To all the young people starting their careers and distraught about the hazy future, remember this:

SKILLS are timeless; TOOLS are temporary; RESULTS are actual value delievered to your paying customers.

I have no sympathy for “professionals” who derive their personal value from the tools they know. Your clients are not paying you to use the tools you enjoy using, that you feel comfortable using, that you invested your time in learning, or that your boss pays you to use.

No…The customers are shelfishly paying you to create value for themselves.

If you align your career with creating value for your customers by accummulating fundamental, timeless skills and picking whatever available tool is the best at that moment to generate value, your career should be resiliant.

Of course stubborn professionals are “displaced” (cue sad violin music) when envitably the next new tool comes along that creates customer value better, faster, cheaper, but they’re too dogmatic, too invested, or simply too lazy to embrace it.