Hard Mode FirstChatGPT Saved My Life (No, Seriously, I’m Writing this from the ER)
How using AI as a bridge when doctors aren't available can improve patient-to-doctor communications in real time emergencies
Hard Mode FirstHow to Plan an Annual Family Summit
Simple strategies for setting goals and Priorities with Your Partner for the year ahead
Hard Mode FirstHow I Used AI to Save My Life in 77 Prompts: A Debrief
Reflecting on best practices, lessons learned, and opportunities to improve AI-assisted medical triage
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Hard Mode FirstChatGPT Saved My Life (No, Seriously, I’m Writing this from the ER)
How using AI as a bridge when doctors aren't available can improve patient-to-doctor communications in real time emergencies
Hard Mode FirstHow to Plan an Annual Family Summit
Simple strategies for setting goals and Priorities with Your Partner for the year ahead
Hard Mode FirstHow I Used AI to Save My Life in 77 Prompts: A Debrief
Reflecting on best practices, lessons learned, and opportunities to improve AI-assisted medical triage
Share Dialog
For over a decade, I have been straddling two unique networks with most of my work: education and emerging tech.
Typically, my assumed role has been to help the educators in my network learn about technology, and to help the technologists in my network build cool stuff.
But something strange has started to happen.
This year, the educators in my network all want to build. And the technologists in my network all want to learn.
While I know some of my educator friends may cringe at this framing, what I’m feeling is quite literal: The art of learning is moving outside of the classroom.
For many years, I’ve been carrying a long-held dream about a world where most of us spend our lives moving fluidly between being students and being teachers.
In my fantasy, learning does not stop after the so-called “academic” part of your life ends. The roles just shift. During periods of growth or transition, you’re a learner. When you come out the other side, you become a teacher, often to people just a few steps behind you.
It’s a very clean way of acknowledging these two truths:
Everyone (always) has something new to learn.
Everyone (usually) has something they can teach back.
There are some obvious benefits to operating in a student-teacher cycle for most of your adult life:
It reduces burnout by preventing people from being “always on” in a single role.
Share Dialog
For over a decade, I have been straddling two unique networks with most of my work: education and emerging tech.
Typically, my assumed role has been to help the educators in my network learn about technology, and to help the technologists in my network build cool stuff.
But something strange has started to happen.
This year, the educators in my network all want to build. And the technologists in my network all want to learn.
While I know some of my educator friends may cringe at this framing, what I’m feeling is quite literal: The art of learning is moving outside of the classroom.
For many years, I’ve been carrying a long-held dream about a world where most of us spend our lives moving fluidly between being students and being teachers.
In my fantasy, learning does not stop after the so-called “academic” part of your life ends. The roles just shift. During periods of growth or transition, you’re a learner. When you come out the other side, you become a teacher, often to people just a few steps behind you.
It’s a very clean way of acknowledging these two truths:
Everyone (always) has something new to learn.
Everyone (usually) has something they can teach back.
There are some obvious benefits to operating in a student-teacher cycle for most of your adult life:
It reduces burnout by preventing people from being “always on” in a single role.
It keeps people anchored in a growth mindset in a rapidly changing world.
It makes learning feel elective and keeps teaching fresh and grounded.
Over the past four years, I’ve been playing with this idea in my own career and have been delighted to see the benefits of this cycle first-hand. After working fractionally for several years on a variety of jobs, I applied my learnings as a fractional worker into an ebook with lessons to share back to others. After working as an operator in crypto startups, I applied what I learned in my role as an independent director on the board of Hiro.
As it turns out, teaching back what you learned is not only a fantastic way to cement your own subject matter expertise. But it’s really fun, too.
This kind of peer-driven, “build-as-you-learn” environment is what I’ve started to think of as a modern learning common. Less classroom, more shared practice.
When people ask what Build First is, I describe it as an AI learning lab.
“We build things. And we teach people how to build things, too.”
Some people find that confusing. But the reality is simple. The only reason I can teach people how to build with AI is because I’m doing it myself. If I stop building, I fall off the learning curve. If I stop teaching, I lose touch with what actually works.
A fun thing I’ve started to do is “catch” people in my network who are at similar stages of their AI learning journeys, then tap those people to immediately teach it back to others.
We did this recently at a company-wide AI hackathon, where two product leaders in my network co-led a 300-person workshop with me. We shared what we were actually building, then did a private round of “show and tell” afterward to gut-check our work.
That’s where the momentum pays off. When you catch people mid-learning and invite them to teach it back, motivation spikes. Everyone wants to learn because they’re building something real. And everyone wants to teach because they’ve felt the impact firsthand.
This is how I’ve been approaching the learner–teacher cycle with Build First.
And I have a feeling I’m not alone. As companies grapple with the scale of upskilling required in the AI age, many are already noticing who steps up as an “internal AI champion.” What they may soon realize is that their next generation of teachers is already sitting right next to them.
It keeps people anchored in a growth mindset in a rapidly changing world.
It makes learning feel elective and keeps teaching fresh and grounded.
Over the past four years, I’ve been playing with this idea in my own career and have been delighted to see the benefits of this cycle first-hand. After working fractionally for several years on a variety of jobs, I applied my learnings as a fractional worker into an ebook with lessons to share back to others. After working as an operator in crypto startups, I applied what I learned in my role as an independent director on the board of Hiro.
As it turns out, teaching back what you learned is not only a fantastic way to cement your own subject matter expertise. But it’s really fun, too.
This kind of peer-driven, “build-as-you-learn” environment is what I’ve started to think of as a modern learning common. Less classroom, more shared practice.
When people ask what Build First is, I describe it as an AI learning lab.
“We build things. And we teach people how to build things, too.”
Some people find that confusing. But the reality is simple. The only reason I can teach people how to build with AI is because I’m doing it myself. If I stop building, I fall off the learning curve. If I stop teaching, I lose touch with what actually works.
A fun thing I’ve started to do is “catch” people in my network who are at similar stages of their AI learning journeys, then tap those people to immediately teach it back to others.
We did this recently at a company-wide AI hackathon, where two product leaders in my network co-led a 300-person workshop with me. We shared what we were actually building, then did a private round of “show and tell” afterward to gut-check our work.
That’s where the momentum pays off. When you catch people mid-learning and invite them to teach it back, motivation spikes. Everyone wants to learn because they’re building something real. And everyone wants to teach because they’ve felt the impact firsthand.
This is how I’ve been approaching the learner–teacher cycle with Build First.
And I have a feeling I’m not alone. As companies grapple with the scale of upskilling required in the AI age, many are already noticing who steps up as an “internal AI champion.” What they may soon realize is that their next generation of teachers is already sitting right next to them.
1 comment
For over a decade, I have been straddling two unique networks with most of my work: Education and emerging tech. Typically, my assumed role has been to help the educators in my network learn about technology, and to help the technologists in my network build cool stuff. But something strange has started to happen. This year, the educators in my network all want to build. And the technologists in my network all want to learn. I write more about this in today’s post, “The Learning Commons.” https://hardmodefirst.xyz/the-learning-commons