"You've come a long way baby", a cigarette slogan from the 70's made smoking sexy and grabbed more than a 3% market penetration during its first market test.
These days' cigarette commercials are banned, smoking in public is almost non-existent (except in back alleys) and new drugs and smoking cessation programs hit the market with regularity.
They say times don't change - people do.
But with the recent economic situation, times have changed, haven't they.
What other changes will people be making in the future? In the last couple of years, we've seen many companies' file for bankruptcy and "no and low" skill jobs are going by the way side.
Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers Holding, Delta Airlines and even our own local Basha's have filed bankruptcy in the last two years.
A July 2008 article in Forbes magazine listed the top 20 jobs that are disappearing from our work place.
Word processors and typists, farm workers, machine assemblers, and drilling and boring machine tool setters illustrate the wide variety of jobs that are affected.
Future jobs are going to require less doing with arms, hands and backs, and more thinking and communicating.
The loss of jobs, and the increasing mistrust in the "profit only and at any cost" motives of huge corporations that fueled these losses, along with our diminishing resources cry out for a new kind of employee.
The employees who are going to be most valued and therefore most successful are what I call employ-a-preneurs.
The word entrepreneur comes from a French word meaning to "undertake as in an endeavor".
The definition also includes an element of understanding of or having the ability to navigate through the ocean of risk versus reward.
In today's world, risk is everywhere.
Yet we are all continuously looking for as big of a reward for our professional contributions as possible.
Organizations and the market dictate the rewards we receive for the fruits of our labors.
If we don't take responsibility for our own risks and rewards and look for alternate streams of income, we will have to be satisfied with receiving rewards that others control.
Companies are willing to pay top dollar for resources that give them a high return on investment.
Employees will continue to get an hourly wage.
Employ-a-preneurs will receive top dollar "plus" for adding to a company's ROI.
Tim Sanders, in his book "Saving the World of Work" announces the beginning of the Responsibility Revolution.
He describes the soldiers of this revolution as members of the "Them Generation", people regardless of their age who are dedicated to and working for organizations who are committed to improving the lives of other people, their communities and our planet.
Sanders says these "saver soldiers" have a personal perspective or "operating system" that values relationships, fully understands how their contribution to the organization effects the bottom line and embraces the law of abundance that allows employees to be better problem solvers and create greater synergy within the organization.
Sounds a lot like an employ-a-preneur to me.
Gazing into my crystal ball after reading Sander's book, I believe we not only need to change the jobs we have and the work we do in order to thrive in this "brave new world of economic uncertainty".
We need to change the way we think and act within the organizations and the global markets that value our skills.
We've got a long way to go, baby! Gone are the days when we could graduate high school, find a job and work until retirement.
The future requires employees who will take control of their own future - possibly by starting their own company while also working as a contract, temporary or part time employee, using thinking and communication skills instead of their backs or hands, all the while knowing their personal and professional success or failure lies within their own control.
I predict the future will be filled with employ-a-preneurs.