AI was supposed to give you your life back.
You see Berkeley track two hundred workers who actually loved using AI.
They didn't work less, they worked more, fewer breaks, constant context switching, full burnout, and months 6, 6 months, that's it.
“But here's the thing no one's saying out loud.”
This isn't an AI problem, it's a U-problem, it's an all of us problem, really. This is a stat that's absolutely running space in my head. Only 8% of the time that AI saves us gets reinvested back into ourselves. The other 92% are boss took it, or worse, we take it from ourselves. We used to use AI to expand our surface area, we're not protecting our zone of genius,
our easy mode. And that's not a technology failure, that's a leadership failure.
And that failure directly impacts you, whether you are the leader, or you're the one
who's being led. My name is Ryan Handley, I've built and sold companies, I've sat across from founders running 10 million plus businesses who are more exhausted than when they were broke. You know, what they all have in common, they automated the wrong things.
“They used AI to do more of the work that was already draining them.”
More emails, more content, more meetings, more prepping, more dex built. They didn't ask the question that actually matters. What is the work only I can do? Only me. And then did I protect that work with AI?
This is easy mode.
Now here's what's actually happening in this scenario.
The leaders don't have an AI problem, they have a misalignment problem. We are spending our best hours, our peak cognitive hours, on work that any well-prompted AI could do for us, and then we're using AI to do more of that same work faster. That is not leverage, that's a faster treadmill. Donald Clifton ran a study at the University of Nebraska, two groups, same training, same
“effort, average readers improved 66% that's a good number.”
But the gifted readers, the ones who loved it, 808% increase in reading, the same investment, 12 times the return, because direction multiplies effort, AI doesn't change that math. It actually amplifies it, AI amplifies it. If you're pointing in the wrong direction, AI just gets you to the wrong destination faster. And it'll exhaust you, it exhausts me when I find myself on this treadmill, because we
all make this mistake. You know what most people use AI for in 2024? Workslop. Faster emails, slicker decks, more content, quicker reports, all of it transactional. Actional work that was already stealing our time from our zone of genius from our
easy mode, where we actually produce disproportionate results. MIT tracked enterprise AI investments, 95% delivered a zero measurable ROI. Not because the tools are bad, because the leaders deployed them wrong. They automated the surface, the transaction, they didn't protect their core zone of genius, their core easy mode, the leaders winning right now in AI aren't using it to do more.
They're using it to do less of the wrong things. There's a difference, one makes you busier, the other makes you dangerous. So here's the actual move, and there's three of them. Move number one, name your easy mode. The zone, your flow, where your natural talent meets a skill that you spend year sharpening.
That thing that you do, that looks like cheating to everyone else, where you produce that task, where you produce results that surprise other people. And it doesn't feel like a big deal to you, it's worked that you would do anyway, where you look up in two hours of past. That is your easy mode, write it down in one sentence.
Mine, I consume complex information and turn it into frameworks that people can use, like what you're watching right now. That's it. I love reading, consuming, and I love creating content, and I love helping people get to where they need to be.
I found out a long time ago that I did not value my own personal achievements that I got the most intrinsic satisfaction and energy from actually being able to help other people find their best, the best version of themselves, that version of themselves, that brings them energy and satisfaction and peace and joy. That is my easy mode.
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“If you can't write down your easy mode in one sentence, then you simply have a founding”
yet. And that's okay. Move number two, audit your week, three days, every 15 minutes have a block and categorize it honestly. What were you doing?
Was it easy mode? Was it necessary? Was it hard mode? Was it delegatable? Was it can you eliminate it?
Was it workshop? Most leaders find their easy mode less than 20% of the time. I'm going to say that again, most leaders, most high performers, find today in the age of AI that they're only operating in their easy mode 20% of the time. That number is our baseline.
Everything else we do is about increasing that percentage. We want to spend more time in our easy mode. Move number three, deploy AI as a protector of our easy mode, not a producer of faster work. Stop asking AI to make you more productive.
“Start asking AI, what can you take off my plate so I can stay in my easy mode longer?”
Podcast research, outreach draft scheduling, the first pass of an analysis, meeting
prep, all of it, AI's job. Leadership building, complex decisions, gross strategy, that's me, that's you, that's yours, no one else is. The leaders who figure this out first won't just be more productive, they'll be in a completely different category and entirely different category because they'll be operating in their
easy mode more than their competition. That thing that they do that looks like cheating to everyone else. In 2020, I built a company called Rogue Risk. Before we fixed this problem, my sales team was triple keen data into three different systems to get quotes.
They were handling admin correspondence that had nothing to do with selling.
They were running manual processes that had never been streamlined.
But once we started pushing towards what at that time was called a human optimized business model that I now refer to as easy mode. We eliminated the work shop. We put them back into their flow into their easy mode as often as possible and with a little help from one of the best crafted in bounce sales scripts in history, reduced a
so myself. We saw our close rates go from 25 to 30% to over 80% on qualified leads. They didn't just get better at selling them, it wasn't just the selling that got better. They got more time to actually sell and that's the whole game. We did it before AI tools even existed, imagine what would be possible now.
And frankly, I wish I had still owned the business because deploying AI into that business in particular and the way we had it built would have been absolutely ridiculous in terms of what we would have gotten back, especially in the insurance industry, which is technologically behind the times we can say, AI didn't make you busier. You made you busier, you used a tool with complete freedom to build a bigger cage.
That's a choice. Now, maybe not, maybe not on conscious choice, but a choice, and the good thing is choices can be changed. I want you to find your easy mode, audit your week, and deploy AI to protect your easy mode as often as possible.
The 828% return is sitting there for you, it's just sitting there and most people never
collect it, because they're just doing the same stuff faster, because they're too busy being productive in the wrong direction. Don't be most people, this is the way.
“My friends, if you enjoyed this content, if you enjoyed this video, if you want to learn”
more about easy mode, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening or watching this content, and there is a link to subscribe to the newsletter somewhere around this to scroll into the description or go to my website, RyanHandley.com, find the subscribe button, we go deep into easy mode, and how leaders can find it today, and how they can teach easy mode to their teams.
Today, subscribe to the newsletter, I love you for being here, I'm out of your boots.
