The door is open...

(Formerly The AI-Powered Business Advisor)

_{Issue #4 — January 27, 2026}

Yesterday, Amazon started laying off up to 30,000 people.

Not warehouse workers. Corporate employees.

White-collar professionals with mortgages, kids in college, and retirement accounts they thought were secure.

The company's largest workforce reduction in its 30-year history. And here's what one finance expert told Newsweek:

"Amazon isn't laying people off because it's struggling. It's doing it because it can."

That quote should make your stomach turn. Not because Amazon is evil. But because it reveals something most people don't want to see.

Here's what I want you to see...

• Why the "safe job" is actually the riskiest position you can be in
• The one number that separates vulnerable employees from resilient consultants
• What the bird in the open cage can teach you about your career 

Think about your income right now.

If you have a job, one entity controls 100% of your revenue. One HR department. One reorganization. One "strategic realignment." One email that says "we need to talk" and suddenly everything you've built for the past 10, 20, 30 years collapses like a cheap lawn chair.

You've put all your eggs in one basket. And someone else is holding the basket.

I used to think that was normal. Safe, even.

Benefits.
Steady paycheck.
The illusion of security.

But here's what I've learned from building a consulting practice...

In consulting, there's a rule everyone learns early: never let any single client represent more than 20% of your revenue.

Why? Because if that client disappears, you lose a big piece of your income. Not all of it. But you feel the hit. You don't lose your house, but man does it hurt.

Think about that for a second.

Consultants are taught that 20% concentration is dangerous. Employees operate at 100% concentration and call it stable.

Who actually has the riskier income structure?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the philosopher and risk analyst who wrote The Black Swan, put it bluntly:

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."

He's not wrong.

I posted an image on LinkedIn last week that sparked more conversation than anything I've shared in months. Two birds. Same species. One inside a gilded cage with the door wide open. One outside, free.

The free bird asks: "Why are you there?"

The caged bird answers: "Because I'm safe."

The door is open. It's been open the whole time.

But here's the thing... the caged bird isn't stupid. That bird has been fed every day. Water bowl always full. No predators. No uncertainty. The cage feels like protection because, for a while, it was.

The problem is that the cage was never yours. Someone else built it. Someone else controls the door. And someone else can decide, any Tuesday morning, that they don't need you in it anymore.

Amazon's 30,000 people didn't do anything wrong. Neither did the folks at Meta, Citigroup, Intel, or the hundred-plus other companies that filed layoff notices this month alone.

Those employees showed up. They performed. They did what they were supposed to do.

And it didn't matter.

That's not a system you can trust with your entire financial future.

Now comes the good part.

You have something those companies desperately need. Twenty, thirty years of experience. The kind of judgment that only comes from navigating real problems under real pressure. The ability to see around corners because you've been around those corners before.

Right now, 70-85% of AI initiatives are failing. Not because the technology doesn't work. Because companies are discovering that AI can tell you what to do... but it can't do the work.

AI has knowledge. What it doesn't have is lived experience. Learned skill. The pattern recognition that only comes from decades of navigating real problems with real stakes.

AI can't read a room. It can't earn trust with a skeptical CFO. It can't tell when a project is about to go sideways because it's seen that exact situation play out three times before. It can't carry an improvement across the finish line when the organization starts resisting change.

That's the gap. And it's massive.

Companies aren't just looking for people who understand technology. They're looking for the finance leader who's lived through three system implementations and knows what actually breaks.

The operations expert who can feel when a process is about to fail.
The sales veteran who's earned the right to push back on a bad strategy.
The HR professional who knows the difference between what people say in meetings and what they actually do.

They need humans who can combine their domain expertise with these powerful new tools... and then make things actually happen.

They need the gray hair. They need the wisdom. They need you.

But not as an employee.

As a consultant, you control your client mix. You control your rates. You control who you work with and who you walk away from. If one client disappears, you have nine others. If one industry contracts, you pivot. Your income becomes resilient instead of fragile.

That's not a fantasy. That's a real, doable, structural difference in how you earn.

I'm hosting a live workshop on February 5th called "The Gray Hair Premium." It's about why this specific moment in history creates an unprecedented opportunity for experienced professionals to build consulting practices... and exactly how to do it without starting from scratch.

If you're watching the layoff headlines and feeling a pit in your stomach, this is for you.

If you're already consulting but stuck in feast-or-famine mode, this is for you.

If you've got 20+ years of expertise and you're ready to stop letting someone else control your income, this is for you.

https://www.businessbreakthroughadvisors.com/the-gray-hair-premium

Want to dive deeper? Check out these related articles:

👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #3
👉  The Prosperous Consultant | Issue #2

You might also find these interesting:

🔎  The Prosperous Consultant
🔎  The Trust Reckoning: The Shadow Side of Force 1

P.S.: When you're ready, here are more ways I can help you...