I am 42, I have small kids, and AI is changing everything — here is what I am actually doing about it
By Martin | humanadvantagelife.com |
Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
This week I found out that around one fifth of the people at my company are going to lose their jobs. Automation. AI. The same story you have been reading about in the news — except this time it is not a headline. It is the corridor outside my office. It is my colleagues. And if I am honest with myself, it could very easily be me.
I am 42 years old. I have small children. I moved to Ireland from Eastern Europe in my early twenties with nothing except the willingness to work. I spent years in hospitality, then built my way into a corporate career over fifteen years in a large international fintech company. I have worked hard. I have been persistent. I have adapted every time the ground shifted beneath me.
And now the ground is shifting again. Faster than any time before.
The difference this time is that I can see it coming. And I have decided that seeing it coming is not a reason to freeze. It is a reason to move.
This article is not a motivational speech. I am not going to tell you that everything will be fine or that AI is just another industrial revolution and we will all land on our feet. I do not know that. Nobody does.
What I can tell you is what I am actually doing about it. Right now. This week. With the same fear you probably feel, the same responsibilities, and the same limited time.
First — I stopped pretending it was not happening
For a while I did what most people do. I read the articles, felt vaguely anxious, and then got on with my day. The threat felt abstract. Something happening to other people in other industries.
Then I started using AI tools in my own job. And I understood immediately why the redundancies were coming. Because even I — someone who would not describe himself as technically skilled — could use AI to accomplish in twenty minutes what used to take half a day. Tasks that required real human effort and focus. Done. Automatically.
That was the moment it became personal. Not a news story. A reality I could see and touch and measure in my own working day.
The honest question I had to ask myself
If I can do this with basic AI skills, what happens when everyone can do it? And what happens to the roles that cannot adapt fast enough?
Second — I started building something that belongs to me
The most frightening thing about the current situation is not AI itself. It is dependency. Depending on a single employer, in a single industry, for a single income stream. That dependency made sense in a stable world. We are not in a stable world anymore.
So I started building something outside of my job. Something that generates income independently of whether any particular employer decides to keep me or replace me.
Specifically I started this blog. And I want to be completely honest about how I built it — because I think the honesty matters.
I built it with AI. The research, the structure, the first drafts — all shaped with AI tools. But here is what nobody tells you about that process. It took hours. Days of conversations, reviewing, questioning, rewriting, pushing back, changing direction, and making decisions about what was true to my voice and what was not.
AI gave me a starting point. My judgment, my story, my fear, my experience — those are what made it real.
That process — the human steering the machine rather than the machine replacing the human — is the Human Advantage. It is not a slogan. It is what actually happened when I built this site.
The tools I used to build this blog are the same tools I am going to recommend to you throughout this site. Not because they pay me a commission — though some of them do, and I will always tell you when that is the case. But because they are genuinely what I used and what worked.
Jasper for writing and planning content with AI assistance. Teachable for anyone wanting to turn their knowledge into an online course. ConvertKit for building an email list from day one. All three are tools I have used directly in building what you are reading right now.
Third — I gave myself permission to start before I was ready
I bought the domain for this blog and set up the website in a single day. Not because I had everything figured out. Because I understood that waiting until I had everything figured out was just a more comfortable version of doing nothing.
I am 42. I have small children. I work full time. I have genuine financial responsibilities. There is no version of this where the timing is perfect. There is only the version where I start now and figure it out as I go — or the version where I wait until the decision is made for me.
I chose to start now.
What starting actually looked like
Day 1: bought a domain for less than the price of a dinner out. Set up basic WordPress hosting. Installed three free plugins. Wrote an About page. That is it. That is the whole first day. Small, unglamorous, and completely real.
What I believe about all of this
I believe a good career matters. It pays the bills, takes care of the children, and funds the life you are trying to build. I am not here to romanticise financial insecurity or pretend that losing a job is some kind of liberation.
But I also believe that a career built on a single employer’s decision about your value is fragile in a way it has never been before. And that the most important thing any of us can do right now — whatever our age, background, or industry — is start building something that belongs entirely to us.
I also believe something that does not come up much in conversations about AI and the future of work. That the goal is not just financial survival. It is a full life. The kind of life where you can sit outside a family log cabin nestled in the forest at night, fire burning, children nearby, looking up at the stars — and feel the weight of what you have built and what you have protected.
That life requires money. It also requires something AI cannot generate. Presence. Connection. The decision to stay human in a world that is becoming increasingly automated.
That is what Human Advantage is about. Not just building income. Building a life worth the income.
What comes next on this blog
Every article I write here will be honest about two things simultaneously. The practical steps — the tools, the strategies, the real ways to build income outside a traditional job. And the bigger picture — the human questions underneath all of it about what work means, what a good life looks like, and what we risk losing if we let fear or automation make those decisions for us.
I use AI to help build everything here and I will always tell you when I do. But every idea, every fear, every belief behind the words is mine. And the hours of questioning, rewriting, and decision-making that go into each piece — that is the work that AI cannot do for you. That is your advantage.
If any of this sounds like the conversation you have been trying to have — with yourself, with someone who understands, with anyone willing to talk honestly about what is actually happening — then you are in the right place.
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Or if you are ready to start building something right now — read this next:
How to Build and Monetise an Online Course from Scratch — the exact system I used, built with the same tools, documented honestly from start to finish.
Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to Jasper, Teachable, and ConvertKit. If you sign up through these links I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I have used personally in building this blog.
humanadvantagelife.com — Live forward in the age of AI