When I was in high school, I missed a lot of questions on a lot of tests.
But there’s one question I’ll never forget.
It was pretty simple. The image displayed a slice of the earth’s interior, with a question: What is the name of the stuff in the middle?
I thought of two answers. One was “the core of the earth,” because that IS the middle (and was the correct answer). But I tried to outsmart the question, and picked something else.
I got it wrong. And never forgot it.
Decades later, after high school, college, grad school, and a career, I found myself a student again, taking an advanced course on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. I spent a lot of time on the capstone project and anxiously awaited my score.
I opened the email with shaky hands, immediately reminded of my high school experience: I missed top marks by half a point, deducted because I missed one simple initial step on a complex AI prompt.
It took me months to get over that. How could I have forgotten something so straight forward? Weeks later, I was asked to present on AI’s role in publishing. I put a lot of energy into crafting a good product and had a lot of fun sharing lessons with the awesome members of the Florida Authors and Publishers Association.
As I packed my laptop after the session, a colleague approached me to thank me for the talk.
“The part I found most useful,” she said, “was learning to tell the model what role to assume before giving it a task.”
I stopped in my tracks and smiled.That was the step I’d missed in my AI project a few months prior! That was the step that got me a (frankly) insignificant downgrade. But it was something more: the descendant of that long-forgotten test in high school. I’d included it in my presentation because I was determined to never make that mistake again.
I can’t go back to high school and change my answer from “core” to “mantle,” or whatever the right answer was. And I won’t have another opportunity to get a perfect score that AI project. After all, neither of those matter.
What matters is that I was gifted something better: the opportunity to share lessons and wisdom with others.
Many times, we obsess about past failures. Psychologists call it “rumination.” Most of us call it ghosts, skeletons, or whatever name we give to those mistakes, embarrassments, or missteps that we cannot forget.
Those phantoms live only in our minds. Left to fester, they can stop us in our tracks and prevent us from moving forward.
But sometimes, we take those experiences, plant the seed in fertile soil, and step back. What might grow from those experiences may be wondrous—far from the gnarled, exaggerated memories we carry like scars. They may blossom into wisdom.
And the best way to make lasting wisdom is to share it.
What will you share?
carolyn
Hi Noel. I enjoyed and appreciated your post and the reminder to learn, let go, and grow. And I didn’t know that either, about AI models and roles to assume before tasking, so thanks for that, too! Lesson shared.
Best,
carolyn