2024, Austin, Texas
2024, Austin, Texas
I settle into the booth of the upscale pancake restaurant. For a second, I close my eyes, letting the warmth of the January sun pouring through the window soothe me. “Don’t put yourself down!” I tell myself. Lately, I’ve been feeling insecure in the face of all this AI business, and my client is always uber confident in herself. Plus she makes WAY more money than me. Even if it’s only in my mind, this setup creates an imbalance in our relationship.
“Hey there,” I hear.
Maura Thomas is standing at the edge of the booth looking almost unfamiliar—woven blazer, chunky blue necklace—different from the sweatshirt or T-shirt she wears when we meet online.
I stand up to give her a hug hello. Then we place our orders: blueberry pancakes for Maura, veggie omelet for me. And, of course, coffee, coffee, coffee.
I’ve been working as Maura’s content director for the past five years, so you wouldn’t think it’s a big deal that we’re getting together today. But it is. Even though we meet regularly online, and we’ve attended a few live events together, this is the first time we’ve ever met in person, just the two of us, one to one, human to human.
Part of the reason we don’t meet in person is because we live on opposite sides of the city. The other reason is because Maura constantly travels around the country speaking to corporate leaders about business productivity, training them to accomplish more and be their best selves. A speaker, trainer and author, Maura is one of the top 10 time management experts in the world. And even though she’s so busy, true to her brand, she rarely seems frazzled.
Now, as I reach for another packet of Splenda, the wine-colored fleck on my fingernail sparkles in the sunlight. “Don’t worry, I’m not bleeding,” I say, spreading my fingers so Maura can see. “I just didn’t have time to go to the salon and get the gel off.”
True, I’ve managed to pick off most of the dark red polish over the past week, but still, a few flecks remain, making me look like I have some internal bleeding problem.
“I do my own gel polish,” Maura says.
Her nails are perfectly oval and she’s painted the white ridges gold.
“I’ve never heard of anyone doing their own gel polish,” I say in awe. “I just wish I had something to speak about. I mean, if I did, then I would speak, write and train people like you do.” I’ve done my share of public speaking, so it wouldn’t be a stretch. But these days, I’m feeling topic-less.
I blow on my coffee and feel the warm steam against my chin. “I mean, I wish I could even talk about something like how to put on my own gel polish,” I say. Then I catch myself. I’m doing the thing I promised not to do—putting myself down.
I should just talk about the main item on our agenda for today. However, I don’t know what it is. The occasion for Maura wanting us to meet in person is still unclear. All I know is that it’s definitely not to talk about our nails. Could it possibly have something to do with our Zoom meeting a few weeks ago?
At the time, my dog was in my downstairs office barking wildly at the gardeners outside, so I took the meeting with Maura in the spare room upstairs—the one my teenage son turned into a music studio. I tilted the screen from side to side, getting the background perfect, so the poster of the nuns smoking cigarettes didn’t show on the right and the poster of the naked woman on a giant lily pad didn’t show on the left. Then I logged on.
During the meeting, Maura and I worked through the usual items—articles, guest posts, the promotion of her Empowered Productivity training program. Then she told me about her plans for the coming year. “I want to automate the business as much as possible. Plus, my digital avatar is almost ready," she'd said.
I'd gulped audibly.
“AI is changing everything. You know that,” she'd added.
ChatGPT was released to the masses in November 2022. The tool suddenly gave all of my content clients the ability to do the things they once paid me for: writing articles, newsletters, video scripts, online courses, marketing funnels and more. The only difference is that while any one of these items might take me hours to days to produce, ChatGPT can now generate the content in five seconds or less. And it does it for free!
Sandhini Agarwal, an AI policy researcher at the company that created ChatGPT, says her biggest fear about AI is economic displacement. “Long term, [the industrial revolution] was great for the world, great for society, a lot of progress,” she said during a conversation with The Economic Times. “But the 50 years of aftermath were really painful. So I think that’s what we have to figure out—how do we manage this transition. How do we make it least painful for society?” Then Agarwal adds, “In the now … is one of my biggest fears and worries.”
That’s funny, because “in the now” is one of my biggest fears and worries too. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s when I happen to live—in the now!
“Anyway, I’m not going to miss the AI train,” Maura had said through the screen.
“Well, I hate AI!” I’d blurted out, perhaps a little too loudly.
The invitation to brunch came shortly after.
Maura cuts another bite of pancake and adds extra syrup. “So what’s going on with your business?” she asks. “Need any more clients?” I appreciate that Maura’s always been extremely generous about using her contacts to send work my way.
Up until this point, I’ve been splitting my time between freelance content marketing for clients and working on my niche blog. But AI has come so quickly and is ruining absolutely everything. I haven’t had any time to think through a new plan.
“I’m not ready to add new clients yet but thanks. So, what’s exciting for you right now?” I ask, testing out a networking question I recently learned about on a self-help podcast.
However, Maura’s answer to this question does not provide me with any help. Instead, her brown eyes twinkle with excitement, while she tells me she’s going to start a whole new product line based on AI. “You know, you could join me,” Maura says, putting down her fork to process some insight that just occurred to her. “But you would need a serious attitude adjustment. It’s like you still want to write with a feather quill and a pot of ink. You need to change with the times.”
I swallow.
I do love working with Maura. I love her message to the world: Life is not all about work. Your brain requires downtime. Pay attention to what’s important to you! If I have to get with the program to keep working with Maura, that’s what I want to do.
“Okay,” I say, mustering my resolve. “I’m going to work on my attitude. And besides,” I add. “I wouldn’t mind getting rich.”
Maura smiles. Then she hands me a generous bonus check for my work in the past year along with a bunch of soaps from her recent trip to Hawaii.
