Club Benefits
Catch me on a random Saturday afternoon, and more likely than not, I'll be diving into one of the many AI-powered experiments from Google Labs.
After putting the Food Mood app through its paces to come up with some of the most inventive fusion food recipes I’ve ever made, I scoured the rest of the Google Labs page to see what its other apps could do.
Article continues belowFor some reason, an experiment called Portraits caught my eye. Described as “Expert knowledge, delivered by AI Coaches. Starting with a personalized AI-powered coaching experience," I knew I had to try it out for myself. With that in mind, I spoke with three of the AI experiment’s digital coaches and left wiser and inspired by their kind words.
Here’s how my questions to Google Labs' Portraits helped me in different areas of my life and why I recommend checking out this experiment for yourself.
Overcoming fear of failure
In total, Portraits offers users seven different digital coaches to talk to and each one has a specific theme they stick to when providing advice. There's a Silicon Valley Girl who’s designated as an “Ambition Accelerator," a “Storytelling Coach” and a "Productivity Coach" among others.
For my first meetup with one of Portraits’ AI motivational coaches, I chose Evan Carmichael since his quote caught my attention first: “Change what you believe, change what you achieve.”
Right off the bat, I asked him, “How do I overcome fear of failure?” In response, he left me with these supportive words:
"Here’s the big secret: you don't overcome the fear by waiting for it to go away. You overcome it by acting despite it.
"I call this action the antidote to fear—the belief that progress and confidence are achieved through action, not waiting for certainty or motivation. Fear is a signal that what you're doing actually matters.
"Instead of trying to eliminate the fear, we need to reframe failure as just feedback, not a final judgment. Every mistake teaches you what not to do next time, getting you closer to the right solution. The best way to start is by forcing a small win. What is one tiny, two-minute action related to your goal that you could take right now?"
As someone who usually freaks out when I do something wrong, I found Evan’s advice on using mistakes as feedback to be incredibly helpful. That small win he mentioned that I should “force” came from me doing extensive research on the next topic I wanted to cover and making sure I concocted a story that I was confident would outperform my previous ones.
Evan’s words of wisdom proved to be extremely beneficial to my professional goals.
Becoming a better communicator
Next up was my one-on-one session with the wonderfully nicknamed “Candor Coach” based on Kim Scott.
She’s best known for her work as an author and her most popular books include Radical Respect: How to Work Together Better and Radical Candor: Be a Kick-ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. I tapped into her life coaching expertise to answer my inquiry about how to become a better communicator. Her response also proved to be invaluable:
"The foundation of great communication is Radical Candor. All I mean by that is caring personally while challenging directly. It’s a 2x2 framework for giving and receiving feedback that makes your intentions clear and your critique helpful, rather than confusing or damaging.
"When you look at your own professional life, where do you think you usually fall short? Do you tend to be too nice and avoid the hard truth, or do you sometimes deliver the truth without showing enough care?"
After telling her I fall into the “way too nice” category, here is how Kim advised me on taking a different approach when responding that gets to the reality of every situation:
"That is incredibly common, and honestly, that's where most people land. We're nice people, and we don't want to hurt feelings. But in the Radical Candor framework, that place is called Ruinous Empathy. It's when you care personally, but you fail to challenge directly.
"I want to be clear: the reason it's ruinous is that while it feels like the kind thing to do in the moment, you are actually withholding vital information the person needs to improve or even to keep their job. It's the ultimate failure of leadership."
Major props to Kim for telling me everything I need to know about improving my communication skills. And major kudos to her for leaving me with a catchphrase that going to stay with me: “Say what you mean without being mean.”
Knowing when trust can't be repaired
Finally, I linked up with Portraits’ Trust Coach Minda Harts. As someone who makes it her life’s mission to make people “more fluent in trust,” I figured it was the perfect time to ask her this pressing question: “How do I know when trust can’t be repaired?”
"That is a tough and honest question to ask, and I appreciate you bringing it to the table. We often want to fix things, but sometimes the trust is just gone. Trust is a choice, and if only one person is willing to choose repair, you’re never going to get anywhere.
"In my work, the clear sign that trust is irreparable is a consistent, repeated failure in the languages of demonstration and follow-through. Demonstration is about aligning your actions with your words. Follow-through is simply keeping your commitments.
"When someone continually promises change or promises to deliver, but their actions keep contradicting their words—that pattern shows they aren’t committed to the repair process. They are making a habit of breaking trust, and you can’t heal what they refuse to stop hurting."
What I took away from Harts’ kind words is that someone who repeatedly fails to fulfill their promises and constantly contradicts themselves isn’t all that serious about repairing their bad reputation and the level of trust you have in them.
The takeaway
Even though self-help books aren’t really my thing and I tend to pass when others recommend video speeches from motivational speakers, I was still impressed by Google Labs' Portraits. Not only does the experiment rely on real-life coaches but it adapts their personalities into supportive chatbots that left me with applicable life tips.
I gained a better understanding of myself, made changes to my behaviors, and learned techniques to help confront my biggest fears thanks to Portraits’ AI coaches. Try it for yourself to see if any of them have the guidance you’ve been looking for.
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