Our technologies are racing ahead but many of our skills and organizations are lagging behind. As intelligent machines improve, and the gap between machine and human abilities shrinks, employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire "new machines" instead of "new people".And only when a human will do, improvements in communication and collaboration technology are making remote work easier than ever before, motivating companies to outsource key roles to stars - leaving the local talent pool underemployed.

The Great Restructuring

The key question will be: Are you good at working with intelligent machines or not?To join the group of those who can work well with these machines, therefore, requires that you hone your ability to master hard things. And you must be able to do it quickly again and again. You must then transform that latent potential into tangible results that people value.Nate Silver with his comfort in feeding data into large databases, then siphoning it out into his mysterious Monte Carlo simulations, is the epitome of the high skilled worker.

In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines -highly skilled workers, those who are best at what they do -the superstars, and those with access to capital -the owners.

Winners in the New Economy

<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">The ability to quickly master hard things.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.</li></ol>

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy

"Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention. Let your soul be fully focused on whatever dominant idea is established in your mind."

Advances such as robotics and voice recognition are automating many low-skilled positions, but as economists emphasize, "other technologies like data visualization, analytics, high speed communications, and rapid prototyping have augmented the contributions of more abstract and data-driven reasoning, increasing the values of these jobs."

The Highly-Skilled Worker

Superstars are individuals who are the best at what they do, achieving peak performance through deliberate, focused effort. They excel by minimizing distractions, dedicating their time to mastering their craft, and consistently producing exceptional results in their fields.

The Superstars

Rosen explains as follows: "Hearing a succession of mediocre singers does not add up to a single outstanding performance."In other words, talent is not a commodity you can buy in bulk and combine to reach the needed level.

"Men of genius themselves were great only by bringing all their power to bear on the point on which they had decided to show their full measure.""Diffused attention is almost antithetical to the focused attention required by deliberate practice."

By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you're forcing the specific relevant circuits in your brain to fire, again and again, in isolation. This repetitive use of specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the circuits - effectively cementing the skill.

High Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent)*(Intensity of Focus)

If you remain one of the many for whom depth is uncomfortable and distraction ubiquitous, you shouldn't expect these systems and skills to come easily to you.

Consists of those with capital to invest in the new technologies that are driving the Great Restructuring.As digital technology reduces the need for labor in many industries, the proportion of the rewards returned to those who own the intelligent machines is growing.

The Owners

The reason, therefore, why it's important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding distraction is because this is the only way to isolate the relevant neural circuits enough to trigger useful myelination.By contrast, if you're trying to learn a complex new skill in a state of low concentration (perhaps you also have your fb feed open), you are firing too many circuits simultaneously and haphazardly to isolate the group of neurons you actually want to strengthen.

A venture capitalist in today's economy can fund a company like Instagram, which was eventually sold for a billion dollars, while employing only thirteen people. With so little input from labor, the proportion of this wealth that flows back to the machine owners.

Sherwin Rosen's paper, The Economics of Superstars, explores the phenomenon of disproportionate rewards for top performers in fields where small differences in talent can lead to vastly larger differences in income. Rosen argues that technological advancements, such as mass media, enable the best performers to reach larger audiences, concentrating wealth and fame among a few "superstars."

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy

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