Three barriers to trying something again

There are two types of people.

One tries things once. If it sucks, they never try again.

The other keeps tinkering. They investigate, they experiment, they come back.

You see this everywhere but it’s especially visible with generative AI right now. Someone tried it two years ago, it gave mediocre answers, and they decided it wasn’t for them. Meanwhile the technology improved dramatically. The tinkerers kept going. They learned how to write better prompts, figured out which tasks actually worked, built intuition.

Now there’s this divide. The difference isn’t intelligence. It’s about clearing three specific barriers.

The first is capacity. Tinkering requires slack. If you’re already drowning, you can’t pause to learn how to swim better.

The second is mindset. People with a fixed mindset avoid situations where they might look stupid or feel incompetent. Playing with new tools when you don’t know what you’re doing feels vulnerable. Nothing works the way you expect. Growth mindset people are comfortable being temporarily bad at something. They expect the learning curve. The first prompt doesn’t work? Try again.

The third is curiosity. Some people are wired to investigate, others aren’t. This isn’t about being smarter or more ambitious. It’s temperament. Tinkerers see something broken or confusing and think “interesting.” Other people think “frustrating” and move on.

The people who cleared those three barriers two years ago now have a completely different relationship with these tools.

If you want to get there, start small. Find 20 minutes. Talk to your boss about creating space for experimentation. Ask your peers who use these tools how they actually use them. Have those conversations during lunch. The gap isn’t permanent. You just need to decide to cross it.