If you want to be different, be creative, show empathy and be proactive.
As of writing this blog during the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers of unemployments are higher than ever as people are being stood down from their jobs.
It is already challenging for job seeker to compete in the job market, letting alone the pandemic.
Before the crisis, I thought about the future of employments in the upcoming years.. and that still hasn’t changed.
Where We Are
We live in the world where
- Robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) play a big role in people’s lives. They made our lives easier and faster but they also have already taken some of our jobs.
- Most of the businesses and activities can now be done online (eg. Banking, Online Shopping, Online Education).
- If we don’t adapt, we won’t survive. That’s the whole point of evolution.
Because of the pandemic, we are now seeing changes that were going to happen within the next decade, instead, they are happening now. Businesses, small to large, are forced to go online if they want to survive.
With the direction that we are heading, here are the top 3 skills you need to develop if you want to thrive in the new world.
1. Creativity
This is what sets us apart from each other. This is what makes everyone so different and this is what robots don’t have.
AI and robot are good at doing easy and repetitive tasks. They are brilliant when it comes to calculating and dealing with algorithm, better than human even.
Jobs like customer services are now being replaced by Chatbot. Given that all customers often ask the same question, companies can now easily leave the answers with the chatbots, whenever people ask about it.
Artificial Intelligence makes our lives easier by calculating and sorting out data or any complicated tasks on the platform for us. For example, they can help us find the right audience, maximise our marketing budget and automate pretty much many things. Automation is really going to become a popular keyword in the next coming years.
However, creativity is a really subjective and complex concept. It is tricky to develop algorithm for robots to understand.
For instance, ask a robot to design a chair.
It is very unlikely that it will come up with something new and innovative because robots can only do things with the limitation of its algorithm, hence, they can only give you something that has already been done, based on the algorithm that came from its developer’s mind.
And what defines a concept of a chair? does it have one leg? two legs? or three? and what does it look like?
This explains why people love arts so much because arts is an important part of humanity. Animals don’t understand arts. Robots don’t understand arts but humans do.
We appreciate arts. We cry from watching a movie. We feel alive listening to music.
The world would be so boring without arts and creativity. Imagine a world where everyone wears the same clothes and all the buildings look the same.
Hence, creativity is the number one skill for you to develop if you want to be different and thrive in the future.
2. Empathy
As our lives are now interfered by robots and technologies, people value human-to-human connection more than ever.
It has already been predicted for years that those jobs that have anything to do with the human connection, such as a psychologist, will rise, while others will disappear.
Robots can do task for you but they can ONLY do tasks. They don’t really care how anyone feel because they are only programmed to finish the task.
Although scientists have already developed robots that can detect and interpret human’s emotion from facial expression, heart rate and other physical clues, it is still not the same as human connection.
Human can sense how each other feel without any algorithm. When someone cares about you, you know that they actually do because they are not programmed to do so.
Our consciousness makes us aware of how we makes other feel and helps us decide to do something for other people.
Therefore, when you show someone empathy, it is one of the most valuable things you can give them.
People want to feel appreciated, people want to feel like they are heard, and people will never forget how you make them feel.
3. Proactivity
Because most tasks are now easily automated by robots, we have more time to think and figure out how to do things better.
We live in a competitive world where if you don’t keep learning, moving and adding value to yourself, you will lose.
Being proactive means you take control of your own life and everything accountable for it. It means you show the responsibility of being in charge your own life.
It means that you do everything you can control to achieve the result that you wanted.
Continue to up-skill yourself to increase your value. And the higher value you have, the more value you will be able to ask and get from others.
Where We Are Heading
Automations and Artificial Intelligence will become a normal part of our lives. It already has for some people.
The old generation might find it hard to change but the new generations have already been born with these technologies. Babies are now playing with iPad and communicate to Siri, so they wont find the change challenging for them at all as it is now a part of their lives.
The changes are coming faster than expected and if you don’t adapt, you won’t survive.
If you don’t continue to increase the value of yourself and set yourself different, you will be easily replaced by other humans or robots.
Great read Neil, love the points you made and how you articulated them so clearly! And great to see you implementing and developing your awesome marketing skills. Really enjoyed it!
Thanks Nina, your encouragement means a lot 🙂
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