THE 18 MONTH WINDOW — Why Now Is the Cheapest Time to Build Leverage
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THE 18-MONTH WINDOW
Cheapest Time to Build Leverage

Chirag Selot - Futurist Author & Speaker

By Chirag Selot
Creator at Your Move, Human
Published November 21st, 2025 | Read Time: 6 Mins

THE 18-MONTH WINDOW — Why Now Is the Cheapest Time to Build Leverage

Welcome to all the new people who joined this week. 👋

So glad you’re here!

Each week, I share practical, story-driven insights on ‘how to stay relevant, resilient & remarkable in this age of machine intelligence‘ — exploring themes like AI partnership, personal agency, and building a career with leverage.

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Why Now Is the Cheapest Time to Build Leverage

There’s a small window open right now.
Quiet. Unassuming.

Easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention.
But once you see it… You can’t unsee it. 👀

You see, every so often, we hit these rare pockets in time where the rules soften, the ground shifts, and leverage becomes unfairly cheap.

And I’m convinced we’re in one of those pockets right now — an 18-month window, give or take.

Let me explain.

The Distortion

Right now, technology is moving faster than people are.

  • Tools are outpacing behavior.
  • Capabilities are outpacing adoption.
  • And machines are outpacing the systems built to contain them.

It’s not chaos. It’s a lag.

A beautiful… temporary… lag. 🐌

  • One of those moments where the world is accelerating
  • But the crowd hasn’t caught up yet
  • And the early movers get to build with almost no resistance

In simpler words:

Leverage has never been this cheap before — and it might never be this cheap again.

Why This Window Exists

Okay.. So this 18-month window didn’t come to me as a motivational number.

It came from watching patterns. 🧩📈

And there are 4 lags that are converging right now:

1. The Tech Lag

  • Where AI tools are exploding faster than people know how to use them — improving weekly, while most still treat them like a novelty.
  • We’re early in the mass-adoption curve, and the gap between capability and behavior is widening every day.

2. The Corporate Lag

  • Where companies are still “evaluating AI policy.”
  • And everything has to pass through committees, compliance, and approvals…
  • This alone creates a 12–18 month delay.

3. The Regulatory Lag

  • Where governments are still figuring out what AI even is — let alone how to regulate it.
  • They’re behind — by a lot.
  • And whenever regulation trails innovation, it creates a temporary opportunity zone.

4. The Identity Lag
(This one’s the most important)

  • Where people are using AI… but haven’t updated who they are in a world moving toward augmentation.
  • Their tools are changing. Their workflows are too.
  • But their self-concept hasn’t caught up yet — and identity always lags technology.

Now, these four gaps won’t stay open forever.

But they do converge into a window where leverage becomes absurdly cheap.

And historically, when innovation hits this phase, the window usually lasts about 12–24 months.

👉 So if you look at where we are right now?

We’re right at the beginning of that adoption curve.
Hence: the 18-month window.

But Every Window Eventually Closes

And when this one does, not only will everyone adopt AI (that part’s inevitable) —

  • Every professional will become augmented
  • AI agents will mediate who gets seen
  • Authority will become machine-decided
  • Depth will replace speed
  • Distribution will tighten
  • Competition will explode
  • And being “early” will stop meaning anything…

Though the way it closes is not what you think.

It won’t slam shut violently.

It’ll close quietly — invisibly — tightening bit by bit until what was wide open will soon become small. Marginal. Hard-earned.

But right now?

It’s still open. Wide open.

So What’s Actually on Discount Here? 🛠️

Well, these are the 6 Leverage Areas that are unfairly discounted today —

📣 1. Identity Leverage

  • Right now, you can reinvent yourself without resistance.
  • The world accepts pivots instantly.
  • You can redefine your narrative without fighting legacy data, because machine memory about you is still shallow — AI systems haven’t built a fixed profile of you yet.
  • You can change lanes publicly and algorithmically before these agents solidify your “category.”

📣 2. Visibility Leverage

  • Distribution is still wide open because machine-curation hasn’t taken over… yet.
  • Right now, humans still browse the internet — meaning you can reach real people before “agentic discovery” becomes the default.
  • Algorithms haven’t yet established strong authority hierarchies, so newcomers can still outrank incumbents with smart execution.

📣 3. Skill Leverage

  • This is the first era in history where learning speed isn’t determined by background, environment, or opportunity — AI levels the field.
  • It collapses learning curves, making you competent in weeks.
  • You can build “hybrid expertise” (human judgment + machine precision) much faster than traditional specialists can adapt.

📣 4. Workflow Leverage

  • You can build 10x systems right now for nearly zero cost.
  • An entire operational backbone (content, research, distribution, decision-making) using AI — solo.
  • Once corporations fully adopt AI, their systems will overwhelm the ecosystem — making solo workflows less differentiated.

📣 5. Authority Leverage

  • You can train AI systems on your identity, expertise, and voice before anyone else.
  • Early training = permanent advantage.
  • You see, AI agents will soon default to the “most trained-on voices” — so early inputs will shape long-term visibility.
  • What I mean is that machine authority will compounds quietly in the background — and the more you publish now, the stronger your recognition later.

📣 6. Asset Leverage

  • A blog, a body of work, a digital asset — the ROI is insane right now because the competition density is low.
  • Search engines and AI systems are desperate for high-quality, structured expert content — supply is low, demand is high.
  • A strong digital footprint today becomes your “AI passport” later — a long-term compounding identity layer.

And this is where the gold is buried.

Not in more effort or in grinding harder.

In these six leverage layers. ⚡

How To Use This 18-Month Window

Alright.. So here’s the actionable, strategic core of this issue — and every move you make should fall into one of three lanes:

LANE 1: Build Your Permanent Asset

Your digital presence, your career asset, your machine-readable identity, just like I am with FutureSelot.com.

FutureSelot.com Homepage Snippet

This is how you get:

  • Authority signals
  • Discovery
  • Compounding
  • Recognition by AI agents
  • Long-term differentiation

This is the highest-leverage use of this window right now. 🛤️

LANE 2: Build Depth While AI Gives You Speed

Everyone is about to get fast.

Few will get deep.

Depth becomes your moat. 🚨

Use AI to:

  • Accelerate research
  • Compress years into weeks
  • Rapidly upskill
  • Build expertise signals
  • Create more surface area for discovery

Speed is free right now.

Depth is priceless later.

LANE 3: Build Systems That Compound Without You

Your workflows, automations, writing pipelines, content systems, and distribution loops. 🤔 Think:

  • Draft → Refine → Ship
  • Collect → Distill → Publish
  • Ideate → Structure → Scale

Every system you build now pays dividends for years.

Later, when everyone has the same tools, these systems stop being special.

Right now, they’re unfair.

The Real Point.. 🔑

This window isn’t about hustling or working harder or adding more noise.

It’s about building leverage while it’s still on discount.

Because leverage multiplies everything:

  • Your identity.
  • Your voice.
  • Your authority.
  • Your moves.
  • Your future.

And once compounding starts, it’s very hard to stop.

That’s all for today folks!

This week was about the window.
Next week, we’ll talk about the identity shift. 🔍

Because tools aren’t the real change. Timing isn’t either.

The real change is who you become inside this new world.

And next week we go into:
The AI-Augmented Self — Why “You + Machine” Is the New Professional Baseline.

That’s where this window gets even more interesting.

See you next week 👋

PS — If this issue resonated, the book’s going to hit even harder. Volume 1 of the Your Move, Human series launches soon. 🙈🙌

–

Until then —
It’s check ♞ but not mate (not yet).
Your Move, Human.

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Chirag Selot - Futurist Author & Speaker
Author’s Corner

Chirag Selot

Chirag Selot is a futurist, speaker, and work evolution strategist exploring how professionals can build true, independent career insurance in an increasingly AI-dominated world.

To tackle this, he created Your Move, Human — a flagship movement featuring the YMH newsletter, podcast, and ongoing book series. At the heart of this trilogy lies a simple, timely question: “How do we thrive in this Age of Machine Intelligence?”

Beyond this mission, he is deeply committed to his social impact, having fundraised for Red Cross Australia, Doctors Without Borders, and numerous other charitable organizations.
Read his full story here.

Chirag Selot - Futurist Author & Speaker
Author’s Corner
Chirag Selot

Chirag Selot is a futurist, speaker, and work evolution strategist exploring how professionals can build true, independent career insurance in an increasingly AI-dominated world. To tackle this, he created Your Move, Human — a flagship movement featuring the YMH newsletter, podcast, and ongoing book series. At the heart of this trilogy lies a simple, timely question: “How do we thrive in this Age of Machine Intelligence?” Beyond this mission, he is deeply committed to his social impact, having fundraised for Red Cross Australia, Doctors Without Borders, and numerous other charitable organizations. Read his full story here.

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