I Did Things I Had No Business Doing — AI Made That Possible - Brandon Mulnix

Most leaders in the agricultural industry know AI is coming. Far fewer have actually figured out how to use it in a way that makes their day-to-day leadership better — not someday, but this week.

In this solo episode, Brandon Mulnix shares what happened when he stopped treating AI like a search engine and started using it as a thinking partner. Over the last quarter, he used AI to prepare for a difficult performance conversation, build documents he had no formal training to write, automate a weekly reporting process he'd been doing by hand for years, and finally get his best ideas out of his head and into finished work.

He also responds to something a team member said that stopped him cold: "You didn't do this. AI did this." His answer — the Michelangelo and the chisel — is the most important thing in this episode.

Brandon walks through the Three Doors Framework — Thinking, Drafting, and Research — and gives you one specific action to take before Monday. He covers the tools he actually uses (Gemini and Claude, both free to start), addresses every fear that's keeping leaders on the sideline, and closes with the servant leadership question that changed how he thinks about all of it.

If you manage people, walk houses, run reports, or lead a team in the poultry or egg industry — this episode was built for you.

Mentioned in this episode: Gemini — gemini.google.com (free), Claude — claude.ai (free to start)

Want to talk to a human about getting started with AI? Call or text Brandon directly: 616-265-0752 Email: bmulnix@prismcontrols.com

The Poultry Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Prism Controls — 45 years of technology that helps farmers sleep at night. Learn more at PrismControls.com.

Prism Controls
Prism Controls - Proud sponsor of growing leaders in the Poultry Industry

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Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com

Transcript

Intro

Brandon Mulnix

Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Mulnix. And today's episode is a little different. There's no guest. It's just me. And to be honest, this is a little outside my comfort zone, because I'm usually the one asking the questions.

But something happened this quarter that I just couldn't not talk about. I had some of the biggest leadership wins I've had in a long time, and most of them happened because I was willing to try something that, not long ago, I would have told you wasn't really for me.

I used AI. A lot. And it changed how I lead.

Now, before you check out on me — I'm not a tech person. I'm not here to sell you on anything or give you a presentation about the future. I'm a leader in the agriculture industry, just like you. What I want to do today is tell you what actually happened, what it looked like from where I sit, and give you something practical you can walk away with.

Because I think a lot of people listening right now are either curious, or a little afraid, or they've tried it once and didn't know what to do with it. I was both of those people. And I want to give you a reason to try again, or to try for the first time.

Real story. Practical framework. Zero fluff. Let's get into it.

The Honest Confession

Brandon Mulnix

I want to start with a confession.

I've been using AI for about two years, and for most of that time I was using it the same way most people use it — basically like Google. I asked it what to name the podcast, I had it help me build a logo, I looked things up when I didn't feel like Googling. I really thought I was using AI.

I really wasn't. I was using a fancy search engine with better manners.

The last six months is when something really shifted — mostly the last quarter. And the difference between what I was doing before and what I'm doing now is the difference between picking up a hammer and actually knowing how to build something.

That shift is what today is about. Not AI as a concept. Not AI as some future trend. Not AI from all the technical terms and rules. AI as something you can use today to do the things you're already good at, faster and better, with a lot less of your time locked up in the stuff that doesn't need to be yours.

Now, before I get into the story, I want to say something that might bother a few of you — and I say this with love. If you have told yourself, and I mean genuinely told yourself, "I don't have time to figure out AI right now" — I want to push back on that.

We are never not busy. That's the job. What changed for me wasn't finding more time. What changed was deciding that figuring this out was the work — not something on top of the work. It was the work.

And once I made that switch, here's what happened.

Four Real Wins

Brandon Mulnix

I want to walk you through four things from this quarter. And I'm going to frame them in a way that I hope lands where you actually live. Because I know most of you aren't sitting behind a desk all day. You're not in sales, you're not in marketing — you're managing crews, you're walking houses, you've got bird health on your mind, and people counting on you to have answers. So here's what this actually looked like.

The first win — it's the conversation you didn't know how to start.

Think about the last time you had to deal with a performance issue. Somebody on your crew that you genuinely like, but the behavior is the problem, and you've been putting this conversation off — probably days, maybe weeks. Most managers either wait too long, or they walk in without a plan and it goes sideways.

I used AI to think through a situation exactly like that this quarter. I told it what happened, the details, what I was hoping for, and asked it to help me think through how the other person might receive it. And what was amazing — I walked in with clarity instead of anxiety. That's a huge win.

The second one is the document that made you feel like a fraud. It's happened to all of us. Every leader I know has had that moment. Something lands on your desk — a written report for ownership, a formal corrective action, a compliance document — and you stare at it thinking: I am not the person who writes this. I have never done this before.

I had that moment this month. And instead of staring at a blank page, I started with a conversation. I opened up my AI tool and it says right in the chat box, "How can I help you?" I described what I needed, what I knew, and what the outcome had to accomplish. What came back was a starting point I could actually work from.

I'm still the one who knows the operation. I just stopped also having to be the person who knows how to format a formal document from scratch. The chat went back and forth for a while where I gave it more context I'd forgotten the first time. And the whole time I didn't feel like I was bothering the AI tool — but I still found myself saying after it gave me a draft I wanted to change, "Sorry, I totally forgot about adding the part about needing legal review." And the AI tool wasn't frustrated or bothered by the change at all. It validated the change and fixed it with all the knowledge behind it — all the writings, records, and research. Way more powerful than anything I could have created myself.

The third one is the one I want to spend the most time on, because it surprised me the most.

I built things this quarter that I had no formal training to build. And I'll be real with you — three months ago I would have said those were not my lane. I would have either handed them off to a developer, turned in something I wasn't fully confident in, or probably just didn't do it at all.

For me, it was a weekly reporting process I was doing by hand. For you, it might be flock records, production logs, the same numbers you write down every week and then have to move somewhere else. Whatever that repetitive task is — the one that eats 30 minutes every Monday — that's where this door opens.

Here's what it looked like for me. AI didn't give me a degree in any of these areas. What it did was walk alongside me. It explained concepts when I didn't understand them. There were words, terms, and step-by-step instructions I simply didn't understand. I'd hit Print Screen, copy and paste what I was seeing back into the chat so it could explain exactly what I should be doing, when I needed to do it, and where I needed to put things. It made changes as I asked for them. It was a partner in developing this. It asked me questions. It told me when my thinking had gaps.

I came out with work that held up. I built a Google App Script that I can drag and drop my weekly reports into, and it fills my Google Sheet, provides a graph of the data, and gives me a list of what's different between this week and last week. I am not a programmer. I have never written a Google App Script in my life. And now every Monday, when my reports are emailed to me, I don't enter the numbers by hand. I drag and drop the files.

Another thing I did — because I know how important it is to trust the data — I asked my AI tool to build an audit report that shows the work it did and includes validation rules to flag when a number is off by more than 5%. Nothing is more stressful than presenting numbers to your team and having someone ask, "How do you know that number is right? Because it seems way off." Nothing is more stressful to me than that.

And what really happened through building that Google App Script was I came out with a lot less fear. Now, the next time something like that lands on my desk, I'm excited to tackle it.

The fourth thing is kind of hard to measure, but it might be the most valuable.

I'm an idea guy. I think of things all the time, but I don't want to bother people with them. I don't know who to talk to most of the time, because as a leader I feel it's my job to not just bring problems to my boss or my team — it's my job to bring solutions. I look back at so many good ideas that just died because I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know how to explain them. And I really didn't know what the solution was.

This last quarter, because I was integrating AI into so many more things, I had more ideas move from "I should probably do something about that" to actual finished work than any other quarter I can remember. And the reason is this simple.

I stopped letting the blank page be the barrier.

Don't start with an empty page. Start with a conversation.

Let me say that again — every idea got a conversation first. I chatted with my AI tool, and that conversation became a draft. That draft became a deliverable.

The Chisel

Brandon Mulnix

Before I go any further, I want to address something directly, because I've already heard this — and if you start using AI more seriously, you will hear it too.

Someone on my team looked at work I had produced this last quarter and said, "You didn't do this. AI did this."

And I want to sit with that for a second, because it's worth responding to.

Michelangelo carved the Statue of David — one of the greatest works of human art in the history of civilization. Fourteen feet of solid marble. Widely considered the finest example of Renaissance sculpture ever created. And you know what Michelangelo used to make it? A chisel. A piece of metal. A tool.

Nobody looks at the Statue of David and says the chisel made that.

The vision was Michelangelo's. The judgment was Michelangelo's. The decision about what to cut away and what to leave — that was Michelangelo's. The chisel just closed the gap between what was in his head and what ended up in the marble.

That is what AI is. It is the chisel.

The strategy I brought to the work — mine. The knowledge of my industry, my customers, my team — mine. The judgment about what was right and what needed to change — mine. AI closed the gap between what I knew and what I was able to produce.

So if someone tells you that AI did the work — and someone will — you have my full permission to tell them about the chisel.

The Permission Segment

Brandon Mulnix

I want to speak directly to some of you for a minute, because I know there are people listening right now who have one or more of these running in the back of their head:

"I don't have time to learn a new tool."

"I'm not a tech person."

"What if I use it wrong?"

"What if it gives me bad information?"

I had all of those — every single one. So let me go through them.

On time: You don't need a training course. You don't need a tutorial. These tools are conversational. You type like you're talking to somebody. If you can send a text message, you can use AI. The barrier is genuinely lower than almost any technology you've adopted in the last ten years.

On not being a tech person: I need you to hear this. You don't need to be a tech person. You won't be judged by anybody if you can't write a Google App Script. You need to be willing to describe your problem out loud. And the good thing is — no one is going to interrupt you. AI is not a desk job tool. It's a thinking tool. And thinking is something every leader does, whether you're in the office or walking the houses. All the tools I'm using have a mobile voice-to-text version, which means you can talk to it probably faster than you can type.

On getting it wrong: The mistakes are low stakes. I've sent the email that had "copy and paste this into the subject line" in the subject line. It's okay. Unlike almost every other decision you make in a day, experimenting with AI costs you nothing but a few minutes. You cannot break anything. The worst outcome is a bad answer that you ignore.

On bad information: Yes, AI makes mistakes. So does Google. So do consultants. So does your boss. Probably so does the smartest person you know — and so do I. The answer isn't blind trust. It's informed use. You verify the important stuff. You use your judgment. You are still the decision-maker. AI is a thinking partner and useful for the first draft.

On the tools I actually use: I started with Gemini because it was already built into the tools I was using every day. We use Google, so Gemini made sense. That's a perfectly valid place to start — and if you don't have Google Workspace, you can still get it for free.

When I wanted to do more serious work, I moved to Claude. Also free to start. No installation, no IT ticket, no budget conversation. But there came a point when I realized the value was far greater than the $20 a month price. I got a license, and that decision paid for itself on the very first day. I gained at least an hour back every Monday.

Right now, if you want to get started, open your app store on your phone or your browser — and you could start tonight. Try not to wait until tomorrow.

The Three Doors Framework

Brandon Mulnix

Everything I described this quarter — all four of those wins — came through one of three doors. I want to give you this framework because it took me a while to see it clearly, and I think naming it makes it easier to know where to start.

I call it the Three Doors.

Door number one is the Thinking Door. Before your next hard conversation, difficult decision, or situation you're not sure how to handle — describe it to AI first. Tell it what happened, what you're worried about, what a good outcome looks like, and ask it what you might be missing. I call this talking to the whiteboard that talks back. You're not asking it to make the decision. You're asking it to help you think before you walk in the room. The performance conversation I told you about earlier? Thinking Door. Walk in prepared instead of anxious.

Door number two is the Drafting Door. The next time you have to write something — a report, a corrective action, an email to ownership, a message to your crew about a process change — don't open a blank document. Open a conversation. Tell AI what you need to say and who you're saying it to. Let it hand you the first draft. You're still the editor. You're still the one who knows the people and the situation best. But you never have to start from zero again. I haven't opened a blank document in months. I open conversations.

Door number three is the Research Door. The next time you have a question you don't want to ask out loud — about bird health, a medication label, an HR situation, something on the equipment you're not sure about — ask AI first. It is available at eleven o'clock at night when something is going wrong in the house and you don't want to call the vet for something you feel like you should already know. No judgment. No hold music. Just an answer you can actually work with. And I have to put a disclaimer in there — you never want to put your birds' lives in danger. But when you ask it that question, it's probably reminding you of something you already know.

Three doors: Thinking, Drafting, and Research. Pick one this week — not all three. One real problem that's already on your plate. Walk through one door before next Monday. That's the whole ask.

The Challenge

Brandon Mulnix

I want to be straight with you for a minute, because I think you deserve that more than you deserve another feel-good segment.

"I'm too busy" is a choice dressed up as circumstance. Every leader in this industry is busy. The ones who are learning AI aren't doing it because they have extra hours in the week. They're doing it because they decided not to wait until they do. We never have enough time.

And here's what I want you to understand — you're not just missing a productivity tool. You're missing a thinking tool. The leader who thinks faster, plans better, and walks into hard situations more prepared — that compounds. It shows up in your crew. It shows up in your operation. It shows up in every conversation with ownership.

And then there's this. And this is the one that got me off the sideline more than anything else.

I believe in servant leadership. I genuinely believe the role of a leader is to carry other people forward — your crew, your operation, the people depending on you to make good calls. And I had to sit with this question:

If there is a tool that makes me a better thinker, a better planner, and a better communicator — and I'm choosing not to learn it because it's unfamiliar or uncomfortable — who am I actually serving?

That question changed something for me. And I hope it does for you as well.

The Close

Brandon Mulnix

We started today talking about fear. Fear of unfamiliar tasks. Fear of looking like you don't know what you're doing. Fear that this technology belongs to somebody else — some tech company, some other generation, somebody with more time.

Here's what I want to leave you with: The leaders who are using AI right now aren't fearless. They're just further along in deciding that fear isn't a good enough reason to wait.

Don't start with an empty page. Start with a conversation.

This week, pick one door — Thinking, Drafting, or Research. One real problem before next Monday that you'd like to tackle.

And if someone questions whether the work is really yours, remember the chisel. The Statue of David doesn't happen without Michelangelo. It just also doesn't happen without the right tool in his hand.

The tools are free. The barrier is lower than you think. And the version of you on the other side of that first real conversation is going to wonder why it took so long.

Outro

Brandon Mulnix

Alright, listeners — that's all I've got for you today. No guest, no script. Just something I had to share because I think it matters for where this industry is heading and where you're heading as a leader.

I want to offer you a free gift. If you want to talk to a human about AI and have someone walk you through it, please reach out to me. Call me at 616-265-0752 — that's my personal cell phone number — or email me at bmulnix@prismcontrols.com. I am a human. How can I help you?

If something landed with you today, share it. Share it with your farm manager, your production director, the person on your team you know is quietly wrestling with the same things you are. That's how this podcast grows — and more importantly, that's how we make sure good information gets to the people who need it. Resources for leaders in this industry are hard to find. This show is one of them.

Before I go, I need to thank our sponsor — Prism Controls. And today it feels especially fitting, because this whole conversation has been about using the right tools to lead better. That is exactly what Prism has been doing for farmers for 45 years. Environmental controls, egg flow automation, fire mitigation systems — technology that lets you sleep at night knowing your flock is protected. They don't just build products. They build peace of mind.

They sponsor this podcast because they believe the same thing I do — that growing better leaders makes this industry stronger. Check them out at PrismControls.com. Reach out to the team. They genuinely want to hear from you.

I'm Brandon Mulnix. Have a great day.