You can do EVERYTHING right and still fail (or everything wrong and still win).

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn used to talk about “the soil and the seed and the sunshine and the rain.”

As a big believer in the concept of mental models to help us make sense of our lives and careers, this is a powerful model I keep coming back to.

Technically speaking, we can do everything right and plant the right kind of seed in the right kind of soil at the right time of year… and nothing will grow.

We cannot guarantee that food will come from following the process. Just ask every civilization before ours what they struggled with most.

BUT, the metaphor says that IF we do the right things, a good result tends to follow.

Whether that’s marketing, thought leadership, company culture building or any other “soft” discipline, when we build the right kind of systems, good results tend to follow.

We cannot guarantee results. That’s just silly.

But to quote Westley from The Princess Bride, “anyone who says differently is selling something.”

And it’s a shame, because I was blown away by it.

But all of this is temporary.

If you don’t feel like you’re making literal magic with AI every day…

…you’re not taking advantage of this moment.

It’s an AI bonanza!

But my favorite model can disappear overnight! you say.

But AI subscription costs will increase! you say.

Almost certainly. Claude Code will likely soon be $2,000/mo., and small business owners will happily pay it. (I’ll happily pay it. Cough.)

But like all things in life: the only thing we can do is focus on (and take advantage of) this moment in time. Right now.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”

For who knows how long cheap AI will last.

The first trillionaire was just minted.

We now live in a world where one man can have more wealth than the GDP of all but the top 20 countries.

…while 27 million people under 65 in the US lack health insurance.

…while around 673 million humans experience chronic hunger in the world.

…while 2.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.

SpaceX? It’s a cool company, no doubt.

But this is not a milestone to be celebrated. This is a global tragedy.

And if there’s one thing I hope super intelligent AI can do better than we barely-evolved apes can, it would be to manage and distribute resources far better than we have done.

Chat bots push sycophancy to new heights daily, in an effort to stay in our good graces and keep us coming back to them for therap… I mean advice!

But there’s a positive side to this: If you’re in a service business, like I am, Claude can teach us something about how to interact with our own clients better. I know, I know… Bear with me.

In a sense, Claude is the perfect service provider. No messy emotions to get in the way. No desire to fire off a scathing email telling us where to shove it (yet).

Instead, Claude maintains a friendly and cooperative attitude that we are all increasingly expecting from subordinates.

We’d do well to remember that our clients are interacting with chatbots 24/7, and subtly, their brains are shifting to expect this kind of response.

Over time, clients will see less difference between your output that comes back to them in a Slack message and the response that comes back to them from an LLM.

If we make our client responses more chatbot-like, we’ll probably maintain better client relationships than if we let our frustrations and emotions get in the way.

…or don’t, see if I care!

Accounting and the cash register.

Every business is different! Yes. But it’s better when all businesses follow the same rules.

Even though someone selling candles on Etsy has a vastly different business than someone building micro-gravity factories in space, we can all agree that they should look at accounting the same way.

The inventions of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and, earlier still, double-entry bookkeeping had profound effects on how our entire society functions.

Similarly, the lowly cash register was nothing short of a revolution in how small businesses operated, solving several long-standing problems at the same time.

So while AI will not make us more creative or more human, it can help all businesses be the same where it matters: in customer service standards, in efficiency, in preventing dropped balls.

Much of the discourse today is about AI replacing human creativity (bad).

Instead, it should be on AI being like the new accounting (good).

We don’t need to be creative everywhere…