Here Are The Most Important Status Symbols That'll Matter in 10 Years
Start working on getting them right now
10 years ago, working for a tech company like Google was the ultimate status symbol.
Free lunches. Amazing job titles. Open-plan offices with sleep pods and adult playgrounds with slides. These good old days are gone.
Tech layoffs showed everyone the truth.
We’ve seen 10 years of progress in the last year thanks to advancements in AI, Apple Vision Pro VR headsets, and the changes in the job market.
I predict these things below will be the biggest status symbols in 10 years based on current trends.
Career opportunities that don’t require job applications
Years of experience used to matter.
Now, no one gives a sh*t. All that the business world cares about is how fast you can learn, and what proof-of-work and social-proof you have.
Most employees are ghosts.
You google their name and nothing comes up. What they don’t realize is if that’s the case, you’ll have to apply for hundreds of jobs and hear nothing back. Ghosted.
The trend has got worse because AI now scans resumes. It’s allowed to be ageist and discriminate as long as it tells no one. In my last IT job I saw it firsthand. The level of discrimination was amazing.
There was literally a class system - workers versus the elites.
I don’t share this trend to ruin your confidence though. It’s created new economies, such as the creator economy.
The internet has increased searchability, which means as long as you’re searchable, you’ll be fine. That assumes you can communicate how you help people. Work that is freelance, contract, or solopreneurship will become the new norm.
To get a headstart, have at least one social media profile that demonstrates your value.
Selflessness
Individualism runs the world.
People have stopped giving a sh*t about each other. In my neighborhood, the normal thing to say is “But it doesn’t affect me.” That’s what I heard for the last 10 months while rallying people to take on a bad neighbor.
Who cares if babies are wearing ear muffs to bed? Who cares if little old ladies on pensions have had their fences destroyed and are intimidated by bullies?
“It’s not happening to me.”
What they don’t realize is “It’s not happening to me right now.” But when communities let basic decency and obeying of laws be forgotten, what we end up with is anarchy.
The most successful people I know are going the other direction.
They’re solving problems that don’t affect them. They have more compassion and empathy for people they don’t know.
I see the problem with writers all the time. They’re so focused on what they can get and how much money they can make, that they forget the point of writing – to help, think, entertain, inspire, etc.
Instead of thinking about what you get, ask what you can give. The people who do that will get all the status and rewards.
Basic reading and writing skills
A friend of mine, Laura, has been on the dating scene for a few years. I can’t relate to a lot of what she says except one insight:
“Most of these dudes can barely write. Their text messages sound like they were written by a 5 year old. No grammar. Bad spelling. Too many acronyms. Some of them even write back-to-back sentences with no full stops.”
I’ve seen countless Medium essays describing the same thing.
Reading and writing used to be basic skills, but now they’re optional. They’ve been replaced with Fortnite video games and TikTok. Those who hold onto these valuable reading and writing skills will make all the money in the future.
Reading is how we learn about the world. Writing is how we dissect what we’ve learned to reveal the truths, paradoxes, and lies.
Read more than you watch. Write more than you talk.
One Bitcoin
This one’s controversial.
I got laughed at for years because of my crypto obsession.
“It’s fool’s gold.”
“It’s all going to zero.”
“It’s magic internet money.”
In the last 30 days Bitcoin went mainstream. The major banks and Wall Street firms embraced it. It’s made me a small fortune. I don’t say that to brag but to highlight that non-government currencies will play a huge role in the future.
Why? Because they are borderless, transparent, and scarce. Based on the current prices, Bitcoin will likely be worth $1M+ in the next 10 years (not investment advice). As crazy as it sounds, owning one Bitcoin or more will soon be a huge status symbol.
Enough money to own a home
When I was a kid growing up in Australia, it was a given you’d own a home.
Not anymore. Most of my high school friends live in apartments. They’ll never be able to afford houses. The same is true in many parts of the UK and America.
Rich people are able to hoard homes and become landlords. They even get tax breaks for doing it. This has made homes unaffordable. Inflation has made it worse. One way I’ve seen people avoid this problem is to move countries.
If your biggest expense is housing and there’s a cheaper option, you’d be crazy not to consider it. People think I’m wealthy because I own a shack in an average suburb. In 10 years' time those same people will probably think I’m a billionaire.
The other solution here is to get a financial education.
Find out the basics of wealth generation so you improve your chances of owning a home – or keeping the one you have right now.
A brain capable of thinking with an attention span of more than 30 seconds
Our brains are being massacred on the daily.
And most people don’t realize. A guy I met online and knew for a few years posted on Twitter/X every day. He had some good traction. It got him plenty of leads for his business. Then 2 months ago he emailed me.
“I’m boycotting Twitter. Elon is a racist.”
Poor guy had been manipulated by fake news. Turned out the Elon story was false. The mainstream news blew it up into something it wasn’t. This guy quit Twitter forever in a rage and refused to listen to me.
Yesterday he emailed me. His business leads have dried up. He’s talking about going back to a job. Then…
Today I spoke to my aunty about King Charles. She reads traditional magazines like New Idea with supposed journalists. They reported on the cover that King Charles is stepping down because of the cancer.
If you read the fine print it turns out Charles isn’t stepping down. That’s just the journalist’s opinion being reported as fact.
People’s minds are being f*cked with harder than ever before. You cannot trust anything any news corporation says. Even influencers are full of crap. A Youtuber I like to watch popped up on my feed today. I watched the video.
Halfway through there’s a freaking product placement and sales pitch for some energy drink he’s manufacturing. What the hell.
Our attention spans are dying because short-form content on platforms like TikTok has made us dopamine junkies. It’s why I still write a lot of long-form essays – it’s my way of saying F U to the short-form trend.
At the current rate, in 10 years, our minds are going to be fried. And just wait until the US election starts to fire up. Our brains are really gonna turn to mush.
In 2034, if you can read a 2-hour book and get to the end, you’re going to be a freaking Einstein genius. They’ll probably award you a Nobel Prize.
Those who have peace of mind are going to be the new rich. Those minds will be so rare, the value they can create will be enormous.
Protect your mind.
Please and thank you
The average person is rude.
I walked into a department store last Sunday to buy my wife a sun hat. The typical customer spoke to the store workers like they were their slaves. I didn’t hear a single please or thank you. My deceased centurion grandmother would be horrified.
When you treat service workers with respect, what’s counter-intuitive is that you get better service. Everyone wins.
There’s no need to be an a-hole.
Having good manners is going to be a huge flex in 10 years. Start mastering the subtle art right now.
A health check that doesn’t reveal diabetes
Anyone in the health space looks at me like I’m an alien.
In a recent dental check-up I got asked, “Do you have any health problems?”
When I tell my Dentist I have none they look at me like they just met Tom Cruise.
“Are you on any medications?”
“No.”
The dentist kept double-checking like I was lying. Surely I’d be taking some happy pill. How does someone survive in modern society with all that debt and no pills?
It sounds strange to say but I have zero health problems because most of what I eat comes from the garden. And not the supermarket’s garden. No. My family’s garden.
Rule: if food comes in a package it’s probably (partly) poison.
Being on pills all the time to cure preventable illnesses seems weird to me. Every pill alters your mind and how you see reality. When you remove all the filters modern life is better than is to be expected.
2034 is gonna be an acid trip at the current rate of medication.
If you eat healthy food, exercise, and stretch a lot, you’ll become the equivalent in age of a 12 year old.
Tattooless skin
The trend is to get tattoos.
There are even reality TV shows dedicated to the art form. I have none. I like my skin the way it is. But all my friends have at least one tattoo, so I’m the weirdo.
Every friend, though, has at least one tattoo they regret. Or at least one that’s faded or been destroyed by wrinkles.
I predict in the next 10 years people will get a lot of their impulse buy tattoos removed. Tattoos will become second-rate as digital art takes over. What you wear on your digital avatar will matter more than how you dress in reality.
What’s one prediction you have about the next 10 years? Let me know in the comments section below.
Quick note to end with.
Early bird pricing on my course, LinkedIn Mastery, ends tomorrow.
And by the next issue of Unfiiltered, enrollment will be closed.
If you're not taking full advantage of LinkedIn, better hurry over and join.
I agree with all of these. I would add the ability to speak in front of a group should added to the list. If a person can read, write, speak, and hold their focus for more than 30 seconds, will be considered a star. If they are healthy, not obese, no meds, and no mahor diseases on top of reading and writing, you may be thought of as an alien. I am with you, my doctors are all amazed that in my early 60's with no health issues and I can get up off the floor with no hands.
Tim, I could see many of these ideas presented here coming to fruition.
I want to share a story that tells me why I think you're spot on about the future of work.
You often write about the opportunities that arise from writing online. I've long wondered if and how they would ever pop up in my life.
A few weeks ago, I watched a panel of agricultural speakers at a St. Cloud, Minnesota, conference.
One of the speakers was a farm management instructor from my hometown. I felt a bit of envy watching her share her ideas, both on the stage and in the farm magazines I often find her writing.
I told myself I needed to find a way to do what she does, but I had no idea how.
Later at lunch, my partner and I found the last empty table and took a seat before three gentlemen sat next to us. One was Brad, a farmer I'd met in the lobby bar the evening before. The second was Carl, a rookie field inspector. The third guy I did not recognize.
Before long, the conversation began when Brad mentioned something about an idea for a magazine article to the third guy.
Huh, magazine, I wonder as I glanced at the third guy's name tag. Kevin. Editor at The Farmer magazine.
How will I get this guy's attention without holding up a "Hey, I'm a writer" sign?
Think Kuznia, think.
Then it hit me...Brad mentioned he was from Thief River Falls, right next to the lineup of Versatile tractors I wrote about last summer in a Substack newsletter. So I turned to him and asked how far his farm was from the lineup of old iron.
After a chuckle, Brad told me about his neighbor with a yard full of junk and old tractors and how he hadn't thrown anything away since Moby Dick was a minnow. We all laughed while I casually mentioned my Substack and how my lady and I snagged a bunch of pics of the junkyard for the newsletter. Nothing more.
The conversation continued while we wrapped up lunch and prepared to head back into the conference room when Kevin turned to me and said, hey, did you say you write articles?
Yes, I write a weekly stack about farming and mental health and share my life experiences from the farm. After informing him what Substack is (it still surprises me how many people are still unaware of Substack, which tells me there is still a ton of room for growth), he asked me if I've considered doing any freelance writing because he's struggled to keep up with covering the entire state and could use some help.
Would I?
Unable to conceal my excitement, I blurted, I'd love to!
We exchanged business cards, shook hands, and returned to our seats.
A few weeks passed until yesterday when Kevin emailed me asking if I wanted to write a story for The Farmer about sugarbeet production in the Red River Valley.
My first freelance writing gig presented itself because I put myself out there long enough to get noticed. Pretty fucking awesome.
Stories like this make me think of the knock-on effects of writing online and following successful writers like you. It makes me excited for the future and not having to waste away in a nine-to-five.
If it weren't for your writing giving me the motivation to keep cracking when I was frustrated and wanted to quit, this opportunity would've remained a dream.
Thanks for all you do, Tim Denning.