How to Coach Yourself to Success in the AI Era (in 4 Steps)

Get 📘"Training Your Brain for the AI Revolution" for just $1 👉 here

In this episode Dr. Jon Finn explores how to thrive in the AI revolution by mastering brain states and developing strategic habits. The AI-Edge Success Cycle provides a framework for measuring and optimizing performance as AI transforms industries and eliminates jobs across sectors.

• Recent announcements show massive AI investments in the UK and major companies cutting jobs while implementing AI
• The four-step AI Success Cycle starts with measuring Brain States across recharge, mindless tasks, and complex thinking
• Building a Future Ambitious Meaningful Story (FAM Story) creates context for short-term improvements
• Distinguishing between "ice cube" tasks (routine) and "ice sculpture" tasks (complex) helps identify where AI can assist
• AI functions as a "battery pack" for your brain, extending capabilities rather than replacing them
• Daily Will Power stories and the Nine Action Factor model help turn knowledge into consistent action
• Building better recharge habits (sleep, stress management) is often the first priority for improving brain states
• Success requires both working excellently with AI and excelling at tasks AI cannot perform
• Training as a Habit Mechanic Coach provides expertise in human-AI performance psychology

Visit our website to get "Training Your Brain for the AI Revolution" for just $1  and start your journey to becoming a Certified Habit Mechanic Coach.

Chapters

• 0:00 AI Revolution and Job Market Impact
• 4:21 The AI Success Cycle Framework
• 6:46 Ice Cubes vs Ice Sculptures Tasks
• 8:59 Using AI as a Brain Battery Pack
• 11:37 Building Better Brain State Habits
• 15:17 Becoming a Habit Mechanic Coach

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

Hello, habit mechanics. It's Dr. John Finn here. Hope you're well. I'm doing a semi-walking podcast because I'm actually sitting down just whilst I look at a screen. So it's been a while since I've done a pod, so I just want to go back to the basics, but I want to do that through the lens of where AI is right now. So we've seen a lot of announcements in September, and one of the biggest announcements was the 150 billion or so pounds of investment into the UK, uh, largely by American tech firms. Also, we're seeing associated technologies like um Rolls-Royce's small nuclear reactors are seen as a really important part of the jigsaw puzzle of actually powering AI. And if you just look at the top 10, top twenty most valuable companies in the world right now, they are they are all AI-based or AI-related companies, and um, or the vast majority are, with NVIDIA leading the charge with a valuation of four trillion. This is not going away. What I have in opening in front of me is a story from the Wall Street Journal. So the headline is Walmart CEO issues wake-up call. AI is going to change literally every job. And they report that headcount is expected to stay flat over the next three years, despite growth plans, as AI eliminates and or transforms roles. And actually, if I just scroll down the screen, I see Lufthansa, the Americ uh the German um aviation company, um, with an article that was published seven hours ago, and the headline is Luft Lufthansa to cut 4,000 jobs by 2030 amid AI push. And the subcopy is the company's reviewing activities that it said wouldn't be needed in the future due to duplication or the increased use of artificial intelligence. So I'm not trying to scare anybody here, I'm just getting you into the loop where things are at. This is not the millennium bug, it's not going away. But what we can do is get ready for it, and we can capitalise on the opportunities that are already here. And to do that, we just have to go back to the basics. So we've got to start by measuring our brain states, getting that brain state score to better understand where am I every day in terms of spending time getting high-quality recharge? Where am I every day in terms of how much time do I spend doing busy, mindless tasks? And where am I every day in terms of my ability to do complex high-impact thinking, the kind of work that AI cannot do autonomously? And once we have that, we then move into this into step two, and I'm going through the AI success cycle here, which is at the heart of the of training our brain for the AI revolution, which you can now actually get for one dollar via our website. So, step two is we gotta build out that longer-term strategic plan so that our brain state our brain state intelligence score, our brain state um human eye, our readiness score is in the context of the kind of things that we want to achieve in our lives. So the vehicle for creating a long-term strategic plan is your fam story or future ambitious meaningful story, and if you work through this in the book, there's a structured step-by-step way to developing that vision of the future and working it all the way back to today. And then what we really need to focus on is a clear map of the next 30 days, so we have a clear focus, and we build up when we build out that map, we're going to be thinking about what Ice Cubes jobs do I want to achieve in the next 30 days. Ice Cube jobs, ice cube tasks are things like um things that you do without a massive amount of cognitive effort, like um basic administration jobs, things that you don't have to really think too much about, things you've done lots of times before. You have lots of neurons in your brain for those things, you don't have to think about them too much, and they're fairly low energy, and you get through them quickly. So it's a bit like freezing ice cubes. The other kind of tasks that you're gonna have to be working on in the next 30 days are more like building ice sculptures, these are high-charge, high-impact uh tasks. You don't build an ice sculpture typically in one sitting, you build it up um over a number of days, weeks, sometimes months. And those types of tasks are not just the kind of stuff you do at work, but it's also the kind of work you need to do on it on yourself, like building better sleep habits or stress management habits or leadership habits or whatever it is you want to work on. So if you have a clear list of those tasks going into the next 30 days, it's going to be easier to get the kind of stuff done that you want to get done. Um, so you can live the kind of life that you want to live in the short term, medium term, and long term. And this is where we can also bring AI in. So in um in this 30-day plan, we can start to think about which tasks do I need to complete where maybe AI could speed things up. So, is there any agentic AI that I could use to um freeze my ice cubes faster? And are there any LLMs, large language models like Claude or Chat GTP that I might be able to use to co-work with me on building my ice sculptures? So we can start to plan to use these new AI technologies to help us to get the tasks that we need to complete or we want to complete in the next 30 days, or that we're going to complete in the next 30 days if we want to be very um deliberate with our language. We can use AI to speed this up, and this is for me the main utility of AI, it's like a battery pack for your brain. So your brain is like a battery, and AI is almost like an extended battery pack that you can plug into it, so that you can get the stuff that you need to get done faster, more effectively, whether that's building a new sleep habit or getting through a complex project, or just being more efficient and effective with how you um get the work that you need the the admin type work that you need to get through every day, be more efficient and effective with how you get that done, and then what you need is um a daily strategic tool. So you've got an understanding of your brain states in step one, in step two, you've started to map out your long-term strategic plan for your healthy, happy, high performing at your best life. Um, you've got a clear breakdown of the next 30 days, you've broken that down into ice cube tasks, ice sculpture tasks, you know which are the highest priority tasks to complete, but then you've got to get it done. So, step three, you've got to work with the day designer, which main tool is the willpower story. So, a tool that you can use to timeline your day and give you the very best chance of getting the things that are most important for you actually done. So the willpower story allows you to map all this stuff out, um, so you've got the best chance of doing it, and then finally, um we have step four, which is about automation, and it's you working with the routine engineer system, so that you can um not just know that it's a good idea to be creating a willpower story every day, but um you can actually do it, so you can build the habits of doing of doing it by using the nine action factor model the world's most powerful behaviour change system so that you can actually put the willpower story into practice every day, and then in maybe two weeks or the next 30 days, you do your breast assessment again, and you reset your 30-day goals, and then so on and so forth. So, that's the AI success cycle. So, again, you're gonna keep hearing these stories about AI and how it's disrupting, and it is gonna take jobs, it's gonna create some new jobs as well. I'd think just being very realistic is not gonna create anywhere near as many new jobs as it takes, or certainly that's how it looks right now, things might change. Um, but if you're listening to this and you're thinking about how you can become a high-performing human being in the AI era, then you've already you've already got a massive competitive advantage for yourself, for your family, for your livelihood, etc. But it's no good just nodding along and saying, Well, that that seems like a good system to be using, or I've read the book, and I I've I've also read the habit mechanic, and you know, I'm aware of these tools, we've got to put them into practice. It's more important than ever before that we put these things into practice, um, and that's why we've actually we're making it a priority to to help as many people as we can get trained up to become certified habit mechanic coaches, because that is the ultimate training to get a deep mastery of systems like the success cycle and the nine action factors model and all of our habit building systems, so that you can actually put this stuff into your pract into practice every day for yourself, but also for people in your life that you love and you care about and you want to help, whether it's your kids or your partner, or you want to help your team at work, or in fact, if you're thinking about well, actually, I'm scared about my position being vulnerable, so what's plan B? That might be to set up your own business to become you know an expert as a human AI performance psychology coach, and I think that is gonna be a massively growing uh marketplace as more and more businesses realise that just buying the AI technology is not enough to get the return on investments they expected because they're gonna need their people to be brainstead intelligent as well, so you can create a thriving business by becoming a certified mechanic coach because you'll become a human high-performance psychology expert, and we are currently releasing periodically limited numbers of uh training grants where we cover a massive amount of the training because again, we're passionate about helping people to become print state intelligent. We think that is the um number one skill for the AI era for the AI revolution. Um, and we want to train more coaches up because that's not just helping one person. If we train up a coach, we can help many people because because everyone who trains to become a coach is going to help others as well. So if that's of interest, let us know. But yeah, I'll be back more regularly now talking all things, um, health, happiness, and being at our best in the AI era. But it's good to reconnect, don't let your hue, horribly unhelpful emotions, get too uh obsessed with the potential problems with AI technologies because you know there are many, but most of those are out of our control. What we can do is we can focus on turning up and being at our best and using this technology for good, and I think the primary utility of it is it speeds up our ability to change our own behaviours, um, so we can be healthier, happier, and at our best more often, and the primary target of the first um behaviours you wanna you wanna change, or in other words, the new habits you want to build. I would say for many people, it's just getting better recharge, uh better habits so you can spend more time in recharge brain states, so including better sleep habits, better stress management habits, better confidence habits, better habits with how you deal with pressure, and then better habits around um making sure you can get into your high-charge brain states every day. Because the key for success in the AI era is being able to work excellently with AI, not just use it as a search engine or use it now and again, but it's to become excellent at using it, so it's like a natural extent, it's a natural extension of how you think and how you do things. But second to that is you also need to get good at doing the things that AI can't do, and there are many things that it can't do, and actually, you only start to work out those things by using it. Um, but to to be able to do to be able to get excellent at using AI and also get really good every day at doing the things it can't do, that requires high charge brain states, and they're increasingly elusive in a world where we're cognitively overwhelmed, um, people are burnt out, etc. So for many people that I speak to and work with, I often see the priority initially is to build better habits around how um they manage brain states. So, yeah, but if you do your brain state assessment, you'll see what's most important for you, and you can make big improvements quickly, and that's why we always say you're only ever one brain state habit away.