How I'm preparing my kids for... what's coming next in America
My oldest turns 16 in 2032.
I don't think she'll ever drive a car.
Not because I'll stop her. She won't need to. Waymo was already past a quarter million paid driverless rides a week in 2025. Tesla Robotaxis are everywhere in Austin and expanding rapidly.
By 2032, the car that picks her up probably won't have a steering wheel.
But that’s a small issue we all knew was coming.
The bigger issue: I don't think my kids will need a job.
Not because we're rich. Because the job, as we picture it, may not exist in ten years. I'm not even convinced college will exist by the time they get there.
I'm not a doomer” afraid of a Terminator destroying humanity. Most days I think AI makes the world better in the long run. But optimist or pessimist, almost everyone agrees the world in 10 to 20 years will look nothing like this one.
So how do you prepare a kid for a world you can't picture?
Here’s my thoughts, in case you’ve been wrestling with the same thoughts.
First - I care more about their character than their grades.
I care more about how they solve a problem than whether they get the right answer.
I care more about how they work with others than whether they bring home the trophy.
I care more about their creativity than their math.
None of that shows up on a report card. All of it survives whatever's coming.
A few things that changed at our house:
I stopped asking my kids what they want to be when they grow up. I asked it for years. But that question assumes the job exists. Now I ask what problems they see around them, and how they might build a business to solve it.
We play with AI together. We build games. We ask it ridiculous questions. We argue with it. I want them fluent the way the curious kids got fluent on the internet. No class. They played, and twenty years later they were running businesses on it.
And we're learning the other half: how to put it down. Screens off, outside, hands in the dirt. Real chores, real sweat. A kid who can't be bored can't be creative.
The word I keep coming back to is antifragile. Not a kid who survives hard things, a kid who gets stronger because of them. The test is about to change. I want kids who get better every time it does.
I'm not preparing them for a job. I'm preparing them for whatever replaces it.
I could be wrong about all of it. Every generation of parents thinks they're raising kids at the end of the world. Maybe my kids drive. Maybe college roars back. Character, problem solving, collaboration, and creativity are the right bet either way.
But even that isn't the real scorecard.
My kids could fail at everything I just listed. So could I. The real estate could collapse and I could lose everything. And if my kids grow up knowing and loving Jesus, and spend their lives serving the people nobody else is looking out for, then I won.
Turns out "what problem do you want to solve" was always the small version of the real question: who do you want to serve?
That's all I want for them. Everything else is extra credit.
Ask your kid tonight what problem they want to solve. Hit reply and tell me what they said. I try to read every one.
Brandon
P.S. A few ways you can work with me:
a.) Looking to scale up a real estate business and achieve financial freedom? I’m hosting a LIVE workshop this Saturday about real estate investing. Register here.
b.) Need a loan? I can help and likely beat your current rate. Check us out here.
c.) Want to get REAL good at Ai? Join my weekly “Ai for Real Estate Investors” newsletter. It’s free. It’s really helpful.
