In an age of political and technological disruption, moving forward means stepping into the unknown. Old maps will not serve us in uncharted territory.

As a businesscoach I help my clients hone their innercompass, fostering clarity as an antidote to confusion.

On a recent trip to Morocco, I discovered a map created in 1154, that came to be the gold standard in cartography for centuries. At the behest of King Roger II of Sicily, the geographer Al-Idrisi had depicted the then known world. What looks unwieldy to our eyes, was a masterpiece at the time. Al-Idrisi got a lot of details right, including trading routes, as the reproduction of his work at the kasbah in Tangiers shows.

Al-Idrisi´s map may resonate especially strongly at a moment when we feel that our world has been turned upside down. Placing the south at the top and Europe at the bottom, however, was standard practice in the Islamic world at the time. This unfamiliar perspective does confront us with our limited perception of the world.

My main takeaway is the following. Al-Idrisi accumulated his knowledge by interviewing travelers and seafarers, people who had ventured far. Unbridled curiosity is a quality that will continue to serve us well, now that we have to find our own way forward.

How do you refine your inner compass? And what helps you head in the right direction?