For a long time, many of us assumed the economy would eventually “make sense again.” That if we stayed patient, worked hard, and waited for stability to return, the path forward would reappear.
It hasn’t.
After writing Tomorrow’s Titans (2024) and Will AI Take Over Jobs? (2025), I realised something important: the most dangerous changes don’t arrive loudly. They arrive quietly — and by the time they’re obvious, positioning has already taken place.
That realisation is why I wrote Positioned or Replaced: How Individuals, Families, and Nations Survive the New Economy, my new book releasing in 2026. Below are some of the most surprising and misunderstood insights that shaped it.
1. The Economy Didn’t Collapse — It Reordered
What many people experienced as stagnation or failure was not collapse. It was recalibration.
Money slowed. Decisions delayed. Risk tolerance shrank. At the same time, technology accelerated in the background. This created a psychological disconnect: effort increased, but progress felt harder to reach.
The key insight is this: systems adjusted faster than people did. Those who understood the shift early adapted. Others weren’t punished — they were quietly bypassed.
2. Hard Work Is No Longer the Differentiator
This is uncomfortable, but necessary to say.
Hard work still matters — but it no longer distinguishes outcomes on its own. In risk-averse systems, effort without leverage becomes invisible. Jobs are evaluated as cost centres before they are treated as careers.
In a cautious system, effort is only rewarded when it is clearly aligned with outcomes.
This is not a moral judgment. It’s a structural one. Understanding it restores clarity and prevents burnout.
3. Leverage Matters More Than Talent
Technology didn’t remove opportunity. It concentrated it.
Leverage now determines who moves forward:
- Actions that repeat
- Skills that scale
- Decisions that influence multiple outcomes
Two people can work equally hard and experience vastly different results because technology amplifies position, not persistence.
This is why burnout today is often a positioning problem, not a motivation problem.
4. Some Skills Decay — Others Compound
Not all skills age the same way.
Skills tied to fixed processes, tools, or predictable environments lose value quickly when systems change. Skills tied to judgment, learning speed, systems thinking, and communication compound under uncertainty.
Judgment — the ability to decide with incomplete information — is becoming one of the least automatable skills.
This insight reshapes how we think about education, experience, and career planning.
5. Work Is Becoming an Impact Exchange
Employment is no longer the primary container of value.
Work is shifting from time spent to impact created. The most important question is no longer “What do you do?” but:
What happens if you stop?
If nothing changes, relevance quietly erodes — regardless of how busy or visible someone appears.
6. Africa Is Being Pulled In by Necessity, Not Altruism
Global interest in Africa is accelerating, but not for sentimental reasons. Demographics, climate pressure, and resource constraints elsewhere are driving it.
The risk is repeating history under new language — becoming producers without ownership.
Participation alone is not positioning.
Ownership, leverage, and control determine outcomes.
7. Waiting Is No Longer Neutral
Waiting feels safe. It isn’t.
In the current environment, delay compounds risk. Opportunity now arrives as windows, not guarantees — brief periods that reward awareness and readiness rather than certainty.
Neutrality is no longer neutral. Standing still is a decision, whether acknowledged or not.
A Final Thought
I didn’t write Positioned or Replaced to motivate anyone. I wrote it to orient them.
The book will be released in 2026, available through major online bookstores such as Amazon, audiobook platforms including Spotify, and selected physical bookstores in South Africa and internationally, to be announced at the official launch.
The future is not something that simply happens to us.
The real question is:
Are you positioned — or will you be replaced?
