Rediscovering Joy in the Age of AI

It’s autumn here in Stockholm, a gorgeous time of year. The changing leaves and the crisp air call us outside to enjoy the last of the good weather before winter. This season always lifts my spirits, makes me feel alive and passionate.

But there’s something else that has renewed my joy within the past few months, and I am surprised by its origin: It’s AI.

I started playing around with Claude to help my brother with his business, writing code and setting up a better system for equipment inventory and acquisition. I was delighted at how fast and effective it was. So I started playing around with coding with Claude for fun. I was shocked at how much I can do. And shocked at how fun it is! It’s like the first time you sit down in the muscle car of your dreams and you turn the key and suddenly… you have all this power at your fingertips. It’s almost addictive.

Spend time with joy, you’ll feel more joy.

A lot of people around me are expressing similar sentiments. For instance, my daughter, who loves to write, is finding joy in sharing her work with LLMs and receiving instant feedback that is both helpful and highly motivating. Others tell me that they use it to help them in their jobs, and that suddenly their jobs are fun again.

It makes sense. Almost nothing is as exciting as seeing your own power multiplied, and that is one thing AI does really well: Multiply the progress you can make in your chosen area of interest.

So, of course, that got me to thinking: Should AI be making sales jobs more fun, too?

Absolutely YES.

As sales technology has taken over large portions of the salesperson’s daily work, it has also introduced new complexities and laborious human-driven activity to keep it running smoothly. But imagine if a sales professional could hand off the laborious, boring parts of the job, and focus entirely on personal development, skills acquisition, creative problem-solving, building productive human relationships, and doing the parts of the job they love? What if, instead of just a daily grind, the sales role was filled with people who have a personal passion for the craft, and get to spend their days on the joyful aspects of that work, multiplying their impact at every stage?

I believe that’s exactly where we’re going. And I believe individual sales professionals can accelerate their own launch into this joyful way of working, by taking advantage of the powerful AI tools already at our disposal. I explored some of the ways salespeople can grow their careers and skills using AI in a recent post. Now, here are some ideas for returning joy to the job:

• Look buyers in the eye and give them your full focus, increasing your oxytocin and your success rates–which you can do because AI is taking the notes
• Stay in a state of flow. Use AI to automate administrative tasks, so you can spend the vast majority of your time doing what you got into the field for
• Learn about yourself. Use AI to analyze your work styles and reflect what you’re doing well and what you can improve on
• Gamify the win. Build your own personal dopamine dispenser by asking an AI companion to turn your necessary tasks into a game
• Tie it to your passion. Ask your AI companion to ask questions to help you identify what you’re truly passionate about. Then, ask it to help you connect your passion to the work in front of you
• Supercharge your growth: If you use a platform like Membrain that tracks progress through your sales process, ask your AI companion to analyze your work data to identify the most effective area to focus on improving or learning in order to amp up your results
• Spend time with coworkers who are passionate about their work, and catch what they’ve got!

That last one doesn’t require AI, but I’d bet at least some of the folks who express joy in their job every day are already using it. Joy “smittar”, or, in English, is contagious. Spend time with joy, you’ll feel more joy.

The best news? Grow your joy, and you’ll automatically grow your success. Buyers can tell when you’re passionate about your work. They can see it in your eyes, feel it in your voice. And they want a piece of it. Plus, joy generates dopamine, the chemical of motivation… so you’ll be motivated to work hard, because it’s not just work… it’s fun.

Are you using AI to enhance your joy at work? I’d love to hear how.