal as a skill.

The culmination of transformation, Feifer says, is realizing you’re grateful for change. “Wouldn’t Go Back” is the moment you see your new self or system as indisputably better—and no longer wish for what was lost.

Seeing the Good in the Seemingly Bad

Feifer shows how history vindicates unpopular transformations. After the bubonic plague, people who once clung to aristocratic order experienced social mobility; their suffering shaped modern prosperity. Likewise, early moral panics—like Reverend Esper’s crusade against teddy bears—look ridiculous now but represent how societies resist moral and gender shifts. Those “impossible” transitions often become Wouldn’t Go Back milestones.

Reconsidering the Impossible

To reach this stage, Feifer invites you to “reconsider the impossible.” Many boundaries are self-imposed illusions of what can or can’t be done. Restaurateur Aziz Hashim’s Franklin Junction, for example, flipped restaurant economics by letting brands sell food through others’ kitchens—an idea once deemed absurd. Similarly, recognizing what you don’t know often reveals paths others overlook. Using the Johari Window model, Feifer stresses that growth begins with acknowledging blind spots, then asking: what do others know that I don’t?

The 99% There Problem

True innovation hides in the smallest unfinished percent. Electric scooters were seen as unsafe until companies realized injuries mostly occurred among first-time riders—and created safety training programs. Waltzing was accused of harming dancers until architects improved ventilation. Feifer calls this “innovating in the margins.” When you shift focus from what’s flashy to what’s missing, transformation completes.

Permission to Forget

Finally, Feifer dismantles the myth of fixed identity. Our memories, as psychologist Felipe De Brigard notes, are malleable; we rewrite the past to serve the future. We remember hardship as lessons, not trauma. This allows continual rebirth—the psychological permission to forget who you were, so you can become who you’re meant to be.

Lesson

Wouldn’t Go Back isn’t a destination—it’s a mindset. It’s the ability to recognize the beauty of transformation even when its origins were painful. Progress isn’t about forgetting the past—it’s about rewriting it to build a better tomorrow.

At its end, Feifer redefines success: not stability, but evolution. The world changes whether we want it to or not, but those who learn to see every disruption as potential are already living their Wouldn’t Go Back moment.

Feifer concludes with a powerful idea—the Conscious Cycle. Change is constant, but awareness transforms it from chaos into creation. You can’t stop disruption, but you can guide its impact by moving through the four phases deliberately.

Everything Is the Next Thing

Feifer describes returning from pandemic life in Boulder back to New York not as going “home,” but as living “the next thing.” His point: nothing is permanent. Every job, relationship, or city is a step in an ongoing evolution. When you define experiences as transitions—rather than endpoints—you liberate yourself from fear of failure. Growth is not about replacement but addition.

Endless, Not Endpoints

Drawing parallels to Michelle Pfeiffer’s shift from acting to launching her Henry Rose fragrance company, Feifer underscores that meaningful work rarely ends. “I kept waiting for it to end,” Pfeiffer said, “and realized—it never does.” The same lesson applies to parenthood, entrepreneurship, or creative projects: they evolve infinitely. When you expect endlessness, you stop fearing change and start enjoying iteration.

Practical Resilience

Feifer offers practical applications of the four phases for everyday challenges—career transitions, organizational rebrands, or personal loss. In each, the pattern repeats: Pause when others panic, change before you must, build meaning through bridges of familiarity, and seize new gains when discomfort peaks. The conscious repetition of this process transforms adaptability into reflex.

Final Reflection

Not all change is good, Feifer admits, but resisting it never is. Conscious adaptation turns disruption into direction. “We are builders at heart,” he writes. “Growth inspires us. The possibility of growth motivates us.” Every next thing is a chance to create something you’ll one day be grateful never to undo.

The ultimate skill, Feifer concludes, isn’t surviving change—it’s mastering the habit of evolving. The Conscious Cycle keeps you future-ready and forever building for tomorrow.