How To Protect Your Job from Outsourcing and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Kristin:    00:00:13    Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Badass Digital Nomads, where we help you be a badass in the future of work and the new economy. And today we are talking about the new economy. It's just me, <laugh> talking to you. If you have ever been a jack of all trades, master of none, and thought that that was a bad thing, I know that I did. I always felt like that my entire life. I felt like there was never one thing that I was really good at. I was just decent or like capable at a lot of different things. And I always looked at that as as a negative. So if you've ever felt like that, like you didn't know what you wanted to do or that you weren't really good at one thing, well, things worked out for the best because that jack of all trades, master of nothing is no longer a universal truth.  

Kristin:    00:01:12    And I don't know if it ever really was, or if we were just conditioned to think that way because the future belongs to polymaths. The future belongs to people who can be at the top of their field in multiple different areas. People who can combine their skills and abilities and personalities and character traits in a unique way. Okay, so I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that school and the industrial traditional education system has kind of fucked you over all of us over because it has not melded, specializing and generalizing in the right way. School and traditional education is one of those weird things where we had to learn a bunch of general stuff that we didn't necessarily care about. Like maybe you really hated math or biology. You just, there were things that everyone has, subjects they're good at, and everyone has subjects they're bad at.  

Kristin:    00:02:22    But the problem with traditional education is that you were taught for many years to study things that weren't relevant to you, that you were never gonna work in. And then all of a sudden, when you turn 18, you need to specialize in one thing and you need to know what it is. Because if you're going to college, you need to declare a major. And then all of a sudden you go from learning all of this random shit that you don't know why you're learning it other than to just be an informed citizen. And then all of a sudden you have to specialize in something. And for decades, the more specialized you were, the more money you could make because you could be an expert in that field. But now, technology, well, first outsourcing and now technology and artificial intelligence is passing us by. So the tables have turned because the more specialized you are at any one given thing, the easier it now is for you to be replaced, for you to be replaced.  

Kristin:    00:03:25    Um, maybe your job is outsourced to cheap labor in a foreign country, or maybe you're replaced by a younger knowledge worker who has more recent education that's more applicable, they're more technologically savvy, and they're just better at your job than you are. And then there's the new third wheel, which is being replaced by technology, being replaced by artificial intelligence. And so as the mainstream media goes, we've obviously been made to feel very afraid and uncertain about this change. But what I wanna tell you on the podcast today is how to think about this in a way that can be very beneficial to you. A way that you can have an edge in the world instead of being afraid that your job is gonna be outsourced, or maybe it already has been, and maybe you're starting over and you don't know what to do. Maybe you're one of the 14 million people whose u whose job has been outsourced in the us.  

Kristin:    00:04:29    I mean, that sucks, but it doesn't have to be the end for you. So then again, maybe you're somebody who thinks that your job's never going to be outsourced because you're really good at it or you're highly specialized at it, but nobody is safe in a way. So the first types of jobs that felt outsourcing, some of them are gonna be the same ones that are going to be taken over by, by ai. But eventually, every sector, every industry is going to be affected by this in some way. And with the rate of technological advancement and evolution, it's gonna happen pretty soon. So it, it might need to be in your five year plan or your 10 year plan, or at the very latest, your 15 year plan to be able to change something about your area of specialty so that you can compete in the new economy.  

Kristin:    00:05:26    'cause the new economy is already here, the gig economy, the freelance economy, whatever you wanna call it. And so the key to succeeding in the economy now is just to combine the things that you know how to do or that you want to learn how to do in a way that is difficult for a low level knowledge worker to do in just the way that you do it. So if you only do one thing, let's say you only work on, let's say you're a writer and you only write one sort of thing, then the value of what you write per word is going to continue going down. So maybe you're a content creator and you write blog posts. Well, low quality blog posts can be outsourced for a few dollars per blog. But what if you were a writer who could write effective copy? What if you wrote books?  

Kristin:    00:06:28    What if you knew how to write a script? What if you studied philosophy or a philosophy in psychology and marketing and integrated that into your writing? While your writing would probably get better and it would also be more diverse. And it would also include your individual perspective on the world, which would be influenced by exposure to a lot of different ideas and concepts. So this is kind of what we're going for, right? Being like a specialized generalist. So even if you were in, uh, an industry like, like call centers or manufacturing, that was one of the first industries to be affected by outsourcing. And also we'll have kind of a double whammy like manufacturing. When it comes to ai, they're getting hit again, <laugh>. Um, I think every, every industry will eventually be affected. One AI specialist named Scott Ey in an interview for 60 Minutes said that he thinks that 40% of the world's jobs will be replaced by robots capable of automating tasks.  

Kristin:    00:07:39    And he said that both blue collar workers and white collar workers will be affected. This is in transportation and manufacturing and trade, in administrative services, in real estate, in construction, in arts and entertainment, in education, in everything. And actually, Gary v talks a lot about how technology will disrupt real estate. And also technology is obviously an industry that jobs have been outsourced and jobs will be taken over by ai. So what can you do? What are some things that you can do so that you can reposition yourself strategically in the world so that you're not adversely affected by this, but you can use it as leverage in the gig economy. So one way that you can do this is by, as I mentioned with writing, you can expand upon your skills as a writer and get better at different types of writing. Um, or let's say you are, um, a videographer.  

Kristin:    00:08:48    How much more marketable are you if you only know how to operate the camera? But what if you're also a director and a producer and an actor and you can write your own script or you can fill in for somebody if the host of the show isn't there, you can stand in and talk on camera. How much more valuable are your skills as a package when you are able to do the skills of multiple people? And maybe instead of just one thing, you focus on doing two complimentary things really well. What if you did three complimentary things really well? The more things that you're in the top 1% or top 10% at that are good, that can be packaged together. The more value you are offering, the more value you're creating. And the more you can charge, the higher your rates are, the higher your value is to the marketplace.  

Kristin:    00:09:43    The more problems you're solving as one person for somebody else, the more money you're gonna make and the more secure your job is. So creating, well, combining different skills together is one way to make yourself more valuable in the new economy. And another way is by creating a personal brand. So in traditional education, we are taught that brands are really important for companies, for businesses, for marketing, for advertising, but brands are also very important for people now. So you don't have to be an online influencer or, or like a public persona to have a personal brand. You can be a software developer, you can be, um, a chef, you can be really, anyone with a personal brand is going to be more valuable than somebody in that same job who doesn't have a personal brand. So let's take Naval <inaudible>, who's the founder of AngelList.  

Kristin:    00:10:54    He's a person who I really like. If you haven't listened to his podcast or followed him on Twitter, please do so. But he says, um, well, he talks a lot about wealth creation and building wealth, and he says that, well, the internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers, and that most people haven't figured this out yet. And so this is one of the themes that we talk about a lot on this podcast on Badass Digital Nomads. And this is, this is relevant when it comes to competing because we can use the internet to expand our marketplace, the value of our skills, and also to learn new skills at a very low cost without the traditional investment and time and money that it takes to go to a traditional university. So Naval is actually a great example of somebody who has created a personal brand but didn't have to.  

Kristin:    00:11:56    He is the owner of AngelList. He's a, a, a vc, but now he's also a content creator with a strong personal brand. I mean, how many venture capitalists do you know by name? How many tech CEOs do you know by name? Not that many. It's usually only the ones that are very famous because their company's really big. Like people knew Steve Jobs, people know Bill Gates, people know Tim Ferris because he was, I mean, Tim Ferris was just a guy with a online supplements company who wrote a book and now he's a venture capitalist, and now he is a content creator and he sends so many other things. But if Naval and Tim Ferris didn't create personal brands, they would just be rich guys in the tech industry, a dime a dozen <laugh>. Am I right? No offense guys, but this works with everything. I mean, how many marketers and advertisers do you know by name?  

Kristin:    00:12:56    Not that many. You might know some marketing companies like Ogilvy and Mathers or whatever, but you might also know a man by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk, like he was just a guy who sold wine. You don't know that many guys who sell wine <laugh>, but you do know Gary V. You don't know that many marketing executives at companies unless they're your friend on LinkedIn. But you do know Gary V. You might not know like the name of many line cooks in a restaurant, but you definitely know Bobby Flay <laugh> or you know, you know these celebrity chef names. These are just people who know how to cook, who created a personal brand. And so you can do that for yourself. You can go big or you can go small, it doesn't matter. But the value of a personal brand cannot be underestimated in the gig economy.  

Kristin:    00:13:51    And when we're looking at the risk of losing jobs to outsourcing or ai. So another one of my favorite people who you should definitely follow, who also doesn't know who I am, but <laugh>, his name is Z Rona, and he's a writer on medium, very prolific writer, love his stuff. He says The big difference between the approaches of a polymath and a specialist is that a specialist picks one spot and then goes deep, whereas the polymath is on a lane that continuously gets wider. So this is kind of going against conventional wisdom instead of picking one major, what if you had three majors? What if you were a specialist in three different areas? So the bad news is that our current societal model doesn't teach you how to do this. And the traditional school system doesn't teach you how to do this. So you have to do it yourself.  

Kristin:    00:14:53    But the good news is, if you know this, you can start doing it yourself without any formal education, without any formal permission. You can just look on the internet, you can do a self-analysis of your skills, figure out what you wanna do, and then learn how to do it. You can fill any skills gaps that you need to fill. So that also says that while specialization will still have its place, and I would argue we'll always have its place, you know, you don't necessarily care if your brain surgeon has a personal brand, maybe to the extent that you can find who he is or she is, but maybe you want certain people to really specialize in what they're doing and be the best of the best at it. But those aren't the people who have the biggest challenge. The people who have the biggest challenge are people in jobs that can be commoditized.  

Kristin:    00:15:52    So that says, the boundaries between many aspects of reality are going to continue to be blurred to we're seeing with the internet. And those who can comfortably embrace such blurring will thrive. So those who are comfort with discomfort will thrive. And he also says that to many of us, this can seem unfamiliar, but the truth is that this blurred reality and undefined way of succeeding in the job market, it's actually a very accurate representation of what's already going on. So we've just been cont contingent. We've just been conditioned to think otherwise. He says, and that those who see this will have the edge. And this is a really weird situation to be in because you're being conditioned that you need to specialize in something and that you need to follow this traditional linear path of living. When in fact, the opportunity that's presented there is to do the opposite, because everybody's doing that.  

Kristin:    00:17:05    So if you decide, okay, I'm going to specialize in multiple fields. I'm going to package my skills and abilities and my competitive personal competitive advantage in a way that stands out in the market. I'm gonna be the software programmer with a personal brand, or I'm gonna be the customer service rep with a personal brand, or I'm going to be the barista with a personal brand. Whatever it is that you do for work, if you combine that with other complimentary skills or even super seemingly random skills that somehow fit and give you a unique edge, or if you combine that with the strength of a personal brand so that when people think like, I need a WordPress developer, I'm gonna go to that guy who has like a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, he's always talking about WordPress <laugh>, because that's the first thing that comes to your mind.  

Kristin:    00:18:08    You know, you're gonna go to people who you know of first in your personal network. So if you can make yourself, if you can make other people aware of you, whether they're in your personal network or they're in your internet network, internet sphere of influence, then that's just going to bring a lot more opportunities your way and it's gonna allow you supply and demand. There's only one of you. More people know about you. More people wanna work with you, more people wanna hire you. Now you charge more money. So this is not, you know, it could seem scary to think of your job getting outsourced or your job getting converted into a robot job. But this is not a bad thing because as Naval also says, wealth is not a zero sum game. It is a positive sum game. Everybody can be rich and everybody can be free.  

Kristin:    00:19:04    Everyone can have money and personal freedom without infringing on another person's ability to do the same thing. So eventually, Naval also says that if technology and AI start doing everything, then people will just have more free time and we'll have more opportunities to enjoy our life and to be creative. 'cause our time will be freed up. So I challenge you today in this podcast to flip the script, think about things from a different way, instead of wanting to postpone the inevitable. And instead of living in, um, a small town in middle America where you look around you and your town has been economically decimated in manufacturing by outsource jobs and jobs that have been, uh, taken from ai, then think of this as an opportunity to do something different. This is going to happen whether people like it or not, it's already happening. And it's not just affecting you.  

Kristin:    00:20:12    If you were working in the car industry in Detroit in like the eighties, it's also happening if you are a white collar worker in real estate in Florida, you know, a market that's very strong, that has a lot of demand, that has people, we have snowbirds, we have tourists, like every, everyone's gonna be affected by this. So just think about it. Think about what you can do to make yourself more valuable. Yes, you can invest 10,000 hours in just doing one thing, but you can also do two things really well. You can do three things really well. And if you believe it, you can achieve it. If you believe that you can do more than one thing really well, if you believe that you can have a strong personal brand, you can. You have friends who like you, you have family members who like you, you have acquaintances, you have coworkers, you're gonna find your tribe.  

Kristin:    00:21:16    People like you, people respect you. People think you have something of value to offer the world. So don't hold it back. Think about how you can do more of it or how you can do it differently, or how you can make it more unique and more valuable and different. So let me know what you guys think. Do you think your job is at risk? Do you think it will be at risk in the next five years or 10 years? What would you do if you lost your job tomorrow or next year or in two years? How would you make yourself valuable? How would you make yourself stand? Stand out in the new economy? Let me know. And as usual, you can catch us every week here on Badass Digital Nomads every Tuesday at 12 o'clock. And at the same time on youtube.com/digitalnomad, where I'll be sitting down with some other badass digital nomad about how they got outta the matrix and got into the natural rhythm of their own life and their own sphere of personal freedom. And if you like this podcast, please leave a review. I appreciate it. And if you have any other friends who are sick of their jobs or want something different in life, feel free to share this podcast with them. Or come on over to YouTube and check out my videos on how to become a digital nomad, how to work remotely, how to travel more, and how to have more freedom in your life.