Beautiful story. Inspiring. Except when you're the starfish.

When you're the one stranded on the beach, gasping, waiting for the tide—or a hand—that never comes, the story isn't about noble persistence. It's about systemic abandonment.

Twelve weeks ago, on July 31st, I became a statistic: one of ~92,000 tech workers laid off in 2025 so far—part of the 500,000+ who've lost roles since 2023. In that moment, disconnecting my iPhone from corporate email and blanking a calendar that had dictated my life for 20 years, I became the starfish—waiting, wondering if anyone would notice, if anyone would help, but also slightly excited because I was hoping to make this into an overdue sabbatical.

"We're Not Neurologically Wired for This"

This week, Brené Brown said something that crystallized what I've been living: "We are not neurologically wired for this level of rapid change and instability."

She's right. And for those of us navigating job transitions while AI accelerates exponentially—while skills for AI-exposed jobs change 66% faster than other roles and 60% of tech professionals report cognitive overload from this pace—it's not just abstract stress. It's drowning in real-time.

The never-ending nights when you're awake. When you're praying that tomorrow, it's okay. That there will be time to find your footing again.

There's a reason songs about resistance hit differently right now. The ones that describe feeling like "rust upon the gears"—the grinding sound of a system pushed past its tolerances. The ones about hoping to "laugh again some day."

That's not poetry. That's Monday morning for a lot of us.

Eight Weeks In: The Truth Beneath the "Exciting Pivot"

When I launched this newsletter in late August, I framed it as an "exciting pivot into AI." And it is. Genuinely.

But eight weeks in, I need to be more honest about what "exciting" actually means when you're navigating transition in real-time:

✅ Intellectually alive: This AI/agentic work fascinates me
⏰ Also watching the clock: Burn rate is real, runway is finite

🎯 Strategically selective: Pursuing roles that align with the vision I'm building
📊 Also pragmatic: The timeline isn't infinite

🧠 Building frameworks: Because it's how I process complexity
💼 Also very much available: For the right opportunity

Both things are true. The passion is real. The precarity is also real.

I'm sharing this because I think our professional networks have a performance problem. We're all "crushing it!" or "excited about new chapters!" while privately navigating real financial and emotional complexity.

I'm in what I consider "urgent care": Stable for now. Runway finite. Not in crisis, but not infinite either. Making strategic choices while acknowledging the clock.

Started with ~12 months of runway. Three months in, I thought I was 'only' 3 months down. Turns out I was already at 7 months remaining. The math isn't linear when you're building in real-time—and that's the point. It also highlights that when we say 110 degree summers in Arizona take forever; it really does. Especially when you're watching a bank account that only goes one direction.  5/3 would not recommend.

The newsletter work? Real value. Zero income (actually a new drain at times as I race to top up tokens or add a new subscription to dive into something that captivated me). The frameworks I'm teaching? Genuinely transformative. Also not paying my mortgage.

And here's the hardest part: the isolation. Not knowing if I'm the only one feeling this way. Wondering if everyone else has it figured out while I'm still paddling furiously beneath the surface.

The Starfish Check-In: Where Are You, Actually?

Let's stop performing for a moment. Where are you right now, no story needed?

🏖️On the beach — Stranded, waiting, low energy
🌊In the surf — Getting tossed around, disoriented
🏊Swimming — Moving, but exhausting
⛵On a raft — Found some stability
🏝️On land — Catching breath, have some capacity

Why? Because when we all perform "crushing it!" on LinkedIn, we lose the ability to see where we actually are. We can't help each other if we can't name our location.

The Problem: Individual Heroism Doesn't Scale

The traditional starfish story fails because it frames rescue as individual heroism. One person, one starfish. But when everyone on the beach is a starfish, waiting for rescue, we need a different story.

This is what the past eight weeks have been building toward:

Weeks 1-4: The Frameworks

Weeks 5-8: The Application

All those frameworks? They work. I've tested them. I've refined them. I believe in them.

But here's what I didn't say clearly enough: They only work if you're not drowning.

And right now, based on the private messages I've been receiving since this newsletter started, a lot of us are drowning. The data confirms this isolation: 73% of employees are unaware of how AI will impact their work, while those who are experimenting do so quietly—leaders estimate only 4% use AI heavily, but 13% actually do. We're drowning alone because we're performing competence while privately scrambling to keep up.

The Solution: The Community Flywheel

You're not broken. The systems are broken.

Return-to-office mandates that ignore housing economics. Productivity metrics that pathologize exhaustion. Tech stacks that promise relief but deliver more cognitive load. Management systems that treat burnout as individual moral failure.

The solution isn't individual heroism. It's collective—what I'm calling the Community Flywheel.

How It Works:

1. Engagement → Someone sees you on the beach, gasping. They sit with you. You're not alone.

2. Contribution → You share what helped you breathe. They share back. Knowledge flows. The cognitive burden of "keeping up" gets distributed.

3. Advocacy → Word spreads. More starfish find the raft. The raft gets bigger. You're not waiting for rescue—you're building rescue together.

4. Growth → The flywheel accelerates. What started as mutual survival becomes collective thriving. The network becomes the life raft.

This isn't abstract. This is what happened to me in MindStudio's AI bootcamp—500 of us, all "shark bait," all out of our depth. We didn't survive because we were individually brilliant. We survived because we bore each other's load. Debugging code at 2 AM over Slack. Sharing what worked. Failing together, learning together.

That vulnerability wasn't weakness. It was the crucible that forged us into a team.

The Energy Budget: No Guilt, Just Tiers

I know what you're thinking: "This sounds great, but I have zero energy for 'community building' right now."

I hear you. That's why the Community Flywheel has ultra-low-friction participation tiers.

Tier 0: Silent Witness (Zero energy)

You're reading this thinking "yes, this, exactly"—you don't need to say anything. Your exhaustion is real. Your reading this means you're not alone. That's enough.

Tier 1: Minimal Signal (One click)

If you have one click of energy, 👁️ (eye) emoji means "I see this. I'm here." That's the whole ask.

Tier 2: One-Word Solidarity (One word)

Drop one word that captures where you are: "Exhausted." "Buried." "Waiting." "Hopeful." No explanation needed. Just a signal flare.

Tier 3: "Me Too" Without Story (One sentence)

"This feels broken to me too." Or "I thought I was the only one." Or "I can't keep doing this." You don't owe us context. We believe you.

Tier 4: The Campfire Story (Full share - optional)

For those rare moments when you have energy to share more deeply: We're listening. The campfire is here. Your story might be the one someone else needs to hear. If you have a win or a bright spot (finally) that is even better—this is not the time to hide those victories. It's not gloating or celebrating while others struggle, but showing that real people are seeing change.

You don't owe us your energy. Save it for survival. The campfire stays lit whether you speak or not.

The Different Game: Why AI Matters Now

Here's why this isn't just about emotional support—it's about strategic survival.

The traditional game is unwinnable:

What AI does in this framing: Makes the unwinnable game slightly faster. You're still drowning, now with guilt about not "maximizing AI."

The different game AI could enable: It handles the volume game entirely (emails, slop, grunt work), letting you opt out and play a game you can actually win: discernment, vision, meaning-making—work that requires a calm nervous system and freed cognitive capacity.

This is where my frameworks—PACT, PADE, the Career Flywheel—become immediately practical rather than aspirational:

PACT (Persona, Action, Context, Tone): Structures AI interactions so efficiently you stop wrestling with tools and start using them to exit drowning.

(This week, leverage our Prompt Wizard Agent to make PACT application seamless and reclaim your cognitive energy.) I made a simple Agent that helps with this task for everyone; put your tokens to better use with better prompting. I shared it below so everyone can test it for themselves.

PADE (Problem Clarity, Alignment, Data-Driven ROI, Ethical Foundation): Translates your survival support.

Career Flywheel (Delegate, Elevate, Demonstrate): Shows how freed capacity becomes momentum that compounds.

The economic case is stark: professionals strategically using AI are already reclaiming 5 hours weekly (roughly $19,000 in annual value), while AI-exposed industries see 3x higher revenue per worker. New roles like 'AI Architect' command $300k+ salaries. The different game isn't just more humane—it's more valuable.

But all of this requires one thing first: Not drowning.

The Invitation: Build the Raft Together

This isn't about me being a guru. I'm in urgent care, same as many of you. What I have is:

What I need:

The Community Flywheel starts here, this week:

🔹 On LinkedIn

Share where you are using the Starfish Check-In emoji (🏖️🌊🏊⛵🏝️) with #CommunityFlywheel. No story required. Just signal.

🔹 Reply to This Email

One word, one sentence, or one story. I read every response. Your patterns become insights for the community.

🔹 The Full Blueprint

For those with capacity to go deeper, the comprehensive research report is here: The Human Element Amplified: Reclaiming Agency and Driving Innovation in the Age of Exponential AI

It covers:

Why Human + AI > either alone (mechanistically, not aspirationally)

Real Talk: Week 8

This week's tension: Finished building Prompt Wizard (the agentic tool I've mentioned). It works. It's valuable. Zero revenue. Had to decide: keep polishing, or ship imperfect and move to next thing? Shipped. Felt terrifying and right.
Please test it out, I hope this simple fix can make your life easier this week.

What helped: Marc Randolph's "CD in an envelope" principle. Netflix wasn't validated by a perfect business plan—it was validated by a $2 experiment in under 24 hours. My experiment this week: reaching out to three people I wouldn't have had courage to contact eight weeks ago. Two replied.

Burn rate update: Started with ~12 months of runway (July 31). Remember when I said '3 months down' at the top of this newsletter? That was time elapsed. But I managed to burn 5 months of savings in those 3 calendar months—car repairs, house projects, AI tool subscriptions (MindStudio (tokens, tokens, and more tokens), Claude Pro, Gemini Pro, Perplexity, Carrd, NameCheap (just in case), the list grows weekly). And I haven't even gotten to Images, Audio, or Video yet. Intel's severance package bought me this runway, so I'm not in immediate crisis like some with less tenure. But I'm down to ~7 months now, and the clock is real—and they turned off "snooze."

What I'm learning: The frameworks work. The community matters more. And "exciting pivot" and "urgent care" aren't contradictions—they're both true.

Next Week: When the Different Game Becomes Playable

Next week, we'll explore what becomes possible when you stop drowning:

But first, we need to see where we all are.

Drop your Starfish Check-In emoji. Let's map the beach together.

You're Not Broken. You're Buried.
And We're Digging Together.

If you're reading this and thinking "I just need to try harder, be more resilient, embrace change faster"—stop. That's the voice of systems that benefit from your exhaustion.

The truth: You're having a completely normal neurological response to abnormal conditions. The technical term for what you're experiencing is "browning out"—a state where autonomy, competence, and relatedness (the three pillars of intrinsic motivation) simultaneously decline. Your nervous system is doing its job, screaming "this is unsustainable." Listen to it.

The frameworks I'm teaching work. But only after you stop drowning. And the way to stop drowning isn't individual heroism—it's collective buoyancy.

"We're holding on to laugh again some day." Not because we're individually heroic. Because we're doing it together.

Sources & Deeper Dives

💡 Pro Tip: Overwhelmed by the links? Drop any URL into your favorite LLM and ask: "Summarize the key arguments relevant to navigating career transition during rapid technological change."

Until next week—you're not alone on this beach.

Joseph

P.S. The gap between where you are and stability isn't as wide as it feels when you're gasping. Sometimes all you need is one person to sit with you and say "I see you. You're not crazy. The system is broken, not you."

That's what this is. Drop your emoji. Let's see the map.