the next 10 years look bleak for this lady

Internet crapped out today.

Cannot describe how eager I am to rid myself of the 12 month contract I’m locked into with this lot.

To the point where I’ve now got a picture of the owner of NowTV blu-tacked to a dart board in my bedroom with more holes in his forehead than the kid at school who got struck down a bad case of acne at the age of 13 and simply couldn’t resist the urge to gnaw at it.

And I’ve just spent the past hour on the phone to an (admittedly lovely, and extremely helpful) woman trying to figure out what’s gone awry.

Engineer is on the way tomorrow.

Can’t wait for him to turn up and tell me he’s missing some crucial tool he needs to fix it, and that I’ll need to spend another day hotspotting, lol.

Anyway. Rant aside.

The phone call got me thinking:

As helpful as that lady was (a rarity for phone support stuff these days, I’m sure you’ll agree), she, most likely, will not have a job 10 years or so from now.

At least not answering the phones.

You can see this yourself –

Google a company at random. Find their “contact us” page. More likely than not, you’re getting sent to an AI chatbot as your first point of call.

Won’t be long before they don’t even need the backend telephone staff for the more “nuanced” cases. 

For the record:

I don’t want companies to do this. I absolutely despise chatting with “GrahamBot”. And I’d much rather talk to a real human being

But that’s the way it’s going.

Costs are costs.

And as much as someone will make the argument “well, lots of people prefer talking to people rather than robots, just like you. The best companies will keep that personal touch”… most won’t see it that way, and the short-term bottom line will win.

Then a video from Dan Koe pops up on my YT feed:

“The Most Important Skill To Learn In The Next 10 Years With Devon Eriksen”.

They’re talking about “agency” (a.k.a. the ability to think for yourself, and make decisions without someone else telling you what to do).

Nothing new under the sun here, tbh.

But an entertaining watch, no less.

And with more and more people becoming terrified about their jobs, livelihood and ability to put food on the table amidst the “AI Apocalypse” (highly recommend you check out John Rush on Twitter for some of the coolest, if not spooky, revelations in that space), it is pretty timely.

You’ve probably had these concerns about your “future” yourself.

Maybe that’s what made you start your personal brand in the first place?

A way to “bulletproof” yourself in the age of the robots (people still need people, after all, right?)

This is a reasonable take.

But I think people misinterpret it by thinking that just because you qualify as “person”, you’ll be safe-guarded by building a “personal” brand.

The reality is, people don’t value people so much as they value what they can do for them. We are all governed by our own self-interests, after all.

I also hate it when I see people with genuinely useful skillsets (software developers, copywriters, marketers, what have you) instantly start fearing for their livelihood when one of these discussions pops up.

Because here’s the nuance:

People like software developers, designers, economists and the like read these threads about AI agents building websites in a matter of seconds, Claude writing copy that, honestly, is pretty damn compelling, and robots now being used to build other robots in some sort of human centipede-like production line (yes, that is really happening btw) and think “fuck, am I the next one on the chopping block!?!?”

I get where they’re coming from.

It can be scary when you see this stuff online.

But you’ve kind of missed the point.

Because the reality is this:

What makes you – someone with a valuable skillset – valuable, is not the skillset itself, but the set of internal processes which allowed you to acquire it in the first place.

“I can code in Python/C++/whatever other language” (= I am able to think logically, zoom out and think about the bigger picture behind the code design etc).

You see this play out in job interviews too.

Whenever you get interviewed by someone with even half a brain, you quickly realise that while they do ask you a few “technical” questions (to make sure you’re not completely full of it), that’s not really what they’re assessing you on.

Mostly, they only care about one thing:

“Can this guy figure out shit which he doesn’t understand right now”.

That’s the meta skill they want to see within you:

Your “figure-it-the-fuck-out-ability”.

Applies to your brand too:

Have you ever wondered why you’ll see success with a specific hook on social media, but, over time… people start paying less and less attention?

Why an offer will convert, and convert, and convert until one day… it just… stops?

That’s literally just the social media universe saying to you “we’ve had enough of that for now, time for you to THINK of something different”.

Same if you’re working a 9-5:

Doesn’t really matter if software developers go extinct as a result of some AI super-evolution.

Because it’ll simply open up a flood of new (and, likely more exciting) jobs as a result.

And, if you’re someone who can think on his own two feet, doesn’t mind being humbled for a few months and feeling like a beginner again, and has the ability to learn whatever you please (if you put your mind to it).

You’ll be good no matter what “oh my god I’m not gonna have a job in 5 years” trend comes along next.

So, my advice?

Spend less time worrying, stressing and prophesising based on what you hear on social media.

Spend more time thinking, learning, and taking action.

You’ll be alright.

Talk soon,

Harry