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First edition 2024

Book Cover by Braindrops.me

Photography by the legend that is Paul Lanigan.

Foreword

No one spoke when his head hit the tiled floor. A giant of a man who I deeply loved and admired fell slowly, so slowly backward, arms wide. He toppled over like a giant redwood tree. Then the nervous titters and comments started. This is an actual event which became a core part of the book over the last weeks of writing. More to follow.

This is a book on how to Earn More, Live Better, and Thrive Longer in a world where AI is everywhere. Here is what you will master once you put this book into practise:

- Understand why this disruption is different

- What to do about that.

- How to use AI as a genie, partner, mentor, and guide.

- The most important rule of genie school: Be VERY careful what to wish for.

- Live without fear: discover what senses make you unique, live to the max.

- Learn the secrets of how to navigate by instinct, avoid the productivity trap.

- Develop a growth mindset with habits that help you earn more every day.

I refer to AI as a genie, for reasons I will explain later. Rule #0 is to never take on the AI genie on its home ground. Any genie is like a cold and boundless ocean, a magnificent resource and adventure without end, but unless you quickly learn how to navigate it, you will disappear without trace. Get used to exercising all your senses. Not just the ‘big five’ of sound, touch, sight, smell, and taste – include sense of time, sense of being, sense of community – you have hundreds of senses, so rediscover and use them. Hence the multiple stories and images and sounds that thread throughout this book, they are part of my process. Two more points that came to mind:

1) People are seriously worried. Is it riskier to stay inside an organisation or go solo? Staying inside, you risk being replaced and rendered invisible. Drained of skills and authority then cast adrift, lost, without support.

2) Ignore headlines and AI prompts. This is a false skill. The reason for this is covered in detail on the website - with examples and reasoning – but basically you cannot simply THINK your way into being. Prompting alone is a blind guide dog. It is useless until you first develop a deep understanding and love for independence, critical thinking, research, and an ability to develop and defend a position on any topic while on your feet. Deep, informed dialogue is the key.

My logic: either AI is going to ‘take me out’ or it won’t. It will develop the skills to do 95% of what I do now……. But if it does, then why not get in on the ground floor and learn its strengths and weaknesses? Contribute to communities who are setting up this brave new world – and harvest new opportunities. If AI cannot deliver, then it is back to business as usual. This does not have to be a full-time job, just a few hours a day to practise.

The plan is: figure out what AI will never do on its own. Meantime, use the skills I have built up over the last four disruptions in technology (more on that later) to learn how to be an authentic partner. Learn how to work alongside the new systems. We each play to our strengths and cover each other’s weak spots. It is a hedged bet. It allows me to navigate my path. On a good day, I am immune to the changes that are to come.

How terrifying and anxious and exhilarating is the feeling? I choose to exhilarate. For instance, if you look back at the old spy and crime thrillers from the 80s, 90s…… right up to say, five years ago. What seemed miraculous in those movies is commonplace today. This will continue. What appears as pure sorcery today will be at each person’s fingertips soon.

Has this happened before? Yes, but the examples are many centuries apart. Two examples spring to mind.

Here is the first: it is 1492, and tomorrow you embark on an incredible mission with Christopher Columbus. How does it feel? As you stand dockside, you look out to sea, feel the breeze on your face, and try not to think about falling off the face of the Earth, or of the massive sea monsters sliding around in the dark beneath the creaking hull, or dragons swooping down out of nowhere. If you make it alive, try not to think of the baffling tribes, genies, or witches that roam freely. Feel this in your gut, not just in your head, because believe it or not, we approach a greater precipice today.

Imagine showing Columbus your phone, sliding your finger across its screen, and witnessing high-definition images and voices that can tell him anything and everything he ever wanted to know. How is that not a genie? Also, the technology has the potential to eradicate our species. How is that not a dragon? We will return to Columbus as it is informative to compare his one-year trip and the challenges and changes it brought about to where we are today, setting sail into the unknown. If your gut isn’t heaving as you imagine what AI will bring – just as the voyagers fretted as the ships pulled out to sea, then the only question you need to answer is:

Why not?

Understanding what will not change is the essence of navigation. They are the signs, the landmarks, behaviours, and skills that allow you to overcome challenges which are unimaginable today. Could Columbus and crew describe their reception and encounters on landing in the New World? They used Authentic Intelligence. I cover how to develop YOUR Authentic Intelligence in the coming chapters. So, if all you seek is advance notice on what may happen next in AI in order to adapt and pivot, and jiggle and wriggle, then farewell and good luck. This is not the book for you.

After reading, I hope to create two impressions in your mind:

1) Yes, today is what it must have felt like aboard Columbus’s mission.

2) Yes, I have what it takes to navigate this journey, no matter what happens. Bring it on.

A word on terminology: I refer to the term ‘silicon genie’ instead of AI throughout the book. I do this because it stresses the two-way nature of any dialogue, rather than something that just ‘happens’ to me. AI is a meaningless, passive acronym. It allows for terrible, muddled mental misuse – like the term ‘the science’. It is nonsense and should be called out. What we need is a metaphor because a metaphor is active. Metaphor does two things at once:

1) It affects how we see and therefore how we act in the world. Metaphors literally change our perceptions and how we act. We fly through work, we carry our weight, we mind our money.

2) It changes the way we see and interact with the world. The metaphors we train our genie with are how the genie will interact with us.

Referring to AI as a genie also keeps Rule #1 in mind all the time:

Genie Rule #1…. Be VERY careful what you wish for.

Used regularly, this method of working alongside the silicon genie has completely changed how I live and work. This book is an example, and not because it was a sprint of 12 weeks. It is because it is the new process – learn by doing. The current naïve plan is for two more books, a 3D animation series and a comic in the next twelve months. The truth? It is huge fun. As we interact with it, the genie response develops. I am learning to see myself as a trainer.

Top Tip: You need to Play Nice.

This disruption is different because it is a merger and not a replacement or an implant of any technology. Humanity has not had such a shakeup in its fundamental beliefs in over 500 years and it will cause considerable upheaval. However, it is important to understand that this happens regularly in nature, ever since life first emerged; it is built-in to evolution.

Example: A group known as archaea were among the first examples of life on Earth. Each was a single cell floating around, capable of sensing but with only prediction to help nudge it toward good stuff and away from bad stuff. The better the cell became at predicting in this way, the more it got to propagate. Just sensing and prediction. No perception, no nervous system of any sort. An unconsciously competent process. Somehow, another critter got absorbed within the cell wall of a single cell. This critter could generate huge amounts of excess energy, bundled up into a particular molecule. The invader continued to produce this molecule in massive quantities. It enabled the host to act as if it had a jet pack, an ironman battery. The new balance of talent meant that it made no sense to dismantle the invader. By playing nice, both agents made huge gains.

The cells of our body use a refined derivative of this process to this very day. See where I am going? A new balance of talents created an entirely different way of being. It was a merger, not a replacement or an implant or an upgrade.

The archaea leveraged the extra energy, which allowed the cell to move, act, and digest in novel ways. The invader gained a relatively safe environment inside the host, with free access to a range of nutrients – plus a free mini bar and no worries about predators. Neither party was recognisable from what went before.

Did this happen? Yes, it happened. This is an example of how unconscious but competent actions, with no consciousness or perception, just sensing and signalling using molecules, can change the entire trajectory of life on Earth.

There had to be sensing and signalling that brought about a change in behaviour to both units. There is no need for any mind, intelligence, or voodoo because it comes free from the universe itself. What could that have looked like? There are lots of options. Previously both units would have sensed the next action – to move, release chemical X or whatever and somehow the new combined mix of chemicals would have created a different prediction by altering the composition and density of the chemicals inside which created a new stable balance. Perhaps the combination somehow changed the old stress responses, which always happen when respiration occurs (and which continue to this very day). Perhaps the separate units influenced each other’s predicted response by exchanging raw materials or other building blocks (called metabolites). Think Blackjack. Vegas. As soon as another joins the table behaviours change to accommodate the new setup. All using sensing, not perception. Like an automatic door opener does. No intelligence required.

The key point: this ability to ‘play nice’ has been operational for over 2 billion Earth years. Literally built into all living things. An organelle (our cellular body bits) grows, does its thing, and interacts in a ‘play nice’ way to maintain balance. To the benefit of all components. Anything that does not play well long-term gets eliminated. Consider this before forming any opinion on the silicon genie.

Do you really need to know how an engine works when a truck is coming at you fast? Deciding to move out of the way is job one. Next job is to know where to go and how to get there.

In a similar vein, the point of this book is not to explain the genie; that’s for later books in the series. This chapter gives you some background on why it’s time to prepare now, and since I write this approaching Christmas, let’s play Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Why listen to me?

Authentic Intelligence has hypnotised me for five decades. I am an insider to the last four technology shifts where I often moved to each side of the invoice, from R+D to marketing to customer support to lecturing and conservation, back to large companies, start-ups and back to industry again. Not only have I have experienced swapping across industries, but I have also been an insider and active participant in each of the disruptions themselves (the shifts being to digital, then to the internet, mobile and cloud).

My fifth and final tour of duty (in AI) has been smouldering since the 1980s. I played a small part in creating what is now layer upon layer of a huge technological tower. It is a tower that is leaning and swaying alarmingly, so part of my reason for writing this book is an atonement. Perhaps even some pointers on how to steady the ship.

I also know how tricky it can be to change lanes, to switch companies across the supply chain, adapting to cultures and navigating the hurdles. This skill will become essential in this coming wave, and I will explain the how and why later.

A second benefit of my on-site reportage is that I have an excellent grounding in how everything really works. From when your finger touches the keyboard or screen, and the pulses traverse the internet to the cloud until it finally comes to rest back on your screen or mobile device. I spent many decades among teams who were negotiating technical responses, assembling bills of material and working contracts across each of those sectors, so I have considerable experience of how such ecosystems work, along with how quickly or slowly it can react and change.

A third advantage is my time spent working in strategy and planning. I have a decent feel for what those sources can perceive, and how snow blindness can happen.

Last thing. I had the supreme privilege of witnessing the first flight of a fledgling bird not too long ago. Sitting at the back of the house around dawn, just before midsummer, with my dog. There were several house martins zapping around a nest in the eaves of the roof at top speed. One seriously big bad baby bird was leaning out of the nest, stretched to the limit, mouth wide open for food. No bird came close enough to feed it, so it leaned out further and further until disaster! It fell from the nest. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as it tumbled until, whoosh – with a burst of manic fluttering, it took off. I will never forget that morning. It re-ignited a feeling of trust and wonder at what nature has been creating and selecting and challenging living creatures with for eons, it was like some kind of mental depth charge and brought to mind the concepts of Authentic Intelligence.

This is not whimsy. Anyone approaching the topics in this book must do so in an open, curious, and ‘unknowing’ fashion. Living every day afresh. Being amidst life in all its wonder, using every one of our senses as part of our drive to thrive.

None of this is new. Sometimes in a crisis, we see things as if for the first time. What is true always bears repeating. Here is what you will learn in this book:

- How to Aviate: How to assess your situation and ensure you remain upright, level, and shipshape no matter what the circumstance.

- How to Navigate: How to decide where to go and where you can safely reach. How much baggage you have onboard and what needs to be ditched so you can manoeuvre with grace and style (style is important :).

- How to Communicate: How to remain clear, lucid and relevant as you interact with others en route to the new AI world.

Overview

What AI may change and what’s likely to stay the same?

Navigating and actively shaping this change will require a rock-solid experience of who you really are. So here is a question to you, reading this, are you here? Is there anybody in there? (Hint: Yes). Well, if the answer is yes and you want to develop an unshakable insight into who you really are, to strengthen and develop the competence and confidence of who you are and to navigate your own future, then welcome aboard.

From when I finished university for the first time, I reckon around 1 in 10 of the job categories on offer still exist today. Entire sectors have vanished into sand. This dynamic is speeding up. Then COVID came along.

This book is about Authentic Intelligence – an outlook and skill set on how to earn more, live better, and thrive longer alongside the new digital kid on the block – artificial intelligence (AI). It takes lessons learned from personal experience and from interviews with many people who have shown themselves to be successful as well as happy through the last four waves of massive technological disruption.

Note: I call each wave a disruption because hundreds of thousands of people lost their livelihood and had to change both how and where they worked, dramatically. Entire industries and ecosystems vanished or underwent irreversible changes. Each wave also created tens of millions of new jobs, with skills and titles that did not even exist the year before the disruption really hit its stride. The sequence below is the order in which I surfed the wave. When they became too obvious to ignore versus when they were first noticed is down to individual experience and circumstance. Once again, this will also be true for really meeting the genie.

First came digital phones with clearer voice and plastic handsets. That change had a greater impact on the supply industry than on consumers, almost like plumbing. It set the stage for higher speed digital highways. It may have been the most profound change of all, yet it went unnoticed in the background.

The second wave: Next came email, WAIS (wide area information server), and the web. Ever since it emerged, I refer to the web as ‘Internet Acid’ as it had the effect of completely dissolving entire industries. It was an exhilarating and shocking time, as old industries tried and failed dismally to adapt to rapid change. Like the drunk old uncle at a wedding. They had one thing in common. Believing that one’s past success matters is a misguided sense of entitlement.

There is a very important concept at work here that reappears throughout the book and which I first learned about in this second wave. It relates to anyone or thing acting as ‘unconscious’ or ‘competent’. This yields four combinations and is a very strong indicator of someone’s prospects. Start using this sorting hat today, it is the start of your journey. Each time you approach a new situation, make sure you know which base camp you are setting out from. Entire companies and communities often share the same base camp.

Top tip: never join a group in the same camp as where you are. Always be learning, stretching.

- Unconsciously incompetent: Someone blissfully unaware of their lack of skills and abilities who volunteers for tasks they are not fit for. They have false confidence in their competence, overestimate their abilities or blame external factors for their failures.  They exaggerate their skills, have delusions about their competency, or attribute their shortcomings to outside forces.  Examples: A first-time driver who just knows they can handle a Formula One car. Anyone who thinks they can handle what is coming and just read the same old news to ‘stay informed’.

- Consciously incompetent: My base camp of choice. This is when a person is aware of their lack of skills and abilities and accepts that they cannot perform a task well. They realise the need for growth and change and put a plan in place to make it happen. Someone starting to learn a new language, or any student showing up for an exam who suddenly regrets their decision to celebrate in advance the night before, all night long.

- Consciously competent: An individual who can successfully complete a task and is conscious of their talents and abilities. They are competent and self-assured enough to use their skills in a variety of contexts. Example: a fluent speaker of a foreign language. A male driver who turns off the radio when searching for a parking spot.

- Unconsciously competent: You have effortless flight and are singing in your own voice. You have the skills you need. Example: Breathe. Sit down. Speak.

I will pause here just to drive the point home. The haze of utterly unconscious incompetence on display (including my own) is more prevalent now than when the internet first arrived in the 90s. Companies and individuals honestly believe ‘I got this’ and can adapt. They cannot, precisely because of this feeling that they are excluded from the changes that are coming.

The changes that are coming, based on what I have experienced in the last four cycles, are literally inconceivable right now. Also, because this wave will require a merger of equals between us and the silicon genie and a total re-arrangement of our point of view and what base we are all coming from.

I have also found this classification really useful when looking at intelligence, brain function and silicon genies, so I will return to it several times.

The third wave: Along came mobile. Once again, old industries felt entitled, ‘it’s OK, we got this, we can adapt’. Companies and brands that seemed ever present and worldwide powers simply disappeared, behaving with unconscious incompetence as they sailed off the edge of the world. Entire skill sets disappeared almost entirely.

The fourth wave: Cloud. Notice how each disruption relies on what came before. Each new capability adds to the previous disruptions, causing a whiplash effect. Imagine a missile launched from a missile launched from a fighter jet and you get the idea. This blindsides every generation. It is just not possible to ‘brace for impact’ when a new and unforeseen social reality appears overnight. Every new generation is blind to a new way of being in the world, not just a slight advance or change in habits. The clearest way to identify when someone is going to have the rug pulled from under them is when they say ‘I got this’.

When I place each disruption one atop the next, compare what worked and what most definitely does not, contrast that with what has gone before, certain truths emerge. To ignore these truths when they have worked out four times in a row would be foolhardy. So, I wrote them down because deep down I know the feeling of losing out to AI. The dread and unease in the gut. Yet it has many limitations. This handbook is all about how you can take advantage of these limitations.

AI is no one’s fault. Learn to see each new generation of technology as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The more people use it, the more evident the leaning becomes. Any bend in the tower gets locked in as we build each additional layer on top and settle in. The gradual leaning has been consistent in every disruption and will repeat itself. How we use technology always affects its evolution. The more powerful the technology, the faster the tower will lean.

How to prepare for this? Consider an aircraft which stalls – it will immediately spin wildly downward. During training, pilots must learn to suppress their old instincts that no longer serve their purposes. They must learn to do what works, regardless of their old beliefs. When they do so, the tailspin comes to an end in seconds. If they do not learn to do what works, they do not get a license to fly.

This book is all about doing what works. To shine a light on who you are and where you are going. The exercises in this book teach essential navigation skills that never change. They will help you ditch any beliefs which no longer serve your purposes. If you rely on old beliefs instead of what just works, then the spin and descent will only increase. Make these essential navigation skills automatic in your daily life and no matter what else changes, you can be successful while at the same time being happy.

KEEP CALM

And welcome aboard

This is where the silicon genie comes in. It has processed hundreds of millions of creative outputs and historical records from centuries of creative people and events. It exists. I am focused here on what works and what I feel is next based on my experience and what to do to prepare. It is very clear that humans can barely handle 100 active connections with others over a lifetime. When I place a request to my silicon genie, it can predict meaning with very high accuracy most of the time, and it improves all of the time. It does this for over 100 million people at the same time. Notice that I said ‘predict’ and I said ‘meaning’. I didn’t mention mind or intelligence or witchcraft.

What is meaning in this case? It is an ability to highlight something that is important, and to do that in less time and with less energy usage than I ever thought possible. Show it an image of a red light and it will stop the car. It pulls meaning out of an image. Yes, that is simple and obvious, however it can do the same thing with one hundred spreadsheets and five hundred reports in thirty different languages and extract what is important. If you ask, it will deliver what has meaning for you who needs insight. Rule #1 of genie school still applies – be careful what you wish for. This handbook is here to help you with that.

Let’s use an analogy. Imagine you can bring one buddy along on a dangerous and exciting journey. You get a hidden earpiece and can choose one source for the microphone on the other end. Would you choose someone who is a deep domain expert in a single area (in playing the spoons? medicine? dodgeball?). Or would you choose one who can whisper details in your ear of what is about to happen in the actual real world with 99% accuracy – and based on what that means, they predict what you should do about it? What about if the accuracy turned out to be 80%, does that change your mind? How about if that 80% improved with every usage? Now that is a vision. Once again, I make no mention of thought, intelligence, tarot, or horoscopes. ‘What this means for me and what to do next’ is the key.

Today, we pick up our Kindle and look for eBooks. Imagine if, someday, there are no eBooks. Instead, you pick up the Kindle and the silicon genie senses what you are most concerned about right now; it predicts the most beneficial source of help or what new destination you are thinking about, or how to ease your current situation by connecting you to listen to X, or watch Y, and so on. It becomes a global switchboard for what you need and what means most. This is both the greatest and the most horrific future imaginable, depending on what base camp you are in and what you wish for, it requires really careful navigation. Yet if the consumer society really is approaching stall – because it is hollow and devoid of all meaning, then a stall is coming, and the spin will begin. Even if there is a one-in-a-million chance of that happening, then you need to know how to navigate not based on what you believe, but on what works.

What will not change?

What can I bet the house on? This book suggests there are three pillars to build upon, regardless of what external changes occur. I use this morning mantra to recall and reinforce what I need in my day.

1) I know who I really am (not what I believe myself to be).

2) I build confidence with competency.

3) I maintain my borders and boundaries.

The following chapters feature an introduction and include practices for each pillar, and each strongly relies on the ability to navigate. When you build confidence and competence around these pillars, it will quickly become apparent how others are crumbling. You will notice how those who rely on silicon genie requests for short-term productivity slip deeper into quicksand. They outsourced a skill instead of developing it internally with strict protection. This has happened time and time again, disruption after disruption. Do not end up as one of those surprised.

Build on these three pillars, no matter what the silicon genie promises, and your skill set will become ever more in demand as we transition from a consumer economy to a creator economy.

The penny dropped for me recently as I was researching books and technical papers for my books. There is a radical uptick within AI and neuropsychology on what thinking is and what it is not. Researchers are focusing on how emotions are made. There is more interest in brain plasticity and how functional areas of the nervous system are distributed. There are at least two brains inside the dark and silent skull. We all face a growing attention deficit – more and more information, pressure, and stress at home, at work and in our social worlds. We are all reaching a tipping point. Our ability to hold attention is close to zero. Could this be a stall warning? I have no idea. Also, I have no intention of waiting around to find out.

This realisation prompted a serious personal crisis for me and led to a long internal audit. I ended up returning time and again to when I felt totally lost to get some clues, to the mistakes and successes and figure out the lessons learned. This led me to my survivor’s guide for all disruptions that are covered in the coming chapters – they work for me, and I really hope they work for you too.

Here is where we are going:

I know who I really am:

- I keep in touch with all of my senses, not just the top five.

- I learn how to thrive in real time. I carry nothing forward.

- I work constantly to get out of my own way.

I build confidence by building competency:

- I fire my mind (I throw away all beliefs that no longer serve me).

- I focus. I do one thing well. Then I do another.

I maintain my borders and boundaries while co-creating with others.

- Each creative act becomes a pluggable piece in a larger tapestry, co-ordinated via community rules.

- The jigsaw gets re-made by genie in real time depending on individual user needs.

This allows me to persist to the next breath and play nice at the same time, whatever happens.

These principles just work. Whether with the silicon genie or fellow travellers. They have got me through times when a 1 million dollar per day sales target seemed impossible (it wasn’t). They worked when a fog cleared one day and I clearly saw my promising startup had become a failure. Everything held together as our tiny startup crew expanded so fast that a culture developed all on its own. We as founders wondered how that happened and what to do about it. They worked while I was travelling in strange lands and a loaded gun was pushed in my face just too often. When I did not know how I was going to keep feeding my family.

No matter what tidal waves or storms or threats or opportunities arise in your environment in the next ten years, these principles work. What do I need more than anything else so I can handle whatever the world throws at me? Solid navigation. Knowing who you are, where your North Star is, what to avoid, what to do next. In other words, what to wish for.

Where you are going

I have felt petrified my entire life. It is only recently that I owned up to this and I thoroughly recommend a clean break and to stop lying to yourself. How did I get from fear to right here? I decided that as much as possible, my life on the inside would be the same as my life on the outside. No more lies or distortions or excuses for what is happening.

When I cut down on lying to myself inside, it had a totally unexpected outcome. I simply let the nagging voices and imaginary terrible things just blab away and literally ignored them. The reference works late in the book offer endless reasons and support for why this is a good idea. It certainly was for me. Without attention and energy, they get quieter. The parts of the brain which had been hijacking all those calories using fear and anxiety went much quieter when denied access to attention of any sort, and other areas which had not had access to language but thrived on visual or audio and emotion and feeling sprang back to life. Inside, I had been deflecting my creativity to appear OK. I had buttoned everything down through fear, or through being petrified of who knows. From the outside all seemed well and even on the inside I had all the fears and anxieties well buried and muffled, yet the bubbling stream was there, in the dark.

When the internal critic reminds me that I cannot draw, sing, act or write well, it is just not true. Every single living thing creates. People may judge the result harshly, considering it pure incompetence. SO WHAT? Imagine getting up in front of an audience and braying like a donkey. No one is asking you to do that. I’d like to hear that, but I digress.

What I am saying is that it will become essential to be creative and authentic. Just let that joyous creativity out for a walk. Let it hop around like a puppy. No one is asking to see or judge or direct what you are doing. Two things happened when I took this approach. I wrote down a series of challenges and I now use them every day to build creative muscle. The second thing is that it forced me to face my greatest fears.

There were many ideas to explore, and I ran about like a child in a sweet shop. Turns out that nothing I tried was sustainable. It turns out that what I absolutely love to do is to hunt. I will catch the sniff of an idea, a trace on the wind. I notice it immediately, then set it aside. I would express something around that idea, whether scribbling or writing or humming or whatever. This just kept happening until I could get to the absolute root of an idea, like a hound on a truffle hunt.

While I did not realise it at the time, all of this was in the service of building confidence by building competency. Building a practice of tools and methods that I picked up from listening and watching others. This was another revelation – how it is now possible to work with the silicon genie and with other creators and curators to combine ideas and dreams with skills to express and develop them quickly.

This has happened before but not on the scale of what is happening now. I spent time in New Guinea back in the 80s. I was interested in education and bringing hydro power to remote villages and in working with conversation groups. For these NGOs, it cost an absolute fortune to communicate. It was pre-internet, but there were bulletin boards and systems were on the verge of developing something beyond just posting messages remotely. We only had PCs I sourced in Australia, and only occasional access to the wider network of sites whenever I could beg/borrow spare capacity from large satellite providers. So, we put together a system which acted the same as email does now. The protocols at the time just were not usable for sites that could only communicate occasionally.

The effect was incredible. Try to imagine the difference it made to volunteers who could now have instant access with colleagues when before it was sometimes years between calls. It was sorcery of the highest order. People would arrive with a written message and an address from their friend, drop the message as if to a telegraph office, then head off again. Sometimes a message would come back in minutes in the middle of some of the wildest jungle or remote beaches on Earth.

Imagine if something similar happens again. Could it be possible that the silicon genie connects two or more people by automatically extracting meaning from whatever the user inputs? Could it begin to bridge the gaps and differences that may exist between different cultures, languages, or perspectives? The mechanism of how this is built out is covered in a later chapter because ‘why bother’ must come before ‘how’. Here are some examples of ‘why’:

- Education as role play: This is where unconscious incompetence really comes into its own. When you start out from that base camp, no amount of search queries is going to help – because you do not know what you do not know. This does not just apply to a business meeting or upcoming trip – this applies to time as well as place and I have had some excellent dialogue with everyone from Mozart to Socrates to Poggio Bracciolini. I have spent time crossing the Alps with Hannibal – you get the picture.

- A slogan or a motto may have a persuasive or motivational purpose for one part of my business yet be fatal in others. Is it possible to focus on translating the message and the intention behind the slogan, rather than the literal words to achieve the same impact? Yes

- A blog or book to an image: I learned about the how and why of book covers and human methods of selection while undertaking this book-writing exercise. I have moved from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. Result! How many areas of life does this apply for you? I suggest it is impossible to even imagine this unless you go ahead and take the plunge. Make a commitment. Get terrified and just do it.

- From outline text to stepwise instructions: A written text can be translated into clear stepwise instructions that guide the reader through a process, a task, or problem. A basis for agreement between two parties from different countries requires local translation to ensure that the engagement is understood and respected by both sides. I already use this for creative work, as I am unconsciously incompetent in so many new areas. This is not 100% automatic, more as an informed template for two parties to think over before they engage, with many of the ‘have you thought about these questions’ laid out clearly. Hindsight is perfect but this would have saved me a fortune as well as saved my sanity so many times over the years.

- From searching for a home to one specified in detail by genie – with output images, 3D walkthroughs all taken from the client who provides groups of images, text queries or personality types. Completed with interior design kitted out via a mood board selected by the client, compliant with local planning. Perhaps even taken from locally available housing present or recently passed?

This was the original dream of the internet and mobile technology. However, everything went south fast after that. I got into telecom because it was not servicing the war machine nor digging up ancient forests or oil or gold. I wanted to learn everything there was about operating systems and telecom. My thinking was naïve beyond words, and my face flushes now at the thought:

Telecom is all about helping people to communicate. What could go wrong?

This is what I mean by the tower of technology. We watched layer upon layer getting built up. Each layer was more powerful than what went before. Each layer, however, took its shape based on what people use it for. Companies who realised what was in it for them were able to nudge research and standards. Of course, that happens. This time, however, both you and I need a secure seat at the table, otherwise the tower can get dangerously unstable. Back then, the direction of the leaning turned into web 2.0 and social media. Congratulations, look where we are now.

We cannot allow this to happen with the silicon genie. It is here. Whether the base layer is human or silicon just does not matter. What is of existential importance is the need to raise our genies well. With active and constant vigilance, audits, health checks, and care.

My point is that there is a level of interactivity and wonder that our jaded eyes have not seen in nearly 40 years. Seize this opportunity to learn how to interact authentically. It is not just a productivity poodle. Become an active citizen, prepare for the creator economy now, light your spark, develop your confidence, and jump in. Now. This cannot be a passive experience.

Down the millennia, a passive public space has resulted in what is called the tragedy of the commons, a dumping ground for toxicity and weeds. The answer is to make active and authentic use of your creative space and engage. As the attention deficit gets worse, there will be a tipping point. So light up your own voice and understand who you really are. Once that creative spark is lit, there is no box that can contain it anymore. Engage with a series of challenges. Your mental energy use will become far more balanced across all sectors of the brain, with no more getting hijacked by the woe-bot algorithms that are spinning like propeller blades.

What happened to me next? I dreamed big and decided to get terrified. I announced I would write a book in 30 days. This book. The more folk I told, the less I remembered it was impossible. In the end, it took 31 days, and it was a mess, but it was done. It needed critical care, intensive care, from folks who know what they are doing – also- I had to take time out as life got in the way. However, here we are, and you hold the result in your hands.

Next up is two more books, an animated series and something I have always had it in my heart to do – a comic. This is what happens when a genie partnership works well.

Learning to navigate

By now (thank you for staying the course!), you may be thinking, ‘I get it’.

Aviate – Navigate – Communicate. The mantra of pilots everywhere. Fine, but what does that mean, what do I need to do and how does Authentic Intelligence help?

This is what to do:

Back in Synthopia, there were three groups. In most future scenarios, there will still be three groups, and the essence of each activity will be that of creator, curator or conductor. It is a beneficial exercise to discover what is it that drives you, what is your lead competency. Re-discover your senses and weave storylines around them. Engage multiple senses. This is how to stay relevant. To rely on thought alone is to be replaced, rendered invisible.

Here is the first set of questions to explore before heading out:

- How are you built?

- Just how unconsciously incompetent are you?

- What beliefs have snuck inside your head and are silently nudging your driving wheel every day?

- Just how long have you been unhappy and who is underneath all those beliefs being carried around?

It’s time to head into the basement. These questions can only be answered by doing. Thinking about them, I’m sorry, is a waste of time. The only way to engage the senses and feel the correct answer is by doing. So, spend time on every one of the following and be honest with what you feel as a result:

My strong preference is:

- for being inside or outside?

- for dealing with people or things?

- for thinking or doing?

- for form (‘things’) or spirit?

- to join a tribe that does …? Which resides in …?

- to lead, follow, or influence?

No matter how hard you try and how relentless your efforts, your career choice will grind you into dirt if you are not built for it. Do not waste precious years of your life trying on that precious Cinderella shoe if you prefer running barefoot across fields.

This is what I have used as career advice all my life. Although I did not realise it, I was really looking for my tribe and simply doing what I do best until I find them. It is understandable I did not realise because that urge comes from drive, feeling and emotion.

So, we are going to ground ourselves in a clear understanding of who we are and where we are going, along with a clear understanding of what is acceptable and what is not.

Then it is on to a set of challenges that gets you out of your mind and into the world.

The challenges will exercise everything you need at a basic level to get on the floor and start doing your thing. They help you get a feel for creating, curating, and conducting. Throughout, I will talk about how I managed, where I got stuck, and how to get help.

On that path, we will get a better understanding of what lights up for you long-term coming from the source of who you are: empathy, feelings and emotion as opposed to productivity. It is not obvious, at least it was not obvious to me, and I had to drop a LOT of beliefs that I had held and defended but which no longer serve me now. It takes practice. Get bored, and the answer will come.

What is your primary sense? Do you say, ‘I see’, ‘I hear you’, or do you smell a rat somewhere? Will you be in touch? In what follows, it is important to recognise your go-to sense consciously. Whether you realise it or not, it drives a lot of what you do.

This drive can arrive in the body via any combination of the five senses. Just look at this list for starters:

Step 0: Trust no one

This step has nothing to do with sinking into cynicism and doubt, quite the opposite. It involves building the skills of an investigative reporter, or a journalist who specialises in each area. It requires taking a fresh and open and innocent (yes, innocent!) look at what is being encountered. Every captain of any vessel does this minute by minute, as natural as breathing. While it may appear onerous at first, it quickly becomes just another practice – it wakes you up, grounds you, and keeps you on your toes. Keep it light, be an adventurer, an explorer!

So, you want to be a creator, huh? Well, let me tell you something, kid. It’s not a walk in the park. It’s a dangerous business. You need to have some skills and attitudes to survive:

Curiosity: Either curiosity or being cynical, it’s up to you. Either way, you need to be curious about everything. Have a thirst for knowledge and adventure and be ready for anything. Go where the action is, even if it means breaking some rules. You need to discover new things all the time.

Storytelling: Where you are going is unimaginable, so you need to bring the folks back home with you. You need to tell stories that people want to hear. Get them off their seats. Make them excited and curious about science. Have heroes and villains and twists and turns. Use plain language and vivid details. You need to make them believe.

Accuracy: heck yeah, you need to be accurate. Every time. Be authentic. Become a landmark people can navigate by. A rock. Tell the truth, Check your facts and sources. You need to admit when you’re wrong or when you don’t know something. You need to be respectful and responsible.

Critical thinking: What the heck just happened? How did I get here? You need to think critically. On your feet, it’s as easy as breathing. Judge the quality and relevance of the information you get. Know who to lean on and who to avoid. You need to be aware of the traps and tricks that may affect the science or the communication. You need to look at things from different angles and opinions. When you hit that door at full speed, it better open outward, kid, else you’ll need a new face. If you’re lucky.

Creativity: You need to be creative. You need to find new ways to tell your stories, to yell out the truth you find and hold it high. You need to pitch to the right people. Don’t be afraid to mix it up even inside the truth. You need to make stories like you. Unique, authentic.

Adaptability: You need to swivel faster than a skater holding their martini on a crowded rink. Be flexible. Drop any baggage and beliefs overboard that do not serve you right away. You need to learn new skills and explore new topics. You need to embrace new technologies and platforms.

That’s what you need if you’re sticking around. Do you have what it takes?

Example: When there is an announcement made of how ‘AI’ (ugh) is an existential threat, replace the phrase “AI” with “DYOR” (DYOR means Do Your OWN Research, or “think for yourself”). Now look at the statement again.

- “Think for yourself” will be the end of the world. (Whose world is being ended?)

- There should be strict regulations on “think for yourself”. (Who decides when I may come to my own conclusions?)

- “Think for yourself” needs to be paused for 12 months. (The silicon genie is out of the bottle. It is too late to pause everyone else while you try to catch up.)

Top tip: If replacing AI with “think for yourself” results in a statement that is patent nonsense, then consider that you are being manipulated. Or perhaps not. Bishops argued sincerely for centuries over Copernicus I, in good faith. At least consider that you are looking at a closed question.

What is a closed question? One that always leads to a safe reply. It is like a water slide, ‘safe and regulated’ AI may appear exciting, novel, a break from the everyday, but no matter where you start from, you always end up in the same heavily chlorinated, tightly regulated, and centralised paddling pool, the dreaded pool of centralised acceptable corporate productivity…

Keep this mind in the coming chapters.

hippopotamus right now. If you have free will, tell me when you consciously and deliberately disagreed with that sentence. I do not mind whatever position your free mind takes. Does it matter? How can you ‘have’ free will? It is not a possession. If it is a trait, then who decides it exists? If that is someone else, then…… sorry, it’s not free if it can be taken away.

Step 1: Framing – How to survey the landscape ahead

Before considering any problem, frame it. Always ensure that you frame a problem before taking on any creative challenge. Without doing this, you're already lost. Framing involves zooming in on an issue at the right level. Zoom in too much and you miss something of vital importance. If you zoom out too much, you overlook important details.

Here is an example: fifty years before Columbus set sail, there was a work published that ended up stimulating most of the technological advances for the next 200 years. The effects were still being commented on 400 years later. The silicon genie is at least as significant, probably more so. Columbus helped shift the balance in social and financial circles worldwide, however it was a Polish astronomer who created an even greater shift in perspective, a shift which led to advances in options, astronomy, dynamics, gravity, mathematical physics, and so on and so on. It ultimately led to the collapse of the world’s largest ultimate authority as a political force. How is that for an example of framing?

Step 2: Finding your feet and learning to dance

Without solid ground, nothing else matters. I have argued that thinking is not my friend. Not my enemy, not my friend. The aim of thinking is…more thinking and what creates those thoughts will throw anything and everything into the pot in a fit of desperation and anxiety to keep thinking going.

Here is another metaphor. What if the space in your head was like two vast cities, separated by an extremely narrow bridge? In each vast megapolis, there are millions of neighbourhoods that require energy, a liquid environment, waste disposal and so on. Each neighbourhood would need to differentiate itself in a bid to capture more energy and better services. Some neighbourhoods specialise in processing inputs from different senses.

See where I am going? It is just a metaphor, not fact, not science. Yet it has helped me enormously because now I see each neighbourhood as being a constant tug between persisting and playing nice. To specialise and be better at a given task than any other neighbourhood, but not so much that the overall service breaks down. It then becomes possible to ‘feed’ and nurture each sense separately by diverting more attention to them. This can automatically help balance different areas. It helps explain how areas can take over different specialities over time, how areas shrink and grow based on usage.

Who or what would call the shots in that case? My bet is on the invisible nudges that impact us from moment to moment. The gut feel, the rising emotion, a particular feeling. Like the beep-beep of a car reversing, or the dash indicator of going too fast or too close and so on, these invisible ‘feelings’ are conscious (by definition), but only when we go outside a ‘balanced’ state. The big word for this is homeostasis, and it is an autonomous driving system that has navigated ever since life crawled onto land, avoiding 500 million years of predators, not to mention the previous ‘big five’ near extinctions, which wiped the slate of living creatures of all living creatures (almost) clean.

Where do these nudges originate? Surely it has to be the brain stem. I like to imagine it as a DJ with a vast slider deck, with every beat and every breath being managed as an orchestra. To achieve a state of balance (homeostasis), the body defines "good" as moving closer to home base and "bad" as getting closer to the edge – like Scotty in Star Trek. This description I take from Mark Solms book, which is one of the major books referenced in the essential reading list on the website (hit the QR code to subscribe).

This is just a metaphor, one that has taken me personally from being a dried up retired old man to one that has burst into life and love and energy all over again. All I had to do was to line up with that metaphor, shut up, drop every single belief that no longer served, and get out of my own way. It just works.

This is why it is so important to get a feel for who or what you really are. Not your thoughts. Those pre-conscious thoughts (I call them ‘braindrops’) come from one small group of neighbourhoods encased within the skull. No other neighbourhood uses thought as a raw material. Other neighbourhoods process images or smell, or touch or whatever. The only intercommunication across neighbourhoods are neuron beats and whatever mix of chemicals that DJ brainstem assembles. These rhythms are not independent of each other. DJ brainstem alters the chemical mix based on the neighbourhood firing patterns, and vice versa, So there can be widespread effects.

Thought arises from a neighbourhood that is unconsciously incompetent. The neighbourhood selects a braindrop from billions of pre-conscious variations, any candidate which matches the grammar of the day. That is its function. Consciousness only becomes a factor after that selection. Therefore, I clearly say that thought is not your friend, any more than cigarettes or alcohol are. Thought is not your enemy, either. Some braindrops push your buttons, change the local mix of chemicals, and DJ brainstem has a job to bring them all back into balance.

Because it is DJ brainstem that nudges and hints and slows down and speeds up what you do, who nudges toward being inside or outside, with people or things and so on. It literally is a veteran of 500 million years of survival campaigns that is nudging your unique combination of 500 trillion cells to your next breath. Totally new.

These are just metaphors that work for me. Each helps me get out of my own way, to avoid getting involved in an internal row. This allows my DJ brainstem to work closely with the silicon genie while this miracle unfolds as I try, try and try again to get out of my own way.

Right now, you may think, ‘what about my career, the ladder, feed my family’ and so on? This is the wall I scratched my mark on, like solitary confinement, day after day. The next section goes into the ways I got out of that prison cell, using three sets of exercises. I feel as if I am right side up, with a clear navigation path and capable of fluent communication in the emerging world. It is not my natural habitat yet, but it’s getting there. It is now at the stage where I look forward to more and more and more folks waking up and turning up.

One last look at the brain neighbourhoods floating on tidal streams of DJ chemical messages. What base camp would they fit into?

- Unconsciously incompetent: An example of this would be random braindrops that are produced but never get the limelight of awareness shone upon them. There could be trillions of these ‘pre-thoughts’ that form and disappear in the fog beneath awareness.

- Consciously incompetent: This could be a hint or an intuition that something needs to change.

- Consciously competent: like taking the breathing wheel for a while for some ‘relaxation’ exercise to try box breathing or Qigong exercises. Many years ago, I was in a tai chi class where we did not breathe for over 5 minutes. Each movement lifted or dropped the rib cage and allowed breathing to happen with no effort, conscious or otherwise. It was utterly terrifying for a few years until the habit just clicked. Just once. It was good enough to last a lifetime.

- Unconsciously competent: where you have effortless flight and are singing in your own voice. You have the skills you need. There are parts of the ‘old brain’ that sense and regulate millions upon millions of processes within, from blood pressure to heartbeat to (I am not at all medical, so I shall shut up here).

Let us not even mention the thousands of species of bacteria that survive on and inside each of us. They do not have identical DNA to you as their host, but their number of DNA-enabled cells probably outnumbers yours. They inhabit your body and without them, you would not be here. Then there are the unconsciously competent systems whirring away millions of times per second that keep trillions of processes humming along. That’s about 99.99999% of all activity and energy transfers that happen beneath our skin. What about the brain neighbourhoods? We can regard only a minute fraction as consciously competent. Measurement after measurement has come up with the same result: the energy and processing capacity used by consciousness has similar energy consumption to early mobile phones. Imagine a fly on the windscreen of the Starship Enterprise. That is about the right magnitude. So, may we all now calm down and get our framing right?

Whatever the provable truth of how we are and act and live, these metaphors help in navigation. It gives a clearer view of WHAT is being navigated and how delusional most of the output of thought and rationality really is.

And now there is the silicon genie. With our framing done, let’s look at how that may play out.

Step 3: Learning to thrive

It’s time to get practical. What are the specific skills that are essential now and in the future? How to make a living, how to thrive? We know the basic rules (Aviate, Navigate, Communicate), our travel outfit is ready, our bags are packed, and we have identified our strengths (identity, competency, borders).

The crunch question: ‘how to earn more, live better, thrive longer?’. It has been a long journey to get here. A total head wreck. Eventually the answer arrived, it came out of nowhere.

I was asking the wrong question. Or rather, I was launching the question from the wrong place. A scary, stinky place called fear. Back to my 20th century viewpoint. Fear was so embedded in every neighbourhood in my dark and silent skull that it was invisible. Not trauma or massive headline stuff, just ever present, low level, exposed and lonely stinky fear. Of course, fear is useful, it sits at the crossroads between the need to persist versus play nice. The point is not about the value of fear; it is about who chooses my path, me, or fear? Who is driving this bus?

Once I got a feel for who was asking and where the question was coming from, the answer came in loud and clear. You want to be authentic? Pick a path. Own it. Then live it.

Back to the story I alluded to in the foreword to the book. What happened to me is that I saw that giant of a man again, a giant I loved and looked up to. He was demonstrating the exercise in trust. I saw him fall back with a slight smile and arms wide, only to crack his head on the tiled floor. I see it again and again. The shocked looks, the nervous giggles, it was bound to happen, wasn't it? At the time I believed I knew what to do: move away, never rest, never be open, avoid this feeling whatever the cost.

Yet life goes on, as did he, and as do I. There are lessons to be learned for sure – but deciding who you are based on a single experience is not the way to live better and thrive longer. What if the falling back in trust was the action to focus on, not the landing? To be who you truly are, without lies or excuses? What if there is no landing? What if there is only freefall?

The answer left me breathless and panicked. It was so shocking, so liberating. What a revelation. Since that time, fear is still around, the same as everything else is still around. So what? Actions and questions now come from a completely different source. Since then, there are few questions really. Pretty much everything is quiet inside. Silent as in the seashore, not silent as in a snow-covered night.

Now all I see are creators, curators, and conductors everywhere. I see totally open software tools and plug-ins popping up everywhere, like flowers after a torrential desert downpour. It is easier and easier to make music, art, animations, books, photorealistic images – pick your style.

What about earning a living? That is my point. The collaboration tools now popping up like hot popcorn will become business-friendly soon. Work practices will not strengthen – they will ossify and fossilise.

What I use today to design an extendable house for gaming engines or animations will soon add another plug-in – one that checks local regulations for safety and green living. Suddenly the free toy is approaching a commercial design-grade use. The fun online game creator will add a plug-in that prints and signs a binding agreement. The online role play engine will become a graduate physics certification, a chemistry major, a biology course. Learn by building – and have fun doing it.

It can be used by anyone who uses gaming or entertainment systems today. It will be more familiar to the end-user client than it will be to the professional architect. It all starts as a toy that is super convenient and engaging and fun to build because it has been built by someone who has an authentic love of their craft – and yes, who gets by on a pay-per-use basis. It will upend entire industries. Factories, supply chain networks, insurance and risk modelling are just the start.

This requires innate ability to learn by doing, to check the facts and work on internal beliefs that no longer apply. The biggest distraction in the future will not be internal distractions and triggers. It may not be external social media. It is somewhere in between. Becoming indistractible will mean being able to productively work alongside genie without disappearing down a prompting rabbit hole. Education and rote learning cannot provide these skills, Education needs to be re-engineered from the ground up, or parents will simply remove their children from the system. Local groups will setup custom built genie schools to give their dependents what they actually need: An education in how to be Authentic. This is already starting to happen in small ad-hoc groups as after-school experiments. It will become a global trend in a most unexpected way. Existing education systems are self-healing, opposing any form of change and will not be fit for purpose in the long term. When I look at traditional education, all I see now is the Jaws poster – a nemesis approaching from below. This is a vast subject that is changing daily so go to the site for up-to-date newsletters and analysis. Having been a lecturer myself I really hope I am wrong. Right now, I cannot see how.

KEEP LEARNING

Do NO end up being one of ‘the Surprised’ – Things are going to get VERY weird

And welcome aboard

People or companies who are looking around for guidance on who to be like need to look to the playpen – to the world of infinite games and toys, not some enhancement or prosthetic or productivity improver. Just like Jaws, the future will emerge from the deep and terrify the ‘bejeebers’ out of those who are not paying attention.

I felt permanently frozen by anxiety for what seemed forever. It can take a very long time to see what was right in front of me all the time. In a world of infinite games (go look it up), there is no winner takes all. You know the basic rules (Aviate, Navigate, Communicate), you want to develop your strengths (identity, competency, borders). The answer is to engage every physical and mental sense you have because you cannot think your way out of this one. It will help to keep the energy flows across your neighbourhoods more even, help to establish a more stable tidal pattern for your DJ brainstem, and bring the game to your home turf – and not to some exotic productivity Silicon hack where you have zero chance of competing.

The more I work across different platforms and silicon genies, I see the same groupings. The pace of innovation and the quality of what is being produced are both eye and ear popping.

1) Creator: used to deliver something new and entirely original.

2) Curator: used by those with deep love and deep domain knowledge to maintain clarity, provenance, and proof of sources, to prune weeds within a specialist area. Deep and abiding love of a domain is the key.

3) Conductor: used to maintain boundaries and borders, and ensure we deliver as promised to an agreed standard.

These truths are almost too simple to understand. However, re-discovering what you really love is not easy. That is what the navigation and challenge exercises are for. By focusing on how you express yourself, you can recast any role into one of these categories.

So, why bother? Because these roles will eventually scale across multiple industries and environments. Rather than work in a booth for a company against all competitors in the endless struggle to roll up that hill, the balance will shift to make it easier and easier for your unique talent to be re-used across multiple clients, using the tools being used today for entertainment creation.

It is your responsibility to get to the crossroads and choose an authentic existence. To choose personal growth in the new world is all about real-time, collaborative creation.

It’s time for a break to review the trip so far, the key points, and to look at questions and objections. Then on to your challenge.

Summary

The central message of this book is that AI disruption will result in a merger, not an implant or a resource to be farmed, owned, and rented out. It is as controllable as the weather. The potential for ownership is about the same. I retired the AI acronym and used the term genie throughout, as it stresses the need for careful, disciplined dialogue and implies some form of meeting as equals. Not equals as in same-as or as-good-as. This is no winner takes all finite game. It is an infinite game that expands and never ends.

Consider it a mental merger. On a good day, this means some form of expanded mental capability, on a bad day AI is perceived as a deadly threat – because it threatens what humans have believed is true for millennia: that humanity is in any way special. ‘I think therefore I am’ is simply not so. It is no more special than ‘I breathe therefore I am’.

Here is what you will master as you put this book into practice:

- Understanding why this disruption is different from any other and what to do about that.

- How to use AI as a genie, partner, mentor, and guide.

- Why Rule #1 of genie school is the most important. Be very careful what you wish for.

- Living without fear: Discovering what senses make you unique, and using them to the max.

- The secrets of how to navigate by instinct and avoid the productivity trap.

- Constantly developing a growth mindset with habits that help you earn more every day.

The key to Earn More, Live Better, and Thrive Longer is no secret. It involves navigation and disciplined practice. Much of the book is an extended introduction on why this is more important now than at any other time.

Much time was spent labouring Rule #1 of genie school: ‘be careful what you wish for’.

The only way forward is by being authentic, which means meeting fear at a crossroads and actively deciding on your path, then owning that path. Accepting full responsibility for the road travelled and what you pack along the way. Like any good fairy tale, there are always surprises lurking in your satchel or backpack. You packed it. Own it.

As soon as it is time to stand out and authentically create something in public, this will inevitably bring a crisis of confidence or identity at some point. I covered my own journey these past 12 weeks and the profound effect that deciding on Authentic Intelligence can have. I decided to join hands and fall back in trust, now and forever. I was unconsciously doing this for a long time, whether swimming way out of my depth, being where I had no business being, or flying higher and higher until the aircraft stalled and spun rapidly backwards toward cold, hard ground. Writing this book has brought me to conscious competence. It’s less dangerous than what I have been up to. I heartily recommend you doing it too before the consumer economy stalls and things flip over into the hands of creators.

The base beat throughout is to Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. To know who you are and develop confidence by steadily increasing your competence in your creative field of choice. Meanwhile, never hesitate to maintain your borders and barriers.

You must be reading this, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for tagging along.

Please leave an Amazon review, it makes a world of difference.

Also, keep in touch by subscribing via the website at the foot of the page.

Epilogue

Submitting the final version of the book has been an emotional experience to be honest, I am hooked! I am already hard at work on book two in the series. I go into much more detail on methods for interacting with the silicon genie and how I am getting along creating my own genies. What to look for, what are the pros and cons of the various approaches, and so on.

Depending on reader response, this may change. I am also considering it more like a car buyer’s guide for different professions, rather than an owner’s manual. No techno babble or hard sums, just a ‘what genie’ guide that anyone in a specific workspace or career can benefit from.

Please subscribe below if you wish to get advance copies for review and feedback – as a paltry human I can only handle around 20 interactions so by all means get your request in early!

Please leave a book review – an authentic review – Every review makes a huge difference. Do it now perhaps?

Do NOT end up being one of ‘the Surprised’ – …. Find your Authentic Intelligence now

Do NOT end up being one of ‘the Surprised’ – …. Find your Authentic Intelligence now

Summaries, courses, essays, worksheets – all on the website.

Table of Contents

(Untitled)

Foreword

Genie Rule #1…. Be VERY careful what you wish for.

Top Tip: You need to Play Nice.

Why listen to me?

Overview

What will not change?

Where you are going

Learning to navigate

Step 0: Trust no one

Step 1: Framing – How to survey the landscape ahead

Step 2: Finding your feet and learning to dance

Step 3: Learning to thrive

Summary

Epilogue