AI vs Your Life: Why Experience Can't Be Trained

joseph2618

Sep 2

6 min read

Experiences Are Ingredients

Alex Smith recently wrote "life experiences are ingredients" – arguing your life experience gives you a perspective that no AI can match, and thus, a lens it cannot possess.

Describe skiing to a person who never skied.

Describe the color "Burnt Sienna" to a person blind since birth.

Without the experience (that ingredient), your description falls flat.

I believe what Alex wrote. Experiences are ingredients. They inform how you approach your life, your work, your relationships.

A couple years ago, during a beach holiday and some much deserved #downtime I began to catalog a list of experiences – mostly as a gratitude practice. The speed with which the list grew surprised me.

When I worked for Elizabeth Taylor, she was often asked "why don't you write an autobiography?" Her pat reply, "I'm not done living my life yet!" I get that. But this was developed for a different reason.

This catalog of life experiences all delivered outcomes that shaped me in some way – informed my life, my career, my relationships. I doubt any LLM uses a kaleidoscope like this when sharpening your writing!

Here is the list. Read it, then ask yourself what yours would look like.

Where It Started

Before I could choose anything, a few things happened to me. Those count too.

Born in Panama. American parents, Air Force brat - still had to be naturalized as a US Citizen. Learned to swim as infant in Panama Canal.
Hit by a car at age 5 in the head. Changed my entire personality (serious psychological gulf).
Graduated high school at 16 with a plan to go to summer school to get the only credit I lacked: senior English. Ruptured appendix on day 1 of summer school and required hospitalization for 7 days. I missed summer school and took a correspondence course instead.

Sweden, and a Passport Full of Stamps

Two years abroad at sixteen, and everything that came with being turned loose on a continent at that age.

Lived in Sweden as exchange student ages 16-18. Lived with families, went to school. Learned Swedish. Traveled.
My first time on snow skis was at Chamonix, France (epic fail) – I am the only person to have single-handedly shut down the world's largest lift system.
Explored Europe by Euro-rail pass at 17 - passport was confiscated by armed Yugoslav police on the train (literally took it back by hand from a guard: youth = naïveté).
Attended the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm – won a ticket, lost it, convinced the armed guard that I had had one!
Spent weeks under the 'midnight sun' near Kiruna, Sweden.
Walked the Acropolis (multiple times) and dined underneath it.
Swam in Capri's blue grotto.
Organized my own junior year abroad in France (my college had no program).
Learned Swedish, French, Spanish and some words & phrases in Russian and German. Still use them all to some degree.

The Work, and the People It Put Me Next To

Most of this happened because someone needed a problem solved and I said yes before I knew how.

Organized and executed Donald Trump's wedding to Marla Maples.
Got married at New York's famed Plaza Hotel myself.
My first private jet experience was with Elizabeth Taylor. To date my only private jet experiences have been with her.
Attended the White House Correspondent's dinner with model (and former Swedish classmate) Vendela.
Worked with Archduke Gaza von Habsburg (yes, whose great grandfather's death sparked World War 1) on the Faberge exhibit that debuted at New York's Metropolitan Museum.
Worked and hung out with: Marion Ross, June Lockhart, Trisha Yearwood, Russ Leatherman (Mr MovieFone), Cindy Crawford, Michael Phelps, Pink, Pat Benatar, Raquel Welch, Harry Connick, Jr., Rachel Hunter, Elle Macpherson and many more.
Collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld to launch his fragrance Sun Moon Stars (and his 'muse' Daryl Hannah). Ditto with Italian designer Nino Cerruti.
Crowned Bill Blass the Czar of 7th Ave for Smirnoff Black.
Arranged and attended media interviews with Bill Gates on behalf of Swatch alongside Misha Barton (oddly).
Met and hung with (then) Prince Charles (now King Charles) – gave him a bespoke Breguet. Expelled from the UK due to visa issues while I was in France! Had to fly to NYC and spend a week getting it sorted out.
Introduced Michael Phelps to Cindy Crawford prior to the Swimmer's legendary Olympic Games.
Raced a real Astronaut (Gene Cernan) in an actual Lunar Rover in front of New York's Planetarium.
Attended and worked the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and 2008 in Beijing (saw those opening ceremonies live – awesome!).
Had private dinner inside the Louvre after closing along with a personal guided tour.
Held a private dinner inside the Fondation Louis Vuitton along with a private tour of the Alexander Calder exhibit.
Helped organize a beautiful private tour and dining experience at Marie Antoinette's Versailles palace Le Petit Trianon – ending in a fireworks display. More on why experiences like these stick.
Managed a photo shoot with two gay adult film stars in a men's locker room and it was everything and nothing like you imagine it to be.

Places That Rearranged Me

Some trips you take. Some trips take you.

Rode a camel at the Pyramids of Giza.
Shat on the road to the Luxor temples (bad belly).
Sailed the Nile for 7 days (splendid).
Walked the Path of Enlightenment in Kyoto, Japan; rode Japan's Bullet Train.
Walked along China's Great Wall; visited the Imperial Palace and Forbidden City.
Watched the sun rise from the seat of the Inca High Priest atop Machu Picchu.
Swam in the volcanic pools of the Atacama Desert - had wine & cheese in the Moon Valley. Visited the indigenous people living in Lake Titicaca and an island in the middle of this 'sea-lake'.
Experienced the 'temescal' 'hot hut' sweat ceremony in Mexico with a guide. Crazy.
Addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the International Day of Happiness.
Watched sunrise at Oooo laRoo (aka Ayer's Rock in the Australian desert).
Celebrated New Year's Eve at Sydney Harbor with fireworks over its famed opera house.
Took a helicopter tour of glaciers around Queenstown NZ and a boat into Milford Sound.
Experienced a walking safari in Zambia, Africa - saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, various birds, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, snakes, gazelles, wildebeests, baboons, monkeys, Guinea fowl, zebras and Impalas. And even Wild Dogs.
Visited Nelson Mandela's home.
Dove in the Indian Ocean with sea turtles, eagle rays and sharks. Fished, snorkeled and had brunch at the Earth's Equator in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Cruised Stockholm's archipelago (multiple times) and parts of the Greek isles.
Took a dip in a Norwegian Fjord at Flåm - after a floating sauna. Drove atop that Fjord and took in an amazing view.

And Some That Were Just Good Fun

Not every entry needs to mean something.

Rode on the Orient Express 2x - opulent!
Sat in box seats at London's O2 arena for - wait for it - Celine Dion.
Attended Ascot (in full top hat and tuxedo) as well as Wimbledon.
Hiked to LA's Hollywood sign (multiple times).
Walked the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg Russia (underwhelming).

Loss, Survival, and the Things You Don't Choose

This part of the list is the part I did not expect to write down. It is also the part that shaped the most.

Watched a man take his last breath (my dad).
Nearly died myself (3 times).
Watched my mom die and delivered her eulogy. Delivered eulogy for a brother and two aunts. It is an awesome responsibility.
Seven surgeries thus far - all requiring some level of hospitalization.
Been mugged and been robbed on the subway and streets of Manhattan and pickpocketed in Paris.
Went to court 3 different times as a witness - deposed twice - and was party in an Arbitration in the UK (I don't recommend any of these).
Never took drugs apart from cannabis for 2 months in college. Got bored with it. Having an addict for a brother taught me to steer clear of everything else. And to have no judgement about those who use them. Oddly, at 46 I tried ayahuasca and then Bufo once each. Both were very impactful experiences.

What the List Taught Me

I am grateful every day for all these experiences. I am not a product of them, as the saying goes, but of what I choose to do with them. Each one is a thread in a tapestry of a life. They inform how I am who I am / how I understand the world, how I interact with it, and where I choose to place my energy.

Each experience comes with its own story. Call it a chapter in a life well lived.

Something surprising unfolded as this list took shape – something profound. Like Elizabeth, I've been so busy just 'living my life' that I never examined what led up to now. Developing this helped me understand how I am who I am and how no AI can replace the experiences, feelings and understandings a life like this has provided.

The Third Act

As I enter my "third act" I realize it's not over. There is yet more to come.

What does your life list look like? And how has it impacted you?

Want to know more? Reach out!