How AI Will Make You Rich
Full disclosure: GPT-4 wrote this headline with the prompt of writing a headline that would incentivize email opens. Did it work? Are we all doomed? Or is this the start of the next gold rush?
Let me know what you think of Burn The Boats and leave a review on Amazon. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet, get your copy today!
"Opportunity arrives before the tipping point of evidence."
Chapter 1, Burn The Boats
Is AI giving you whiplash? Well, buckle up; soon it will give you FOMO.
Just a week after Elon Musk published an open letter calling for a six month moratorium on the development of advanced AI systems (for the record, I called the fear mongering absurd), he is now reportedly building an OpenAI rival. You have to love the chutzpah of a guy who wants to pump the brakes on innovation just long enough for him to catch up. It's like he's channeling the spirit of the Luddites, those 19th-century folks in Great Britain who smashed textile machinery because they feared it would leave them jobless.
But I digress. What this really points to is the undeniable power of proprietary insights and the ability to leverage AI to make these insights more accessible than ever before. Overnight, coders are the new creators, and creators are the new coders. Anyone can scale up and down the value chain. It's mind-blowing. There were resistors to every new advance in society, from the electrical light to elevators, even to seatbelts!
Artificial intelligence is facing the same unmistakable pattern of being an undeniable force, broken down by these three stages:
Reactionary Fear
Reluctant Acceptance
Race for Adoption
We are currently between Stages 1 and 2 and this is the time to get in.
What it also does is lower the barriers to executing on what I call proprietary insights. For context, I explain what I mean by proprietary insights in Burn the Boats through Michelle Cordeiro Grant's story. She was a marketing VP at Victoria Secret who felt the company wasn't connecting with women who wanted to feel powerful and bold, rather than just sexy. Her simple but profound proprietary insight was borne of her day-to-day experience and led her to create Lively, a digital-first lingerie company that ultimately sold for a reported $100 million.
But here's where AI comes in. We all have proprietary insights that could be worth millions if only we had the time, money, freedom, and technical skills to pursue them. All four of those assets will become much less crucial in a world dominated by AI. It will do almost all of the heavy lifting. You need only have the will to learn - and do it fast. The barriers to innovation have been lowered exponentially overnight.
Speed matters, though.
Consider this: when AI becomes as commonplace as smartphones, the market will be saturated with copycats. The Airbnb and Uber of the AI generation are still waiting to be built. So, don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to write your own script (pun intended). If you've got a proprietary insight, remember that it won't be yours for long.
"A dream deferred is, in fact, a decision to relinquish its pursuit to another."
Chapter 3, Burn The Boats
The time to act is now. Seize the opportunity, and let AI propel you to new heights. Don't be left behind like a 21st-century Luddite, smashing keyboards in frustration. After all, as Elon Musk himself once said, "When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."
To get your neurons firing, here is a great tweet with ways in which people are using AI to outsource tasks, from the mundane - ordering pizza - to the high useful - building an app.
LIGHTING THE MATCH:
Each week, I’ll be sharing some of the amazing messages I’ve received from fellow Boat Burners who have decided to stop hesitating and go all in on their life’s true purpose. To be featured on Lighting the Match, DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn!
“After reading Burn The Boats on Audible, I was inspired to pursue my dream role of an HOA Manager. While I didn’t get the position, that was almost the best part because what happened next was the first real application of your lessons - I went straight to asking myself, “what’s next?”. Now that’s a question I ask myself everyday, and every day is brand new. I am inspired and empowered and this book calmed my anxieties through asking myself these hard questions. The sooner you start thinking like a winner, the sooner you’ll be one.”
As for the results for the AI-written headline, I’ll report back with the open rate next week to see if AI truly knows best.
Let me know what you think of Burn The Boats and leave a review on Amazon. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet, get your copy today!
Well it got me to open the email! Full disclosure I was going to open it anyway.
We are doomed. The headline was cheesy and for a minute I thought ... hmmm doesn’t feel like something Matt Higgins would write. Speed is not always best. In the words of Casey Neistat ... “ChatGPT is soulless.” I couldn’t agree more. Better isn’t always best. I’m willing to learn it and see how this plays out. I think too many lack luster creatives will use it thinking it will give them an edge, it won’t. They will just be diluted and forgotten as AI eats up everything.