Have you heard of/read Malcolm Berko? He writes a twice-a-week column answering financial/investment questions — just one answer in each column.

In addition to being broadly educated and financially knowledgeable, he is a superb and truly witty writer, doesn’t suffer fools at all, and, after reading him for decades, has no sacred cows. (I highly recommend him.)

I thought this recent question and his response would explain the coverage, and downright scare hype, surrounding AI, robots and the tech upheaval of many industries, such as retail.

Here is the salient part of the question.

My professor believes that “its disruptive pricing power chokes employment, restrains wage growth and is bankrupting competitors.” He believes that Amazon is “too negatively impactive on our economy, especially wages, and must be restrained by government-decreed divestiture.”

Berko wasted few words on what he thought of the prof and went on to explain as follows:

Joseph Schumpeter, a brilliant economist and bald as an egg, who passed away in 1950, explained capitalism as a series 50- to 60-year waves of technological revolutions causing gales of creative destruction, or GCDs, in which old industries are swept away and replaced by new industries. These new industries generate new economic activity, employing more people, who buy more products, creating more demand and, resultantly, increased employment.

• First GCD, between the 1780s and 1840s, was fueled by steam power. During those years, the steam engine increased our gross domestic product fivefold, and employment grew fourfold.

• Second GCD, between the 1840s and 1890s, the railroads replaced wagon trains, stagecoaches and sailing ships. (…) Resultantly, our GDP exploded sixfold, and employment grew fivefold.

• Third GDC, between the 1890s and the 1940s, was charged by electricity. Inexpensive electrical power hugely improved industrial efficiency and labor productivity. This bred a sixfold growth in GDP and a fourfold rise in our working population.

• Fourth GDC between the 1940s and the 1990s was powered by oil and the automobile. People moved to the suburbs and families owned two cars as the GDP increased eightfold and the workforce grew fivefold.

• Fifth GDC is information technology and the microchip. It’s making other technologies obsolete and altering our social, cultural, political and economic futures in ways we never imagined possible. We’re on the cusp of that wave today.

Excellent for understanding what’s happening, but what neither Schumpeter nor Berko adress is the enormous upheaval, fear and human pain that comes with each wave.

It is terrifying to be told that skills you have worked to develop and hone for 5, 10 or 20 years, or longer, have no value.

But in today’s world, where what-you-do-is-who-you-are, that often means that you, the person, has no value.

While Berko is correct about the potential of an unimaginable future, which you may not even live to see, that future is of little solace and does nothing to mitigate the terror and economic woes facing you today or tomorrow.

Two parts of the solution is to put your energy into coping and immediately develop the most important skill/attitude they probably didn’t bother teaching you in school.

Learn to love learning.

PS I sincerely hope you take the time to read Berko’s full column. I guarantee it will be time well spent, as are all him writings.

Image credit: Creator’s.com

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

We live in stressful times. Escalating political discord, both in the US and abroad, disappearing jobs due to technology and disruption of those that are left; bullying has reached new heights and FOMO is on the rise — and there is nothing you can do to control any of it. However, it is within your power to choose how you respond to the stress factors in your life.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Stress is bad, right?

Bad for your health, bad for your relationships, bad for your life.

Or is it?

Actually stress can be a positive motivator.

So perhaps it’s not stress, but how we handle it.

The article may be looking at kids, but kids grow up to be adults and genetic traits come along for the ride.

One particular gene, referred to as the COMT gene, could to a large degree explain why one child is more prone to be a worrier, while another may be unflappable, or in the memorable phrasing of David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, more of a warrior.

Granted, the researchers were looking at short-term, i.e., competitive stress, but the solution was still the same as it is for stress that lasts longer. (The COMT gene also has a major impact on interviewing.)

They found a way to cope.

For many people stress is the result of losing control.

But if there is anything experience should have taught you by a very early age is that you can’t control your world; not even a tiny part of it.

I learned that lesson as a child of five when my father died and nothing ever happened after that to change my mind.

If you put your energy into controlling stuff to avoid stress you are bound to fail.

Energy spent on control is energy wasted.

Energy focused on coping provides exceptional ROI.

Image credit: Eamon Curry

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Years ago I wrote a post for a leadership blog about coping and based on the questions I’m hearing and the discussions I’m involved in it’s time to re-post it.

“Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”
–Virginia Satir

Smart lady, Virginia.

That thought, or any variation thereof, is probably the single most important concept people need to wrap their heads around.

Neither vehement denial nor passionate pleas will change what is; what matters is what you choose to do.

Positional leaders and those who claim the leadership label are often more into pleas and denial than they are into coping.

Understandable, since it’s much easier to rail or whine than to get off the proverbial ass and do something.

But that is exactly what leading requires and leading yourself is the most important leadership job you will ever have, because if you can’t lead yourself you will never have the opportunity to lead others.

Coping isn’t about playing ostrich or ignoring something and hoping it will go away.

Coping doesn’t involve ideology and rhetoric.

Coping doesn’t always mean solving the problem or overcoming the challenge.

Coping isn’t about being a hero or going it alone.

Coping rarely yields a perfect or even a complete fix.

While founders are less into obvious pleas and denial, they tend instead to superhuman efforts and projecting a ‘we can overcome anything’ persona.

They would do better to embrace the final description of what coping truly is.

Coping means facing whatever it is head on, recognizing it in its entirety, figuring out how best to deal with it, and then doing what needs to be done—all while accepting the reality and limitations of what is possible.

Image credit: HikingArtist

I just read an article about hurricane employees; referring to employees who “destroy the social fabric of the organization by creating friction, drama, tension and hostility among other employees.”

It’s an excellent article, but what struck me is how often good team players turn toxic during the holidays.

I’ve always said that people aren’t water faucets, i.e., there is no way they can spend 8-12 hours daily in a toxic culture or with an abusive boss and not have it affect their relationships and non-work actions.

By the same token, what happens outside of work affects attitudes and actions at work and what happens during the holidays is quite different from the rest of the year.

The holidays, starting at Thanksgiving, often include exposure to hurricane family members and excessive and/or unrealistic expectations that overwhelm normal coping capability.

That greater stress can disrupt mental equilibrium and negatively impact attitude.

The take-away here, whether you are the boss or not, is that if a team member becomes disruptive or has a sudden personality change talk with them and see what you can do to help.

Flickr image credit: Ducklover Bonnie

Stress is bad, right?

Bad for your health, bad for your relationships, bad for your life.

Or is it?

Actually stress can be a positive motivator.

So perhaps it’s not stress, but how we handle it.

The article may be looking at kids, but kids grow up to be adults and genetic traits come along for the ride.

One particular gene, referred to as the COMT gene, could to a large degree explain why one child is more prone to be a worrier, while another may be unflappable, or in the memorable phrasing of David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, more of a warrior.

Granted, the researchers were looking at short-term, i.e., competitive stress, but the solution was still the same as it is for stress that lasts longer. (The COMT gene also has a major impact on interviewing.)

They found a way to cope.

For many people stress is the result of losing control.

But if there is anything experience should have taught you by a very early age is that you can’t control your world; not even a tiny part of it.

I learned that lesson as a child of five when my father died and nothing ever happened after that to change my mind.

If you put your energy into controlling stuff to avoid stress you are bound to fail.

Energy spent on control is energy wasted.

Energy focused on coping provides exceptional ROI.

Flickr image credit: Eamon Curry

“Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”
–Virginia Satir

Smart lady, Virginia.

That thought, or any variation thereof, is probably the single most important concept people need to wrap their heads around.

Neither vehement denial nor passionate pleas will change what is; what matters is what you choose to do.

Positional leaders and those who claim the leadership label are often more into pleas and denial than they are into coping.

Understandable, since it’s much easier to rail or whine than to get off the proverbial ass and do something.

But that is exactly what leading requires and leading yourself is the most important leadership job you will ever have, because if you can’t lead yourself you will never have the opportunity to lead others.

Coping isn’t about playing ostrich or ignoring something and hoping it will go away.

Coping doesn’t involve ideology and rhetoric.

Coping doesn’t always mean solving the problem or overcoming the challenge.

Coping isn’t about being a hero or going it alone.

Coping rarely yields a perfect or even a complete fix.

Coping means facing whatever it is head on, recognizing it in its entirety, figuring out how best to deal with it, and then doing what needs to be done—all while accepting the reality and limitations of what is possible.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobrasick/4597169938/

Friday I explained how the Philosophy of ER can help you lead a more satisfying life and achieve more of your goals, especially the big ones. Today I want to share a focus that has helped me bounce back from a variety of things, large, small and even devastating, over the years.

It is the difference between spending large amounts of time and energy arranging your life so nothing can go wrong or trying to fix the people in your world so you won’t be hurt/upset/etc. when they doing whatever as opposed to recognizing that there is nothing you can do that will protect you and spending the same time and energy building your coping skills.

I figured this out on my own when I was five years old and my father was killed. Being the people they were my family and relatives each found their own way to deal with it and I needed to do the same.

And I did.

I knew I couldn’t change what happened, there was nothing I could do that would bring him back. I had to go to school and listen to everyone say how sorry they were without falling apart and making a fool of myself. In other words, I needed to cope with what had happened and because no one could do it for me I did.

As I grew and other things happened I stayed focused on coping with them; most were the small, everyday variety that happen to all of us, while others were large.

The common element was that they were all things that made me fall apart, so I focused my energies on how fast I could put myself back together, because I had come to believe that falling apart was normal.

By the time I was in my twenties I was so good at it that most people who knew me thought nothing could dent me.

Ha! Little did they know, but by then I could fall apart on the first beat and put myself back together by the second.

I wish there was some methodology I could share that would pass the coping skills I have on, but I have found over the years that each person has to develop their own; what works for them.

What I can guarantee is that no matter what you do, you will never constrain your world to run perfectly smoothly with nary a bump or an upset.

But you can build your ability to handle whatever happens; to cope, keep going and deal with everything that life throws at you.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: Bah Humbug on flickr