The future belongs to directors, not doers.
Table of Contents
Skills That Will Future-Proof You in the AI Era
Everyone’s asking the wrong question. Instead of wondering if AI will replace you, the real question is how do you become the person AI can’t replace.
The answer comes down to three core skills that will define the winners in business over the next decade. If you want to stay relevant, grow your company faster, and make sure you’re not blindsided, this is where to focus.
1. Master the Role of Director
The biggest shift in the AI era is moving from “doing the work” to directing the work. AI can generate copy, automate workflows, and replace entire departments. What it can’t do is think like a strategist.
Here’s the framework:
Director vs. Doer
Doer: Executes tasks, writes emails, creates copy.
Director: Sets the vision, decides what gets built, guides AI to deliver outcomes.
Team of Two Model
Business domain expert (customer focus, vision).
Technical mind (automation, AI integration, prompt engineering).
When you operate as a director, you stop competing with automation and start multiplying your impact.
The director is the value. The future belongs to directors, not doers.
2. Sharpen Vision, Taste, and Care
AI already surpasses humans in analytical intelligence. What it can’t replicate are the soft skills that drive leadership.
Vision: The ability to imagine futures that don’t exist yet.
Taste: Knowing the difference between good and great, recognizing nuance and quality.
Care: Emotional intelligence, empathy, and building trust with people.
A simple way to improve taste is to study people who already have it. Follow innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs who set high standards. Let their patterns of thinking and decision-making sharpen yours.
"AI today cannot replace the soft skills which are taste, vision, and care."
3. Build and Leverage Custom AI Systems
AI is not just a tool, it’s a leverage point. The best founders I know are creating their own custom GPTs and systems to replace repetitive work and scale impact.
Here’s a practical process:
| Step | Action | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ask AI to create a draft (email, script, landing page). | Get a working canvas. |
| 2 | Refine by giving specific feedback. | Shape it into your voice. |
| 3 | Generate the “system prompt” that produced the result. | Save reusable workflows. |
| 4 | Build custom GPTs with these prompts. | Automate future tasks. |
Instead of spending hours “doing,” you create systems that do the work on autopilot.
Once you’ve got it right, say write me the system prompt that would have generated this. Then you save that as a custom GPT.
4. Build a Defensible Personal Brand
AI will make execution a commodity. The differentiator will be trust, connection, and distribution. People don’t just buy products, they buy from people they know and respect.
Publish content consistently.
Share insights, not fluff.
Build an audience that sees you as the person who adds value.
Founders who invest in their brand will attract opportunities no AI can replicate.
Building a brand and people knowing you to be a person they trust, they like, that you add value to, you can’t underinvest in that.
Take the First Step Today
AI is going to impact every job and every business model. You either adopt it now or risk being replaced by someone who does. Start by becoming a director, sharpening your soft skills, and creating systems that free you to focus on higher-value work.
The founders who win are the ones who learn to leverage AI while building a brand people trust. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Start applying these skills today and future-proof your growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What skills will make you irreplaceable in the AI era?
The skills that make you irreplaceable in the AI era are vision, taste, and care. Vision allows you to see opportunities AI cannot predict, taste helps you recognize and create high-quality work, and care reflects emotional intelligence and empathy, which remain difficult for AI to replicate.
How can professionals future proof their careers against AI replacement?
To future proof your career against AI replacement, you need to shift from being a doer to being a director. This means mastering AI tools, understanding automation, and focusing on decision-making, leadership, and customer empathy. People who can guide AI instead of being replaced by it will stay valuable.
What is the difference between being a director versus a doer in the age of AI?
Being a director means orchestrating AI systems, setting vision, and making high-level decisions, while being a doer is performing tasks that AI can increasingly automate. In the age of AI, directors hold the long-term value because they leverage technology rather than compete with it.
Which types of intelligence will AI disrupt and which will remain uniquely human?
AI has already surpassed humans in analytical intelligence, is improving in creative intelligence, but struggles with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence such as empathy, care, and human connection remains uniquely human, making it a key skill set to develop for the future.
What is the fastest way to build a profitable AI-driven business?
The fastest way to build a profitable AI-driven business is to use AI automation to deliver services at scale. For example, offering AI-powered marketing solutions to industries like real estate enables entrepreneurs to create offers, generate content, and automate delivery faster than traditional teams.
More Resources
Tools Mentioned
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ChatGPT – Used for creating scripts, outlines, prompts, and custom GPTs to automate business tasks.
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Canvas in ChatGPT – A feature to generate content in a live editable document view for refinement.
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Custom GPTs – Tailored AI assistants built with system prompts to replicate outputs consistently.
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The Creative Act by Rick Rubin – Referenced as inspiration for developing taste and creative mastery.
Full Transcript
(2) 3 Skills That Will Separate Winners From Losers in the AI Era – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgdD16DzzU8
Transcript:
(00:00) Everyone’s asking themselves, “Will AI replace me?” But what most people don’t realize, that’s the wrong question to ask. Instead, people should be asking themselves, “How do I become the person AI can’t replace?” There’s three things that if you master them, will make you impossible to replace. When did it first hit you that AI isn’t just a fun toy, but it actually replacing people? GPT25, even 2.0.
(00:28) When that came out and it started writing marketing copy, that changed everything. Are people oblivious if you’re not using it in your business right now? They’re going to find out the day they lose their job. That’s like phase one. Phase two is downsize of teams and phase three will be full department’s gone. Like I don’t see a world where finance is still a thing.
(00:48) You’ve been on this AI tip right now and you’re leading the charge. Thank you for that. Would you say you can become a millionaire faster than ever because of AI? Ever. And the big thing is these small teams that generate big revenues. So minimum when we incubate a new idea is two person teams 10 million in revenue.
(01:07) And that first million is happening in 3 to 6 months. They’ve joked in the AI community there’s going to be billion dollar companies with one employee. That will happen, right? Because the doing is going to be done. There’s no more doing. I call it the director versus the doer. The director is the value. So the two person teams that we build is the business domain expert and the technical mind.
(01:24) And the technical isn’t like it used to be. It’s not like I need a programmer. I just need somebody that understands automation, AI, prompt engineering and configuration and building agentic systems and then the business person is talking to the customer and figuring out where the problem is. And that’s the stuff that’s going to be really hard for AI to disrupt.
(01:42) The real skill if you can have a virtual AI avatar that can act like you and then you can create these GPTs and generate scripts and outlines. What’s the skill? It’s the director. It’s not the doer. It’s not being on camera anymore. The future belongs to directors, not doers. 100%. And we’re there today. Like, if you think about when I went to my team a year ago and informed them that if they don’t replace 90 92% of their work with AI, then they won’t be the right person for me to have on my team.
(02:10) And I’m looking at the finance guy and the HR person and everybody, and they’re just like, what are you talking about? Because I’m involved in so many companies, but I spend most of my time at Martell Ventures. I’m seeing 18 months in the future. There’s no world where the whole financial workflow of every business is done by a person.
(02:27) We either do it to ourselves. Sure. Or it’s going to happen. Somebody’s going to create it. Oh, good. You got to be a director. Neil, what’s up, dog? Good to see you, bro. How you doing, brother? Good, man. I spend 98% of my time building AI startups. Like, people follow my content and they’re like, “Oh, man.
(02:45) Where’s the time to do all this stuff?” I spend 3 hours a week creating all the content you guys see. I see it when you see it. I live my life. What can it not replace? It’s very simple, man. Intelligence is broken down into three parts, right? You have analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, emotional intelligence.
(03:03) And those are the three things where I think AI is already surpassed human level analytical intelligence. Creative intelligence, it still can’t predict a future that should exist that doesn’t. It doesn’t know how to do vision yet. Like vision as in like having a vision for the future. The third one is the emotional intelligence.
(03:21) It’s caring, man. It’s empathy. It’s the people’s side of things. It’s the soft skills. It’s arguably the most important one. That one will be the last one to be disrupted if it can be and that’ll be through some form of general intelligence or super intelligence. Dude, in short, AI today cannot replace the soft skills which are taste, vision, and care.
(03:39) What do you think is a simple habit someone can build to sharpen their eye for quality and taste? The best way to develop your taste is to study people with taste. And the way I found it, crazy enough, I asked Chad GPT, “Find me all the tech innovators that are popular on TikTok.
(03:55) ” And I watch this cuz then my feed becomes this like, you know, the Rick Rubin creative act. I’m learning without realizing I’m learning because I’m watching these people share the nuance and the mastery, right? You study the grades and you hope it rubs off. What’s the easiest business to make money? AI automation. Right now, what do you do? I’m going to tell you exactly what I’m going to do.
(04:14) I’m going to sell social media marketing to real estate agents and I’m going to use AI to deliver. So then how do I create an offer that they’ll buy? Well, I use AI to create the offer, to actually create the delivery, to give me the script, to do everything to pick up the phone and call.
(04:32) When AI can solve every problem, then the question to ask is, what do I work on? Do you know what I’m saying, Jack? Some people lose me when I say that. Everything that you would need to know to do anything is now given to you. The problem is is that your brain is going to stop you from doing it. AI knows everything about everything and everything.
(04:53) The challenge is is you got to guide it. When you chat with GPT and you wanted to create something like an email, a script, a landing page, anything say create this as a canvas. When you do as a canvas, what it does is it creates this window and there’s the document and then there’s your chat. And then what you do is you look at it and you go, “Ooh, talk like this.
(05:14) Change this.” And then eventually you get it where it’s like, “Oh, that’s good.” Once you got that, then you say, “Write me the system prompt that would have generated this if I gave you a YouTube URL.” Whatever the input is, a YouTube URL, a name of a person, and a topic, whatever the input would be, you just say, “Write the system prompt.
(05:33) ” If I just gave you an idea that would generate this output with that idea and then it will write the system prompt and then you save that as a custom GPT. [Music] You know when people go like okay AI how do I future proof myself? I’ll tell you a short story. So I do a weekly AI expert lunch where I have lunch and I meet with five other AI experts and I recruit them from social media.
(06:02) Two weeks ago, I’m sitting there with these five guys and one guy, Sky Brandon, goes, “Hey Dan, what are your thoughts on AI avatars?” And I was like, “I don’t think they’re very good.” And I think that people want connection and people want authenticity and the human and it’s so important.
(06:18) And he listens there patiently. He goes, “Interesting. You saw my content. That’s why I’m here.” I go, “Yeah.” He goes, “That’s not me.” I said, “Shut up.” Two other guys, the other two, they go, “Yeah, Dan, that’s not us either.” I said, “No way.” And they’re like, “Yeah.” So I want you to understand that whether we like it or not, the media and the content and the distributions, it is what is going to make you defensible.
(06:40) So when people go like, “Hey, I got this company. I don’t want to get disrupted.” Building a brand and people knowing you to be a person they trust, they like, that you add value to, you can’t underinvest in that. What do you want to leave the viewer with? I think I used to be scared to be honest with people cuz I didn’t want to scare them, but I’m just I just don’t want people to be caught off guard.
(07:00) There’s a very big chance that every job will have AI impact it in a massive way and the best way to defend yourself against that is to start using it in your day in every way you can and be the director of where that goes and understand how it works so that you can be a person in a team on a company that is the AI person.
(07:24) It’ll force you to learn skills that’ll make you valuable into the future. Vision, taste, and care. And I think honestly it will force you to become a better person.