I’m an AI Evangelist. AI Almost Cost Me $750 in Perfectly Good Sinks.
I spent a year trying to connect a bathroom sink. AI couldn’t help. A Plumbing Resource at Lowes, named John Wolfe fixed it in five minutes. Here’s what that taught me about the future of work. I run multiple businesses where AI is baked into everything: websites, marketing funnels, training programs, data analysis. I use Grok, Claude, GPT-4o, Gemini—the whole stack. I genuinely believe AI is the greatest productivity multiplier of our lifetime. Then I met a DIY bathroom remodel with a male-threaded tailpiece on a vessel sink that refused to connect to my home’s standard drain. ChatGPT confidently told me I needed a “1-1/4″ slip joint extension with a 1-1/2″ tailpiece adapter”. Sounded perfect. The part doesn’t exist—it confused standard drain sizing with the sink specifications. Grok suggested a manufacturer part number that was imagined. The web links authoritatively took to me to patio furniture. The AI had pattern-matched plumbing terminology without understanding a fundamentally different mechanical universe. Two professional plumbers couldn’t solve it. Five stores (Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace, two plumbing suppliers) didn’t have answers. The manufacturer was no help. I was minutes from ripping out two perfectly good $750 sinks. Then I walked into Lowe’s Peoria, AZ and met John Wolfe. John started in plumbing in 1978. He looked at my photo, felt the threads with his fingers, and said: “You need a 1 ½ inch trap adapter, and a 1 ¼ inch female PVC adapter, and a few other things.” Five minutes later he handed me $20 in parts. Done. John had installed thousands of sinks. AI had read about thousands of vessel sinks. Not the same thing. I see the same pattern in Global Mobility. AI can quote immigration law perfectly, generate compliant assignment letters, and analyze cost-of-living data faster than any human. But it doesn’t know that the consulate you are dealing with is backlogged eight months because of a staffing change, or that the “correct” housing allowance for Shanghai will put your assignee in the wrong school area for their teenager’s needs, or how to read the subtext when an executive says they’re “excited” about a Singapore move but their spouse just went silent on the call. That’s the kind of pattern recognition that comes from being in the room for a thousand conversations AI has only seen transcribed. AI can write a 2,000-word white paper in ten seconds. It cannot feel pipe thread with its fingers or read the room when a relocation is about to go sideways. Here’s what I think this means: The professionals who will thrive alongside AI aren’t the ones defending territory. They’re the ones building expertise that compounds with AI rather than competes with it. John doesn’t need to fear YouTube tutorials—his value comes from the 10,000 problems he’s solved that taught him which rules to break and when, what to pay attention to, and why. The same is true in knowledge work. AI handles the commoditized part—the research, the drafting, the data processing. What becomes more valuable is the judgment that comes from lived experience: knowing which “correct” answer won’t actually work, reading context that isn’t in the data, connecting dots across domains that AI’s training can’t see. We’re not headed toward AI versus humans. We’re headed toward AI as the foundation and human expertise as the architecture built on top. Thank you, John Wolfe. And thank you to every tradesperson, consultant, and veteran mobility professional who’s building the kind of expertise that makes AI better—not obsolete. The future belongs to both. #AI #Craftsmanship #SkilledTrades #Leadership #CustomerExperience #HumansFirst #ExperienceMatters
A Brief History of Time
We talk about time like it’s currency – something we can save, spend, or lose. We rush through days as if they’re being billed by the hour, then look back and wonder where it all went. I’ve spent much of my career trying to master time – and failing, repeatedly – until I realized that time isn’t something you manage. It’s something you respect. That shift in thinking changed everything for me. Early in my leadership days, I equated long hours with productivity. If I was the last one to leave, surely that meant I was leading by example. What it actually meant was that I was tired, reactive, and too busy managing moments instead of momentum. The older I get, the more I understand that how we use time says more about our leadership than almost anything else. We can delegate decisions, share authority, even automate work – but time remains the one resource that tells the truth about our priorities. In the pages ahead, I want to share a few lessons I’ve learned the hard way – the small disciplines and mindset shifts that helped me use time less like a stopwatch and more like a compass. They aren’t secrets. They’re reminders. But when practiced consistently, they can change how you work – and how you lead. Be the Fastest Stop on the Approval Highway One of the simplest ways to earn your team’s respect is to never be the reason their work stalls. Managers spend a surprising amount of time approving things: time sheets, travel requests, expense reports, purchases, budgets. None of it feels particularly strategic, yet every one of those items represents someone waiting to move forward. Early in my career, I learned this lesson the hard way. I had a team member who politely reminded me three times to approve a purchase order. Each time, I told myself I’d “get to it after lunch.” By the time I finally did, the vendor’s quote had expired, and the entire process had to restart. I had cost my team a week because I couldn’t spare five minutes. That moment taught me something important. If your approval sits in an inbox, it’s not just a delay in workflow. It’s a message to your team about what you value. When people have to chase you down to get something signed, they start to believe their time matters less than yours. Now, I make it a personal rule: if something requires my approval, I handle it right away. It’s usually a two-minute task that clears someone else’s path. Keeping those small things moving means my team can focus on the big ones. And here’s the real benefit: when you remove yourself as a bottleneck, you give time back to everyone around you. In leadership, that’s one of the best gifts you can give. Schedule What Actually Matters Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” That line hits me every time I read it. Most of us spend our days reacting to what’s loudest instead of what’s lasting. The ringing phone, the new email, the “quick question” from a colleague – they all feel urgent, but they rarely move us closer to our real goals. Stephen Covey called it “investing your time” rather than spending it, and I’ve learned that the best leaders do exactly that. They make time for the things that build capability, not just activity. Teaching a deputy how to run a report, building a new process, preparing for a client strategy session – none of it is urgent, but all of it is important. The trick is to turn those quiet priorities into visible ones. I live by my calendar. If something matters, it gets a spot there. Not a “when I have time” sticky note, but a real block of space that says, this hour belongs to progress. Modern tools make this easier than ever. Outlook, Google Calendar, Teams – they all let you protect your time before someone else fills it. Schedule an hour each day for what’s important and not urgent, and treat it like any other meeting. Don’t cancel it. Don’t ignore the reminder. Show up for yourself. That one habit changed how I lead. When I stopped reacting to what was loud and started committing to what was meaningful, the quality of my work, and my time – improved overnight. Your future self will thank you for defending that hour. Email Is Not Strategy It still amazes me how many people start their day by diving straight into email. I used to do it too. Coffee in hand, I’d open my inbox and convince myself I was being productive because I was “getting things done.” The truth is, I was just reacting. It’s odd to think that my most important task of the day would simply appear in my inbox by magic. Yet, that’s how many of us behave. We treat email like a to-do list that someone else writes for us. Here’s the problem: email represents other people’s priorities, not yours. Every message is a request, a reminder, or a problem waiting to be solved. And while it’s tempting to live in that constant loop of replying and refreshing, all it really does is keep you busy without moving you forward. Now, I start my day differently. I take five minutes to scan for anything truly urgent, but that’s it. Then I turn to my actual priorities – the projects, people, and decisions that create impact. Email gets its own scheduled time later in the day, just like any other meeting. Reaching inbox zero feels good, but it’s not the same as progress. The goal isn’t to clear your inbox. It’s to clear your path. Don’t Let Projects Die Between Steps Every leader knows the frustration of watching a simple project stretch endlessly. You add up the task times on