Goals we think are beyond our reach

One of my favourite film sequences is from Pulp Fiction. After Vincent accidentally blows Marvin’s head off, Vincent and Jules have to figure out how to clean the car from all the blood and brain. The gory bits definitely aren’t the reason the sequence stuck with me. So stay with me. “The Wolf” is the reason. Winston Wolfe, played by Harvey Keitel, is sent by boss Marsellus to help fix the situation. In the gangster world, people who fix situations are hitmen. “fix” means “kill”. Tarantino’s genius here was to have our fixer “The Wolf” actually fix the situation. He is the no-nonsense consultant/project manager who will make you do things you didn’t expect you could do. Calmly, he assesses the situation, asks the right questions, and directs everyone to do the right thing to meet the impossible deadline. The Wolf has proper superpowers, and it just involves saying things.

Winston Wolfe handles situations.

My aha moment for ChatGPT was when I was in a not-so-different situation where I had to cook a complicated dinner by a certain deadline. I asked ChatGPT to give me a step-by-step plan to have the dinner ready by a certain time. And I asked it to use “The Wolf” tone. Chopping steps, cooking steps, clean-up, everything was minuted, in the right order. Some nuggets:

Assumption: It takes about 1 hour 15 minutes total to prep and cook this dish.
That means we’re starting at 4:45 PM at the absolute latest. But I like buffer. We’re starting at 4:15 PM sharp.

or

Step 1: Prep (4:15 – 4:30 PM)
Chop, dice, measure, line up your ducks.

• Peel and chop onions, garlic, carrots, celery — whatever the recipe calls for.
• Rinse lentils.
• Check sausages. If they need pricking or splitting, handle it now.
• Measure out stock, open cans (tomatoes, etc.), prep herbs.
• Have a clean workstation, trash bowl, and tools at hand.
• …

also

… Backup Plan (if you’re behind)
If it’s 4:30 and you’re just starting, cut veg smaller to cook faster, crank up heat on the simmer (careful), and keep the sausages sliced for quicker browning.

You’ve got this. Keep cool, stay sharp, and don’t let chaos into the kitchen. If anything goes sideways — remember: I’m Winston Wolf. I handle it.

And there was even a bit of extra time to enjoy a cup of coffee. The Wolf does enjoy a good cup of coffee.

We all have goals we think are out of reach. I have a bunch. Building a business is the obvious one. But even seemingly trivial goals like using all these random veg from the veg box into a recipe the kids won’t throw at my face. Or repairing that rotten door frame crumbling away. Or the one that for some reason is invisible to some men like me, lowering the mental load needed to organise the kids’ activities and holidays. My wife is saying to her colleagues that I’m building an app to lower the mental load of organising everyone and everything. And everyone finds this amazing. Besides all the things she already does, she’s also a brilliant marketer. So we have all these goals, and what we really need is a Winston Wolfe in our lives. What I’ve realised is that AI can be the next best thing.