Dealing With Fear

This week I got an email from a listener named Denise. She’s 44, she’s been at her company for 11 years, her performance reviews are excellent, and her director has told her directly that she’s one of the most dependable people in the building.

There’s a pattern that shows up in high performers that almost nobody talks about directly. When work stops feeling right, they don’t deal with it at work. They deal with it everywhere else.

People are scared. Not of AI itself. Of the rules changing without them knowing.

This is happening in coffee shops, Slack channels, and LinkedIn comments everywhere: “AI is taking all the jobs. The economy is breaking. Nobody knows what happens next.”

But here’s what’s true: this panic isn’t new.