I'm writing to think, learn, and remember in public. I'll be here everyday.
“Trust is earned, not given.”
What if, instead, we all started with, “Trust is freely given.”
Yes, sometimes you’ll get taken. But also…
More comfort with risk. More support in failures. More possibilities. More empathy. More collaboration. More innovation. More growth. More speed.
My sump pump has been torturing me for the last three days.
It’s been running a cycle of 10 seconds on and 11 seconds off since the middle of the storm that dumped three inches of rain. First, the clunk of the float valve, followed by the relentless hum of the pump, then another clunk signaling the valve’s closure. This sequence reverberates across my entire ground floor, forming a tedious, drawn-out melody I can’t stand. My desk, where I sit this very moment, is positioned directly above the pump in the basement.
Torture. But then…
The pump has created a little creek running down my front yard that starts at its outlet at the corner of the house. It runs down the now mushy yard and into the swale at the edge of the road. From there, it follows the swale across the end of my driveway towards the bottom of the hill a quarter mile down the road. Where I sit, I can watch the water make its journey from under my house to the bottom of the hill a quarter mile away.
And then I feel it — the gratitude.
There’s always something to be thankful for.
My feet hit the ground.
My knees springy and strong.
The hard and smooth road.
Fields, barns, and grass bursting with optimism.
My feet hit the ground.
My knees resilient yet questioning.
The rough and ready road.
Fields, barns, and grass jaded with experience.
My feet hit the ground.
My knees tentative and weathered.
The pitched and unforgiving road.
Fields, barns, and grass mocking with the passage of time.
Scientists think that an itchy feeling is a mechanism to protect us from harmful external physical elements like parasites and chemicals. The irritating feeling reflexively prompts us to scratch it, which may help to remove the irritant, providing some protection.
However, sometimes, the itchy feeling results from an internal source. An external response to something irritating from within. In such cases, the medical world seeks to help us find the source of that irritant because that itchy feeling may be an indicator of something more harmful and foreboding within. Something that, if left unattended, can lead to bigger problems.
Life experience generates a wisdom that youthful naivety can easily miss. Having gone through the shit, seen some things with your own eyes, and been at the receiving end, you start to get a feel for when stuff might go down.
You get that itchy feeling.
Always listen to that itchy feeling.
“Never quit” is a dumb mantra.
It embodies everything that’s wrong with hustle culture, toxic positivity, and faux leadership (and parenting) through motivational posters. By the way, manipulators use the “never quit” mantra to keep you hooked in, not for your benefit, but for theirs. Yes, that’s how they get ya.
The most successful, happiest, and content people you know, follow, and admire don’t “never quit.” Rather, they figure out what and when to quit. Not every path leads to success. Not every path leads you to where you want to go. Not every path is good for you.
To be successful, happy, and content, you will have to go through the shit. Not around it. No shortcuts. Sometimes, to get where you want to go, you will definitely have to not quit. But not always. You need to do the work to know when to quit and when not to.
Your new mantra — Sometimes quit!
It doesn’t look good on a poster. It’s not a great sound bite. Rocky would never tape it to his mirror.
But it’ll serve you better.
AI is here, and 2024 is the year you should be using it.
I’ve seen people draw analogies between AI as a technology disrupter to the computer/smartphone, fire, steam engine, printing press, electricity, internet, and the entire industrial revolution. All seem reasonable to me. Only in hindsight will we know the effect AI will have had on our culture, species, and planet. That’s for future historians to debate.
However, as someone who is now using ChatGPT every day, I believe that regardless of the global and historical ramifications, it offers a very personal benefit — it’s an amazing tool. A tool too good to ignore or not to use.
Would you prefer a rock over a hammer? A sharp stick over a drill? A flat rock over a frying pan? An abacus over a calculator?
Over the last several posts, I’ve outlined how I currently use AI as a software developer, writer, and team leader. ChatGPT is now a tool I won’t live without.
2024 is the year. The year of AI.
Need a logo? What about an icon or graphic for your presentation?
AI is your answer. Either DALL-E (a wing of ChatGPT) and Midjourney.
I needed some icons to use in a presentation. I used DALL-E like this: “Generate a set of icons that represent code, build, test, and release. Make them monochrome and simple.”
Then I iterated on them a few times, such as: “Make the code icon look more like a file with text.” After less than five minutes, I had it — a set of four icons that I’d be using in my presentation.
Here’s what I got.
Prior to AI, I would have done a Google search and definitely found what I was looking for. However, I would have to start by eliminating all of the images that Google presented from paysites. Then, I would have to search through those left to find four that had a similar look and feel. Finally, I would have no idea which of these might be at risk to copyright or trademark issues.
Not so with DALL-E. I’m free and clear and have exactly what I wanted.
Similarly for a logo.
“Generate a 150×150 logo for a devops company named IdeaGantry. Make it rocket themed and use colors and an image that invokes trust.”
A few iterations later, here’s what I got.
DALL-E won’t replace your marketing department, but if you’re in the marketing department, you sure want to use it to help you.
Here is where it gets interesting and where you can fully harness AI’s current power.
Whether you are a marketer, salesperson, team leader, project manager, student, blogger, screenwriter, author, journalist, pastor, or you write the newsletter for your mom’s group, ChatGPT is your new best friend. You can and should use it to both help you create and edit. It’s like having a fabulous assistant, a group of friends you sit around with getting sloshed and talking about big ideas, and access to a focus group all in one beguiling little prompt.
For content generation, you can use ChatGPT at whatever level you want to, from generating ideas to writing whole articles.
“Write a 200 word summary article of this weekly crime data for a blurb in the police ledger of a newspaper”
“I’m writing a sermon about Psalm 23 for a liberal Presbyterian congregation that has a large income diversity. Suggest 5 themes I can explore”
“Give me 25 recipes that meet the following criteria: protein > 20g, carbs < 50g, fat < 15 g, no eggs, gluten free”
“Write an end of the year message to my team that summarizes all of our accomplishments and sets out a path for the next year”
Then, iterate in a conversational context to get to what you want.
For editing, you can ask ChatGPT specific questions.
“Edit this blurb about crime statistics so that it fits into less than 200 words”
“Here is my sermon. Suggest some improvements so that I can better relate to my economically diverse congregation”
“Here are 10 recipes. Modify them so that they are all formatted identically to the format I provided earlier”
“Edit this end of year message to my team so that it reads more succinct and ensures we keep optimism for the upcoming year”
Or you can retarget an audience.
“Here is the documentation on our software application. Create a 500 word article that summarizes it and is targeted to an audience marketing and sales people”
“Here is my article about XYZ. Rewrite it for a an audience of elementary school kids and use analogies”
This is just the tip of the iceberg. ChatGPT and LLM Ai, in general, are built for writing.
If you do any work with people outside the United States, ChatGPT is an indispensable tool for written communication.
Google Translate is a great tool, but it lacks something very important — context. You can craft some communication, formal or informal, that makes sense in English, dump it into Translate, and you’ll get back and direct translation. But sometimes, it loses meaning or even creates incorrect connotations.
ChatGPT is much better at context and the nuances of formal and informal communication in different languages.
Here’s an example:
“Craft a marketing brief in Italian to be emailed to our list about the launch of the software application found here: https://idex-biometrics-fuze.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/index.html”
ChatGPT understands the context and nuances of marketing briefs in Italian, plus it will go figure out from the URL what that software is all about. It will create something useful and hit the mark.
Also, harkening back to Part 3, you can create a chatbot that translates languages in real-time, making it seamless to the people talking with your chatbot.
ChatGPT is bringing the world closer together and making your life easier through written translation.
Yes, in 2024, you’ll be conversing (written) with AI quite a bit. Here’s how you can get in on the game.
You can use ChatGPT in two main ways for written conversation:
If you’re tech-savvy, creating your own AI-backed chatbots is within your grasp already. I won’t describe the details of how to do it here, but you can create the chatbot and train it on all of your information, then make an interface to it available to the public.
Granted, creating chatbots appeals to a limited audience. So number two may be more interesting to you. Here’s an example of how I use it.
I’ll get a long email thread that started way before my inclusion. Assuming no confidential material, I’ll paste the entirety of the thread into ChatGPT and ask it the following:
“Summarize this thread for me. If I am being asked to do something or respond, tell me, and then formulate a response”
Out pops a summary of the thread, an indication of whether I’m am tasked with something, and if so, an initial response. Often, that response is good enough to go as is. If the required response does need a decision from me, ChatGPT will ask me what I want the decision to be.
The bottom line: ChatGPT can help you both speed up your ability to respond and improve the responses you give.
