In our last episode, we talked about the choice every professional faces: to be a Driver or a Passenger. But choosing to be a driver is only the first step; you still need a map and an engine. Even with that clarity of purpose, the next step can feel overwhelming. I'll be honest: even as I write this, I am actively fighting task paralysis.

The world is noise. We're all drowning in a flood of AI newsletters, courses, and "game-changing" tools. My own reading backlog is a perfect example: I add books and papers that excite me faster than I can possibly read them. But this isn't fruitless. In that chaos, I can see patterns forming—a recurring theme of what gives me my best energy. Every university has a credential or curriculum to add shiny AI bullets to your resume, but the vast majority are no more than a ChatGPT wrapper with no substance, designed to hook our emotions—our hopes and our fears—to sell us on a subscription or a coaching service. The biggest risk in this environment isn't falling behind; it's the illusion of progress. It’s the danger of the "participation medal"—the feeling that just by reading and clicking, we're doing something. It keeps us busy enough that we don't realize we're being distracted from our true course.

This struggle is the very essence of developing an executive mindset: learning to prioritize what matters and remain fluid in a sea of tasks. There are always too many people to contact, too many skills to learn, and too many problems to solve. But this overwhelm isn't a reason to stop; it is the reason you need a system. It’s a call to seek clarity, to improve your ability to filter and prioritize so you can choose what to tackle with purpose, instead of just staying "busy." My hope is that by grasping the potential of Agentic AI—think of it not just as a chatbot, but as a smart assistant that can take multi-step actions for you, like planning a trip or managing your inbox—we can free up our energy for the broader, deeper challenges in front of us and escape the information overload spiral for good.

That’s why this week, we’re not going to give you another list. We're going to give you an operating system to conquer the noise. We're going to talk about The Career Flywheel.

(Just a heads-up: this one's a deep dive. The ideas were too connected to split, and nobody likes a cliffhanger. I decided to give you the entire playbook at once. Let's get started.)

The traditional career ladder wasn't just built on a simple premise; it was built for a world that no longer exists. Today, that linear path is a hamster wheel. The ladder isn't just fading—it's being actively dismantled. With entry-level tech hiring having fallen by over 50% since the pandemic and research showing that nearly 40% of our current skills will be obsolete in the next five years, the idea of a predictable, linear path is a relic. This is the "junior-senior compression" in action: the bottom rungs of the ladder are disappearing, forcing us to find new ways to create value and grow.

This stands in sharp contrast to the mindset of the new "rockstar AI talent." They aren't just running on the hamster wheel faster. Instead of looking for the next rung on a broken ladder, they are focused on amplifying their impact immediately. They are the ones transforming entire organizations, not in the middle of their careers, but right now. They are changing the game. I saw this firsthand with a key customer on a complex engineering problem. The "old way" was a three-quarter risk assessment. Their new way? They built three simple test units, ran a quick experiment, and hit 99% yield on the next batch. They unlocked a cheat code, leaving their cohorts behind.

That customer found a cheat code by changing their mindset. Today, AI makes that cheat code accessible to everyone. The tools to manage and dissect data have improved exponentially, but they only work if you do the pre-work: achieve absolute clarity on the problem you're trying to solve. You have to compress the methodology—get to the core data that gives you a confirmation or a concern—before the tool can help. Once that sharp question is defined, an Agentic AI workflow can streamline the entire exercise, helping you gain traction in days, not quarters.

The Key Takeaway: This isn't about waiting for a new job, a promotion, or a new piece of software. It’s about a new way of thinking. This mindset shift can begin today.

The Career Flywheel is the engine that will get you to the next level. But before you start pushing, you must answer the most important question: Where do you actually want to go?

My own "gut check" on this began at 8:30 PM MST on a Monday evening when I learned that my 19-year career at Intel was coming to an end. With a 24-day countdown to my last day, I faced a choice: try to pivot internally and "save myself," or embrace the uncertainty and start a new chapter. I chose to exit. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm finally looking out of the windshield instead of trying to navigate my future by staring at the small rearview mirror of my past.

And the first thing I saw through that windshield was a new path. My first action after exiting wasn't to desperately seek coffee chats or a way into a company where I wasn't a clear fit. Instead, I dedicated my first 30 days to an intense and intellectually challenging Agentic AI bootcamp through MindStudio. I am still unclear of the full potential, but the energy it gave me and the parts of my brain it unlocked have been life-changing, and I am just getting started. That bootcamp was me throwing another CD in the mail—a bet on myself for a chance at something remarkable. We can talk more about that journey in a future edition.

So, before you push your own flywheel, take five minutes right now. Ask yourself: What is one recurring task that feels like my personal hamster wheel? And what is one problem my boss is wrestling with that I have an idea for? The answer to those questions is the grease for your flywheel's first push.

The Career Flywheel is a proactive, self-perpetuating system for your growth. I learned it the hard way during a high-visibility customer task force where we were drowning in data. My progress did not reflect my efforts. Here’s how the Flywheel got us unstuck:

Delegate: The strategic mindset kicked in. Instead of just asking for an engineer, I framed the entire problem space for our VPs, clarifying exactly what we needed to solve the impasse. Because my ask was strategic, they could say "yes" immediately. This is the same approach we must take with AI, treating it like a "digital colleague." By strategically offloading the right tasks, professionals can free up 5 to 8 hours every single week.

Elevate: This single act of delegation moved me out of the weeds and back into my proper strategic role: leading the team. This is the essence of elevation: as AI automates routine analysis, our value shifts to the uniquely human skills that can't be replicated—cognitive flexibility, relational intelligence, and nuanced judgment in complex situations.

Demonstrate: With the right data, we solved the yield loss and returned to a hockey-stick ramp profile without missing a single target.

The benefits extended far beyond that one project. It gave me direct exposure to two new executives who became advocates for me. This is how the flywheel gains momentum. A successful demonstration of value (Demonstrate) builds the trust and political capital that unlocks the opportunity for you to take on and delegate even bigger challenges, starting the cycle anew with more speed.

The "Delegate, Elevate, Demonstrate" model isn't just for senior leaders. It scales to every level of your career.

The first few pushes on the Career Flywheel are the hardest. My own career began with a move that likely stalled my initial growth: rotating from strategy into deep technical training. For a time, it felt like a detour—a period of "invisible work." But that experience was foundational.

This mindset of perseverance is non-negotiable when you consider that an estimated 70% of all job skills are projected to change by 2030. The Career Flywheel isn't a short-term fix; it's a long-term bet on the compound effect of your ambition. Nothing is wasted.

The biggest barrier to starting your flywheel isn't skill; it's the tendency to build what Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph calls "castles in the mind"—elaborate plans that are too intimidating to start.

The antidote is his core principle: a bias for action. Before building Netflix, he and Reed Hastings needed to answer a simple question: could you mail a DVD without it breaking? He writes that they didn't go home to write a business plan. They "just turned the car around and went into town, bought a used music CD, bought a greeting card envelope, put the CD in the envelope and mailed it to Reed’s house."

The idea that started Netflix was tested in less than 24 hours and for less than $2.00.

This mindset fundamentally changes the questions we ask our AI tools. The old way is to ask an AI to plan for a theoretical future: "Build me a complex, 3-quarter Gantt chart." It’s an exercise in building a castle. The new way is to ask the AI to help you make contact with reality now: "How can we get to meaningful data by tomorrow? What simple experiment can we run this week to grade our core assumption against the real world?" One question expands scope into limitless space; the other compresses it into actionable truth.

This is the exact mindset required to power your career flywheel, and a fascinating insight proves the workforce isn't waiting for permission. Employees are already using AI for over 30% of their daily tasks—at three times the rate their leaders estimate. They are already running their own "CD in an envelope" tests. My own tests weren't about mailing discs; they were about validating my own capabilities with small, real-world bets. It was getting on a plane to Toronto for an almost unimaginable collaboration with our fiercest competitor. It was jumping into early DARPA efforts on co-packaged optics, long before the industry had fully acknowledged the limitations of copper interconnect. Each was a small experiment designed to answer one question: 'Can I handle this?' By focusing on these quick, real-world tests instead of building the perfect castle in my mind, I found my periods of exponential growth. In both cases, I was pushing into new fields with new stakeholders, stretching far beyond past deliverables in exciting and challenging ways. It taught me that getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is where true change happens.

It’s important to note that these opportunities weren't random. They were a direct result of delivering results—and "results" can mean succeeding, but it can also mean failing quickly and learning something valuable. Either outcome separates you from the sidelines and puts you in the realm of doers. This reputation for tangible action is what created the mindshare and political capital needed to push myself into uncomfortable new territory. It also acts like a magnet, attracting peers who operate the same way.

As Randolph says, “It’s not about having good ideas, it’s about having a process—and culture—for trying lots of ideas.”

A "bias for action" looks different depending on your environment. I learned this on a high-stakes program where I had to make the tough choice to let a product build "cut the line." It was a risk, but delaying the product was a bigger one.

This is the enterprise calculus. It's often a world of "limited upside, career-limiting downside." This is where you must navigate the practical limitations of today's agentic tools—wrestling with security, data privacy, and reliability concerns—to de-risk your idea for implementation and build the momentum that earns management support. In a startup, the mindset is often "existential upside, no real downside," where your goal is to demonstrate speed and impact. Understanding which game you're playing is critical.

The secret to this shift is to start solving your boss's problems. As a seasoned mentor, my most important advice is this: don't hide your failures, and don't be overconfident. Overconfidence dulls the voices around you. The real work of a leader is to create an environment where the team can continuously course-correct.

This psychological safety is what allows your team to take the smart risks needed to get the flywheel spinning. And you have more room to do this than you think. Recent data shows 71% of employees trust their employers to deploy AI safely and ethically, giving proactive leaders significant 'permission space' to experiment and drive change.

This isn't just a theory. A friend was struggling to tailor their resume with AI. The breakthrough came when we stopped treating the AI like a tool and started treating it like a new hire. Instead of "rewrite this," the ask became:

That 'eye-opener' moment was the spark for my first agent, Resume Alchemist, which I'll be sharing for free in a future episode. It’s a true agentic workflow designed to go beyond simple keyword matching. It researches a company's recent news and roadmap, mapping your resume not just to the job description, but to the underlying corporate mission and culture. The goal is to add clarity beyond a qualifications checklist and serve as a prism, helping filter for a true company-candidate match, not just a role-fit.

My core mission with this newsletter is to share my journey in real-time—including the painful lessons—in the hope that it helps you avoid the mistakes I've already made. This is a complex and often intimidating new world, but we don't have to navigate it in isolation.

In the coming weeks, we'll dive deeper into the practical application of this mindset.

These aren't just theories; they are the real-world cheat codes that are available to all of us if we're willing to look for them. My goal is to find them and share them with you.

Let's find them together. 🚀

🧠 Pro Tip: Drop the links to these reports (or PDFs) into your favorite LLM and ask for a summary tailored to your needs. For example: "Summarize the key findings from Microsoft's Work Trend Index on the productivity gap between employees who use AI and those who don't." The learning never stops. Keep pushing the flywheel.