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The Nine Saddles

Nine stages, grouped into three cycles, from a frozen résumé to the centaur. Final copy will come from the book.

Cycle 1

Getting into the saddle

1
Frozen Résumé
Your experience is real, but it stopped moving the day you stopped learning. This saddle is about noticing the freeze — and deciding it is not permanent.
2
Passenger
You use AI the way you ride a bus: someone else drives. You ask, it answers, you copy. Useful, but you are not yet holding the reins.
3
Unbridled Horse
The power shows up — and so does the chaos. Outputs are fast, uneven and sometimes wrong. Here you learn that speed without direction is risk.

Cycle 2

4
Your First System
You stop improvising and write down how you work with AI: prompts, checks, a routine. Your first repeatable system is born.
5
Right Horse, Right Saddle
Not every tool fits every task. You learn to choose the right model and method for each kind of work.
6
Relay
You hand off whole stages of work to AI and take them back at the right moment, with clear checkpoints.

Cycle 3

7
Proving It
Results become visible: numbers, cases, a portfolio. You can show — not just say — what you and your system deliver.
8
Horse Whisperer
You read your AI the way an old rider reads a horse. You anticipate its mistakes, correct gently and get the best from it.
9
Centaur
Human judgment and machine capability move as one. Your decades of experience become the exponent's base — and the result is exponential.