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Karissa Clampit: Let Yourself Explore

• Jude Brandford-Sackey

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0:00 | 1:15:06

In this episode, I speak with Karissa Clampit we explore how many people freeze when they approach AI because they feel like they have to “be good at it.” They want perfect outputs immediately. They treat AI like an exam instead of a sandbox.

Karissa shares how removing the performance mindset changes everything. Clicking around. Testing. Following strange ideas. Letting outputs surprise you. One of the deeper tensions in this episode:

The pressure to be productive with AI may actually be slowing people down. If curiosity becomes performance, experimentation dies.

Key Themes We Explore

  • Why curiosity feels intellectual but is actually playful
  • How performance anxiety blocks creative exploration
  • The difference between learning through pressure vs learning through play
  • How AI becomes more accessible when ego steps aside

Key Takeaways

  • Curiosity is a mode of engagement, not a credential
  • Confidence grows from interaction, not theory
  • The people who move fastest with AI aren’t always the most technical, they’re the most willing to explore

In a culture obsessed with productivity metrics, curiosity as play feels almost irresponsible. But in practice, it accelerates learning.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Juices. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01

I'm doing well. How are you?

SPEAKER_00

I'm doing great. Thank you for joining me today. Honored to have you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

I I'm honored to be here. So a little bit about where I'm from. Um I am from Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is a beautiful place. Very underrated in my opinion. It's spring here, so it's kind of refreshing and puts me in a good mood to be here and to be talking to you today.

SPEAKER_00

And um a bit about yourself as well.

SPEAKER_01

A little bit about me is I am a business analyst by day and I run the House of Curiosity by night or in the early morning hours. I have been at the crossroads of business creativity and AI for many years. I've always been passionate about technology and leveraging it to make our lives more human, especially in a technical world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Tell us about House of Curiosity. How did you get started with that?

SPEAKER_01

That's so, how did I get started with the House of Curiosity? That's a really good question. It was actually one of my good friends, Lori. So she brought me into a different community, another AI community, and said, Hey, you gotta you gotta hang out with these people, Joseph Rosenbaum and Wes Shields. They're they're awesome. They they're really good with AI, they can teach you anything that you want to know. It's really cool. And so I started essentially hanging out with them and helping them build their own community. And it was really cool, it was an awesome experience, but it felt really as someone who is new to AI, it was kind of like a tech bro experience. And as a woman in technology, I was kind of looking for something a little more casual and just a different type of vibe. And I not to say I didn't love hanging out with them, I still talk to them often, and I I do learn so much from them. But I wanted what Lori and I wanted to do is a little bit different. So we've always kind of focused more on the human side, even though we both worked remotely for a really long time. And so we want to make sure that all of the technology that we use is really human-centered. And so we wanted to create a space for people that they could meet online from anywhere, because I I live in a rural community, so accessibility felt really important to me. A space where people could gather and talk about AI, and you can be a tech pro if you want, but you don't have to be. You could be anybody from any experience. You could come in and say you don't like AI. Like that's totally fine. Everyone's experiences are valid and important, and so it felt really important to us to be able to create that space online because it was something that we didn't have access to at that time.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so Carissa, what do you hear when you hear the word AI?

SPEAKER_01

What do I hear when I hear the word AI? You know, I think naturally because of some learned behaviors, I think of iRobot, the movie. But then I think about my personal relationship with AI and the way that it's helped me. And the moment that I heard that there was a tool that could help me finish policies and procedures even faster, I was like, what is this? I need to know what it is. And so it's actually where I kind of got started with it. So my experience was a little limited there, but when I found out about the artistic side of AI, it completely shifted the way I think of that word. So now when I hear AI, I think of creativity and curiosity. I I have a totally different perspective on it than when I first heard the like the terms AI.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I want us to dive deep into curiosity. So we're in an age where AI makes learning easy. What actually would drive someone to stay curious?

SPEAKER_01

So, what would drive someone to stay curious? I would say community. Having friends that are there to encourage you to keep going, especially in the world of AI, you know, it's changing so rapidly, it can be super overwhelming and it can be a lot to digest. And you know, we didn't well, I didn't grow up with the kind of technology that I felt was growing this rapidly, even though we grew up, you know, with the internet and smartphones and things did excel, it just still wasn't as fast as AI is. So I think for me, what makes me curious is being able to hang out with my friends and have regular conversations about AI and to be able to learn and kind of expand on that. And there's scientific evidence behind like sorry, my apologies. Um I have too many thoughts at once. Um, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Take your time.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, okay. When you asked me the question, my mind went into like five different directions. Um, so I would say that the most important thing is like having friends to be able to support you and encourage you as you go on. Other people who are also curious, it's almost like a fire where the more people you get, the bigger the fire builds. And it's really cool when you have a room full of people that are equally as excited as you are. It helps you learn more faster, and it also helps you retain information better. And so, as I mentioned, there's science behind curiosity and the effect that it has on learning and development. And that's something that is really important to me because as a millennial, you know, we grew up playing. We grew up with people around us and being able to play with our peers, and we didn't necessarily learn from screens. We did watch TV, but you know, we had we had a chance to play. And so I think that playing is curiosity, and if we can bring that play into a digital world in a place where you can hang out with your friends or meet people who have these interests, because you may not have those same that same group of people around you in your day-to-day life, it's cool having access to those people online.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so Carissa, you're building something around curiosity, but does AI actually make people more curious or less curious?

SPEAKER_01

Does AI make people more curious or less curious? I would say that it depends. I think that people who are naturally curious, it makes them even more curious because they want to know what the potential is with the tool. And so they're gonna go, you know, down different rabbit holes and explore different communities and different tools and see what they can leverage to make to improve their life. And then I think that there's another set of people that are like, yeah, if I can get this project done faster, I'm gonna do it, but not necessarily for the sake of curiosity. So I think that it is almost maybe a difference in personality more than anything, because I think that maybe some people aren't quite as curious about the potential of AI.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, now I want us to define curiosity. What does curiosity actually mean to you?

SPEAKER_01

What does curiosity mean to me? That is quite the question. Wow, that is such a good question. I'm like, I it almost goes back to kind of what I said earlier, but to me, curiosity is play, curiosity is fun. For me, curiosity is about learning. I've always found the why behind things more fascinating than the what. And so to me, when I see something, I want to know why they built it. You know, what was that idea that sparked that initial thought for them? So I would say that's what curiosity is for me.

SPEAKER_00

When do you know someone is genuinely curious versus just consuming?

SPEAKER_01

Hmm. Wow. These questions are just blowing my mind. Um so I would say it's it's not as easy to tell as it is in person. You know, being in a digital world, sometimes you don't have the ability to read people quite as well. But I feel like you can see curiosity in someone's work because they're not just putting out like, yes, you want something that's completed. Something that's completed and good enough is better than not having anything at all. But people who are curious will take their work to that next level. Like Teresa, for example, who's a community member, she talks about color balancing her AI photos all the time. And I'm I take photos and edit photos in real life action photos all the time. And I don't know why I never thought about editing my AI images before. But when she said that, I thought, wow, like I'm not being curious enough. Like I need to take it to that next level. And so for me, I think that I I can see other people's curiosity based on the questions that they're asking and the things that they're doing with AI. And I think that you can see it more because they're thinking outside of the box, you know, they're not just generating things for fun or copying other people's prompts, which there's nothing wrong with that. I do that all the time. I think it's it's a lot of fun, but I think that there's so many levels of that curiosity, you know, where can you take that prompt that somebody gave you? What can you turn it into to make it your own? You know, to really make it feel like you. And so I think that when you see people kind of getting outside of the box, to me, that would be where you can really see that passion versus other people who are who may or may not be doing more traditional types of marketing.

SPEAKER_00

Can you give me an example?

SPEAKER_01

An example for me would be the way that me, Lori, and Israel work together. We are constantly sharing skills, GPTs, and prompts, but yet all of our outputs are completely different. And if you see our art or are following us, you'll be able to just tell at a glance whose art is whose. But yet they're also different. And it could even be the same prompt, but because of the way we've changed or trained our different profiles or the style that we go into with it, you know, it's really it's beautiful to say the least. I think it's really cool. And so that's not a very specific example, but there is there's so many instances of that that happens. It feels like everything I create has a piece of one of my team members in it, whether I do that intentionally or not.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So are you are you saying that when you're working with AI, you're able to put a piece of yourself in your work at the same time you're you're also able to take from others as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I think that that's one of the best ways to use AI is to put as much of yourself and your your own thoughts, your own strategy, the things that you love into it in order to create something that's really unique. Because if you put in something, like if you put in a prompt that's really general, you know, what is what is the key to life or something, you know, very basic, if we all prompt that exact same thing, we're probably gonna get pretty similar answers. But if you're looking for something specific in the key to life of reducing stress, you know, that in itself, adding those little nuances that you're looking for, those expectations can really shape the output that you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00

Sometimes using these tools, you you you're able you're able to get answers, you're able to get answers instantly. How do you approach exploration?

SPEAKER_01

So for me it's it's like cooking. I've been doing it for many years, so I think that there's a little bit of experience that kind of goes behind it. You take a basic recipe, you always start off with one recipe, and either for me I never make it exact because I'm not very good at following precise rules. So I always go by flavor, and you know they say season with your heart. So um a lot of the time I look at it and I see the recipe, and I'm like, okay, I know I can add more garlic because I know I like garlic, and I know I can take away a little paprika or whatever it is and make it what I want. And so I think that over time, as you cook more, just like with AI, you know, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get changing out those variables.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And the more you it's just cool to see the output. And so you just keep changing it and changing it and refining it depending on what you're looking for. And for me, you know, Israel's the one who really he always comes to mind because he would always say, Add more chaos. Whenever I'd be like, This output's really good. There's a lot of realism, the image is awesome, but it's just not striking. And he would just say, Add more chaos.

SPEAKER_00

Who's Edrion? Why does he say that?

SPEAKER_01

Uh Israel Ayliph, and he is one of the co-founders of the House of Curiosity, and he's actually one of my biggest inspirations for learning AI. He is like a super computer. He's he's been working with AI longer than just about anyone I know personally, and he's one of the most creative people I know as well. And yeah, he's also super organized and builds these incredible prompts, and he's always willing to share them with everybody, which is also something that I think is really cool, especially in a world where AI is growing so fast and there's just so many tools. You know, we can we can learn a lot from each other. And so having other people that you know don't gatekeep and are willing to share, you know, some of their experiments, some of their recipes that may or may not have come out very well, and why, you know, is invaluable. So Israel Aleph and then Lori Lynn are two of my biggest resources when it comes to AI in general.

SPEAKER_00

So you reference AI learning AI almost being like cooking. So what in that sense, what do you get your recipes from?

SPEAKER_01

Almost the same way I get my actual recipes. So I started when I was younger, I started cooking with my family. And so Lori and Israel, they're like my family. I got most of my initial recipes from them and kind of watched them cook first. And once I seen what they were doing, I was like, Oh, I know what I want to do now. And so once that expanded, um, you know, they started giving me even more resources. Where are they getting their recipes from? You know, was it was it their family, was it their friends? And so they would tell me about other AI communities, other people I needed to know in AI, and it's just and just different websites, like different influencers to follow. And so there are definitely a few different places that I go. Um, and it could be something as general as like going on to Grok and scraping data, you know, it might not be a specific person. So that's there's a lot of thanks to the internet, there's a lot of places that you can get recipes. And now that we have the House of Curiosity, a lot of the time I find myself getting recipes from the the community members, and I you know, we all show up and we share what we have and what's going on, and so it's cool because you know, depending on the time of year, like right now, um, you know, it's spring, so there might be some some good spring prompts coming out or some something to get people ready for summer or something like that. So you never know what people are gonna bring to you. It's almost like a potluck every time we get together.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And what what surprises you the most in this space through how like you're learning from other people, like you know, how you describe that you're almost learning from family. What surprises you the most through this way of learning?

SPEAKER_01

So, what surprises me the most through this way of learning? I would say everyone's acceptance. When we first started, I wasn't sure if people were gonna understand our purpose and our intention and feel like they could trust one another. I think that I I come from a very corporate background as a business analyst, and you can't always share your secrets with everybody. So I think that sometimes we get used to that and we don't always feel comfortable doing that. So you know kind of I think we've all taken it upon ourselves at the House of Curiosity to try to build that trust. And it has pleasantly surprised me how many people feel that. And it's something that I've been doing for a long time, and something Lori and I have been creating together remotely for many years, um, and you know, over a decade together. And so it's an incredible feeling to see other people experiencing it and to fully understand the purpose behind it and not just show up, you know, superficially. I really feel like a lot of the community members I've I've got to know a lot more personally than I ever would have imagined, especially when we first started this. And so I think that's been the biggest surprise is the way we've been able to build trust.

SPEAKER_00

And how has this shaped how has that shaped learning and how has it shaped like working with one another?

SPEAKER_01

The House of Curiosities really like shape that learning because having trust with one another makes learning in public a little more comfortable, and it's not completely in public, you know, that people well it is public because it is on Luma, but you know, you have to register to be there and it's not like it's a million people, but so that also helps kind of keep the groups a little smaller so that way we can build that trust together. But I think that it's it's nice because it's showing people that you don't have to know everything and that you can kind of just show up and be yourself and just learn just from a conversation like what you and I are having. And I think that sometimes people are kind of blown away by that or blown away by how open people are willing to be with some of their workflows and share some of the things that they're doing, and so I think that it makes learning feel less intimidating and more casual, like you're sitting on the front porch with your friend.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's definitely true. That's has been my experience as well. Do you think AI is making people intellectually lazy?

SPEAKER_01

No, I I don't think so. I've seen people doing so many things with AI that I have not seen in the past. Um I've been very fortunate to work in a lot of different industries, and I have a lot of friends who are solopreneurs, and AI is really encouraging them to think outside of the box and to try new business strategies that they may not have had the confidence to try before. And on top of that, too, you know, I think that there's a lot of human aspects of it too. You know, I know people that are using AI to better understand their nutritional needs, you know. In the case, like I live with someone who's terminally ill, and um, you know, there's certain things that they can have and cannot have, and so it's nice for me to be able to go back and forth with AI and figure out um foods that I thought were gonna be okay were not, and so it was cool to be able to strategize with AI to be able to identify better substitutions that are based on my life and not just some generic output, you know. So I think that it can really enhance the way you look at things and really enhance your learning.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think it unlocks deeper curiosity?

SPEAKER_01

I do think AI unlocks a deeper curiosity in people, and for me, you know, I think the biggest shift in my learning and my curiosity was when I started treating AI like a human collaborator. So I started thinking about it of if I had an assistant that I that could really get to know me and be able to make decisions that really reflect my values on a day-to-day. You know, I think that that shift in collaborating with AI has really impacted the way I strategize. And I've always had to do a lot of strategy on my own. When things are moving really fast and a nine to five, you don't always have time to sit down and have strategy meetings with an entire team. So I think that it's a really big advantage to be able to have AI as a collaborator and to be able to learn AI from AI. You know, from my experience in testing a lot of different types of software over the years, you know, that's not generally the experience. And so I think that that's been a huge shift in my learning as someone who's always tested all these technologies and who is naturally curious about them, you know, to be able to collaborate that way has really shifted anything I do. Any problem that I have or question. I have all these different ideas and directions I can go in go into with it, but I can always put that into AI and focus on the one that makes most sense. Because sometimes we get too emotionally invested in some of the work that we're doing and we'll want to like make it perfect or really hone in on one topic. And it's nice to have Chat GBT to go back to and say maybe that's not the real value that you're showcasing. Or in one instance, is like a tough conversation that I had with my team about you know where the direction we're going as a business. I was able to take that conversation into AI and have it help me analyze what wasn't being said, what was between the lines. And so that's something that I would have done on my own in the past, but to be able to leverage AI for that is like a whole nother level of analytics and something that I find fascinating because I think naturally, based on all of our experiences, we're not always comfortable being super transparent. And so we'll there's a lot that is said in the words that aren't being said.

SPEAKER_00

I'm thinking about that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

That's kind of been on my mind a lot lately, because that that's been just like a common theme that I keep seeing kind of throughout my life in different meetings, and something that I've been experimenting with AI for a little bit more recently, because you know, I find I'm very passionate about my work day to day and the human side again, and I care a lot about my team members. So if there's any way that I can support them without them having to take the time to say that, I'm gonna try to do it because there's nothing better than someone coming up to you when you've had a long day saying, you know, here's a coffee or a tea, take a break, go outside, you know, go for a walk. It's fine. Like I've got it covered, and there's just such it's just such a nice relief to know that like I can do that at any point in time, and AI's helping me do that more and more.

SPEAKER_00

What gave you that idea and um why why is it something you've been thinking about lately?

SPEAKER_01

What gave me that idea? I would say the state of the world that we live in. I spend a lot of time in technology professionally and just out of my own curiosity. And one theme I've been seeing is a lot of people seem very stressed. You know, there's a lot of things happening professionally and personally, in the economy, and in the world in general. And so to me, that just makes the human side stand out that much more. And I've always been a really Reflective person. I really value my friends and my relationships and being able to be transparent with people. And so I have been working on looking at some older recordings from The House of Curiosity and why we got started in the first place. And it's just been reminding me of we were still in that same state before. And yet we've made it better for ourselves in that year since the beginning to now. And it's been a stress relief for us as a team and for some of our community members. And so it just kind of reinforced what we were doing. And I just keep seeing it popping up and just different areas where people are stressed. And a lot of the time, because I'm mostly in technology, a lot of the time it's with technology. And I just remind people when you get frustrated with technology or you get upset about anything in life, um, it really slows down your curiosity, it slows down your learning, and it really hinders your energy and the way that you show up day to day. And if you're not taking time to just pause and go outside or just stop and pet your dog or stop and just have a hot glass of tea, you know, and just enjoy it. I think that everyone's moving so fast and so we forget about that. We just want to keep learning, we want to be the experts in our field, we want to really show up. And I think that that that is important, don't get me wrong, but you know, if you're so focused on that and you're crashing every evening on your couch or just, you know, crashing with your laptop on your lap every night, you know, your odds are you're probably not showing up to the best of your abilities in your day-to-day life either. And that's not fair to you or the people that you live around. So I think that that's really important to just constantly it's like diet exercising, you know, you just get out of it what you put into it. So I think it's important to just pause and reflect on why you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00

So are you saying we're at a point in time where sometimes technology and just the state of the world causes more stress to people in such a way that they can't unravel.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I agree. I think that that definitely is the core of it. You know, I think that it's it's almost like when the internet came out again, you know. I wasn't in in my career at that time. Um, but you know, it reminds some from some of the stories I've heard, it reminds me of that same feeling. And it even goes back to, I don't know if you've seen the movie Hidden Figures when they started getting the new IBM technology and people were afraid of getting left behind. But this one department really wanted to learn the technology so they would still have a job. And so they did, and they did everything they could to make that happen. And you know, that movie really inspired a lot of what we're doing too. And so that they were under so much stress and so much adversity, but yet they were still innovative and they were still finding ways to improve their lives in the world around them and and essentially ways to decrease that stress. And so to me, you know, that's where the community helps a lot is having people, people, you know, human beings to talk to as well that can kind of help bring you back to reality a little bit. And granted, we do make GPTs and stuff that can kind of help with some of those conversations and some of the AI overwhelm. You know, that's something that because we're so human human-centered, we have built a lot of GPTs to help with that. But I think there's just a certain point where it's just comforting to talk to another person, and that's something to, you know, again, this day and age that feels invaluable as well. And someone who understands.

SPEAKER_00

You described the struggle, but where's the struggle coming from?

SPEAKER_01

So I can't speak for other people, but I would say for myself, you know, working 50, 60 hours a week, and then you have your family to take care of. I take care of somebody who is terminally ill. I make family dinners every day. So it's all of your stress in general compounded with this advanced learning, and it is everywhere. It's on your phone, it's on your calendar apps, it's my dog's got a tracker now, and so I can tell when he's in different places in the yard, and he's got his little tile tag. I can see him on an app. And so, you know, I I think that it's not it's not a natural human experience, and so we're not when it comes down to like it from a scientific perspective, you know, the internet and all of this AI and stuff isn't natural to us. So I think that it is just overwhelming in general to attempt to consume that much information at once, and it just makes me think of the book Dopamine Nation. I don't know if you've ever read that one, but it's I think it's an incredible book. I'd recommend anyone to read it. But it opened my eyes because I was finding myself full screening all the time. I had my phone with AI, I'm running prompts on my laptop, I have prompts going on another screen, and I thought, what am I doing? I am physically stressing myself out right now, even though I'm having fun, I am being curious. You know, after so many hours of that, I'm creating stress without even acknowledging it in the moment. So I find myself reducing the screen time that I have and trying to avoid double screening because that's just constant overstimulation. And as much fun as it is in the moment, you know, reading that book really kind of opened my mind to that a little bit more. And I think I've always been aware of it, but sometimes you gotta read it to really for it to really settle in.

SPEAKER_00

So, what was your takeaway from reading that book?

SPEAKER_01

That we are constantly trying to just consume as much information as possible and keep up with everyone and everything, and it really isn't realistic, and I think that having access to social media, and this is another common thing that I I see in a lot of areas of my life or just in general on the news, you know, there's lawsuits against social media companies for addiction now, you know, that's a stressor. You're you're creating something that addictions don't affect just a person but their families, and so that's a stressful experience. And so I think through through all of that, it's almost like we're creating our own stressors in the way of, but at the same time, we're creating these tools that are gonna help relieve our stress too, because they're doing work for us and helping us do things we couldn't do before. But doing more isn't always good.

SPEAKER_00

Doing more of what work.

SPEAKER_01

I think that for me, I was brought up to work really hard and that the harder you work, the more results you're gonna get. And that's not always the case. And I think that we s I don't know, for me, I see that more and more every day. But I'm starting to realize that you know, I don't maybe I don't need to work three jobs, maybe I just need to shift my perspective, or maybe because I I worked a lot of jobs in college and always thought like I needed to do more and more and more and constantly push myself. And now, you know, looking back on all of that, what's more important to me is living a life that is gonna make me happy when I look back on it. And so I want to be more present in my day-to-day life, and so that's really I think my biggest takeaway is like my why. Why was it important to me? And you know, I realized that I was just doing it because that's what I was told, you know, that that was the right thing to do and that it would pay off, and it did pay off, you know. I I've I've learned a lot. I was able to I had the confidence to try and build a house of curiosity to to take that first step and have the knowledge to do that, but there were real life experiences that I I wish I would have taken the time to have or spent more time with my nieces and nephews and different things like that, and just being more present in my life, and so that's something I try not to take for granted now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So are you saying in the past you got consumed by the idea of working hard, you just got to a point where you felt that wasn't objectively moving you forward, and now you're choosing to work differently, and then you're choosing to be happy.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, so I would say, and this is an old saying that my father-in-law says all the time, but you know, work smarter, not harder. And so I think that it's all about intention. And like I had mentioned earlier, you know, your energy, what makes you feel good? And granted, that's a privilege in itself. Not everyone has the luxury of making those choices every day, but I I do. I I have a home, I I have a job. I'm able to think, you know, like what is the best use of my time, you know, like working every day, working overtime. Like, I'm not a neurosurgeon, you know, no one's gonna die if I don't work late. So, how much is that really helping in the long run for me, the company, and everyone else? It just makes more sense to to stop when you need to stop and to start refresh the next day because it's you're gonna be more efficient. Odds are you're when you come back the next day, you're gonna have better ideas, you're gonna be in a better mood, you know, you're gonna be nicer to your coworkers. Odds are you're gonna get the project done a little bit faster than had you would have if you stayed up all night working on it. Because I've done that. I've put in a lot of hours at a lot of companies, you know, working in until I went to bed, or sometimes stayed up past midnight to finish a project. And you know, there's I think that you know, there's a time and place for those situations, but it's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so just with your knowledge and just with your awareness, how are you using AI to support how you approach work?

SPEAKER_01

I use a few different things because I I went to school for business management and international business, so a lot of my approaches to organizing my work are pretty traditional. So I love the Eisenhower matrix, for example, that's a way that I personally organize my life.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what is that?

SPEAKER_01

So the Eisenhower matrix is a good way to prioritize like your urgent and important task, or maybe they're just important and not urgent, and so it and then there's it's like a it's a square, so you identify the order essentially of operations. So, what is the most urgent and time-sensitive thing that you need to do? Just focus on that, and then you move on to the next step. And so to me, that kind of just helps me simplify how I work, and so like I said, I I typically will do that traditionally, but then AI allows me to take it to the next level because sometimes it's hard to decide, you know, what is important and urgent, or what is important and not urgent, or what is not important but yet urgent. So sometimes AI kind of just takes the load off of you, and it's very familiar with the Eisenhower matrix, a very well-researched um productivity method. So the AI is really familiar with it. So anything I put in there, I can give it a, you know, a whole page of to-dos, and it's gonna help me pull out the three most important things I need to do that day. And then so another thing too is also accepting how in my own expectations of what I can get done. Because I I find because of AI and some of these other things, you know, it can help you strategize and plan out your day, but it may not account for your dog running into the neighbor's yard and you having to chase him down for a half an hour or you know, whatever it is, those little delays. So, um, you know, I think that it's also about it helps me set more realistic expectations for myself. And also it helps me decide to, you know, what to delegate and what to just eliminate as well.

SPEAKER_00

How do you decide?

SPEAKER_01

Um really like so how do I decide? So typically, you know, I would just look at the Eisenhower matrix, like traditionally, but now with AI I have the luxury of being able to think again, you know, about what really makes me happy and what do I actually want to be doing, and what can I hand off to like my teammates? And you know, Lori and Israel, I know them really well, so I know their strengths, and so I know there's certain things that I can delegate without it becoming more stressful to myself. Okay, because sometimes delegation can be tough, you know. So sometimes it's hard to know, and it can be hard for people to create that list to hand off and to let go of it, but when you trust your teammates, you're able to kind of let go of things more easily, I've found.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay. So let's let's come back to House of Curiosity. What are people actually doing inside this community?

SPEAKER_01

A lot of different things. So it's a house, it has many rooms, and I like to think of it as a house that we're continuously building and that everyone has a part in building. And so we have um a couple groups of people. So we have one group that is part of our core team, I would say. They are the key holders, so they are brand ambassadors essentially. So they are people who give us, we meet with them once a month, and they give us direct feedback on like what is working in the community and what is not working in the community and what they'd like to see and what we'd like to shape. So their ideas are helping us create things like the artist salon that Teresa is hosting, and so it's cool because she's able to showcase her expertise and some of her traditional skills that she had, you know, going through art school and utilize them in AI. And I think that having that avenue for community members is incredible and really cool because you never know what direction it's gonna go, and I think that it also helps other people see firsthand that all of our experiences are valid in AI, and that you again you don't have to come from technology, you can be a chef and you're helping AI create better recipes, or you you know, you could be an athematician and you're helping AI teach children math better, or um, you can create all different types of things, and it's having more people we are a Discord community, so having people in there, it just it's more brains, it's more ideas, and so people are in there and they're sharing um YouTube videos that they've watched, they're sharing links to communities that they love because you know we're not we're not here to gatekeep, and we're not the community for everybody. We realize that some people might not like how relaxed our community is. You know, we are very free-flowing and we don't use slides. We feel yeah, I've done it a lot of that in the corporate world, and I've done a lot of learning um for like the Project Management Institute and very great information. I love it, but it doesn't exactly make me feel very curious when I'm in those sessions. So I wanted to create an environment that felt more fun to me, and I'm able to learn without feeling like I have to read a textbook or I have to go back to college to figure it out. Um, you know, I can I can just talk to my peers and they can say, you know, here's what I've learned, here's what works, here's what doesn't. And so that having the house of curiosity has really created that space. And then there's so many, again, there's so many rooms and facets that we we have a an area where we encourage people to post their LinkedIn links or their Instagram links and showcase their different platforms so that way, like if you're on Twitter or X.com and um you know, five year peers are the moment you post when you share that link, we can all repost that. And that helps you get more reach too as an individual. And I've always been under the like belief that like we can get a lot further together than we can by ourselves, and so that feels really important to me too. So again, you know, that's another part of like not everyone wants to reciprocate, but a lot of our community members do. You know, I know they'll come through and they'll like my posts or they'll they'll put a comment on there or they'll give me feedback. You know, it's not necessarily just like admiration. That's not the purpose. We want to improve. And so um, they're not afraid to say, hey, you know, like maybe if you use this prompt, your lighting would be better. Or maybe if you use this prompt, the emotion would be more realistic. So I think that that's been a really cool experience too inside the communities. You know, we started off with just curious conversations, which was essentially just a hangout on the front porch, and you never again you never know where that conversation's gonna go. It's just like hanging out with your friends, you know. Sometimes you just decide to stay home and sometimes you decide to go to a party. It's it's been pretty cool though, seeing how it's growing and it's always evolving. You know, something we're not afraid to say, maybe this didn't work, maybe we should try something else, or maybe this isn't for us, uh, especially when it comes to getting more corporate or anything like that. Like sometimes I have to rein rein us back in and say, like, no, that's not why we started this. You know, we need to be more relaxed. We don't need to be working seven days a week. We're not, you know, we're not CNN, don't need to have a workshop 24-7 every hour filling in that gap. That again, that's not what we believe. We believe in being human, taking breaks, and once in a while I will stay up later than I should, you know, generating images. But, you know, I try to just make better habits every day and live a more sustainable life when it feels like we're going at such a fast pace.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And what do you see members in this group struggling? Or what are people inside House of Curiosity struggling with?

SPEAKER_01

So, what do I see members struggling with? I would say some of the same things I am, you know, the AI overwhelm. Another thing would be possibly, and maybe I can't speak for everybody, but like confidence, you know, with the AI overwhelm comes some, as people like to say, imposter syndrome. You know, I think that everyone is kind of used to traditional business roles where there are experts and people can be the expert and they know so much about their one subject, but that's almost something that I love about AI because to me it's almost like an equalizer. Because you can be an expert and then they come out with a new update that changes everything you knew at that point. And so to me, it's it's both scary and beautiful at the same time because it's it's scary because it's overwhelming and it is moving really fast. And so I think people have a hard time embracing that change. Change is really hard, and AI changes every minute, and so I think that it's having to reframe your mindset. Um, but that's something that the community really comes together on. So if someone is overwhelmed, at least for me, when I'm feeling that way after I get back from a curious conversation, I'm like, why did I feel so overwhelmed? It almost seems silly now. Like someone broke it down in a way that made it more digest for me or gave me a tip that just was something I wasn't seeing before.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then when you feel stuck, what do you do? Like how you brought it back to yourself with like AI overwhelm imposter syndrome.

SPEAKER_01

So for me, I have three things. So the first one I do is I go outside. Um, I I live in a rural area, so I'm able to go outside and quite literally touch the grass. And so when I thought people said that, I thought it was metaphorically and kind of silly. But then I read a book called The Hidden Life of Trees, and it made me want to get outside and just observe trees and life around me a little bit more. So whenever I get overwhelmed, I quite literally try to go outside for at least five minutes, even if I'm frustrated. And usually walking around helps, and then I come back and I either have a new idea or I just stop for the day and I come back the next day if I if the idea is still not there. Because for me, I can't, I could attempt to force creativity, but to me that's not very creative or very curious, so I prefer to kind of go with the flow, and that kind of goes on to like my second thing that I do is um I ride a dirt bike, and that's not something I grew up doing. That's something that when I that I wanted to do when I turned 30, I was like, I've never done this, I want to learn how to do it. It scares me. I've never been a risk taker. I've always I've always called myself a calculated risk taker. So depending on the amount of risk. And so doing that and something that I had never done before that is so incredibly hard for me, physically, mentally, everything about it. It still scares me to this day, and I've been doing it for a few years now, and I'm still not good at it. But it learned it taught me how to trust myself in a way I'd never trusted myself before. And like, yes, it scares me, and I could really hurt myself. I've I've definitely hit my head a couple of times and hit some trees, but it's still the getting back on that bike, practicing every day and getting over that uncomfortable feeling or going like I've rode my dirt bike on these enormous sand dunes that I never could have possibly imagined that I would do. Like ever. I told myself that 10 years ago, never would have believed it. But now I'm like, that's like AI for me, you know, day to day, where I'm like, you just gotta trust that you're gonna make the right decision, but and keep going, keep putting in that work, keep building up that strength so that way when. When you do crest over that giant sand dune, you're like, you know what? We got this. Like, let's go. It's gonna scare you, but you you're gonna do it. And then once you get over it, you're like, why was I so scared to do that in the first place? I think that that kind of has really sh also shifted my perspective on AI. But the third thing, um, is call my friends, Lori and Israel, on the phone. And again, that's a part of why we've made the House of Curiosity so we could bring other people into that group too. Because everybody needs a friend. And I you can't have enough people that care. And so sometimes again, it's just about talking it over, and then someone else can say, Well, but did you think about it this way? So those are the things that help me whenever I get stuck.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So now I want us to speak about patterns you see across learning with AI. What is one of the patterns that you you've started to recognize?

SPEAKER_01

What is a pattern that I have started to recognize? Honestly, now that you're saying that, like I have always thought that I see a lot of patterns and I notice a lot of patterns, but now that you're saying that, I'm not sure. I think that it's I guess if this is a pattern, it would be that it's so different for everybody. And I think that that's natural because of our backgrounds, and again, you know, it comes, it's about your confidence, it's about how comfortable you are with change. Um, and that fluctuates day to day, you know, at least for me. I don't always have as much confidence as I do on a Monday as I do on a Wednesday. So I think that that can change quite a bit for people. I think that the pattern that is strongest to me is just the collaboration that I had mentioned earlier and thinking of AI a little bit differently, and really thinking about how I'm training my knowledge bases and the intention that I'm using with it. I think that that you kind of have to develop your own pattern and figure out what works for you and your based on your workflow and your with your experience and the amount of time that you have. Because there's a lot of wonderful things that I want to do with AI, but I don't always have the capacity to do it. And it could be brain space or it could just be time itself and not having the time to to do it all, and so that that could be really challenging. And so I think that it's I think the biggest strengths that I'm seeing and learning are people who are able to prioritize their time better and and their energy and think about the purpose behind what they're building.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I I want you to add to that again on the patterns that you see across learning with AI. So I'll give you a personal example of a pattern that I'm noticing with my work. So for podcasting, uh, like I mentioned, I've been doing this for five years before AI. Before I would send like a interview request to people that I wanted to interview, you know, sometimes I wouldn't get a response. Sometimes people would respond and say I'm not interested. So out of 10 requests that I would send, I would probably get one that would say yes to to doing the interview. So it means that if I wanted if my goal was to interview 50 people in a year, it means that I needed to send a little over 700 requests that year. But with AI and what's happening in this space right now, every request that I send, so if I send 10 requests, I'm almost getting 10 people saying yes to to do the interview. So now I'm sending fewer requests, but I'm getting higher results. So one of the patterns that I'm identifying is that people who are learning with AI are very open to the idea of sharing and and uh not only sharing but like talking about what's going on in their headspace and also expressing how they feel about what's happening. I'm always getting yes to the interview requests that I'm doing that I'm asking for, which I find very interesting because it it has never happened before. I said so. Now all the people that I'm requesting to interview, they say yes. And for me, I've had to actually slow down and not put out more requests because now I'm struggling with time to do these interviews. But that's one of the things I'm noticing. People in the AI space are very generous with what they are learning, and they're very generous in how they approach what they are sharing as well.

SPEAKER_01

I agree with that so much. Honestly, that now that you say that, that's honestly a really good observation, and I've experienced the same thing. Most of the people that I interact with are sharing, and I think it's just because it's moving so fast that it's hard to learn on your own. And so having other people gives you that superpower. So I know for me it's it has completely shifted the way that I work, and most of the people around me, you know, before we would just start Google searching everything, and now it's go to perplexity or go to Chat GPT, and now there's really specific tools that people will suggest you use, which is something that I never experienced before, and I find myself doing that with my co-workers who don't use AI, where I'm like, you know what might be helpful is if you use this one for this type of question because I think it'll get you a little bit further, which is something that I guess I had never done before AI, especially in a more traditional role. And I'm also noticing, I guess this isn't maybe not a good pattern, but a lot of AI sameness. And I think that comes from AI being built into a lot of our tools, and that there's some people who just aren't very curious, so they're like, this is great, it's grammarly fixed my whole sentence for me. And I'm receiving that sentence thinking, wow, they have never used any of those words in real life before. That is so strange. On the other end, and it it makes me laugh sometimes. So, you know, there's definitely those kind of patterns or patterns and being able, once you use AI for so long, you can just tell what program people are using based on the way they're writing. So even Chat GBT and some of the most experienced people like myself, you know, I'll catch myself posting things that have language that I'm like, really, Krista? You didn't catch that before you posted it. So I think that it's really important to kind of put more effort into your writing and kind of how you mentioned before, not not to use AI so much for so much support. You know, it's there to be a crutch, it's not there to be your walker. So, you know, I think it's important to not lose your own strength and your own abilities um out of convenience. So I found myself, and actually, I guess another pattern would be some other community members um who also like writing and reading as much as I do. I found when I talk to them, all of us more and more are writing with pen and paper again. And I I think that that's really cool. You know, people are kind of Yeah, like so I got I even have different color pens just to like bring back, I don't know, some fun, you know, some curiosity, some playfulness back into my work. Since doing that, you know, I've I find my posts do better. Like what you were saying with the engagement, like my engagement is even better because I'm not only leveraging AI, but I'm putting so much of myself and my own unique thoughts into it. Because again, you know, like ask chat GPT for a joke. I bet it's not gonna be that funny. But like if you give it a story, like in Harriet Moser, she did a video that was the three geese, and it was an inside joke about you know, what do the geese speak in Portugal? Portuguese, and so you know, that funny joke, like she took it to a whole new level by creating an AI song and a video that went with it that brought it to life, and we were all able to laugh about it. So, you know, I think that the biggest pattern that I'm seeing is that the people that get the best results are the ones who really treat it like a real like person or like a real tool. I don't even know what word to use because it's all of those things in one, and so I think that putting in that full-time effort and that extra grind really takes your work to the next level.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, Carissa, we spoke we spoke about a few. How are you learning today? In this age of AI, how are you personally learning?

SPEAKER_01

I am learning in traditional and very non-traditional ways. And I say traditional in the sense of traditional to me. Um you know, I'm trying to bring some of the traditional learning like I mentioned before with like play and curiosity into technology, which is not something I've ever done before. Again, you know, I did a lot of training and taught a lot of classes, project management classes, and there was no curiosity in that learning. It was just feeding and retention and flashcards and things like that. And I learned some stuff, but even now I don't recall nearly as much. And so I've had to shift the way that I learn with AI into a more casual setting because I'm finding that when I'm having conversations with people in curious conversations or even in some of our build workshops, that's when more I'm retaining way more knowledge than I was before, way more information with you know being around like-minded people who make make me feel good, make me laugh, and are sharing really useful things that just keep my curiosity expanding, you know, it just grows and grows. And so I think that I'm embracing more of that and less structured learning now. And I I do think again, you know, structured learning is really important when you're just getting started with something, you know, to have that common language, that that framework, that the fundamentals before you really start building up. But I think once you have that foundation, you can go anywhere in the house at that point, you know, and you're you're gonna have a a good experience. And so that's that's been my experience is less less structure and more observing. And that's been different and uh challenging for me to kind of shift my mindset and realize that almost every moment now is a teachable moment or a moment to learn. It's a good learning opportunity.

SPEAKER_00

And how has your curiosity changed since AI?

SPEAKER_01

I feel like AI fire. I feel like a phoenix because when I was younger, I was a very curious person, and you know, as you go through college and get your different jobs, I think you try to be the best person you can be in that role and have people perceive you a certain way. And so I feel like since AI has become a part of my life, it's been a few years now, um, and it was almost around the same time as I started riding my dirt bike. So the two have kind of come together to like remind me who I really am and to bring out more of that and to show up more authentically in a way that I may not have had the confidence to do before. And so I think it's it's really giving me a whole nother reason to get back into creative things and to get back into artwork, you know. I I'm a business analyst, so when I got started with AI, it wasn't necessarily fun, and so once I started seeing the more fun parts, the more I started hanging out with other people who are using it, like Israel, who's doing everything with AI, you know, it's not just art for him, it's systems, it's workflows, it's all these different things. And but yet I was so drawn to the art because I don't necessarily get those opportunities at my day job to have that much creativity. So for me, AI has brought me back to writing, it's brought me back to reading, it's brought me back to this place where I'm constantly thinking, how can I make this more fun? Which is it almost makes me sad that I I stopped asking myself that all the time about everything, or how can I bring people together? Or like now I find myself just trying to like make people laugh a little bit more, and like I did a lot of that when I was younger, but I think you just get out of those habits, and for some reason, AI is just making me push more towards my human side more than ever, and creativity.

SPEAKER_00

How did you realize that?

SPEAKER_01

I realized that in the AI tag challenges because I was generating images for these challenges and really pushing myself, and it was getting really hard, and then I I felt like my images were getting better and I was improving, and so then I started to focus on the writing, and that's when it really clicked for me. Where I was like, This this is also the part I love. It's not just artwork, it's also using AI to improve my writing and really critique it, and so having seeing my writing and falling in love with it again is what made me realize it. Because I I forgot how much I liked writing creatively. I just completely lost sight of that. Like art, I remembered loving art as a child. I love I've always loved being creative, doing video editing, taking photos and all of that, but I've totally forgot about the writing until I started getting into AI art and being more creative, and now it's just expanded my writing even more.

SPEAKER_00

But how sure are you that this is because you started doing this with AI?

SPEAKER_01

I am pretty sure because I would not have started the House of Curiosity if it wasn't for AI. I did not feel like I had that need at that time, and I was focused on other things entirely and was actually focused more on compliance and things like that. And so um it was just I was just working on a lot of things that I wasn't very passionate about, and so when I heard about an AI community, at first I was hesitant. I was like, well, I've I'm probably gonna need to know this tool for work at some point in time, so I should hang out with these people and I can learn from them. And but then I realized when I was talking to Lori that I was thinking too small and that I was just thinking about it like another piece of software, which was not at all the right or a creative mindset. I shouldn't say it was the right one, but it wasn't a curious mindset. And so once I kind of started dabbling in it and seeing the potential, that's kind of when everything changed for me, and my whole perspective shifted on my relationship with AI, my relationship with my my friends. I have stronger bonds with my friends in other places now than I did before because we're using AI together, we're intentionally learning something together, which is not that's also not something that I've done with my friends in the past. So I find that in itself is kind of fascinating.

SPEAKER_00

So as a result of learning with AI, you've been able to build community and you've developed stronger bonds with your friends because you're all learning in the same space?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and even though we have different experiences and we're all different ages, there's definitely some common ground and the way that we feel about it, and you know, different people are overwhelmed by different things, and so we're able to kind of balance that a little bit because of our different backgrounds and experiences.

SPEAKER_00

What is the common ground you have?

SPEAKER_01

Curiosity. I would say curiosity is a thing that makes us all that brings us all together and thoughtfulness. Lori and Israel and Sabina and Brian and Evans. We have a few other people that we work really close with at the House of Curiosity, and each person we me, Lori, and Israel picked because they're very thoughtful. And in a world where everyone's moving so fast and has different intentions, you know, it's really wonderful to meet people who are willing to slow down, who are there to tell you it's alright and remember you as a person. And so I think that that kind of the friendship almost drew us in more than and then the AI just amplified it. It was something we could do together even more so, and so it feels like a dream that we're all bringing together and everyone's putting their their peace into it.

SPEAKER_00

Why is it important to slow down? Just as a way of how you were thinking about you know, we're in a very rapidly evolving space, and there's so much happening in the world, so why is it important to slow down?

SPEAKER_01

I think that it's important to slow down for a lot of reasons, but I think the one from a workflow standpoint is that sometimes, and I I'm guilty of this, is I get used to doing things manually because I've done social media manually for many years. I've wrote my own post, you know. So with AI, sometimes you have to pause and learn how to redo your whole workflow. You know, it's like learning like a new sport. Um, you know, sometimes you have to learn how to swing your golf club a little bit differently, or you know, bat left-handed instead of right. Like it's it's shifting the way that I approach work really in general. The thing that AI's really made me realize is just which I've always been passionate about systems in people, but I think that it takes adoption and communication to a whole nother level. And adoption in the sense of like the way that you accept new tools and new ways of working. As I mentioned when we first started this, like I've always been the kind of person where I felt like, oh, the harder you work, the the more results you're gonna get. And so I was just writing things by hand, I'm putting out these social media posts, I'm picking out these images, and I'm putting it all together. And then I have my team to remind me, like, hey, if you pause and think about what you're doing and learn Claude skills, for example, we can automate all of this. And I think that traditionally, and I see this in my day job, you know, people have a hard time stopping that workflow to fix it, to improve it, to essentially rebuild it, because it does take a lot of learning, and then it also takes a lot of habit building because now you're you're doing the same workflow, but in a totally different way, which takes again a lot of habit building, and then so I think that that's why it's so important to pause because you have to stop and listen to what other people are telling you and hear that there is a better way to do it, and like you like before you probably thought you were getting really great results when you were sending out you know all those requests to everyone, and then now that you have AI, you're like, Wow, like I I thought one thing and here's something else, you know, and it it shocks you when you're able to actually see the receipts from what you're doing, and so I think that that's kind of the biggest result because I've done a lot of RPA robotic process automation at work, and so that's a lot of manual automation, and it's it's nice because it's kind of reliable depending on how you build it, but it's also very limiting. And so for me, it was hard to kind of get out of that I don't want to say archaic way of thinking, but to adapt AI and to trust that it was doing so much, and that I don't have to manually code every part to know that it's doing the right thing. And I think that sometimes just getting over that mental hurdle is a big deal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. As a result of all of this, what have you stopped being curious about?

SPEAKER_01

Have I stopped being curious about? That is such a good question, because I feel like AI has got me curious about so many things in life and like it gives you so much potential and you can do so many things that you never thought were possible. But I would say it has made me much it's made me less curious about being in a corporate world or less it's just shifted the way I think about things, you know. I I would say that it's it's encouraged me to stop pursuing things that I don't feel passionate about, things that don't drive my curiosity. Like I thought I always thought I really loved law and I always thought I wanted to go to law school and now I work in compliance and AI has made me realize like just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should be doing it, which I think is something that people probably hear all the time. But me putting my experience into AI is what kind of helped me identify not only the things that I'm good at, but the things that I genuinely enjoy, and that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about sometimes it's the things that you don't say that say the most.

SPEAKER_00

And is this something you've been thinking about before, or is this something that just occurred to you just now?

SPEAKER_01

I would say it's something that I've thought about before. I'm I do a lot of meditation and a lot of reflection and journaling now. Now that I have AI, it's really made me think about my day-to-day, and so yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00

Amazing. Okay, so now let's look let's look at the future, right? If okay, speaking of the future, what would matter most for people learning, I guess, with AI, and uh what should people stop focusing on?

SPEAKER_01

I love that question. I think people should focus on what's really important to them and what would make their life easier because I think a lot of people see the bells and whistles and the cool images, and that's really nice. I love image generation. To me, that's a nice creative outlet, but the real value for me with AI comes from the automations and the time saving and the analysis and being able to leverage those things in ways that I couldn't before. So, but I would say not everything needs to. be automated. So again, I would just really take some time to reflect on what you really want to get out of AI and then to know that that's gonna change. Because it's always well for one it's always changing. But for another, the more you learn about it, it's like learning about cars. You know, once you take apart the engine or take apart the transmission, you really start to think about your car a little differently than you did before. You know, you're really gonna start checking your oil more and you're really gonna start changing your transmission fluid a little bit more once you've seen the inside and what can go wrong when you don't change those things. But I think when you first start you you don't know what you don't know. So I would just say I guess overall just play. Have as much fun as you can and I think you will naturally discover what you're meant to discover.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah and then um tie can you tie that into how what will matter most for people learning in this age of AI?

SPEAKER_01

What would matter most? I would say that you get out of it what you put into it. So the more the more you envelop yourself in it and the more you learn about it the more communities you join that's gonna make the biggest difference in your experience um just overall in the way you feel about AI and just your ability to learn. Because again I never would have imagined I'd be able to learn as much about AI as I have in the last few years from hanging out with the right people. You know I'm hanging out with people that are I think much better than I am with AI and they and yet and then there's other people who are just starting that I'm still like wow like you're coming up with thoughts that I that never even crossed my mind. So you know the the possibilities are really endless and the moment you realize that the floodgates open and I think that's why it's it's been so hard for me to answer some of your questions because I just want to answer everyone with well it depends. It's because there's just so many perspectives and AI brings them all together. So I think that's just do it. Like I I probably shouldn't say that because that's Nike's phrase but just ride that dune get on that dirt bike do whatever your whatever that thing is that scares you just just do it and you will feel better.

SPEAKER_00

And if you don't you'll at least feel better that you tried I think that's a wonderful way to put it so to close this off um first of all do you have any last words you want to add?

SPEAKER_01

I just want to reiterate that people often think that they need to be really highly technical and work in IT or learn Python or whatever it might be to use AI but I really think that the biggest opportunity is how you think with it and how you learn with it how you use it day to day and and use it in a way that actually supports your goals. Think about what you want to do as a person. I think I know people always talk about setting goals but I don't know too many people that actually set achievable goals you know for themselves and so starting the House of Curiosity was one of my goals to create this space and I feel like I've achieved that and it and it's I've achieved it in a way that I never would have imagined from the beginning and I love that. It's evolved into this community that's bigger than I could have imagined and it might not be the biggest community but it's big in the sense of the depth of the relationships that you can have with people. I can have a real conversation with them. Whereas when I was part of the project management institute you know I didn't know the name of anyone's dog. I didn't know what country some of the people were from like you know there's just different things like that and I love that about the House of Curiosity. There's a lot of other good communities out there too there's not just ours so you know no one community doesn't fit all so I would just say try to try to find a community that you like.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And if someone wants to stay truly curious for the next five years what should they protect?

SPEAKER_01

I would say their peace because that to me when I'm at peace when I'm journaling or walking around that's when I'm my most creative. That's when I have my best ideas for the image challenges that's when I have the most energy to just experiment and iterate and I'll go down that rabbit hole and I'll I'll run the same prompt a hundred times which I know some people think just getting the right output the first time is the goal for that's not the goal for me. I'm curious about the output so I think that yeah to me it's about protecting your peace so you have that drive and that desire to keep learning.

SPEAKER_00

Great. We're almost wrapping up our conversation and then lastly in your own words what's your definition of love?

SPEAKER_01

My own definition of love. Wow my own definition of love I think to me love is thoughtfulness you know it's people remembering that I'm there even when I'm quiet. It's people who are willing to take a phone call when I need advice and I've found that with the community and so there are many people that I genuinely feel like I love in the community and I tell them I love them. I'm not afraid to tell people I love them because I think we can't say enough nice things to each other. So to me love is thoughtfulness. Thank you for sharing I hope you enjoyed the conversation dude thank you you've asked such incredible questions I feel like I'm gonna be thinking about this for days if not weeks and I can't wait to tell tell all my friends about it and the team I have I'm gonna have so many thoughts. I think um my thoughts are a little all over the place all the time but that's how I roll. I can be really structured and articulate myself better but I just don't feel like that's very relatable and to me I just would rather be more comfortable and casual with people and so I appreciate that and then I appreciate your encouragement too throughout because um you know I think sometimes in these types of interviews people can get stiff and they want to be perceived a certain way and so my personal goal has just to to not care so much how people perceive me and to just exist. So yeah so I appreciate you giving me space to practice that and live it in real life and so that was part of me accepting the invitation in itself because I was like am I qualified to do this and I said that to Lori and she's like are you kidding me right now she's like do you know how long you've been using AI? She's like you are a power user and I'm like don't say that Lori so but yeah with that's again you're the team and thank you so much I really appreciate you sharing.

SPEAKER_00

I look at it that um I have to hold space for you to form your thinking whilst we're talking and in that process I'm also learning by observing you know because my goal is to tell stories and now I'm using AI to tell stories. So I appreciate the fact that we're able to do it in real time and I get to see it and you get to experience it. So it's a very wholesome experience for both of us you know like in in I can I was just taking notes of how your eyes would move what when I would ask you a question.

SPEAKER_01

Like sometimes you would look up and you look right when I would ask you a question and you didn't know the answer to and I could tell like you were reflecting or sometimes you would look left and you look up and I could tell what was happening in your mind and I was like wow this is such a wonderful experience to see thank you I'm working on that too because when I was younger I used to just riddle off the first thing that came to mind like I can talk I can sell things if I want but again I'm like that's not me that's not who I am I'm just repeating things you know so that's why I'm like I want this and again but that's part of it doesn't have to be perfect it has to just be genuine. Some of it may have been long winded and it might not make sense to some people but it makes sense to me and I think it'll resonate with the people that need to hear it I think so too.

SPEAKER_00

I think so too. So thank you so much for your time today. Keep in touch thank you so much I'm grateful. I'm grateful yeah I'm I'm also very curious so that's uh that's what you're also picking up I'm very curious.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah your questions like I said I'm just I've always asked people make fun of me because I have so many questions like just naturally but like once you've just again I can't stop saying it I was just blown away with your questions where I'm like wow they're these were really thoughtful and not the type of interview questions I could have predicted whatsoever where I'm like wow you are curious this is cool.

SPEAKER_00

So thank you thank you appreciate that thank you so I hope you're grateful for that yeah sounds good sounds good thank you so much I appreciate this has been wonderful bye bye bye bye bye