Embrace Creative Destruction or Be a Turkey. You Choose! [Podcast]

Podcast #149 – Marc Miller Explains the Phenomenon of Creative Destruction.

Description:

Marc explores the creative destruction of industry, starting with the invention of the phonograph which eventually replaced the piano in the home, to the invention of the iPhone, which rapidly replaced many communication and entertainment functions and created an array of new industries.

Marc gives solid advice for keeping your career ahead of the creative destruction wave that is sweeping all areas of employment. This material comes from a presentation Marc has given several times during the recent tour for the third edition of Repurpose Your Career. Listen in to be prepared for changes that are only accelerating.

Key Takeaways:

[1:21] Marc welcomes you to Episode 149 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:34] If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with other like-minded souls. Subscribe on CareerPivot.com, iTunes, or any of the other apps that supply podcasts. Share it on social media or just tell your neighbors and colleagues. The more people Marc reaches, the more people he can help.

[1:51] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact.

[2:25] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[2:40] If the Repurpose Your Career podcast is a part of your week and you like what Marc is doing, please support the podcast today. Go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-149.

[3:06] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched and is almost complete. Marc is recording this podcast introduction and ‘outro’ from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. When this episode of Repurpose Your Career is released, Marc should be in Austin, preparing to drive back home to Ajijic, Mexico.

[3:26] Marc thanks everyone who’s made this tour a success. Marc is tired and looking for some downtime!

[3:35] Marc has yet to decide what the subject of next week’s podcast episode will be. It will be Episode 150 and Marc is approaching three years of doing the Repurpose Your Career podcast!

Now on to the podcast…

[3:48] This week, Marc is giving an abbreviated version of one of the talks he has been giving during the book tour, called “Embrace Creative Destruction or Be a Turkey. It’s Your Choice.” Marc hopes you enjoy this episode!

[4:03] Marc has given this presentation multiple times during the past month and thought it would be a good topic for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You can find a blog version of it at CareerPivot.com/surviving-creative-destruction and the PDF version of the presentation can be found at https://careerpivot.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Embrace-Creative-Destruction-podcast.pdf

[4:30] Marc starts by defining creative destruction as industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, destroying the old one and creating a new one. It has been going on for many centuries. One technology destroys a previous one. Jobs are destroyed and jobs are created.

[5:01] Creative destruction is accelerating. Understand it, or become a turkey. Nassim Taleb said, in Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, “A butcher feeds a turkey for 1,000 days. Every day, the turkey’s life remains constant and confirms the surety of his current existence. This is the way it goes. This is the way it always has gone.

[5:39] “This is the way it will always go. All his data confirms that butchers love turkeys. The turkey can rest confident in this idea because he has 999 days of benevolent treatment to back it up. Then, a few days before Thanksgiving, everything in his worldview is upturned.”

[6:02] This is what Taleb calls a Black Swan Event. All the evidence proves it can’t happen — until it does.

[6:14] In 1905 there were 400K pianos made and sold. If you wanted music in your house, you bought a piano. In 1877, the phonograph was created but it didn’t destroy pianos. In the 1930s, radio came about. In 1919, phonographs had a revenue that was three times that of pianos.

[6:50] It took from 1877 to 1919 for phonographs to start taking over for pianos. By 1933, two-thirds of all households had a radio. In 2013, 30K pianos were sold. Steinway, the major piano manufacturer stopped making pianos in WWII and made coffins.

[7:21] What came out of the demise of the piano is the music industry of today, whether online or radio. It took 50 years for the changeover to happen.

[7:51] Kodak was in the business of film, not cameras. In the 1990s, Marc worked in an IBM briefing center when Kodak came in for a briefing. Kodak knew they had a problem with the coming digital revolution. They were not sure how to make the transition. Kodak created the first digital camera in 1975.

[8:58] The problem was, Kodak didn’t see why anyone would want to see their pictures on a TV screen. So they didn’t do anything with it. By 2001, 26 years later, Kodak was number two in the digital camera market. Marc had one of those Kodak digital cameras. Kodak lost $60.00 on every sale. Kodak declared bankruptcy in 2012.

[9:44] The digital image revolution was the creative destruction that took down Kodak in less than 40 years.

[9:55] There are all kinds of things that happened as part of the digital image revolution and the demise of the photographic film industry.

[10:10] Adobe, Canva, JacquieLawson.com, Steve Coyle Photography and many more are examples of companies created by the digital image revolution.

[11:19] Amazon was founded in 1993. Amazon’s business was selling books. It took 18 years to put Borders Group out of business. Things are accelerating. Amazon introduced Prime in 2005. Marc has a Vitamix blender. One Sunday morning Marc broke the glass container. He had a replacement by 5:00 pm from Amazon.

[12:27] Amazon is having incredible impacts on all retail. Sears, JCPenney, and JoS. A. Bank are three examples of companies hurt by Amazon. The number accelerates. Fulfillment by Amazon allows anybody to sell online. Last week, Jean LeFebvre explained her offering, Wardrobe Jazz, on Episode 148 of the podcast.

[13:11] Marc has a friend who has two products he sells on Amazon. One is a set of gym gloves and the other is a wrist strap for weightlifting. He sources all of his products out of China.

[13:59] OnlineSellingExperiment.com is a competitor to the Amazing Selling Machine. They teach how to sell on Amazon. Marc learned about Online Selling Experiment from Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. Online Selling teaches retail arbitrage for buying things on clearance and selling them competitively online.

[15:33] Amazon has created all kinds of opportunities, besides destroying retail.

[15:47] Marc takes a moment to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[16:06] Marc reads a member testimonial from community member Mark: “Wondering what’s next? You want meaningful work and more freedom to pursue what matters most to you in your second half of life? Since joining the Career Pivot Community, I’ve found like-minded people in a similar path.

[16:25] “Marc Miller is a master at creating community and meaningful connections. This has been encouraging and informative and a confidence booster. If you want to go further and faster, join Career Pivot.”

[16:39] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more.

[17:00] The iPhone was created in 2007. We used to buy cameras, maps, and newspapers. We used to search for keys. Marc uses the Tile to find his keys. We used to have to carry insurance cards. Now, Marc has his State Farm app on his phone.

[17:48] You used to have to buy a TV and buy cable. Now you can get TV directly on your phone with services like SlingTV. Also, Marc can answer all the questions his wife asks him just by “Googling.” We used to have phones on the wall. We now have Skype on our phones.

[18:20] We text one another. The most-used app among Marc’s gringo expats is Whatsapp, which is an app for calling and texting without connecting to a phone network. The iPhone and smartphones have changed the world so much.

[18:50] Think of the number of products that have been destroyed. Think of the service jobs that have been lost. Now you can order your Big Mac® on your phone. New industries are being created. Social media brings interconnectedness. We now have the Internet of Things, including the Tile and the Ring doorbell camera and connected apps.

[19:52] You can now create audiobooks and other forms of audio. You can have a podcast like Marc, on iTunes (Apple Podcasts). Marc will use ACX to make an Audible audiobook from Repurpose Your Career, third edition.

[20:22] All of this has accelerated. Are you scared or excited? This will affect you. What can you do about it? 1) Attend an industry conference every year. 2) Listen to industry podcasts. 3) Get online training.

[21:16] Marc has attended the National Career Development Association Conference, several Birkman Conferences (because he is a Birkman consultant) and Podcast Movement. Marc plans to go to the 2020 Podcast Movement conference. Why attend conferences? You need the face-to-face contact with people to keep up with trends.

[22:07] Marc either stays at the conference hotel at a discount or at a hotel within walking distance of both the hotel and a Whole Foods store where Marc picked up dinner and the next day’s breakfast of yogurt and fruit.

[22:47] Podcasts are a wonderful way to keep learning. There is usually a podcast for your topic of interest. If there really isn’t, why don’t you start one? There are many places to listen to podcasts. Marc’s two favorite financial podcasts are Roger Whitney’s The Retirement Answer Man and Alworth Financial’s Money Matters.

[23:58] Marc also listens to Buffer’s The Science of Social Media, Problogger, and Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast.

[24:16] Online training is not expensive. Marc gives examples such as MOOC.org, and EDX.org, Udacity, General Assembly, Skillcrush, LinkedIn Training, Coursera, Skillshare, and Udemy. Anyone can put up a course and sell it on Udemy.

[25:21] You need to be attending industry conferences, listening to podcasts, and taking online training. If you do not, you could very easily find yourself in a career disaster area. Marc wrote an article on Living in a Career Disaster Area based on two clients who saw their careers blow up in under five years.

[25:54] When you start looking at career pivots, look for jobs that have ‘legs.’ Ask yourself if industries will survive because creative destruction is killing so much. Listen to Episode 143 with Russ Eanes. Russ got hit with a double whammy in the business of religious publications. Religion is in decline, and publishing is in decline.

[27:08] Russ got really tired of laying people off. There are just so many times you can lay off a friend before it really takes a toll on you.

[27:30] Hopefully, you now understand that have to manage your career, your skill sets, and where your industry is going. Creative destruction will continue to accelerate. Where is your career going and where is your industry going? If you can’t answer those questions clearly and confidently, the chances are you will be a turkey!

[28:20] Pick up the book Repurpose Your Career third edition and this presentation is essentially found in one of the chapters in it. Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode.

[28:45] The Career Pivot Membership Community continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project grow and thrive.

[28:52] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[29:13] Marc invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/mrmiller. Just include in the connection request that you listen to this podcast. You can look for Career Pivot on Facebook, LinkedIn, or @CareerPivot on Twitter.

[29:24] Please come back next week! Marc will be back in Mexico!