There is one product that leaders from across the business and political world promote at every opportunity, every occasion, every moment they can, because their very existence depends on it.

Certainty.

They need you to believe that in their hands, under their careful leadership, everything will be stable, will be under control, nothing, essentially, will change.

Of course, this is a lie, one of the bestselling lies you can ever tell people.

The weather changes, the day changes, time changes, we change. But they want you to feel comfortable, relaxed, set in your ways as if you were the same age, living in the same world as you were when you were a child.

And yet again, we know this is impossible.

When you were a child, you knew so little of the actual world, so little of how expansive, how complex, how vast its complications, its variations, its possibilities actually are.

To simplify things, to make them feel safe, basic, reassuringly boring and dull.

That is what they are telling you because the truth of it, the grist of it is far more complex and a harder sell.

Telling you it won’t be easy, that it will take effort, that we need to change things that you think you understand and are used to, to make things better is a hard sell that takes vision, courage, determination and a brutal honesty about the world that few if any really want to hear.

The world has never been truly fair, never truly accepting or loving, and just because you have had a good life doesn’t mean that others haven’t suffered while you enjoyed yourself.

The history of our species is a complicity in dancing and singing while others suffer and die. Those telling you otherwise are selling the same old fantasy they’ve been selling for centuries.

Whether a CEO or political leader is talking about the economy or their financial results or anything else that relates to how things are what they are telling you isn’t the truth. It doesn’t, hell, it can’t reflect reality, it can’t even be anything that can actually be proven. What they are telling you is a story, a fictional idea of the world, a comforting tale in most instances, of the future and the present, and how things are perfectly under control and no one is or will be worse off under what they propose.

They are selling you certainty. Certainty that you are okay, they are okay, everyone worth thinking about is okay, and there is nothing being done in your name or theirs that will make life worse for you or anyone else. Everything is and will be fine. They want and need to reassure you that life as you know it, comfortable, predictable, safe, is not going to change in any dramatic or meaningful way.

It’s bullshit of course, because life, the world, the universe, isn’t that simple, but for the most part it works cause for the majority life goes as they expect it.

And if it doesn’t, well, it’s not like anyone with any power could have changed things.

But if they had the honesty, the courage to tell you that things are not as they seem, that there are dangers on the horizon, that we as a species must accept the truth of our world, our lives, and change things for the better of all, preparations might have been made for what was coming, actions might have been set in motion to even prevent what was to come, even if it comes at a cost that some might find uncomfortable, might even question, against the possibility that some or all might suffer.

Education, health care, infrastructure, planning for disasters, help for those that need it, all cost money, resources, time. And to address those issues someone has to admit that things are not okay, things aren’t working, and effort must be made, expense must be incurred, and the truth of things must be told.

But when has anyone, anyone with any sort of significant power, significant influence, ever told you that life, the world as we know it, is unfair and we need to make it fair, we need to treat everyone equally, and those with more need to learn to give up more of what they have made from the rest of us?

Ideas like that bring change, bring uncertainty, and no one wants to try and sell you that.

They will tell you how things were better when you knew less, understood less, were told less.

Under their hands everything will go back to the way it was when you were certain, felt safe, and didn’t know a thing about anything much that made you feel uncomfortable or scared.

They will assure that everything will be okay and is under control

Especially when it isn’t.

Akeem Henderson  - Speech at Future Leaders Assembly