I despise lawn work. It’s one of my least favorite chores. Our home sits on about an acre of pretty flat earth with grass that grows faster than seems natural and requires mowing at least once a week during spring and early summer, which takes about an hour with a push mower.
I have friends who continue to scold me for mowing my own lawn. Their argument goes something like “You could hire someone to do that for you. Your time is worth way more than the hundred or so dollars it would cost to pay someone to do it for you. You’re not properly leveraged! Time arbitrage! Argh!” I get it… I do. And, for a lot of people it makes sense.
But my decision to mow my own lawn is not financial. It’s spiritual.
Let me explain: you see, that mowing time is not “dead time.” And it’s not really about mowing at all. It’s about what happens while I’m mowing.
You see, the most valuable activity in my work is not my writing or my advising or my speaking on stages in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Those are the most valuable outputs of my work, but not the most valuable activity.
The most valuable activity is… thinking.
It’s within the space I carve out for thinking that every single valuable output I’ve ever created was formed. Each of my seven books. All of my podcast content. Every speech I’ve given to well over a million people around the world.
If I ever surrender my willingness to do that hard work, I will not only lose the output that feeds my family, but I will lose the very essence of what’s being called out of me. I will forfeit my soul. My voice.
That’s why I say that mowing is a spiritual exercise. Mowing provides me a predictable hour every week where I am (a) required to show up, (b) engaged in a low-thought activity that occupies my executive brain, and (c) allowed the space to be out in nature, walking, and simply alone with my thoughts.
I’m not just mowing, I’m actually doing the work that is core to my calling. And, I am being transformed in the process. It’s not too hyperbolic to say that there have been times when the decision to mow my own lawn has changed my life.
OK, so what does this have to do with anything other than my chores?
Let’s talk about AI.
In your world, you have through work and do work. There are some tasks that you simply need to get through, and utilizing AI to make you more efficient or to help you better organize or accelerate your output is a legitimate productivity lever.
However, there are some tasks that, if you don’t do them, you may still produce the output everyone measures you by, but you will miss out on the transformative experience of having done the work. You will forfeit the voice and soul of your work.
Over time, the net effect of just getting through this important, soul work is that you lose your ability to do it. You have all of the output with none of the transformation. You teleport to the destination, but miss out on the very journey that gives the trip its meaning.
The key for all of us right now is to understand what we actually do when we are working. What is the unique, transformative work that we must do even when tempted to replace it with a machine because it’s not about output it’s about the activity itself and the transformation it yields within us?
I believe that AI is the very first deconstructive technology. Narratives about meaning and purpose are being dismantled right before our eyes. For the first time, we are asking questions like “If a machine can mimic human imagination and intuition, what is a human being even for?”
Humans are – in the words of the Avett Brothers – a “breathing time machine.” It’s not just about getting through the work, it’s about the transformation we experience in the process.
