Wedding Business Solutions

My GPS gets me where I'm going, but I don't know where I am!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Share episode

How often do you rely on a tool—like GPS or AI—to get you results without really understanding how you got there? Is it always okay to follow directions blindly, or are there times you need to know the “why” behind the answer? In this episode, I explore the risks and benefits of trusting our tools, the importance of understanding processes (at least a little), and when it’s safe to be hands-off versus when you need to dig deeper before you hit “go.”

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for insights on finding the right balance between dependence on tech and informed decision-making in your business.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


Are you going to Wedding MBA? Use the promo code - Alan - to save $20 off your tickets, at www.WeddingMBA.com 

And don't worry, if you can't use your tickets this year, they're transferrable or you can hold them to use next year.

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

My GPS gets me where I'm going, but I don't know where I am. Listen to this episode and see what I'm talking about. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I had this thought the other day. I was traveling. I was out of town, as I am very often, and I have my. My.

My phone for. Or the mapping in the car to get where I'm going. And in the old days, and I apologize for saying that, but in the old days when I had a map, I would have to look at a map and see, okay, I have to go north, and then I have to go east, and then I go wherever I am. And if somebody says, where are you? I say, okay, I'm northeast of whatever. Matter of fact, I had this happen. I was in Houston one time. I was going to have dinner with a friend, and they said, where are you? I said, I'm in Houston. And they said, where are you? I said, I'm in Houston.

They said, nowhere in Houston. I said, I have no idea. I have no idea. It was Hertz had that. Never lost. We called it Ever lost in the car, and it told me where to go. And I went there, and I'm at my hotel and I don't know where I am. And I had to literally pull up a map and say, oh, I'm kind of west.

I'm west of downtown. And I was thinking about this with a lot of the tools that we have, because GPS is a tool, AI is a tool, and you get an answer, and you don't know how it got that answer, but you got it, does it matter? And the answer is, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And one example that I read recently was if AI creates computer code for you and you get what you want, but then if it breaks, does anybody know how that code works? Because you didn't write it, as opposed to the programmer that wrote the code would know how to fix the code because they wrote it. So there are times, certainly where it would matter and times it doesn't. When you get in your car every day and start the car, do you give any thought to how that happened? Like all the things that had to happen for that engine to actually start up? No. Does it matter? No. As long as you know somebody that does. Right.

It doesn't matter. So the different tools that we have in life, you know, we're using these tools or just other types of things. Like my sons, when they went to school, they stopped correcting their Penmanship. Right. So they weren't making. They did learn cursive writing, but they stopped correcting their penmanship. So my older son, who has an MBA from nyu, writes like he's in elementary school because that's when they stopped correcting his penmanship. And he wasn't asked to write any neater or differently.

That's the way he writes. Is it a problem? Well, most of what he does is types, so it's not a problem. Right. So you think about this, and some of us like to reminisce and say, okay, well, you know, everybody should learn cursive. And I do believe that. I believe that everybody should learn cursive because it's more. It's a hand eye coordination thing. It's also.

There's an artistic value to it, and I think it's more than just being able to write the letters. I did hear about someone who said, you know, she would send cards to her grandchildren, birthday cards, and. And they couldn't read them because she wrote them in cursive. Right. I think it's. It's one of those things. I think there's more to it. Just like art and music in the schools is more about more than just art and music.

Right. It's about rounding out the person. So I think they're things here. But when I go back to my gps, would I like to know where I am? Yeah. And if I zoom out on that map, could I do that? I do have that tool for that. So I guess it's okay that I got where I'm going without knowing where I am. But then sometimes these tools send us awry. They send us into a wrong direction, and we just blindly follow them.

And this is where using AI without knowing that you're getting a good answer and then just blindly copying and pasting, that's a problem. I've had directions gone bad on my. My GPS is multiple times. This one time in Atlanta, it told me to get off the highway. I got off the highway, told me, make a left and go underneath the underpass. I went. It said, okay, now make a U turn. So really.

Okay, make a U turn, go back, go under the underpass, make a left and get back on the highway. The highway I was just on. And why did it tell me to get off the highway? But I'm blindly following it because it's like, make a left, make a right, make a left, make a right. Instead of being in control and saying, wait a second, that doesn't make sense. And then there's other Times where it's like it's telling me to get off the highway, I'm like, why the highway's better? Well, the highway was all backed up with traffic, so it did know better than I am. So think about these tools that we use and then think how, how much, how much of this should we take for face value? How much of this should we blindly follow when it's okay? And then other times where maybe we need to have some more information, maybe we should be better informed before we're using what this result, what this tool gave us. Especially things like AI Because AI has hallucinations, AI will give misinformation. I'm very often scolding chat GPT for improvising when I asked it to do something specific.

And it comes up sometimes with something pretty good, by the way, but it comes up with something different than what I asked it to do when I gave it a very specific instruction. And I see a lot of stuff that I've seen online, I've seen on emails, I've seen on socials where it just screams that you've used AI for that. And it doesn't feel like you, right? And maybe it is you, but there's things about it that don't feel like you. So my GPS gets me where I'm going, but I don't know where I am. Is that a problem? Usually not, right? The other tools that we use in our lives and the other things that we don't know how they work, but we get a result, very often it's fine, but let's just not take that. We should do that with everything that we do. Because there are things where it doesn't matter. Like I don't know how my cell phone works.

I don't. I don't care as long as it does. And when it doesn't, I just need to know somebody that can fix it. I've mentioned that I live in New Jersey now, and I think it's the law that you have to have a guy for everything. I got a guy for that. And if you don't, you have to have a guy who knows a guy, right? That's what it is. And that's what life is. You know, you don't have to be able to fix it.

Like, I don't cook unless it's outside on flame on my barbecue. But I, you know, I understand the process of it. I just don't do it. I know people that do. In this case, my wife or a restaurant. I don't go into the kitchen and tell the chefs how to cook. And if you're a chef, you know, you don't want people doing that. Right.

So it's okay sometimes. But we do need to know the process. We do need to have that information. Sometimes we know background on this that would make it better for us, and basic understanding of some of these things. And then other times, it's going to be fine. So this is just kind of one of those. Just kind of think about it, you know. You know, last time you used your your gps, whether it was Google Maps or Apple Maps or Waze or whatever, and you got where you're going and, you know, did you know where you were or you just got where you're going and did it matter? Thanks for listening.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Host