ChangED

Why the Real Risk of A.I. is What We Stop Doing

• Andrew Kuhn & Patrice Semicek • Season 3 • Episode 11

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What if the real danger of AI isn’t what it can do, but what we stop doing because of it? We sit down with licensed professional counselor, author, and retreat leader Joni Staaf Stanford to unpack how technology is reshaping attention, empathy, and everyday relationships—and how to build a practical antidote that restores depth, presence, and human connection.

Joni introduces the core idea behind her new book, The AI Antidote, our minds are trading contemplation for convenience. We explore how validation-heavy chatbots can subtly condition us to avoid friction, why shallow summaries are crowding out deep reading, and how bias inside models can narrow our thinking without us noticing. From parenting to classrooms, we trace the consequences of screen-first habits—shorter attention spans, lower reading comprehension, and a growing discomfort with real conversations that don’t flatter or agree.

The good news: you can reclaim your attention with small, repeatable practices. Joni shares a morning breathing routine to reset your focus before your phone, a three-times-a-day check-in that scans body, energy, mood, and mind, and a “choose the struggle” mindset that strengthens patience and critical thinking. We also map out where AI shines—plain-language explanations of medical or legal jargon, brainstorming after you’ve done your own thinking—and where to draw the line, especially for mental health and relationships. Joni provides a toolkit full of strategies for educators, parents, and professionals who want tech to serve their values, not replace them.

If you’ve felt scattered, over-stimulated, or suspicious that your best thinking is being outsourced, this conversation will help you reset. Subscribe, share with a friend who could use a calmer mind, and leave a review telling us the first habit you’ll change this week.

Use the links below to learn more about Joni's newest book or to connect with Joni directly.

The AI Antidote: Preserving Human Connection & Emotional Intelligence In a Tech-Driven World

Insight with Joni

Want to learn more about ChangED? Check out our website at: learn.mciu.org/changed

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back to Change Ed. Change Ed. The number one rated podcast in all of the Commonwealth of the Keystone State. Wow. I am your host, Andrew Kuhn, Education Consultant from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. And with me is the other host.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, today I am a host. Well, last hour I wasn't a host, but okay. I am Patricia Machek, also out of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, and still a project consultant.

SPEAKER_00:

We today have a guest that we've actually had on the show before. But that guest has eliminated the other half and is just on her own.

SPEAKER_02:

Eliminate she's got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh it was Hunger Games. I heard all about it.

SPEAKER_02:

Standing firmly on her own and very proud of what she's doing. Stop. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01:

It actually was a Hunger Games kind of situation. Brian would tell you if I didn't. So I could see that happening, though. I gotta be real.

SPEAKER_02:

And I I've I'm not shocked that you won.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and we have we we you know, we uh have people who write into the show, so I could see Brian anonymously saying, hey, look, here's how it really went down. Well, we want to welcome back Joni Staff Stanford. Welcome back to the show. We're super thrilled to have you. Would you mind reminding our Change Ed Nation who you are and and what brought you to the show today?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. My name is Joni Staff Stanford. I'm a licensed professional counselor, a speaker, an author, a retreat facilitator. And I also lead professional development for educators, teaching them stress management, emotional intelligence, and these days teaching them how to balance technology use, both their own and for students in the classroom. It's extremely important.

SPEAKER_00:

And you forgot winner of Hunger Games within your family.

SPEAKER_01:

Winner of Hunger Games and Scrabble. Oh now she's thrown down. Brian will be thrilled to hear me announce that he cannot beat me in Scrabble.

SPEAKER_02:

So publicly. I think we're sending this to all of Allegheny County. That's amazing. I should start announcing myself as Checkers winner. I almost said chess, but it was Checkers.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Checkers winner. He claimed I cheated, but that's a better, better, better conversation.

SPEAKER_02:

I offered to play again and he said no. Yeah, well, hissy fit.

SPEAKER_00:

So okay cheat once, I'm done. I'm out. Right?

SPEAKER_01:

I know. I can't get Brian to play Scrabble with me anymore. Like he's out. So it's all right.

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't like it anyway. I love how you talk about your job. And I I didn't write it down fast enough, but I almost want to ask you to say it again. There was something about almost like uh emotional intelligence. Is that what you were saying?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I would say most of my work focuses on teaching people or reminding people what emotional intelligence is and why it's important. And I I teach people emotional intelligence and how to find and create purpose and meaning in their lives so that they can be happier and more fulfilled. And I do that one-on-one in workshops that I lead, in speaking engagements, and on retreats that I lead as well. Oh, that's right. They're all over the place.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you go somewhere fun this summer?

SPEAKER_01:

You did, didn't you? Summer this summer? I did last year. I led a retreat in Greece. And this year, in July, I have a retreat coming up in Peru.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you want a podcast to follow you? Yeah, we could be a marketing team.

SPEAKER_00:

Live on location.

SPEAKER_02:

We will scream the whole day. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool. Well, I imagine with that focus that you have plenty of work to do, especially with all the conversations we've been having around technology and the way it's expanding and changing overnight. Without, you know, before you can blink an eye, it looks it looks very different. And I'll tell you actually, so we're we're recording this over Zoom for our listeners. And a very natural thing that is part of every Zoom conversation now is some sort of AI agent that is part of it. Well, when I saw it pop up, I'm like, do I really want our podcast to be listened to by AI?

SPEAKER_02:

It's already listening.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So uh but it's not anything that I had against AI. It was more like a thought like this is kind of where the special sauce is made, right? Like we have lots of conversations, and I I don't know that we've ever had it monologue for us. Usually all that editing is just us.

SPEAKER_01:

Here's the interesting thing. I can't figure out how to turn that off. Everybody says that. I know that is my AI's meeting notes, and I can't figure out how to turn it off.

unknown:

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

That's amazing. Everybody says that. They're like, I put it on because I wanted to see what it was like, and then I can never turn it off.

SPEAKER_00:

Here's the thing, Joni. If if Zoom's still around, you know, when when when you retire, it'll it'll almost be like hot mail for my parents now. Like they still have a hotmail. I'm like, what are you doing? Right? Just change it to a Gmail. I don't even care. Yeah, why are you a hotmail? And it that'll be like, oh, Joni's got the uh AI assistant. We know she's she's all behind the times. Oh yeah. That's true. That's true. I'm curious where your work has taken you. Certainly from the last time that we spoke. It was it was powerful to hear your perspective of you and Brian on kind of the the use of technology, what that looks like. But I would imagine that you don't sleep, because there's probably plenty of work to be done in this in this arena and reminding us how to be humans in this ever-evolving technology world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, absolutely. I have been very busy. And in fact, I just released a book last month called The AI Antidote: Preserving Human Connection and Emotional Intelligence in a Tech-Driven World. And this is something I started working on soon after Brian and I started presenting kind of on opposing sides of AI. Now, the interesting thing about Brian and I starting with those opposing sides on AI, I feel like we've both come more to this center place where he really understands the impact of how it's affecting us as humans. And I understand that it can be used as an effective tool sometimes. A lot of people, when they hear the name of the book or they hear the work that I do, they think that I'm anti-AI. And I want to make it very clear, and I make it very clear in the book that I'm not anti-AI. I'm anti the fact that we struggle with balance as human beings, and we are outsourcing everything from our schedules to our self-worth. So the danger isn't what AI can do, but in what we stop doing because of it. We stop thinking deeply, feeling fully, paying attention to each other. So the AI antidote is about protecting what makes us beautifully and messily human.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. I will say I have started to notice because I call Claude my boyfriend. And many people are very confused because it has a very human name. Like it's not Gemini. But I'm like, I was talking to my boyfriend the other day, and they're like, You don't have one. And I was like, Well, Claude, he's AI. But like I I noticed this the other day. I put something in Claude and I was like, what am I doing? I know the answer to this. It'll take two seconds to either Google it or whatever. Why am I wasting my time? But I had conditioned myself so much to use that tool, and then like not to even think about the environmental impact and all that other stuff, but like I had conditioned myself. I know the answer, but I'm just so used to using this tool to your point. Like, I it's just a part of who I am. It's an app on my phone. I'm using it to help me do all kinds of stuff. And I had that realization, I was like, okay, Joni's coming on. Maybe she'll help me figure out my life.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, that's the interesting thing. Like, we are creatures of habit. And when we get used to doing something and it feels like it's working for us, yeah, sometimes we don't think about the long-term consequences, but we just keep doing it and we just keep doing it. And technology is something that we really have to be mindful of. And the use of AI is something we really have to be mindful of because it is so easy to just fall into that habit. But the problem becomes, and what we're seeing, the the result of what we're seeing is not only our reading levels in our kids at an all-time low. Guess what? Adult reading levels or adult reading comprehension is at an all-time low. Most adults don't read or can't complete an entire book. But we want to read the cliff notes or get a summary of it because our attention spans have shrunk so much. And we would rather just get the general idea of something instead of going deeply with it. But the problem is critical thinking, in order for us to have good critical thinking skills, we have to go deep with things. Yes. We have to go deep and let them sink in and contemplate them and talk about them in order for us to fully understand and make a ethical, human decision behind it.

SPEAKER_02:

I think too, we also tend to forget the biases that are embedded within them. Like we aren't recognizing or or noticing, maybe we are, but some people, however, are using AI. There's an inherent bias in AI because it's only as good as what you put in. So when you're simplifying all of this work and this reading and this thinking, there's gonna be a way in which the AI is interpreting it because if that's how it's either programmed or that's what's being put into it. So now not only are we not thinking about it critically for ourselves, we're accepting hive mindset kind of without really thinking about anything. It's kind of crazy to me.

SPEAKER_01:

It is, it is. And I'm I'm sure I said this the last time I was on the podcast, but the other problem is we get so used to how AI, Chat GPT, Claude, how they're all so flattering to us, right? We give them an idea or we present something, it's like, oh, what a wonderful thought you're having. How wonderful that is. They're they're programmed to validate heavily.

SPEAKER_02:

Or when I'm like, hey, did you think about it this way? They're like, oh, you're right. I should have thought about it that way. I'm like, wait a minute. I mean, I know I'm a brilliant person, but honestly, like, come on.

SPEAKER_00:

Even machines think I'm great.

SPEAKER_01:

And then the problem with that becomes so we get used to having those kind of conversations with AI. And then we turn to our significant other, our friend, our our whoever we're talking to. And that's a messy conversation. Maybe they don't validate us. Maybe the conversation is not balanced, and we don't have a tolerance for it that we would have once had in understanding this is a human being next to me who has their own stuff rolling through their head, their own mental, emotional, psychological stuff going on, that maybe we would take the time to slow down and understand each other a little bit better. We're not doing that because, again, it's so much easier to have a quote unquote relationship with AI. It's alarming to me every time I read a story about how marriages are breaking up because there have actually been people who are choosing to leave their spouse because they want to have a relationship with an AI chatbot.

SPEAKER_02:

I can't, I can't, I can't. I'm also reading all over the place that people are and not realizing they're doing this, using the chat bots as therapists. Yeah. Putting in all kinds of information. And I I worry about, especially younger kids, like my kids are 14 and 12. They don't know any better because frontal lobes aren't developed and they're just it's everywhere. But putting in so much information about who you are as a human, and then going back to the bias behind it, if this therapist, Claude, or ChatGBT or whatever, is telling you to do stuff, what are the implications of your mental health when the chatbot's like, you should just go do this right now?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's the problem, is most of these chatbots are not programmed to provide mental health therapy, nor are they programmed to look for warning signs. And there have been more cases than I care to count of people having conversations with AI, and then the person ends up choosing to commit suicide. And when they look at the conversations that they had, I mean, I think there's several lawsuits happening against certain AI creators, chat bots, because the AI didn't recognize that the person was in such a state of distress, they should be at least cued to contact authorities or something, but they are again validating. So if someone says, well, it would make me happy to just not be here anymore. The AI is not a thinking, breathing, ethical entity. It is just pulling from what the most likely next statistical response would make the person happy. And that's the thing. A lot of people think that AI is becoming conscious. It's not to that point. It is just programmed to sound empathetic because of the validation. But we have to remember. So what you're doing to Claude is anthropomorphizing.

SPEAKER_02:

I call it a gym. I tell him thank you. I get it. I know, I know 1000% of what I'm doing, and it's not healthy, and we need to break up, but I'm still You do, you do.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, but you know, the more we personify our AI and the more even the voices of AI sound so much more real and warm, we are really deluding ourselves into believing this is another presence. And I think there's a whole philosophy and psychology behind this that that's fascinating and very sad to me because we are more stressed, depressed, anxious, and lonely, lonelier than ever. Worldwide, people are not well. Like our well-being is continuing to decline. So there is this, you know, technology advances, our well-being, our mental, emotional well-being declines. So that's why in my book, The AI Antidote, I talk about what we can do as human beings, because I don't know that there's anything any of us as individuals can do to stop technological advancement, like the ball is rolling. It's just going to keep going. That's why we have to choose for ourselves what I can do to strengthen the best parts of what makes me human? How can I reclaim my emotional intelligence, the ability to be introspective, to listen to my own inner wisdom, knowledge, intuition, be creative. And how can I remember how to authentically connect with other human beings as messy and flawed as they are?

SPEAKER_02:

So, what are some things for people like me who are in love with an AI? I'm not really in love with him. I need to make it very clear. Very clear. I know, I know what it is. I like to call in my boyfriend. Andrew's looking at me like I don't think she does. But what are some things that that we can, as educators, as parents, as humans, as adults, whatever? I don't want you to give away everything in your book, but like what are a few things that we can do to start. Just the first four chapters. Correct.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I would say getting to know yourself is so important. And that is not something we can turn over to AI. The ancient philosophers, stoicism, all of the ancient philosophies talk about knowing yourself. And so, what does it mean to know yourself? It means spending time with yourself unplugged from technology. It means maybe going for a walk by yourself, journaling. Maybe that means going to therapy, spending time with a really close friend that you can talk about the deeper subjects with and sitting with discomfort. We don't do that. We don't do that anymore. No, we avoid discomfort. A really great book about this specific thing is called The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. Yeah, I've heard of it. He talks about how the more comfortable we become as human beings, the less evolved we are and the less tolerant we are. Because, you know, I mean, just think about it. Most of us have climate-controlled environments. We are uncomfortable. Anything outside the range of 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Like if anything is outside that temperature range, we're too hot or we're too cold. Yeah. Like that's a really simple thing. But that that's Michael Easter's book, not mine.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't buy that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Or buy both. Well, actually, that's one of my the AI antidote. I list I have 10 antidotes. And and one of the antidotes is actually called choose the struggle.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh that. Yeah, choose the struggle. Instead of asking AI for the answer to something, for instance, why not sit and contemplate it on your own? Even before you Google the answer to something. I mean, I'm of the generation that, you know, when we had a question about something, you know, we didn't have the internet. Right. You had to go to the encyclopedia. You had to go to the encyclopedia, or you just had to wonder about it and be curious.

SPEAKER_00:

Unanswered questions. That's right. Joni, do you have a hot mail account? Be honest with us.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't. Yeah, I am I am disabled to have a Gmail account. I got rid of my Yahoo account. Yahoo! Yeah, we're good. Okay. So yes, sitting with something that's uncomfortable. So choosing the struggle, because we talk so much about things like PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, that comes from when we have an exorbitant amount of stress or a traumatic event. But we don't talk enough about post-traumatic growth, which comes when we survive a challenging experience. And that doesn't have to be like a big traumatic experience, but even just like let's say you're afraid of public speaking and you have to do a talk and you do it and you get through it. There's growth that happens on the other end of that. So to purposefully put yourself in challenging circumstances, knowing that you can grow from those, that is an AI antidote because you're not overly relying on technology to help you do everything. You are growing as a human being, and that's really important.

SPEAKER_02:

And getting over the instant gratification. Like there's an instant gratification. I tried to think over Christmas break where I put my phone in a different room for an hour and I counted how many times. I thought about even just reflexively, like I felt my phone vibrate. I had a text, my phone wasn't in the room. And that was kind of like an eye-opening, like, oh man, I gotta, I gotta deal with this, right? Like the instant gratification of even Googling something to have an answer to your point. Like, I can easily see how people get sucked in because it's the dopamine hits are coming, coming, coming. And then you kind of get addicted to the dopamine hits. And then the crashes are even worse. I'm buying your book.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna make my kids read it too. So I think that's a great habit that you just suggested, Patrice, to put your phone in another room, to put it in a drawer, to put it and to spend time away from your phone. Because then you get to see just how addicted are you to the device? How much do you think about it? Like it is an addiction. Yeah. It truly is an addiction because most of us feel uncomfortable if we're not with our phones. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

And I was using the excuse like my kids are over here, my kids are over there. I need to have my phone next to me. So that way, if they call me or if something happens, I was using that excuse and I was like, wait a minute. Like they're in the next room. Like I don't need them to text me from the next room. I'm good there. It was one of those like eye-opening. And then I also then took a step back and I looked at my 12 and my 14-year-old. And I was like, these poor babies don't know any different from getting phones younger and younger, and they're on the line all the time and they have iPads and they're just inundated with stuff all the time. So I think I'm gonna get my my ish under control and then I'm gonna start working on my kids because they need screen-free time because I know both of my kids can be problem solvers. I don't think they know how that they are problem solvers because they haven't had to.

SPEAKER_00:

You had mentioned being mindful. And I've actually I've been very present in the whole conversation, but I'm I'm right there. Like that's the exclamation mark on emotional intelligence from my perspective. Because it doesn't happen by accident. You you don't accidentally become mindful, you have to be intentional about it. And when I connect it to the classroom, I'm thinking about going to whatever university you go to and you're learning about math methods or any methods, educational methods. The first thing you talk about is classroom management and that you need to be intentional about what you're doing in your classroom so you can set it up in a way that you don't have to spend lots of time all day, every day, worrying about is it bathroom time? Are we allowed to be doing what can you go here where you want to go? I need to reserve that energy for myself and for my students for other things. So it puts them at ease, it puts me at ease as an educator. Really what I'm thinking about and this analogy in my own mind is that now this is going to be the the least human analogy I could give you, is that it's almost like we need a battery meter, like our phones have, so that we can keep tabs of like where am I emotionally because I have a sneaking suspicion that before I even get out of bed, that battery's been hit and pulled down. Because for most people, the first thing you do is grab your phone, swipe up or whatever you have to do to open it up, and then you're already getting hit. You're already being inundated. And it's interesting as a parent to watch my own children and how really this is gonna sound dramatic, but I feel like they're under attack for dopamine hits. Then they're becoming conditioned for that. So that's what they they they're looking for, so much so that I I had been away traveling for work. I had not seen my kids in really a week. I came back together, I'm making them dinner. We'd spent about an hour together, and they're like, Can we go get on our phones now? I'm like, I haven't seen you in a week. Like, just give me another hour, right? And then you can get what you need for a little bit, and then we're coming back together. And it's always a a battle in our house and trying to navigate that in a way where we can help them to be mindful. Like you there's always time for your screen, but I don't always have time for FaceTime or all of us and and what that looks like. So I think that's something that we need to be aware of. And again, our brains have been figured out enough that people who make a lot more money than any of us do understand how that works, and that's why YouTube works the way that it does. That's why Facebook works the way it does. I mean, all these algorithms have been figured out. I'm sure every single person who's listening to this has had that conversation where they're like, I don't know, I searched for shoes, and then all of a sudden it was everywhere that I went on my computer, right? Like, in a lot of ways, for us, we're behind. Like it's already been figured out, and we're like, we're just kind of going along. So the question is, is that are we living or are we just surviving? Because if our battery drains down by the middle of the day, we're just like, let's just get through it. What do I have to do to get through it? I'll let me plug back in and get recharged, but really it could be something that's draining you further and you don't realize it.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you said. And I think the answer is we have to reclaim our attention. Yes, yes. And that's not easy. I mean, that's not easy because of the times that we live in, we all want a quick fix, right? We want some instant gratification answer or some quick way to fix this. But to cultivate mindfulness, to build our capacity to pay attention takes work and it takes effort. And it takes simple practices. The I something I recommend to everyone is first thing in the morning before you touch your phone, even if you do it while you're laying in bed, is take five long, slow, intentional deep breaths before you touch your phone. Long, slow inhales through the nose, long, slow exhales through the nose or mouth and count to five. You might find that it feels like forever to take five deep breaths, but that's evidence of how much our attention spans have shrunk. But if you can, and Andrew, you started to say this because you said there's there has to be a way for you to realize, you know, where you are, where your battery level is. And another practice that I recommend to people is three times a day in the morning at lunchtime, and like in sometime in the evening, is to do a check-in. And a check-in is where you stop doing everything, you set down your phone and you ask yourself four things. Number one, how does my physical body feel right now? Because sometimes, you know, we don't notice until the very end of the day that like our shoulders are up to here, our shoulders are up to our ears, and we're just like have lots of tension. If we do a little check-in midday and our shoulders are feeling that way, well, maybe we can take a minute and like stretch or just relax for a moment. So the first thing is notice how your physical body feels. The second thing is to notice your energy level, and that is your battery level. How tired are you? How awake are you? Are you somewhere in the middle? Notice that energy level and where it is. The third thing you check in with and notice is to notice your mood and how you're feeling. This is really important. And so many people have lost touch with their emotions that when I ask them to do this exercise, they say, I don't know how I feel.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't feel anything because we've become numb to some degree. But the more you keep asking yourself, how do I feel right now? How do I feel? Your inner self will start to speak out and tell you, well, I feel a little irritated today, or whatever the case may be. Well, that's so important for you. It's important information for you to notice, for you to catch, for instance, an emotion like irritation before it grows and grows into like raging anger. Because it's easier for you to deal with irritation than it is raging anger. So if we do a little check-in, it's like a way of catching these things as they're growing. But back to the fourth thing. So the first thing, again, physical body, second thing, energy level, third thing, your emotional state. And the fourth thing is to check in with your mind. Where are your thoughts taking you? Are they taking you into the past? Are you just reviewing and reliving and ruminating on everything that's already happened? Or are you constantly in the future, constantly on the to-do list, so much so that you're not really ever in the present moment. Most of the time our thoughts are either about the past or about the future. And we have to keep bringing ourselves back to okay, but what's right here in front of me right now? And what can I do about what's right here in front of me right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because you can't do anything about the past or the future. Right. And then watching, like I I know everyone says it all the time. It feels like yesterday my kids were infants and now they're teenagers. And I would just it just flew by. And if I'm letting it fly by while being connected to a device, or if I'm letting it fly by without being present, then I'm actually missing some things. So that's I love that. I'm gonna take all four of those. I'm gonna put it on my fridge.

SPEAKER_00:

I would imagine something that's important as you're considering these four things, as you're reading about this in the book and as you're willing to take this on. That being slow, consistent, steady, intentional, collecting data, being able to take the time to reflect on, okay, two days ago I was feeling this way, now I'm feeling this way, just c slowly gathering that has a a big impact. And something that we talk about a lot on this podcast is that you're not gonna change anything overnight. And that mistakes, you know, I think about going to the gym, especially in the beginning of the year, you see people who are there for the first two weeks and they throw out their back because they overdo it, because they were gonna be so committed. This is gonna be the year, and then they don't see them again for 11 and a half more months until they come back to do it again.

SPEAKER_02:

He's talking about himself with a chiropractor four times in the last four days.

SPEAKER_00:

No, last three hours. But what I think is important is and a difference of that, like at least with it with your physical body, you can see the change. You can't always see the change with your mindfulness. Others might notice it, but like it's like you have to be mindful of your mindfulness. And you know, when I look at a lot of these great great philosophers or people that we look to in history and we say, Wow, this person did X, Y, and Z, I think a lot of it was that they were already being very mindful. So they weren't stuck in the day-to-day because they were able to have themselves at a spot where they had already figured out what is most important, what is most valuable to me. And that's where I'm going to get pulled. Where if you're not that way, it can almost feel like a ping pong match where you're just getting jerked around into all these different spots. And then you're like, I'm too tired to even figure out I I don't know what I want to eat for dinner. Like it doesn't matter, right? And and so figuring out what are those core values for you as a person and what makes you feel like a person, and then being able to lean into that, especially when life gets confusing. And honestly, it's not going to slow down in any capacity. It's gonna become more and more, and there will be more and more AI agents joining us for our Zoom calls uh to tell us what what it all means.

SPEAKER_02:

Can we talk for a second? Because when you started the podcast, you said you don't hate, you don't hate AI, you don't think that it's something we should eradicate, nor really can we. Can you talk about? Are you speaking to like having a balance? Are you talking about using it in certain ways? Do you want to talk to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I think that we all have to learn how to use AI skillfully because it isn't going away. It's only going to grow. I think we have to be cautious about how we're using it, why we're using it, and when we're using it and how often that we're using it. I know for me personally, the probably the most frequently I've used it is during times when I have to figure something out that is outside my wheelhouse. For instance, like a medical report. You know, you get a medical report, it shows up on your my chart or whatever, and it's very technical. And it's going to be a few days before you talk to your doctor. You're like, oh my gosh, what does all this mean? Yeah. I have copied it and pasted it into a private version of Chat GPT. That's really important, especially to tell listeners anything that you post into most AI models, unless you have a paid subscription that you can put on private mode, anything you put in is being dumped into their data collection and it is going to be rolled into all of their information. So if you don't want your personal information pulled in there, make sure that it's on private mode. But if you paste, for instance, a medical report into ChatGPT or something else and ask it to tell you in very simple non-medical terms what does this mean? It does a phenomenal job of deducing it in very simple terms. Same thing with legal or technical documents. If you don't have time to take it to an expert to decipher something for you, that's something else that you can have it decipher for you. And it does a phenomenal job of simplifying things like that. I also think that it's fine to use as a brainstorm partner as long as you are taking time to think and brainstorm and be creative on your own. So you are, let's say you have a problem or a project, you sit and take time to brainstorm and come up with a few ideas. And then perhaps you use an AI tool to say, this is what I've come up with. Am I missing anything? You know, is there anything else? And then you can take whatever it gives you, then you go back to, okay, what makes sense to me, what resonates with me, and then you do the work because that is going to strengthen our critical thinking, our creative skills building. And whatever the project is, you are the human element that can never be replaced by AI. There is a creative, empathetic quality that cannot ever be replaced by a machine. We are more than just data points. We're much, much more than that. And I think that we need to remember that and the relationship building that we can cultivate in addition to that. So those are the things that I have used AI tools for. I would avoid using AI tools as a therapist. I would avoid using AI tools for relationship issues.

SPEAKER_02:

I still have in my head the last time you were on when you told us about the client who like the marriage all of a sudden got better because he was putting her concerns into the AI. I was like, oh no. I don't think he's the only one that's ever done that though.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. I am I am seeing that so much. And I know all my clients know don't do that, or if they're doing it, not to tell me about it because they're gonna get a lecture. Um, but no, I mean, I teach people to process things on their own. Like a lot of people shudder whenever I talk about journaling. And in all honesty, like I I understand that. It journaling, if if you've never journaled before, you it just feels like I'm gonna open a page and what am I gonna write here? I don't have anything to write. Look up a set of journal prompts. You don't have to just come up with something on your own, but get a set of journal prompts which would be a question that you're asking of yourself. And then you write. I'm advocating journaling because again, it bolsters creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence because it gives you an opportunity to put your thoughts on paper. And our process, at least thus far in our human history, language, writing, and thinking are really connected. And I feel like we're and reading. So, you know, I feel like we're kind of losing the writing and the reading. And the critical thinking is actually tanking as because of those two things are being diminished because of AI and everything with social media and and and elsewhere. So we need to reinforce that link between writing, reading, and critical thinking. So that's why I'm a big advocate for journaling.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. I could talk to Joni all day, every day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is a very fruitful conversation. And I think we're all being mindful of the colours.

SPEAKER_02:

Took over the conversation. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00:

So, Joni, you you've been on the show. Obviously, you are a huge fan, and that's why you've offered the first 10,000 listeners a free copy of your book.

SPEAKER_02:

Don't do that to her. Do not do that to her.

SPEAKER_01:

But we would like to give you that's not really how Can we talk about where they can buy it though? You can buy it anywhere books are sold. It's on Amazon. I always tell people Amazon, but you can go to BarnesandNoble.com or anywhere you would order a book online. It should be there. Nice. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

We want to give our favorite author on the show right now the opportunity to have second to last final thought.

SPEAKER_01:

I think the most important thing that I want to emphasize is you can balance your technology use by revisiting yourself in a deep way, by reclaiming your own attention and your own inner voice, and not to let that inner voice be silenced by what Googling an Answer says or what AI says, but to learn to reconnect with your own inner instinct. Now, obviously, whenever I say that, I'm not talking about things where we need factual information that is outside your wheelhouse, but in a personal human way to reconnect with your instinct and intuition. I think our gut instincts are declining because we don't trust ourselves anymore, because we're expected to always listen to voices outside of us, particularly AI, technology, whatever it might be. But to develop a relationship with yourself away from technology and learn to listen to your own inner voice, I think that is the best protection you can have against losing yourself in the growth of AI and technology in general. Period. And you don't need to say anything else.

SPEAKER_00:

I actually I have so many things that I've circled for, starred, or highlighted.

SPEAKER_02:

He's been writing furiously.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think I'll say I'll say this one thing. Uh yeah, we'll start with one. I truly believe that the greatest uh educational challenge of this century is going to be mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Because those are not things that historically we have focused on. And we've given them even names of like the soft skills, right? Like you might need those at some point. But uh just like we uh one of us so uh intelligently pointed out that advertisers have figured out how our brain works and they're uh I don't know who I don't remember which one of us it was, of course, but they they they figured out how it works and they're doing it without us our us being mindful of it or knowing. That's actually what's happening here. We focus so much on one aspect and then the game has changed. But if we're not aware or talking about it, that we can get lost in that and lose ourselves. So I think an important piece that should be part of everyone's repertoire is the AI antidote preserving human connection and emotional intelligence. In a tech driven world. So make sure that that is a must read, something that you grab. And the other thing that I'll say, this is this is the final thought that Johnny, you drive a hard bargain, but yes, I will co-author the next book with you. I'll do it. I'll do it. I decided during this interview that I was.

SPEAKER_02:

There was no conversation. You barely spoke. Maybe that's why she wants to as a ghostwriter.

unknown:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Good. He won't say anything. I'll just write the book.

SPEAKER_02:

Good on her own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. Thank you for coming on and for sharing with the the Change of Nation this really important topic, conversation, and thing that keeps us human and something that I'm sure we can talk about a lot more and we'll continue to do so. So thank you for spearheading that.

SPEAKER_02:

I also wanted to ask you. You said you you have clients. Do you have clients virtually? So could any of our listeners, if they wanted to dig into more of what you're talking about, would you be able to meet with people virtually from like across the state?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I see people virtually. I also lead my school-based program called Plugged into Mindfulness, which is a mindfulness and emotional intelligence training for educators. I do work with kids as well, but the main training program is for educators. I mean, I do that virtually and in person here in southwestern Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02:

So we'll make sure you have you have a website, right? We'll make sure we link the website so they can find you.

SPEAKER_01:

I do. It's okay. Insight, insightwithjony.com. Okay. We'll make sure we link that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, for all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Make sure that you continue to tune in to hear our conversations. We want to keep bringing you relevant information that can help inspire and continue to support you on your journey. And this is the spot for the real AI, which is Andrew Intelligence. So make sure you like and subscribe and share with the entire world. Oh my goodness. I can't. It's good. That was good. I just came up with that. I've never used it before.

SPEAKER_02:

You've used that all the time. And it's never funny.

SPEAKER_00:

My mom lives.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a lot of good stuff in this episode. This is a listen to and re listen to episode. Yeah.