Shoved in a Box
Once in a while, to get a better sense of where I should take my writing, I’ll ask ChatGPT how I’m doing. It has the ability to remember me and everything I write. It can keep it all in context as a reference resource, so who better to ask?
I asked it for its impressions of me based on all the blogs I write. I got the usual flowery response with lots of praise, and it told me how amazing I am—which annoyed me. I didn’t want to be patronized.
I wanted real critical feedback, so I asked the same question again, only this time I asked it to be critical—and boy was it. I was handed a serious beatdown, almost to the point where it made fun of my shoes. I was expecting it.
If you want to feel like a shitty human, give it a try. I know it was doing its best to come up with anything negative it could possibly say, but still, I’m always looking for personal improvement.
It said one thing that really struck me hard, and that’s what I wanted to write about. It was very critical of the fact that I was both a writer and a CEO, as if I couldn’t be excellent at both.
In the opening chapter of the first unpublished book I ever wrote back in 2008, the opening chapter is about how society looks for the singular best at everything, but never the best at two or more things. Someone could be the fastest runner, but never the fastest runner and the best piano player. Nobody has a clue who that is, but they do exist.
Who’s the best surgeon and guitar player? They exist too. What about the best writer and CEO? I’d love to be that person, and it seems like a worthwhile goal. I’ve wanted to be that very thing for as far back as I can remember my love of writing. Why not?
For whatever reason, just as GPT-4o did with my beatdown, it doesn’t celebrate my accomplishment as someone good at two things—and neither does society. Instead, it believes I can’t be the best at both.
I’ve personally admired people who were outstanding at many things. I’d consider it a failure not to pursue more than one love in my lifetime. I take my work as CEO of Hudson Cloud very seriously, as I have every role. I’m never going to drop one for the other. In fact, my writing made me a better leader.
Society always wants to put us in defined boxes. I wasn’t supposed to be successful in the middle of the Ozarks among the toothless rodent eaters. I couldn’t become a success in a small town. That shouldn’t happen either, yet here I am, writing from Moose Lodge and loving my life.
The core message is: never let anyone put you in a box. Never become just one thing. Become many great things. You can still be the best, even if the world can’t see it.