0:00  
Welcome to risky conversations. My name is Jamie Lee, and I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. I help navigate the messy human side of managing up, down and across so they can maintain their humanity and integrity while accelerating their career growth. And if you're wondering why risky conversations, that's because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And here's a risky conversation topic for you today. Why hire a human Why hire human executive coach when we have a rapidly growing set of AI tools that most of us can easily afford, and if executive coaches can be replaced by AI, is anyone jobs actually secure? This is a juicy one. Let's unpack it together. And here's the reason why I thought of this topic. Lately, I've noticed a pattern in my coaching sessions. Just the other day, a client started our session by saying, You know what? I've already asked chat GPT about this. And here's what he said, my client had assigned chatgpt a gender, as if it's a person. And I'm sure she's not the only one who does this, and it was as if she's already run it by her AI coach. But in the session with me together, we unpacked the blind spots that the AI had missed, and in the end, she left the session with a nuanced plan of action that was context aware and deeply human centric. And here's the human blind spot that we uncovered her desire for other people around her, the people in her life, to conform to her expectations. In other words, she was seeing a pattern that worked for her, and she was trying to apply it to other humans. But humans don't work like that. So in coaching by leveraging her unique set of strengths, we translated this insight, this insight into the blind spot, into a concrete action plan for her career, but also a plan that she can apply to the rest of her life. So in other words, we arrived at wisdom that is generative. Generative is a key word. Is a hot word in the AI space as well. And I looked up, what does it mean to be generative? And the common definition is that it can reproduce itself. It's about reproduction. It's about life, giving life. And in my coaching, we work with this generative intelligence, meaning my clients aren't just getting a distinct unit of information, they're digesting insights that give life to countless new possibilities through their own human encounters and human experience So simply put, in coaching, we do what AI cannot do as a hot blooded human with a beating Heart and a million miles of neuronal connections. I work with other hot, blooded humans with a beating heart and million miles of neuronal connections. But I'm not here to bash AI. I love working with llms, large language models. I use them all the time. I use them to teach me arcane topics in finance and law, and I ask it to explain words and concepts to me in language that an eighth grader can understand. It flattens the learning curve for me, and I love that. And I ask it to translate things into multiple languages all at once, I ask it to make rapid copy edits to my copy so that I can maintain good grammar and syntax, and my communication is easy for other humans, but here's what an LLM, which is the most common form of AI that we're using. It cannot do. It cannot, quote, unquote, dance in the moment. That's something that's a skill that I learned in my first coach training dance in the moment. In other words, it cannot be alive, open to an infinite. Number of possibilities and attuned to another human being. In that moment, it cannot be comfortable with the unknown. It flattens unknowns, it disregards them, or it creates or hallucinates patterns. Instead of sitting with the unknown. I'm a Zen meditator, and my spiritual somebody that I that I studied Zen master song son. Master song son was very prolific in the 90s, and he helped bring Korean Zen to the west, all around the globe, actually, and he taught about taking action with a don't know mind. Don't know mind is not making assumptions, right, not being self deluded, or not being easily swayed by other people's delusions, right? It's like, how can we be present and alive with a don't know mind and take action, and AI cannot do that also. It can't touch a nose, rub a belly. Process the oxytocin and the blood and the oxygen that makes humans who we are, it simply cannot replace a human wanting to human better. So that's the first question. Why hire a human when these large language models are everywhere and we use them all the time, because you want a human better. But let's go to the second, risky comp, the question, right? You know, let's talk about the fear, the concern, will jobs be replaced by AI? Will other human jobs be replaced by AI? You might be asking, Is my job secure? Why does finding a new role feel so hard right now, I'm recording this in early 2026 it's January 2026 and in fact, today, January 13, 2026 LinkedIn just published an article. It's titled The 2026 job market. And I will link this article in the show notes, and according to this article, 56% of professionals plan to job hunt this year, and yet, 76% don't feel prepared. There's a 20% gap, and linkedin's head of economics calls the market, quote, unquote, cooling, but not crumbling. And the article cites that only 50,000 jobs were added in December 2025 this is us Labor, Department of Labor data, and the article notes that this was the smallest gain in about a decade outside the pandemic. The article concludes that, basically, people who want to secure jobs may need to quote, unquote, future proof, a I integrated skills that the people job seekers may need to gain future proof AI integrated skills. It sounds vague and really, really hard to do, but they also note that these roles, these new opportunities, are splitting into three types, number one, builders, like AI, engineers, architects. Number two, translators, people who can translate complex processes and information and translate it to humans. And number three, storytellers. And I think the narrative overall, the article overall, is useful and informative. But from my perspective, I think it's missing some key things. And here's what I think the article is missing. This is my take. The overall data makes it abundantly clear that, in fact, business leaders are feeling hesitant to make human capital investments, and what we do see in the stock market and what we actually see in The job market are two very different. They're bifurcated. I think business leaders are feeling sort of paralyzed by this volatile global trade trends. Let's just put it at that as well as the stock market boom. That is really.

10:00  
Really dangerously over concentrated in AI infrastructure. There's overweight in building infrastructure for AI. And what's actually happening in mainstream, what's actually happening within organizations, I think, is a different story. And if you're curious, Jamie, you're an executive coach, where are you getting this take? I have been following Dr Michael Berry, and he is the contrarian investor who was famously played by Christian Bale in the movie, the Oscar winning movie, The Big Short. And The Big Short, as you may know, is also a book written by Michael Lewis, and his sub stack is called. This is Dr Michael berry sub stack, not Michael Lewis's. Dr Michael Barry's sub stack, that launched over the recent holiday in December 2025 that I've been following, it's called Cassandra unleashed. And I'm going to go into a quick rabbit hole about this, because this is really interesting. Cassandra is the name of a mythical figure who predicted a catastrophe, but she was cursed by the, I think, the Greek gods. And so even though she she could tell catastrophe was coming, the myth is that she was, she was very, very tragically ignored, and people didn't heed her caution. So there was tragedy, and that's why Dr Michael Berry, a contrarian investor, calls this sub stock, Cassandra unleashed. And the idea the concept of this Cassandra reminds me of so many of my brilliant women clients whose strategic insight, so their foresight about what can go wrong go often unacknowledged, and it's maddening, right, because you know, they're not being acknowledged. They're not unacknowledged because they're wrong. They're unacknowledged because they are correct and people don't like being confronted with a thorny reality, especially when it's when it's being offered to them from a person of a marginalized identity, like women, like people of color, or neurodivergent people like Dr Michael Berry, that was a bit of a rabbit hole. So let's come back to the point I was trying to make about this LinkedIn article and about the AI bubble. The long and the short of it is this, we are in an AI infrastructure boom. But at least here in the United States, as of January 2026 there is no guaranteed energy supply to sufficiently fuel all this infrastructure that's being built, and most importantly, without clear evidence of a productivity payoff. Torsten slug at Apollo Global Management issued this, shared this finding and and what he shared is that, according to research, AI has only contributed to about 0.5% to overall productivity. Yes, there are software engineers. There are developers who are finding an uplift in the productivity. I know the CEO of anthropic talked about how he surveyed his own employees, and they said that their productivity went up significantly. But when we think about the overall impact of AI on the on the overall economy, the suggestion here is that it's minimal. The impact is actually 0.5% in other words, right now, we are drowning in noise while starving for clear signal. There's a lot of noise about AI. There's a lot of noise about what AI can or cannot do. There's a lot of noise about, you know, concerns about job security, but there's actually no clear signal that AI can actually replace human and human intelligence. So here's what, I think my takeaway. A from reading the LinkedIn article and learning about AI infrastructure boom and and the constraints of it, and the limitations and the and the current research around it is that in 2026 and into the foreseeable future, the competitive advantage for professionals, for human professionals, will not go to those people who just using AI, but to those people who can double down on their humanity, specifically leaders who possess discerning wisdom. And here's what I mean by that, discerning wisdom is the ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, as well as cognitive agility, the capacity to quickly adapt to new information new set of environments a fast moving pace, and be able to make decisions with that wisdom but agility to be able to translate and add value to other humans. I think we're going to see more high achieving outliers, and maybe some of them are like Cassandras or Dr Michael Berry, they're contrarian. They go unacknowledged by the broader market, but high achieving outliers, I'm going to bet we're going to see more people strike out on their own to start small, nimble businesses, because they can do what humans do? Well, dance in the moment, and the winners will be people who can build bridges. And you know what? And you know who has always been able to build bridges hold wisdom? I think it's multicultural women, women whose life experiences necessitated that they learn to translate between cultures and discern signal through noise and be able to tell the story and adapt how they tell the story depending on the situation in the specific context. So that's cognitive agility, too. And I serve a lot of these women, and I'm going to bet that these women as well as people of different genders, but people who can embody these these qualities, the discerning wisdom, cognitive agility, bridge building, translating and adding value to other humans. These are the people who are going to be nimble and be able to secure jobs and better paying jobs, and maybe even become job creators, even through all of the noise of what's going on with AI and AI infrastructure boom. So having said that, before I go, I want to leave you with a few questions to sit with this week as we're thinking about everything that is in the zeitgeist, when you think about where you are now, where in your current role, are you relying on known and familiar patterns, because it's just uncomfortable to sit with uncertainty or the human element and secondly, if you stop trying to force a known and familiar outcome, right? This is what AI can do, what robots can do, and when we don't feel as confident, when we don't have as much self trust. This is also what humans tend to do. But if you were to stop trying to force a known and familiar outcome, and you opened yourself to the unexpected in your career, in your life, what could go right? And finally, who are the humans or the other humans with whom an imperfect conversation could unlock new insights, wisdom and therefore growth for you. How can you start today with something small but concrete, and as you sit with these questions, I invite you to think about future, risky conversations that will unlock even more growth, no matter what noise is passing through.

20:00  
Hi again, I'm Jamie Lee, and thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching services, come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com that's j, A, M, I, E, L, E, E, C, O, A, C, h.com. Thank you for listening. Now go have that conversation. If you found this episode helpful, please leave a five star review on any of the podcasting platforms on which you are listening to this podcast. Past listeners have shared that these free workshops, free podcasts, have helped them get hired, get promoted and get paid more. Your review helps other people, other women, find the 100 plus free podcast episodes, and if you come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com that's spelled j, A, M, I, E, L, E, E, C, O, A, C, h.com, you can also access 100 plus free articles I've written on leadership, negotiation confidence for the ambitious professional women. Until next time, please keep advocating for yourself and remember advocating for yourself is not selfish. It is an act of service.