Most advice you give disappears into the void. You say something, people nod, and you never find out if it mattered.
Yesterday I got a reminder that sometimes it does.
A few months ago, I ran an AI workshop. Afterwards, a senior engineer was stuck overthinking an idea. What if it fails? What if nobody uses it? How will I monetise it?
My response: Does it matter? Build it for yourself. Don't bolt on features for a future you can't predict. Try it, fail fast, learn, repeat.
Standard agile thinking. I've said versions of this hundreds of times.
Yesterday, that same person sent me an app they'd actually built.
That's the thing about encouragement—the feedback loop is mostly invisible. You plant seeds and walk away. Most never grow. But occasionally one does, and you only know if someone decides to tell you.
If you've ever nudged someone and wondered if it mattered: it might have. You just don't know yet.