Learning about the what the future has in store
I realized the other day how important it is for me to have a better idea of what is happening right now that will matter in the future.
First, I should define what I mean when I say ‘matter in the future.’ To me, that means the future of different industries and the way we live. For example, the future of transportation could include self-driving cars, fleets, fewer parking spaces, decentralized car ownership and so forth. The future of television could include AR/VR, better graphics, story lines that follow certain paths, etc. What matters to me is different than what matters to other people as well. There is a future of every single industry. Some of those futures are objectively more exciting than others, but they all have some place they are headed, even if it is into the ground.
Understanding the future of what matters to me (or even what might matter to me) is critically valuable for a few reasons.
Deciding what I want to do with my life
I could think about the currently available opportunities in my vicinity. I could even do that and make decent money and live a pretty comfortable life. But inevitably if I am not staying up to date with where the world is going, then I am going to become, in at least some degree, obsolete. That will make me less effective at my job and will make hiring other people much more valuable than hiring me.
Plus, having an idea of where the world is going in different industries could pull me into a career or field that I did not know I was interested in. Maybe I read about the future of transportation and realize I want to become a part of that change, which would drive my learning choices and where I put myself. Working on the things that are quite literally changing the way the world works seems much more rewarding and fun to me than being in a job that anybody could do or that, in the big picture, does not particularly matter.
Conversations
Having an awareness about exciting things enables you to have more meaningful conversations. This is in the form of sharing cool things that you are learning with other people and hopefully finding people that can share those things back with you.
Perspective
The more that I know about where things are headed, the more I can take with me into my decision making. For example, there is this notion that a lot of software products are going to become similar because it is harder than ever today to have technical differentiation when it is not super complex. People might argue against that, but under the assumption that it is true, the strategy for running a software company becomes completely different. Or, knowing that automotive is moving one way could play a huge role if I were interested in urban design.
It’s fun
Reading about really cool use-cases for certain technology or a new app that makes life more efficient is just fun. There’s a rush to knowing about those things and to knowing about them before most people.
How?
There are so many books and people at the cutting edge of their fields. Just have to find them and put in the time to do it. Super high leverage and interesting things to learn about across the board.
