Hi Reader,

Last week I facilitated a workshop for grad students, and one of them wasn't sure her restaurant job counted as "real experience."

It hit me: this isn't just a student problem. I hear the same thing from mid-career professionals every week. "I don't have the right AI skills." "My background isn't technical enough." "There's so much to catch up on."

What I'm Noticing

Everyone's chasing the same playbook right now. Prompting courses. Context engineering. AI certifications. Tool after tool after tool.

But here's what I keep seeing in my consulting work and in conversations with hiring managers: the people doing best in the AI era aren't the ones with the longest list of AI tools. They're the ones who know what makes them unique, and they use AI to amplify it. They know what they're good at, where they add value, and they let AI handle the rest.

Managing a restaurant floor taught you how to coordinate a team under pressure, read a room, and deliver for real people in real time. A decade in operations taught you how systems actually break. Years in client services taught you how to translate between what people say and what they mean.

AI can draft your emails, summarize your meetings, and build your slide deck. It cannot show up, read the room, or make a judgment call when the stakes are real.

The issue isn't that people lack valuable skills. It's that we've been conditioned to undervalue the human ones, especially now that everyone is chasing technical credentials.

Your Next Move

From "I need to learn AI to stay relevant" to "I need to know what I bring so I can point AI in the right direction."

Try this: The Ikigai Inventory (15 minutes)

Answer these four questions honestly:

• What energizes me? Not what I'm supposed to like. What actually lights me up at work.
• What do people come to me for? The thing colleagues, clients, or friends consistently ask your help with.
• What am I doing when I lose track of time? That's usually where your real skill lives.
• Where have I made a judgment call that a tool couldn't? Reading a situation, navigating a conflict, making a tough tradeoff.

Now look at your answers. That's your foundation. AI is the amplifier, not the replacement for those things.

The next time you sit down to use AI, start from that foundation. Instead of "what can AI do?" ask "what do I do well, and how can AI give me more time and leverage to do it?"

Life Beyond the Screen

I told the students something that I've been telling myself lately: the work you've already done counts. All of it. The restaurant job, the side project, the years in a role that didn't have a fancy title.

In this rush to reinvent ourselves for the AI era, it's easy to forget that the most valuable thing you bring is the thing no model was trained on: your specific experience, your judgment, your way of seeing problems.

Don't start from scratch. Start from what you know. Then build forward.

What skill or experience have you been undervaluing?

Find me online: LinkedIn | Twitter/X | Instagram | TikTok​

Listen to the Automate Yourself podcast: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify​

Let's Chillaborate,

Dina

Founder, Chill Labs

PS: If this landed for you, forward it to someone in your life who's doubting whether their experience "counts." It does. 💛