The idea that technology somehow advances society is a myth.
Technology changes the way we think, the way we interact, and the way we use our bodies… and more often than not these changes come with very serious negative consequences despite appearing to make life better for us.
In the words of Henry David Thoreau:
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind”
It’s not just Thoreau. Many people have been sounding the alarm. In his book Civilized to Death, Christopher Ryan (no relation) says:
“The pursuit of material wealth and technological progress has come at a great cost to our mental and physical health, our relationships with others, and the natural world.”
With each new technological shift comes an onslaught of unintended consequences, and some will say that we are currently at the beginning of a new technological shift with AI increasingly becoming part of our daily lives.
And so we can expect many undesired effects as a result.
The good news is that technology like AI is not necessarily all bad. If it’s used strategically to live a more intentional and focused life that positions you to survive and thrive in the future as the world continues to change.
Because in the next 5, 10, 20 years the world is going to change a lot, and I would be lying to you if I knew exactly what the future has in store. Nobody actually knows, but we can look at historical trends over the past 100 years or so to predict what will happen in the near future.
From this, I can make two glaringly obvious observations:
In the past century, people have become increasingly detached from nature and human health has deteriorated rapidly as modern society has advanced.
Technological advancements have rendered previously high-demand skills obsolete, leading to mass job loss and the collapse of entire industries.
It stands to reason that two of the most likely problems we will face in the future as technology advances is the continued decline of physical, mental, and cognitive health along with shifting economic tides that will create a lot of job insecurity even for some of the most highly educated and highest paid professions out there.
Doctors, lawyers, middle managers in corporate America, this means you.
So, if you stick around to the end of this essay then I’m going to show you how to position yourself to thrive in a world where health problems and economic insecurity will affect most people, and most importantly I’m going to show you how you can do it, how you can futureproof your life, by using the power of A.I.
But before we get into the A.I. piece we have to frame the problem so we can solve for the right thing.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about this issue, I’ve published many essays about this, and I’ve come up with 5 key skills that I believe are absolutely necessary for everyone to learn if they want to survive the future. If you nail these five skills down, you’ll have far more time freedom, more autonomy, more self-sufficiency… more ability to live on your own terms in the future while everyone else is suffering because they weren’t thinking ahead.
First and foremost is mastery over your mind and body.
Being physically capable, being psychologically stable, and being cognitively sharp are going to be more important than ever.
Technology has significantly lowered the work requirement for life. We use our cognitive skills and our bodies far less today than we did just 100 years ago. Between the automobile and GPS, mass food processing, or Uber Eats, and even ChatGPT – widespread adoption of technology encourages us to be physically and cognitively sedentary.
This is why over 70% of Americans are overweight or obese today and the human attention span is dropping precipitously.
This is going to continue, so people who remember to first maintain their minds and their bodies are going to be better prepared to navigate the world 10-20 years in the future when most people can’t pay attention to something for more than 30 seconds, and their bodies are in a suboptimal state.
The second futureproof skill is dopamine management.
We live in an increasingly distracted world. There are endless options for entertainment, for indulging in instant gratifications, and for doing things that generally don’t align with your grand vision for life.
And being in a distracted state is the opposite of being in a focused state. So if you want to do what it takes to futureproof your life, then you need to kill distractions and get seriously focused taking the necessary steps to secure your future. Focus and navigating distractions ultimately comes down to being able to manage your dopamine because it is driving force behind many impulsive decisions, and bad habits that hold us back. So implementing lifestyle alterations with the intention of getting control over your dopamine is a vitally important step in protecting yourself from a future that is likely to be far more distracting that things already are today.
So control your dopamine, control your life.
The third skill is storytelling.
Humans have used storytelling for as long as we’ve had the ability to speak. It is the original form of teaching and communicating important information to other people.
We enjoy music, books, poetry, plays, movies and such because there is a storytelling element and because it’s one of the most foundational forms of communication, we are hardwired to be captivated by stories.
So being able to tell stories is a skill that has passed the test of time, and likely will continue to be invaluable because it gives you the power of influence.
Learn the art of storytelling, and you have access to one of the most valuable assets in the world, which is other people’s time and attention.
This leads me to the fourth skill for futureproofing yourself, which is writing.
If storytelling is the best method for captivating and influencing, then writing is the medium for telling your story.
Previously stories were told through oral tradition, which has it’s limitations. But writing enabled humanity to externalize thoughts, memories, knowledge, thus creating the foundation of civilization as we know it. At the foundation of every nation is a constitution or laws that are written. Behind every classic movie is a script that was written. Every business, every product, every advertisement, every website was first built on a foundation of writing.
Being able to use the power of the pen to memorialize your thoughts is a skill that has stood the test of time. It cuts across every industry and every facet of life. Writing is a future proof skill because there will always be a need to communicate ideas and stories.
Whether it’s other people’s ideas, or your own, being able to translate them into writing and create the foundation upon which everything else will be built, is an essential skill that will serve you well in the future.
The final futureproofing skill is online business.
If I had to put it in the simplest terms possible, business is just a mechanism for turning ideas into income.
You can do this in many ways, but the fastest and easiest way to do this is by using the internet which enables you to communicate your knowledge to any of the 6 billion people plugged into it, and then deliver products or services to them anywhere, at anytime, and at the speed of light.
So being able to turn your ideas into income through the internet is a must-have skill going into a future where we just don’ t know what’s going to happen especially with globalization, and AI, and industry consolidation. Nobody in the traditional 9-5 system is safe.
Everyone has knowledge but very few people know how to monetize their knowledge independent of a corporate job or some other official organization. The one thing we know for sure is that things will change in the next 10-20 years, and many people are still playing the game by the old rules. They still rely on fancy degrees and high-paying jobs to sustain their lives, but there’s no guarantee that the game will continue to be played this way.
Having the ability to leverage your knowledge independent of the system is not only how you protect yourself from economic insecurity in the future, but is also the key that unlocks your freedom from a corporate 9-5 system that will force you to do things that you don’t want to do.
The goal is to upskill and become proficient in these five key domains of life, but instead of haphazardly trying to pick up these skills, you can use A.I. to approach it in a structured and methodical way.
Before you do anything, you must know your purpose and your vision.
The first module of the Self-Reinvention Cheat Code is all about figuring this out, so if that's something you need help with then pick up your copy here to nail this part down first.
Knowing your purpose is what gives you direction. From your purpose, you can create an anti-vision, which when inverted forms your life vision, and then from there you set your values. Only when you know your purpose, your vision, and your values are you able to set a goal for yourself.
Secondly, when your learning is directly connected to your purpose it ads an emotional element that primes your brain for faster learning. It’s called “purpose-driven learning” and it literally changes your brain chemistry to be more efficient at absorbing and retaining information.
So, do whatever you need to do to discover your “why,” but I promise this is the single most important step. No amount of A.I. is going to save you if you don’t get this right, so make sure you spend time actually discovering your purpose and knowing what you want out of life.
Now let’s go over the AI workflow that you can use to futureproof your life.
This workflow consists of 4 prompts, and I want to walk you through how I structured it.
You can just use ChatGPT for this, but in this example I’m using CerebriX which is my custom GPT that I’ve fed hundreds of my own essays into for much more pointed and structured responses that you simply won’t get from ChatGPT.
With CerebriX you also get lifelong access to my full database of A.I. prompts, including the full and unedited version of the exact prompt I used for this essay so you can just copy and paste it with no extra work.
For this essay I’ve created the discount code “FUTUREPROOF” which will give the first 50 people who claim a half-off discount, it so it’s probably not going to last very long.
With that said…
What you shouldn’t do is just ask AI to just show you how to become futureproof. That’s an intellectually lazy approach, and you owe it to yourself to put in the extra effort of making sure you build a customize solution that makes sense for you and your unique circumstances.
So the first step is to let ChatGPT to know about yourself so it has a basis of information to build from.