The Five Traps for Knowledge Workers | How AI is Driving the Third Major Economic Shift in Modern History | "The Frequency Era" Book Launch on Words on a Wire with Will Rose
41m 48s
The speaker introduces his book *The Frequency Era*, which posits that we are in the third major economic transition in modern history. Unlike the common view that AI is just a technology advancement, he argues it is shifting the scarce premium resource from information stored in the brain—valuable since the 1970s—to something else. As AI makes information abundant, the economic premium on knowledge work declines, evidenced by a poor entry-level job market and high burnout rates. He traces prior transitions: from the Agriculture Era (90% farm workers) to the Industrial Era (55% factory workers) to the Information Era, each triggered by automation devaluing the previous skill set. In the current transition, knowledge workers fall into five traps: learning more, working harder, getting more credentials, using AI to optimize old strategies, and optimizing without questioning direction—all of which feel rational but lead to declining returns. The emerging scarce resource is human intelligence capacities that AI cannot replicate, such as creativity, vision, discernment, and self-trust. These are not fluffy soft skills; they are economically consequential and harder to acquire than information-era hard skills. The speaker emphasizes that these capacities are innate and can be built, positioning them as the key to thriving in the Frequency Era.
[Music] So for people that have not encountered book yet, tell us about what is the book about? What's up Will? Good to have you here. The camera is not very good, but I got one of the fresh copies of my new book called The Frequency Era. And the premise of the book is that we are in the midst of the third major economic transition in modern history. And most people are reading this shift as a technology advancement with AI, and it certainly is a technology advancement. But at a deeper fundamental level, it's shifting the scarce premium resource in the economy, which for the past 50 years has been information that you store in your brain and how you apply it. Now, if you can think about it in the 1970s, a doctor was incredibly valuable based on the information they had in their head. Because you couldn't go to Wikipedia and look up your symptoms, you couldn't ask chat GPT about what was going on. The information they had was incredibly scarce and very hard to get. It was expensive to go to medical school. It took decades of professional experience in order to acquire that knowledge. It was incredibly scarce and therefore the economy paid a premium for it. And what's happening with first the internet, then social media, and now artificial intelligence, which is made it totally undeniable, is that information is no longer as scarce as it used to be. And therefore the economic premium is coming down on it and will continue to come down. And therefore that's what we're seeing with very low. The worst entry-level job market that's been available in the past 40 years because entry-level jobs are the easiest to automate with AI, job markets like software development, customer service, law, declining and economic premiums because they've been automated by artificial intelligence. Stress and burnout statistics, about 75% of the global workforce reporting extreme stress and intermittent burnout. These are some of the symptoms that we're feeling of this economic transition. And so the book poses a entirely different view of what's happening with artificial intelligence that I've heard before. I find it to be way more empowering, way more expansive, look at the future that gives people a very different view of how to navigate what is going on right now. Yeah, just a kind of backup a little bit. I think one of the interesting parts early in your book is you're talking about the transitions between the different economical models that our society has gone through over the years. This is really fascinating to me because I speak to a lot of historians on the show and I love books about history in this part really fascinating to me. Can you talk a little bit about these different transitions that we have in context of what we're currently looking at? Absolutely. Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the book too, incredible pace, very clear. So that we've gone through many of these economic transitions before and that there are clear patterns of how it works and what happens. So in 1800, the economy organized around farms and 90% of the people that participated in the economy worked on a farm. It was called the agricultural era and in 1890 there started to be automation and technology advancements that began to automate the skills that happened on a farm. And within the next 100 years, only 4% of the people that worked in the economy worked on a farm from 90% to 4% within 100 years through automation. And so what happens is as that skill became automated, the premium in the economy moves. It doesn't disappear. It moves and it moves from physical labor on a farm to what they called skilled labor where they managed machines and factories and mass production. And that was known as the industrial era. And then in 1940, about 55% of people that worked in the economy worked in a factory. It was called the industrial era and that was called skilled labor. It was the most valuable part of the economy and the most jobs were available then. And what happens in these transitions is that society begins to organize around the scarce premium resource, meaning that when people worked in factories, then they moved to certain places that were around factories. They started to buy homes on 30-year mortgages because they were going to work in the factory their whole life and they were going to get a pension. So other parts of society began to rebuild around the scarce premium resource. Then in 1960, there started to be automation that began to automate these skilled labor work jobs inside of factories, industrial automation and programable automation. And between that point when the automation happened and now the amount of people that worked in a factory went from 55% down to now it's currently 7 or 8% of people that participate in the economy working in a factory. So it doesn't disappear but the economic premium on it declines, the amount of jobs, how much you're paid and how valuable you are in the economy declines over time. Then that was the emergence of the information era when the computer started to be come online and people started to move from making money with their muscles to making money with their mind. By the information they stored in their brain about how to organize production, how to sell things, how to plan, how to use information in different ways. And that's how college became a necessary part, right? College wasn't a necessary part to participate in the economy until the 1970s, 80s, 90s and now to us it became a normal thing that you just sort of had to do to participate in the economy but it wasn't always like that. Then people started to move to cities because in cities you would work in a big office building that accumulated knowledge workers in a hierarchy and different things like that. So what happens is that the economy organizes around this scarce premium resource, then technology comes which shifts the supply and demand of that scarce premium resource and makes it abundant, which lowers the premium paid for it and then the economy reorganizes around a new scarce premium resource. And so we are in the midst of a third major transition which the books premises that we are shifting from the information era where the scarce premium resources, the information I store in my brain and how I apply it, which is becoming abundant and shifting to the frequency era, meaning that the ability for me to express these human intelligence capacities that AI cannot replicate. That are things like clarity, discernment, creativity, vision, adaptability, autonomy, the these premium skills that all occur before you start thinking or doing anything. And so it's transitioning to the quality of the human that is doing the thinking, the creating, the leading, those types of things rather than the information they have. Yeah, I think what's interesting is most people, most knowledge workers are probably thinking about this topic a lot right now, which is understandable I am, you know, I'm a classic knowledge worker as well. And I think a part of the fear going on is, you know, what is the value that I'm going to have in the future and I think your book answers that right there is going to be value in who we are as people in this next era. And I think that's really important. So I'm excited to explore that in a little bit more detail in a moment. But before we get into that, I wanted to talk about this idea of in your book, the professional trap. And so maybe the wrong, so we're thinking about this challenge or thinking about what am I going to do next, how do I remain valuable. And there's essentially, if I'm, you know, what you're proposing here, there's there's wrong approaches to how we could, you know, pivot in this new reality for lack of a better way of saying it. Can you talk a little bit about this professional trap? What's the, what are, what are a lot of us going to be doing that's probably not the best thing to do right now. Amazing. And the, the, the wonderful thing about this is that these traps have existed in every single modern economic transition. And, and the reason the traps exist are because of the institutional infrastructure and social validation that exists right now. And so what happens is that the colleges are telling you that you just need to learn more and you just need to get more degrees and credentials. The professional development industry is just telling you that you need a new strategy.
or a new framework or a better habit system or something like that. The company that you work for is telling you that it's still rewarding how much output that you have, how hard you work, how much you use AI, even how many token, token maxing and how many tokens you use. And so the premise is that all of the institutions are pushing knowledge workers to simply try to be a better knowledge worker. So all of the institutions are pushing you to just be a better knowledge worker in a clearly declining economy, right? And so that would be equivalent to the factory worker being the best person that manages the machines in the factory. Instead of saying this economy is declining and I'm instead going to be a knowledge worker and I'm going to develop the capacities of the future in an emerging economy instead of trying to fight being the last person standing in a declining economy. And so the five traps that knowledge workers are falling into right now, number one is to learn more. So in response to declining economic premium on knowledge, the response is to learn more knowledge that is declining in economic premium. So that is not going to work. It's a race to the bottom. The second trap is to work harder. So in response to getting declining diminishing returns on the effort and the old strategies that we put forward, the response is to just work harder, right? Be more available. Come in on a Saturday, answer your slacks on Sunday, work for 10 hours instead of eight hours and that's what's leading to the burnout and stress statistics that we're seeing at a global level. So working harder used to be an advantage when you were competing against another human. But now the main competition is now a machine that doesn't fatigue, works at marginal costs and can work 24/7. It's just not a sustainable strategy anymore. The third trap is to get more credentials and this one feels responsible. It feels rational to go back and get the data analytics certification to go and learn some new things on AI to listen to a podcast about the future of work or something like that. That the response to declining premiums is to go and get more credentials. The problem is that the credential certifying knowledge that is declining in premiums. So what it certifies is declining. Therefore, the credential will decline as well, especially in non-regulated industries. So that's a key distinction there in regulated industries. It's more protected. The fourth trap is the most deceptive and I think the one that people are falling into the most right now, which is the AI augmented trap. Meaning that the response is to use AI to continue to optimize our existing strategy. Get the best at using OpenClaw, have seven Mac minis, have Claude and be token Maxine in doing all these things. And again, is the equivalent to the factory worker being the best at managing the machines. So you are continuing to not develop the skills of the emerging economy and being good at AI provides an illusion that you are immune to this transition or that it doesn't matter as much. So you're just delaying the idea that I need to develop new capacities of the future that are going to be the most valuable in the economy. And then lastly is the optimization trap, which is very seductive for people that have been optimizing their whole life. And it was a very good strategy in the '80s, '90s, and most of our professional careers. The thing is that when we are not challenging the direction of where we're going and we're just optimizing the things that we've already done, we just become the person that's going to get the fast. We're going the fastest to the wrong direction and the wrong destination. So optimizing with productivity hacks, new systems, things like that creates the, it doesn't challenge us to look back and say, am I even moving in the right direction right now? And I think that is the fundamental thing that we need to be thinking about at the moment is what is changing? How do I re-evaluate my, both my professional and my personal life strategy and direction? And then once I have a direction, then I can think about what new systems I need, how do I optimize, things like that. So those are the five traps that knowledge workers are falling into right now. Inside of the trap, and this is why it's so dangerous, it feels rational, it feels responsible, it feels like momentum. The factory workers fell into the same types of traps. The farmers fell into the same types of traps. And things started to be automated on farms. Farmers responded by planting more crops. And so when corn started to come down from $3 for corn to $1 for corn, commodity prices declining, the response was to just try to work harder and make more corn instead of saying, my strategy, my economic strategy needs to change here. So this has been a repeated pattern through obviously the AI augmented is different than the farmers, but the patterns are the same. So I think the key word that, at least for my takeaway, is this idea of scarcity, right? And so understanding what is scarce is also understanding what is economically valuable, right? So I think we're establishing in all of us in the knowledge economy, understand, you know, generally speaking, what's happening here. So what's the answer? What is the new scarce resources? What should we be paying attention to? And I think, obviously that's what you're addressing in the book. What is this new scarce resource? Yeah, of course. And before we get into that, I think that it's easy to misunderstand some of the points that I'm making. And one of them is that it's not that what you know isn't useful anymore. It can be very useful. The point is that it's not scarce anymore. And when it's not scarce, it doesn't require the, it doesn't drive the economic premium that it used to. And that's why we're seeing this effect that's happening. So it's all based on supply and demand, not a philosophical argument about whether it's useful or not. They are objectively useful. So that's a key point. Now let's think about, OK, so when information and the ability to process information is totally abundant, then what becomes scarce? The way to get there is to evaluate what are the fundamental limitations of artificial intelligence. What is it? And no matter how much compute and how many data centers they build and things like that, what are the limitations that no matter how much you put into it, it will not be able to do. So when we look at that, fundamentally AI is a, is a information processing predictive engine. It takes all this information in more than a human queue to accumulate in 10,000 lifetimes. And then it is able to process it super quickly and then predict what would be the most reasonable response to this query based on everything that I have studied more or less. So some of the things that AI fundamentally cannot do is to come up with new ideas. It can make different combinations, new combinations of existing ideas. But because of the limitations of the technology, it can only go back and look at what's already been said and predict based on that, it will not be able to fundamentally come up with new ideas. I know that because in this book, I came up with a ton of new ideas and artificial intelligence was not helpful at all in creating them. So creativity, vision, those types of things are in a high economic premium to be able to have judgment, discernment and make decisions. So you can put into AI, what should I do? And it will give you the most reasonable response based on the average people and responses. But it will not be able to know what is right for you at this moment with your life, your children, your values, your business, and be able to tell you what's right for you. You need to be able to have the discernment to make those decisions on your own and relying on AI to make those decisions for you is going to lead you in likely the wrong direction. You can use it as a thought partner. You can use it to evaluate things. But ultimately, you need to make the decisions. And there are a variety of other limitations related to artificial intelligence. And so what that leads us to is what we call the human intelligence capacities. These capacities are things that are fundamentally cannot be replicated by AI. And so we have this incredible paradigm emerging in the future, which is that you have artificial intelligence, which is exactly what it is, artificial process predicted, averaged. And then you have human intelligence, which are all of these intelligence capacities that artificial intelligence is.
artificial intelligence cannot replicate. And historically, these capacities, the economy has not forced these capacities to be built in humans, similar to how a factory never measured the IQ of a factory worker, right? So the factory worker had an IQ. They had the capacity to do knowledge work. Simply the economy didn't need it yet and therefore those capacities were not forced to be built and expressed. And so what I'm telling everyone is that we have all these incredible human intelligence capacities, we all have it inside of us. Just like the factory worker had an IQ and had the capacity, we have the capacity for everyone can be creative. It's a capacity like the size of your muscle. If you have a muscle, you can build the capacity, right? Vision, creativity, emotional sovereignty, self trust, intuition, adaptability, autonomy, intentionality, these are incredibly premium skills when you get all this competent, average execution from artificial intelligence that these now become scarce premium skills that the economy is going to value the most. And so I'm happy to go through them in a little bit more detail because I feel like when people hear some of these words, they're like, oh, this is a fluffy soft skill, right? Like, self trust, like I already trust myself, right? Like discernment, like what, yeah. Like I have judgment, right? So I think people push these in a category of soft skills and I would invite people to consider that just because the economy hasn't forced you to use them, yet doesn't mean that they aren't super valuable. And honestly, harder to acquire more economically consequential are these skills than the quote unquote hard skills of the information era. And so there's been a lot of studies that have already happened around this type of stuff. People have framed it as emotional intelligence up until now. And emotional intelligence is just one limited definition of one human intelligence capacity called emotional sovereignty. And so emotional intelligence is not encompassing of all of the different skills that are going to emerge in the frequency era, but it is a foundational component. Now, related to, let's go in two different areas that are super economically consequential. The first one is decision making, okay? So imagine that you are the leader, the executive leader of a 100 person company. And you're also the leader of your family, right? So you have your spouse, your children, you are the leader and having to make decisions for many different teams. Maybe your community, your team as well. How many decisions do you make every day? It could be 10, 100s potentially for all those different stakeholders. Now, it is proven that the number one factor in decision quality, meaning that you have the least regret over decisions later and you have the most satisfaction with your decisions is not how much information you have. It's not how many consultants you ask, it's not how many PDFs you read. It is fundamentally the inner, your inner state when you make the decision. That is the number one driver of decision quality. And so two people with the exact same level of information, the exact same type of stuff. And one of them is stressed and anxious. The other one is calm and clear. The calm and clear person will make better decisions over time and then you compound that over days, weeks, years, months, your life and over time that compounding effect totally changes the trajectory and success and impact of your life for all the stakeholders that you lead. Right? Now, let's talk about creativity because creativity is one where it's obvious when AI can make an average piece of content. It can make an average book. It can make an at like at volume. Right? It can make an average movie. It can make an average song. That when it can do all that, that somebody that can break through with creativity that becomes a massive premium. So what is the number one factor of a team's creative ability and output? It is the leader's ability to make everyone feel safe. That is the number one ability for output. And then so how do you make everyone feel safe? You feel safe yourself. You have a regulated nervous system and through this effect called co-regulation, everyone feels safe. It's rooted in your frequency. And so those are just two examples where it's so obvious and economically can't already been studied for decades about how important these things are. The thing is now that just artificial intelligence has accelerated, dramatically accelerated the need and the economic value of them. Right. Well, I think that's what I'm most fascinated with. With your book is that part of the answer here, part of the preparation for this new era is the physical body, something that AI will never replace. And tapping into that more. And I love that. I don't think anyone's thinking about that. I haven't heard anyone talk about that. And I think that's really important and makes total sense. So curious. What-- I mean, all the AI stuff is relatively new. How did this come together for you? What are these ideas surface? What sparked you to do the retours for this book? This is like, you know, bashing how you put all this together. So since 2021, I have been doing a practice that I had established in the morning. Because when I was running my business and my business was scaling fast, I would get anxiety every once in a while, maybe a couple of times a week. And I was like, something isn't right here. And I started to look for solutions and over time from 2021 to 2024. I developed this system and solution for myself. And I noticed that my decisions got clear that my public presence, my leadership capability, my financial results all had improved. And in 2024, when I look back, I started to notice certain things, which is like, I haven't felt anxiety in six months. Now it's been almost two years that I haven't felt anxiety at all. Guilt, don't feel it at all. Frustration, never feel it at all. Shame, anger. Those emotions don't exist for my experience anymore. And so five years ago, I would have said, that's impossible. What I'm supposed to do is just figure out how to manage my anger or go to therapy or do something like that. Now it's like, no, those just simply don't exist in my experience anymore. And there's a variety of other things. People reflect back to me when I'm around them. They're like, do you just feel so calm? I feel so safe around you. I feel like I can just tell you my deepest, darkest secrets, like right out of the gate, and I just met you. The reason that people feel safe around me is because my nervous system is so regulated. And then I've started to move into some different areas and started to get some biometric tests done on me, EEGs, heart rate variability, VO2 max, biomarkers, like cortisol, and things like that. And consistently, my results are in the top 1% physiological responses of the entire population, right? My EEG, somebody saw my EEG and was like, I've never seen anything like this. Because of the frequency brain wave distribution of my brain. And so that was when it started to be like, whoa, something is really interesting here, right? My heart rate variability is consistently 130 to 200. Most people would be lucky to be at 40 or 50 at my age. So it's like wet off the charts. And so in early 2025, I had a clairvoyant vision of this, right? Of how the economy is going to shift. Of how this is going, how things are going to change, right? It was about a two hour thing that happened in an entirely sober experience in my kitchen at 10 AM on a random Tuesday. And then I was like, whoa, something's really going on here. I have all these biometrics that are happening and then these things that are definitely feel impossible now happen to me. This is like the, it was more like, I know this is going to happen. Not like I've thought this up and thought it would be cool. It's like, no, this is going to happen. And so I started to study it more. I started to read books about it, look at tons of scientific research. My background is biomedical engineering. I worked for seven years in medical device companies managing clinical trials for, you know, need a needle ICU, pediatric ICU, emergency medicine. So I have a lot of background in this type of stuff already, which is really cool. And so I got really, really interested in the science and research around it. And what I found is that there is a clear scientific explanation for how this all works, which used to people would say that it's mystical or it's spiritual or it's impossible. But actually, when your nervous system is super regulated, it allows more resources in your body, emotional and cognitive resources to enter your prefrontal cortex, the most powerful, where all the power
human intelligence capabilities live. And when you have more resources that go there, it's demonstrated in proven that you think more clearly make better decisions, are more creative, can have visions for the future, trust yourself more. So there's a variety of key major factors driven by how regulated and how, what the capacity of our nervous system is to feed those key parts of our body and our brain. So that was the full culmination. And this book was basically like, here's the discovery that I've had. It took me almost two years to write it from when I had the initial vision until I put the book out. It took me almost two years to be able to put it into a coherent, understandable, science-driven narrative that could stand on its own. So it's been a wildly energizing and fun project. And I think that it's going to be really empowering and impactful for individuals, for families, and for society. - Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the two-year process, the ready this. And that was actually one of the questions I had, about how quickly do you write this because it's so relevant for a current moment? So the fact that you started this process two years ago was really interesting because it seems more relevant now than even what had been two years ago. So that's really interesting. - Yeah, I mean, I-- it's all coming together. - I attempted to first write the book in early 2025. And the reality was that the economy wasn't ready for it. AI hadn't developed enough, and I didn't understand the science or anything around it in order to write the book. So I put it down for a while and started showing people the process and just trying to learn and develop my business. Then I tried to write it again in September, October of 2025. And again, no coherent narrative, not enough scientific grounding. If you try to put this book up and someone pokes a hole in it, it's gonna fall over. There's just too many holes in the narrative, and especially in the science. So I actually started to write a different book. So I started to write a different book in November 2025 and got about 50% into an entirely different book. And then around February of '26, the full ideal landed, and I wrote the entire manuscript of the book in about three months. So it was about 18 months of thinking, tinkering, trying, writing stuff down, getting caught in dead ends, that type of stuff. And then about three months of actually putting the manuscript all together. Once I had the structure, it was actually, I found that the thinking is the most challenging part of a book like this, to actually understand what you're writing, the writing actually was pretty smooth. - Yeah, that's great. And I'm realizing here that this conversation's already taking longer. And I thought, I don't know how I'm gonna edit this down until like a 25 minute episode, but this is great. But I wanna make sure you have an opportunity here that we talk about like the end cap here. What is the takeaway that a reader should have from this book? Or are you offering hope or are you offering a path? Are there, what are the actions that people, that you think in your mind, this new era, people should be taking, what are the success metrics? Whatever you wanna call it, what's the path forward with all this? - Okay, perfect. So truly what the book is offering is clarity around the current situation and a, what I think is the strongest economic and personal reason about how to respond. Right, so that is what the book is offering. Now, the end cap here is related to, okay, so what do I do? And it's interesting to look back in history, right? Because the factory worker, as they were training for their job, they would go to vocational school and they would learn physical labor skills, right? And when you move to the knowledge era, the infrastructure and the training target fundamentally shifted from skilled labor work and precision with your hands to learning with your mind. Now, what I'm suggesting to people right now is that the primary method of development is changing and requires a different target. The way that the skills of the next era are developed are not through learning. You will not, just because you read a book about clarity does not make you operate with clarity as your natural baseline state. Just because you understand what adaptability means you know the definition does not make you an adaptable human. And so that the target of development is changing just like it has in every previous era and it's shifting from learning information that goes into my conscious mind and it's shifting to the training of the subconscious mind which drives the state of your nervous system and allows you to express these capacities before you start thinking or doing anything. These capacities are decided before you think in milliseconds by your nervous system. And so the training target must shift and the development methods must shift in order to develop these capacities. So if you were trying to learn your way into the future era it's like the factory worker going to vocational school expecting to learn how to use a computer right there at the wrong place trying to learn the wrong things. And so it's an entirely different method of development that is very different than learning. It can be self-directed. It's very, it's relatively inexpensive and it's more akin to physical fitness training than it is to going to college or learning. And so it requires repetition, effort, intentionality, process more than just going to school or taking a course. And so the book lays that out very cleanly I think in a comprehensive and I think entirely unique way about how we're seeing where this is going and how to develop a major economic advantage in life moving forward. So I think that's the best way to close out and the book is offering just a different perspective of what's going on. Then you would hear in the mass media or on TikTok and just something that I think is more empowering to people. - Yeah, definitely a fresh take on all this. And I think this is an important book too for people to check out. For that reason alone, just this is just a fresh perspective that no one else is talking about. So I appreciate that and thank you for writing this book. I was really fascinating to read. And you know, I'm not gonna mention this in the show unless you want me to, but I think I saw you comment on LinkedIn the other day about you writing a follow-up to this, is that correct? - So I would say, I called it a sequel, but I would say it's more adjacent. And it's the, when I get the inspiration, I will finish the book that I started writing that I did and I had 50% through and didn't finish. So when you think about what it is, it's like the frequency era is the why. It's like, why does this matter economically? How does it work physiologically? Like so that's what the frequency era is for is never intended to be a how to book. And the second book is titled Frequency Training, which is the what in the how? What is it? How does it work? Why do I do it? How is it different than other things that I've tried? So that book is already drafted, probably about 80 pages done. It needs a lot of work, but I'm excited to release that one. Whenever it's right, I'm gonna give this one some room to breathe and it'll probably, who knows how long it'll take me to finish, but I am excited about that. And I've just found that, for six years, people were like, dude, you should write a book and I just never felt that compelled to write a book about marketing. I just didn't care enough. And now that I found as I'm explaining these topics that they're incredibly nuanced, they require a lot of depth that they're misunderstood consistently, right? I say the word frequency and everybody misses and misunderstands that they have an assumption about what it means. So what I've found is that this long-form written book is actually the most effective way to communicate nuanced, deep topics and it's become my favorite medium. So that's been a really cool switch as a, someone who produces ideas, right? You could call it content. I think I'm more of an idea creator and I express those ideas through content, but to shift from short-form video content, short-form written posts on LinkedIn that just are often misunderstood or don't give you the depth to go and have moved into mostly long-form podcasts and writing, long-form essays and books has been a really cool transition as a creator. - That's great. Well, I'm certainly excited to read the next book and happy to have you on the show again if you're interested. This is really great stuff.
Did you would you like me when I record the outro and everything? Did you want me to plug your podcast that you're currently working on? I haven't had a chance to listen to us. I even know how connected it is to your book. But is that something you want me to plug? So you are welcome to do whatever you think is best for your audience, but you could plug the book, obviously. The podcast does go into a lot of depth on this. And you're welcome to plug my business in code today. So any of those that you think would be most useful for your audience, feel free. Okay. Great. Well, I really appreciate Chris. I wish we had a much longer show so I can keep talking. We could have gone for three hours. Yeah, definitely. So, well, thanks again. Once I know when we'll air this, I'll shoot you a note just to give you heads up. On the air day and then we'll release the podcast version of it on the same day at airs. So if you have any questions me time, like I said, I'll send you an email in the next day or so asking for your official bio and your headshot and anything that comes up before or even if you want to hear the edited episode before air it, I'm more than happy to share it. That's totally up to you. But yeah, anything comes up. Just let me know. Awesome, man. No need to share the edited version for my approval. I trust you. You can just let it rip. Cool sounds good, man. Well, thanks Chris. Good luck with everything. Awesome. A good, awesome to meet you. You can use the email and copy his man. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks again. Great to meet you. See you, man. Bye. Likewise. Bye.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
- The book *The Frequency Era* argues that the current shift driven by AI is not just a technological advancement but a fundamental economic transition from the Information Era to the Frequency Era.
- In the Information Era, the scarce premium resource was knowledge stored in the brain; now, with AI making information abundant, that resource is losing economic value.
- Historical parallels: Agriculture Era (90% of workers on farms) → Industrial Era (55% in factories) → Information Era; each transition saw automation devalue the previous premium skill.
- The "professional trap" includes five common mistakes: learning more, working harder, getting more credentials, over-relying on AI augmentation, and optimizing without questioning direction.
- The new scarce resource is human intelligence capacities that AI cannot replicate, such as creativity, vision, discernment, self-trust, adaptability, and intentionality.
- These capacities are not "soft skills" but are harder to acquire and more economically consequential than information-era hard skills.
Summary:
The speaker introduces his book *The Frequency Era*, which posits that we are in the third major economic transition in modern history. Unlike the common view that AI is just a technology advancement, he argues it is shifting the scarce premium resource from information stored in the brain—valuable since the 1970s—to something else. As AI makes information abundant, the economic premium on knowledge work declines, evidenced by a poor entry-level job market and high burnout rates.
He traces prior transitions: from the Agriculture Era (90% farm workers) to the Industrial Era (55% factory workers) to the Information Era, each triggered by automation devaluing the previous skill set. In the current transition, knowledge workers fall into five traps: learning more, working harder, getting more credentials, using AI to optimize old strategies, and optimizing without questioning direction—all of which feel rational but lead to declining returns. The emerging scarce resource is human intelligence capacities that AI cannot replicate, such as creativity, vision, discernment, and self-trust.
These are not fluffy soft skills; they are economically consequential and harder to acquire than information-era hard skills. The speaker emphasizes that these capacities are innate and can be built, positioning them as the key to thriving in the Frequency Era.
FAQs
The book argues we are in the third major economic transition, shifting from an information-scarce economy to one where AI makes information abundant, and the new scarce resource is human intelligence capacities like creativity and discernment.
They are the agricultural era (farming), the industrial era (factory work), and the information era (knowledge work), with the current shift to the 'frequency era' focusing on human traits AI can't replicate.
It refers to five counterproductive responses to AI automation: learning more knowledge, working harder, getting more credentials, using AI to optimize old strategies, and over-optimizing without changing direction.
The traps are: learning more, working harder, getting more credentials, the AI-augmented trap (optimizing with AI), and the optimization trap (improving without questioning direction).
Human intelligence capacities that AI cannot replicate, such as creativity, vision, discernment, emotional sovereignty, self-trust, intuition, adaptability, and autonomy.
With the internet, social media, and AI, information is abundant and easily accessible, lowering its economic premium compared to when it was stored only in experts' brains.
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