Polishing rocks: My chat with the Financial Times' 'Working It'

This morning the FT asked me what a smart 18-year-old should do about AI and work. I said follow your weird interests. And if you're 45 and thinking about a change, it may matter even more.

This isn't the same as 'follow your passion'. If your weird interest is collecting and polishing small rocks, that doesn't necessarily mean you should try to become a geologist.

But the rock polishing has skills hiding inside it - patience, a good eye, knowing when to stop. And it gives you something to say that nobody else in the room can.

DJing taught me to read a room and keep changing the set, and I use both now when I teach and design multiplayer games. It sounds a bit corny, but it's true. The odd thing you were into 15, 20, 40 years ago still counts.

The other thing - don't stop. Or if you have stopped, pick it up again. Get comfortable being a beginner: messing things up, relearning tools and methods.

Teenagers are better at this. Give a parent and a teenager the same brief and the parent nearly always finds it harder to get started. I don't think it's about ability. The teenager is used to being bad at things.

Thanks to the wonderful Isabel Berwick, Claire Justin and Richard for making it feel like a fun hangout rather than a scary interview (and for finding a camera angle that works for someone my height, in a very small room). The film is out late November - subscribe to FT Working It on YouTube to catch it.

What weird interest have you ended up using at work?

P.S. In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne had a deep interest in polishing rocks. He didn't become a geologist either. The interest proved useful later.