Once again, I find myself opining on something I heard in a YouTube video recently.
The age of knowledge is over.
This is the age of agency.
I’ve talked a lot, maybe too much, about agency and adjacent ideas. I’ve talked a lot, maybe too much, about the fact that future success will depend on performance. Real, impactful, performance.
The age of superfluousness.
The age of excess.
The age of doing just enough to get by.
Those days are over.
From here on out, you have to be able to get the job done. Efficiently. Effectively. In short, you have to become high-agency. You have to be someone who can do what others can’t. What AI can’t.
You have to rise above the average. You have to demonstrate, clearly, that you bring more value to the table than the next person – or the next technology. You must identify what it is that you have to contribute, then brand it, market it, and sell it. Not necessarily in the marketplace of things if you’re not an entrepreneur; but in the marketplace of making a living.
In this new economic, social, and cultural environment, if you want to succeed at anything, you’re going to have to really bring it.
And no, this doesn’t always mean working harder.
Most of the time, it means working smarter.
As a self-professed optimization junkie, this stuff makes me a little giddy. There could be no drug more pleasing to me than optimization. A system running at peak performance; what could be better? (Or maybe that’s just me.)
But if you want to understand how to move into, and survive, the new paradigm, I hate to tell you this: you’re probably going to have to get on the optimization train. You may even have to become, heaven forbid, a little more like me. At least in this one narrow sense.
I know. Shifting direction is hard. Change always is. But adaptability is the real superpower; the one that turns ordinary people into unlikely heroes of the new economy.
I’m not saying it’s easy to learn how to optimize yourself, your work, your systems. But I am saying it’s going to be worth it.
Because most people aren’t going to make the transition. They’re going to fade quietly into the lower half of the new stratification. Whether we like it or not, the world is being aggressively divided into the haves and the have-nots. And staying out of the latter group will depend on your ability to optimize. Your ability to understand your value; and communicate it effectively, widely, and convincingly.
If you can’t clearly identify, articulate, and sell what you add to the world, you’re going to get swept away by the tsunami of change.
So take some time. Figure out what you actually have to offer. Build your version of a brand. Cultivate a network that’s real and useful. Start positioning yourself for success in a rapidly changing world.
Or don’t.
And see how that works out.
Cheers, friends. Let’s keep discovering together.
Join us in making the world a better place. You’ll be glad that you did.