The Legacy of the Type A Era

Agility is the New Type A

If, like me, you came of age in the era of “Type A” ambition, you were taught to define yourself by how hard you worked, how much you achieved, and how quickly you could rise. It shaped our careers, our relationships, even our identities. But in the age of AI, that mindset may at times hold us back.

The Type A Mindset: What It Gave Us 

- Structure

- Discipline

- Measurable outputs

- A sense of worth tied to productivity and performance

Useful in a predictable, rule-based world.

The AI Era: What’s Changing

- Non-linearity is rewarded

- Collaboration over control wins (with humans and machines)

- Emergent thinking—things develop in iteration, not just execution

- Adaptability > perfection

You don’t need to be the fastest, most polished. You need to be the most flexible.

We’re not in a world that rewards control anymore. We’re in a world that rewards response. Fluidity. The ability to reframe as the ground shifts.

The challenge isn’t to discard everything the Type A era gave us, lots of good lessons there —but to loosen our grip. To stop optimizing the box and start reshaping the room.

Question for you:

If you stopped trying to win the old game, what might you notice about the new one?