I originally wrote this in early September of 2008 just as the economic crisis nosed down toward a crash landing.  I recently reread this post and added some current thoughts even though the reality described remains unchanged.

Walking through the Colorado Springs Airport the other day, on my way to notch another step in my march toward annual 1K status on United Airlines, I was stopped by this advertisement by Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver: The Top Ten Jobs of 2015 Don’t Exist Today. Though I don’t know what that statement is based on, at an intuitive level, I think it’s true.

So what are the implications?

1. Your job is not safe. And it’s not just the threat of outsourcing to other countries, but that due to the accelerating change being brought to bear on business models by technology and globalization, the chances are pretty good that your job will be obsolete, extinct, gone the way of the dodo bird.

   It’s also now clear that jobs aren’t coming back. It’s not just jobs that have gone away, we’ve witnessed the demise of whole industries.  The investment banking industry was gone in a year.  Private sector jobs are shrinking.  The only job growth that we’re really seeing is with the federal government.

2. If you are training and getting educated for a job that exists today, you may finish up your training just in time to see that the job no longer exists.

   You have to face the reality that you will need to be an aggressive and active learner for the rest of your life.  I’m witnessing friends in their forties and fifties who have just lost their jobs.  They were in technology work and thought that they were on top of their games until they were laid off.  Then the fact that their technical knowledge was woefully out of date smashed them in the face.  Younger and less expensive talent had leaped ahead of them.  Unable to now get work at even minimum wage, they are struggling.  The lesson is that you have to keep learning, to keep up with the leading edge of the knowledge in  your field. And you will have to do this on your own because many companies, cash strapped as they are will not make those kinds of investments in training.

3. If you’re starting college this year, chances are what you imagine as your best career path today may not exist by the time you graduate.

   You cannot think any longer in terms of a career path, as if there was some sort of concrete pathway from here to retirement.  Careers will come and go, as do businesses and industries.  You will have to keep thinking as if you were an entrepreneur in terms of what value is needed today, how you can create significant value to a company/market/society.  View a job as a temporary gig and learn how to springboard to the next emerging opportunities and needs.

4. Our workforce is ill prepared for this challenge. Our schools are ill prepared for this challenge. Our government is ill prepared for this challenge.  Even business is ill prepared.

   Let me repeat.  YOU HAVE TO TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR OWN PREPARATION.  And if you are parents, wake up!  You will have to do more to prepare your own children to survive in this world.  You will have to help them develop the entrepreneurial skills, the creativity, the guts, the initiative to make their own way.

So what’s a person to do?

1. Accept the fact that jobs are no way to think about the world of work.  Think in terms of skill sets that you develop and apply to projects. Think about yourself as a Company of One (to borrow from the Army’s slogan).

   If you are thankfully still employed, don’t get comfortable.  Begin NOW to experiment with projects, small contracts, moonlighting in order to learn and hone new skills of value creation.  It may be more of what you do or it may be something different, but begin to hedge the risk of depending on your current job.

2. Continually work to evolve and grow your value. Develop fresh ways to add value to an organization.  This will require constant, 24/7 learning.  This will require constant networking and observation to the innovative edges of your industry or field of knowledge.

   I have nothing new here to say.  Just underline this point.

3. Don’t think of yourself in terms of a job description but as a portfolio of knowledge, skills, experience, and value-creating capabilities that are uniquely, innovatively, and freshly applied to organizations and their challenges, to markets and their demands, to customers and their needs.

   Reevaluate your portfolio NOW.  Don’t list the jobs that you’ve done.  List the things that you did to create value and success.  What did you most enjoy? What aspects of what you did brought you the most success while also being the most satisfying?  Step back and look at these things.  What kinds of work map to these?  What are needs that you see that are crying out for these capabilities?

4. You cannot…let me repeat…you cannot look to a job or an organization as your source of security.  In this 2008 campaign season there is a lot of rhetoric about saving jobs, preserving jobs, bringing back the jobs.  Sure some things that are outsourced may come back and sourced once again in this country.  But I’m afraid that a lot of those jobs aren’t outsourced away from our reach, they just disappear forever because of the changes in how business operates and  produces value.  And no government, politician, union, or school can change that.

   Be honest with yourself. What are you trusting in?  What do you look to as your source of security?  Not sure how to answer that?  Then think about what you would be most fearful of losing?  If you are married, discuss this with your spouse.  Build a personal, family, and financial battle plan to create margin and resiliency in your life.  It might be a ten year plan, but get under way.

5. Teach these entrepreneurial and value creating skills and mindset to all young people.  (I’ve wrestled with this as my two oldest children are in college.)  We can hope for government and other institutions to come to the rescue, but I just don’t see that any institution can respond quickly enough.  It’s all happening too fast.   We must be more responsible than ever to grow our own ability to produce value.  It’s a risk we must take.  And as we’re learning and developing new adaptable ways to find tomorrow’s opportunity and  growing tomorrow’s skills for ourselves, my hope is that we’ll also be creating new opportunities for our neighbors.

My two oldest are now graduated from college.  One is following an entrepreneurial path; the other is headed to grad school.  And there is a younger one still at home.  My wife and I continue to interact with all of them to coach them and advise them, while also discussing with them the unfolding dangers and challenges of our times.  We also are working to strengthen and develop the basic worldview, values, character, faith, discernment and judgment of the children.  This is foundational to stability in turbulent times.  I’m convinced that in the days ahead in this “new normal” that the only wealth and safety net will be the extended family and the resources and foundational character that it provides.   This is something that the U.S. has largely lost unlike other cultures.

Please write in and let me know what you are seeing and doing about these economically challenging times.