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Creativity, Productivity, Enthusiasm
AI tools can do the job. The human still has to run it. Three words I keep coming back to, and the wrench that explains how I think about AI.
Creativity, Productivity, Enthusiasm
I spent years in the restaurant equipment business: distribution, equipment sales, repairs and maintenance. In that world, a tool is a simple thing. A wrench does not decide what to fix. It does not walk itself over to the machine. It sits in your hand and multiplies what your hand can do.
That is exactly how I think about AI.
An editorial illustration, not a photo of my bench. The idea is the point.
AI tools will do the job. But a human still has to orchestrate the whole managing process: what work comes in, what gets done first, what done means. I keep coming back to three words for the person who does that well. Creativity, productivity, and enthusiasm.
I almost said ambition instead of enthusiasm. Ambition is wanting the result. Enthusiasm is what makes you pick up the tool again tomorrow. The second one does more work.
Creativity
The ideas still come from the person. AI can hand you a hundred options in a minute, but deciding what is worth building, what problem in your business or your life is actually worth solving, that job stays human. The tool widens what one person's creativity can reach. It does not replace the person choosing.
Productivity
A wrench lets one person do what used to take two. AI does the same thing at a bigger scale. But productivity was never the tool itself. It is the system around the tool: the queue of work, the order you attack it in, the standard you hold the result to. AI will do the job. It will not run your shop. Running it is still your job.
An editorial illustration. Anyone who has repaired equipment knows this grip.
Enthusiasm
Nobody gets good with a wrench by reading about wrenches. You use it until your hands know it. I think humans need to evolve the same habit with AI: pick it up every day, on real work, until reaching for it is second nature. That kind of repetition only happens if you actually enjoy the work. That is why enthusiasm made the list and ambition did not.
An editorial illustration. The habit starts at the bench, not in the app store.
The person holding the wrench
This is the way I believe we have to work now. Build the habits, keep the judgment, and let the tools carry the load they can carry. The people who get the most out of this era will not be the ones with the most tools. They will be the ones who got good at choosing the right tool and using it every day.
That is the standard I am holding myself to. It is a goal, not a result I am claiming. When there are real numbers, they will get their own post.
The images in this essay are editorial illustrations made for it, not photographs of real people or places.