The Six Habits Of High‑Performing AI Era Professionals

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Today’s job market feels like a jobless boom — productivity is rising, yet opportunities feel more fragile than ever. In this episode, Dr. Jon Finn explains why that’s happening and reveals how two very different species of AI are reshaping work.

Discover how agentic AI automates routine, low-value tasks — while generative AI acts as a powerful force multiplierfor human expertise. We unpack the snowmobile metaphor to show how professionals can accelerate performance by mastering the six habits that create genuine Human + AI advantage.

You’ll learn:

• How agentic AI automates low-value work
• Why generative AI amplifies expert impact
• The snowmobile metaphor for human-AI capability
• Why Brain State and habits determine ROI
• How top firms move beyond licences to results
• The Six Habits of High-Performing AI-Era Professionals

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
Hello, Habit Mechanics, Dr.
John Finn here.
I hope you're having a greatweek so far.
We are excited to see so manypeople getting so many benefits
from human AI performancepsychology.
But I know there's a bit ofconcern around because we're
seeing more and more storiesabout people being displaced,

(00:25):
people's jobs being displaced byAI, and it's real.
We've been talking about thisall year since reports like the
World Economic Forum, uh Jobsfor Future report came out, some
of the big predictions from umbanks like JP Morgan, etc.
And what we're now starting tosee is the workplace being

(00:47):
disrupted, real uh roles that upuntil now have only ever been
done by humans are beingreplaced or being they're being
uh done by technology, this newspecies called AI.

(01:10):
We've seen Amazon have laid offfourteen thousand people, umce
are saying they've actuallyhalved their workforce, and
they've been pioneering many AItechnologies for a number of
years.
Uh, we're seeing the stagnationin the job market.

(01:35):
Um the the economic economistsare talking about the jobless
boom because uh businesses aremaking profits are up, but
they're not hiring people, andthis will not be going away, but
it's not a doomsday scenario ifyou understand what's going on,

(01:57):
because there are lots of thingsyou can do about it.
So I want to add a bit ofclarity in this podcast.
If you've been listening toother podcasts, hopefully you've
already got some peace of mind.
But I want to go a little bitdeeper today and just talk about
what are businesses actuallydoing, what roles are they

(02:18):
actually replacing, and how canyou use AI to accelerate your
professional abilities so thatyou become irreplaceable at
work, you become unstoppable,and you actually um are also
empowered to thrive in your lifemore generally.

(02:42):
So I believe AI is the biggestopportunity for human health,
happiness, and performance thatwe've had in modern history.
But I know it can be scary ifyou don't properly understand

(03:03):
it.
I speak to many people about AIevery day, people who are
sometimes called experts, peoplewho are uh just wanting to learn
more about things, and thebiggest bugbearer of mine is
that people just talk about AIas if it's one thing, it's not

(03:24):
one thing, it's two core thingsneural network AI.
One part of neural network AI,or one uh core product, if you
like, is agentic AI, and youwill already be using some
agentic AIs in your workflows.
The example that I like isCalendly, which is a calendar

(03:45):
booking app.
So instead of if someone wantsto have a meeting with me or I
want to have a meeting withthem, instead of us going back
and forth to try to agree atime, I can just send my then my
calendarly link, or they canjust send me their calendar
booking link, and we can seeeach other's availability, we
can pick a time that we want,put your details in, that that

(04:09):
that time then automaticallygets booked into our into our
calendar, and then on the day ofthe the meeting, something pops
up in my system, and I justpress on the link and I can get
into a Zoom call or a Teams callor whatever with that person.
That's a good example, and Ithink agentic AI, think of it,
it's like a self-driving car orlike uh a robot taxi, and they

(04:33):
they are coming as well.
Um, and in fact, they arealready here in some parts of
the world, but um it's thistechnology neural network AI
technology that can dorepetitive tasks autonomously,
and it's getting increasinglysmart, and those um agents they

(04:57):
can now start to work in teams.
Um, so you get teams of agentsworking together.
The other type, the other mainspecies.
So if you think of them as twocore species, uh one is agentic,
the the other core species isgenerative AI.

(05:18):
That's things like Copilot andChat GTP and Claude, and many
businesses are now rolling outtheir own sector specific, or
even the ones that they've builtthemselves.
So one of our clients has builttheir own agenciai, it's cost
them about 200 uh milliondollars, uh, and they are not
unique.

(05:39):
And generative AI is notautonomous, it needs human
input.

SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
And the metaphor that I like to use is it's like
a snowmobile and to get goodutility from the generative AI,
it needs a human to be workingwith it really well.

SPEAKER_01 (06:13):
So I'm sure most people who are listening to this
um podcast have used some formof generative AI, and you've
used it to varying degrees.
When you use it in yourhigh-charge brain state where
you're really motivated, andyou're working with it in a

(06:34):
subject you know a lot about, itit can double, treble,
quadruple, and even more you.
It's like um augmenting yourselfso that literally in what you

(06:55):
used to be able to achieve in aday, just working with your own,
just using your own brain, thatold-fashioned way of doing
things, just working with yourown brain, by working with the
generative AI now, you candouble, quadruple even more.
I think I see that you canactually do you can 7x yourself

(07:18):
if you get this right every day,but that can't happen if you're
hungover or you've got brain fogor you're really tired, or
you're working with it in asubject area that you're not an
expert at.
Um it's not magic, it's almostlike uh a generalist expert

(07:40):
consultant that knows more aboutmost things than we ever will,
but instead of having to pay aconsultant exorbitant
consultancy fees, then you payyour whatever it is
subscription, twenty dollars amonth or something, and every
day you can, as a minimal,double, treble, quadruple your

(08:05):
output, but it's not magic, youneed your brain to be working
well.
Um I'm gonna come back onto theuh the generative AI in a
second.
What's happening in mostbusinesses now is where the big

(08:26):
gains are being made are with agenetic AI, where they are able
to what what they are doing iswhen you hear these numbers of
people being laid off or peoplebeing replaced or businesses
just not hiring anymore, theyare um automating many low value

(08:53):
tasks, and I say low value tasksbecause they previously they
were paying for those tasks tobe done, um let me say that a
different way.
So previously, sort of theaverage wage those businesses
were paying for that, um, thosetasks to be to be done that are

(09:14):
now being automated by AgenteKI, it's not the highest wage in
the business, probably not eventhe average wage in the
business, it's towards the lowerend of the wages in the
business, and you know, many ofthe jobs that are being
automated are the kind of jobsthat we would have seen in the
Western world being over beingoffshored, um, but now we can

(09:38):
use the technology to do theminstead, so that's what's
happening, and actually it'sbeen happening for quite a
while.
If you think about banking,they've used you remember neural
network AI is not brand new,it's just newly available to
most people.
What we're seeing right now,it's like neural network AI's

(09:58):
iPhone moment where everyonegets the technology in their
hands.
Big corporates have been usingthese powerful technologies for
a long time.
And if you think about banking,the way you do we do our own
banking now, it's mainly done ona mobile app on your phone, and
all those manual processes thatyou used to have to go into your
high street bank to get done foryou, they're now just done with

(10:20):
a few clicks of a button becausethey have this essentially
agentic AI running in thebackground.
So, where most businesses aregetting big success with AI is
by outsourcing fairly umlow-paid work, frankly.
That's what's happening, andthat's businesses' natural

(10:42):
tendency is to say, okay, howcan we use this type of
technology to cut costs?
And we've seen big breakthroughsin the last six months where uh
businesses have proved there'smassive utility, massive cost
savings to be made by using thistechnology.
Generative AI is a differentstory, but its potential is much

(11:07):
bigger because generative AI candouble, quadruple, and even more
businesses' top performers,businesses the most expert
employees, so instead of havingto hire four more people at

(11:31):
however much the top people aregetting paid, you can get just
one person to be doubling,quadrupling their output if they
get good at generative AI atusing it.
And remember, this is thesnowmobile, so agentic AI is
like self-driving car or a robottaxi, it needs humans to set it

(11:57):
up and get it going and to keepan eye on it, but it's fairly
autonomous in what it's doing.
Generative AI is more like anexchange, or you're having this
exchange with the with the thetechnology, with the the species
of generative AI.
And in my snowmobile metaphor,think of it as the snowmobile is

(12:18):
the generative AI.
So you buy that, and manybusinesses now have invested in
this that have invested inCopilot, uh, they've invested in
Claude, Enterprise Licenses,Chat GTP, etc.
They've built their own systems,so they've bought the
snowmobile, but that doesn'tgive you the performance
benefits that generative AI candeliver just by having the

(12:45):
software or the hardware.
The second thing you need is aninstruction manual how to use
it.
This is a bit like the theorytest.
Um, so technically, what whathow are you meant to actually
use this thing, how you're meantto actually drive the
snowmobile, what are the rules,what are the regulations.

(13:08):
The technology is veryintuitive, a bit like most
people have never had umguidance to use a smartphone,
didn't have to go to school tolearn how to use a smartphone or
do a degree or even do a course,you just learn it by using it.
Generative eye is very similar,so you don't actually need all
that much instruction, but youknow, some sectors you need a

(13:30):
bit more, so you have thattechnical training, that's the
second element, but the thirdelement, this is like the fuel
that gets the thing going andkeeps it on track in this highly
volatile world that we live in,and that's why I like the
snowmobile metaphor because it'slike you're going up this
mountain, the weather's stormy,you're going off track, the road

(13:54):
isn't clear, you don't knowwhat's coming up, you've got to
be vigilant all the time, you'vegot to be in those high-charge
brain states when you're youknow riding the snowmobile,
otherwise, it's not gonna gowell.
So the third component is thehuman, and it's the human or the
the human habits that is thekey, and this is the big thing

(14:19):
that businesses are missing.
They are missing theunderstanding that actually you
can have the tech, you can giveyour people some technical
training, but that is not goingto get you big ROIs on the
investments you've made in thetechnology.
The big return on investmentsare going to come, are they
gonna be driven by people'shabits?

(14:41):
And it's like the fuel for thefor the snowmobile, and the
habits that we need to thrive inthe AI era and to get the most
out of generative AI aredifferent to what we've seen
before, um, or the things thathigh performers have done

(15:06):
previously have become moreimportant.
And the good news is we'vefigured out what the habits are,
and we're calling these habitsthe six habits of high
performing AI era professionals,and we've created training

(15:32):
programs to make it super simplefor people to learn these six
core habits that will get there,get them brainstate intelligent
and make it really easy for themto get the most out of the
generative AI.

(15:53):
So if you want to become AIproof, if you want to thrive in
the AI era, the key is is tounderstand the six habits and to
actually build them into yourdaily life, um, and that's the
work we're doing.
So I hope that that's madethings a bit clearer for you.

(16:16):
AI is not one thing, think of itas two species agentic and
generative, and they're speciesbecause they're evolving all the
time.
Agentic AI is a bit like aself-driving car or a robot
taxi.
Yeah, you've got to set it up,but once you've set it up and
got it going, it's gonna befairly autonomous in what it
does.

(16:37):
Um, you've got to keep your eyeon it now and again, and that's
the thing that's reallydisplacing humans.
But the most, I think thebiggest opportunity in uh in the
the gener in the neural networkAI for um human health,

(17:00):
happiness, and performance isgenerative AI and also for
business's bottom lines returnon investments.
Remember, businesses have afiduciary responsibility to make
money for their shareholders, sothey are legally bound to
prioritize making um being asefficient and effective as
possible.

(17:21):
And I and what I see is that ifyou get good at driving that
snowmobile, and again, it's notabout just having the
snowmobile, it's not abouthaving the technical knowledge
like your theory test, it'sactually about having the six
core habits, the six habits ofhigh-performing uh AI era

(17:42):
professionals.
Um, and they're gonna be thefoundations of thriving in the
AI era.
So you'll hear me talking moreabout those things.
That's what we're gonna uh allthe coaching that we're doing,
all the training that we'redoing, we're gonna make those
the centrepiece.
So we have already have programsavailable if it's of interest.

(18:02):
You want to learn more aboutthose six habits of high
performing AI era professionals.
Hope that's got you thinking.
And if you just build one ofthose habits, you're gonna be in
a much better position than youare right now.
And that's why we always sayyou're only ever one brain state
habit away.