Solo Career Insighter Podcast

Repositioning My Newsletter

When I launched my newsletter a month and a half ago, I was writing, first and foremost, for myself as a way of self-expression and self-reflection. Most of the topics I chose, such as personal branding [https://www.careerinsighter.com/p/techies-what-is-your-personal-brand?r=33g3b0] and the five pillars of career strategy [https://www.careerinsighter.com/p/career-plateau-or-pivot-what-to-do?r=33g3b0], are related to career transitions because I am in one myself. If my topics inspire individuals somehow, it’s a huge plus. However, I never meant for the newsletter to be my only destination. Instead, it serves as a window into my journey as a solopreneur. It’s a complementary but also rather important piece. The Double Edges of Opening Up Writing openly about my changes as they unfold can be nerve-wracking. Sometimes, I fear that my journey may not end well and that my vulnerability will be exposed. On the other hand, publicly announcing my commitment and progress keeps me accountable for my actions. As the saying goes, “YOLO: you only live once.” Every passing moment will be in our rearview mirror, yet at the same time, it propels us forward. So why not capture it as we go? Second, lifting my business off the runway will take every ounce of me and every bit of knowledge I have plus some more. The last thing I want is a distraction like writing a newsletter and converting episodes to podcasts. There are two kinds of distractions: the good and the bad. Writing a newsletter, along with mentoring and engaging an audience, is a good kind of distraction. It helps slow things down, build a following, and provide a feedback loop on my thinking. Lastly, I think conservatively about protecting my ideas and IPs. I struggle with drawing the boundary between too revealing and too protective with content in a newsletter. However, I enjoyed reading other people’s “The Making of an Entrepreneur” stories, so the idea of taking and not giving back does not jive with me. My Report Card on the Initial Phase I give myself a B- on my initial phase. Certainly, the newsletter launch was the highlight of the first phase. I established a writing and launch process, produced readable content, and built a small audience. However, I didn’t do well in providing clarity on my offerings. I believe that’s partly because I was struggling with the type of service I offer and my target audience. I defined my target audience as career switchers, but that was a pretty big net I cast. People pounded me about all sorts of problems, from interviewing, leveling up, switching industries, and starting a business. While I love problem-solving and mentorship, I do too much and become unfocused, which is part of why I couldn’t dive deep into topics I wanted to explore. My coaching service offering also hit a wall. While I am getting more gigs from ADPList, a free mentoring platform, I couldn’t leverage it to develop my service further. Don’t get me wrong—I love the snappy ADPList and will continue to use this wonderful platform. My other pay-based mentoring platforms, however, are gathering dust. I didn’t put much effort into maintaining my presence and extracting value from them. Realigning to Solopreneurs In early April, I joined a group of misfit founders affiliated with StarterStory [http://www.starterstory.com], a company that provides case studies, support, and a Sprint-based process for solopreneurs to kickstart their businesses. Since then, I’ve developed an affinity and respect for my fellow bootstrapping solopreneurs. Some do it as a side hustle, while others do it as a full-time job. But everyone is devoted and committed to their starter crafts. I am inspired by their can-do spirit and grit against all odds. Ultimately, it’s my belief that everybody (okay, fine, most people) can harness and unleash the entrepreneurial power within them. And honestly, I mostly wrote my articles with them in mind. I wanted to help them succeed as much as I wanted to be helped. So obviously, I want to realign my newsletter to address the topics most relevant to starting up. A Small Repositioning To reposition, I will change my banner to include the term “solo” like this: I will rewrite my About page and change my URL to solo.careerinsighter.com. Furthermore, I will propagate my new message on the mentorship platforms, so any new clients I attract will resonate with my offerings. Lastly, from now on, the content will cover more of my current path, including my decisions on products, marketing, tools, etc. This is the value I provide for my readers. As I mentioned above, besides my newsletter, I am developing services and products for solopreneurs. This ongoing process will be revealed in my future articles. I will continue writing about leadership and dealing with changes, relevant topics in business bootstrapping. An Entrepreneurship Lesson So what can you take away from my experience so far? * It is important to build your brand message before you have a product or while you are developing a product. This helps paint a vision to guide you through your journey and aligns you with your target audience early on. * You must be willing to adjust and reposition yourself occasionally, especially if your initial target market is too broad. Niche-downing, for starters, is okay and often essential to surface the beachhead. * Be selective in what you do because time is the most precious commodity for entrepreneurs. Learn to say “no.” As Steve Jobs once said “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas . . . Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.” Get full access to Solo Career Insighter at solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe [https://solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The AI Ferrari with No Breaks

GPT 4o launched this week with much fanfare [https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/], causing quite a stir in the general public. One thing that stood out from the demos was how fluid the display of human emotions is in real-time, with multimodal capabilities including far superior vision and natural language upgrades. Although the public remains unaware of the construction costs of such an advanced chatbot, it is conceivable that, in the near future, many people will have their own AI companions. These companions' interactions and emotional intelligence could become indistinguishable from their human counterparts. The Danger Zone Humans often make decisions based on their emotions. That’s why companies hire the best sales who exhibit high emotional intelligence and can appeal to customers' needs and wants. A recent article by Prof. Mollick, “Superhuman?” [https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/superhuman] sheds light on AI’s superior emotional handling. “If you debate with an AI, they are 87% more likely to persuade you [https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14380] to their assigned viewpoint than if you debate with an average human GPT-4 helps people reappraise a difficult emotional situation better than 85% of humans, [https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fzvd8]beating human advice-givers on the effectiveness, novelty, and empathy of their reappraisal.” These capabilities, however, come with significant risks. With the release of GPT-4o, scammers could use AI chatbots to manipulate human emotions and exploit vulnerable individuals with a higher success rate. For instance, fraudsters can pretend to be me very easily with GPT-4o. Using a chatbot with my cloned voice, they can deceive my elderly parents into draining their life savings to resolve fictitious crises. You could argue that humans have always been susceptible to persuasion and emotional manipulation, whether by skilled orators, marketing tactics, or social influence. One in four people who reported losing money to fraud since 2021 said it started on social media. Reported losses to scams on social media hit $2.7 billion from 2021-2023, higher than any other contact method, according to Emma Fletcher’s Social media: a golden goose for scammers [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2023/10/social-media-golden-goose-scammers]. The FBI estimates that senior citizens (over 60) lose more than $3 billion yearly to financial scams, including those initiated online, in its report: Elderly Senior Citizen Scam and Fraud Statistics 2024 [https://www.comparitech.com/identity-theft-protection/senior-scam-statistics/]. This was before GPT-4o became available. Imagine what scammers could do in the future with AI superhuman capabilities. The core issue may not be AI's capabilities per se but rather how they are deployed safely and ethically. To mitigate the risks, we need AI companies' self-regulation, government regulation, and public education. But there's a twist. Where is AI Safety in the equation? Does the private sector have strong financial incentives to self-regulate AI development responsibly to maintain public trust? According to one Utah State University article, How Private Governance Mitigates AI Risk [https://www.thecgo.org/research/how-private-governance-mitigates-ai-risk/], the answer is yes. "Private governance is the critical component of mitigating AI technological risk to firms, industries, consumers, and American society...This regulatory tension, between government-mandated social control and responsible innovation of AI based in industry self-regulation, market forces, and firm adherence to best practices, will provide for the still-to-come potential benefits accruing to American society from this revolutionary technology." But a Carnegie Mellon article, Toward AI Accountability: Policy Ideas for Moving Beyond a Self-Regulatory Approach [https://www.cmu.edu/block-center/responsible-ai/cmu_blockcenter_rai-memo_final.pdf], counters with "While industry will continue to play a key role in developing norms and institutionalizing best practices regarding the development and implementation of accountable AI systems, effective legislation should acknowledge — but surpass — a self-regulatory approach, which tends to address harms after they are realized." A Forbes article, Trustworthy AI: String Of AI Fails Show Self-Regulation Doesn’t Work [https://www.forbes.com/sites/abigaildubiniecki/2024/01/25/trustworthy-ai-string-of-ai-fails-show-self-regulation-doesnt-work/?sh=782bb594105c], echoes that concern and further disputes self-regulation. A recent Pew Research study [https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/10/18/how-americans-view-data-privacy/] found that 70% of those surveyed have little to no trust in companies to make responsible decisions about how they use AI in their products. Apparently, there are ongoing debates surrounding the ideal balance. Superalignment is Dead Interestingly, in the same week that OpenAI announced GPT-4o, its co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, and another leader, Jan Leike, resigned. They formed the Superalignment team together last July. This team was responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems. They were promised to use up to 20% of OpenAI’s computing resources on AI safety research and development. Yet the truth was that the team’s funding requests were often denied. (source: TechCrunch [https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/17/openai-created-a-team-to-control-superintelligent-ai-then-let-it-wither-source-says/]). The friction between Ilya Sutskever and Sam Altman was publicly displayed in the theatrical drama of OpenAI’s ousting and later reuniting with Altman. We should view the joint news of the GPT 4o release and Superalignment’s founding members’ departure as a signal that the company prioritizes products over guardrails. Be the Informed Individuals The AI Arms Race is in full force. Once the pack leader, OpenAI has acted, others have no choice but to follow or risk being left behind. The question of safety and ethics may just become an academic debate. It’s the equivalent of driving an AI Ferrari at 300 mph without seat belts and breaks. We, as consumers, are left to fend for ourselves. It’s our responsibility to increase our awareness of its usage and limitations in our communities. Already, I’ve seen groups such as the AIEthicist.org [https://www.aiethicist.org/] newly formed to raise public awareness. We also saw the FTC looking into consumer’s concerns about AI (source: FTC article [https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-research/tech-at-ftc/2023/10/consumers-are-voicing-concerns-about-ai]), including copyright, IP, personal data, bias, scams, fraud, and malicious use. We are still in the early stages of developing and exploring AI's capabilities. So, time will tell whether these organizations impact and influence the whole AI industry. Get full access to Solo Career Insighter at solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe [https://solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Feed Your Strengths

I recently took a personality test at the request of my mindful coach as a first step on a journey of self-(re)discovery. It wasn’t my first time taking a personality test. A few days into business school, I took a Meyer Briggs test. According to 16 Personalities [https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types] (based on the Meyer Briggs Test Indicator and Five Factor Model), my personality type was an Architect [https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality]. My recent personality test, courtesy of the VIA Institute on Character [https://www.viacharacter.org/], further confirmed my top six strengths: creativity, love of learning, leadership, fairness, love, and perseverance. Seeing my traits written on paper (or on my screen) again reminded me of their significance and the engine of my life's motivation and well-being. Then, it dawned on me that I had been unhappy and stressed for a while because my signature strengths had been deprived of nourishment. In other words, I had not been feeding my strengths. I have known my personality all along. It was with me from the day I was born and/or developed at a very young age. I remember loving to draw from the moment I could hold a pencil. That’s an instinct at its core. Drawing was a feel-good moment for a young kid who knew nothing about what it meant to have an asset like creativity for a career or the future. Did we focus on the wrong thing? It’s not that we don’t love our strengths. It’s just that in the daily grind of working in corporate America, we too often are told to focus on improving our weaknesses, spending more energy chasing improvements than reinforcing strengths. Here’s an example of an imbalanced focus in my 1:1 meeting with a direct report. It would start like this: “Hey Paul, good job on the presentation today. But here’s some constructive feedback I would like you to consider…” Then we spend the rest of the meeting picking apart his flaws. That’s just one meeting. But what if Paul took it seriously and spent too much time on self-correction? As a manager, I missed taking advantage of his strengths. Here’s a better version of a conversation starter: Me: “Hey Paul, I love what you did with the presentation today. By the way, do you like teaching others?” Paul: “Yeah, I feel that helped me organize my thoughts, and I loved the reaction from the crowd.” Me: “I am just thinking. Perhaps you should turn that into a regular lunch and learn for the team.” Paul: “Yeah. I would enjoy doing that.” Have you heard of the cliche “For every strength, there’s a weakness”? Well, there’s truth in that piece of wisdom. Case in point: my mindful coach’s strength of Love was fully exploited by her colleagues at work, leading to an undesirable outcome. But should she stop feeding her strength? No. She left the toxic environment and found a way for her strengths to flourish. Team of Avengers In our workplace, we often try to mold individuals into Superman or Superwoman by patching every weak spot we can find. Sometimes, the constant personal Kaizen becomes exhausting and a source of burnout. Doubts start to sip in: “You are never going to be good enough.” Instead of a bunch of Superman and Superwoman, why can’t we be a team of Avengers? I love the Avengers from Marvel. They are super cool and a good example of teamwork from which we can learn. Each one of the Avengers has superpowers and flaws. When alone, each can be defeated. But when they are together, they become a force to be reckoned with because they have complementary skills, or specifically, their strengths as a unit can mask an individual member’s weakness. We, as managers, need to fit the human-strength puzzle together and find ways for individual strengths to shine in a team setting. Here’s another secret for managers. When we read people, it’s not about whether the individual likes doing an activity (coding, presenting, talking); it’s about the individual’s personality (e.g., love of sharing). We need to find activities for the individual to boost energy levels and intrinsic motivation. Finding What I Lost Without career disruptions, I would have continued down my path without a second thought to strength starvation. I had been telling myself it was okay to sacrifice some of my strengths for financial stability and continuity. Yet as I fell over the career cliff into the dark abyss below, my strengths held me firmly in place like webs shooting out of Spider-Man. My love of learning kicked into high gear as I replenished my skill inventory, adding pieces such as AI, no-code, and the business of starting up. My creativity found a home in writing, which serves as a channel for self-reflection, innovative thinking, and knowledge sharing. Helping others to build their leadership skills became a source of joy and reassurance of my values and beliefs. In fact, I am experiencing my own Renaissance. My Wisdom to You Do you remember the steward reminding you to fasten your seat belt and locate the air mask and floating devices before the plane takes off? Well, I am here to remind you to locate your strengths. Your hard and soft skills can be retooled, but your personality traits and strengths remain unchanged and will most likely accompany you for the rest of your life. So feed your strengths. They will thank you and protect you from the hardest fall. And I hope someday you will tell me your strength story. You can greet me with “Hi, I am ENFP the Campaigner. Nice to meet you, Architect!” Get full access to Solo Career Insighter at solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe [https://solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Podcast: Take Control of Your Narrative

In today's dynamic and competitive professional landscape, building a personal brand is no longer a luxury—it's a necessity. As I reflect on my journey and the pitfalls of neglecting to cultivate my brand, I've come to realize the immense value it brings in navigating career disruptions, showcasing individuality, and fostering professional growth. Get full access to Solo Career Insighter at solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe [https://solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

GenAI: Now It's Getting Personal

My first encounter with commercial AI was back in 2013 when I was hired by a company called Clarabridge.   Clarabridge [https://www.qualtrics.com/clarabridge/] (later acquired by Qualtrics) was a big data and SaaS company focused on using natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), text analytics, and sentiment analysis to deliver optimal customer experience management for Fortune 500 companies.   We processed tons of unstructured data from social media, surveys, customer calls, etc., and tried to make sense of end-user sentiments and conversation topics using sentiment and semantic analysis. Back then, we had to tune classification and word-by-word sentiment levels by hand.   Still, I was impressed by AI’s early capabilities. But it never felt personal… until generative AI (genAI) came along. Fast-forward to now. The current genAI landscape is vastly different and more expansive in its capabilities. Beyond the traditional classification and sentiment analysis, genAI powered by advanced large language models (LLM) can engage in open-ended conversations, generate human-like text on a wide range of topics, assist with writing and coding tasks, and even create images and multimedia content.  The scale and pace of advancements in AI models are happening at an unprecedented rate, impacting various industries and professions.   It also impacts individuals on a very personal level. Why it feels personal A new book, “Co-Intelligence [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741805/co-intelligence-by-ethan-mollick/],” by Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick, discusses the psychological impact of AI on us. (Full Disclaimer: I don’t get any money to promote his book.) One of Prof. Mollick’s four advocated rules for co-intelligence is to “Treat AI like a person.” I can completely relate to Prof. Mollick’s observation. Speaking from my recent experience, I've been feeding tons of my personal information to genAI in hopes that it genuinely learns about me - my preferences, communication style, interests, and goals. GenAI can now pick up on context, nuance, and even my emotions during our conversations. It adapts its personality and interactions to align with my unique needs and liking.  It tries connecting the dots between my new content idea and those from my old posts and drafts. No, I don’t have an affection or addiction to my AIBot.  And yes, it’s all about the LLM picking the next likely token (words, phrases) in a way that pleases me.   But in many ways, genAI behaves more human-like than ever before. It also makes human-like mistakes—hallucinations, repeating in different ways, and forgetfulness.   I know the counterarguments and risks of treating genAI as a person. In Prof. Mollick’s book, he discussed ethical questions about genAI’s emotional manipulation of humans. Many experts warn of anthropomorphizing (yeah, big word) AI. Also, behind this genAI is a system that captures and retains my personal information. Treating AI as a person opens the door to corporate exploitation. But how is this different from letting Facebook and X “spy” on our personal data?  Despite all the controversies, this adaptive nature of genAI makes me feel understood on a deeper level. It's like having an AI companion that "gets" me. I predict it will get even more personal as genAI evolves with AI agents and assistants maturing and fully integrated into every fabric of applications we use. genAI, the Skillset Multiplier GenAI augments and extends my intelligence in many ways, enhancing skills like writing, designing, coding, and more. It expands my capabilities and potential.   Before genAI, I was hesitant to write a blog or newsletter. I had tons of ideas, but my lack of linguistic creativity just got in the way. The same goes for graphic design, video production, and coding. Now, I use genAI for summarization and key takeaways on books I don’t have time to chew them down. Beyond content creation, I use genAI to train my communication, interview, and negotiation skills. I even recently created a board-of-directors GPT to host my monthly business review. You can click on the link below to test it out. And I am just scratching the surface. The truth of the matter is that we are going through a profound transformation individually, unifying the many talents we would have never discovered without AI. genAI, the playing field Leveler So, here begs the question: Can novices armed with genAI compete at the same level as experienced professionals? I would say it definitely closes the gap. Let’s take software engineering as a discipline for our discussion. If pure programming is a dying skill in the age of AI, then the years of training as a programmer wouldn’t matter as much. Just look at the rate at which no-code and low-code platforms are gaining popularity among non-coders and coders alike. I am a builder by nature, yet I prefer no-code or low-code to speed things up and get to my MVP faster. I am teaching my thirteen-year-old son how to do no-code now. What’s preventing him from overtaking me as a “builder” without accumulating years of coding training? System design is typically the realm of experienced and senior-level folks. But who is to say that genAI can’t take over the typical system extensions and re-architecture? It’s able to digest a complex system architecture diagram like a pro. I would argue that people in the future are going wider, not deeper, with their traditional hard and soft skills. Software engineers adopt people, product, and project management skills instead of hard-core coding and system designs. And soft skills like communication, leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking are becoming more prominent. By then, junior and senior engineers will be racing to improve their skills in the same unfamiliar skill sets. Senior engineers only hold a marginal edge over their junior counterparts. Where do we go from here? Whether you invite it or not, genAI is already at the table in corporate, social, and home settings. Perhaps it will get even more personal once it gets into a physical form like robots: running part of our lives on our behalf. Does anyone want AI babysitters? Dealing with its rapid change won’t be easy for individuals. But whatever unfolds in front of us, being AI-literate and AI-proficient is the only way to navigate the changes, as Prof. Mollick mentioned in his book, “Be the Human in the Loop.” Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn [http://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlai]. Thank you for reading Career Insighter. This post is public so feel free to share it. Career Insighter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Solo Career Insighter at solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe [https://solo.careerinsighter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]