The Leading Edge: Advice for the College Kids (and all of us, too!)

I took a stroll through the upstairs of our house this week and noticed something. Both of our kids rooms are spotless!  And they will stay this way for a long time.  Why?  Because we just finished dropping them both off at their respective colleges.  And yes, brag time, we are incredibly proud of them.  Both of them are smart kids and earned scholarships.

But here’s the thing we all need to recalibrate on, and something I’m sharing with my kids.  In the past, smart was one of the most valuable things you could be.  Smart would get you somewhere.

Not anymore.

Today in the age of AI, everybody has SMART at their fingertips.  It is no longer a differentiator.

So, if you are looking to stand out in the world, know this:

The biggest differentiator is Productive Work Ethic. (And maybe it's always been that way). The future belongs to the hard-working creators.  Walk into any large gathering, and you’ll see no shortage of consumers, staring at their phones and browsing content.  What we miss is all the creating and building happening behind the scenes. And I'm not talking about online content (though that applies as well).

I'm talking about real, useful stuff.

So what should we do?

Tinker.  Play.  Test.  Learn.  And create something that at least one other person finds useful.  And if all of us are doing the same, that’s the kind of world I want to live in.

So let’s all go build something beautiful.