I Have So Much to Tell Your About the Future of Work

I can't tell my kids which jobs are going to be safe. I don't think anyone can anymore. So I'm teaching them something else instead.This one's personal. I've got one kid finishing high school and one starting first year — one headed into brain research, the other into accounting (my field, and yes, the one that lands on every "jobs AI will replace" list). So I sat down and got honest about what I actually want them to understand about automation, AI, and the careers in front of them.I get into the messy middle of it: how I watched automation reshape accounting in real time and rebuilt my whole career around the parts a machine can't do; why the linear, one-job-for-forty-years path our parents sold us is basically over, and why "portfolio careers" are the new normal; what I see every single day in my consulting work when leadership asks me who's adapting and who's getting left behind — and how to make sure it's not you; the one question to ask yourself if you're worried about being automated out of a role; and the little trait-spotting exercise I quietly run on my own kids, because half the stuff you got in trouble for growing up might just be your next career.Here's the whole episode in a sentence: I can't promise my kids a safe job. But I can teach them how to be the person who's safe in any job. That's the homework — for them, and maybe for you too.