Ethan Mollick is as Professor of Innovation and Business at Wharton. He also wrote a book — “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI.” He also writes the One Useful Thing blog.Ethan predicts that AI will displace the low value and repetitive tasks of workers. It may replace higher income or knowledge work. It also may free up human capital to be more productive on higher value stream tasks. Ted Gioia is a culture and music critic. He maintains The Honest Broker blog. Ted argues that the rise of AI has led Spotify to develop and push AI-created music, that our culture is stagnating as producers are overusing the same formulaic approach to popular music, and that there has not been any truly original and new music created lately. We’re regressing to music that is from our past. “The rapid rise of AI is actually the most profound evidence yet of cultural stagnation.”My thoughts: If AI is to make a splash in the workforce, then aggressively learn and care about AI.If our culture is to evolve, we need to create and ship work. If we are to keep creating and shipping work, we need to keep being curious.

Imagine if there was a soundtrack that accompanied your day. When I play piano, I imagine I’m adding to the sound track of someone’s life. This Stravinsky piece was the soundtrack I needed for my trip from Chicago to Milwaukee. 9pm, rainy, I’m one of a few people in the quiet car. Head sets with noise canceling on. Here I am thinking about what to say to you. I almost imagine myself with a type writer in some turn-of-the-centruy Parisian flat. Cafe below. What’s your soundtrack?

Tyler Cowen shared Audio Guestbook via Sunday blog post. Audio Guestbook is a service that sends a telephone to an event host so that guests can leave a voicemail instead of writing in a guestbook. In addition to sending the voicemails left at the event via digital file, Audio Guestbook will also send vinyl. I wonder what genesis question the founders asked themselves. What if I could just leave a voicemail instead of write a message in a guestbook? Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a phone here that I could leave a voicemail instead? Maybe it would be cool if that phone looked like the bat phone or something…I met someone who thought creativity was an activity meant for artists. I disagree. Anybody can ask the question. The real skill is indulging the question longer than you think you should. That’s where the magic happens - at the margin of should.

If you’ve ever been accused of being an intimidating figure, consider these ideas to help.There are not many strong enough incentives to change who you are. Add instead.Admit a lack of knowledge. Be comfortable saying “I don’t know.”Make fun of your intensity. Learn to laugh at yourself — humanize.Become intensely generous and supportive. If you can, learn to slow down just a bit. “Taking a beat” is often enough.Don’t change who you are — you’re already fine. Consider adding.HT to Field Notes by Admired Leadership

“You gotta look back to go forward. "”

in wayfinding there is a navigational concept called reverse bearing. A reverse bearing is the opposite direction of your current bearing — the direction you would travel to return to your starting point.

If you wanted to find a reverse bearing, you add or subtract 180 degrees from your current bearing. Your goal is to find the exact opposite direction.

If you can understand the reverse bearing you can understand how to navigate back to the beginning. In the process of life, moving forward means embracing the path that leads us back to our origin — our ultimate home.

I’ve been musing about the point of life. Why bother when it’s all going to end? Questions like that. I just realized — life is a paradox and trying to understand it is absurd. The irony.Embrace the paradox. Accept life as being utterly uncertain, unpredictable, and totally opposite to how you will expect to move and shift and it might just show you something about itself.

Seth Godin writes about marketing, products, and branding. Here’s a post from this week.Seth asks the reader to consider a series of questions: Who is it for? What is it for? What tension does it create or resolve? He tries to get to think of branding less as a logo and more as a promise. I agree. I also wonder, how do we people use these questions for ourselves? One obvious application is branding as a potential employee. A less obvious application is branding as the self. Who are we for? What are we for? What change do we seek to make? A personal brand promise is so much more than a logo or a look.

I love this post from Rohan’s blog, “A Learning a Day”. Rohan didn’t write anything profound. It’s what he noticed and shared with me that mattered.Read his post, and ask yourself: Are you giving that much attention to the little things?

Grinding, grinding, and grinding at life to only and not learn the end of the story.I’m not making an argument for not caring about work. I’m making an argument for focusing too hard on achieving the impossible dream to not stop and smell the roses a bit. The Red Queen effect is real. Slow down.