What is one habit you have repeated for years that nobody has ever questioned?
If you only read one line
A second set of eyes on your real work shows you the habits that experience hides from you.
Monday move: Pick one area you want checked, then ask one person for 20 minutes to look at a real piece of your work.
The Spark
Experience makes you faster, and it can also hide your mistakes from you. AI will answer any question you ask, but it cannot tell you which question you forgot to ask. Here is a simple four-step routine to get a second set of eyes on your work, from a person or from AI.
Great Companies Don’t Stay Under the Radar Forever
Most great stocks look boring at the moment they matter most.
They’re still grinding away outside the spotlight…
Still building scale…
And still ignored by the majority of investors.
That’s the window when real long-term opportunity exists.
The original market leaders didn’t become obvious overnight.
They spent years executing quietly before anyone paid attention.
Our analysts believe a similar pattern is playing out again.
In These 7 Stocks Will Be Magnificent in 2026, we highlight companies that may look unremarkable today…
But you’ll soon see they all have the traits that historically define future market leaders.
Today, you can access the full list free - and see which “boring” companies could end up looking obvious in hindsight.
Send My Free Report
Why this matters
When you are new, you know you do not know much, so you ask a lot of questions. Later you get competent. Your decisions usually work, people trust your judgment, and the habits behind those decisions stop getting examined. If a design pattern has worked for years, why question it? If a way of giving feedback has never caused a disaster, why change it?
That is how a flawed habit survives. It produces acceptable results, so repetition makes it feel normal. A few examples:
An engineer who adds an abstraction "just in case" when nothing needs to vary yet.
A manager who opens every hard conversation the same way, and wonders why it keeps going badly.
A tech lead who always reaches for the same solution because it worked last time.
You cannot easily see this from the inside. Another person can, because they do not share your assumptions. That is true at every level. For a new tech lead, an outside view speeds up learning by years. For an experienced leader the stakes are higher, because a blind spot built into an architecture, a hiring pattern or a team structure affects many people, not one task.
AI changes the picture in two ways. It can give you a working answer without improving your judgment, and it can polish whatever answer you already prefer. Used well, it is a good challenger. Used lazily, it just agrees with you faster. So the routine below uses both: a person for what you cannot see, and AI as a cheap second opinion you point at your own thinking.
Step 1 · Name the area
Week 1
Goal: choose one place where a blind spot would cost you the most.
Pick one area: design decisions, estimating, running meetings, giving feedback, saying no.
Look for a stall. Where has progress felt flat despite more practice?
Write a guess about the habit that might be behind it.
ARTIFACT · Blind-spot guess
Area I want checked:
Where I feel stuck or repeat myself:
A habit I suspect I have:
What it might be costing me or my team:Done when: you have one specific area and one guess, even if the guess is rough.
Watch-out: picking something safe. Choose an area where you would genuinely like to improve.
Step 2 · Choose your outside eyes
Weeks 1–2
Goal: find someone who can watch how you work, not just hear how you describe it.
List three candidates: a more experienced mentor, a respected peer, someone from a different team.
Look for judgment, not answers. Good outside eyes ask "why this problem?" before "which tool?"
Make a small, specific ask. Twenty minutes and one real piece of work, such as a design doc, a pull request or a recorded meeting you are comfortable sharing.
Keep the decision yours. You want someone who improves how you think, not someone who decides for you.
ARTIFACT · The ask
I am working on getting better at [area].
Could you spend 20 minutes looking at [specific work]?
I am not looking for a fix. I want to know what you notice
that I keep doing, or keep skipping.Done when: one person has said yes and a time is on the calendar.
Watch-out: thinking you have outgrown this. Elite athletes and experienced musicians still use coaches, because expertise does not remove blind spots.
Step 3 · Show the work, then add AI as a challenger
Weeks 2–3
Goal: get honest observations on real work, and use AI to pressure-test your reasoning.
Share the real thing, plus the reason behind your choices. The reason is where blind spots hide.
Let them ask first. Useful questions: What problem are you actually solving? What is expected to change? What happens if this dependency fails? Why do you keep reaching for this approach?
Run the same work past AI with the prompt below. Do not ask it to approve your plan or to do the work for you.
Write down what surprised you. A surprise is a clue to a blind spot.
ARTIFACT · AI challenge prompt
Here is my plan and why I chose it: [paste].
Do not improve it yet.
1. List the assumptions I am making.
2. Give me three realistic alternatives.
3. Describe how this could fail in a year.
4. Tell me what question I should have asked first.Done when: you have at least three observations you had not noticed alone.
Watch-out: using AI to defend a decision you have already made. If the answer always agrees with you, change the prompt.
Step 4 · Apply it and come back
Weeks 3–4
Goal: turn one observation into one changed behavior, then report back.
Pick one idea to apply in the next two weeks. Not five.
Keep some struggle. Work through the reasoning yourself before letting a tool do it. You learn the trade-offs by making them.
Return with the result. What happened when you tried it? Better conversations start from experience, not theory.
Offer the same to your team. Ask what they see you do that you may not notice.
ARTIFACT · Debrief note
What I was told or noticed:
The one change I tried:
What happened:
What I will keep, drop or test next:
Who I will ask to look next:Done when: you have tried one change and can describe its effect.
Watch-out: collecting advice like a hobby. Without a change in behavior, a mentoring hour is just more information.
Questions to ask your team
What is one thing I do in meetings that makes it harder to speak up?
When have you wanted to ask me something and held back?
What do I keep asking for that you think does not help?
Where am I too involved, and where not involved enough?
What would you want me to question about how we work?
Mistakes to avoid
Asking for answers when the real gap is in how you frame the problem.
Letting a mentor, or an AI tool, make every decision for you.
Using AI only to confirm what you already think.
Treating mentorship as something only junior people need.
Leaving a conversation without picking one thing to try.
Your 5-minute action
☐ Open a note called Blind-spot guess v0. Fill in two lines: the area you want checked, and one habit you suspect you have. Then send one person a message asking for twenty minutes to look at a real piece of your work.
A rough guess and a short message are enough. That is your first spark.
Hit reply and tell me: what is one thing someone else noticed about your work that you could not see yourself? I read every answer.
The one options trade I make every week
One type of trade I make every week…
…it’s exciting.
…it’s fast.
…it only takes you opening the trade on Thursday and closing it Friday.
It's a single 0-day options trade — the kind that can expire as soon as the next day — handed to you with the strike, the entry price, and the exit already mapped. Some weeks are quiet. Some weeks one signal like ASTS runs from 65 cents to nearly 3 dollars.
Not every trade wins — and we show you the ones that don't. But the wins are why I keep showing up.
Grab this week's free report to see how it works before the next signal drops
Get the free 0-day options report
Keep going, one small spark at a time.
Erwin
PROMO CONTENT
Can email newsletters make money?
As the world becomes increasingly digital, this question will be on the minds of millions of people seeking new income streams in 2026.
The answer is—Absolutely!
That’s it for this episode!
Thank you for taking the time to read today’s email! Your support allows me to send out this newsletter for free every day.
What do you think for today’s episode? Please provide your feedback in the poll below.
How would you rate today's newsletter?
Share the newsletter with your friends and colleagues if you find it valuable.
Disclaimer: The "Tiny Big Spark" newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only, not a substitute for professional advice, including financial, legal, medical, or technical. We strive for accuracy but make no guarantees about the completeness or reliability of the information provided. Any reliance on this information is at your own risk. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect any organization's official position. This newsletter may link to external sites we don't control; we do not endorse their content. We are not liable for any losses or damages from using this information.