Calm Under Pressure

Today’s Topics

• Don’t Panic 🫨

• Information State 📰

  7 Mins Read Time

Don’t Panic 🫨
By Jo

Every few years, society announces that a new “state-of-the-art” technology has arrived that will supposedly change everything overnight. Right now, that conversation is centered around artificial intelligence—bots, automation, and general AI systems. Depending on who you ask, AI is either the greatest tool ever created or the beginning of the end for the workforce.

But when you step back and really look at it, a lot of what people are calling groundbreaking today has existed for a long time in different forms.

Automation has always been around. Computers have been making decisions based on logic for decades. Search engines, recommendation systems, and automated workflows have been assisting humans for years. What’s different now is the visibility and the marketing around it. AI didn’t suddenly appear overnight—it simply became more accessible to the public.

And whenever something becomes widely accessible, the hype machine kicks in.

The Layoff Narrative

One of the biggest narratives circulating right now is that AI is replacing workers. You’ve probably seen the headlines: companies laying people off because “AI can do the job now.”

But if you pay close attention, you’ll also notice something interesting happening shortly after those layoffs.

Some of those same companies are quietly bringing people back.

Why?

Because businesses are realizing something that anyone who has worked inside an organization already knows: tools can automate tasks, but they can’t replace context overnight.

There’s a difference between performing a function and understanding why that function exists in the first place.

Employees carry institutional knowledge—historical information, business relationships, internal processes, and lessons learned from past mistakes. AI systems don’t automatically inherit that. That kind of understanding takes years to develop.

When companies remove too much of that human context too quickly, they start seeing gaps appear. Projects stall. Decisions lack nuance. Systems operate without understanding the bigger picture.

And that’s when organizations realize that technology still needs people guiding it.

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

None of this means AI isn’t powerful. It absolutely is.

The real shift happening right now isn’t that AI will replace people. The shift is that people who know how to use AI effectively will have an advantage over people who don’t.

It’s similar to what happened when computers became standard in the workplace. The computer didn’t replace workers—it changed what skills were valuable.

The same thing is happening again.

AI can help speed up research. It can help generate ideas. It can assist with repetitive tasks. It can organize information faster than most people could manually.

But the direction, creativity, judgment, and understanding of real-world context still come from the person using the tool.

Learning the Tool Instead of Chasing the Hype

One of the biggest mistakes people make right now is jumping from one AI tool to another without really learning any of them.

Every week there’s a new platform, a new application, a new “next big thing.” But the truth is most of these tools operate on very similar principles. The frameworks are often the same—input, processing, output.

Instead of trying to learn everything at once, it’s more effective to pick one tool and really understand it. Learn how it responds. Learn how to structure your prompts. Learn what it’s good at and what it struggles with.

Once you understand those dynamics, transitioning to another AI platform becomes much easier because the core concepts remain the same.

The tool may change, but the thinking behind how you use it stays consistent.

The Human Element

At the end of the day, AI still depends on something very important: human direction.

The ideas come from you.
The creativity comes from you.
The perspective comes from you.

AI can help organize those ideas, expand on them, or speed up the process—but it can’t replace the original spark behind them.

Technology has always worked this way. The most valuable people in any era aren’t the ones who fear the tools or blindly worship them. They’re the ones who learn how to use them effectively.

The Real Opportunity

Instead of focusing on whether AI will take jobs, the better question is this:

How can you use it to make yourself more capable?

Because the people who figure that out early won’t be replaced by AI—they’ll be the ones directing how it’s used.

And history has shown us something again and again: tools don’t eliminate human value. They just shift where that value shows up.

Information State 📰

By Marcus

“I used to start the day reading the morning newspaper. I mean, you can believe that or not. I’d get a cup of coffee and read the paper. I’d load up on wars and riots and murders and stabbings, killings and bank robberies and muggings and car wrecks and tragedies. I’d even read the back pages! I seemed to like that stuff for some weird reason.

I’d load up on all that and then I’d start the day. You can imagine the kind of days I used to have…”
-Jim Rohn 1981

There’s a little over 8 billion people spread across 200 countries in the world. Think of the possibilities. At any given time, we will be informed that somewhere, someplace, there’s something wrong. A crime, a tragic event, a natural disaster—something you likely had no control over is being reported. But it’s right in your face for you to see as you scroll through your phone or turn the channel.

Remember how the media machine works. Fueled by controversy, rage bait, and negativity. A machine that works so efficiently that the one positive news story of the day gets a one-minute time slot in a 1-hour show.

Information Desensitization

Abundance and access to information have changed how we function. How many times in recent years have you seen a tragic news story, but in the comments section, or in general discussion—more people are joking and making light of the situation as if real people and lives aren’t impacted by it? At a certain point, I think people are so used to these types of stories, they become numb to the real people behind the headlines.

If you find yourself overconsuming negative events, maybe a better alternative is to engage with these stories and get updates once or twice a day. The media’s job is to exploit every potential angle to get you glued to their stories.

Realistically, the story will always be developing, and it’s likely the morning news is no longer relevant by the evening news cycle. In many crises, I’m sure you’ve noticed how today’s urgent crisis is an afterthought the very next day. The story is simply replaced with another story to drive more engagement.

Thoughtful Consumption

How much influence and impact do you have on the stories that cross your news feed? How does consuming negative news stories make you feel?

The algorithms are working overtime to fill your life with negativity. You don’t have to let it consume you. We can empathize and be considerate of the hardships of others without the constant drip feed of negativity.

We can support people near and far by keeping them in our thoughts or contributing in different ways.

If you want, you can choose to be the light.