I ran a session for my team two days ago. The 1st of the month. I told them how to think with AI — give it context, it can't read your mind. Most of them are ESL, English somewhere between rough and bad. So I proposed an English-only challenge for the month. I told them straight: work will slow down. Vocabulary will hurt. But once you can put your thoughts in English, the speed comes back and stays.
They clapped. A few came up and congratulated me. Good session, sir.
The next day, not one soul spoke English. The ones who could speak it well spoke their native language too — because otherwise nobody understood them. By lunch the challenge was dead. Not broken. Just never started.
And the clap is what stayed with me — because I've seen that clap before. It's the same gesture as a like on a motivational reel. Millions of likes, millions of subscribers, and how many of them are actually moving? The clap and the like pass for participation. They feel like the first step. They're not. They're the thing people do instead of the step.
My first reaction was the obvious one. Laziness. No drive. I'd handed them something good for them — not me, not the company — and they nodded and dropped it.
Here's the deal I was actually offering. Learn the shortcuts. The thing that takes ten clicks, do it in two and a prompt. You get faster. Faster means less workload — no overtime, no calls at home when you're with your family. And it shows up in your appraisal, because we don't just count hours here. Every term of that deal favors them.
And they still won't take it.
That's the part I kept circling. Not "why won't they work harder." Why won't they take a deal where every term is in their favor.
I had an answer ready: some people just choose "enough." Fine where they are. Rather go home, scroll, watch their series, take the drive, do the trip. And I tried to tell myself that's a fair choice. Their life, their call. But every time I said it, I didn't believe it. The respect never reached the gut. I'd nod at "enough is valid" and still walk away thinking less of them for it.
I know the counter. Everyone's life has problems. Problems that make a motivational speech feel like air for a few days and then let you sink right back. And I don't think the answer is try harder. I think it's change the angle. You don't climb a hill on road tires and call the hill impossible. You get offroad tires. You tune the engine. You come at it from a different line. Most people who say "I tried for ten years and nothing changed" tried the same wrong way for ten years. The problem isn't the climb. It's the refusal to attack it differently.
But the part that actually got me is the guy I'm proudest of.
I hired a fresher about a year ago. First four months were rough — slower, worse, finding his footing. Then it clicked. Now he barely needs me. Researches the way I research, uses AI better than half the room, levels up on his own. And he isn't the climber I pictured. He goes out. Trips, drives, life. He's not saving any of it for later. He focuses while he's working and enjoys the leveling up instead of treating it as a tax.
That broke my whole frame.
Because I'd split everyone into two camps — the ones who climb and the ones who live. The clappers live now and skip the climb. And me? I climb now and shelved the living for some later stage. Save the fun for when I've made it.
He doesn't split it at all. He lives and he climbs. No deferral in either direction.
So the post I started to figure out my employees ended up catching me. They defer the climb to protect a life they're living now. I defer the life to fund a climb I keep promising I'll cash in later. He's the only one in the building who isn't deferring anything.
I resented them for being unbalanced one way. I never noticed I was unbalanced the other.
And if you're wondering why a critical take on myself comes easier to me than any pep talk — it's because the only thing I've ever trusted is the input that costs me something to hear.
So I'm changing my climb into his. Work only as much as it needs. Enjoy the rest — now, not at some finish line I keep moving back.
This blog is the first move. I don't even have a clean reason for starting it — it's just where things land now, this post included. Maybe that's the point. I spent years saving the good stuff for later. This is me not waiting.
Turns out the guy I hired to learn from me taught me the one thing I'd been getting wrong the whole time.