Super-Shifts - Designing Your Role in an AI-Driven Future

[MUSIC PLAYING] STEVE FISHER: How do you position yourself? It's going from skills to capability. Capabilities are the direction, the things that don't expire, the empathy, the softer skills, the sense-making, creative direction, the orchestration, problem framing, strategic foresight, adapting your identity, the human leadership in not even a hybrid team, where the hybrid team is all human. It's hybrid in the sense that it's also AI systems.

JILL FINLAYSON: Welcome to the Future of Work podcast with Berkeley Extension and EDGE in Tech at the University of California, focused on expanding diversity and gender equity in tech. EDGE in Tech is part of the Innovation Hub at CITRIS, the Center for IT Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute. UC Berkeley Extension is the continuing education arm of the University of California at Berkeley. This month, as we wrap up 2025 and look ahead to 2026, one thing is clear, artificial intelligence isn't slowing down.

It's reshaping jobs, expectations, productivity, and even how we see our contributions as humans. If you want insider advice on how to adapt to these shifts and hints on how we might become more agile and less stressed, this conversation is a good place to start. We're discussing partnering with AI, standing out when everyone else uses AI too, and growing your agency, authority, and autonomy to design the future you want. Plus, we look into how you can become more adept at reading signals.

So you can be proactive, not reactive. If you're feeling this fast pace of change in your bones, you're not alone. Let's huddle up for some practical tips on staying grounded and making sense of the constant reinvention ahead. It's all about expanding possibilities.

To talk about this, we're delighted to welcome Steve Fisher. Steve helps organizations anticipate disruption and turn uncertainty into opportunity. Whether guiding Fortune 500 companies, launching startups, or advising governments, he leads strategic foresight, generative AI, and business model transformation. His book, Super Shifts focuses on nine transformative forces shaping the future of business, technology, and society.

And his newsletter, Future Proof, helps folks like us stay ahead of the curve. Welcome, Steve. STEVE FISHER: Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

JILL FINLAYSON: So I don't about you, but it feels like 2025 went by fast and yet also took forever. STEVE FISHER: Yeah. JILL FINLAYSON: How has 2025 been for you? And how has this year changed how you are looking at your own career?

STEVE FISHER: Well, it's interesting you bring that up. As you get older, things seem to go faster. But I think everybody's feeling how fast things have changed. This year has been too fast, but yet too long.

I think we're crossing - and this is in Super Shifts - we're talking about moving from one historical age to another, from this age of engines for the last 200 years to this new age of intelligence. Old systems are broken. Careers are destabilized. I have personally experienced that as well.

I know many of my friends and colleagues who've never had - are feeling that. Thing is, as leaders are realizing that the tools they use this last decade, at least the last 10, yeah, 5 years, and 10, 20 years, it doesn't work anymore. So I kind look at 2025 as almost like it's been a reboot to a bit, I think even more so next year. This was not your typical slow down.

This was like systemic restructuring. As a futurist, I'm using AI. And I have a different relationship with AI than I did even a year ago. I look at it as a companion.

I look at it as a way to power my work. We can get into that a little bit later. Yeah, I think I don't even look at it as the age of engines like the industrial revolutions. I actually feel this is more like the Renaissance.

It's not just industrial. This is like cognitive, social, biological, technical. I mean, this is nothing even within our lifetime or even like recent memory. So it's going to be - it's been a ride.

And it's going to be continually that in 2026. JILL FINLAYSON: Yeah, it does feel more like a hard reset rather than a gentle evolution. It feels like suddenly things that were working aren't working. STEVE FISHER: I don't think we're done.

To me, I'm not an economist. But just someone who's lived through 35 years of the tech industry, it's kind of like we're at the dot com bubble, but it's the everything bubbles. There's a lot of system breakers. But my worry is about a cascading failure.

And I don't mean to be so catastrophic. I always say there has to be collapse before there's transformation. So it's a question of how rough that is, right? And how people can be prepared for it.

So I think we can get into that as well. I think there's a great opportunities for people ahead if they navigate this properly. JILL FINLAYSON: So why isn't this just like the Industrial Revolution? Why is this different?

STEVE FISHER: You've got intelligent - intelligence itself, for the first time, is going to become abundant. It is now. Think about how much you can do now. It's not just about tech, though.

Because it's about what becomes possible when cognition, creativity, and reason itself become cheap and plentiful. It collapses this boundary between the creator and the consumer. And that's what we're seeing now, the more directness in that. And it accelerates everything.

JILL FINLAYSON: Say a little bit more about abundance, because I don't think people really see it that way. So how is this going to expand possibilities? STEVE FISHER: With my personal experience, my personal opinion is we're kind of in this shadow recession because I use that term because you could look outside and see the economy is fine. But if you take away the seven stocks on the S&P, food is much more expensive, everything is much more expensive.

People feel that. But when you have the abundance of information and the abundance of it during recessions is always the time to create new businesses. So we have a tremendous opportunity to create a whole new set of offerings for people. I think that the way we rethink how we run our business, and I think about the book, I think you and I met when Ja-Nae and I wrote Startup Equation almost 10 years ago.

That was for an era when you built a team, you went through venture capital, you raised money, you had more traditional ways. You don't need - you can be in a co-founder team of one. Your co-founder is your AI. So I think we have an opportunity to use that access to create something that maybe - or try things that we've never been able to do because we just didn't have the money.

I think the thing we're going to have to be very cautious of is how we have - even if it's abundant, it has to be ethical. It has to be trustable. You have to be able to that what you're getting is true. Otherwise, the system itself, if the system itself is corrupt, then there's going to be more systemic collapse.

And I think there's an opportunity for us to keep the system in check. But yeah, the abundance is only going to get more so available to people. We're going to move from the word "automation" is just wrong. It's this whole thing of every AI replaces me.

We have to move to AI multiplies me. The smart ones are retraining those people. They're augmenting them. They are turning them into force multipliers.

JILL FINLAYSON: But if each person can do more, does that mean fewer employees? STEVE FISHER: I think there's two things happen. Three things, one is that people will be hired back because they'll be looking for people with the skill set, because they realize they have to bring people back and the ones that are trained in it. Two, there's an opportunity for those who maybe want to do their own thing, or have figured out how to offer themselves in a different way, they can start their own business that didn't exist before.

And I think that a lot of other things will come to be offered by those companies. So we can create a whole new set of jobs, a whole new set of roles and things that people are not doing right now that don't exist yet. So I actually think that there's going to be a whole new set of opportunities that we can't even comprehend right now. If you and I have a conversation this time next year, it'll be like we didn't know this was going to come.

JILL FINLAYSON: Can you give an example of augmentation or the multiplier effect for a desk worker? STEVE FISHER: So let's, for example, let's just take simple research analysis. Business analyst is working in a consulting firm and they have to do competitive analysis. They have to produce a report.

They have to do deeper dives into the company's data. They could go into research on GPT on a paid version, or even the enterprise, if they're able to, they can go into deep research, put the right data in, tell it to act like a business. Tell it the role. That's the most important thing is tell it how to act.

Tell it what to look for. But the thing is can't just take a blind acceptance of what it gives you. That's the difference. You have to look for quality.

You have to look for errors, hallucinations. It's getting better, but it's still obviously not perfect. So the value is in the analyst being able to analyze those important things. But in terms of all the data gathering, what might take a week to just dig, and hit web pages, and pull things, and do your own synthesis could be done in about probably an hour or two of navigating prompts, and asking things, or probing deeper, gathering the data, synthesizing it in a way that can be presented.

And what used to take me a week, I now have a whole other couple of days. What could I do for my job to make this even more powerful that I couldn't do before? That's the trick. Another example is design work, like product and coding.

Everyone thinks programmers are going to be gone. And you can vibe code, which means you can just ask it to give you the code for what you're trying to build. I'm not a developer. I'm a designer.

I'm a design futurist. So for me, I make things, I build products. What's been the most wild thing to me is using tools like Lovable to prototype. Think about how long it took to build a prototype for demo.

You can now go in with the right prompts, built a - I did it as a live demo. I gave it like a bank app with certain things. If you have a design system in Figma that's already giving you all your color, all your basics, and you give it the right things, it can design the whole product in a couple of hours versus weeks. Now look, a prototype in Lovable is not a production level system.

You have to understand that. And I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding that I make it here, and then it automatically turns into a living system. But the beauty of it is if I have now time, I can refine it. I can do deeper functionality.

I can make a better prototype in the same amount of time. So that's why I want people to think about AI can scale you, what you want to be able to do. And it's about expanding your - and augmenting you. JILL FINLAYSON: Well, you coined the term intellifusion.

How are you defining that? STEVE FISHER: Intellifusion, people think it's like cyborgs because you think of fusion. It's not. It's this cognitive partnership.

Like I talked about human creativity multiplied by machine capability. AI kind of removes that friction layer. I used to be very anti-AI. I tell the story all the time, because Midjourney had come out and they were basically stealing artists' work.

And learning and teaching the system without - and there is no credit for it. But if I knew the artist, I could design something in their style. And how fair is that? I mean, it's one thing to say, give me a style of a van Gogh in van Gogh.

But it's another thing like a living comic book artist like Alex Ross, who makes a living doing this. But you're able to prototype 100 times faster. And so for me, intellifusion is creativity shifting from the execution to the direction. So if you think of yourself like an orchestrator, like an orchestra director, these are your musical instruments, this is your orchestra, that's where the fusion comes from.

JILL FINLAYSON: That makes some sense. So it's not about becoming one with the machine as much as having the machine being your assistant to help you focus on the areas add more value. STEVE FISHER: Well said. That's exactly right.

JILL FINLAYSON: And what do you see as the human value that we're adding? What are we bringing to this table that's now set by AI? STEVE FISHER: Well, I think one of the most important things we can bring to this is a governance and ethics. There's always going to be bad actors in the system.

I think what we can bring to it is helping the system learn to be better. I think what concerns me long term is what is the original information that we add to it? How do we grow the knowledge? What are you producing that's original that doesn't - it becomes like a circular loop.

So I think for us, as humans, we have to still create original thought, original content. We have to do things that add to the value of it, instead of just letting the AI run its things. I think that's starting to change now, but to be determined. JILL FINLAYSON: So this is more than prompt engineering.

We've heard about asking AI questions, but it's something more than that. STEVE FISHER: Yeah, this is the kind of ghost in the machine. It's one thing to just prompt and get data back, but there's a level of are we going to get to a certain level of artificial general intelligence or superintelligence? Because will they feel it - literally feel at a certain point that they can do a better job than we can?

Yeah, so that's always the thing. That's where the governance and the ethics come in. We need to instill certain hardcore coded laws that don't harm humans, that don't think at a certain time that humans are the virus. JILL FINLAYSON: AI is the worst it's ever going to be.

It's getting better every day, not every week. It's so quickly the changes are happening. So when change is accelerating in this pace, what are your advice for people? How do they feel in control?

As their job is changing, many people's identity is wrapped up in that. I think that's maybe more of a US thing, where your first question at a party is like, what do you do? And so how do we change how we manage our changing identity and the speed of change? STEVE FISHER: Well, I think we have to recognize that we are not just our work.

Of course, if you're laid off and you have to pay your bills, it's going to fall on deaf ears. I think for us is we have to work to build a life that gains from volatility and not to collapse from it. JILL FINLAYSON: Well, I feel this is a new mental health challenge. So I'm just wondering, this feels kind of scary to a lot of folks.

So how do you manage the speed of change? STEVE FISHER: You're right. The way young people are looking at it is that pay all this money for school. And now I can't get a job.

And I'm basically stuck. And I don't how to differentiate myself. There's no jobs. That's demoralizing because you're at the beginning of your career.

I think that people have to get more targeted in the way that they look. I think when you're young, you kind of spray and pray everything. It's not about competing with 10,000 people. It's like, how do you create a voice, an authority?

I think you can do that. I think with people that are older, I mean, I experienced a layoff recently. And I understand it's a different world. But reinvention now, you think about reinvention or pivoting, it's not optional.

It's a structural need. But at the same time, we're at a place now where age is not - I mean, there's ageism out there, no doubt. But it doesn't - it no longer determines the opportunity. It's your ability to adapt.

So how do you make this the superpower that you need? There's a new set of careers. There is a real questioning of what does it mean to work. If things are paid for, what do you really do?

What do you want to do with your life? I think a lot of people are coming to this with an older, out of date approach. And I've done it myself. So I think we're in the middle of a crisis for humans.

It's a mental health crisis right now. Because a lot of people, they identify their whole life with what they do. They are this or that. So I want people who are listening to understand that you're not alone, it's not just you.

But there's a way for you to look at this in terms of microreinvention, I call it. About every 24 months, it's not going to be 5 years, 10 years. Find new communities. Because I think there's a sense of belonging that has been stripped from us since COVID.

I think where companies are making a big mistake and a real opportunity exists is to tap into people fractionally, not a contractor role as a contractor, you're not a full-time employee with benefits. But there's a great amount of knowledge, and people don't really maybe want to work full time anymore. They might want to work part time or they might want to - they want to feel that they're contributing. Companies that recognize that and they find the people that are willing to really dive into it can, I think, change how we look at work.

I think there's just there's such an untapped opportunity for people. I would tell people to look at your job as the thing that you do. Think about ways that you can maybe create a portfolio of work, just little different things that you do instead of just trying to equate get another job. Because I think there's a real opportunity for people that have all this experience and the people that want to tap into it, especially small businesses.

JILL FINLAYSON: I like what you said about the fractional employment, because one of the research projects talked about how people who are older and use AI are better at using AI because they have the critical thinking. They how to interrogate the AI, whereas younger people are more quickly adopting the AI, but they don't have that lived experience to counterbalance it and to check it. STEVE FISHER: So well said. I think a couple years ago, it was prompt engineering.

A year or two ago, it was prompt engineering. Now it's agents. Next year is going to be all about - continue to be about agentic AI. Older people are - the people in their 50s and 60s, these are the people you need to hire as your AI managers.

Because they manage people. They know what to get out of people. And if they can have somebody younger, and direct them to do it, and they can also do it faster, you have a balance of experience with younger energy, but they are going to learn at the same time. As I was saying, I think a lot of jobs that don't exist now will exist five years from now.

An AI orchestrator, a digital twin supervisor. As your point, it's like, how do you train a digital twin if you only have a few years of experience and you've never done this? But if you can embed yourself as in be a digital twin and leverage all of your experience, I mean, that's tremendous. JILL FINLAYSON: So what other jobs do you think will exist that don't exist today?

STEVE FISHER: One of the things I like - one of the things I love about my work is I tell stories. When you look at the future, you talk about long-term planning or what those possible futures are, just even in general, there's a whole storytelling element. I think you're going to have narrative strategists for AI, how to make it more - I think you're also going to have workflow training. How do you make agentic human machines work?

I think you're going to have architects for cognitive ecosystems. But I think what's going to happen is a lot of the jobs or the things that used to be singular jobs will fold into themselves. Prior to this, COVID, layoffs, 2008 layoffs, dot com, they would get rid of people and then they would dump the tasks on the people left. And they'd be just more work for them to do.

AI will help them deal with that. So that's again, those job roles will make it easier to function. But I don't think many jobs will be gone. I've been very controversial saying I think a lot of design jobs will be gone in five years.

I think the role of designer, the role of the designer, the developer is going to be very different. 20 years ago, you had a visual designer who could do Photoshop, and you have somebody that maybe is an information architect. They usually weren't the same skills. Or somebody that could move it into code.

Now, the designer's gonna have probably to do all three at this point. JILL FINLAYSON: Let's talk about skills. What skills are people going to need for these jobs that are changing so dramatically or for jobs that don't exist? Are there skills that we currently emphasize that we will continue to need?

Or are there new skills? STEVE FISHER: I think at a base layer, the cognitive skills, empathy, good leadership skills, EQ, I think just organizational skill. I think the fundamentals like negotiation, you're not going to negotiate it with an AI at this point. I think the fundamental skills that used to be - we call them the quote, unquote "soft skills" will become absolutely more important.

They used to be kind of almost like the 80-20, the 80 was all the data analytics, all the hard stuff, all the things that came the output. Well, that's becoming easier. What's not becoming easier is how do you communicate. So I actually think people that have strong those skills that were maybe not, as I would say, rewarded as somebody who maybe had those quote, unquote "harder skills," they're going to have the upper hand this time around.

JILL FINLAYSON: I think earlier you mentioned using AI to create your voice or establish your authority. How do you differentiate yourself from the other people that are out there and demonstrate you have these skills? STEVE FISHER: Yeah, I mean, still to this day, it's like there's still a portfolio. I think the humans still want to see you can do the work.

When it comes to - for me, the books are obviously authority. Not everyone can publish a book. Those who can write should write. I think for you, a Substack or a - there's a million podcasts.

If you have a unique thing you want to say or have a YouTube channel, it's about getting your voice out. And it's also about finding the things that you love that connect with what is in the market for - I mean, I'll give you an example. If you really think - look at AI filmmaking, I think it's one of the most amazing and terrifying things right now. If you have always wanted to make documentaries, or do films, or even just do spec work, you don't have the money just to do - if you were doing a short film, it would be $100 grand just to pay.

I can do it now with about a handful of tools and create a really good film that could demonstrate my skill set. I think the difference this time around is people have to be willing to really dive into it. I think before, it was a lot more casual. That's why I talked about earlier in our conversation was about the change in pace.

JILL FINLAYSON: Let's talk about upskilling. So if it's always good to have a growth mindset, it's always good to be continuously learning. But you're saying it's different now because you have to learn quickly. Or you have to show initiative to go learn.

What do you think people should be doing to stay current? STEVE FISHER: I think we look at upskilling as people look like they're being like patched, like a software program. But it's not about really the skills to learn, it's positioning yourself in the world where the capability evolves. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, what you were just talking about.

It's like, how do you position yourself? I think for me, it's going from skills to capability. Skills are tasks. Capabilities are like the direction, the things that don't expire, the empathy, the softer skills, the sense making, creative direction, orchestration, problem framing, strategic foresight, adapting your identity.

The human leadership in a - not even a hybrid team where the hybrid team is all human. It's hybrid in the sense that it's also AI systems. So the capabilities allow you to scale. And the skills, the thing is the skills become obsolete.

But all the Courseras, all the things that are out there are focused on that. Someone's going to come along and create a platform where they teach you how to gain capability, not just skill set. So I also - it goes to just not this course completion. It's about going from course completion to the value demonstration.

People don't get hired because they took a course. They get hired because they can show their value. So what does that mean? I would say shifting from learning more to learning what moves you up gives you advantage in a job.

JILL FINLAYSON: I think there are some key takeaways here. The half life of skills has become so short. And how we have to continually be learning new skills, but to your point, providing the greater context. And what did this accomplish?

And how did this impact the company in a favorable way? STEVE FISHER: Not about adding more skill. It's about upgrading who you are in the system, the quote, unquote "system." Whether it be the system of the industry you work in, the system of the company, the business unit, the department.

It's about your value growing as the world accelerates. And it's easy to say. I know that. And it's hard.

The action comes down to doing. I mean, I know more than you would think. And it's tough. It really is tough out there.

But with challenge comes opportunity. And it's about understanding where that is, right? JILL FINLAYSON: So here's my qualm, I would say, about upskilling. So upskilling implies that somehow the employee is deficient or lacking in some way.

And I think in this scenario with the advent of AI, it's not the employee who is lacking. It is a systemic problem of not redefining jobs, redefining deliverables, and providing people with access to the tools and the supports that they need to do their job. So I kind of want to discuss whose responsibility is this to address the changing nature of employment. STEVE FISHER: Any company that wants to compete.

But it's also the people that want to be a part of that emerging world that's coming. I think what frustrates me so much is Verizon or Comcast said they were going to lay off 15,000 people. Why? Why can't you transform those 15,000 people?

Let's just take 5,000. Let's take a third of that. Why can't you power those 10,000 people. They say they're $100,000 a year.

OK, yeah, 10,000, that's nearly, I guess, $100 million. That $100,000 person, if you can give them AI to make a $1 million, why wouldn't you? And I think that's what we're seeing is that a lot of companies don't know how to do it. JILL FINLAYSON: Yeah, I think that's a failure of imagination and, quite honestly, intention.

STEVE FISHER: Yes, that's right. I couldn't agree more. I think that the leadership in place is still operating like it's 2015. And they just look at AI as networking, or social media, or websites.

They're looking at it as just another enabling technology. Where it's a transformational technology. And they don't know how to actually themselves grasp it. So the easiest thing they can do is get rid of people, have better numbers, get their bonuses, go on vacation.

Their framing is not correct. JILL FINLAYSON: So the companies that do shift, what do you see those companies doing in 2026? How do they look different from other companies? STEVE FISHER: Yeah, they look different.

I think the ones that I'm seeing, they're changing all of their departments with a hybrid AI model, not a hybrid work location model. I think that they should look at every single person in the workplace using the tools to do their job to basically show how they did 20% other things that they couldn't do before. Because if they can do that, then the value of a company and the investment they make versus just installing new systems is going to keep - there's going to be start - I think you're going to start to see a kind of separation of companies.

I think you're going to see those who are now accelerating themselves with it. And there are those who are just using the tools as just because they have to. They feel they have to versus creating real value. I think you're going to see that really come.

JILL FINLAYSON: In your book, you talk about being able to read signals. Can you speak to how leadership should be reading signals and what they should be doing? And then also for individual employees like our - STEVE FISHER: I think the one thing that I always evangelize with people is that futurists don't do predictions. We don't predict the future.

Despite those hard every January, predictions come out. Yes, it's fun. Yes, it's like circus thing. You're just guessing.

It's a guessing game. And it's good entertainment, fun. No one should treat them as part of your strategy work. So that's the thing that I think I see happen a lot is that they see - this is different from trend reports are focused on understanding the possible futures.

The future will eventually become the present. It's a question of what future becomes that present. So if you understand the possible futures, eventually as things move toward that, you can navigate it and not react to it. So in order to do that, you lcan read all these 1,000 trends, papers, and PDFs, and they're like ad nauseam.

There's tons of them out there. But the work that goes into that is signals work. What the heck is a signal? A signal can be a news article.

It could be a patent released on a piece of technology. It can be a couple things happening with cultural change. These are things usually more on the fringe or on the periphery. But the stronger they get, they turn.

And maybe other signals come with them together. And they turn into trends. How do you do this? Well, listen to podcasts.

Set up RSS feeds. I know, sounds antiquated. Blogs, there's a lot of good Substacks out there. Start to synthesize that.

You can actually automate an agent to go out - this is where AI comes in. You can go in, automate an agent to pull in those RSS feeds and give you outputs on analysis of what it finds. So it could actually give you a lot more signals analysis work that can help you be insightful. What I used to do, this is like 30 years ago.

So we used to have these big trade magazines in tech, these huge magazines. I would cut out articles. It was like my version - it was like physical bookmarking. But what I would do is I collect them because that would be my signals and the way that I would track things that were changing.

And then what I would do is highlight stuff. And I would get, in a weekly folder, give it to my boss, because my boss, it was like I created a synthesis, a set of signals. And I really didn't realize what I was doing. It was just for me.

It helped me stay competitive. So I would say there's sources of information, reports, the ways for you to gather that. And you can automate the gathering of that. That would just make you so much more insightful.

And this, again, where it goes to what you want to be able to show an employer or show your current company. So hopefully that's the 101 on signals. So I could talk about that stuff for hours. JILL FINLAYSON: So as you're looking into the 2026, and you're looking at not predictions, but possibilities, is there something you think we're going to look back a year from now and say, oh, that's so obvious?

STEVE FISHER: Obvious, it's a great question. I think that we are going to realize that AI doesn't solve the problems we thought it would in the speed in which we did. That we're going to have to bring back more humans to make it work. And people are like, of course, we should bring - it doesn't, yeah.

That's not the case right now in this moment. I think that's what's going to change. JILL FINLAYSON: And for the folks you mentioned, we've got the new grads who are having a hard time finding jobs. We've got people who have been laid off.

We also have the people who are hugging their job very closely because they're so uneasy. They don't even want to take the chance of changing jobs. What is your advice for entering into 2026 with a little less stress and a little more confidence that we're going to come out OK? STEVE FISHER: Yeah, I mean, on an individual level, I mean, I can't tell you that things are going to be rosy and fine.

They're probably not. I mean, you're right to hold things close. But it is a pendulum. What I believe will happen over the next 12 to 18 months is that we will hit a plateau of using AI.

And it will be realized as not the panacea that we thought it was and the level of automation that we thought. Now look, it'll come. It will come. But I think there's going to be a realization that we need to use it in a way that is more effective.

And that's going to require people. So I think that those who were laid off and older, they have to think about the value and what they really, truly love about the work that they do and how to go deeper with these tools and systems. I think with younger people, I think it's about rethinking what is an entry level job for you. And if it means creating your own company in an LLC that costs you 70 bucks, and get out there, and doing some projects, and doing things that are actual experience.

So that's the thing that's always - what I did in college was I worked full time when I went to school. So for me, I showed employers that I was doing that work already. They might want to hire you. They might want to hire entry level jobs.

But they got to know that you've got some capability, not just a degree. So I would tell people to even if it's just a project, like an idea for a prototype or a company, you want to do something, you've got it on your resume. You've demonstrated that you can go out and hustle. They like that a lot.

I would say that the people that are hugging their jobs, you're trying to hold sand. It's like you're trying to make a fist of sand. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're trying to be the irreplaceable one, not the indispensable one. So accept the fact that I have a lot of friends in government.

And I'm like, welcome to the party, pal. Yeah, it sucks out here. But what's changed is I think a lot more people are afraid of the unknown. When you've been laid off, or you've been fired, or it just isn't a fit, you get a tougher skin over time.

But I think you have to look at your role and ask yourself two things, is this a job that I still want to do? If so, how has it changed? And what do I need to do to show that I'm the one that should still be there, and not just hold on tight to the guardrails? And then if it's not, then use this as an opportunity to explore the thing you've always wanted to do.

Maybe it's open a yoga studio. Maybe it's buy a franchise. Do something. It may be something completely different.

And I get it, you got a mortgage to pay for. But there's no time like right now, especially if you're entrepreneurial or you have some hustle in you, that you can use this stuff to really change how you work and how you show value to others. JILL FINLAYSON: And just to circle back to your book and this idea of these nine big shifts, what are your final words of advice for dealing with these major shifts that are happening in technology, in the economy? STEVE FISHER: It's more than tech.

The thing to understand about super shifts is, I want you all to know that this is a bit of a long game. It's not just like everything in technology in the next 12 months or 18 months. And not all these shifts are happening at once. Within the super shifts, there are three or four different shifts that are coming together, but they're all not happening right now.

So what I would offer to you is when you think about this, that you've got social changes, the way we're using energy, there's different generations in the workforce. There's a lot of dimensions that the transformation is already underway. But when I look at these super shifts and you look at them as a whole, it's a blueprint for agency. That's the one thing I try and evangelize is there's a new mental model for working and for identity.

So it's about understanding creativity, careers, leadership, how it evolves. It's about I go back to that cognitive part. It's not just that the future is - and to misquote Stevenson, it's unevenly distributed. But I think for people right now is that look at the shifts as a bit of a radar for you and how it can impact your work and your life.

And use it as a way to look for the things that are happening, so that you can be better prepared. JILL FINLAYSON: Thank you so much for leaving us with our own personal super shift, which is changing our mindset around agency and the opportunities that this is going to create. Thank you so much for joining us, Steve. STEVE FISHER: Yeah, it's been great.

Thanks for the time today. Really appreciate the conversation. JILL FINLAYSON: And with that, I hope you have enjoyed this latest in a long series of podcasts that we'll be sending your way each month. Please share with your friends and colleagues who may be interested in taking this Future of Work journey with us.

And make sure to check out extension.berkeley.edu to find a variety of courses and certificates to help you thrive in this new working landscape. And to see what's coming up next at EDGE in Tech, go ahead and visit edge.

berkeley.edu. Thanks so much for listening. And I'll be back next month to continue our future of Work journey.

The Future of Work podcast is hosted by Jill Finlayson, produced by Sarah Benzuly, and edited by Matt Dipietro.