In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there, all at once.
It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make our impact.
This is blog post #9000 (give or take).
When did the leap happen?
It wasn’t an external leap. The first hundred blog posts were read by fewer than a dozen people.
It was an internal one. The decision to be a blogger. And then redeciding, each day, not to stop.
Every four years, we have a worldwide holiday to celebrate this sort of leap. The leap of choice. Not to suddenly get from here to there, but to choose to go on the journey.
It’s only once every 1,460 days, you can do it.
Leap today.
Perhaps we begin by visualizing it. In the most concrete terms you can find, write it down. If you took a leap today, what would it look like? Who would benefit?
And then, share it with just one other person.
Often, the act of physically writing it down is the most difficult part.
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut.
If a company is hiring, the person who worked at Google or Apple or Disney gets more of the benefit of the doubt. Even if all they did was bring coffee to someone.
But, if that person was one of the hundreds laid off yesterday as a result of Apple shuttering their car project, not so much.
If you get pitched by someone who worked at Bird or Theranos or General Magic, what pile do they go in?
What about someone who was the assistant to an actor who just got nominated for an Academy Award vs. someone who worked for a has-been?
It’s not hard to extend this to people who went to a school with a successful football team, or who are part of a group that traditionally is given an advantage due to an accident of birth.
These are false proxies. But it’s such a natural instinct that we have to work to intentionally overcome it.
Every four years, give or take, I make a big but cheap ask:
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How big a swing do we need to make it feel like it matters?
At the casino, some folks play with $5 chips, some with $100 chips. Do the high rollers have more fun? Are they more engaged?
It’s natural to imagine that bigger swings matter more. That a bigger audience means our standup needs to be better, or a bigger investment is a signal that our business matters more.
More and better aren’t the same.
There are very few projects that have an impact on every human. Most are more local than that. Winning the regional Math Olympiad can feel just as important as winning the Super Bowl, and entire countries will be unaware of both events.
If you need it to feel like life or death for the work to matter, the problem might not be that you don’t get enough near-death opportunities. It might be that you’ve signed up to work in crisis mode.
One of the unmentioned causes of division in much of our culture happens because of the shift in expectations and rules when we begin to live in close proximity to one another.
In a non-crowded setting, the default is independence. The expectation is that you can drive as fast as you like, do whatever you like with your land, say anything that’s on your mind.
In a city, proximity raises the stakes for how our behavior influences others. Interdependence becomes a benefit. So don’t tailgate, turn down the stereo in your apartment and realize that your words and behavior impact the folks around you.
Both are forms of freedom. The freedom to do what you want and the freedom to live in a connected culture.
When we move online, everything and everyone is just a click away. We’re constantly in close proximity to people of different ages, backgrounds and goals.
And when the world continues to get smaller and more entwined, close proximity dominates. Buying a dozen bottles of water at the market (even if they’re on sale) costs everyone else. Those bottles are going to go somewhere when you’re done with them, and the world is smaller than ever before.
The paradox of the early astronaut training programs was that they recruited hot shots who were used to living in their own lane, and then trained them to be experts at being in close quarters.
Add to it machine learning and autotune and the race to fit in and reach the masses…
We end up with a relentless march toward mediocrity. Mediocre is another word for average.
It has always happened as industries matured (whether it’s Motown or blenders). But then, often, a human being shows up with something that ‘everyone’ says isn’t going to work, and the game is reset.
Just about all bestsellers are surprise bestsellers.
But the forces of mediocrity are now microprocessor-powered, heavily funded, and determined to hold on to the middle of the market. More grey, more goo.
It’s hard to make a great sequel.
Better to spend our time to make a remarkable original.
Living indoors, connected to a screen, it’s easy for the months and years to blur together.
The seasons used to matter more.
But for young adults, they still do. Transitions are built around the seasons, and the headlong rush to a career is still sometimes interrupted by months where there’s a chance to reset and to grow.
If you know someone who’s a few months away from one of these in-between summers, I hope you’ll forward this to them.
While it’s tempting to see a summer as a break, simply a chance to rest up and recharge, the ones we end up remembering and treasuring are the foundational ones. The projects that changed us, largely because we helped someone else grow, because we built something or became something or did something worth our effort.
I’m helping my friends up north recruit and train a few instructors and staff for the summer. Click here for the details.
If you’re not in a position to do that, here’s a starter list of some projects you can do right where you are, without needing to apply. Advance planning helps a lot, though.
Take an intensive two-week course in AI and LLM and then teach it to local businesses or kids in the neighborhood.
Volunteer at a local non-profit and rebuild their website and rewrite their fundraising emails.
Organize and run a literacy program for kids at the local library.
Start a local radio station/TV station where you work with others to create, write, edit and publish a new episode every day online.
Join an open source community and earn the trust to contribute useful code.
Start a simple business–offer neighbors the chance to turn their clutter into cash by organizing a weekly blockwide tag sale, or open a store on eBay.
Commit to 60 days of contribution to get out the vote, organizing your peers to create a powerful force for good.
Build and renovate houses with the Fuller Center or another local group.
Work with the local rec center to develop an outdoor learning program for kids for the summer.
Pigeonholes are for pigeons. The magic of a summer of contribution is that you get to try on a new hat to see if it fits. We all have more agency than we want to admit.
If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that became Disney, McDonald’s and Holiday Inn, all of which were powered by cheap, plentiful cars. You could have become a major developer of suburbs, mortgage banking and even pop music record labels (car radios changed the way music was consumed).
AI is here now, and the pace is astonishing. So far, I haven’t seen many freelancers or small businesspeople choosing to make an impact by understanding what it can do and selling processes and services to bigger organizations in ways that dramatically change how they do business.
I asked it for some suggestions. Here are a few:
Spreadsheet Analysis: Analyze spreadsheets for trends, errors, and provide statistical summaries.
Code Debugging: Identify errors in code snippets and suggest corrections.
Language Translation: Translate text between multiple languages with context preservation.
Legal Document Drafting: Draft basic legal documents, contracts, and NDAs with customizable inputs.
Nutritional Analysis: Analyze meal plans or recipes for nutritional content and suggest improvements.
Learning & Quiz Creation: Generate educational quizzes and flashcards on various subjects for self-testing.
Resume Feedback: Provide feedback on resumes, including suggestions for improvement based on industry standards.
Therapy Session Simulation: Simulate therapeutic conversations, offering support and cognitive behavioral techniques.
Music Theory Analysis: Analyze music theory concepts in compositions and suggest modifications or improvements.
Workout Plan Creation: Generate personalized workout plans based on fitness goals, available equipment, and time constraints.
Poetry and Story Writing: Write poems, stories, or even entire books based on detailed prompts or themes.
Scientific Research Summarization: Summarize complex scientific research papers into understandable language.
Business Name & Slogan Creation: Generate creative and relevant business names and slogans based on industry and key values.
Meditation and Mindfulness Exercises: Guide through meditation and mindfulness exercises tailored to specific needs or durations.
Fashion Advice: Provide fashion advice, including outfit suggestions based on occasion, weather, and personal style.
Some of these are parlor tricks, the same way the lava lamp wouldn’t have existed without electricity in the home. But they point to a scalable shift in our infrastructure and a real need for people who write prompts instead of following them.
My hunch is that like many technology revolutions before it, this breakthrough is going to create far more jobs than it destroys. But the change is real, and it’s here now.
PS what I haven’t seen yet:
Read all of my organization’s Google docs and answer questions for me about what we know and what we’re doing well or inconsistently
Read all of my email and give me suggestions on who knows what or what I’m missing
Read all of the email of everyone in my company and answer questions on everything from knowledge to efficiency to bullying…
In addition to being delightful to spell, the idea of work that’s queued up is energizing. The chapter ahead of schedule, the process in place for the next quarter, the continued commitment to learning…
It is locked, loaded and ready to go. It’s work that requires timing and foresight, and it’s an asset.
Knowing that it’s ready and waiting gives you the leverage and confidence to work on the next thing.
If we spend our time waiting for a signal, an invitation or a cue, we will be doing a lot of waiting.
When architects show off their work, or propose a bold new building complex or even ask for a zoning variance, the public sees the external photos. The tall spire, the innovative use of glass, the weird hole in the center of the building.
And when a car company shows off a new model at a press conference, it’s the headlights or the door handles that catch our attention.
And colleges brag about their football teams…
But the thing is, most of the time the building serves its function for the people working inside of it. The owner of the car can’t see the headlights, and almost all the benefits of college have zero to do with what happens for two hours on Saturday.
Gimmicks are memorable. But they’re gimmicks.
February 21, 2024
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