The Future Of Work (& The New High-Income Skill Stack)

I want to ask you a question that may sound weird at first. And that question is, why are you watching this? Why are

you watching this video specifically?

Because you have access to chat GPT. You

have access to Claude. You have access to all of these AI tools that are supposed to get rid of information, make creators obsolete, make writers obsolete, make everyone obsolete. But

you are still watching this. And of

course, you could ask AI for information on the topic that we're going to talk about, or you could just paste the YouTube link into AI and ask it for a quick summary, and it would do a pretty

decent job and be able to give you the information. But I really want you to

information. But I really want you to think about that, right, before you go all doomer on me and how AI is going to replace everyone because that question alone sets the foundation of this video.

It shines a light on what the future of creative work could look like. That's

exactly what we're going to break down very extensively. And the problem is

very extensively. And the problem is that AI is coming for everyone's jobs, right? At least that's what people say.

right? At least that's what people say.

And it looks like it's going to actually become true. And the huge problem with

become true. And the huge problem with that is that AI isn't only coming for the jobs, it's coming for the meaning.

It's coming for the purpose in life. If

you've been on social media, if you've been living in modern society, you understand that we have this mass scarcity of meaning and purpose. People

just don't know what to do with their lives. And if people's work is a source

lives. And if people's work is a source of that purpose, especially creative work, then what happens when it's gone?

What happens when work doesn't equal purpose? When work doesn't equal

purpose? When work doesn't equal identity? when work doesn't equal how

identity? when work doesn't equal how you mattered and how you acquired status in society which is a generator of meaning whether we like to virtue signal

about not playing status games or not you play one every day most people think we are in a crisis but personally I think this is one of the greatest opportunities ever because when AI can

do everything well then everything becomes a commodity it's not worth paying for so the second question that forms the foundation of of this video is

how do you become a scarce resource that people want to pay for especially as a creative and that comes from your taste, your perspective, your story, every

other skill that we're going to break down in this video step by step. This is

going to be a mix of practical stuff and theories just to show where we're at in society. So, buckle in because we have a

society. So, buckle in because we have a lot to talk about. To start, I'm just going to rapidfire context. I'm going to show you how we got into this situation of not having any meaning in our lives,

what that means when jobs go away, and what the opportunities actually are. So,

let's get into this. Hold tight. Try to

pay attention. Here's the history of meaning in four acts. Act one, meaning came from up there. So, for most of human history, meaning was given to you

by gods, kings, elders, and scriptures.

You didn't have to find it because it was assigned to you. This is in very early foraging societies. In act two or during the industrial revolution, meaning was found from out there. So,

science replaced religion as the dominant framework. Meaning shifted to

dominant framework. Meaning shifted to productivity and progress. You earned

meaning through your work and through contribution to the machine. Then in act three, where we are now, meaning was deconstructed into nothing. Meaning is

found nowhere. This is postmodernism. We

deconstruct everything because no single perspective is privileged. Nothing is

objectively true. Meaning isn't given or earned. It's just gone. And that leads

earned. It's just gone. And that leads to act four where meaning will be found in here. Meaning has to be generated

in here. Meaning has to be generated from within by you for you. So why does this matter for creatives or creators or people who don't want to give up their

work? Because there's two types of work.

work? Because there's two types of work.

There's the mundane busy work, the repetitive work, the mechanical work, the assembly line style industrial work.

I don't care if that gets rid of. I'm I

I mean that in the kindest way possible.

I know that people's livelihoods are at stake, but we're going to talk about how things will look with that, too. But

then there's creative work, right? the

ability to see reality from your own lens, pull it into your mind, synthesize things together, create something, share it with another person, and then get feedback for your contribution in the

form of money or currency or just another form of value. That's where

humans find meaning. And so when meaning went from being handed to us to being earned through labor and then being found nowhere, it becomes our

responsibility to create meaning.

Creatives are the meaning architects of society. So if jobs form the foundation

society. So if jobs form the foundation of meaning right now to an extent, how do those go away and what happens? So

the traditional economic loop is that you work a job, you get a wage, you spend, the company profits and then that creates more jobs or the ability to pay.

This is just a cycle, right? And AI

breaks this loop because if AI does the jobs, wages collapse. And if wages collapse, spending collapses. And if

spending collapses, the entire economic system falls apart. And this brings up the post- labor economics framework that David Shapiro created. He actually has a book called Labor Zero coming out about

it soon. I would highly recommend going

it soon. I would highly recommend going and watching his YouTube video playlist on post labor e on post labor economics because it's very enlightening. And

while it's just a theory and it may not happen, I think theories are cool. And

another thing about creatives is that the more attention you attract to a theory that leads society in a new direction and the more supporters you get for that thing that tends to create

culture and society. The more attention that is invested into a creative idea is more likely to come true than not.

Things just don't happen. Humans build

what they want to see in the world and that could very much be a thing. So the

very very brief version of post-labor economics is that household income comes from three sources. There's wages, so you get paid for your labor. This is

what AI threatens. Then there's

transfers like government payments, UBI, etc. But the problem with this becoming the dominant source, just everyone getting paid by the government, is that it becomes politically unstable and it

distorts markets. And frankly, if we're

distorts markets. And frankly, if we're here for meaning, I personally will not find a lot of meaning just sitting on the couch all day collecting money. I

need to grow. I need to challenge myself. I have maybe 60 more years on

myself. I have maybe 60 more years on this planet like I unless we solve immortality too, but I need to do something. And then the third way is

something. And then the third way is capital income. So this is owning assets

capital income. So this is owning assets that generate money. And this is where things get interesting because the future probably requires broadening capital participation. regular people

capital participation. regular people owning income generating assets, not just billionaires. But that's just the

just billionaires. But that's just the thing. I still want to do something. I

thing. I still want to do something. I

still want to create. And people will still need meaning that is derived from just that. And that's where you and I

just that. And that's where you and I come in. The people who value this way

come in. The people who value this way of life. So even though we talk about

of life. So even though we talk about all jobs disappearing, all jobs are not going to disappear. There are still going to be jobs that require humans in the loop. So things like high liability

the loop. So things like high liability roles because you want a human accountable for that thing. Statutory

positions that have legal requirements.

Then there's the experience economy. So

bartenders, boutique shops, art galleries, live performances. This is

going to see a huge boom coming into the future. And then the meaning makers or

future. And then the meaning makers or the meaning economy, which is people who help others navigate the human experience. And then there's

experience. And then there's relationship and trust jobs. So like

sales, diplomacy, negotiation, etc. But the pattern here is that the jobs that survive are the ones where the human is the product. It's not what they produce,

the product. It's not what they produce, it's who they are. And personally, what comes to mind here is a quote from Naval that I read a long time ago. And that

quote is, "There are almost 7 billion people on this planet someday. I hope

there will be almost 7 billion companies." And if you've watched any of

companies." And if you've watched any of my oneperson business videos where I go on the more heavy philosophy side rather than the practical side, you can see what I'm getting at here is that every person has the chance to become their

own enterprise. I mean, think of where

own enterprise. I mean, think of where we're at. I think this makes sense. You

we're at. I think this makes sense. You

have AI, you can learn anything, you can build anything, you can do what people have been telling you, you've been able to do. Will everyone become their own

to do. Will everyone become their own company? Of course not. Is everyone

company? Of course not. Is everyone

watching this video? Of course not. Will

everyone even register this as important? No. I'm just providing a

important? No. I'm just providing a potential opportunity for those who want to take it. And if you've read my book, Purpose and Profit, it's free to read on my Substack link in the description.

Then you see where I'm getting at here.

Because in that book, I go over the creative way of life where you identify problems, you solve them, that removes the limits on your potential. It forces

you to learn, and then from the solution you create, you turn that into something that you can give someone else. And that

is arguably the most meaningful way to live. So, not only is this a way to gain

live. So, not only is this a way to gain an advantage in the future, it's a very meaningful thing to do. And speaking of meaning, that leads to the second point where we're going to talk about the anatomy of meaning because I want to

give you a framework for understanding how meaning is generated. That way you can engineer meaning. So, in order to understand how to generate meaning, we need to understand what leads to

meaninglessness. And there's two killers

meaninglessness. And there's two killers of meaning here. There's stagnation, so no forward movement, no progress. You

just feel stuck. And then there's isolation. So no connection to something

isolation. So no connection to something greater. Feeling like you don't matter.

greater. Feeling like you don't matter.

And this is why modern life feels so empty. I mean just look at your phone.

empty. I mean just look at your phone.

You're not progressing in any way.

You're not contributing in any way.

You're not connected to other people.

You think you are because you're in this digital world and there is some form of connection that can come from that. But

you're not globally connected to so many freaking people. And frankly these

freaking people. And frankly these companies profit from you being addicted to this thing to this machine. So if

stagnation and isolation lead to meaninglessness, what leads to meaning?

And there are two pillars here. Pillar

one is progress. So forward movement.

Because humans need to feel like they're going somewhere, not arriving at a goal and just stopping and giving up like the person who built a $100 million company and then stopped and then found that their life lacked meaning. But progress

is achieved through creative problem solving. It's through struggle, not

solving. It's through struggle, not through suffering, so to say. Through

struggle. There's a distinction between the two and I would encourage you to remove any negative connotations you have with the word struggle. And then

pillar two is contribution. So progress

and contribution forward movement and a connection to something greater than yourself. There's a niche quote for this

yourself. There's a niche quote for this on happiness. If someone posts it post

on happiness. If someone posts it post it in the comments because I can't recite it directly but it's something like happiness is the feeling of resistance being overcome of progress being made. So this insight isn't

being made. So this insight isn't anything new. We just need to be

anything new. We just need to be reminded of it. But when it comes to contribution, humans need to feel like their progress matters to someone more than themselves. And this is why solo

than themselves. And this is why solo projects can start to feel hollow after a while because you need an audience, a community. You need a cause. And I'm not

community. You need a cause. And I'm not talking about a million followers like I have. There are plenty of people with

have. There are plenty of people with just tiny followings or even a tiny community in their real life that are able to sustain some form of an income.

And now when we talk about money, if jobs go away and money starts to transform and money moves away from being a productivity metric, what happens? Personally, I think money is

happens? Personally, I think money is going to continue to be a status symbol, but it's going to be a tool to express agency. It's going to be a tool for

agency. It's going to be a tool for growth, just like it is now. We're just

removing the shallower layer. We're

transcending as to what money was in the first place and what it was meant to be, which is your ability to do things you weren't able to do before. And it's kind of a physical representation of your

growth. So if those are the two pillars,

growth. So if those are the two pillars, progress and contribution for meaning, what are the generators? How do you actually generate meaning in your life?

The generators are struggle, curiosity, and status. For struggle, that's the

and status. For struggle, that's the engine of progress. For curiosity,

that's the direction of progress. And

for status, that's the proof of contribution. Now, for struggle, I'm

contribution. Now, for struggle, I'm talking about what you choose to struggle for because that defines what your purpose is. It's not struggle that's imposed on you. It's not a goal that's assigned to you. It's what you

consciously choose. So, it's like the

consciously choose. So, it's like the creative who chooses to master their craft, to build an audience, to say something true. That struggle generates

something true. That struggle generates meaning. Now, curiosity is nonlinear

meaning. Now, curiosity is nonlinear attention. It's following threads that

attention. It's following threads that don't make sense yet. It's not something that AI can make sense of. AI can't be curious. And that's how you solve

curious. And that's how you solve problems or discover ideas that nobody is even thinking about because nobody else is curious about them. Because

curiosity works in a weird way in the brain. I talk about this example a lot,

brain. I talk about this example a lot, but it's just so simple yet so powerful.

Is that if you were to take two people, me and you, reading the same book, would we highlight the same lines inside of that book, would the same things stick out to us? You may even think the book is just trash and it may be the best

book I've ever read because at my situated point in my life from my perspective, from the experience that's culminated over time in my head to create this very unique way of viewing

the world that we don't think is unique because we live in our heads. That's

where curiosity comes from. That's your

unique edge to an extent. You just need to learn how to channel it because like follow your curiosity. How is that practical? What does that lead to? We'll

practical? What does that lead to? We'll

get into it. But now with the third generator, status. Status gets a bad

generator, status. Status gets a bad rap. So let's just call status

rap. So let's just call status recognition. Recognition for your work

recognition. Recognition for your work or your contribution. It's the signal that your struggle mattered to someone.

It's it's the signal that you're not here alone in this void on earth. So

what are these three generators?

Struggle, curiosity, status. It's a

story. It's quite literally the foundation of a story. Now why do stories matter, especially going to the future? Because your brain is a story

future? Because your brain is a story engine. That's what we find meaningful.

engine. That's what we find meaningful.

We crave novelty, drama, myth, and meaning. And this is especially true

meaning. And this is especially true when we're not in survival mode, when we're in leisure, and when jobs are replaced and we have our base necessities met across the board. This

becomes even more important. This is

what people are going to be looking for and paying for mostly because they're not worried about paying the bills for their house. They're kind of just lost.

their house. They're kind of just lost.

And a big portion of the population that doesn't understand what I'm saying in this video is going to end up like that Wall-E character in the hover chair who just has like the the soda hat and the

screen in front of his face at all times and he's like the 300 lb overweight and can't move. The question here is what is

can't move. The question here is what is the main purpose of machines going into the future and what is the main purpose of humans? This is the question that

of humans? This is the question that everyone's trying to answer and this leads to a two-part insight. First is

that people pay for speed and efficiency when they want to escape an experience.

So this could be long wait times at the DMV, a fast food worker getting your order wrong, or bureaucracy at a company. But on the other hand, people

company. But on the other hand, people pay a premium for experiences that they want to savor. So a five-star restaurant, a live theater, handcrafted goods. And I think this quote from Chris

goods. And I think this quote from Chris Pake illustrates this quite well, which says, "The elegance of the future is not in man versus machine, but in their division of labor, silicon sanding the

rough edges of necessity so carbon can ascend to meaning. We will abolish baristas and canonize chefs. Silence

agents and encore actors. AI handles the friction and humans handle the narrative. So that leads into the third

narrative. So that leads into the third idea here, which is that the creator economy equals the meaning economy.

Because now we need to start making things practical, right? Struggle,

status curiosity story narrative all of this stuff. Okay, cool. But what do you actually do with that? What does it actually mean for you on a daily basis?

What are you actually focused on? The

first thing here is just understanding the shift in how money is going to flow.

So the old way is that you get paid for your labor. You get paid for your

your labor. You get paid for your output. And then the new model is that

output. And then the new model is that you get paid by the people who believe in what you're doing and who want to see more of that in the world. In other

words, you do something that you deeply care about and you attract other people to care about that thing, which is two distinct types of skills, right? That's

business and art. That's doing what you care about with love, but also creating it in such a way and persuading other people to see the value in it so that you don't become a starving artist who

can't sell any of their work. So for the creator economy in specific, when you follow someone, when you follow someone meaningful, right? Not just searching

meaningful, right? Not just searching for information, not just looking to get a quick tip, not when you know what you want to ask for because now you can ask that to chat GPT. What are you're

listening to someone's perspective, you're buying their perspective, you're supporting their perspective, their opinion, you're supporting their curation, right? whether they use AI or

curation, right? whether they use AI or not, you follow a specific person because they are pulling the right ideas and making sense of them. So the scarce resource here is attention, right?

Because there it's scarce. There's only

so much attention. There's only so many people on this planet and there's only so much attention that can go around.

So, if you learn the mechanics of capturing and delivering value on attention, like everyone's been saying in the marketing space for the past however long, then you can demand a

premium on what you do. And so, when it comes to AI flooding the space with a bunch of mediocre content, it doesn't matter because there's not enough attention to pay attention to all of

that. And if it's mediocre, then it's

that. And if it's mediocre, then it's mediocre and people don't want it. And

they're going to shift their attention to what matters. So, that's the game now. It's not only production but it's

now. It's not only production but it's distribution. It's not only creation

distribution. It's not only creation because anyone can create anything. It's

curation. So attention is the ultimate leverage. And if you want to understand

leverage. And if you want to understand this just look at Elon Musk or Mr. Beast, right? Elon Musk has millions

Beast, right? Elon Musk has millions upon millions of followers and he attracts capital, talent and resources through that thing. His tweets quite literally shift the markets. Then you

have Mr. beast who reinvests what he gets from the attention back into the production and he is slowly becoming a very powerful individual. But those are the extreme examples because personally

I don't want to be the next Elon Musk.

It seems pretty risky. It seems pretty stressful. Maybe I could handle it. I

stressful. Maybe I could handle it. I

don't know. Right now in my life I don't want to be there. I don't want to be the next Mr. Beast either. I want to talk about something different. I have other things that I find more meaningful than that. I don't even watch Mr. Beast. I

that. I don't even watch Mr. Beast. I

watch what I care about. So you have to understand that this isn't a winner takes all market. Almost nothing is. But

especially in the creator economy, attention shifts. If you actually think

attention shifts. If you actually think about it, you understand that it's not very saturated at all. Anyone can go viral today. And what they do with that

viral today. And what they do with that virality determines whether or not they see some form of success. And then

there's, of course, the people who build very slowly over time and attract a small audience and charge premium prices and they make more than people with millions of followers. Not everyone is selling a $10 ebook. Not everyone is

selling a $5,000 coaching program. Not

everyone is selling this, selling that.

There's so many different ways to go about this. And you take Justin Welsh as

about this. And you take Justin Welsh as an example. He has a pretty large

an example. He has a pretty large following, but he's not on YouTube. He's

not on other things. He just writes.

He's focused on like LinkedIn, his newsletter, and Twitter. And his entire focus is working on something meaningful for as little time as possible so he can enjoy the most time with his family as

he can. And the other thing here that

he can. And the other thing here that removes saturation even more is that some people aren't even going to find meaning through work. They're going to start to find meaning through family, through other things that allow them to grow in different ways. Now, if you're

anything like me, I want as much growth as possible. I don't want to just focus

as possible. I don't want to just focus on family because I understand that all domains of life interconnect and kind of unlock each other in certain ways once you become developed in those domains.

So, I I don't want to just focus on vocation or career or family or health, etc. I want to focus on them all. And

that creates this infinite game where you can just experience this growth and progression and meaning forever. The

other signal here is that social media creators or just people posting on social media, whether you identify as a personal brand or a content creator or not, anyone who posts on social media, let's just call them a creator for ease

of access, they're starting to become the primary sources of information for something like news or education. people

trust creators more than they trust centralized institutions and that's a very important thing because it's shifting more towards that. So this is a massive opportunity for people who have

some kind of genuine expertise or some unique way of viewing the world and the ability to articulate and communicate it which are all skills that can be learned. Now to hit on the dead internet

learned. Now to hit on the dead internet theory objection one more time where if AI just floods the internet with a bunch of content doesn't content become worthless? Yes, it becomes a commodity

worthless? Yes, it becomes a commodity once you can do everything instantly.

Everything becomes worthless. So what

does that do? It increases the value in how much can be paid for something human. And not necessarily just

human. And not necessarily just something human. Everyone's going to be

something human. Everyone's going to be working in some AI assisted way, but a human perspective, a human point of view, the curation, the taste. You can

have this. You can have AI spit out 5 billion words that are amazing, super beautiful pros, but which ones are you going to select to stick around? And the

last thing here is that skills are being abstracted up a layer as they always are, how they went from human labor to more animal labor to more machine labor, and now they're more to AI labor. So,

you don't need to focus on the technical or the manual. You don't need to set up a typewriter anymore. You don't even need to know how to write anymore. I'm I

personally like to do my writing manually still. I do research with AI,

manually still. I do research with AI, but I see no problem with someone using AI to write, right? As long as they're in control of the ideas and what's being put out there. Just because someone

wrote it with AI doesn't mean that it's bad if it accurately represents what they're trying to say down to the word.

The thing that does get on my nerves, though, is that I see like these AI patterns everywhere, like, oh, it's not this, it's this. especially on reals like if you know you know and you can instantly spot it but at the same time

is that just because we're noticing those patterns more and those were already a thing but now that they are coming more from AI they're more apparent are we adopting the language of

AI or is AI adopting the language of us so there's a lot of stuff here so now for idea four the last defensible moat is you this is the core insight this is

the thing that if you come away from this video this is the most important thing not even the skill skills that you have to learn that we're going to talk about next. This is it. And we'll try to

about next. This is it. And we'll try to make this point by understanding the swap test. I'm calling this the swap

swap test. I'm calling this the swap test. And this swap test is for knowing

test. And this swap test is for knowing whether or not AI can replace you specifically. If you can swap the

specifically. If you can swap the creator and the creation without it losing value, AI can replace it. If the

value is tied to who made it, that's your moat. So, some examples is like a

your moat. So, some examples is like a generic stock photo. Obviously, that's

swappable. AI can do it. What about a photograph from a famous photographer?

That's not really swappable because the value is in her eye, her choices, her reputation, everything else that influences how you perceive the photo or image. What about a generic blog post

image. What about a generic blog post about productivity? Obviously, that's

about productivity? Obviously, that's swappable. What about an essay by

swappable. What about an essay by someone whose journey you followed for years? That's not really swappable

years? That's not really swappable because you haven't followed a specific trajectory or story from AI for years.

It doesn't hit the same if that essay is just given to you one day randomly by AI. So what can AI not replicate? The

AI. So what can AI not replicate? The

first thing is perspective because AI can think about your perspective but it cannot think from it. It can analyze what it means to be a first generation immigrant building a creative career but

it cannot be one. Your perspective is shaped by your beliefs, your experiences, your wounds, your wins. AI

has none of these because it has no stakes. The second thing is your energy

stakes. The second thing is your energy signature. And speaking of energy

signature. And speaking of energy signature, I actually posted an article to my Substack about it's a prompt for how to find your intellectual signature.

And what I mean by intellectual signature is just this. It's what ideas are the most important to you that you can pull together, connect, synthesize to create this unique style of content.

If you want to do the content creator route or kind of thought leadership, even though I hate that word, you like deep ideas and you find meaning in those and you want to share them. That's who

that's for. So check that out if you want. Link in description. But the

want. Link in description. But the

energy signature is the human ability to select what to focus on and why it matters to you. So two people can cover the same topic or write about the same topic and it will feel completely

different when you read it. AI can mimic the style but it cannot mimic care. Now

the third thing is sensemaking because AI can process information but it cannot decide what information means. It cannot

frame. It cannot prioritize. It cannot

say this matters and this doesn't.

Sensemaking is inherently human because it requires stakes. AI has no stakes. AI

does not die. And that's just it. That's

number four, which is trajectory.

Because you have a life, you have a past, you have a present, you have a future, you have a story arc. AI doesn't

have a trajectory. It doesn't have any mortality. It doesn't have any temporal

mortality. It doesn't have any temporal compression. So if we solve immortality

compression. So if we solve immortality one day, it's still not the same. If we

live forever, this moment still passes right now. This thing that we're living

right now. This thing that we're living in right now, what I just said is gone.

I can't redo it. I can't reimulate it. I

can't try over again. People think

immortality will make life meaningless, but I don't think it will for that reason. So when you create, you're

reason. So when you create, you're creating from right now and then it's gone. And the fifth thing is just

gone. And the fifth thing is just evolving taste. And the best way I can

evolving taste. And the best way I can put this is if I tell AI to write like me and I read it, I don't want to write about that anymore. My taste instantly changed and I'm going to write something

different. If AI did that, it would just

different. If AI did that, it would just get stuck in this infinite loop and then it'd explode. And that's just it. You

it'd explode. And that's just it. You

grow. You change. You look back on your work and you think it sucks. Now, the

point you've been waiting for, the post labor skill stack or the post AI skill stack, let's talk about it because I've talked about this multiple times in the past. I've said things like marketing,

past. I've said things like marketing, sales, writing, speaking, all of these other things. But I want to go higher

other things. But I want to go higher level because we have to abstract out a bit. So this is more of a skill

bit. So this is more of a skill hierarchy than it is just a list of skills that you need to learn. And the

thing here is that these aren't career specific skills because you aren't going into a specific career. These are human skills. So this is just uncovering what

skills. So this is just uncovering what your nature is and how to lean more into it. So the skill stack or hierarchy is

it. So the skill stack or hierarchy is first agency, the meta-kill, then taste, perspective, persuasion, and then technical knowhow. So knowing how to use

technical knowhow. So knowing how to use a software or use AI. And these are ordered in a very specific way because they're a hierarchy. They're umbrelled

under one another, and one comes before the other. So agency or the meta-kill is

the other. So agency or the meta-kill is the ability to act without permission or prompting. It's creating your own story.

prompting. It's creating your own story.

It's setting your own trajectory. It's

not waiting for someone to tell you what to do or who to be. Now, why is it the meta- skill? Because agency is what

meta- skill? Because agency is what allows you to develop all other skills.

Without agency, you're just following someone else's path. And that path is being automated. So, how do you actually

being automated. So, how do you actually practice agency? That's through leaning

practice agency? That's through leaning in to the three generators of meaning.

Struggle, status, curiosity. For

struggle, you make deliberate choices.

You reject conformity. You choose your own problems to solve. For status, money becomes a tool for agency, not just a metric of productivity. You're choosing

to do what you want with money as the fuel. Then through curiosity, you're

fuel. Then through curiosity, you're filtering signal from noise. You're

following threads that interest you. And

this is especially important when everyone's just chasing the trends. You

log on social media and that's all you see is one thing after another. There's

no uniqueness. And it's okay if you chase the trends and try to hop on to them, but just doing exactly what the last person did related to that trend.

And how do you think you create trends?

So, a good place to start here with developing agency. Even though I've

developing agency. Even though I've talked about it in a video called the most important skill to learn in the next 10 years is you just have to reject the default path. Go to school, get a

job, retire at 65. That's over. Reject

it. Do something else. Try something

new. Figure out what to do. Take one

step. Even though if you don't even though you don't think that's the right step to take, just take it. Make a

mistake. Correct the mistake. That's it.

Now the next skill is taste or the skill of discernment and the best way to understand the importance of taste because everyone tells you oh you need taste you need taste you need agency you need this why does taste actually matter

for that we look at the infinite library problem which some of you may have heard before but in essence if there's a library and that library has every

possible permutation of any word ever written ever it just has everything then it's meaningless it's worthless there's no opinion worth looking at. And then

there's the infinite monkey problem where if you take infinite monkeys and have them just type for a billion years, eventually one will produce Shakespeare.

But again, what worth is that? You're

just going to look at it and you're going to be like, "Oh, well, yeah, it's good, but it took a monkey a billion years and they have no idea what they're writing about. Like, it doesn't it

writing about. Like, it doesn't it doesn't mean anything." So, the insight here is that curation matters more than creation. You have to select what

creation. You have to select what matters and share it with another person. So how do you actually develop

person. So how do you actually develop taste? You develop taste by building

taste? You develop taste by building things by creating or curating or putting things out there and seeing if it actually works. You build your own

thing. You make decisions. Agency. You

thing. You make decisions. Agency. You

see what works. You see what doesn't.

You iterate. Now the third skill here is just perspective. It's expanding your

just perspective. It's expanding your human capacity. Now, we've talked about

human capacity. Now, we've talked about the levels of ego development, or that could also be synonymous with perspective development many times in the past. But as you develop your

the past. But as you develop your perspective, what you're doing is you're opening it up. You become less conformist, less ideological, and less dogmatic. You're you're less stuck in

dogmatic. You're you're less stuck in this bubble. You gain the ability to

this bubble. You gain the ability to hold complexity in your mind, to hold contradiction, to see systems, and to understand nuance. And so, this is what

understand nuance. And so, this is what allows for genuine agency and sophisticated curation. Because if your

sophisticated curation. Because if your mind is so small and narrow though that contains the only opportunities and ideas available to you, you can't create

something unique if you're extremely dogmatic. Now the next video is going to

dogmatic. Now the next video is going to be specifically on this to make it more practical. It's going to be called

practical. It's going to be called something like how to think like a genius. It's about how to tap into

genius. It's about how to tap into five-dimensional thinking so to say, but it teaches you how to think and why that's so important because many people don't think at all. Now, the fourth

skill is persuasion, which is the ability to make people care about what you do. And that's a huge problem for

you do. And that's a huge problem for creatives is that they put so much time and effort into something. You have an author that works for 10 years on this insane book and then nobody sees it.

It's worthless. So to learn how to persuade, I would just recommend learning about marketing, sales, probably copywriting, and just building on social media because the more you actually do the things that require you

to persuade and the more you make mistakes and realize, hey, this isn't working, and then you learn new techniques to try and then you try it and then you get better, that's just how you learn. Now, the fifth skill is

you learn. Now, the fifth skill is technical knowhow or just using the tools available to you to do all of this stuff. So this is like the practical

stuff. So this is like the practical thing that you can start trying to do from the ground up. This is like the vessel for how you're doing what you're doing. But it it's mostly just AI tools

doing. But it it's mostly just AI tools right now. Just learn new tools. Try

right now. Just learn new tools. Try

Claude, try ChatGBT, try Claude Code, try Manis, try all of these different things or try Eden because when this video goes out, Eden should be open to the public. We're removing the wait list

the public. We're removing the wait list for a few days. So join if you want to try it, but we just introduced projects and the Eden agent. And what Eden is is it's a drive that handles your busy work

so that you can focus on the creative work. So think of a drive where you can

work. So think of a drive where you can put all of your files, your footage, your videos. You can even paste social

your videos. You can even paste social media links like YouTube videos, have those transcribed and then you can ask the agent to do things with that information. Like I could tell it to

information. Like I could tell it to pull all of my YouTube videos and create a research document in this folder so that I can go and use that to write. And

then the projects feature is where I can let's say write a newsletter. I can pull all of my sources in. It's like notebook LM, but this is all in one place. Why is

this different from other tools? Because

other tools don't have the foundation.

They don't have the drive. You can

access your local files on your computer with Claude, and you can connect to Google Drive, which sucks. But how do you actually share it with a team? How

do you share it with other people?

You're stuck dragging, dropping, copying, pasting. You can have Claude

copying, pasting. You can have Claude create a 7-day email sequence, and you can paste a bunch of your context into there. Or you can already have all of

there. Or you can already have all of the knowledge about your company in your drive and then ask the agent to build out an email sequence for a new project and that's also in the drive and then your team member can log in, go in

there, see it, boom. So try that out as well. Link in the description. That's

well. Link in the description. That's

pretty much it for this video. I hope it was helpful. I hope it gave you some

was helpful. I hope it gave you some insight. I hope it opened your mind to

insight. I hope it opened your mind to the potential of the future, especially for creatives. I'm pretty excited and

for creatives. I'm pretty excited and bullish on creative work. So, until the next video on how to practice thinking and how to think better, like, subscribe. I'll see you in the next one.

subscribe. I'll see you in the next one.