I have come to value what I like to call "ZAFL" (Zombie Apocalypse Friend List) skills. Basically, if the proverbial sh*t hits the fan, for what would others want me on their team?
It ain’t going to be for my cocktail party wit nor for my ability to get to the crux of a messy career transition.
For you, it’s not going to be your credentials nor your SEO skills nor your social media follower count nor your status in your industry.
The most fundamental revolve around fix & food, I reckon.
fix: heal people, repair things*
food: grow, fish, hunt & gather,^ prepare, store (includes hide from competing ZAFLs)
Other stuff would be:
communicate: ham radio will be King, I predicts (assume the internet is toast) and language skills. construct: shelter, protective barriers, floating vessels even if only a raft or other
In such a scenario, that’s most existential question to ask oneself.
ZAFL is both a heuristic and more broadly a thought experiment.
Ask not (just) what your ZAFL can do for you, but what you could do for your ZAFL
Heuristic has two parts: what do you want of/ from them & what would they want from me?
Diversity
ZAFL diversity differs greatly from what HR means by diversity. It would have a lot more tradesmen than does my current cohort of friends and acquaintances. While that ratio hasn’t yet changed, I found myself talking more to them and more broadly the practically minded.
This is open opportunity: apocalyptic scenarios of all types. It could be war, climate disaster, alien invasion, deadly pathogen, AI-robot alliance... Use your imagination—or more easily to just borrow the imagination of doomsday preppers and Hollywood screenwriters.
Since I spend considerable time sailing—and that’s when I encounter the most remote landscapes, I conjure a mashup of a Robison Crusoe/Gilligan’s Island shipwreck during a solar flare storm that knocks out StarLink, navigation equipment, and maybe even Ham radio.
Most drivers today know how to change a tire in theory, but probably most have never done so alone. They just pull out their smart phone and hit an app or call the auto club and someone comes and does it for them. I know little more about car maintenance—and that’s probably OK.