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I vividly remember the time when I was saving up for my first laptop. I had my eye on a Dell XPS. It was a glorious laptop. The stats, the look, I thought it was the best laptop around. In my mind PC was the only option out there. There was this other brand named Apple or something weird, but only weird people had them, and I didn't want to be weird. I wanted to be cool.
In fact, I refused to listen to my classmate Tim, who was trying to convince me that this Macintosh brand was the future.
Looking back at that time, I obviously was pretty misguided about the best computers. Mostly because I didn't actually know anything about "Macintosh" computers. I was only relying on 2nd hand information, I had never touched one. But Dell. I was comfortable with Dell.
Now let's move forward a few years to 2024. Something similar happened to me. But it wasn't about laptops, it was about AI. AI in general freaks me out. And AI editing freaked me out. And I couldn't really understand why it freaked me out so much. Is it just because I'm older and new things more easily scare older people? Maybe? But I think it was more about learning, and about just being comfortable.
I brushed off AI editing because I didn't want to learn about it. I didn't look into how powerful it could really be.
I didn't need to be scared about how it would take my job, I needed to learn about how it could help me do my job better.
And to be honest when an AI editing company reached out for me to try their software, I rolled my eyes and got a little bit stressed all at the same time. Mostly because it made me uncomfortable. I was really comfortable with editing everything myself in Lightroom. I was comfortable with getting the results I wanted by doing it all myself. But it wasn't until I sat down and tried to learn more. It wasn't until I actually got myself to download it and tried it on my own photos that I learned something new. AI doesn't need to take my job away. AI can help me. But I needed to be willing to learn. I needed to be willing to try something new.
And this all reminds me of a business principle I've heard of over and over again on one my favourite podcasts "EntreLeadership" by Dave Ramsey. He repeats this quote by Harry Truman frequently:
“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
If you want to lead, if you want to be a good business owner, if you want to be a good photographer, you should read. And why is that? It's not just about reading books, it's about coming across new information. If you read a lot, it means you're open to new ideas. To new stories. And that new information can be the difference between the XPS and the Apple Macbook Pro.
Thankfully, before I bought my Dell XPS, my Dad took me to a camera show here in Toronto. And there I learned a lot of things, I shot a digital Hasselblad with 50MP images (that was insanity at the time) AND I learned about the Macbook Pro. And how amazing it was for photographers, and how it was geared toward creative individuals. I learned a lot that day, and by the end of it I spent my hard earned dollars on a brand new Macbook Pro, which I later downloaded Lightroom 5 on for the first time.
And that's the thing - being comfortable feels really good in the moment, but it doesn't lead to the next great thing. The next great thing usually means getting uncomfortable and learning something new.
So what are you scared of? Maybe it's time to face it.
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