Leadership Thoughts

10/16/2026

It's 9:40 at night. You finished what you sat down to do. And the AI is ready for the next thing. It's always ready for the next thing.

Work used to stop us. The team went home. The analyst needed until Thursday. We ran out of hands. Those were our stopping points, and AI quietly took them away.

I learned this the hard way on a 10-day horseback trip in the Northern Canadian Rockies. A friend handed me a permission slip to stop, and I still tried to find a way to keep producing. It took days to stop fighting it. When I finally did, the problems I carried in got clearer, not because I worked on them, but because I gave them room.

This week's Leadership Unlocked is about building those stopping points back in. Pick one day in the next 30 with no agenda and no deliverable. Then tell me the date in the comments.

Listen here: https://arcq.us/4zvNcWb

Dusty goes solo to challenge the belief that every available moment should be filled with productive work, arguing that in an age when AI can operate endlessly, leaders must intentionally create the stopping points that technology no longer provides. Drawing from a 10-day horseback trip through...

10/09/2026

"You are an Ironman."

I heard those four words for the first time in November of 2011. I remember the 30 seconds before and after, realizing that I'd done something I didn't know I could do.

The voice that rang out belonged to Mike Reilly. Mike has called nearly half a million athletes across 215 Ironman finish lines. He repeats that same call, over and over, mostly to people he's never met.

"I just look at it as a one-on-one conversation I'm having with that person."

And man, does it work. It makes an impact. People feel seen. Understood. According to Mike, some smile through the pain of what they just went through.

Your people can tell the difference. They know when you're in it with them and when you're not. And those moments matter more than you think.

Episode 81 of Leadership Unlocked is live this week and it's a special one. Listen as Mike and I share about how showing up at someone else's finish line is a metaphor for leadership.

Link to listen to Episode 81: https://arcq.us/4iaQ9FN

Have you stood at someone else's finish line lately?

Dusty sits down with Mike Reilly, the longtime voice of Ironman, for an inspiring conversation about perseverance, recognition, and what it means to help others find their finish line. After calling nearly half a million athletes across the finish line at 215 Ironman races around the world, Mike...

10/01/2026

You built the business. You know how every piece should work.

But now every decision that has to be made comes back to your desk?

This week's episode of Leadership Unlocked just dropped. My guest is Forrest Derr. and he has spent 25+ years helping founders build the delegation muscle. Listen as we talk about the mentor who gave Forrest room to make mistakes, and why 80% is often good enough.

Listen to the full episode here: https://arcq.us/3TkiXSW

09/30/2026

My Vision to Victory Leadership Accelerator Cohort # 5 starts Tuesday, October 20th, 2026.

More than half the seats are spoken for.

If you've been following along and thinking "maybe next cohort," don't put yourself off any longer.

Here's who its built for:
- Senior leaders who are done being the decision bottleneck in their own organization. You have a talented team. You have the strategy in your head. But the business cant move without you in the room.
- Leaders who have tried the books, the workshops, the consultants, the courses and still haven't seen structural change. Information without installation doesn't stick. We'll solidify both.
- Executives and founders who want a company that runs on clarity instead of heroic but unsustainable effort. In 12 weeks, you'll install a Leadership Operating System inside your real business. A personal vision. Clear decision ownership. Operating rhythms your team runs without you.

For 12 weeks, you'll build this alongside a small group of senior leaders doing the same work.

AI will either amplify the effects of great leaders, or it will expose their flaws. The system comes first. Visit https://arcq.us/4e1qXz1 to read more about it. If you're still on the fence, comment and we'll figure out if now's the right time. No pressure. No pitch. Just a conversation.

See you inside.

09/24/2026

Let the 26-year-old run the AI tools better than you. Just don’t hand over the direction.

On this week’s Leadership Unlocked, Dusty shares why he spent two years saying “not me” to AI, and why that choice cost more than he realized. Now, he's writing a book on it.

When a leader rules themselves out, the whole team suffers.

The line to remember: delegating the work is leadership. Delegating the direction is abdication.

Listen here: https://arcq.us/4AwwmYK
Follow along with the book: https://arcq.us/4jkyQmG

09/18/2026

I'm writing a book.

It's called Ancient Intelligence, and the idea at the center of it is 2,300 years old. Archimedes said: "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world."

Today, the fulcrum is AI. The lever is leadership. The world moves when a leader chooses to pick it up.

AI will either amplify great leadership or expose the absence of it. There's no third option & the leaders who win this next era will be the ones who lead with the same wisdom that got them the seat they're in.

I'm sharing chapters, research, and a manifesto on leading well in the age of AI as I write it.

A few hundred people are already on the list. I'd like you to be the next one.

👉 Follow along, join the list, and read the manifesto here:
https://arcq.us/4xu8gLh

Know a leader who needs to see this? Don't just read it, share it. The people who need this most are in your network and it helps me out a lot. Thanks for being here.

09/17/2026

If AI can produce good work in 20 minutes, your experience didn’t get cheaper. It got scarcer.

On this week’s Leadership Unlocked, Dusty shares why he set aside a finished book to write Ancient Intelligence, and the simple idea at its core. The machine gets you to 80%. The last 20% is where your judgment lives.

Try this. Take the last thing AI wrote for you and review it like a team member handed it over. Whatever you’d send back is your edge.

Listen here: https://arcq.us/4h30yS8

Follow along with the book: https://arcq.us/4hwBuV4

Dusty goes solo to explain why he shelved a finished leadership manuscript and started over with Ancient Intelligence, a book built around a realization he had spent more than a year resisting: leaders do not need to become technologists to succeed with AI—they need to become better leaders in an....

09/12/2026

Have you ever watch a six-year-old learn to read or have you ever tried to learn a new language? We don't usually master it overnight with one book.

We get fluent through practice, repetition, sounding out words until it starts to flow, falling back on the smaller ideas that they know for certain.

Charlene Li reminded me in our conversation last week that that's exactly how AI fluency works too.

Not mastery. Not knowing every model or skill.

Just practice:
1) Know what AI can do, and what it can't
2) Use it responsibly and ethically
3) Use it to get your job done

What do you think? Are you actually fluent, or are you still finding your flow?

Comment below if you're doing something cool with AI right now. I love learning from what others are building.

09/10/2026

“If I’m being honest, I think I’m afraid I’m not going to be good enough in this new AI age.”

A CEO with nearly 1,000 employees wrote that to me this past spring. I hear a quieter version of it from almost every leader I talk to. This week on Leadership Unlocked, I wanted to introduce you to the book I'm writing all about it, Ancient Intelligence.

The short version: AI didn’t create your leadership gap. It collapsed the time you have to close it. The fix isn’t a new tool. It’s clarity, focus, and a 30-minute audit you can run before Monday.

Listen here: https://arcq.us/4hjGbl1

Join us on the journey: Get to weigh in on the research, sneak peeks as chapters as they’re written, and get up to the minute updates on trends I see while the book comes together. Click here to follow along: https://arcq.us/4h3s4iE

09/04/2026

The #1 question Charlene Li hears from executives about AI: "What can I read to get on top of it and stay on top of it?"

Her answer: "Welcome to the world, my friend. I wake up every single morning with my hair on fire."

You don't need to know what the latest models are or what the latest news is.

Charlene's advice: you need to focus on the problem you want to solve, and then figure out how to use AI to solve that problem.

If you stopped chasing every AI headline tomorrow, what's the one problem you'd actually focus on solving?

Catch the full conversation: Episode 76 of Leadership Unlocked with Charlene Li https://arcq.us/4x5rbfc