The education system rewards conformity and following a formula. As a result, we’re trained to seek predictability. When you start your own thing, you learn that business rewards the opposite. You often win by defying what everyone has told you to do. That also means that the barrier to your next level is almost always you.

The good news: the more you can clearly define who you are, and live honestly and authentically, the more successful you’ll be. And when you do things that seem crazy, it’s just a reflection of deep alignment that only you can see.

In the age of AI, this will be our currency: how much of yourself can you define and build so that your work is an embodiment of you?

I’m incredibly pro-AI, and one of the emerging truths is that despite all the advancements, humans will be more important than ever. As AI automates all the predictable parts of work, the key becomes being a discerning human.

AI removes tedious tasks from your plate: it delivers research that would take hours in minutes, it provides an unprecedented level of context into you or your business, it essentially functions like an assistant and director of operations for tasks you don’t want to do. This frees up your time so that you can focus on what you like, and what you’re good at.

The problem is people don’t know what they like, or what they’re good at.

And there’s another problem: when AI removes the tedious tasks, what’s left is judgment, taste, and big decision-making. Spending all day on large, taste-making decisions can be exhausting and tends to lead to paralysis.

The answer to these problems is rooted in our humanness. We must get better at leaning into our intuition, and at making decisions that are right for us. How do you do that? Walks in nature, connection with self, silence so that you can hear what you think. The antidote is analog.

AI creates more. It’s abundance-based.

AI lowers the cost of literally everything, and that rightfully scares people. But if you use your unique gifts well, you can build your moat. Putting self at the center of what you do means that you are your business. You refine yourself to refine your business, and through improving yourself, you improve your business.

AI will create millions of new entrepreneurs, which is incredibly exciting. And rather than be in a job or career for decades, they will be businesses of one, with a very specific skill. And they can run around providing that very specific skill to the very specific people who need it.

The skill will likely change. In just the last three months, I’ve changed my offers and I’m on the precipice of changing them again. Continued self-education will be vital, but it will create massive opportunity for those who want it.

I don’t dispute the problems with AI, I don’t dispute that it will be messy and there will be dislocation as we figure out what this looks like, but the Industrial Revolution, the Internet all led to monumental shifts in our economy that benefited everyone.

There will be challenges, but I believe that the benefits outweigh them.

This newsletter focuses a lot on personal development, but like everything, personal development deserves moderation. Constantly working on yourself centers you in a way that can become…annoying (lol at what I just wrote above this, but it’s true).

The answer to this is community. There are so many reasons why I love community, but one of them is that it allows you to forget about yourself. To be fully present with the people in your life, to listen and provide valuable feedback. It takes you out of your head and gets you into a network where we all lean on each other.

I still believe deeply in self-analysis, but human interaction is a huge part of that, if not for any other reason than it provides valuable perspective that too much introspection can blur.

And it’s analog, baby.

Same.