In preparation for our holiday to Japan at the end of last year, I decided to learn some basics of the language – and I’ve not been able to put it down.
While I won’t be language coach on TV series Shōgun any time soon, I am progressing well – my app and online score tell me – and enjoying the process of getting to grips with something new.
Dedicating 15 minutes a day to something entirely removed from the daily grind of commute-work-household management is easy to do with the right mindset. Yet my 18-year-old self would have laughed at the prospect of knuckling down to this regular study… just ask my A-level results.
So, what’s different now? Smack bang in the middle of middle age, I’ve realised I am in the prime spot for learning. With a load of life experience and fewer nights out with friends to negotiate, I have both the time and the vantage point to work out which skills I can gather that may engage me personally, while having a professional benefit too.
Lifelong learning is a term that many consign to the “not enough time” or “it’s for other people” bucket. It sounds to some like an Everest to climb amid a base camp of kids’ activities and daily life tasks. Alternatively, it is often a reminder of dedicating years at school to something that had no practical purpose.
But lifelong learning is something we can and should all do – if only to stay up to date for what lies ahead.
As an industry, financial services is changing at a rate we’ve not seen in years. The shifts are akin to when banks’ errand boys were told share certificates were going to be delivered electronically rather than by their post bags.
AI, ML and any number of other acronyms are infiltrating our sector at pace. Given the efficiencies and opportunities they offer, it’s naïve to think capital markets won’t look entirely different in even a decade’s time.
Every link in the capital market chain is going to be revolutionised, from lead-gen on sales to reporting trades to a centralised ledger, and a refusal to accept it is likely to lead to obsolescence.
For us, as conscious machines operating within this increasingly automated system, this means learning how we can be part of it – and getting to work.
First up is discovering what is happening in and to the market and how this might affect our companies, our roles and responsibilities – and even the sector altogether.
This is one of the key reasons we are launching a new title in 2025. Capital Pioneer aims to bring people from across the whole of financial services together and thrash out how roles may change and develop as technological progress advances.
Similarly, our Next Generation event for Financial Promoter in July is intended to help the younger members of the FS marketing and comms community establish and build their careers on stable knowledge and skills-based foundations.
History shows us that the only way to not be replaced by automation is to do something it can’t (yet) do and there is no easy way around it. But it’s also not for the faint-hearted.
Anyone who has attempted to learn something entirely leftfield will know that basic humility is necessary. With three alphabets and entirely new approach to syntax, I will make mistakes in Japanese for a long time.
I have probably already insulted or at least confused several Kyoto shopkeepers.
So, while my email system can translate my messages to kanji and katakana in real time, for now at least, my correspondent – and my brain – appreciates the effort I am putting in to do it myself and personalise each missive.
We are all responsible for our own lifelong learning and improvement – and in an era of rapid progress
and competition, there’s no time to lose.
Elizabeth Pfeuti is the publishing director of Financial Promoter and director of Rhotic Media