We are in a race. We are the tortoise and the heir is the accelerating change. Except this time, the heir isn’t resting.
Nobody knows what the world will look like in 20 years. Though It’s impossible to predict when the next war, or epidemic will break out. But, we could predict what basic skills will still be relevant in 20 years. Like becoming a doctor, engineer, or banker.
But, diving into AGI and the post-labour-work rabbit hole, a few questions generally comes mind:
What do humans do that machines can’t?
What jobs – if any – will persist in the next 20 years?
What can we, as humans, do to secure an above-average future?
Luckily, Devon Eriksen, writer, shone a bright light on this issue. Which is pretty reasonable to me. Let me explain through his point of view.
Buy, Let’s first focus on what worries us most. What to teach ourselves and children that will be relevant in 20 years.
The answer is hidden in what education really means.
In past, only slaves, used as machines for labour, could be expected to do one task for their whole life. They were given career-specific education. like growing wheat, herding sheep, riding a horse, and so on.
Where nobles, not used as machines for labour, were expected to act in their interest. Depending on what served their goals at the time, they would do different things throughout their life.
Of course, they were taught some career-specific skills. But their education was centred around what education really meant.
A fundamental grounding in how to live and thrive as an independent and free-willed person.
They were taught the seven liberal arts of classical antiquity:
Arithmetic
Geometry
Music
Astronomy
Grammar
Logic
Rhetoric
Notice, these skills did not help them perform any particular trade or task. But taught them how to think and learn.
By contrast, modern government schools were founded to train clerks and factory workers at public expanse… a servant class with the specific skills necessary to be useful workers, but not the general education to be independent or question their betters?
Have you noticed which two of these arts are utterly absent from a modern government school “education”?
That’s right, logic and rhetoric. Logic is how to arrive at true conclusions from known facts. Rhetoric is how to persuade.
A servant educated in logic might notice that the things he is being told are false. A servant educated in rhetoric might notice the techniques that are being used to persuade him to act in the rulers’ interests instead of his own.
If you conceive of your children’s education as training in career skills, whether that be growing rice or programming a computer, you are preparing them to be slaves, not free men.
If you properly prepare them to be free men, what skills will be lucrative or useful twenty years from now is irrelevant, because they will be prepared to learn them.
The seven liberal arts of the modern world are:
Logic: how to derive truth from known facts
Statistics: how to understand the implications of data
Rhetoric: how to persuade, and spot persuasion tactics
Research: how to gather information on an unknown subject
(Practical) Psychology: how to discern and understand the true motives of others
Investment: how to manage and grow existing assets
Agency: how to make decisions about what course to pursue, and proactively take action to pursue it.
If you are really observant, you can trace back all these liberal arts to:
Marketing & sales – if you don’t know how to attract and persuade, you will never get what you want, and your only option will be for an employer (or the government) to give it to you. (Rhetoric, psychology)
Writing & thinking – the ability to communicate the value in your unique mind. The foundation of getting in front of other people. (Logic, research)
Entrepreneurship – the process of taking my future into you own hands, hunting for your survival, and building products that you want to see in the world (that others care about). (Statistics, agency, investment)
With entrepreneurship as your vessel, you set the scene for true education and sovereignty.
With writing and thinking, you continuously create, test, and iterate on the value you have to offer.
You are required to learn practical psychology – marketing and sales – to understand the minds of yourself and your customers. You then persuade, not force or deceive, to inspire people to care about the value you have to offer.
Dan Koe calls these future-proof skill stack. I don’t differ from him. Entrepreneurship truly sets you free. Even God tells you to embark on an entrepreneurial journey rather than just work in a field.
With the foundation of the future-proof skill stack, the next step is adapting to the changes with technical skills.
In the digital renaissance, this means:
Social media brand – building a name for yourself as your storefront for the value you create. The command center for your business.
Content – writing or video to educate, entertain, and inspire people to see your value.
Email marketing – newsletters or sequences to nurture the audience you acquire.
Visual design – illustrating the vibe of your brand to spark emotion in your viewers.
Funnel building – creating landing pages, and websites, and fueling them with other technical skills like content and email.
The requirements to learn these skills are bound to change as artificial intelligence shakes the industry. However, these technical skills are the current vessel for your entrepreneurial ventures.
In case you are wondering where to learn these skills. I’ve got you cover. This newsletter’s sole purpose is to build you a strong foundation of these skills.
However, if you are a busy entrepreneur who needs help with the technical skills, stop wasting time with freelancer and get a full-time in house team. Get a free consultation here.
Now the questions you may ask are:
What do I write about?
What do I market and sell?
What do I email, design, or leverage technical skills with?
Ask yourself what your ideal future looks like?
An ideal future is born from adversity. If you listen to the stories of the most successful entrepreneurs (excluding cases of unconscious competence), you will discover a common theme.
They built a product for one of three reasons:
To make something that helped them better.
To solve a problem in their life.
To build what they wanted to see in the world.
Or, even better, a combination of them all.
To wrap this up, technology only continues to advance.
Worry less about which “career skills” AI will take over, and more about whether you are training to be, and training your kids to be, high-agency, perceptive, self-motivated people who can navigate an unknowable future with an adaptable mind.