You've Always Been Your Own Company. You Just Forgot.

A few weeks ago, one of my engineers pushed back on something. We'd just rolled out an AI-first mindset across the company. New expectations around everyone having managerial leverage. Bringing ideas to the table, contributing to company goals, not just executing tickets.

And he said: "That's not what I signed up for. I'm an engineer. Tell me what to do."

I get it. Change is uncomfortable, especially when it feels like the goalposts moved mid-game.

But I couldn't shake this feeling that he was missing something massive. Not about the company. About himself.

You've been a company this whole time

You are not an employee. You are a company.

Chris Bongers™ is a company. It has stakeholders. It has bills to pay. It has a mission. And it needs to grow, or it stagnates and dies like any other business that stops moving.

Your stakeholders? Your partner who depends on your income. Your kids who need to eat and go on holidays. Your future self who wants options.

They're not cheering for your employer to succeed. They're invested in you succeeding.

The company you work for doesn't hire you the person. They hire Chris Bongers™ to solve their problems. And Chris Bongers™ takes that contract seriously. Not out of loyalty to a logo, but because happy client means steady revenue means room to grow.

The 4 stages of AI grief

Here's what made that conversation hit harder.

When we went AI-first, it wasn't just the engineers who had to adapt. Designers, marketers, everyone. And the designers and marketers leaned in first. Started experimenting, figuring out how to do more with less friction.

The engineers? A lot of them dug in. Fought it.

I watched it play out like the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Some people moved through faster than others, but eventually almost everyone landed in the same place: okay, I get it now.

What got me was this: the engineers most resistant to AI doing "their" work had zero problem using AI for design tasks. Or marketing copy. Or documentation. But the moment it touched code, it felt like an attack.

That's not logic. That's trade protection.

Protecting your trade vs. growing your trade

I understand it. We spent years getting good at this. It's your identity.

But protecting your trade and growing your trade are not the same thing.

If AI helps you ship faster, think bigger, take on problems that were previously out of scope? That's not a threat to Chris Bongers™. That's a new capability. A smart company figures out how to use it.

And here's the risk-free part: your employer is paying for you to learn. You're not betting your savings. You're not bootstrapping at night. You're learning on their dime, with real problems to practice on.

If AI turns out to be hype, fine. Chris Bongers™ still grew, still tried something new, still has a better story at the next contract negotiation.

You don't lose.

Run your company like a company

This isn't just a mindset shift. It's operational.

Quarterly reviews. Every quarter, I write it out. What did I learn? What did I ship, for work and for myself? What do I want to change?

Not a huge production. Just enough to make it real. Writing materialises things.

Bonus: when your yearly review rolls around, you've got receipts. Most people walk in with nothing and wing it. You walk in with evidence.

Mission alignment. Does this company's direction overlap with where Chris Bongers™ is trying to go? Not perfectly. But if what they're building and what you're trying to learn are moving together, you've got a good client relationship. If they're pulling you somewhere you don't want to go, that's a business decision, not a feelings thing.

What I told my engineer

I told him it's not about doing the company's job for free.

It's about recognising that the opportunity in front of him (to experiment, to bring ideas, to think bigger) is an opportunity for him. His company. His growth. His story.

The company is just providing the playground.

I'm not sure he was fully convinced. But I think about the engineers who leaned in versus the ones who fought it, and the gap is already visible. Not in who's smarter. In who's growing.

Chris Bongers™ is always running.

You just have to decide if you're driving.

Let's connect on LinkedIn - How do you think about your career as a company?