Good catch—that’s an important part of the message, and it strengthens the whole piece. I’ve woven it in more clearly and naturally below:
- What I tried: Focusing on doing the work itself, without constantly thinking about promotion, outcomes, or validation.
- What I learned: When I stay rooted in the work, the right people find it. AI helps me stay in that space by removing friction around the work.
- How you can apply it: Use AI to support your process, not to chase attention. Let it handle the background so you can stay focused on your craft.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to simply do the work.
Not promote it. Not optimize it. Not constantly ask, “Will this land?” or “Will people like this?” Just… do the work. Get better at it. Stay with it.
If I’m being honest, those other thoughts creep in all the time. The marketing voice. The performance voice. The voice that wants to measure everything before it’s even finished.
But when I quiet that down and focus on the work itself, something shifts.
The analogy I keep coming back to is a lamp.
When you turn on a lamp, it doesn’t chase people around the room trying to prove its value. It simply shines. And the people who need that light will find it. They’ll come into it, use it, and benefit from it.
That’s how I’m starting to think about my work.
Just turn on the light.
Now here’s where AI fits into this.
When I use AI the right way—when I treat it like an assistant I’ve trained, not a shortcut I’m leaning on—it helps me stay in that creative space. It takes care of the repetitive tasks, the structuring, the early drafts, the organization. It gives me more room to think, to create, to refine.
It helps me stay with the work.
And I think this is where small businesses have a real opportunity.
Many large corporations, especially publicly traded ones, are built to serve shareholders first. The pressure is on efficiency, scale, and output. In that environment, both people and AI can start to look like tools to be optimized.
But small businesses don’t have to operate that way.
We can choose to build for our stakeholders—our customers, our employees, our communities, and the people we serve every day. We can use AI not to squeeze more out of everything, but to create more space for better work, more thoughtful work, more human work.
We can use it to support the light, not replace it.
So instead of asking, “How can AI make this faster?” we might ask, “How can AI help me stay closer to the work that matters most?”
Because when we do that well, the people who need what we do will find us.
This matters because AI should not pull you away from your purpose. It should help you stay closer to it. When you use it to remove friction and protect your creative energy, you create more space to do work that actually makes a difference—and help businesses that do good do even good-er.