Starting and growing a business is exciting and ambiguous – and that’s the fun. It’s a time of possibility, experimentation, imagination, and showing the world what you can do. But, progress is not a straight line and being a leader is incredibly demanding, stretching you, spreading you thin, and spiraling you toward burnout. Become the leader your vision requires – cultivate the clarity, discipline, and momentum you need to explore boldly and lead intentionally. Get a weekly nudge to think differently, lead intentionally, and keep exploring.
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I don’t know about you, but my brain is a loud and noisy place. I imagine it as part Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out and part Room of Requirement from Harry Potter. There are thoughts and feelings up there having spirited debates and there are also piles of movie quotes and 90s references, boxes of old memories that replay on loop, and files – so many files – of ideas. My ideas never come out fully formed. They come in complex knots that have to be questioned, straightened out, and pushed through a sieve in order to transform into a model or a story I can share. This is why, when brainstorming live in the moment with colleagues, I am never as articulate as I wish to be. Writing, for me, is where I untangle thought. I tend to write in the early hours of each morning, before the sun or my family would even think to rise. It’s quiet. There are no notifications or distractions. Just me, sitting with one idea for a nice long while. The process of untangling thought – I mean, writing – is never straightforward. Sometimes the story flows through me, effortlessly finding its way to the page, only requiring minimal edits. Sometimes it requires writing, re-writing, walking away for a day or two, re-writing it again, adding another 400 words – oh this is what I actually want to say, and then more edits. It’s a process. Not only is the idea refined through that process, but I find that I am refined through the process as well. I get smarter, sharper, clearer about what I believe, what I bring to the table, what’s important to me. I have a perspective. I retain more knowledge. I can express myself more clearly. I become more me. Without a regular practice of writing to untangle these thoughts, I tend to get overwhelmed and depressed. Writing is essential to who I am and I’m less effective without it. I gain so much from it. Which brings me to the original thought that spurred this newsletter: working with AI. I’ve been working with AI for a few years now in various contexts. I’ve gotten very good at prompting. And at work, we have some of the fancier enterprise tools and they’re pretty slick. It can certainly make anything you want, though not always well. With the right prompt, a quick AI draft puts you into editor-mode faster, though speed isn’t always the thing to optimize for. It can be a useful shortcut, especially where you want to minimize your effort (think: wasting time crafting the perfect email vs. investing more of that time on your top priorities). The danger – and the reason I started with that long wind up about how I untangle thoughts and ideas – is outsourcing all of your critical thinking to the machine. Your brain develops throughout your life, as you learn new things and when new synapses connect, new ways of thinking are opened. But, what if you stop learning? Like the AIs being trained by the top labs, in recent years, our brains (as a society) are being trained with endless scrolling, short mindless videos, slop – and now machines that can do our thinking for us. If you’re not putting in the work to learn, to think, to understand an idea, wrestle with it, and form a point of view, you might get the A, finish the project, or write an article, but did you really gain anything from the experience? I'm skeptical. I know that if I outsourced writing completely, I’d be missing out on something important. In business, a company might outsource non-essential tasks so it can preserve effort for its core competencies – the things it’s known for. Why is this not the case for us as humans? We’re outsourcing critical thinking – which is supposed to be our core differentiator as a species. That’s weird, right? So, yes, AI can be used to help you write or do your work, but I think, not without a great deal of discernment and good judgment. Doing the hard work of original thought is essential to your growth and development -- and maybe, to being human. 📫 If this sparked an idea, or if you’re feeling stuck, I’d love to hear from you. You can reply directly to this email to share what you’re working on, ask a question, or suggest topics you’d like me to cover in future newsletters. I read every response. P.S. Yes, I use AI to make my avatar character for the newsletter. But, for me, that's a fun little activity. It's not essential for my career growth or development. Until next time, Michael
Michael Schefman | 321 Liftoff Copyright © 2026 by 321 Liftoff LLC |
Michel Schefman, 321 Liftoff
Starting and growing a business is exciting and ambiguous – and that’s the fun. It’s a time of possibility, experimentation, imagination, and showing the world what you can do. But, progress is not a straight line and being a leader is incredibly demanding, stretching you, spreading you thin, and spiraling you toward burnout. Become the leader your vision requires – cultivate the clarity, discipline, and momentum you need to explore boldly and lead intentionally. Get a weekly nudge to think differently, lead intentionally, and keep exploring.
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