The ingredients of success in a job include aptitude, experience, attitude, and personal energy.

With the advent of increased automation and artificial intelligence it is possible that, for certain jobs, immediate professional experience will become outdated in increasingly short cycles.

If this happens, the people who will continue to succeed will be those who are agile to changing opportunities. They will continually strive to learn, to maintain their enthusiasm, and to take opportunities to make things better.

Aptitude, attitude and personal energy will be every bit as important as professional experience.

Often a key person dependency arises when an individual, either by accident or on purpose, becomes the "go to" person when there is a problem. This is not because the individual has experienced the specific problem before, but because she knows how to think efficiently about it, and how to apply that thought in acting, or motivating others to act, to solve the problem.

She knows how to think because she applies her personal energy and aptitude to hone her thinking skills. She does this because she maintains an attitude of continually improving herself, because that is best for her, and for those she serves.

Experienced thinkers with the right attitude, aptitude and personal energy own the future.