{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Under Load","title":"Use It or Lose It: How Senior Leaders Lose Skills, and How to Get Them Back","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":831,"description":"My flight from Berlin to Munich was delayed by an hour, so I found a seat in the lounge and opened the October issue of manager magazin. The cover story, \"Das große Rauswerfen,\" says tens of thousands of German executives are losing their jobs. In 2025, Germany had an average of 49,000 unemployed managers, the highest number since 2015.\nAs I read the article, many of these managers spent years coordinating other people's work. Their companies asked them to do exactly that. I don't know why any one of them lost a job, and I won't guess.\nThe article made me ask one question: what am I doing to protect myself from a professional setback? My honest answer was uncomfortable. Over the years, I've lost the skill of making things.\nThis episode of Under Load looks at what happens to skills you stop using, and at what I've been doing about it.\nIn 2025, 4 economists published data on German adults aged 16 to 65 who took a reading and a math test, and took them again about 3.5 years later. On average, skills kept improving into midlife. Reading peaked at 46 and math at 41. People who used their skills more showed no average decline at any age. For people who used them less, the decline began in the mid-30s. The study measured reading and math only, and it can't prove that using a skill protects it.\nI also look at the hardship we buy: cold showers, the sauna, the misogi, backyard ultras. I like all of it. I haven't found any evidence that it keeps work skills sharp.\nWe also cover:\nWhy a promotion changes what you do every day, and which tasks are often handed off first.\nWhat Andrew Huberman told Joe Rogan about hard things and impulse control, and why I leave that question open.\nThe misogi and Marcus Elliott's 2 rules, as told by Michael Easter.\nThe IKEA experiment from 2011: people who built a storage box bid $0.78 for it, others bid $0.48, and the effect only appeared when they finished the job.\nHuberman's story of the man at the edge of the boxing ring.\nWhat my first...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/D6GUGKGhv_DEKkMXOUaw9zVKHR_WqCVlo9ECODchftY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8wODc1/MzQxYzZmMTk4MDBl/ODhhM2E4NWIwYTFj/OWExOC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}