Emphatic yes. I think there’s another layer underneath this.
What makes identity truly portable isn’t simply that we carry our strengths and experience with us. We carry our way of seeing.
Two people can have the same title, work in the same industry, encounter the same problem, and accumulate roughly the same number of years of experience. Yet they won’t emerge with the same judgment.
Because experience includes what you noticed while it was happening.
Over time, those observations become patterns. Patterns become judgment. Judgment becomes the ability to recognize something important before everyone else has a name for it.
That may be the most portable professional asset we have.
It’s also why I’ve become increasingly interested in separating expertise from context, particularly in the age of AI. AI can help us retrieve information, synthesize enormous amounts of material, and extend our capabilities dramatically.
The interesting question becomes: What do you notice that someone else, given exactly the same tools and information, would miss?
That belongs to you. It's been my master thesis for the past year.
I grew up as a peripatetic Army brat, immersed in global oceans from before I could speak. Afterward, I toured with a band, then stepped sideways into a series of seemingly unrelated corporate positions. I carried a very concrete idea of myself through all that; that was the continuity that made sense of it all.
I've spent the past year teasing apart why that felt relatively easy for me, and attempting to break it down into transmittable lessons. I think you're underscoring one of the conclusions I've come to.
Jobs disappear. Titles change. Industries reorganize themselves. Technologies arrive and rearrange the furniture.
One's particular way of seeing, however, can walk straight out the door with you.
Sometimes a change in context is exactly what allows you to discover how valuable it actually is.
Yes, and “our way of seeing” is a great way to put it.
I especially like your point that experience isn’t simply what has happened to us. It also includes what we noticed while it was happening. Those observations become patterns, and patterns become judgment.
This connects closely with what I was saying about portable identity. Context can change dramatically while the same person remains.
I agree that AI makes that distinction even more important. If two people have access to the same information and the same tools, the differentiator increasingly becomes what each person notices, connects, questions, and acts upon.
Sometimes you don’t fully recognize what is portable until you arrive somewhere new.
Emphatic yes. I think there’s another layer underneath this.
What makes identity truly portable isn’t simply that we carry our strengths and experience with us. We carry our way of seeing.
Two people can have the same title, work in the same industry, encounter the same problem, and accumulate roughly the same number of years of experience. Yet they won’t emerge with the same judgment.
Because experience includes what you noticed while it was happening.
Over time, those observations become patterns. Patterns become judgment. Judgment becomes the ability to recognize something important before everyone else has a name for it.
That may be the most portable professional asset we have.
It’s also why I’ve become increasingly interested in separating expertise from context, particularly in the age of AI. AI can help us retrieve information, synthesize enormous amounts of material, and extend our capabilities dramatically.
The interesting question becomes: What do you notice that someone else, given exactly the same tools and information, would miss?
That belongs to you. It's been my master thesis for the past year.
I grew up as a peripatetic Army brat, immersed in global oceans from before I could speak. Afterward, I toured with a band, then stepped sideways into a series of seemingly unrelated corporate positions. I carried a very concrete idea of myself through all that; that was the continuity that made sense of it all.
I've spent the past year teasing apart why that felt relatively easy for me, and attempting to break it down into transmittable lessons. I think you're underscoring one of the conclusions I've come to.
Jobs disappear. Titles change. Industries reorganize themselves. Technologies arrive and rearrange the furniture.
One's particular way of seeing, however, can walk straight out the door with you.
Sometimes a change in context is exactly what allows you to discover how valuable it actually is.
Yes, and “our way of seeing” is a great way to put it.
I especially like your point that experience isn’t simply what has happened to us. It also includes what we noticed while it was happening. Those observations become patterns, and patterns become judgment.
This connects closely with what I was saying about portable identity. Context can change dramatically while the same person remains.
I agree that AI makes that distinction even more important. If two people have access to the same information and the same tools, the differentiator increasingly becomes what each person notices, connects, questions, and acts upon.
Sometimes you don’t fully recognize what is portable until you arrive somewhere new.