Michael Gardon

I turn stuck corporate pros into world class entrepreneurs. | Ex corporate innovation | Ex derivatives trader | Ex startup founder

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

My 9 year old was fine on Thursday - laughing, running, joking.
Then he wasn't.

He got sick on Friday - just another virus we thought.

Saturday he woke up talking complete gibberish to us - "get to the ER" we thought.

11 hours in the ER, and he was getting worse:
- Delirium
- Hallucinations
- Then seizures

Sunday - 30 electrodes strapped to his skull. Neuro surgery was consulted.
We came very close to intubating him and having a drain put into his skull.
Thankfully it didn't come to that.

Graham got viral encephalitis - an infection from a common virus that went to his brain and put pressure on his neurons.

He's turned a major corner, and its now day 12 of being in the hospital away from his brothers, friends and dog, Koda.

He is better, and will continue to get better, but slowly.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to help and offer prayers.
Thank you for understanding my absence and quiet from your lives.

Here is a page I put up so anyone can follow along as he recovers: https://t.co/pdn4ciSAG7

Hug your kids, and of course, Light that fire!

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

To deal with uncertainty of AI layoffs or the drudgery of corporate work,

you don’t need one idea. You need 3 options you can execute in unison:

1. Network hard for new opportunity.

Your network is a huge optionality layer

2. Create a consulting business from what you already do (get one client)

Don’t over complicate it. One problem. One person. One point of view.

Use networking conversations to probe for pain and offer help.

3. Build a passion project (fast with AI)

This is arguably the most important IMO. Do something that feels good. Something on your mind that you’ve avoided because you’ve discounted it or you haven’t had time. You’ll feel better, productive and gain a new perspective on what you can do.

Here’s the best part:

You actually can do all of this with the AI assist.

I can tell you from experience that I am doing things I’ve never done (slinging code!) and my creativity, worth and impact are off the charts.

If you need help, or just want to talk, I’m here to listen.

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

New on the stack: What does 12 year old baseball have to do with AI?

It's nuts how much one perspective shift can change a trajectory.
This is my battle with AI.

Once I started coaching it to learn, my life got so much easier.

https://t.co/NAXeViHkgN

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

My hat finally made it to the College World Series.
But I didn't :(

CWS is a bucket list item for me, which always seems to get deferred.

But a friend/client got to go and so I was there in spirit!

Next year, we'll be there Omaha!

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

The raise came in at 3.4%.

I remember the year I finally understood what that number actually meant.

It wasn't a measure of my work.

It was a measure of how much leverage I had, which was close to none.

I didn't set my price. My title wasn't mine, it was leased. The hours I traded for both were valued by a budget I never saw.

Three things I thought I owned. My time, my identity, the price of my work. I'd handed over all three and called it a career.

Getting them back is the whole game. Not quitting in a blaze. Just taking back one lever at a time until the equation is yours again.

I did it first by building a business that is MINE - while working.

Then systems to keep owning (and yes, AI is a huge part of it now)

Light that fire,

Mike

PS. I work with senior operators on exactly this. Two doors: Compound if you're building the independent practice, Exec AI if you want to lever up lean with AI. DM me and I'll point you to the right one.

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

We’re at a critical inflection point in the labor force that is going to trap a lot of people.

Most people who feel job loss coming will do one thing: look for another job.

But to deal with uncertainty, you don’t need one path, you need OPTIONS.

Every person in that boat needs 3 things:

1. A strong network: to make spontaneous collisions possible.
2. A side income (consulting): as a high odds offramp
3. A passion project: to unleash creativity and upside

All are doable in unison when you protect your time and learn the right tools.

Light that fire,

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

All your frustration with bosses, beurocrocy, layoffs and AI are just symptoms of something bigger:

Your lack of options.

Your disbelief in your ability to port your value somewhere else.

And your in ability to envision what is possible.

Most gurus will tell you to use AI (and they’re not wrong),

but you have to control something even more valuable: your time.

Until you make time to consider your options, nothing will move.

The answer is Just Leave Me Alone So I Can Work.

https://t.co/0oiSoRQXup

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

The career you can see all of at once feels safe. The one you can't feels risky. But visible and safe were never the same thing.

A path you can explain in one sentence rests all its weight on a single direction. Lose that direction and the whole thing goes.

A path that's harder to narrate spreads the bet. More surfaces. More ways to adapt. More room when the ground moves.

We've been trained to trust what looks orderly. Even when it's the fragile option.

When you see a career as linear, every move feels consequential and every deviation feels costly.

When you see it as modular, the pressure eases. And the question changes.

Not "Should I leave?"

But "What's actually fixed here, and what isn't?"

That question doesn't demand an answer. It opens space.

And for most people, that space is where they finally start choosing the path instead of just explaining it.

Light that fire,

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

Most people think career change is binary: stay exactly where you are, or torch it and start from zero.

That binary only exists if you see your career as one solid thing.

It isn't. It's a collection of components.

The skills you use.

The problems you work on.

The environment you operate in.

The constraints you've accepted.

The season you're moving through.

Over time those got bundled and labeled. But the bundle was never permanent.

When you see the pieces separately, you can ask a sharper question of each one: essential, inherited, or just outdated?

Change stops being replacement. It becomes recombination.

No announcement. No permission. No certainty required.

You keep three parts, swap one, loosen another.

That's not starting over. That's editing.

Light that fire,

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

If you're an executive and struggling to figure out how to use AI well
use this reframe:

You just hired the smartest person you've ever met,
but they need to be babysat.

Tons of questions:
where's this?
where's that?
how do you want this?

It can be frustrating.

But the good news:

No emotions + and they work exclusively to make YOU better

No agenda
No time off requests
No "pay me or I'm going elsewhere"

The struggle is real, but worth it.

If you want to unlock the power of AI so you can work less, and make better decisions with everything handled, DM me IN and I'll shoot you details on my cohort starting in July.

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

For most of my career, I believed I had exactly two options: stay on the path I was on, or blow it all up and start over.

Climb the ladder, or jump off.

Commit, or quit.

Those felt like the only choices, because that's how careers get presented to us.

Pick a direction.

Build expertise.

Get promoted.

Advance.

Step sideways and it reads as failure. Or, generously, "exploration."

So I didn't step sideways. I kept climbing. Even when I wasn't sure the wall was mine.

What took me years to see: the two-options menu was the trap. Not the job.

A career isn't one decision you either honor or betray. It's a collection of parts. The skills you use. The problems you work on. The people around you. The constraints you've accepted.

They got bundled together and labeled "a career." They don't have to stay bundled.

You're not stuck choosing between loyalty and detonation.

You can edit. One part at a time.

Light that fire,

MikeFor most of my career, I believed I had exactly two options: stay on the path I was on, or blow it all up and start over.

Climb the ladder, or jump off.

Commit, or quit.

Those felt like the only choices, because that's how careers get presented to us.

Pick a direction.

Build expertise.

Get promoted.

Advance.

Step sideways and it reads as failure. Or, generously, "exploration."

So I didn't step sideways. I kept climbing. Even when I wasn't sure the wall was mine.

What took me years to see: the two-options menu was the trap. Not the job.

A career isn't one decision you either honor or betray. It's a collection of parts. The skills you use. The problems you work on. The people around you. The constraints you've accepted.

They got bundled together and labeled "a career." They don't have to stay bundled.

You're not stuck choosing between loyalty and detonation.

You can edit. One part at a time.

Light that fire,

MikeFor most of my career, I believed I had exactly two options: stay on the path I was on, or blow it all up and start over.

Climb the ladder, or jump off.

Commit, or quit.

Those felt like the only choices, because that's how careers get presented to us.

Pick a direction.

Build expertise.

Get promoted.

Advance.

Step sideways and it reads as failure. Or, generously, "exploration."

So I didn't step sideways. I kept climbing. Even when I wasn't sure the wall was mine.

What took me years to see: the two-options menu was the trap. Not the job.

A career isn't one decision you either honor or betray. It's a collection of parts. The skills you use. The problems you work on. The people around you. The constraints you've accepted.

They got bundled together and labeled "a career." They don't have to stay bundled.

You're not stuck choosing between loyalty and detonation.

You can edit. One part at a time.

Light that fire,

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

I left corporate life in 2018.

If I had to do it all over again today, here's exactly what I'd do.

In 2018 I grappled with so much anxiety:

What do I do?

How am I useful?

What do I like and dislike?

How will I put food on the table?

Endless options.

I literally built an entire system by hand called Advantage Mapping just to quell the chaos in my head BEFORE I build a business.

Today you basically have a synthesizer in your pocket. So here’s what I’d do:

1. Learn AI, well.

2. Use AI to automate as much of my work as possible so I can be left alone to think about my future.

3. Dump everything about me into it. Literally everything. Ask it to help me figure out my advantages.

4. Use those advantages to start a consulting business (the simplest path)

5. Get my first client while keeping my job.

6. Capture everything you’re building in AI. This isn’t about productivity. It’s about building a compounding system that makes a 1 person consulting business not feel like you’re alone doing everything.

If this hits, you have 3 paths actually.

1. Learn AI well for executive decision making. DM me IN to get the details on my cohort.
2. DM me COMPOUND to get a free diagnostic on exactly where you’re at with your consulting business plans.
3. If you're completely lost on what to do next, DM me ADVANTAGE to get access to my Advantage Mapping System (now in AI)

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

Your company is training AI on how you work.
That's AI for them.

Here's how to make it work for you,
and become the most dangerous person walking your halls

https://t.co/0b80dDupbx

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

@eCom_Amin Mcp

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

@Zephyr_hg News

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

@AlfieJCarter Outreach

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

@mikefutia Trends

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

@johnvirality South

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

You don't owe anyone a straight line.

Resumes reward clean narratives.

Interviews reward coherence.

Every social signal says upward motion equals competence.

So you learn to present your path as a straight line. Even when it wasn't.

You smooth over the gaps.

Everything gets arranged to look intentional and progressive.

Because that's what the system understands.

But making your path easy to explain has a cost.

Every time you optimize for a story other people can follow, you give up the freedom to change it. You trade range for a clean sentence.

And a path built to be explained is a path built to stay the same.

Light that fire,

Mike

[Michael Gardon @GardonofAble]

If you're and exec worried about AI eating your job,
there's something you need to seriously consider:

Here's the thing, your career -

Everything you do, have done, can do

It's all portable. Modular.

We don't know how the future will turn out,
but we do know AI is a huge part of it.

So there's only one path:

Use it.

Not like "oh, I wrote an email with Chat GPT."
But like seriously invest in how to operate with it.

You see most people think of AI as automation of a workflow.
But the real power (in my experience) is as a supercharger to executive function:

Making higher quality decisions at a faster speed.
That's your entire job in a nutshell.

What's on the table?
What are the stakes?
What information do I need?
What context?
How do I communicate it?

If you use AI like this, you'll be able to port your career no matter what happens.

AND, you'll learn a helluva lot about automation and productivity that will blow your mind.
(I'm doing things I never imagined I'd be capable of doing)

Light that fire,

Mike

𝗣.𝗦. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜, 𝗜'𝗺 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆. 𝗗𝗠 𝗺𝗲 "𝗜𝗻" 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁.