AI Won't Replace You. Your Single Income Stream Will.

The Shift

This video & article is for you if you're worried about AI replacing your job or your current business.

It's a hot topic. I get emails and messages all the time, sensationalized articles from X, from Substack, about the wave that's coming and all the negativity around what AI is going to do for jobs. Moats around businesses collapsing because of this ever-changing landscape.

I want to talk about the model I've dialed in for myself, seeing this coming. And then towards the end, why it's maybe not quite as bad as people are making it out to be.

What I Think Is Coming

If your entire job or business is built off repetitive computer-based tasks, you're going to feel it. It can simply be done faster, more effectively.

The consulting work I used to do in New York, charging millions of dollars for slide presentations and financial modeling, all of that is going to get massively disrupted.

Dependence on one income stream, with the cost of living increasing and the vulnerability of any single source, is going to be a real risk. You're going to need diversification.

In business, what may have been a moat before, a 12-month, 24-month, even 3-year head start, has been and will continue to be aggressively collapsed.

I think we're going to see a shift from the specialist to the generalist. A lot of specializations involve repetition of a refined task that can rapidly be replaced.

Whereas someone who can marshal resources, see the big picture, lead people, integrate people with technology, someone with the mental bandwidth and clarity to be really creative, to identify problems in markets and reverse engineer a clear path to bring solutions to life, I think those are the people who are going to thrive.

An Era of Builders

I've got two young boys. They're under three right now. But this is the world they're heading into.

My partner and I have stopped saying 'dad is going to work.' We say 'dad is building.'.

We think this is going to be an era of builders. People combining people and resources. It's not about how many hours you work, but about the vision can you create it and bring the people and resources together to make it real.

The Model

What this has created for me is what I call the Quiet Empire model. I think pretty much anybody can deploy it. It solves a lot of these problems.

It's got multiple income streams, diversification that hedges against income concentration risk.

It's got space and capacity to pursue creativity, to pursue what you're passionate about.

It's got compounding and a flywheel built in, when one part gets stronger, all the other parts improve.

And it's got a brand component, so you can share your journey and further fuel the whole thing.

Four moving parts:

One: the automated expert business. An online business that draws on your knowledge and experience. For me, that's Caris Digital. It runs with ads, emails, YouTube. A $2,000 Academy at the core. It gets your name out there constantly, grows a list, generates customers and clients. And it brings you interesting people aligned to your experience.

Pretty much every day I wake up to people filling out a 30-question form. I can look at each one and think, is there an opportunity to work together more closely? Consulting, revenue share, partnership. It's a machine that runs. A deal container. A relationship builder.

Two: the sandbox. I call this Caris Capital. Partnerships, consulting, revenue share deals in different capacities. It achieves diversification. It lets me explore interests and get exposure to different industries without fully launching a business. I've got eight projects in there right now. Who knows, one could become significant, could replace the core business. In times of uncertainty, you want that diversification. And with AI leverage, you've got the capacity to take on different projects.

Seven out of eight of those projects came through the first arm of the business. Interesting conversations, interesting people.

Three: offline investments. Caris Investments. Real estate, stocks, options trading. This is where the cash flow, connections, and experience ultimately flow. Additional income streams. Long-term optionality. A nest egg if things slow down.

Four: personal brand. This is optional, but I highly recommend it if you've got any desire to share and document. Creating content about what you find interesting. Slowly accumulating your people who are building something similar.

I have a hypothesis about where the creator economy is shifting, from people who think and just talk to people who are actually doing, building, and documenting. This model lets you get ahead of that. Set up the arms, then simply document and share the ride. More exposure, more relationships, more connections feeding back into the other three areas.

Why It's Maybe Not As Scary

Whenever there's a big shift in any market, and AI is going to be one of the most significant we've seen, there's always the obvious stuff that comes up first.

Copywriters see every month that AI can produce what used to take them hours. That's visceral and real and scary.

But what takes more time in any of these shifts, and you can go back through history and find examples again and again, is that with this change, it always gives rise to new industries, new opportunities.

The economy is expanding. It's not like because that copywriter can't do that thing, there's nothing else for them and they're reduced to irrelevancy. The rise of the technology and everything that comes off it will unlock 5x, 10x more opportunity than just the copywriting task on its own. And then the things that gives birth to will give birth to more things.

The newer opportunities, the bigger opportunities, the second, third, fourth-order opportunities, they follow. They might be quieter. You might have to do a bit more digging than the obvious, terrifying 'holy shit, I'm being replaced' that we see every day.

Fear is a powerful motivator. I'm a marketer, I know that better than most. It gets clicks, it gets attention. But stay calm.

Think about what's going to be valuable in this new landscape. What's going to be eliminated. Look at your skill sets, your passions, your interests. Build a model that gives you space to be curious, to explore what you're passionate about, to tap into your knowledge using AI and leverage and media to automate so it's working for you.

Use the power of media and ads to get your name out there, building relationships 24/7 at scale.

All it takes is one connection with the right person to change your life.

But that can't happen if you don't have a model, aren't putting yourself out there, sharing the ride, experimenting, being the mad scientist, documenting what you're doing.

You can look at this from a fear perspective or an opportunity perspective.

Only one of them is going to help you succeed.

More as I keep building.

JC