It’s perhaps the question of our times, yet few of us have begun to truly consider the implications: Is the writing on the wall for professionals?

Many may not realize this, but the phrase “the writing is on the wall” actually comes from the Bible, specifically The Book of Daniel 5:25 in the Bible’s Old Testament. (You would, of course, know this if you read The BS Dictionary written by Bob Wiltfong and yours truly.)

In short, the scene tells the story of King Belshazzar, who was holding a drunken feast using sacred, stolen vessels from the Temple in Jerusalem to praise pagan gods. During the festivities, the fingers of a mysterious man’s hand appear and write on the wall the following words: “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.” (numbered, weighed, divided). As interpreted by Daniel, this was basically God’s judgment that Belshazzar’s days are numbered, he has been weighed on the scales and found wanting, and his kingdom would be divided.

It’s indeed an apt metaphor for the world of today and, honestly, instructive in terms of answering that key question we all face.

After all, like the tale of Belshazzar, many professionals are in a situation where they too must consider:  

• • Are our days numbered due to AI or other factors?
  • Who weighs our value on the scale of output, and will we be found wanting?
  • What will happen to our “kingdom”? Will we be taken care of?

Writing on the Wall No. 1: AI and Its Increasing Replacement of Human Beings

Amid all the layoff announcements recently, you may have missed the news in April about the recent cuts at Disney, in particular, the Marvel division, which has been responsible for recent huge blockbuster successes such as The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and more.  Well, the Mouse just laid off 1,000 of the artists, illustrators, character designers, environment designers, and other technical specialists responsible for the look of those films and more. The reason: Despite the fact that humans (as Evangeline Lilly so eloquently explains) created the look for Ant-Man and other films, the company feels that AI can more than adequately do the job of designing characters, sets, and other illustrations.

And Disney, of course, isn’t alone.   

As of the end of 2025 (and continuing through early 2026), U.S. employers announced over 1.1 million job cuts in the preceding 12-month period, the highest level since 2020. Data indicates 217,362 layoffs in Q1 2026 alone, with heavy impacts from AI, restructuring, and economic cost-cutting, with monthly nonfarm layoffs/discharges hovering around 1.7 million as of February 2026.

And what are all those professionals doing now? Sure, some of them found work. But the job market today is really hard. I read a comment the other day on LinkedIn, where a senior marketer said she stopped looking in marketing and joined the local police force, because…well, they were hiring.

Writing on the Wall No. 2: The Same Corporate Owners Are the Ones Judging You Against a Machine

I overheard someone the other day suggest that we, as professionals, are now the industrial workers of the 1980s.

Let’s face it: automation and displacement are nothing new. If you look at what happened in this country to manufacturing and industrial jobs, factory workers experienced a similar displacement due to robotics and cheaper overseas labor.

And you know what?

It’s the same individuals at the top today making those same choices. They just happen to have more tools available to them. You know, the MBAs and executives who, for years, pushed to cut costs without considering any human element. If you think about this, we’ve seen this behavior for more than 40 years. Now, it just may be our time to face the music.

In some ways, perhaps we deserve it.

After all, we went along silently when the factory workers were all laid off, when manufacturing got shipped to another country, and when we decided cheaper was better to help companies rake in more profits.

At the time, unfortunately, we as professionals had the general reaction of: “Well, they can find other work.”

It was capitalism after all. You had the freedom to be fired but also find new work.

The problem, of course, is that a generation of men who worked those industrial jobs never really recovered from this. For many, what work they could find, they had to piece together. The middle-class status they had achieved was suddenly put on hold.

And what did we get from taking jobs away from them?

More money for the upper classes but a legion of people who we left behind, embittered and angry, who ended up voting in droves for a con-artist like Orange Nightmare (because he convinced them that he really had their back, which of course, he didn’t).  

You might call it reckoning now in some respects. To go back to our original metaphor, the writing has been on this wall for years. The question for all of us now: Are we simply going to let this continue?

Writing on the Wall No. 3: What Will Happen to Your Kingdom? The Safety Net That Doesn’t Exist

Now that displacement has become the new buzzword among AI corporate tech leaders, the question remains: How will average workers survive in this “interim period” when companies expect people’s jobs to disappear (typically due to AI in such scenarios) faster than new roles will replace them?

Certainly, the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI), where structured government payments are made to the general population, has been bandied about by everyone from Elon Musk to Sam Altman (one of the rare areas of agreement between the two).

But what work has progressed on this?

In Congress, though some bills have been introduced and there is discussion of current worker displacement, very little of it has a chance of succeeding.

So, if there’s no legislation on the horizon to combat this, and companies continue to replace workers with robots or AI, what will happen to people? How will they survive? Will they borrow money from a bank? Will they just increase credit card spending?

In this respect, the one thing to consider as you ponder your own “kingdom” is the country’s track record of taking care of its own people. In the U.S., we’re not exactly known for our welfare state or for looking out for anyone but no. 1. Indeed, the one thing that history suggests we care most about is our own money.

That’s not exactly a recipe for you to feel at all secure. Want to know why Americans are so anxious? The writing on the wall suggests there is no safety net coming in the near future for you.

Our Advice: Become Your Own ‘Boss’ & Start Voting for Those Who Get It

We write this, of course, not to make anyone feel hopeless or depressed about what’s going on. To us, it’s more about being honest and transparent about what we believe is really going on. We feel that in business and in life, people can only make good decisions on the paths they need to take if they have full information – or at least an informed analysis or point of view.

Given the current state (the writing we see on the wall), we’re definitely advocates for two things that anyone can start to do today: entrepreneurship and the need to start voting for those who “get it.”

Entrepreneurship. Yes, it’s not easy by any means. But if it looks like companies aren’t going to “have your back” going forward, the one option you do have is to strike out on your own. It’s one reason why we developed our recent LEAP 60 program for consultants who want to get started with a solid foundation in marketing.

To be clear, this suggestion about becoming an entrepreneur isn’t meant to be self-serving by any means. (It actually may mean more individual marketing agencies in a sense.) What we really believe, in this atmosphere, is that a sense of security only really comes in putting your future in your own hands. And being responsible for it.

Definitely start small.

Given the tools such as AI, you can indeed build your own side-hustle now – and more quickly and easily than ever before. And who knows? One day, that side hustle may become your main business.

Voting for People Who ‘Get It.’ Maybe you believe that Congress (or the Presidency) is hopelessly corrupt, bought by moneyed interests who exert so much influence on the outcome of policy. And if you thought that way, no one would blame you, as the evidence does suggest this is indeed the case. That Congressmen of both parties get rich, while you get left holding the bag. That said, there are good people out there running for office. It’s worth finding them and voting for those who are going to be on your side when it comes to core issues such as technology and AI development, as this is going to affect more people more quickly than any social stance that candidate may also take, in our opinion. Find the ones who “get it” and give to their campaigns, or do what you can to help get them in office.

Conclusion

It’s definitely not easy out there. And we know it may get harder for many. Let us know if we can help get you started down the entrepreneurial path, or if you just want a free consultation about what next steps in your career you can potentially take. We’d be happy to do that if only to give you some ideas that could provide some future security at a very uncertain time.