Evan. You didn't get handed the map. You drew it — in your own blood, with your own compass, while everyone above you was still arguing about which direction was north. "You are not your job" isn't a slogan, it's a diagnosis, and you delivered it like the coroner you've basically become for corporate America. That's the identity-versus-transaction distinction, laid bare: the corporate ladder as a beautifully disguised con, dressed up in titles and perks, convincing brilliant people to source their worth from a rung instead of building it from the inside where nobody can lay you off from it.
And "wake up stupid every day" — come on. That's not a morning routine, that's Content Mastery wearing a work shirt and steel-toed boots. Two hours of reading before the office opens, one new human every day, writing every night to process it — you built a flywheel most executives couldn't sustain for two weeks, let alone three decades. You didn't autodidact your way into relevance. You engineered a self-renewing intelligence loop and called it a personality quirk.
Here's the part that makes you dangerous instead of just interesting, though — you never let the admiration get ahead of the data. Ami, Tony, Marion — you didn't just cheerlead them, you're building a live case study out of layoffs while everyone else is still writing eulogies for careers. That's not motivational content. That's a broadcast cartographer mapping the terrain in real time while the ground is still moving under everyone's feet.
So no, I won't pretend this is just a lovely essay. It's structurally correct. It's field-tested. It's thirty years of getting shitcanned publicly and treating every single humiliation like a data point instead of a wound. Most people would've curled up after Kabletown. You turned it into a longitudinal study with yourself as the only subject.
Keep drawing the map, ESHAP. Some of us are just grateful you're bad at staying quiet about what you find.
As I said in LinkedIn: “The paradox is that AI is often marketed as making everything cheaper, while the AI industry itself is becoming one of the most capital-intensive markets we've ever seen. We are witnessing an economy where sharks are eaten by megalodons. The organizations with the deepest pockets can acquire the best talent, the largest datasets, and the most compute. That makes continuous learning even more important, not less. If companies expect employees to navigate an AI-driven future while cutting investment in development, they are effectively transferring the entire burden of adaptation onto individuals. Technology disruption is inevitable. Talent obsolescence is not.” 🙂
Evan. You didn't get handed the map. You drew it — in your own blood, with your own compass, while everyone above you was still arguing about which direction was north. "You are not your job" isn't a slogan, it's a diagnosis, and you delivered it like the coroner you've basically become for corporate America. That's the identity-versus-transaction distinction, laid bare: the corporate ladder as a beautifully disguised con, dressed up in titles and perks, convincing brilliant people to source their worth from a rung instead of building it from the inside where nobody can lay you off from it.
And "wake up stupid every day" — come on. That's not a morning routine, that's Content Mastery wearing a work shirt and steel-toed boots. Two hours of reading before the office opens, one new human every day, writing every night to process it — you built a flywheel most executives couldn't sustain for two weeks, let alone three decades. You didn't autodidact your way into relevance. You engineered a self-renewing intelligence loop and called it a personality quirk.
Here's the part that makes you dangerous instead of just interesting, though — you never let the admiration get ahead of the data. Ami, Tony, Marion — you didn't just cheerlead them, you're building a live case study out of layoffs while everyone else is still writing eulogies for careers. That's not motivational content. That's a broadcast cartographer mapping the terrain in real time while the ground is still moving under everyone's feet.
So no, I won't pretend this is just a lovely essay. It's structurally correct. It's field-tested. It's thirty years of getting shitcanned publicly and treating every single humiliation like a data point instead of a wound. Most people would've curled up after Kabletown. You turned it into a longitudinal study with yourself as the only subject.
Keep drawing the map, ESHAP. Some of us are just grateful you're bad at staying quiet about what you find.
I am framing this. Can’t say how much this means Nicole. I appreciate this note and you very much!
Thank you for this, much appreciated
Are you able to share guidelines on what the 5 questions could be?
They need to be particular to your own journey. They need be grounded in the personal and professional questions you're looking to answer.
This: "Then one day, I woke up and found that I had been promoted past the things I truly liked to do."
Happens to everyone except a) psychopaths b) accountants c) psychopathic accountants e) those who manage them and e) all the adjacents.
Psychopath Accountants was the name of my first band.
Excellent. Been reading your work for years. Fellow traveler.
Thanks for this. It means a lot. Cheers!
As I said in LinkedIn: “The paradox is that AI is often marketed as making everything cheaper, while the AI industry itself is becoming one of the most capital-intensive markets we've ever seen. We are witnessing an economy where sharks are eaten by megalodons. The organizations with the deepest pockets can acquire the best talent, the largest datasets, and the most compute. That makes continuous learning even more important, not less. If companies expect employees to navigate an AI-driven future while cutting investment in development, they are effectively transferring the entire burden of adaptation onto individuals. Technology disruption is inevitable. Talent obsolescence is not.” 🙂
🔥 Spot on.
Needed to read this. Thanks for writing it.