If you graduated from a top institution, even with an impressive MBA on your CV, there’s a good chance your skills are outdated.

An MBA provides (or should provide) network connections and practical skills. In contrast, a standard Master of Science (or even a PhD) equips you with more foundational knowledge, and experience helps refine those skills.

None of them may protect you, nevertheless.

First, we are biased.

The Endowment Effect makes us overstate the value of what we have, acting as both a barrier to innovation and an irrational way to feel safe. We studied accounting at university, right? So why worry about AI checking our balance sheets and P&L a million times faster than us. Or not?

Additionally, we are prone to Projection Bias: we think our preferences will remain the same in the distant future. So, today we want to be a computer designer, and we think that after 20 years we will love the same job as much as we do today. Now ask yourself (if you have at least 10 years of work experience): do you still love what you do like when you started? If so, you are pretty well set.

Is that all? Not yet.

The future is unpredictable, even for experts in futurology (a fascinating and highly practical field). Consider the old tale about horses: who would need carts once cars revolutionized transportation?

Now, what’s up for us?

A lot.

Continuous learning is key: sometimes we need to just put our heads out of the window, pick a subject we like, and learn how to do it. Should we all become proficient copywriters? Not at all. But the sheer fact that we try to write and do so following some lessons, examples, and teachers in a structured way, will give our brains a boost. This practice will be useful when our “paid” skills become outdated, and we need to reshape ourselves.

It can be exhausting, but also fun: pick something you like, imagine a different life, and have a go at it.

The game we often play in our mind goes more or less like “if I did not pursue this career, I would do X”. Ok, now start learning how to do X. Maybe you will need such skills for good, or maybe you will just give yourself a second chance. Or, if nothing comes in practice: you will just do something you love.

The term used to refer to such an attitude is “perennials,” especially when thinking about people who like to work and think across generations, in terms of technology, values, and attitude. I would recommend reading Perennials by Mauro F. Guillén. Some may find it scary, others exciting.

Whatever.

Make sure you recognize that your biases may make you older than you think and that learning (yes, even body intelligence like dancing, yoga, golf, whatever you like to move) is the only capital worth accumulating, with the highest gain for effort paid.