Walk Into the Ocean or Drown on the Beach
My 3.5-year-old son Luke stood at the edge of the Gulf last week, staring out at the vastness. Then he just walked straight in, fearless, curious, no hesitation. As I walked closely behind him, making sure a wave didn't take him under, I thought about a question someone asked me during my 131st keynote of the year:
"How are you planning for your youngest kid's next ten to fifteen years?"
I laughed. Not at them, at the absurdity of the question.
Planning? I can't see clearly fifteen months out, let alone fifteen years.
And neither can you.
The Uncomfortable Truth Look, I've spent three years traveling the world training over 60,000 people on how to use AI. I've delivered talks in multiple countries. I've seen the inside of boardrooms at MLB teams, NBA, Fortune 500s, Oil and Gas companies, Fire Stations, and even stood with an IndyCar team during the race. I've watched executives nod along, take notes, and then go right back to pretending the world isn't changing. They are standing on the shore hoping they won't need to go into the water, let alone learn how to swim.
I would love to give you comfort. I would love to tell you it's going to be okay, that you can plan, find the right model of AI, get settled and relax. I would love to tell you that there's a roadmap.
But there isn't.
It's all changing, morphing and what matters more than anything is your rapid level of adaptability mixed with advanced levels of teachability. I can also give you two truths. They won't necessarily make you feel better or let you rest easy. But they might help you protect your family and build a future while everyone else is still arguing about whether this is real.
Truth #1: The AI War Is Not Stopping and It Doesn't Matter
AI is not stopping. No government, no person, no single company can make it stop. Let that sink in and get past it.
China and America are at war. Not with guns. Not with bombs. Not even with espionage, though that's happening too. They're at war over speed. Who gets to Artificial Super Intelligence first? That's the whole game. The country that wins, wins everything. Total global power. Economy. Military. Security. Knowledge. Science. Everything.
You know what doesn't matter in this war? Your feelings about it. Your copyright arguments. Your political opinions about whether the left or right wing of our defective bird called America is correct. Your social media rants. Your wasted time fighting about things that AI is going to wipe out anyway. None of it matters. But you can win in the midst of it if you smartly work to master these things as fast as possible and start to train your mind to think differently.
You have one choice: use AI, or don't. Be in the future, or be left in the past.
That's it. It's truly a binary choice.
Truth #2: American Education Is Cooked
The second thing I know for certain after 131 presentations? American education, as we know it, is done. Finished. Cooked. A new model MUST BE BUILT. Someone at my 17 year old son's high school asked me last month if I get all the incessant grade notifications. I said I turned them off.
"Why?" they asked.
"Because nothing he does in his final year of high school will matter. At all. And His grades given out by people unqualified to step into the future, I view as utterly pointless."
We were already failing our kids before AI. Politics. Bureaucracy. Bathroom arguments. Book fights. The kind of friction that allows hundreds of school shootings to occur while we debate whether to install metal detectors. But now? With AI? We're not just behind, we're catastrophically behind. And our kids will suffer in the future if we don't get our heads on straight, or, to be blunt, out of our asses.
China will have over 300 million AI-native workers by 2030 because they're REQUIRING students over age six to learn AI. Meanwhile, my son is still afraid to use AI for a research paper because his teacher might accuse him of cheating. Like I said, they are unqualified. We are truly stupid for thinking we can make our kids better at anything by acting like they should not touch the most advanced tech on earth because grandma likes cursive.
And if we don't get activated in education, making sure we reinvent how kids are taught about this tech, while being human. Then.....We. Are. Cooked. America will fall behind and NEVER recover. That's not a prediction. It's a promise. I know too much at this point. Remember, I said I can't see the future. But this is a fact happening now.
I'm Not Waiting Around
After hundreds of talks this year and tens of thousands of hours of travel, I've realized something: most people are not listening. They're nodding. They're taking notes. But they're not changing. They are not trying to fix the human skills. They are not demanding that people use AI the right ways. They want shortcuts when there is real work to be done.
So I am and I will keep leading this for you.
Our youngest son Luke will not go to a traditional school. He'll be AI-homeschooled with my wife and me, in a learning pod with other kids whose parents are smart enough to see what's happening.
What I've Learned From 60,000 People Here's what I see in every single room I walk into:
The "Wait and See" Crowd - They tell me they're going to "wait and see how this plays out." They will learn a bit about ChatGPT, or Claude, enough to feel smart, but not actually develop the skill to become wise. These are the same kind of people who would have refused computers in the 80's, demanded to write a letter instead of a email in 1992, would have waited to get a website in 2003. They're the ones who "didn't need social media" in 2010. They'll be unemployed by 2027. Is that you?
The "My Job Is Safe" People - They explain to me why their role is too complex, too human, too nuanced to be automated. I've heard this from admin, HR, analytics pros, lawyers, accountants, project managers, and middle managers. They're all wrong. When I ask them their job's reason of value, they can't name it.
The "Ethical Concerns" Deflectors and the Climate Virtue Signalers - They want to have a philosophical debate about the ethics of AI while their competitors are using it to eat their lunch. Ethics matter. But you can't be ethical from the unemployment line. They also want to tell you how "concerned" they are about the energy AI uses, when they don't actually know. And they flew to the conference when I am speaking.
And then there's the group that gets it. The ones who leave my talks and immediately start implementing. They ask the hard questions. They experiment. They fail fast and iterate faster. They don't care about age or stage of a person only that the person is learning and using these tools. They are becoming a part of my community, and the future human growth HIVE that will rise.
Those people? They're going to be fine. They will thrive.
What You Need to Do Right Now Not after the holidays. Not when things "settle down." NOW. No excuses.
Master AI Learn it. Use it every single day. - Try different models. Become obsessed. Force it into your workflow. I don't care if you're using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or something else. Just use it. Daily. Your goal is to become the AI expert in your circle. The person people come to with questions.
Find Your Purpose Beyond Function - Here's the test: Can you explain the PURPOSE of your job beyond the FUNCTION? If your role is just a series of tasks, scheduling, data entry, basic analysis, reporting, it will be automated. If there's no deeper purpose, there's no job. Not by 2029.
Build Your Tribe Look around. - Do you have a real community? Not LinkedIn connections. Not Instagram followers. A tribe. People who support each other, share knowledge, have your back when things get hard. This will matter more than your resume.
Master Human Skills Communication. Presentation. Empathy. Leadership. - The ability to walk into a room and make people feel something. These are the skills AI cannot replicate. This is your new currency. Master them or become irrelevant. And be teachable. It's the key.
This is why my entire philosophy is Amplify, Not Automate. AI should make you more human, not less. It should free you to do the work that only humans can do, the work that requires wisdom, judgment, presence, and connection.
The Sea of Change I think about Luke walking into the ocean. No fear. No hesitation. Just curiosity and movement forward. That's what you need right now. The sea of change is here. It's not coming, it's already washing over us. You can stand on the beach debating whether it's real, or you can walk in.
I am an expert in multiple spaces, from human engagement, to tech, to learning and development, speaking and even improv. I've trained 60,000 people on this. My 2026 is filled with more conferences and workshops and I am now working one on one with leaders who are ready. I've seen what works and what doesn't. Without being certain about the future of AI, I do know who makes it and who doesn't.
The people who make it? They don't wait for perfect information. They don't need fifteen-year plans. They move. They adapt. They learn. The people who don't? They're still standing on the beach, watching the water rise, convinced they have time to figure it out later.
I can barely see fifteen months out. But I do know this: those who learn, win.
If you want to stay ahead of what's coming, if you want the insights I'm seeing in boardrooms and keynotes around the world, follow me. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I'm not going to wait for everyone to feel comfortable.
I'm walking straight into the ocean, just like my son.
The question is: are you coming with me, or are you staying on the beach?
Follow me here, and let's navigate this together. I’ll teach you how to swim.
Mitch Mitchem is the CEO of HIVE Interactive and has delivered over 3,400 presentations across 12 countries, training more than 60,000 people on AI implementation with a 97% success rate. He is the author of "F*ck Your Friction," a book about eliminating unnecessary complexity in business and life releasing now.
You can book Mitch now for Keynote Presentations, AI Enablement Workshops, or join his limited 10 private monthly clients who get access to the future.
