Book Brew 195: Your First AI Attempt Is Allowed to Suck

“You just have to do it. Don't worry about being shitty. You have to be shitty for a little bit. You just have to do it.” — Kaz Mirza

Your first crochet blanket may resemble a raccoon’s crime scene. Mine certainly did.

Your first attempt at using an AI tool for something useful might be equally questionable. A robotic email with none of your personality. A spreadsheet formula that confidently calculates nonsense. A workflow that technically works but creates more cleanup than it saves.

Annoying? Absolutely. Useful information? Also yes.

Action Is Useful

"Action produces the very information inaction waits for." - Shane Parrish

Don’t be afraid to start (and fail), to take action, because with that first step (and the 1000th step) comes tons of info to help you move forward in a better way.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

Pick one small task you understand well enough to judge the output well. Give your AI chatbot of choice the task context, inspect the result, and identify what needs fixing. Then try again with that information.

Please don’t make your first experiment “automate our entire client onboarding process.” That’s several experiments in a trench coat carrying your customer database, and it won’t go well in execution or in troubleshooting.

Start with drafting the welcome email. Check its accuracy, tone, and missing details. Revise it before building anything around it.

And don’t forget, that it is okay if there are errors - it is what makes us human, after all.

"If you find that you are terrified of sending an email with a single, tiny typo in it, add a typo in an email on purpose and send it out. If you feel like you can't stutter in a presentation without feeling like you botched it, plan a specific time in the speech to stutter on purpose." - Ryan Bush

You develop judgment by making attempts, noticing problems, and adjusting. Waiting until you feel competent enough to begin is a spectacular way to remain permanently unqualified.

PONDER THIS

1. What small task could you practice with AI today, while the consequences are still easy to fix?

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