A Guide to Reinvention: My Review of Future Proof
I'm sure we've all heard about how work will change in the future (perhaps accompanied with a buzzword like disruption or AI). How can you make sure your career survives all these changes? That's the core idea behind the book Future Proof by Diana Wu David. The book is full of advice to help yourself avoid becoming obsolete.
Work is no longer about long tenures - most people switch jobs every three to five years. As a result we need to constantly reinvent ourselves. Most of the book details ways to handle that reinvention. Here are two of those methods:
Experiment - We can't reinvent ourselves without regular experimentation in our careers. That doesn't have to mean barging into your boss's office to tell them you quit. From page 97: "We crave the earth-shattering move, the “burn the boats,” never-turning-back extreme makeover; but day-to-day iterations and trials are often where the magic is."
Find Focus - What's your true calling in life? The book walks you through a way to find where you should focus your time by looking at the themes of your career so far. You can "find your Venn" to discover a niche where your abilities overlap.
My favorite take-aways from the book:
Personal user's manual. I loved the idea of making your own manual to help people know how you like to work. It's also a good reason to do some self-reflection. When do you work best? How do you work best? Writing your answers to these questions down for others seems like a useful exercise.
Minimum viable lifestyle. This ties in to my principle to be financially independent. Traditionally, people raise their spending level as they raise their income level. The book points out (and I agree) that it's better to first figure out how much spending will make you happy. Once you know that, then you aim to reach that level of income.
I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone looking for ways to make themselves more adaptable in their career.
If you’re interested in this topic, I also recommend watching Diana's TEDx talk on "Running Free".
This review was done with a copy provided by the author.