Let’s learn how to leverage your original thinking.

In April 2025, researchers at Ahrefs ran a quiet autopsy on the internet. They scanned roughly 900,000 brand-new web pages and found that 74.2% carried the fingerprints of generative AI. By that autumn, a separate study confirmed that more than half of all new English-language articles were machine-written. The web didn’t get smarter. It got louder.

I like this analogy. A flood doesn’t make water more valuable. It makes the dry ground more valuable. Dry ground in this analogy is original thought, the kind you can’t copy and paste.

David Bullock, a strategist we featured in this space, said it plainly in a recent post: the scarcest skill right now isn’t prompting or vibe coding. It’s original thought. Everyone, he observed, is running on someone else’s prompts, someone else’s frameworks, someone else’s voice, and AI only accelerates the copying. The tools are democratizing fast. The thinking is not. That distinction should make every experienced professional sit up, because it’s the most under-priced asset you own.

I know it sounds like bad news. However, the same Graphite research found that when you filter for what actually surfaces in Google Search, roughly 86% of the results are still human-written. The flood is real, but it’s mostly a mud puddle. Search engines, readers, and buyers are all quietly doing the same thing: routing around the synthetic and toward the human. The slop isn’t your competitor. It’s your contrast.

My friend David draws a line straight through the workforce, and it’s worth standing on the right side of it. On one side: people using AI to amplify thinking they already have. On the other: people using AI because they don’t yet have any of their own. Same models. Same workflows. Opposite outcomes.

His proof was a client who’d built an AI platform for sentiment detection. The technology worked fine. The technology was never the hard part. The hard part was translating the problem the platform solved, why it mattered, what business consequence it prevented, and what measurable outcome it produced. No model spits that out for you.

That’s judgment - reading a situation, weighing the trade-offs, and naming the one thing that actually matters while everyone else admires the dashboard. Example: When Over50Pros was launched, it was predominately done with research I considered valid. It was real. Problems were identified. Months of research went into the product offerings and the AI enhanced build out. The miss? We didn’t talk to enough people about what THEY needed. Judgement was lacking and AI was more than happy to fill the gap.

There’s now a price tag on skipping the thinking, and MIT put numbers on it. In a 2025 Media Lab study, researchers wired up 54 writers and split them into three groups: one wrote with ChatGPT, one with a search engine, one with nothing but their own gray matter. The brain-only group lit up with the strongest, most distributed neural connectivity. The AI group showed the weakest. Human graders found the AI-assisted essays technically competent and oddly interchangeable. The word they reached for was “soulless.” Worse, the AI users couldn’t quote or feel ownership of work they’d finished minutes earlier.

The researchers called it cognitive debt: borrow your thinking today and you repay it in atrophied judgment tomorrow. It compounds, and not in your favor. This is the trap dressed up as a productivity hack. The output looks polished. It is, to borrow Bullock’s framing, optimized but not lived, structured but not earned. That’s precisely why so much of what crosses your feed feels hollow. It was assembled, not authored. The irony for our reader? The professional who already knows how to think, who built that muscle over a career that predates autocomplete is the one least at risk of the atrophy. You can hand the machine the rote work and keep the reasoning, because you can still tell the difference between the two. The 24-year-old who learned to write through the machine often can’t.

Why your gray hair is, for once, the asset.

Now the reframe, and it’s a generous one if you’ll take it. For three decades, every technology shift rewarded whoever learned the new syntax fastest, and that usually wasn’t the 55-year-old in the room. AI breaks the pattern. As Joel Comm argued recently in Inc., leverage in the AI era no longer comes from typing prompts quickly. It comes from knowing what matters, what doesn’t, and what tends to happen next. That’s pattern recognition, and you don’t download it. You accumulate it through one brutal quarter, one bad hire, one deal that died at the table, at a time.

The labor market is starting to price this in. Fortune reported in 2026 that AI agents can already draft code like a junior developer and screen sales leads, but in most fields they still can’t make the judgment call that comes from having been there. This distinction is the whole game. The entry-level rungs are being automated, and the judgment rungs are appreciating. You’ve been climbing toward those upper rungs your entire career.

A protocol for thinking with AI, not instead of it.

Here is an AI thought partner example for you. I’ve developed a diagnostic tool for businesses that is comparable in its features and utility to many of the top business assessments in the world. It was inspired by something simple. I started ideating enhancements based on my experience in business, my current company’s challenges, and numerous conversations with fractional pros. The most recent iteration was the outgrowth of my conversation with an Oxford educated Organizational Development Ph.D.. He suggested academic rigor for the tool that I’d not conceived. With every conversation, I was leveraging AI to push back, enhance, re-skill, and add value to the end user. AI is my employee in the scheme, not the other way around. I’m not vibe coding a short-cut. I’m leveraging thought and decisions into a useful construct, not a piece of software.

What problems are you seeking to solve for the world? Start with writing your take on the problem and solutions first. Own a point of view, then leverage tech to enhance your decisions. You’ll make progress.

If you need assistance or want to discuss anything listed above, schedule a call.

Thanks to our sponsor. Nokbox: A system designed to keep life organized, even when things get chaotic. NOK stands for Next of Kin, and NOKBOX help you organize important documents, accounts, possessions, and estate details so your next of kin knows exactly what to do in something happens.

But it’s not just for the future. NOKBOX gives you peace of mind now by keeping everything in one organized place, saving time, reducing stress, and making it easy to find what you need when you need it.

Check them out below and invest in a NOKBOX for you and your family.

David Bullock is not easy to put in a box and that is precisely the point.

Over a career spanning more than three decades, he has moved from DuPont process engineering to automotive robotics, from co-authoring a book on Barack Obama's digital strategy to building dark fiber infrastructure beneath the Hudson River, and now into AI implementation and high-stakes executive advisory work. What looks like reinvention from the outside has always been, in his words, a consistent pull toward systems.

He’s always asked about how things work, why they break down, and why outcomes rarely match expectations. Today he works privately with founders and executives during the moments when clarity has stalled, decisions are compounding in cost, and motion needs to be restored.

He is someone who has seen enough, across enough industries, enough boardrooms, and enough pivots that he no longer mistakes surface movement for real progress. That kind of hard-earned perspective is exactly what this section exists to capture.  

When I met David nearly 20 years ago, he had no clue then how he captured my attention, and caused me to ask myself thoughtful questions that I still explore today. We have remained in touch, collaborating on a few projects together. If you are interested in having conversations with someone who makes you smarter, just by virtue of a phone call, then I highly encourage you to connect with David.

David Bullock

Q: The Long Arc of a Career: You started as a mechanical engineer at DuPont, moved into robotics at FANUC, then pivoted to digital marketing, dark fiber infrastructure, biotech, and now AI strategy. Most people would call that a winding road — but it looks almost inevitable in hindsight. How do you make sense of that journey, and what was the through-line you were following even when you couldn't see it clearly?

A: From the outside it probably does look like a winding road, but from the inside it never felt random to me. There was always a consistent pull toward systems, how things work, why they break down, and why outcomes are often different from what people expect.

Whether I was at DuPont, FANUC, in digital marketing, fiber infrastructure, biotech, or now working with AI, I kept finding myself drawn to places where there was more happening beneath the surface than people first realized.

At DuPont it was process and precision. In robotics it was repeatability and control. In digital marketing it became human behavior and attention. In infrastructure it was large systems with hidden dependencies. AI, in many ways, is another expression of that same interest.

Only looking back does it feel inevitable. At the time, it mostly felt like following what seemed important and worth understanding.

________________________________

Q: The Pivotal Moment: You co-authored Barack Obama's Social Media Lessons for Business in 2008 — at a time when most engineers weren't thinking about social media at all. What made you see that as a serious business signal when others were treating it as a novelty?

A: What caught my attention in 2008 was not social media itself as much as what it revealed.

The Obama campaign made it obvious that communication had changed. Trust, attention, and message flow were moving differently, and once that changes, business eventually has to change too.

A lot of people saw social media as something casual or temporary. I saw that people were beginning to gather, respond, and make decisions in a new way, and that was never going to stay separate from business for long.

When human behavior shifts, business follows.
________________________________

Q: The Over 50 Advantage: Your work now centers on helping founders and executives resolve what you call "invisible costly traps", such as stuck decisions, unclear exits, compounding delays. That kind of pattern recognition seems to require decades of lived experience across industries. Do you think that work is only possible on this side of 50? What does age give you that you simply didn't have before?

A: There are some things you simply do not trust until you have seen them enough times.

At this stage of life, I am less interested in appearances and much more interested in what keeps repeating underneath them.

Different industries sound different, but hesitation, delay, poor timing, unnecessary friction, and avoidable complexity show up everywhere.

What age gives you, at least if you have been paying attention, is perspective and fewer illusions. You stop being impressed by surface movement quite so easily.

You start listening for what is not being said as much as what is.
________________________________

Q: What “Resolution” Actually Means: Your framework — Clarity → Exit → Resolution → Motion — sounds simple on the surface, but the outcomes you describe (relief, sovereignty, inevitability) are profound. Can you walk us through a real-world example of what it looks like when a founder or executive actually reaches resolution? What changes?

A: Real resolution is usually quieter than people expect.

It is not dramatic. It often looks simple from the outside.

A founder finally makes the decision they have been circling for months. A difficult conversation happens. A partnership ends cleanly. A direction becomes obvious enough that hesitation drops away.

What changes most is internal: the mental drag lifts.

People often describe it as relief, but to me it feels more like regained movement. Something that was taking too much internal energy no longer needs to.

That often changes everything very quickly.

From doing nothing, or the wrong thing to what will move the needle in the right direction.
________________________________

Q: AI and Human Judgement: You wrote How to Think with AI and now work daily at the intersection of human cognition and AI tools. A lot of people over 50 feel left behind by the AI wave or pressured to adopt tools that feel foreign. What would you say to the experienced professional who has 30 years of hard-won judgment but doesn't know where AI fits into their work?

A: I think people with decades of experience should feel less threatened by AI than they often do.

Judgment, perspective, and knowing what matters still come from lived experience. AI can help organize ideas, test language, compare possibilities, and save time, but it does not replace judgment.

If anything, people with real experience often use it better because they already know what deserves weight and what does not.

The best use of AI, in my view, is not to stop thinking. It is to think more clearly.

That is how I use it myself.
________________________________

Q: The Engineering Mind in a Business World: You trained under methodologies tracing back to Deming and Taguchi. These disciplines foster rigorous, statistical, systems-based thinking. How has that engineering discipline shaped the way you advise business leaders, especially in high-stakes, emotionally charged situations?

A: Engineering teaches you early that visible problems often are not where the real cause lives.

That lesson never stopped being useful.

Whether the issue is a machine, a production process, a company, or a difficult business decision, I still tend to ask the same question: what is actually driving this?

That mindset helps in emotional situations too, because people often react to what is most visible first.

Engineering teaches patience and patience often reveals more than speed.
________________________________

Q: The Cost of Delay: You describe yourself as working with people where "the cost of delay is compounding." That's a phrase most professionals over 50 feel viscerally, in business and in life. What's the most common reason smart, capable people stay stuck longer than they should?

A: Most capable people stay stuck longer than they should because something important remains unclear even when they already feel it.

Often they know more than they admit to themselves, but hesitation remains for understandable reasons: uncertainty, fear of consequence, not wanting to disappoint someone, or simply not wanting to disturb what has become familiar.

The mind can explain delay very intelligently.

But explanation and clarity are not always the same thing.

The longer something remains unresolved, the more often cost builds quietly around it.
________________________________

Q: What You Know Now: You've earned awards, built companies, advised executives across industries, and written books. Looking back at your 30-year-old self at DuPont, what's the one thing you wish someone had told you then that would have saved you the most time or pain?

A: I would tell my 30-year-old self not to confuse competence with understanding.

You can be highly capable and still not fully see what is shaping your decisions, your pace, or even your sense of urgency.

Skill matters. Discipline matters. But learning how to observe clearly matters just as much.

I would also say that many things that feel very urgent when you are younger lose importance with time, while some quieter things turn out to matter far more than you knew.

That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary strain.

Most of the people who reach out are dealing with something important in their business that has stayed unresolved longer than it should have. Thus, the "decision" is causing delays and becoming expensive

How might people best reach out to you?

Check out my LinkedIn profile: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsbullock

The easiest way is directly by email:

[email protected]

History is filled with powerful, unifying moments where leadership rose above regionalism and personal ambition. Here are six time-tested stories from the founding and preservation of the United States, along with authoritative links detailing how these leaders navigated the monumental task of building a nation.

When George Washington stepped down from the presidency, his greatest concern was that the young country would splinter into regional factions. In his 1796 Farewell Address, he urged the public to view their identity as "Americans" as something that must always outweigh any local or state loyalties.

The election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was incredibly bitter. Yet, when Jefferson won, it marked the first time in modern history that political power passed from one opposing group to another without a single drop of blood being spilled. Jefferson famously declared in his inaugural address, "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," to heal the nation.

During the scorching summer of 1787, the Constitutional Convention nearly collapsed over bitter disagreements between large and small states. An aging Benjamin Franklin rose to deliver a speech pleading with the delegates to "doubt a little of their own infallibility" and compromise, a moment that saved the convention and allowed the Constitution to be signed.

Upon winning the presidency in 1860, Abraham Lincoln did something completely unexpected: he filled his cabinet with the very men he had just defeated for the Republican nomination—William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. When asked why, Lincoln simply stated that the country was in peril and he had no right to deprive the nation of its strongest minds, regardless of personal friction.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington held absolute power over the American military. Many expected him to retain power like a traditional monarch or military dictator. Instead, he walked into Congress in 1783, resigned his commission, and voluntarily returned to his farm as a private citizen, cementing the foundational American ideal of civilian control over the military.

In 1770, emotions were at a fever pitch following the Boston Massacre. Despite being a passionate patriot who despised British overreach, John Adams chose to legally defend the hated British soldiers in court. He did this at great risk to his own reputation to prove a vital point: that the new American project must be rooted in the blind, non-partisan rule of law and the right to a fair trial.

On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig gave his famous retirement speech at Yankee Stadium after being diagnosed with ALS. He tells the crowd that he considers himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” - https://www.mentalfloss.com/holidays/july-4th/10-other-things-that-happened-july-4#inline-text-17

Seven other things that happened on July 4th - https://www.mentalfloss.com/holidays/july-4th/10-other-things-that-happened-july-4#inline-text-17

You’re doing $15 tasks with $150 talent.

A free seven day challenge program that gets you reconnected with your network. Less than 10 minutes a day. Click Here

I’m an appreciator of history.

I have a degree in History. I’m not a historian. I do have deep appreciation for the courage it takes to revolt, fight, protect, and then ultimately serve.

I think history should not be sugar coated. It should be shared in all of its ugliness, subplots, and betrayals. In amongst those issues, lie the inspirational stories that should bring us hope.

And as always, if you need help with anything related to topics in the newsletter or transition over 50 years old, schedule a call.

We are proud to share Prairie Growth Solutions as a pathway to starting a business coaching practice. This is not a paid sponsorship, but instead a recommended pathway to exit corporate life. The support systems, tools, and client support is tremendous. Click here to learn more.

Please click below and tell me what you like or dislike about the Front of the Check newsletter and how I may deliver more value to you! You are my growing community and I want your feedback. I’ll Venmo or Zelle you $5 for two minutes of feedback.

Click Here for Feedback Form

Coming Next Week: The Obstacle is the Way. And Pelicans.