Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about establishing milestones and tasks for your most important goals.

I like it when you pursue goals that let you enjoy smaller wins during the journey. What milestones would you like to reach as you make progress? Think about measures that will help you stay on track. You might have daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly targets.

• For example, if you wanted to write a book:

  • Daily target - 500 words/day

  • Milestone 1 - Create an outline

  • Milestone 2 through X - Completed chapters 2 through X

  • Final milestone - Rough draft of the full book

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Subscribe now

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox

4. Strategy & Plan

5. Making Progress (May)

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide or if you want to discuss the specifics of your career situation.

Book a Free Call

Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you're fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.
➡️ Ready to create an exciting future? Book a free call today to learn how!

📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Read more

You know, when your boss asks you to take on more responsibility, but without an actual promotion or even a raise?

Those are the worst, and they are becoming more common in this job market. Do you know why? Because employers think they can get away with it.

• They conduct layoffs and flatten organizations.

• The remaining employees absorb the workload left behind.

• However, to keep costs down, no one gets a real promotion or raise.

• Employees may hear vague promises of a future promotion to make things right later.

• They suck it up because they know the market is terrible and worry about finding a new job.

If you receive a dry promotion, you have three choices:

1. Suck it up and make the best of it.

2. Negotiate the promotion and raise you deserve.

3. Quietly start looking for a better job and plan your exit.

Let me go into more detail for each of these options below.

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1. Make the best of it (for now)

In a terrible job market, sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation and ride out the storm. However, that doesn’t mean you have to suck it up and suffer. Instead, look for opportunities to set boundaries, manage your workload, and get what you want from the situation.

First, ask about the timeframe for absorbing this extra work. Is this expected to be a forever thing, which means your job will always be like this now? Or is this a temporary situation until they rebalance work across the team, hire some new employees (or contractors), etc.?

Then, have an honest conversation with your boss about your workload, what was already on your plate, and what the additional responsibilities require. Scope the additional work and expectations to get a sense of how much more it adds to your days and weeks. Don’t let them set you up for burnout!

Discuss boundaries to ensure you don’t get overworked (e.g., hours you can put in per day). It may be possible to adjust expectations to make the additional responsibilities less of a burden (e.g., moving out delivery dates, reducing scope).

But you should also establish clear priorities with your boss for what is now on your plate. Everything cannot be a “top priority”! Something has to give, and that will be the stuff at the bottom of the list.

Find ways to get what you want to make the additional responsibilities feel more acceptable. Compensation isn’t always financial. You can ask for other perks to balance the equation, such as more flexibility in your work schedule, working remote more frequently, additional vacation days, and training and development to advance your career, etc.

Also, this could be an opportunity to level up, strengthen your network, and make yourself more attractive for a later promotion, a transfer to another department, or a new job.

Note: If you can’t find ways to manage your workload and get what you want from this situation, it won’t be sustainable for very long. So, you may end up exploring option 3 later (see below).

2. Negotiate a raise or promotion

Yes, they want you to take on this additional responsibility with no extra pay and maybe not even a title change. But that doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate and try to get what you need.

During my tenure in the corporate world, I’ve watched people receive dry promotions. Some employees took on the additional work without a peep. Others said, “What’s in it for me?” Depending on their value to the org, personality, and willingness to walk away, some employees could negotiate something to make it right.

So, you certainly can use this opportunity to ask for the promotion or raise that should go along with this extra responsibility. Obviously, don’t threaten to leave if you’re not really willing to do it. Simply explain how the additional work you will do is in line with what someone at the next level would be responsible for.

If you’re successful, great! However, if they say they just can’t make it work, ask for a timeline.

If you agree to take on this additional responsibility, when are they willing to revisit the promotion conversation? This establishes a limit for how long you will put in the extra work before something needs to change.

3. Look for a better job

I always recommend that you should be looking for your next job anyway. This situation simply accelerates the timeline. Obviously, use discretion as you begin your job search. In a bad market, you don’t want to risk your employment.

The funny thing is, since you are taking on this additional responsibility and operating above your current position, you can now confidently interview for roles at that next level with other potential employers.

I call this the “Silicon Valley promotion,” and I used it every time I took a new job with a new employer. I never made a career move that didn’t give me a promotion or a big raise. It’s a great way to advance your career more quickly, especially when upward movement slows down once you’re inside a company.

Empower yourself!

We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we react and the actions we take in response to that event.

Receiving a dry promotion sucks, but turn it to your advantage or make a plan to move on. You don’t need to put up with this forever.

➡️ Do you want to talk with me about your situation? You can always schedule a free session. No strings attached!

Schedule Your Free Call

Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you're fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.
➡️ Ready to create an exciting future? Book a free call today to learn how!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

However, sometimes even the best-laid plans run into headwinds (e.g., the kind of disruptions happening in tech right now).

Are you at a pivotal moment in your career?

• Were you recently passed over for a promotion you deserved in this last review cycle?

• Did you get caught in the rounds of layoffs now running rampant through the industry?

• Are you still safely employed, but feel stuck in a role that drains your soul?

• Are you looking to make a big change and want to try something new?

• Are you feeling a growing itch to step off the corporate treadmill and explore better options?

I know you probably already have the talent, skills, knowledge, and expertise to get what you want out of your career and life. Many of the people who reach out to me do! The problem is that you are dealing with the "Paradox of Choice." You could do almost anything with your life, but you are at a crossroads, facing a multitude of uncertain paths.

It's overwhelming! I get it. It happens to the best of us in moments like these.

What you need now is the perspective of an outside expert.

Someone who understands your situation and can help you get the clarity you need to move forward without blowing up your current safety net. An experienced advisor who has been in your shoes before, created their own successful life path, and has mentored others for decades as a corporate leader and career coach.

I know people are worried about this economy and the crazy job market (aren't we all?). So I'm introducing my new and more affordable 60-minute Deep-Dive Problem-Solving Session!

It's a concentrated coaching call to help you get unstuck and move ahead. The package includes:

• 📋 A pre-call questionnaire to focus our problem-solving conversation on the right issues.

• ☎️ A 60-minute call with me to dive deep into your background, concerns, and desired goals and outcomes.

• ⚙️ My recommended framework and process to help you plan the next steps with more clarity.

• 📄 A post-call summary to share the key takeaways and action items to help you move forward.

As always, the call is completely confidential. Your boss doesn't need to know about it. 😉

Schedule Your Call

Testimonials

Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you’re fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.

Read more

I would love to catch up with my career and solopreneur community folks, my local clients, and old colleagues from my previous life in Silicon Valley.

I haven't decided when yet. It could be in May, June, or July, so I’ll have to create another poll, once I see how this goes.

If you might be interested in joining me and some others for lunch, dinner, or just for some drinks, what general location do you think would be best for it?

Some people may find it odd that I simultaneously coach my clients on how to get ahead in their careers and also how to exit the 9-to-5 grind to enjoy self-employment and semi-retirement.

However, I see an overall arc to our lives from our 20s to our final years that includes your education, traditional employment, the freedom of a lifestyle business, and maximizing your enjoyment of your final years on this planet.

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It all centers on empowerment

My empowerment strategy lets you squeeze the most out of your earning years and the most life out of your later years.

• Empowered people have more career opportunities than others do.

• Empowered people feel confident and courageous in their jobs.

• Empowered people demand what they deserve from their working lives.

• Empowered people create a path to greater freedom and fulfillment.

• Empowered people get more of what they want out of life.

• Empowered people live larger and refuse to settle for less.

Summary of what I share in the video

1. The Unifying Thread of Empowerment

   1. Career coaching and self-employment coaching may seem contradictory, but they share one goal: putting you in the driver’s seat of your working life, whether that’s climbing the ladder or creating your own.

2. From Invincible to Empowered

   1. My business branding is evolving.

   2. It’s less about feeling invincible and more about being so skilled, visible, and respected that you become more empowered.

   3. You become an opportunity magnet (I’ve talked a lot about this before).

3. Power Means You Can Walk Away

   1. When you’re truly empowered, you stop tolerating bad bosses, toxic environments, and unreasonable demands.

   2. During my long career, I have watched talented people push back and win because employers couldn’t afford to lose them.

4. The Value of Inside Champions

   1. Throughout my career, former colleagues and advocates pulled me into companies and made the interview processes almost effortless.

   2. That kind of network doesn’t happen by accident.

   3. You have to earn it, expand it, and nurture it.

5. You Will Have Peak Earning Years

   1. Research shows earning potential peaks and then declines.

   2. Senior roles become scarce, and age discrimination is real (especially in tech).

   3. You need to maximize your earnings while this brief window is open.

6. Same Hours, Very Different Pay

   1. Would you rather earn $100K or $300K for the same eight hours/day?

   2. Push hard for what you deserve.

   3. Do not tolerate a one-way relationship with your employer. Get as much as you give.

7. Bank It, Don’t Burn It

   1. Live leaner during your highest-earning years.

   2. Invest aggressively, create a financial safety cushion, and start working on self-employment plans.

   3. You’re buying your future freedom.

8. Your 20s Are for Foundation Building

   1. Get educated

   2. Find your people, make good friends, discover love, and find your life partner.

   3. Start figuring out your professional path.

   4. Enjoy this time! Don’t rush the exploration phase.

9. Your 30s and 40s Are Peak Earning Decades

   1. This is your primary earning window.

   2. Push hard, climb fast, and earn maximum value for your efforts.

   3. Build your network (it’s one of your most valuable resources).

   4. Quietly line up your self-employment plan and runway, so you can flip that freedom switch earlier than most do.

10. Your 50s+ Are for Living Large

    1. Transition into self-employment that leverages your expertise and everything you already know.

    2. Work when you want, where you want, and how you want.

    3. Play a lot! I’m so glad I took the self-employment path and semi-retired early so I can enjoy my freedom and as much time as possible with the people I love.

    4. Take care of your health and enjoy the last half of your life while you still can.

    5. Life is short! Don’t save your bucket list for a decade where you can’t physically cross items off anymore.

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment if you have a question. Schedule a free call with me if you’d like to discuss your unique situation and brainstorm some ideas for getting more of what you want out of your career and life.

Book a Free Call

Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you're fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.
➡️ Ready to create an exciting future? Book a free call today to learn how!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

• Knowledge you need to acquire for your goals.

• Skills you need to gain to execute your plans.

• Experience you need to obtain to move forward.

• Financial resources that may be necessary.

• The platforms and services you will use to work through your plan.

• Any individuals who are necessary for your success.

• Other people who can help guide and motivate you.

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Subscribe now

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox

4. Strategy & Plan (April)

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide or if you want to discuss the specifics of your career situation.

Book a Free Call

Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you're fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.
➡️ Ready to create an exciting future? Book a free call today to learn how!

📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Read more

Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about expanding your strategies into detailed plans to achieve your goals.

• A strategy is high level and general (e.g., get a new job using your network).

• Your plan will break down the key steps you need for success.

• Create a more detailed plan you’ll use to pursue each of your goals.

• As you start creating your plan, you’ll notice holes and add more details.

• However, plans rarely survive first contact with reality, and that’s okay.

• You’ll need to assess, learn, and adapt your plan as you go.

• It’s okay to modify your plan or change it entirely later, if necessary.

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

I have already included all the slides and questions for January (i.e., Your Goals) in the guide. New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox

4. Strategy & Plan (April)

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide or if you want to discuss the specifics of your career situation.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, a career coach for ambitious professionals who might be feeling a bit stuck, frustrated, and unfulfilled. Reclaim your confidence to design the life you want and the work you’ll enjoy.
📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

Read more

Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about identifying strategies you want to leverage to pursue your goals this year.

For example:

• Goal: You want to land a better job this year

  • Strategy: Identify and connect with inside champions in target companies who can guide you through the application and interview process, while recommending you to the inside decision-makers and core team.

• Goal: You want to get promoted this year

  • Strategy: Review the performance expectations for the next level of your job so you can provide supporting evidence that you meet or exceed those, and level up your performance in deficient areas if necessary.

• Goal: Work out an issue you’re having with a coworker

  • Strategy: Identify a neutral mediator who can host working meetings with you and the coworker to identify root causes, generate solutions, and create an action plan you both agree to use collaboratively.

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

I have already included all the slides and questions for January (i.e., Your Goals) in the guide. New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox

4. Strategy & Plan (April)

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide or if you want to discuss the specifics of your career situation.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, a career coach for ambitious professionals who feel unfulfilled. Reclaim your confidence to design the life you want and the work you’ll enjoy.
📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

My guest for this episode is Peter Morville. Peter is a pioneer in the fields of information architecture (IA) and user experience. His bestselling books include Information Architecture, Intertwingled, Search Patterns, Ambient Findability, and Planning for Everything.

He has been helping people to plan since 1994, and advises such clients as AT&T, Cisco, Harvard, IBM, the Library of Congress, Macy’s, the National Cancer Institute, and Vodafone. He has delivered keynotes and workshops in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His work has been covered by NPR, The Economist, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

In 2024, Peter founded Sentient Sanctuary, a nonprofit think tank and animal sanctuary, and wrote a philosophical IA novel, Animals Are People. He blogs at intertwingled.org.

Peter’s IA book has been on my shelf since 1998, when I was a young designer first learning how to design websites (after designing software at IBM and Apple). So, I’ve been a fan for a long time! He has some intriguing thoughts on the future of tech and the impact of AI on careers, so I know you’ll enjoy this episode.

Summary

Speaking of AI, here’s an AI-generated summary of our podcast transcript. It’s kinda good for tasks like this, right? We talk, it listens, and then it summarizes.

• AI skepticism has been earned. Peter spent 25 years professionally advising clients to be skeptical of AI hype, and then ChatGPT changed his mind. The lesson: evaluate each wave on its own merits rather than defaulting to either enthusiasm or dismissal.

• We’re in the fog of war. No one (not the CEOs, nor the researchers) can see clearly beyond the next year or two of AI’s trajectory. The smart career move is to keep your eyes and options open rather than betting everything on one prediction about how this unfolds.

• Question the motives behind the hype. When tech executives insist AI must permeate everything, consider who profits. As I put it: the CEO of Nvidia telling everyone to use AI is like the CEO of Oreo telling us to eat 50 cookies a day. Follow the money before following the advice.

• Technology follows fashion cycles. Peter’s observation that tech trends work like fashion is underappreciated. You fight the fashion at your own peril (e.g., resisting Agile during its rise). The skill is learning to ride the wave strategically while waiting to see what actually remains when the dust settles.

• AI disruption is exponentially faster this time. Unlike the Industrial Revolution, where ripple effects took generations, this wave is hitting engineering, design, legal, medical, and other white-collar jobs simultaneously. Robotics will soon follow for blue-collar workers. Speed is the new variable that makes historical analogies imperfect.

• AI as a coding tool has a hidden failure mode. We discussed a cautionary tale. A veteran CTO went “all in” for 90 days only to find AI-generated code nearly impossible to debug when it broke. Productivity gains can mask a dangerous loss of deep understanding.

• Your identity is not your job title or employer. One of the most powerful moments: Peter’s deliberate effort to give up being “the information architect” after 25 years, and my coaching exercise of asking people to introduce themselves without mentioning their company or title. The people who can’t do it are the most vulnerable to identity collapse in a disruption.

• Redefine yourself by going back to childhood. When Peter hit age 40, he started thinking about retiring at 50 to have the freedom to do something else. Initially, he struggled to identify what he would do if money wasn’t a motivator. His breakthrough came from remembering what he loved as a kid: animals. That led to a 48-acre farm sanctuary in Virginia. Reconnecting with your pre-career self is a powerful reinvention strategy.

• The future belongs to purpose-driven solopreneurs. AI is making it possible for one person to do what used to require a larger team. Combined with the decline of lifelong corporate careers, Peter and I see an opportunity for individuals who build around something they care about, rather than chasing traditional big-company careers.

• Ask better questions than “What won’t AI automate?” Peter reframed this perfectly: the less obvious and more important questions are Where can I find purpose? What will make me want to get up in the morning? Career resilience in the AI era isn’t just about skill-proofing; it’s about building a life around meaning that no algorithm can replace.

⬆️ Scroll up and hit play to listen to our conversation.

Where to find out more

• Intertwingled (Peter’s blog)

• Sentient Sanctuary (his nonprofit animal sanctuary)

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you want to discuss your career goals and how I can help.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, a career coach for ambitious professionals who might be feeling a bit stuck, frustrated, and unfulfilled. Reclaim your confidence to design the life you want and the work you’ll enjoy.
📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

Read more

New month, new theme. April is all about Your Strategy and Plan. How will you achieve your career goals this year?

A strategy is your high-level plan to close the gap (i.e., what you shared in section 2) and achieve your most important goals.

• There are often several ways you could pursue a specific goal.

• Some career strategies may be more effective than others.

• Some strategies might be a better fit for you than others.

• Different strategies usually require different approaches and resources.

• The timeline might be different for one strategy vs. another.

• For example, what if your goal is to dramatically increase your income this year? There are many different strategies you could choose to try…

Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about what you have tried before and what needs to change this year. I explain more in the video above.

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

I have already included all the slides and questions for January (i.e., Your Goals) in the guide. New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox

4. Strategy & Plan (April)

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide or if you want to discuss the specifics of your career situation.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, a career coach for ambitious people who feel unfulfilled. Reclaim your confidence to design the life you want and the work you'll enjoy. 📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m self-employed, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

Read more

Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about identifying potential employers who will pay you to do what you do best. I explain more in the video above.

• Doing something you love is wonderful if you can get paid.

• Being great at something is cool if someone will hire you to do it.

• Who needs what you are great at doing (and enjoy doing)?

• Do you want to work for private, public, academic, or nonprofit organizations?

• Do you want to focus on larger or smaller organizations?

• Do you want to be an individual contributor or leader?

• Would you prefer to be hired into an existing role or a new role?

• Who can actually afford to pay you the total compensation you desire?

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

I have already included all the slides and questions for January (i.e., Your Goals) in the guide. New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox (March)

4. Strategy & Plan

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide and how to use it effectively.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, a career coach who works with ambitious professionals to help them reclaim their power, become more invincible, and create better opportunities for their work and lives. Do more of what you love and less of what you hate! 📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m a solopreneur, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

Read more

Are you familiar with Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir? He thinks you’d better get used to the reality of the impact of AI on your job.

“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters. And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”
- Alex Karp (source)

And if you keep up with tech news, you may have seen that Meta is planning large layoffs ​that could affect 20% or more of the company. They are trying to offset their massive investments in AI infrastructure, but also anticipating the greater efficiencies of AI-assisted employees. Apparently, Zuckerberg believes the company will no longer need a significant number of its current staff.

“We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”
- Mark Zuckerberg (source)

Even if you don’t work in the tech industry, I’m sure you have witnessed how AI is weaving its way into many of the tools and services we use every day. Some employees encounter more often than others, of course (e.g., knowledge workers). And some folks are fairly insulated from its impact, for now at least (e.g., those with blue-collar jobs).

Where does your profession fit into this chart from Anthropic below? Are you one of the people Karp says will have to accept “less good, and less interesting jobs”? Will the theoretical capabilities of AI enable it to take over your job soon?

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei last year said the technology could disrupt half of entry-level white-collar work. Microsoft’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, made a similar prediction, estimating most professional work will be replaced within a year to 18 months. (source)

With few exceptions, people are rushing headlong into AI and using it for so many things where it doesn’t really add value and may even be destructive (e.g., AI therapists, AI companions, AI warfare strategists).

I do use some AI tools judiciously (e.g., Granola AI). But I don’t let AI saturate ALL of my tasks and life. I kind of like using my cognitive skills and judgment as much as possible.

As usual, humanity is frantically adopting a new technology, damn the consequences.

• We did it with plastics.

• We did it with herbicides and pesticides.

• We did it with the automobile.

• We did it with social media.

• We keep doing it with pharmaceuticals.

I just wish that—for once—we would be smarter about the research, the rollout, and establishing intelligent ethical guardrails.

Some people predict that AI will eliminate millions of jobs. Some have denied that AI will take jobs. In fact, they claim the rise of AI will create a host of new jobs. A few admit that jobs are indeed disappearing (you need fewer employees when they can leverage AI to accelerate work and take on tasks that others used to provide).

As usual, the actual answer is complex, and no one can predict the future. The best we can do is try to ride the wave and see where it takes us.

I’ve seen a lot of tech trends

I’ve been in the working world for a very long time—before personal computing, the internet, and cellphones entered the scene. So, I’ve experienced and observed the disruption caused by new technologies. Some were a flash in the pan, while others stuck and changed our lives forever (for better or worse).

I know some people who behaved like squirrels on their ninth cup of coffee. They would leap into every new tech trend and embrace it with a rabid passion, only to abandon it a few weeks or months later when a new shiny object appeared.

That’s not exactly an optimal use of your time and energy!

However, at the other end of the spectrum, I watched other people complain grumpily about every new tech trend and refuse to engage with any of it. Before long, those people’s dusty skills were irrelevant, and they struggled to remain employed.

That sucks, too.

So, what is one to do with this AI trend? Will you be a squirrel with ADHD, a stubborn tortoise, or something in between? It boils down to the following career choices.

Five options

1. Ignore

2. Adapt

3. Ascend

4. Pivot

5. Escape

Scroll up to listen to the audio of this episode to hear my full thoughts on all of this.

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you want to discuss how AI is impacting your career and profession, and what you should do about it.

Book a Free Call with Me

Additional Reading

• When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry”

• It’s tempting to offload your thinking to AI. Cognitive science shows why that’s a bad idea

• Harvard professor says AI users are losing cognitive abilities

• Are these AI prompts damaging your thinking skills?

I’m Larry Cornett, an executive coach who works with ambitious professionals to help them reclaim their power, become more invincible, and create better opportunities for their work and lives. Do more of what you love and less of what you hate! 📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m a solopreneur, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee

Grab the content of this week’s update so you can paste it into your copy of the Invincible Career Guide. It’s about uncovering needs that map to your capabilities. What could you provide that companies and/or people need? I explain more in the video above.

• Being great at something doesn’t mean the world needs it.

• Enjoying doing something doesn’t mean anyone else wants it.

• Look for the intersection of your greatness with the needs of others (e.g., employers).

• How could you solve real problems for people or organizations?

• How could you do it better than or differently from existing solutions?

• Try to focus on the evergreen needs of the human condition. Trends are okay, but following one means you will need to be prepared to evolve, adapt, and pivot later.

Get the Update

The Invincible Career Guide for 2026

I created the companion guide to provide additional structure for the weekly emails I will share with you this year. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, use the button below to access and save it.

It’s in Google Slides format, so you can save a copy of the presentation to your own Google Drive in your preferred folder. This will allow you to edit the placeholder text to enter your answers to the questions in the guide.

Get the Guide

How to use the guide

Every month this year will have a specific theme.

• Each week will have a set of homework questions related to that month’s theme.

• I will share a new presentation document with that week’s questions via the newsletter email and in my private community (you’re welcome to join us for free!).

• Then download the new presentation, copy and paste the new slides into your editable copy of the guide, and use it to answer the questions.

I have already included all the slides and questions for January (i.e., Your Goals) in the guide. New slides will come each month. Stay tuned for more emails about those.

Themes this year

1. Your Goals

2. The Blockers

3. Your Toolbox (March)

4. Strategy & Plan

5. Making Progress

6. Becoming Invincible

7. Your Network

8. Targeting

9. Broadcasting

10. Systems

11. Resources

12. Evaluation

Schedule a complimentary call with me if you have questions about the guide and how to use it effectively.

Book a Free Call with Me

I’m Larry Cornett, an executive coach who works with ambitious professionals to help them reclaim their power, become more invincible, and create better opportunities for their work and lives. Do more of what you love and less of what you hate! 📕 Check out The Invincible Daily Journals!

Would you like to help support my newsletter and podcast, but don’t want to commit to a monthly fee? Check out my ☕️ Buy Me a Coffee. I’m a solopreneur, and coaching and writing are how I provide for my family. Thanks for your help!

Buy Me a Coffee