Dan’s Take on the Most Important Skill for the Next Decade

Today I’m taking a break from AI updates to discuss Dan’s article “The Most Important Skill to Learn in the Next Decade.” The concept and writing are both profound—no clickbait, just straight talk.

The article’s theme can be summed up in five words: Agency.

The original English term is Agency, which literally translates to “autonomy” or “subjectivity” in Chinese. However, after reading the entire article, I believe translating it as “subjective agency” (主观能动性) fits the Chinese context more naturally.

Just as we describe an Agent as an LLM with autonomous planning and continuous iteration, the “agency” discussed in the article carries the same meaning—but refers to humans rather than AI.

Agency

People with agency can proactively take action and achieve goals without requiring external environmental factors.

We often say the most important thing in anything is to just do it. But the reason most people fail isn’t that they didn’t act—it’s that they didn’t reflect and iterate during their journey.

If things aren’t going well, we should approach challenges like Agents do: reflect → adjust → try, again and again, until we succeed.

So people with agency don’t just take action—they also self-iterate.

But even if you do all this, will you succeed? Not necessarily. You will still fail.

Failure is also part of your iteration. If you can’t eliminate paths that don’t work through failure, you won’t find the path to success.

So people with agency can accomplish difficult things—even things others consider impossible.

Leverage AI Tools to Achieve Goals

In the AI era, people with agency can create greater value because they know how to utilize AI as a tool.

Take self-media as an example. @vista8 Qiaomu (an influencer) recently created a Skill for article generation that can batch-produce content that appeals to human nature and has viral potential.

We can also gain exposure and followers by building such tools. Then what? KOL (Key Opinion Leader) monetization, community operations, brand building—these are your next steps, and you can still use AI to help.

See it? It’s because you want to do self-media, because you want to earn money, that you designed an article generation Skill. All subsequent actions serve your original goal. You are the decision-maker; AI is merely your tool.

You can’t do nothing, refuse to study viral posts, and expect AI to generate a 100K+ viral post with a single sentence.

If the content produced by AI has value, whether it was generated by AI doesn’t matter—what matters is the designer behind it.

Tools may be replaced, but human vision and agency will not.

Generalists Who Master Tools Will Win

In the future, perhaps generalists will prevail over specialists in any single field, because generalists never depend on specific tools—they adapt to them.

With technological progress, traditional skills are likely to be disrupted. For instance, the programming industry is increasingly being taken over by powerful Coding Agents. Many people will say: “Real senior engineers are irreplaceable.”

Alright then. Let’s rewind 50 years. Before 1970, the profession of “software engineer” didn’t even exist.

In the future, we may witness the massive transformation that awaits this profession. Many people will find that the 20 years of experience they took pride in pales in comparison to powerful AI.

How to Cultivate Agency?

First imitate, then create.

No one truly knows what they want. On the contrary, we all know what we don’t want. With that as our target, we begin planning for the future, then execute the following:

1. Study methods that others have successfully used. You can find these on YouTube, social media, courses from well-known creators, or from mentors.
2. Experiment with various methods. Apply the techniques you’ve learned and strive for results (most methods may not work for you—that’s fine).
3. Identify patterns, principles, and key factors. Record the most important aspects of all methods you’ve tried. These are often the keys to achieving results.
4. Develop your own learning plan. Tailor what you’ve learned to your unique lifestyle and circumstances.
5. Pass knowledge to others. Teachers learn more than students. If you can’t explain something in a way that benefits others, you haven’t truly understood it.

Once you’ve completed these steps and accumulated more experience, you can review your accumulated knowledge and skills, then choose the next challenging and meaningful goal.

You can experiment and receive direct feedback in public arenas based on your goals. If you want to become a KOL, then X and YouTube will be your testing ground.

Throughout this process, we will inevitably learn a set of future-ready skills: writing, persuasion, marketing, sales, storytelling, and more.

---

Why did I write this article this way? I could have used AI to summarize the key points and created a title like “This Article Reveals Five Principles for the Future—Now Viral!” I didn’t, because I wouldn’t have learned anything from it. Learning without reflection is blind, right?

So I chose to rewrite Dan’s article in my own way, adding examples I think are better and adjusting the reading order of some content.

Even if this post goes unnoticed, I’ve still done the thinking, right?