AI, Robots, Jobs and Poverty: Who Will Benefit from the AI Revolution?

 

AI, Robots, Jobs, and Poverty: Who Will Benefit?

I've been thinking a lot about artificial intelligence and what it will eventually do to jobs.

Not just next year. I'm thinking ten, twenty, fifty, even a hundred years from now.

I've spent much of my life around technology, and I've seen technology eliminate jobs before. Computers eliminated jobs. Automation eliminated jobs. The Internet destroyed entire businesses.

But they also created new ones.

That's why some people say we shouldn't worry about AI. Workers have always adapted to new technology.

They're right.

But I'm not buying it.

This Time May Be Different

Past technology usually replaced a particular human ability.

A tractor replaced muscle.

A calculator replaced arithmetic.

A word processor replaced a typewriter.

Industrial robots replaced repetitive movements on assembly lines.

AI is different because it is beginning to automate something much broader:

Thinking.

AI can already write, analyze information, translate languages, create computer code, recognize images, answer questions, and solve problems.

Now give AI a body.

I think of AI and robotics somewhat like a computer.

AI is like the operating system and software.

Robotics is like the physical computer.

The comparison isn't technically exact, but the idea is simple.

AI provides the intelligence. Robotics is the hardware.

Combine them and you have something much more powerful.

AI alone can't crawl under someone's house and repair a leaking pipe.

An AI-controlled robot certainly will be able to.

The same principle can be applied to mechanics, electricians, construction workers, farmers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, factory workers, cooks, cleaners, and countless other jobs.

Physical jobs may take longer to automate because the real world is messy and unpredictable.

But longer doesn't mean forever.

AI Doesn't Have to Take Every Job

Here's something else that's easy to miss.

AI doesn't have to completely eliminate an occupation to create massive unemployment.

Suppose a company currently needs ten accountants.

AI makes each accountant twice as productive.

The company still needs accountants.

It just doesn't need ten of them.

The same could eventually happen with plumbers, mechanics, engineers, programmers, nurses, construction workers, and hundreds of other occupations.

The important question isn't:

Will my occupation disappear?

It may be:

How many humans will still be needed to do it?

Poor People Have the Most to Lose

This concerns me most when I think about people who are already poor.

It's easy to tell someone to adapt.

Learn AI.

Go back to school.

Change careers.

Get another certification.

That advice sounds reasonable when you have savings, reliable transportation, a good computer, high-speed Internet, and enough money to survive while you learn something new.

It's different when you're living paycheck to paycheck.

When you're poor, the rent doesn't wait while you learn a new job skill.

Neither does the light bill.

And your kids still need to eat.

I grew up poor, and one thing I learned is that poverty isn't simply having less money.

Poverty means having fewer choices when something goes wrong.

That's what worries me about the AI revolution.

The people with the fewest choices may be the first ones expected to adapt.

The Poor Person Has Always Had Something to Sell

Even someone who owns almost nothing has traditionally possessed one economic asset:

His labor.

The factory owner needed workers.

The farmer needed farmhands.

The trucking company needed drivers.

The construction company needed carpenters, electricians, plumbers, equipment operators, and laborers.

The poor person could sell his labor, his own two hands.

That's how millions of people climbed the economic ladder.

Learn something.

Work.

Earn more.

Save.

Buy a house.

Start a business.

Invest.

Build a future for your children.

But what happens if AI and robotics dramatically reduce the value of human labor?

What does someone with no assets have left to sell? His own two hands become worthless, but does his brain?

I think that's one of the most important economic questions of the AI revolution.

Universal Basic Income Is BASIC

One proposed answer is Universal Basic Income or UBI.

Some form of UBI may eventually become necessary if machines perform a large percentage of the work humans currently do.

But let's be clear about what UBI means.

The important word is:

BASIC.

It might provide basic food, basic housing, utilities, transportation, and other necessities.

It might keep people from starving or becoming homeless. So does working three jobs at someplace like McDonalds.  Now before McDonald folks get all pissed off at me for using their name, I'm just using them as a fast food example where most folks start a relatively low paying job but who may need to eventually move on to a better paying job.

That's important.

But it doesn't make a poor person wealthy.

It may not even make him comfortable.

The wealthy person might own the AI companies, robots, factories, data centers, land, and investments.

The poor person gets enough money to survive.

Those are not economically equal lives.

UBI can raise the (floor) basic standard of living. It doesn't eliminate the distance between the floor and the penthouse.

In fact, UBI could create a permanent economic class with enough to survive but very little opportunity to accumulate wealth.

That's not eliminating poverty.

That's making poverty more comfortable.

What About All Those Lower Prices?

Another argument is that AI and robotics will make everything much cheaper.

They certainly could make things cheaper to produce.

That's not the same as making them cheaper to buy.

Suppose AI and robotics reduce the cost of producing something by 99 percent.

Will the corporation reduce its selling price by 99 percent?

I doubt it.

Competition could force prices down a little.

But there's no guarantee.

If something costs a company $100 to produce today and automation eventually reduces that cost to $1, the company doesn't automatically have to pass the entire $99 savings to you.

Businesses generally charge what the market will bear or what folks are willing to spend.  Rich folks are willing to spend a LOT while poor folk do without.

If customers are willing to continue paying $150, why would a corporation voluntarily charge $2?

Maybe competition eventually pushes the price down.

Maybe the company lowers the price a little.

Or maybe a handful of enormous corporations control the AI, robots, factories, patents, and distribution systems and keep much of the savings as profit.

That's where corporate greed and concentrated ownership become part of the discussion.

Cheaper to produce doesn't necessarily mean cheaper for you to buy.

Follow the Money

Now combine that with UBI.

The government gives someone enough money each month for basic necessities.

He spends that money on food, housing, electricity, transportation, communication, and other necessities.

Those industries have become increasingly automated.

So where does the money go?

Back to the companies that own the automated systems.

Those companies earn profits.

Their owners invest those profits in more assets.

Those assets produce more profits.

Meanwhile, the poor person receives another basic payment next month and starts over.

The person survives.

The owner accumulates wealth.

That's why UBI by itself doesn't solve the problem.

Income allows you to buy things. Ownership allows you to build wealth.

Who Gets the Benefits?

AI and robotics could create extraordinary wealth.

They could make society more productive beyond anything we can imagine today.

But increased productivity doesn't automatically mean increased prosperity for everyone.

Imagine a factory that once employed 1,000 people.

Eventually robots and AI allow it to produce twice as much with 50 employees.

That's an incredible improvement in productivity.

But what happened to the other 950 workers?

And if the product doesn't become dramatically cheaper, who received most of the financial benefit?

The owners.

That's why whenever someone tells me AI will make everything cheaper, I want to ask:

Cheaper for whom?

Cheaper to manufacture?

Or cheaper for the person buying it?

And when someone tells me AI will create enormous wealth, I have another question:

Who will own that wealth?

The Safety Net Matters. So Does the Ladder.

I believe society needs a basic standard of living or a safety net.  I don't mean or suggest that folks should just stop working and let the government take care of them. I do believe that people need to contribute to society, work, earn a living.  That's today, but what if jobs were no longer available?  What if you once competed for one job in 10,000 but in the future you're likelyhood of finding a job is 1 in 100?

If machines eventually produce more food than we need, people shouldn't starve because a robot replaced their job.

But the safety net isn't enough.

People also need a ladder to climb out of poverty.

They need some realistic way to improve their lives.

To buy a better home.

Travel.

Save money.

Invest.

Help their children.

Build financial security.

And eventually own something themselves.

If AI reduces the value of human labor, we may have to think beyond UBI.

Maybe that means employee ownership.

Profit sharing.

Citizen investment funds.

Retirement accounts invested in automated industries.

Public investment funds that own portions of highly productive AI infrastructure.

Or perhaps something nobody has invented yet.

I don't pretend to know the answer.

But I think I know the question:

If machines eventually produce much of society's wealth, how do ordinary people get an opportunity to own part of that productive economy rather than simply receiving enough money to survive?

What Can Poor People Do Now?

We can't control what the economy will look like fifty years from now.

But we can prepare for what's happening now.

Don't be afraid of AI.

Learn to use it.

You don't need to understand how AI works any more than you need to understand your car's transmission to drive it.

Use AI to learn.

Ask questions.

Improve your writing.

Learn another skill.

Solve problems.

Understand complicated information.

Look at your own job and ask:

Which parts of what I do could AI or a robot eventually do?

Then ask:

How can I use that same technology to make myself more valuable today?

If you can learn another useful skill, learn it.

If you can save something, save it.

If you can avoid unnecessary debt, avoid it.

And teach your children how to use technology instead of simply consuming it.

None of those things guarantees success.

Life isn't fair.

Opportunity matters.

Education matters.

Hard work matters.

Luck matters.

Persistence matters.

But preparation can improve the odds. But the one thing I can't stress enough is when you do use something like chatGPT or other AI tools, use them responsibly and not as a way to try to scam someone.  You'll just end up in a place where the rent and food is free.  Most just call it JAIL.

And sometimes improving the odds is the best we can do.

The Question We Need to Ask Now

For most of human history, our economic problem has been:

How do we produce enough?

AI and robotics may eventually give us an entirely different problem:

We can produce more than enough. How do ordinary people get their share of the prosperity?

AI could dramatically reduce poverty.

It could also create one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in human history.

Both outcomes are possible.

The technology itself won't decide which one we get.

People will.

The AI revolution shouldn't only be about building smarter machines.

It should also be about making sure the people those machines replace still have an opportunity to build better lives.

Because the safety net matters.

But so does the ladder.

How Technology Changed My Life: The Story Behind Cheap Houses

If You Grew Up Poor, You May Recognize Yourself in Cheap Houses

See Cheap Houses on Amazon — Read the Description, Reviews, or Order a Copy

 Read sample 13 chapters for free on Amazon before you buy.

Maybe your family never called itself poor.

Maybe that was just how you lived.

You wore things until they wore out.

You learned that when something broke, replacing it wasn't always an option.

You knew there were things other children had that your family couldn't afford.

You understood that money mattered, even before you completely understood money.

And sometimes you learned not to ask for something because you already knew the answer.

If you grew up that way, you may understand Cheap Houses before you ever turn the first page.

Poverty Doesn't Always Look Like We Imagine It

I grew up in the coal camps and small communities of rural northern Alabama.

My family moved from one cheap house to another, looking for work and somewhere we could afford to live.

The houses weren't charming little country homes.

They were cheap because cheap was what we could afford.
Cracked walls.
Little insulation.
Few comforts.
Every dollar mattered.

As a boy, I worked wherever work could be found—picking cotton, hauling pulpwood, baling hay, and cutting fence posts.

I wore hand-me-down clothes.

I carried my lunch in a paper sack.

And when my shoes wore out, there were times when cardboard inside them had to do what a new pair of shoes would have done.

But here's something people who grew up poor may understand:
I didn't necessarily think of myself as poor.
It was simply my life.

When everyone around you is struggling too, poverty can look remarkably normal.

Maybe Your Poverty Looked Different

Maybe you didn't pick cotton.

Maybe you never hauled pulpwood.

Maybe you never put cardboard inside your shoes.

But perhaps your father drove an old car because there was no money for another one.

Maybe your mother knew how to stretch a meal farther than seemed possible.

Maybe clothes came from an older brother, sister, cousin, or neighbor.

Maybe one unexpected bill could throw the household into trouble.

Maybe you remember adults talking quietly about money when they thought the kids weren't listening.

Maybe you remember wanting something and deciding not to ask.

Different house.
Different town.
Different family.
Same feeling.

That's one reason I wrote Cheap Houses.

This Isn't a Story About Getting Rich

Cheap Houses: A Memoir of Poverty and Reinvention in Rural America isn't a story about becoming wealthy.

And it isn't a story that says if you just work hard enough, everything will turn out fine.

Life doesn't work that way.
Life can be unfair.
Where you start matters.
Opportunity matters.
Hard work matters.
Luck matters - more than most folks realize!
Persistence matters.

None of those things guarantees success.

But sometimes an opportunity appears that changes the direction of a life.

For me, one of those early moments came when I discovered something called "Future Cards" describing technologies that might someday become part of everyday life.

One described computers.
I had never seen one.
To a poor boy in rural Alabama, that world might as well have been on another planet.
But it showed me that another world existed.

At seventeen, I joined the United States Air Force as a medic. Over time, that path eventually led me into medical information systems and then information technology.

The circumstances changed.
The cheap houses were left behind.
But some of what they taught me never left.

That's Really What This Book Is About
Poverty can follow you long after you stop being poor.
It can affect the way you think about money.

Security.
Work.
Risk.
Opportunity.
What you save.
What you spend.
What you fear losing.
And what you consider "enough."

You can travel a long way from where you started and still carry part of that place with you.

You can leave poverty behind and still carry it with you

That is at the heart of Cheap Houses.

If Any of This Sounds Familiar, This Book May Be For You

I wrote Cheap Houses about my life.

But I don't believe poverty belongs to one person's story.
Millions of people grew up in families that worked hard and still struggled.
Families where money was always just a little too short.
Families who made do.

Repaired instead of replaced.
Saved what could be reused.
Went without.
And kept going.

If that describes part of your childhood, you may recognize something of yourself in these pages.
Not because we grew up in the same house.
Not because our lives followed the same path.
But because some experiences are understood without explanation.

Cheap Houses
A Memoir of Poverty and Reinvention in Rural America

Maybe you didn't grow up in one of my cheap houses.

But you may have grown up in one of your own.

ORDER CHEAP HOUSES ON AMAZON

Available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions.

— Stevie G. Davis

Perfectionistic Paralysis: How Waiting for Perfect Can Keep You In Poverty

 

Perfectionistic Paralysis: When Waiting for Perfect Keeps You Stuck

There is a form of procrastination that doesn’t always look like procrastination.

You may be busy. You may be researching. You may be collecting documents, making lists, taking notes, rewriting your résumé, watching videos, asking questions, or preparing for the day when you are finally ready.

From the outside, it can look like you’re working toward your goal.

But you never actually take the first step.

That is what some call perfectionistic paralysis.

In technology, I’ve often thought of it as project paralysis. A project gets analyzed, redesigned, discussed, documented, reconsidered, and improved so many times that eventually nobody actually does anything.

Sometimes the problem isn’t laziness.

Sometimes the problem is that a person has convinced himself that he cannot begin until everything is perfect.

And perfect never comes.

It Looks Like Procrastination, But It Can Be Something More

Most of us procrastinate occasionally.

There are things we simply don’t want to do. We put off cleaning the garage. We wait until the last minute to do our taxes. We ignore something unpleasant until we can’t ignore it anymore.

Perfectionistic paralysis can look exactly like that, but the thinking behind it is different.

The person may genuinely want to do something.

He may desperately need to do it.

But inside his head there is a conversation going on:

I don’t know enough yet.

I need a little more information.

What if I make a mistake?

What if they ask me something I can’t answer?

I should probably research this a little longer.

I’ll do it when I’m better prepared.

That sounds reasonable.

That is what makes it dangerous.

Research on perfectionism and procrastination has found that fear of failure and excessive concern about mistakes can contribute to putting things off. Not all perfectionism is harmful—high standards can motivate us—but perfectionistic concerns can become a barrier when avoiding a mistake becomes more important than making progress.

At some point, preparation stops being preparation.

It becomes avoidance.

I Watched It Keep a Friend in Poverty

I have a friend who retired from the United States Air Force.

At one point after his military career, he was in deep poverty.

And when I say poverty, I don’t mean that he had to cut back on eating out or cancel his cable bill.

I mean he was literally digging aluminum soda cans out of dumpsters so he could sell them for scrap and put enough money together to buy his next meal.

For years, I urged him to file a VA disability claim.

He had health problems that he believed were related to his military service. But he kept putting the claim off.

He wanted to get everything together first.

He wanted all the medical records.

He wanted documentation.

He wanted to know exactly what he could prove.

He wanted the perfect case.

I kept telling him essentially the same thing:

You do not have to have the perfect case before you get started. If your claim is denied, you can always appeal with new evidence/documentation

There is an important distinction here. A veteran ultimately has to establish entitlement to VA disability compensation. Filing a claim does not guarantee that VA will approve it.

But you do not necessarily need to have every medical record, every doctor's statement, and every piece of supporting evidence sitting on your desk before you begin protecting your potential filing date.

VA even has something called an Intent to File. It allows a veteran who is still gathering information to establish a potential effective date and then generally gives the veteran one year to complete the claim. If benefits are eventually awarded, that effective date can affect the amount of retroactive compensation received.

That date can be extremely important.

In many service-connected disability cases filed more than a year after leaving active duty, the effective date is generally tied to when VA receives the claim or when entitlement arose, whichever is later, although there are exceptions depending on the circumstances. And some service connected medical problems don't even show up until many years after you separate from the military, some even 30-40 years of more later. Or they begin small during service but gradually get much worse over time.

So every month my friend waited potentially mattered.

Six months mattered.

A year mattered.

Several years could matter a lot.

Depending on the eventual disability rating, delaying a successful claim can potentially mean losing thousands—or even tens of thousands—of dollars in benefits that might otherwise have been payable.

And VA disability compensation is generally paid as a tax-free monthly benefit.

Meanwhile, my friend was digging through dumpsters looking for aluminum cans.

Think about that for a minute.

He Thought He Had to Prove Everything Before He Started

This is the part I could never seem to get him past.

He believed he needed to prove his entire case before filing it.

He didn't.

He needed to identify the health problems he reasonably believed were connected to his military service and begin the process. Just make a list, that's all.  And don't let the person helping you fill out the forms talk you out of anything.  Their job is to help you with the forms, not decide if you have a valid claim.  My own case when I filed, he told me I was wasting my time, what he actually meant was that he thought I was wasting HIS time.  I went from 20% to 100% in a year.  If I had listened to him, I would have never gotten more than 20% disability.

The investigation, medical evidence, records, and evaluation could continue from there.

VA may schedule what is called a Compensation and Pension examination—a C&P exam—when it needs additional information to decide a disability claim. Not every veteran needs one, but when VA schedules one, the examiner may review records, ask questions, perform an examination, or order certain additional tests. VA states that tests ordered as part of the claim examination are provided at no cost to the veteran.

That means the first step does not require knowing the final answer.

You don't need to know what percentage you might receive.

You don't need to know exactly what the VA examiner will find.

You don't need to predict the decision.

You need to start.

I don't know whether my friend ever did.

If he didn't, I suspect the reason was the same one that stopped him for years.

His case was never perfect enough in his own mind.

I Almost Missed Something in My Own Claim

I know how easy it is to overlook something because I did it myself.

There was an accident during my military career that I had nearly forgotten about.

I was driving to work when I was rear-ended.

The accident occurred off base.

The person who hit me was another active-duty military member who was also on her way to work.

For years, I didn't think much about it. In fact, I didn't think it would matter because I wasn't physically at work when the accident happened.

I was simply driving to work.

But the circumstances of that accident and the resulting medical condition mattered in my individual case.

The result was a 30% VA disability rating for that single issue.

My point isn't that every veteran who has an automobile accident while commuting is automatically entitled to VA disability compensation. Every case is different.

My point is that I didn't know what mattered until I started asking questions and going through the process.

Had I decided in advance that the accident didn't count, I might never have included it.

I would have made the decision for the VA before the VA ever had the opportunity to make the decision.

That is another form of perfectionistic paralysis.

We convince ourselves that because we don't know enough to guarantee the outcome, there is no reason to begin.

Then I Watched the Same Thing Happen With a Job

Unfortunately, the disability claim wasn't the only time I watched this happen to my friend.

He had been unemployed for more than a year.

He told me he couldn't find a job.

My son was working for a technology company at the time, and the company was trying to fill several positions.

I knew my friend's background.

I knew his experience.

And I knew he was qualified.

The biggest obstacle was simply getting him in front of the right people.

So I asked my son to help him.

My son reviewed his situation, helped prepare him for the interview, worked with him for several weeks, and got his résumé in front of the people involved in hiring.

This wasn't some random online application being dropped into a database with 500 other résumés.

He had an opportunity.

He had someone inside the company helping him.

He had been coached.

He had been prepared.

He had the qualifications.

He basically needed to show up, interview, and give himself a chance to get the job.

Then the day of the interview came.

My friend didn't show up.

Why?

He didn't think he was ready.

He thought he needed more time to prepare.

Seriously?

You had been unemployed for more than a year.

Someone inside the company had helped prepare you for weeks.

You had an interview for a good-paying technology job.

You were qualified.

All you had to do was show up.

But that voice inside his head convinced him that he wasn't ready.

So instead of risking an imperfect interview, he guaranteed himself something much worse:

No interview at all.

The opportunity disappeared.

And he went back to struggling.

Perfectionism Can Feel Like Protection

I think this is why perfectionistic paralysis is so difficult to recognize.

It protects you from something.

If you never submit the application, nobody can reject it.

If you never interview for the job, nobody can tell you that you weren't good enough.

If you never send the manuscript to a publisher, nobody can turn it down.

If you never start the business, the business can't fail.

If you never apply for the benefit, nobody can deny the claim.

If you never begin the project, nobody can criticize the finished product.

You remain safe.

But there is a terrible price for that safety.

Nothing changes.

You can't lose.

But you can't win either.

And sometimes not making a decision is itself the most expensive decision you can make.

My friend was trying so hard to avoid making a mistake that he missed opportunities that could have changed his financial situation.

He didn't fail the interview.

He failed to attend it.

He didn't lose his disability claim.

He may never have given the VA a claim to decide.

Those are completely different things.

Project Paralysis in Technology

I saw versions of this throughout my years working in technology.

Technology people can be especially vulnerable because we're trained to think about what can go wrong.

We troubleshoot.

We analyze risks.

We plan for failures.

We build redundancy.

We test.

We document.

Those are good things.

But there comes a point where another spreadsheet, another meeting, another design document, another risk assessment, or another round of testing adds almost nothing.

The project has to move.

I've seen organizations spend so much time trying to design the perfect solution that the technology changed before they finished designing it.

By the time the perfect system was ready to be implemented, it was already obsolete.

There is a reason the technology world learned to build prototypes, pilot projects, minimum viable products, test environments, and version numbers.

Version 1.0 doesn't have to be Version 10.0.

You start with what works.

Then you improve it.

Life works much the same way.

Stop Asking Whether You're Ready

One of the questions we ask ourselves too often is:

Am I ready?

Sometimes that is the wrong question.

Try asking:

Am I ready enough to take the next step?

Those are very different standards.

You may not be ready to build the entire business.

Are you ready to register the domain name?

You may not be ready to publish your book.

Are you ready to finish Chapter One?

You may not know everything required for a VA disability claim.

Are you ready to start an application or submit an Intent to File?

You may not feel ready for the job.

Are you qualified enough to attend the interview?

You don't have to solve the entire problem today.

You only have to do the next thing.

Break the Problem Into Pieces

When something feels overwhelming, make the first step almost ridiculously small.

Don't write:

File my disability claim.

Write:

Make a list of the medical conditions I think may be related to my military service.

Then:

Start the claim or Intent to File.

Then:

Find my medical records.

Then:

Contact a VSO if I need help.

Don't write:

Find a new career.

Write:

Update the first page of my résumé.

Then:

Apply for one job.

Then another.

Don't write:

Write a book.

Write:

Write 500 words.

Perfection looks at the entire mountain.

Progress looks at the next ten feet.

Learn the Difference Between Preparation and Hiding

There is nothing wrong with preparation.

Preparation is smart.

The trick is recognizing the point where preparation becomes a hiding place.

Ask yourself a few uncomfortable questions:

What information do I actually need before I take the next step?

Am I researching something that will change my decision, or am I researching because I'm afraid to make the decision?

What happens if I act now and I'm only 80% prepared?

Then ask the question people often forget:

What happens if I wait another year?

There is always risk in acting.

But there is also risk in doing nothing.

We tend to calculate the first one and completely ignore the second.

Sometimes "Good Enough" Is Exactly What You Need

I've spent a large part of my life around medicine, the military, computers, networks, corporate technology, and large technical projects.

There are times when perfection matters.

You don't want a surgeon saying, "Close enough."

You don't want the person configuring a critical network firewall guessing at the settings.

You don't want an aircraft mechanic deciding that a bolt is probably tight enough.

But most decisions in life aren't like that.

Sending a résumé isn't surgery.

Attending an interview isn't irreversible.

Starting an application doesn't lock you into every answer forever.

Writing the first chapter doesn't prevent you from rewriting it.

Taking the first step isn't the same thing as taking the final step.

That distinction matters.

Don't Let That Voice Make the Decision for You

I wish I could have convinced my friend of that.

Maybe nobody could.

Because ultimately, the person you have to convince is yourself.

There is always going to be a voice saying:

Wait.

You're not ready.

Learn a little more.

Fix one more thing.

Do a little more research.

Try next month.

Sometimes that voice is wisdom.

But sometimes it's fear wearing a suit and carrying a clipboard.

You have to learn the difference.

I'm not suggesting that people blindly rush into decisions without thinking.

I'm saying something much simpler:

Don't demand certainty before you allow yourself to move.

You probably won't have certainty.

You probably won't have every document.

You probably won't know every answer.

You may make a mistake.

You may even fail.

But failure after trying is different from never giving yourself the opportunity to succeed.

Take the First Step

If you've been sitting on something important because you don't think you're ready, break it down.

Forget the entire project for a minute.

Forget the final result.

Forget perfection.

Ask yourself:

What is the smallest meaningful thing I can do today that moves me forward?

Then do that.

Tomorrow, do the next thing.

I understand that isn't always easy.

Do it for yourself.

If that isn't enough, do it for your family.

But don't live in poverty, stay in a job you hate, abandon a dream, give up a benefit you may have earned, or walk away from an opportunity because you think everything has to be perfect before you take the first step.

My friend had an opportunity to potentially improve his financial situation through VA benefits.

He waited.

He had another opportunity to step into a good-paying technology job.

He didn't show up.

In both cases, the thing standing between him and the next step wasn't necessarily ability.

It wasn't intelligence.

It wasn't qualifications.

It wasn't even opportunity.

It was the belief that he needed to be more prepared before he could begin.

Don't let perfection become the reason your life never changes.

You don't need the perfect plan.

You don't need the perfect information.

You don't need the perfect opportunity.

Sometimes you just need enough information to take the next step.

Take it.