How 15 minutes a day gave me an AI-proof skill

September 30, 2026

I have negative musical talent. Despite that, that’s me in the photo above, together with my wife and daughter, entertaining guests at our friends’ wedding in mid 2024. While my wife has played guitar since she was a kid and my daughter has a talent for all sorts of artistic things, I am a technical person and I got to that stage with curiosity, interest and 15 minutes per day for a few years. I’ll explore below why you may consider this, too.

Where is AI heading?

What is happening in my opinion is that we are just beginning to see the changes induced by AI. We’re still very early on the exponential growth generated by AI. While nobody knows 100% where things are heading, certain trends are beginning to emerge, enough to be able to form an opinion.

The way I see things going on in the next 5 years or so, AI will become better and better. It will end up being so good that many will go to it as a default option instead of relying on others for help.

How will it affect us?

As AI gets smarter and tools get better in time, we’re going to see AI replacing more and more of the repetitive and boring work done now by humans. In some cases, we will remain in the loop as coordinators, augmenting the work done by AI with our own knowledge, intuition and general life experience. In others, we might be entirely displaced.

As the years pass, humanoid robots will become cheaper and more abundant. Several research firms and tech leaders are already saying that the number of robots will be the same or larger than the entire human population. That means that physical labor, in particular the boring and dangerous kind, will be mostly automated. In conjunction with automated vehicles, this will impact a lot of blue collar jobs.

This will affect a lot of people in ways nobody can predict. I tend to have an optimistic outlook on the future, so I believe that there will also be a lot of good in this. We will be able to focus on the interesting parts of our jobs and pass the repetitive parts to our AI assistants. For some of us, it may even be a wake-up call and help us reconsider what we want to do in the future.

What stays human?

You may ask: what are some things AI is unlikely to displace?

Some of the things the AI will never be able to take away are built into our very psyche. People will always be drawn to human interaction. It’s built into us, has been around for millions of years, and does not show any sign of going away anytime soon. Even with the estrangement caused by the social media craze and introversion induced by doom-scrolling, people will still want the comfort of interacting face to face with other people.

What we want, and what will for sure be craved in the future, is being able to feed from others’ energy. Be it via large concerts, small scale theatre plays, or a one-on-one with your best friend, we’ll want to have access to other people and the cocktail of chemicals that interacting with them gives us.

What activities will be in demand?

Let’s look into what will be important in the future and only we as humans can offer.

Performing arts

This encompasses a large swath of artistic activities: from playing instruments, to dancing, acting, circus arts, stand-up comedy. If you can play or perform in front of an audience, you will be in high demand.

Teaching and coaching

Here anybody who can teach others something of interest will do well. From arts and crafts to “extinct activities” that are better done by AI, but people still have an interest in learning. Either in a group setting or one to one, teaching will be huge.

Coaching and psychotherapy will also be in high demand, as a lot of people will need personalized help in navigating the new realities. And getting it from AI will not be enough.

Sports

Sports has always caught our interest, and there’s no reason to believe it will stop doing so. Every amateur club will need someone to coach them and anybody good enough to teach others will do well. Team sports in particular, or sports done in a community setting will thrive, and the team leaders, teachers and coaches who know their trade will be sought after.

Leading and building communities

Another area where people will thrive is as community leaders. Anybody who will be charismatic enough to build and / or lead a community around their goals will be in demand.

High end hospitality and care

Demand for high end, personal hospitality service will not only remain high in the future, but increase. With most lower tier hospitality being taken over by robots, personalized and human service will get appreciated and very well paid.

In the same vein, human elder care and child care will become a very sought after and in demand service. The catch here is that it will need to be provided by people passionate about this, otherwise they will not be able to rise to the high level of expectations.

Why won't everybody be doing this?

Since it will become quite clear these areas of expertise are what will experience a renaissance, you may wonder why not everybody will crowd there. There are several reasons why:

• Not a lot of people are willing to embrace a big change. At 40+ years, not everybody will be open enough to learn an instrument or take a coaching course. Many will hope they will be able to continue in their careers, or move laterally just a little.

• Since most of these opportunities mean performing or interacting with people, being local to where the audience is will mean being willing to relocate or commute. This will filter out more people.

• It takes time. Learning an instrument well enough, a sport, or getting proficient with coaching is a longer term endeavor. Some will not have the patience to stick with it long enough, while others will see it as too difficult to even start.

• Even for those who are willing to start, it’s the combined difficulty of having enough skill, presence and the ability to perform in front of an audience.

While this may sound like a bunch of theoretical stuff, I have a first hand example in myself. It demonstrates what is possible if you are willing to take the leap.

From two left feet to performing for an audience

Circling back to the image I started with, let me give you a bit of background. Around 2020, I started dabbling in tin whistle playing. Taking after my daughter who was playing recorder at that time and an acquaintance who was a concert level tin whistle player.

About the same time, I started with Irish dancing. Inspired by my daughter as well, who has been doing it for some years.

When I started, I was extremely untalented at both artistic endeavors. So much so that my climbing coach was saying I have two left feet all the time. I was physically fit though, rock climbing for some years already.

My journey in both these has been and still is difficult. But I see it as a continuous discovery process and this keeps me interested and entertained. I have not allocated too much time to this either. Most days I practice on the whistle for some 15 minutes or so. Every few months I get hooked by a new tune and spend a bit more time learning that.

After some 4 years, I became proficient enough to perform in front of an audience. I started with my extended family and my dance school, but in time I worked up the courage to play tin whistle in front of others too. I now also perform occasionally in Irish dance shows.

So it can be done, with a bit of interest and determination.

What if you wanted to try it yourself?

If you have been wondering what your future looks like in the age of AI and you are unsure how your current trade will evolve, you may want to consider starting a hobby that can evolve into a parallel career track. Let’s look at what it would take to do that.

I would start with identifying which of the areas mentioned above looks more interesting for you. Maybe you already have a base: you were good at and loved a certain sport when you were young, enough to pick it up again and build a decent proficiency level. Or maybe you played an instrument and did not hate it. If there’s no base, just look at what catches your interest and start testing. You may switch tracks after some months, but so what? It’s part of the learning process. You learned something about yourself in the process.

Once you find something that is interesting for you, start learning and becoming good. Your spare time is what you have available, so make the best of it. My recommendation is to build a habit and stick to it each day. If it’s an instrument, you can do as little as spending 15 minutes before or after dinner playing. Consistency is the key here. Hammering at it every day works better than doing an hour on weekends.

Don’t get stressed about lack of progress. In any new trade you pick up, the start will be slow, but, as you get more used to the field, the basics will become easier and you’ll be able to focus on the more intricate aspects of it.

Once you feel you can do it well enough for others to enjoy it, start performing in front of others, if applicable. Family first, friends, your local community and so on. This will allow you to get acquainted with being on stage (or field) in front of others.

This is not a “follow these steps to get to this outcome” type of recipe. I understand that this approach will only work for some of you. My aim is to put these options in front of you and make you aware they are available. I trust you to find what works for you.

Now what?

I hope this lit up your imagination and got you dreaming of a future where you’d be coaching people or performing to a live audience. If nothing else, the process of getting there is quite exciting and will help you learn more about yourself. And, if the future works out the way I see it, it gets you in a better position to have something interesting to do.

What did you like doing when you were a teen that you would pick up again?

First published on LinkedIn.