“My dad had one job his whole life, I’ll have seven, and my kids will have seven jobs at the same time.” via Henry Mason/Seth Godin
That quote is spot on. I’ve said pretty much the same thing at least a dozen times, but never so concisely.
To understand this quote a bit better, here are two examples of how it may be possible to hold seven jobs and enjoy life.
Ad-Hoc or Instant Work
The first example centers on person-to-person economics over the Internet. We’ve already seen a bit of that with people making a living on eBay and Craigslist, but that was just a warm up.
This new work will be ad-hoc, fast-moving and you’ll find it via the Internet.
A good example of that is Sidecar, a company I talked about before.
Sidecar makes it possible for anybody with a clean record to become a taxi. A bi-directional (both driver and rider) reputation system keeps the quality high.
Using person-to-person systems like this, you could have seven ad-hoc “jobs” going at any moment.
Is this resilient? Yes, it’s likely that there will always be work available for you to do, since holding many such jobs reduces any reliance on any single employer.
Why is this attractive to people?
- It’s a very flexible system. You can scale the amount of work you do up or down as you need. You can move freely and live nomadically (which is great if you are young).
- Your success is actually based on your reputation. Character matters (it hasn’t for a long time).
- You don’t work in a bureaucracy. You don’t have a boss or cubicle to report to.
Optimally, most of the systems that make this possible will be cooperatives.
Self-Employed, Locally
The other approach is based on self-employment at the local level. This is very similar to resilience I write about on this site.
In this situation, the jobs held would be:
- Foodscaping your home. I’m writing a report on this right now. It goes way beyond simple gardening.
- Generating energy at home (with the excess sold to the grid to generate a nice retirement income). I just finished a report that shows you how to do this.
- Water harvesting from your home (I show you how).
- Making things at home and selling them to world online (wearing multiple hats as you do so).
— or —
- Selling knowledge as a consultant via a global telecommute or at a local coworking space with 3-4 different clients.
I think this is likely the most resilient approach. It’s also the approach that allows you to afford a family, help your community, and grow old without fear.
Hope this gives you some insight into how things are changing.
My goal is to provide everything I can to help you become a successful at all of your “jobs.”
Yours,
JOHN ROBB
PS: If you are interested in getting my monthly reports and weekly interviews with the experts making resilience real, check out Resilient Strategies.
