You are more capable than you know. And right now, a 12-year-old in China is proving it.
Her name is Candy Tang. She's already built apps that make her real money, including an AI tool that connects people to doctors and a reservation system for her local pool. She didn't wait for a degree. She didn't wait for permission. She just picked up the tool and built something.
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, American college students are booing AI at graduation ceremonies. Holding signs that say "AI is slop." One kid in Alaska actually pulled an AI art piece off the wall and ate it on camera.
Same technology. Two completely different choices.
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler
When a reporter asked Candy if AI scared her, she said: "AI never scares me, because I think AI is a tool. If I use AI, I will be the scary person."
Let that sink in for a second. Twelve years old. Already earning. And she gets something that a lot of adults are still fighting.
The choice isn't really about AI. It's about who you want to be on the other side of change.
You've got three options when a powerful tool shows up. Fear it. Ignore it. Or embrace it. Only one of those puts you ahead. History makes this pretty clear. The original Luddites were English textile workers in 1811 who smashed factory machines because their wages were getting cut and their trade was disappearing. They had real grievances. And they still lost. Innovation doesn't wait for a vote.
So what do you do with this?
My daughter Imana is 16. Five AP classes last semester. She uses AI to quiz herself on the material, not to cheat, but to learn faster. She treats it like a study partner who never gets tired. She also uses it to help create YouTube thumbnails. She didn't wait for school to teach her. She just started using it.
That's the whole playbook. Start.
I hear the objections. "It's going to take all our jobs." Here's what the data actually says: yes, somewhere around 85 to 92 million roles may be displaced by 2030. But 97 to 170 million new ones get created, and about half of all jobs get augmented, not erased. The person who learns AI does the augmenting. The person who resists gets augmented around.
"It's too hard to learn." You don't code it. You talk to it. That's the whole skill. Open any AI tool right now and type: "Teach me how to ___ like I'm a complete beginner." It will. Try it today.
"The ROI isn't there." Companies that actually get good at AI run revenues and efficiencies 7.2 times higher than the ones that don't. The ROI problem is almost always an implementation problem.
Here's your challenge this week.
Pick one small annoyance in your day. One. A tip calculator for your team. A checklist for onboarding a new client. A habit tracker. Open Claude Code or Codex and describe what you want in plain English. Watch it build. Ask it to change things. Use the thing you built.
You're not trying to build the next app. You're taking a rep. And every rep makes the next one easier.
The kids in China aren't winning because they're gifted. They're winning because they started. Candy Tang didn't wait until she understood every line of code. She just described what she wanted and let the tool work. You can do the same thing this afternoon.
Fear it, ignore it, or embrace it. One of those choices makes you the scary person. The other two make you the audience watching someone else win.
This week on the King Moves podcast, I got into something that connects directly to all of this: how to build real margin into your life and business. Because here's the thing, if you're constantly buried, you never have the space to actually try new tools, build new systems, or lead from the front. Margin is what makes it possible to be Candy Tang instead of the guy eating paper. Listen to the full episode here and find out how to start building that margin today.
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