To the Class of 2020 and Beyond, some thoughts....

1.      It may seem as though you are graduating in one of the most difficult periods of economic history and you may be, but life is not about the situation, it’s about your perspective. You get to choose how you see this time. Sometimes a few days of rain can make a sunny day special. Then again perhaps on the rainy days you just need to go out and dance in the rain.

2.      The pace of technological change is continuing to accelerate and will mostly continue to get faster. This means in order to achieve success you will required to adapt and learn faster than any generation in history. It will dramatically shift your career planning horizon to a much shorter time frame. You will be forced to focus on what education and skills will provide you the most benefit in the next 10 years because there will be no way to determine which skills will help us after that time period. Looking further than 10 years out and trying to understand the changes that AI and advancements will bring will be as good as gambling at the Roulette table.

3.      Continuous education will not just be a value added for the most motivated employees, it will be required to achieve success. As the automation from RPA and AI creates waves of layoffs in favor of cheaper alternatives to human labor, there will be a lack of low thought level jobs, therefore success will rely on your ability to continue learning and pushing the envelope on your abilities.

For many people, the three items will seem incredibly difficult. Trust me, it will be. Human beings are not built for rapid adaptation and until that changes, we need to find the best way to navigate this major design flaw. To make it easier I am going to give you a few more items to ensure the first three are more easily achievable.

1.      You need to experience life and the diversity our world offers. Learn, read, travel, meet new people and find your passion in life. Sometimes it will seem confusing, take for example my love of video games helping me understand that it was not video games that I loved. It was the strategic management of resources, my competitive nature and the allocation of those resources to achieve victory that I loved. My passion is not video games, it’s strategic management. Find yours.

2.      Once you understand what you’re passionate about, start setting down goals. Small, big, ridiculous, just start writing them down.

3.      Determine the direction to achieve your goals. Try to determine who has achieved your goal or similar goals in the past. Look at the path they took to achieve those goals. Now take a look at people currently chasing those goals and what methods they are using. Breaking down the direction is massively critical to this process. Once a direction is chosen, you can end up expending valuable resources on going in the wrong direction….

4.      Be realistic and relentless...