THE NONLINEAR PATH 10: Are You Becoming Redundant?
The Journey Of Developing Self-Reliance To Remain Relevant
Lately, I have been heavily struck by two things:
1) the rapidly changing world and imminent technological and psychological reinvention of almost every system and industry, and…
2) how many talented and skilled people are losing, and will continue to lose, the jobs and work on which they have come to rely and build their identity.
We are experiencing massive change across all facets of life and human culture. I do not think that is an overstatement. What was already shifting or being called into question has now been shoved forward, tossed out, are altered for better or worse. We cannot go back. We can only embrace the ride.
What comes along with any cultural change, this is no exception, is the creation of redundancies: jobs, roles, and industries becoming unnecessary or irrelevant to the new culture.
This is nothing new, but what is new is the speed, scope, and scale of the changes we are seeing today. Look at the difference between the reality we have been used to and compare it to the augmented and virtual realities currently under construction to see the challenge. The new reality we are sprinting into requires a new way of seeing, thinking, and understanding the world around us.
To some, this is exciting. To others, terrifying. Most of us are relatively ambivalent… until it hits home with an industry shutdown, closing, selloff, or layoff and we move from relevance to redundancy in a few keystrokes.
Signs of change are all around us if we are aware enough to see them: brands cutting product lines, companies reducing workforces, influencers replacing industry experts, young workers replacing the old, and AI replacing both.
Everyone is frantically trying to figure out what to do and where to be. Instagram and/or TikTok? Slack and/or Discord? Keep Twitter? Substack? Medium? Podcast and/or YouTube Channel? Reels? Live? Chat? Blog? The only thing crystal clear is that Facebook is truly dead. Oh, you didn’t get that memo yet?
Chances are, if you are still working for a company, you are less involved in a social media presence of your own and more with the company you work for. It’s easier and less overwhelming. That is what most things are like as an employee. That is why most of us choose to go that route.
Now it is becoming riskier. In the past, being employed in a steady job with a good company had been the recipe for stability, gradual growth, and some personal success.
That stability is steadily declining with the rise of our new gig economy. Those who have not developed the freelancer or business-owner mindset of risk-taking, hustle, and self-reliance may very well find themselves in a pickle at the worst possible time….midlife.
It is time for all of us to lift our heads up from our work and look ahead, far in the future. We need to prepare ourselves.
The more we arm ourselves with autonomy and self-reliance, the better prepared we will be for ourselves, our families, and the company jobs we do choose to hold.
I eventually realized there was a gap in experience and understanding between those who run their own show to generate their own income and those who have always relied on an employer to provide.
What companies are looking for in terms of employees is changing. Leadership over traditional management (check out this video of Seth Godin’s Leadership vs. Management) will be required to harness productivity from a remote and hybrid workforce. People who can think for themselves, problem-solve quickly and be able to manage their own schedules will be crucial. These are qualities closer to an independent professional, consultant, or freelancer than to a traditional worker who previously would have been judged by their ability to show up, follow directions, and hit deadlines with minimal wave-making.
I took the leap to be independent seven years ago, not by choice. I remained independent and developed skills I would never have developed while working for someone else. I eventually realized there was a gap in experience and understanding between those who run their own show to generate their own income and those who have always relied on an employer to provide.
Being my own boss became akin to the next level of growing up. This level of career maturity is fast becoming essential to the world we are entering. We do not need to be worker bees anymore. That role will go to AI. Unless we get lazy and choose to give away our power. If we are smart, we will step up fast, and learn what we need to become leaders of our careers and lives.
Shit happens. So do redundancies.
Let’s talk about redundancies.
re·dun·dant /rəˈdənd(ə)nt/ adjective
not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous.
BRITISH: no longer employed because there is no more work available.
Being made redundant is the British term for being laid off, or fired. There have been a lot in the past three years, and there will be a lot more, coming in sectors we wouldn’t expect. The tech industry is the most recent industry hit hard. Take this recent article about the newest layoffs at Eddie Bauer: the professional athlete team.
Why Did Eddie Bauer Lay Off Its Whole Team of Professional Athletes? It’s Complicated.
Last month the company discontinued its Guide Built program, letting go of over 20 athletes in the process. Who’s left? Influencers.
Last month the company discontinued its Guide Built program, letting go of over 20 athletes in the process. Who’s left? Influencers.
Eddie Bauer recently let go of its entire professional athlete team, traditionally used by large outdoor companies to highlight the authenticity of a brand and its products. These sponsored athletes are the celebrities that bring relevance and a face to brands like Patagonia and The North Face. They fill the same role as, say, Michael Jordan and Serena Williams have for Nike.
So who is in now? Social media influencers: people with huge followings and platforms over which they can transmit their message and increase sales.
Opinions aside as to whether or not this is right and should be happening at all, the fact remains that it is happening. Now these athletes need to shift their focus. No longer can they rely on regular stipends, paychecks, or trip sponsorships, at least from Eddie Bauer, to set their focus toward doing the sport they are pros at. Now they must shift to learning how to build and market their own individual brands and brand platforms. They must figure out how and to whom to remain relevant.
In one fell swoop, Eddie Bauer made their athletes irrelevant in favor of ‘popular’ people who have a lot of ‘friends’. This is business, after all.
Fast Times At Relevance High
Let’s look at another definition:.
rel·e·vant /ˈreləv(ə)nt/ adjective
closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered.
appropriate to the current time, period, or circumstances; of contemporary interest.
I listen to several podcasts and YouTube channels about the music business and its many ups and downs (and downs and downs) over the past decades. Rick Beato, musician, and former producer, has one of the most successful channels on music, education, and the overall business. He has managed to keep himself relevant by reinventing his career again and again. Embracing new technology has been one of his key factors.
While the music labels have wreaked havoc across the industry, shooting themselves in the foot in the process, ‘creators’ as Rick calls them, have been the ones to really kill the business.
Creators, meaning YouTubers and such, are now the true gatekeepers of the music industry. It is a weird twist on an industry that has yet to sort itself out but shows the glimmer of hope that shines through this flattened, strangely egalitarian social media system we are sloshing through.
How Creators Toppled the Music Business - Rick Beato
Record companies used to control the music we heard on every front, recordings, radio, and concerts, and they took the majority of a band's earnings. Now musicians and bands can control more of their own destinies, find their own true fans, and keep most of their earned money.
Granted, they cannot get as far a reach, grow nearly as huge, and make as much money. However, they can find their 1000 true fans and create a successful career and living (independent musician and YouTuber Mary Spender talks eloquently about Kevin Kelly’s theory of 1000 true fans. Fast forward to halfway through if you are time-crunched). And perhaps this ends up being more balanced with better mental health, a more humble ego, and a right-sized bank account.
Retirement, Ageism, And Greener Pastures
I cannot talk about redundancies without addressing the elephant in the room: aging, ageism, and ‘retirement’. We are at a unique time in human existence where those of us who can stay healthy (another problem altogether) are remaining younger longer. At the same time, we are experiencing less income, fewer savings, and less ability to retire at the traditional age. Even ‘retirement’ does not mean the same thing anymore.
The fact is, we need to work longer. We need the money, and we have the youth, health, and desire to stay involved, active and relevant as long as possible. We know that staying active is the key to physical and mental health throughout life.
We also know that at a certain age, we become ‘un-hirable’. As companies downsize their workforce and cut costs, middle managers and top talent who come with a hefty salary requirement become the first to be removed. Companies don’t care about your mortgage, your kid’s college tuition, your parents’ retirement home costs, your medical bills or desire for a bigger house. You do. So you’d be well-off to start managing your own destiny.
It’s a brutal fact that I have seen over and over: at some point each of us becomes less desirable as an employee. To the same, each of us tends less and less to want to be an employee. However, we are afraid to make the plunge into being our own master, but if we don’t someone will do it for us.
One last definition:
put out to pasture / idiom
to force (someone) to leave a job because of old age
1923
Mirren also sets up the rest of the season. “The great challenge is survival,” she says. “Survival at a time of huge change, especially in a young country like America. The dam is about to break, let’s put it that way. The pressure is building up on the dam.” What’s to come is “awesome,” she adds, “and I mean that in the full sense of the world: full of awe.” -Hollywoord Reporter
In the series 1923, we see the challenge of a nation in transition, right at the front edge of a new century. Electricity, indoor plumbing, and new ways of doing business threaten the way of life for a longtime ranching family. We witness the anguish and frustration of the older members as they hang on for dear life to their old ways, the wolves at their doorstep to make them all irrelevant.
It is a timely show one hundred years exactly to where we are today, at the front edge of a new century and a new millennium. We should have been expecting these changes if we had really paid attention and studied history.
Self-Reliance According to Dr. Jones
We have to change, no matter our age. We cannot be set in stone, stand in one place, and say “this is who I am”. It won’t work anymore. It never really did, but we were sold a bill of goods in being told to ‘find a good solid, steady job and stick with it’. That world no longer exists, and we must come to grips with it.
We also must come to grips with the fact that, as we age, we lose energy, drive, and inertia to make constant changes. We are driving on a road that is being paved just a few feet in front of us, with no map and no idea what the destination is. We have to embrace the journey, the unknown, and constant change. We must get excited about what we are doing, and do what we are excited about, to find the energy.
To be excited means we have to do something that means something, that we believe in. We need to develop a mindset of self-reliance, leadership, ownership, and passion. We must to drop the old mindset of working for an hourly, weekly, and monthly paycheck, and climbing a status ladder …because there is no top, no end payoff. Just the end of the ladder where you will sit, climb down from, or fall off of.
The paychecks will end. Stability will eventually show itself to be a mirage. The more we can adopt this mindset, the more resilience we will grow to deal with the world as it comes. This is not about competitive capitalism and getting ahead. This is about harnessing your unique gifts, talents, skills, dreams, and passions to create something only you can create, for your audience.
You can now find your audience anywhere in the world, your 1000 true fans, your 1000 faithful customers. You do not need a million or a billion people to know who you are to be successful. But you do need to be true to yourself to have the drive to create something and stick with it.
Understand yourself, your background, and your history. Also, understand the time and place in which you exist and the role you have to play in the bigger picture. Developing self-reliance and self-trust creates resilience, self-responsibility, and a workforce that can think critically, creatively, and problem-solve.
These are the things you need to become part of the workforce of the future, one that can work remotely from anywhere, and one that can create and run new business models that address modern needs. You, in turn, forsake being just a manager and droning worker bee for becoming a true leader and change maker.
You remain relevant because you decided that you are.