I gave a keynote in San Francisco last week. Afterward, someone asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks.
“How do you know if the work you do makes a difference?”
It’s one of those deceptively simple questions—the kind that lingers.
We all wonder about it. We move through our days, inboxes overflowing, calendars jammed, calls back-to-back, and somewhere between the third Zoom and the tenth Slack, the question creeps in: Does any of this actually matter?
We’ve been taught to look for the splash—the clear result, the visible proof. Something you can circle on a graph and say, “See? That’s when it worked.”
I used to believe that too.
As a scientist, I lived in the world of measurement—trajectories, simulations, ratios. If it couldn’t be quantified, it didn’t count. If it couldn’t be plotted, it wasn’t real.
And yet, here I am, years later, telling you this: The most meaningful work you’ll ever do probably won’t be measurable. And it might not even be visible.
That’s not some romantic idea. That’s a hard-won truth—one I had to unlearn with every spreadsheet I once trusted too much.
We live in a culture drunk on dashboards and addicted to metrics. We confuse noise with signal, reach with resonance, applause with impact.
These days, I think of my work as planting seeds. Every time I give a keynote, write a blog post, or create a new course, I’m planting little idea seeds in my audience.
Sometimes I see them sprout. But most of the time, I don’t see anything at all. Years go by. Then out of nowhere, someone emails me to say a single blog post changed the trajectory of their life.
And no—you don’t need an audience or a platform to make that happen.
You just need the courage to plant the seeds only you can plant.
Did you speak your truth today? Did you show up for someone when it counted? Did you solve one tiny problem? Did you ask a better question?
Then you made a difference.
And here’s the danger: If you keep searching for the big splash, you’ll keep feeling inadequate.
Because most days don’t splash.
Most days ripple—quietly, invisibly, gradually.
And when you miss that, you don’t just miss the impact—you misjudge your own worth. You start thinking you’re behind and what you’re doing doesn’t matter—that you don’t matter.
But that’s a lie sold by a culture obsessed with instant visibility.
So here’s a better lens.
Your job isn’t to engineer a splash.
You’re a seed planter.
Your job is to plant something real—an idea, a gesture, a moment of care—and trust that the ripple will come.
Because it will. Not today. Maybe not when or where you expect. But someone will hear it, feel it, act on it. And something will shift.
Speak. Write. Create. Care.
Even when it’s invisible.
Especially when it’s invisible.
That’s where the difference is made.
Not in the splash. But in the ripple.
P.S. If you’re someone who’s planting seeds, you already know how hard it is to keep going when the impact isn’t always visible.
That’s where leverage matters. That’s where tools like AI—when used responsibly—can quietly multiply what you do. Not by replacing your creativity or authenticity, but by freeing you up to focus on the parts only you can do.
That’s exactly why I created The AI Advantage. It’s built for people like you—people doing high-trust, high-impact, often-invisible work. It’s designed to give your quiet ripples momentum—to help you plant smarter seeds, faster.
Enrollment closes this Sunday.
👉 Join The AI Advantage before doors close
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