The 90 Percent Expert

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

Think about your experience reading the newspaper: on most topics, the quality of the journalism, the insights and the perspective hit the bar for you. That’s why you read, after all.

Except in the rare cases when there’s an article about your area of expertise. Then the Emperor has no clothes. You can see where all the shortcuts and generalizations are, all the misses that the journalist made, the questionable choices on expert sources.

But does that stop you from reading the newspaper? Of course it doesn’t.

In a discussion group that I’m part of, one member suggested that this is how we should think about AI: it’s not perfect, but it is so good so often, that we shouldn’t let that 10% of time where we can see the flaws keep us from using the tool (read: keep us from reading the newspaper).

If you’re still stuck on this side of the fence, it might help to personify your AI a bit—meaning, move from “I’m going to use ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity etc.” for this task to “I have access to a 90% expert across any topic I can think of.”

I’ve already shared my ongoing use of ChatGPT as a physical therapist, which is still my favorite use case.

This weekend, I used ChatGPT as an Apple Genius Bar Employee—because making an appointment at, and going to, the Apple Genius Bar is a hassle.

I had an old, powerful Mac that my son had used, and I wanted to wipe it clean. It was not playing along.

First, my son had partitioned the hard drive, so that created a series of problems. Then the Operating System refused to update—it took 6 different attempts at that problem to get it solved. Then, with a new OS installed, iCloud login wasn’t working (because the laptop is for my daughter, and age restrictions with Family Sharing didn’t allow her to log out). Etc, etc, etc. until I solved the problem a few hours later. All of this with ChatGPT calmly troubleshooting with me, providing a series of options, being endlessly patient when I asked new questions or corrected it. I’m positive I would have failed at this task a year ago with just Google search.

The laptop is beside the point (especially because, once I’d solved the problem, we discovered that the battery life was terrible….argh). The point is to think about what it means to have access to this kind of expertise: the best gardener, the best physical therapist, the best coding instructor, the best brainstorming partner.

Better yet, that expertise doesn’t have to be generic (though the generic is pretty amazing). Seth Godin has created a series of personas on Claude, each of which has been taught to respond like some of the greatest thinkers and doers of all time.

So if you have a question for Charles Darwin, Fredrick Douglas, Stephen Pressfield, Seth Godin, Zig Ziglar, Annie Duke, Carol Dweck, Clayton Christensen, David Allen, Mahatma Gandhi, Kevin Kelly, Marcus Aurelius, Simone Biles, Tim Ferris, Sun Tzu, Pema Chodron, or 36 other world-shakers, the answers are at your fingertips.

Try spending a week carrying around the idea, “I have access to a 90% expert on any topic in the world.”

Choose to act on that idea by consulting that expert on a real problem you’re facing.

I promise you you’ll get great (but not perfect) answers fast, in ways that might just blow your mind.

Signs of Love

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

This felt like the perfect reminder of what really matters—especially in the waning days of summer, as we all take a deep breath before plunging into the fall (and, for some of us, as our kids disperse back to college).

It’s from Beauty in the Stillness by Karin Hadaden.

Signs of Love

This reminded me of you

I’m going to the grocery store, need anything?

Open your door, I sent you a little gift

Did you get home safe?

I am so proud of you

Let’s go somewhere together

I’ll be here for you

I’ll cook this time

How are you, really?

I think you’ll like this song

I have an extra ticket

Good luck today

How can I help?

Wanna watch it together?

I can pick you up

Tell me about your day

Remember when we…

Be ready at eight, I have a surprise

Let’s work through this together

I can’t imagine life without you

Time to Heal

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Consider a small cut on your hand or leg.

Maybe you nicked yourself with a knife, or got caught on a sharp branch while walking in the woods.

The bleeding stops immediately, and the wound closes up in a day or two.

After that, there’s a mark—not something that’s causing active discomfort, but it’s still there.

Not for a day or two, but for a matter of weeks, sometimes a month or more.

The time from the initial bump or scrape to a mark completely disappearing always seems to last longer than I expect it to.

The healing, that is.

It happens, but not right away.

It happens, but slowly.

It happens, but not on my timeline.

The miracle is, it always happens.

The wounds, inside and out, they always heal.

Willing to be Bad

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

It’s easy to think that learning new skills is about determination and willpower. Some people have it, and some people don’t.

While that is true, it is also incomplete.

Learning a new skill is a commitment to consistently spend time doing something poorly, and to refuse to give up despite how hard that feels.

In this way, it is as much about being willing to spend time in discomfort—physical or psychological—with little to show for your efforts, potentially for long periods of time.

The thing I’m currently bad at is the guitar.

I’ve been bad at it for about a year and a half now. Before being bad at it, I was nothing at it, and so bad is a big improvement.

In the beginning, my fingertips constantly hurt from pressing on steel strings—so in addition to not being able to play much of anything, I was in pain. Plus, nearly every note I played buzzed. That alone was a good reason to stop.

Then I learned a few chords, and quickly discovered that many of the most “basic” ones, including the F chord, were bar chords, requiring pressing down HARD on multiple strings with one finger. That was nearly impossible for me, a true beginner, and I couldn’t do it properly until about two months ago. So, 15 months of not being able to play a C-F-G-C sequence, which is about as basic a chord progression as exists. That was another good reason to stop.

Now I can play some songs, but playing a chord shift with a bar chord—G-major to B-flat minor, for example—is a 50/50 proposition at best. So, I’m practicing it. How? By repeating G-major—B-flat-minor hundreds of times. On a given night, I might play that 100 times terribly, and another 100 times less terribly. I’m not playing most of the song I’m working on (Summer of 69, randomly), I’m just playing those two chords for the better part of a practice session. By the end, it’s a little better, and I’m a little bit encouraged. And then the next day, it feels like I’m back where I started. And that’s frustrating too, and another good reason to stop.

The temptation to stop, you see, that is really the hard bit.

You have this idea in your head about what “good” will look like, and you’re so clearly far away from that ideal, that it can seem hopeless, and you can think, “Maybe this isn’t a good plan after all. Maybe I’ll never get there. Maybe I should stick to the things I already do well.”

The thing I notice, when I get back to the G-major to B-flat, is that it takes me fewer tries today to get to decent than it took me yesterday. I also notice that, after working on that transition, my (formerly) dreaded F-chord feels almost easy. Noticing the progress I’ve made, however small, is much more motivating than dwelling on the gap between me and everyone who plays the guitar so effortlessly.

So I dive in again.

Going towards the frustration.

Feeling that vulnerability.

Progressing much more slowly than I’d like.

But smiling at the voice saying “this isn’t all that fun, and it doesn’t sound that good. Maybe I’ll never get there” and just doing it again.

I’m talking about guitar but you can see that the discomfort is the same across disciplines: G-to B-flat could be learning how to integrate AI into your work, or keeping at running every day even though it’s never easy, or eating differently, or learning a new language, or deciding to take on virtually anything at all that you’re not great at today.

It’s not all that bad to be bad at something.

At least you’re doing the something.

And whatever you do, with intention and effort, for a long time, you improve at.

No matter what.

Once

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

The other day, I was waiting for my dogs to finish their Very Important Search for Squirrels in the woods by our elementary school. I was passing the time by watching two kids being pushed on the swing by two dads.

For those of you not familiar with this activity, swing-pushing is a relentless job. Any kid under the age of 6 will happily be pushed on a swing 60 minutes or more, rain or shine, without any need to stop.

If you’re the parent, and if it’s cold or windy or sunny or hot, or if you just find 60 minutes of pushing to be a long time, it can be easy to get impatient, or even frustrated.

“I can’t believe I’m stuck doing this [repetitive, boring, whatever] thing again!”

It helps to remember that nearly everything only happens once.

Once in this context.

Once at this stage of my life.

Once with this set of people.

And so it goes outside the playground as well.

Having a hard time at work? Once.

Having challenges in a relationship? Once.

Having some great things happening in your life mixed in with things that are stressful, or distracting? Once.

One day, you stop going to the swings and never look back.

One day, a decade has passed—for you, for them—and you can hardly imagine what it would be like to be a dad who spent most of his free time pushing swings (or solving this particular problem, or working with this group of people on this hard but interesting thing…).

It’s so easy to forget that the here and now whips by us, that we can never step in the same river twice.

The reminder is to shift our perception from “I have to do this thing [seemingly] forever” to “I get to do this thing with these people in this way once and only once.”

Explain it Simply

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All thorny problems are difficult to solve. That’s what makes them thorny, after all.

But all good solutions can be explained simply.

That’s because all good solutions are hypotheses and nothing more.

Hence the simple 3-part explanation.

  1. “Here’s what I believe lies at the heart of this problem.”
  2. “Here’s what I propose that will address that issue.”
  3. “Here’s why I think it will address that issue.”

Your goal is not to be right—in fact, the quest for rightness in the face of  complexity can be paralyzing, and inaction has its own costs.

Rather, your goal is to state these three points with utmost clarity.

This way, even if you don’t figure out the perfect solution (yet), you will at least know which of your three statements was right and which was wrong. Then you can iterate.

And if you can’t (yet) explain your problem and solution this simply, keep at it. Without this kind of clarity, it’s too soon to jump to implementation.

The Space for Joy

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

It’s natural, when things get hectic, to let joy fall off the list. After all, there’s so much to do!

As the saying goes: when the going gets tough…

So we focus in on what appears to be essential, pouring all our energy into today’s crisis.

While that can be a good place to start, our heroics are often accompanied by two things that might not help us:

  • Cycling through worries, fears, and worst-case stories about what might result from this crisis (aka anticipation of failure)
  • Mind-numbing distraction because we “need a break” (aka doom scrolling)

I visualize the concentric circles like this. And I can’t imagine that the outer two rings are helping me or helping those around me.

We might, then, ask ourselves: what are the minimum conditions that need to be in place for us to experience joy?

And if we really, truly, cannot experience joy today, because of all that is going on, can we at least allow ourselves the space to quiet the outer two circles for a moment?

What would help us to do that?

What helps us pause, breath, smile, laugh, and drop our shoulders, even if just for a second?

Worry and distraction do not have to be out constant companions in a crisis.

If they are, then when does the moment arrive where things are “calm enough” for joy to creep back in?

And when will those near-perfect conditions be met?

What Motivates You?

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Our professional lives are increasingly defined by how much we dare to care.

Whatever filled us with energy and motivation at the outset must be constantly refilled. The “wow” of the first 100 days doesn’t replenish itself, and waiting for someone or something else is not the answer—we could be waiting forever, and that denies our agency.

So, here’s a starter list that I wrote without AI, because the value to me was the thinking—about what’s motivated me in the past, how I get through ups and downs, and what I’ve seen work for others.

I’m sure you could make the list much longer, as an interesting intellectual exercise.

But it would be even more valuable if find the 3-5 reasons that resonate with you, the things that, honestly, are what make you care about your work.

Then share that list with your boss, your colleagues, with other people that matter in your personal and professional life.

  • I believe that our work helps clients succeed in creating meaningful change
  • I believe that my work is the difference between something being unclear and it being clear
  • I believe that when I do my best work I serve as a model to others within the team
  • I love teaching people
  • I love learning new things
  • I love solving problems
  • I love checking things off my list
  • I am motivated to keep my promises
  • I am professionally ambitious, and I want to impress my boss
  • If I get this work done well, it will get noticed, and I’ll get to broaden my suite of work to encompass more things that I find interesting
  • I am working towards a raise / promotion / bigger paycheck
  • I am a person who keeps my commitments—that’s just who I am
  • I take a lot of pride in a job well done
  • I really like my client, and I want to make them happy
  • I really like the company we’re working for, and I want to make them happy
  • I find it fun to work with numbers / words / analysis / etc. and I get to do that in my job
  • I’m curious what it takes to really wow someone, and I’m going to keep at it until I can hit that bar
  • My boss believes in me, and I want to justify that belief
  • My team believes in me, and I want to justify that belief
  • My client believes in me, and I want to justify that belief
  • I want to make my mom/dad/brother/sister/kids/dog/cat proud

We can’t tap into our motivation if we don’t know where it comes from.

My AI Physical Therapist

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

My Instagram feed is basically:

  • The 10 people I follow (including my son’s ceramics account)
  • Dogs / puppies / rescues
  • Tennis / squash tips and highlights
  • Injury prevention / cures for middle-aged athletes

On the last point, my last few years have been marked by a series of minor but chronic injuries. I seem to be in the stage of life of small ligament and tendon strains, injuries that respond well to physical therapy if you can make the time.

The worst has been tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis). It’s lasted for more than a year, and I’m just now getting better. But I’m finding PT too time-consuming (90-120 minutes so I can do 20 minutes of exercises??) and too much of an insurance hassle.

In a continuation of this trend, a month ago, I got a sharp pain in my hip after a run. After a few dead-end YouTube attempts, I realized I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

Rather than go to the doctor and then back to PT, I turned to ChatGPT. I was amazed with how helpful it was. If you, like me, are still under-using these tools, perhaps this can be an inspiration.

Here’s the original prompt I wrote:

I need you to be an expert physical therapist who can help me diagnose and treat injuries at home. Be thorough in your diagnosis and assume that I am a sophisticated lifetime athlete who can do complex exercises at home as needed. I’m 51 years old. I need to diagnose a pain I have in my right outer hip, just below my hip pointer.

I got the injury after a fast (for me) hilly run after having taken off a few months. This was my 10th run after having taken 3 months off. I had done the same run, 4.3 miles, twice earlier in the week, but my pace in those was 9:30/mile and in this run was 8:20/mile. I felt no pain during the run but after the run it hurt some to stride / step with my right leg, and to go up hills. The pain is greatest when I get up after sitting down for a bit. After a little while it decreases. The pain is sharp and localized to the area just below and above the hip pointer.

From this prompt and a few follow ups, ChatGPT gave me:

  • Its first diagnosis (either a tendinopathy in my gluteus medius / minimus or a TFL overuse injury)
  • A series of diagnostic tests I could do to narrow down the potential injury
  • A full 30 day PT plan that I now have in a Google Sheet that I’m following daily
  • This plan includes descriptions of all the exercises with references.

Since this went so well, I’ve kept talking to ChatGPT about how it’s going: how the exercises, felt; how one of them hurt more than expected and could it give me an alternative; how I feel first thing in the morning and over the course of my day. It’s the conversation I would have with my PT every day if he were available.

With this feedback, ChatGPT both modified the exercise regime to better suit how I’m feeling and has modified the diagnosis.

Here’s the latest that I got back this morning, based on my updated symptoms:

Differential Diagnosis Recap

Condition Why It Fits Why It Doesn’t
Gluteus med/min tendinopathy Pain with heel strike, long stride, compression from sleep, improves with warm-up —
TFL overuse Could be involved, but unlikely primary now; less direct heel-strike involvement Less pain with bridge, more lateral than anterior
Trochanteric bursitis Possible secondary irritant But no diffuse swelling or tenderness reported yet
Labral or joint issues No locking, groin pain, or deep ache Very unlikely
Femoral stress reaction No deep bone pain or night pain Very unlikely

And here’s a visual representation of what I’ve told my AI physical therapist and what that means for my diagnosis—this pretty much blew me away:

I know that for many people, AI is an idea—perhaps even a scary one—and not something that’s part of daily life. And I can understand why many of us might be happier either using none of these tools or waiting for someone to build a “Virtual Physical Therapist” app rather than playing around with ChatGPT or the many other tools available to us today.

I’d encourage you to think about this another way: for $20 / month, an expert in literally any topic you can accurately describe is available to you and to your team.

It’s a shame not to take advantage of that.

Fill in the Blanks

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Any job worth having has blanks. Lots of them.

There may be a set of steps to follow, a standard that’s been written out, a sequence that’s been proven to work.

But life, and people, are far too complex to fit neatly inside the rubric.

Surprises happen.

Someone goes on holiday, and you need to sub in.

An assumption got made in step 3 and that led to a seemingly-right-but-wrong decision in step 6 and, all of a sudden, we’re in step 8 and we need to decide what to do.

That’s a blank.

 

What Do You Do With a Blank?

The question is: what are we going to do with it? And, more broadly, what is our team going to do with it?

Because blanks appear all the time.

We can’t plan our way around them.

We can’t write a script to deal with all of them.

We can’t wish them away.

A starting point is our organizational values—real ones, that are reinforced every day in both actions and communication, that reinforce the right action. They say,

“Here are the principles and priorities we live by. When all else fails [read: when you come across a blank] behave in this way.”

But, even with great values in place—values that are reinforced regularly and are tangible enough to guide action—they will be insufficient if the people being asked to implement don’t care.

Because when you find yourself saying, “This is a situation I’ve never encountered before. What am I going to do?” you are encountering a situation that requires emotional effort, and emotional effort is neither cheap nor easy.

Every blank is defined by uncertainty, the chance that we might get this wrong. That translates to exposure. And, when faced with exposure, a person who doesn’t care much is more likley to hide or turn their heads the other way. This ultimately leaves the blank as a blank, but it feels safer.

 

Why does caring make all the difference?

Partially because you’ll try harder: you’ll be willing to put in that emotional effort despite the uncertainty and fear.

More because people around you will see you trying harder, and they will be more inclined to pitch in.

And, last but not least, because whoever you are trying to make happy—the person on whose behalf you are filling in this blank— will see how much you care. They will respect that intention and effort even if the outcome isn’t perfect.

This means we’re left with three questions:

  1. Do I understand that the most important parts of my jobs are the ones where I come across a ‘blank’?
  2. Has my organization articulated, and do we daily reinforce, an orientation that will support the best kind of actions we are going to take in these situations?
  3. How do we create and scale ‘giving a damn’ across multiple people in multiple places over long(er) periods of time?

The last one is, in my opinion, the real secret. Because even great values reinforced regularly mean nothing if they land on indifferent ears.

That means that, if you are part of an organization that faces a lots of blanks (and you do), the first question to answer is:

How do I make sure that everyone else cares as much as I do?