Today, on Using AI at work, we're excited to welcome Mike Calhoun, a dynamic entrepreneur, finance expert, and friend. Mike's the founder of Board of Advisors, and he's renowned for his strategic insights in private lending and real estate investment. His work at Board of Advisors reflects a deep commitment to fostering powerful connections and growth opportunities amongst his members. Join us as Mike shares his valuable perspectives on leveraging AI for strategic financial decisions and building successful, scalable businesses. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Dagle. Each week we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs, and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. And one of the biggest reasons that uh I wanted Mike to join us was because Mike has optics into um tons of business, tons, tons of very successful businesses through his Board of Advisors community.
Um and so, Mike, for those who don't know you, tell us a little bit about the journey from uh where you started to how you found yourself today with the as the CEO and founder of Board of Advisors.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Well, first off, thank you, Chris, for having me on here today. Uh it's always a pleasure. Every time I get a text from you, a call, an email. You know, I admire a lot of the projects that you're working on. And um, I feel like I'm always learning a little new attribute. Every time we talk, it's like you bring uh something new to the table that I didn't know. So you're uh you're an interesting character, great family man. You got a lot of style, just a lot of respect for you. So thank you for having me on. Um, really, I kind of describe this track record about 26, 27 years of just Herculean effort in tech, real estate, real estate, tech, online business, uh, technology, SaaS. You know, we we just kept doing. And it wasn't always that we had the clearest vision, it wasn't always that we had the the best plan, uh, but we never sat still and we just kept moving forward. I think one of the wisest things somebody told me a long time ago was in business, even if you're not winning, if you maintain momentum, the win the the the season of maybe not winning will pass, but it's all about momentum. So if you like we started in tech, and then we got into real estate, and then we got it, then we launched a real estate tech, and we started just adding together instead of starting something completely new and always splitting yourself and diluting yourself. We continue to add and enhance and move that train down the tracks while maintaining momentum. And a lot of that is relationship-based. So, like I said, maybe 26, 27 years in tech, now taking a lot of those relationships into a community. We call it board of advisors, which is, I think, better than a mastermind in the sense of saying, hey, we operate a mastermind. We operate a community with a lot of competent owners, founders, CEOs, decision makers that want to collaborate. They want to innovate, they want to leverage the experience of others. You know, all of it starts with a great idea, starts with a, they say relationships live inside conversations. And, you know, that's what I think we do best. We start the right conversations for the right reasons with the right people.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. So this is actually an atypical interview because you have most of the people that I've been interviewing, they have their own business and they're able to share with me kind of what's going on in their business. But with this um spirit of innovation that exists in the community, the the um the momentum that exists within your community, you're you've got the ability to uh counsel and also learn from hundreds of successful business owners. So your exposure to how AI is being used at work might be a little broader than the average guest that we've got. So what I'd like to do is I would like to find out um how AI, generative AI, and the tools behind it are impacting your business. But I'd love for you to be able to maybe share, you don't have to mention names if you don't want to, but maybe share what some of your clients are doing. I know that you've got some clients that are involved in AI as well. And I'd I'd just love to hear
what you're seeing happening in the marketplace and how AI is impacting you and your clients.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And then what I well, let's make a deal. Do you want to make a deal? Please. Cut me off if we feel like we've answered the question. I tend to be on so many calls with so many various owners and founders that, and we're diving into their brands and their challenges. Sometimes my brain just keeps going. Yes. Um, so because I want to make sure we hit all the right points. So, number one, I mean, I have individuals that are tech, they are innovating and building on AI. Then I have individuals that are creating AI to serve AI and make AI better, which is an interesting layer that most people aren't even understanding yet. And then I have individuals that are teaching, they're educating on AI, so that in like if you're curious, you understand where to start, what are the fundamentals? Many times there's a misconception. You know, then I have individuals that have actually put AI in their business and are deploying it on a certain function. For example, and you know, you're gonna know this really well. Take a video production company. Video production is heavy, you got to shoot it. So yeah, you gotta shoot it, capture it, then you gotta export it, edit it, manage it. It's very it creates a lot of processing to get to an end result, right? Okay, so I have a gentleman owned a uh video production editing company for a long time, and he implemented AI into his business to help shrink time frames. Then what he realized is we're going to start an AI company that serves my video production company. And what he's done is he's arrived at a point where that AI company now is so sophisticated, in one hour he can get exactly what he needs from a customer. He doesn't have to even shoot it, he now is a processing accoutrement add-on feature module for anybody shooting video and can turn so think about this. He can take a let's call it one hour capture and turn it into like 7,000 bits. And here's the cool part if he gets enough in the right manner on you, he can create a voice AI clone from an hour, and then he can write, he can use AI to write scripts so that the AI clone can read them. He doesn't even need you anymore, right? And he does all of this in one hour with a customer for $3,500.
SPEAKER_01What would that have looked like a year ago as far as production time and manpower and cars?
SPEAKER_00It looks like the biggest pain in your rear, right? Like, think about it. Just the aspect of capturing, editing, exporting, you know, it's just a mess. Yeah. And that's what AI is doing. AI thrives in an environment where there's more data, yeah, more for it to work with. And here's the interesting part it's not even really interested in data, it's interested in all the things that we're actually not even noticing. So I'd love to share this with you as well. So if we think about data, data's black and white, right? Yeah, you know, you have ones and zeros and you have letters, and you know, it's you know, it's uh it's data in a database. Now, think about that audio. Let's just take his audio. He took the audio out of the video. The audio itself has obviously is it high, is it low, the tonality, the inflection, the speed, the character. When I'm on the phone with you, do you ever think it's somebody else? Never. Ever. You know it's me. Yep. When I see your face, I know it's you. When you hear my voice, you know it's me. There's so much from audio and video or the visual that AI is actually soaking up. Because see, as a human, the way we function is we're trying to stay, we have a uh, I forget what the thing is in the frontal uh cortex there, but it helps us to focus on what is most important in the environment so that we can get things done without turning into a scatter brain. AI is not doing that. It's saying, give me everything. Yes. Here's what's cool about it. It's actually seeing what we're not seeing, and it's making decisions on what we're not paying attention to, and it's giving us feedback, and here's the interesting part suggestions on how to do things better or how to be more strategic. Like it's such a wild environment because it's literally doing what we're not, but for our benefit. And if we take an advanced conversation like that, where you know it's not about data anymore, it's about the modality environment, which is what I was saying about the guy that did the AI that serves AI. He said he was describing their platform as a module that stacks on top of other platforms in AI. And he goes, Imagine humidity. So our our module is not attached to anything. Like, Chris, are you are you attached to anything? Not right now. I could get up and leave. I mean, maybe your wife, right? But realistically, you're not you're not attached to anything. And that's what he was describing. He goes, our our tech is not attached to anything. It's like humidity in the air and it's soaking up everything, right?
So it's not even about data anymore, it's the entire environment, right? That begins to process and it begins to just churn through the uh things that we don't even know to ask for or look at. And it's it's wild what how fast this is growing as well. But going back to a much more simpler conversation, I have members that are training on as people are coming into the AI conversation, they think they have to learn it. Here's the fundamental you don't learn it, yeah, it learns you, yeah, right. And it's it's wild that really what we're doing is we are taking a technology and we are, and you're gonna understand what this word means, is we are prompting it to do. So it's kind of like we start experimenting with it and it's learning us. So we're prompting it, and then as we're saying no, a little more like this, and no, a little more like that. It's starting, we're we're playing tennis, is what we're doing. Yep. And it's getting to know us, and we're getting to know how to use and wield that power better. But realistically, we're only playing with a little chat bot that can write a homework paper or uh, you know, something uh, you know, a web page for us or whatever. These are such simple applications, but it's a a place to start so you can begin having fun, like and then you start to get the idea. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think that a lot of people they hear prompt engineering. I'm not an engineer, I'm not wired that way, but this is completely different because once you understand, you're having an iterative conversation. Great answer. Now tell me more about that. Or that's not exactly what I meant. So people that have intimidation about using the models uh shouldn't, exactly like you said. It's we're learning, like me and the model are learning about each other. Well, I'm not learning much about the model, but and it's starting to make insights just based on not that initial prompt, but that tennis game you're talking about back and forth and back and forth. And that prompt ends up being uh a sit-down session of 30 minutes, an hour, whatever. But at the end of it, I'm glad you brought that up. A lot of people are thinking to use generative AI to create content or to assist with automations, but you're talking about using it for ideation and strategic counsel. And that's for people at in your at your level of business and the people that are in board of advisors, that functionality alone from saying, act as Steve Jobs, I'm creating a new, like giving it those uh iconic roles to behave as, you get a level of perspective on your issues or or potential solutions that without AI, 100 hours on the phone calling me, calling people like you, or calling some of my network and stuff, that the average person doesn't have access to. They just wouldn't, they wouldn't arrive at the same conclusion. So I'm glad you brought that up. Now, in your uh the operations of board of advisors, how what's the level of of enthusiasm or or how how much is your team embracing generative AI? Is it active?
SPEAKER_00Is it standoff? So I have required each player on the team. We went and set up a corporate account, and everybody has access to the AI tools uh with open AI, and it was a little bit of a banging on our head, you know, or banging our head against the wall in the sense of okay, you it's it's say your role is to write the next email. No, you're not writing the next email anymore. You're going to come up with a framework of what that email should accomplish, context, goal, accomplish, benefit, you know, and then you are going to prompt AI. So think about this. So if we just want to take notes on the call mentally, um, maybe I give my my guys uh the tool, but I also give them the instruction of I want you to derive an email or a campaign around some of the hottest topics in business today that owners, because we deal with owners, founders, CEOs, the decision makers that owners, founders, CEOs want to hear about based on, and this is where AI is great because the more specificity you give it, the better it will work for you. So I want you to create a campaign around uh owners, founders, CEOs, people who are in the decision making process, top level in business. And I I want you to look at Google, I want you to look at Yahoo Bing, I want you to look at YouTube, I want you to look at all the public socials. And what are the seven most diversified trending topics that a CEO is asking or talking about? Boom, and it'll feed you back, right? And then say maybe it comes in and it feels like all of it's marketing. No. So now do that, but give me those headlines from administration, marketing, finance, and then you just start showing the team how to make it get their job done better and faster because what I showed my team was it can be absolutely exhausting deriving everything from scratch, and we don't have time to do that anymore if we're gonna be competitive, right? So now what I want you to do is I want you to use AI for the derivative to derive the things from scratch, get the mudded,
get the framework there, and then you know, it will expedite you into boom, we got this so close, I'm just gonna take it, doctor it up, done. So giving the team a tool, and I call it to play with, yeah, which it makes it fun. Yeah, but it also shows them how they can be hyper-productive, but not get completely exhausted because I want to leverage their creativity and their ability to drive the tech for the result, not depend on you know, there's no way they can be competitive with AI searching all of the internet. Yeah. Right? Or the entire database of you know, whatever platform. You know, now we're leveraging it. It's learning us and we're leveraging it.
SPEAKER_01You brought a couple good points up, and one of those is that um knowing how to ask the question isn't a natural skill. We just we kind of as humans, typical people in conversation just kind of stumble through it. They're not really thinking through things. To get the right output that doesn't need as much massaging by your team, you mentioned that you have to get very specific and get very clear. And that itself, like practicing that and the playing with it, is how somebody gets good. They don't necessarily need to go get the MIT certification and prompt engineering, they need to understand how to ask questions. And secondly, you brought up the point that there may be some people that think, oh, I can go into AI and type something in, and it I'm done. Rarely have I seen that be the case. The synthetic output from the AI model still needs the human in the loop, still needs the person who really understands your audience, your your community, and would go, no, we'd actually say it this way, this way. But in five seconds, AI has done 80%, 90% of the heavy lifting. And that was a good point. Not 100%, but most of it.
SPEAKER_00And right, and again, right now, the the retail public interface, um they are playing with widgets and and the the little gadgets that allow them to explore. So one point on that. The average user or the the the most common user is used to asking Google a question or or a search term. That's not how AI functions. Exactly. So so we don't need AI for that. Google's done that very well. So instead of asking it a question, if you change your mindset to putting AI to work, give it a command, yes, yeah. So you are prompting it, go or give me the the XYZ, right, with specificity, and then refine it, shape it, and get it down to what you feel is like the end result you're looking for. Like that's kind of the art of it. But that's that's such a basic version of implementation. Really, what's about to transpire is you're gonna turn around and it's gonna be layered into absolutely everything that you're doing. Yeah, and you're going to start naturally doing what we just said, because it's going to be on your phone, right? And you're going to begin like Siri is a good example of like what I think everybody probably already does use so well. It's just going to get so much more convenient, right? In all apps, in all uh conversations, and in and all interfaces. Because at the end of the day, like that third wave is putting it in the environment and just prompting for outcomes and letting it work and then guiding and steering it. And at a certain point, here's where it gets scary. You know, when does it turn around and start steering us?
SPEAKER_01It's coming, baby. It's coming. Yeah. No, this is um that was a great distinction because I've had that that rebuttal. Oh, I I can just use Google, or I tried it, Google's better. You brought that point up, which is you're not you're not asking it a question, you're giving it a command. And if somebody approaches it that way, that's a completely different conversation to have. I'm I'm glad you said that. That's fantastic. So let me ask you Of your team, you've got them, they're mandated to start playing with the models. Have any of your folks become like addicted or like they they had that? Breakthrough, they're like, wow, I gotta use it.
SPEAKER_00Is some of them I've got to keep reminding. I'm like, I can tell that obviously did not come out of you didn't use your AI. So let me remind you, you took too long, right? Yep. And it didn't turn out as good. Okay. And now you're gonna have to go do it with AI anyway. So what are we waiting on? Yeah. Yeah. And then the other parties that want to adopt heavily, you know, Corey loves it because Corey loves it because Corey's just such a systems guy. Anytime I create a new dashboard or anytime you know there's a project like that, he just really churns on it. So some are faster and slower to adopt, but what you have to show them is you are losing competitiveness with your time and your the performance on your result, and you're exhausting yourself. Get around the learning curve, get familiar, and you will find the enjoyment of accomplishment, but you'll also find that you're not as tired and you'll feel more powerful about being able to get things done.
SPEAKER_01I hadn't considered that impact. We're doing a lot less like neural processing just from a biological standpoint. We don't need as much energy. We've all had those days where you you you come out and you're just mentally wiped out, right? But that that's a result of the brain using so much of the energy. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And now I love it. Less processing, more prompting. Yes. You need that down. I I like that. Yeah, baby. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You'll you can find that in the show
notes.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, look, chief AI officer. Yeah, I don't get paid to process, baby. I get paid to prompt.
SPEAKER_01Yes. That's two uh very interesting distinctions that I hadn't considered, and I've been having a lot of conversations about this. So are there any specific tools that you guys uh you find besides Chat GPT that are being uh commonly used throughout the organization or that anybody has talked about said this was the game changer?
SPEAKER_00Well, in uh preparation for this uh podcast today, I said, you know, the last thing I want to do is be a loser. I want to be a winner, and I want to win all the time. Not only do I want to win, I want to win on the Chief AI podcast. So I put AI to work and I said, Okay, I want to be the if there were anyone that ever brought the most value with the least amount of time to prepare, because I did not have any time. I've had 19 meetings since on my calendar from yesterday through today. So these two days, 19 meetings. Oh, and all the accounting payroll, I mean, unbelievable, mind mind blistering. And I said, listen, I don't have any, I don't have time to prepare, but how do I increase my preparation, knowledge, articulation of a lot of the questions you might ask? And I just jogged back and forth a little bit with AI, and I wanted to make sure that I kind of put that to the test, right? Yeah, so like even the aspect of increasing your learning curve or familiarity on a topic so that you can be prepared for a meeting that you're not prepared for, right? You know, I would look, I'm just and I'm not answering your question right now, but what I'm saying is you are. This is good. Put it to the test. So think about this. You have a pain, there's stress, something's happening. Now, usually we turn to our assistant and we say, go do this. But maybe say, I now have an issue. How can I get an answer, info, whatever, and put it to the test? Is it always going to work? I don't know. But I'll tell you this: what you might find is you might find little bits and pieces that begin to save your ass when you could show up looking like a monkey and not know anything, or you could show up with three primary topics. Yes. Think about it. You show up with three primary topics or rebuttals that might be relevant, and now you're amazing. And here's the funny part your competition or your other attendees probably never did that. Right. They were too worried about potentially building a presentation, whatever. But how about on the hot, like, think about it right now, Jason? So we built a process in our event experience where I would talk to the cloud, have Jason execute something for me, and he would say, Yes, sir. And then they all thought that it was like this, it was actually my assistant. But the process, think about it, the process, it was like a show, it was like a magic show. So he's in the A B system, but in the cloud, but listening. And anytime I would talk, he would just respond to me. And the members loved it. They it was like a like I said, it was like a show, like interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. And but then I started thinking, like, why wouldn't we be doing that with AI on the daily and having it right there ready open? Always kind of just be that little edge, right? Yeah. Um, and technically I have Jason with us here today, but he's probably like if I prompted him, he would go prompt AI and then it would end up in the chat. Jason, uh if you could please, would you do me a favor? Would you get me seven of the top rated AI podcast topics uh within the last month on YouTube pumped into the chat, please, sir?
SPEAKER_01While he's doing that, Mike, I that's a use case. Um every time I get a use case from these conversations where I'm like, so so apparent, so simple, but didn't think of that. As an
executive or a manager or anybody leading a team, you're gonna find there's a lot of meetings that occur in business. You're gonna find yourself like, oh, sorry, guys, I'm on my way, right? Like you forgot that was happening. If you can jump on the app and say, like literally dictate into it on the GPT app and say, whatever, I'm going into this meeting. Um, yeah, how how should like how do you prepare me? What should I? This is the topic. Dude, that is and even if you do plan, if you're not caught off guard, but you want to prepare for a meeting, using it pre-meeting to make sure that you roll up hard and you're bringing like the perception is reality. So the other parties, the counterparties are gonna think like, oh damn, Mike, like Mike's got it together. Mike's prepared.
SPEAKER_00And for all of us, we find ourselves in those situations and has allows you if if you get a hold of it, it allows you to be superhuman when others just aren't leveraging the tech. Yes, and um actually, so the if we want to give the listeners a little homework, I don't want to explain too much because curiosity will guide accomplishment. So if they want to look up diffusion, whisper AI, and mid-journey, those three things, those are great uh things that they need to explore. Okay, those are great things that they need to explore. And we've built an AI stack. So we've started what we call a skunks work project where I put uh some of my guys just exploring and playing, and just sometimes I forget they're doing it, but then every once in a while they're like, hey, here's this thing that we found out, right? So seven topics that are are um based on AI for podcast are right here. True kind, true crime, the podcast, true crime. Uh they're exploring real life crime stories, investigations, and mysteries, um, self-improvement, comedy, tech. Oh, I like the diversity here. So he must have prompted it with diversity. So look, true crime, self-improvement, comedy, technology, pop culture, entertainment, politics, current events, sports. So you can see the the detail there.
SPEAKER_01But the thing is, is I want people to take a minute and just realize what happened. Um, uh Mike didn't have any idea of the types of questions or where this conversation was going, and and most of the guests don't. I put him on the spot, and instantly he had an answer. So I want everybody to think about that. Keep this, keep the models open when you're in a meeting and say, hold on, let me check my notes. Oh, the answer is 430, you know, like whatever. That was that was very impressive, what you just did there. I want everybody to understand. He didn't know this question was coming, he didn't have the answer on hand, took two seconds, and it was as if he had prepared, you know, and done all this research in advance. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Well, also think about this. You could turn it inside out too, where it's helping you ask the right questions. Yes. Right? Instead of getting answers, you know, sometimes that's in an interview or in a in a uh in a business meeting or doing a deal or whatever, you know, what am I not looking at that I need to know based on think about this. So you got you have an individual that like a Donald Trump that's great at real estate, and you know, based on a transaction, so so based on the history of real estate, commercial real estate transactions, you know, and teachings from all Donald Trump's content in an environment where this caused the closing to maybe not happen today, like what would he do or have done based on all his trainings? Boom. And it's just a great way. I mean, there's these are very simple things that we're talking about here. Very, very but very powerful.
SPEAKER_01I mean, this is incredible.
SPEAKER_00Correct, yeah. Now, what I would challenge everybody to do, though, is get um in your routine, find intersections that make uh you use it, right? So email or your team, or you know, just look for ways to be able to use that's just a little bit of planning on the front end that kind of forces you to, and the more you do, the better off you're gonna get. But I think what you're gonna realize is it's here to serve you, not not you serve it.
SPEAKER_01The way that I heard it, I did an interview with John Benson um on this topic. And the way that John told people, he's like, you need to ask, how can I how can I use this? How can I use this? How can I use this? How can I use this? And that gets you to start thinking and prompt versus just question, right? And that goes back to that concept you introduced with Google versus GPT earlier, and I love it.
SPEAKER_00Again, number uh uh a fundamental, the bigger the situation, the bigger the environment, the bigger the data, if you that because that's what everybody's very familiar with, the bigger the data. So, for example, if we do a board of advisor event and we have a couple hundred of the top founders, CEOs, investors show up, and we do five days of meetings. Yep. Uh think about it. Many times there's four different sessions going on simultaneously. So think about all the video, all the audio, all the imagery, all the text, all the notes, everything is compiled onto the platform. Yes, right now you drop AI into that and you say pull out every moment that, and then now what you're doing is you're you're able to curate and concentrate what would take a human so long it becomes never, yeah, right? And from uh a productivity standpoint, yes, that's productive, but from a value, that's the the challenge that I'm trying to get everybody to understand here is it's not just about productivity, it's about how valuable you can make yourself, your product or platform in the competitive market when others aren't doing it.
SPEAKER_01So you could instantly from literally hundreds or maybe even a thousand plus hours over those five days, considering all the breakout rooms and everything, you could feed that into the model and say, uh, compile the highlights related to commercial real estate or the high, and they could have been occurring in across the thing, like that's incredible. And that that result would return instantly. That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00Give me the most so think about this. And I always I love to talk, so again, feel free to cut me off. But I love to show that at BA, the connections are so strong because of the emotion, right? You know, in our imagery, in our video, in our brand, we I train my team to pick out the media that has emotion. Okay, bro, they'll go pick a picture. I'm like, where is the emotion in that? Yeah, like, well, they're smiling. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not emotion, right? And then I also train them on connection. So they think because this person, I see the back of their head, and then the other person is kind of like looking, you know, looking the other way. And and yeah, they're there. You can tell they're having a conversation. That's not connection. When I really master it with them, I've got two individuals. Eyes are locked. They are have you can tell, because you can in the image, you can see both eyeballs, both sets of eyeballs connected. You can see some sort of intent or passion in the delivery of the conversation. You can see that there's branding in the background of BA. You can see that these people only connect this powerfully in our environment. So I tell AI, go get every one of those eye-locking moments that has branding in the background so that I can use it to demonstrate an emotional connection, but and it rips through that, and every single one of them beautiful keepers. Can't even get like I got a human that is the only thing that actually has emotion that can barely identify emotion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes, isn't that wild? So let me ask you about this, and I I I realize now how much audio and video you guys produce. And I also know that you are like a high velocity operator, you like momentum. How will AI allow you? That's one way to put it. I'm a diplomat, brother. How will AI allow you to get more juice out of your momentum without needing to bring on more people, more roles? Like, is it more you got the good person who knows how to use the tool to get more results? Let me show you.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna I'm gonna do something live here on the show. Just uh give me one second. I'm gonna show you something that is the absolute answer to your question. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I'm into it. While Mike is uh taking a look at that, I just want to remind everybody about that idea of the Google paradigm versus the AI model paradigm, which is I'm gonna ask Google a question. I'm going to command or prompt the model to get a result. And if you sit down in front of Chat GPT or Claude or any of them for the first time, remember it's not a search engine. I'm eliciting a response. And here he is.
SPEAKER_00Check this out. Okay. So, yes, a lot of video, a lot of pictures, a lot of imagery. We are 10 days before a meeting. 10 days. Okay.
How long do you think it takes to create a magazine of fortune, entrepreneur, like I'm saying big boy brand magazines, okay? Just digitally. How long you think that takes to do an issue for the month?
SPEAKER_01I would say if you had the right team, uh a week to two weeks, maybe.
SPEAKER_00And then the actual process of doing a physical magazine, you've never done one ever in your life. Yeah. Right? Ever. Yeah. So we produced a digital magazine. You can go to it right now, board of advisors.com forward slash magazine. Okay. Okay. The digital magazine is right there, and the physical magazine is right here. So tell me. Hold on, 10 days on the desk of the members, and guess who's in it? All of the members that are coming to the event in 10 days. No. Look, look right here. So articles on all here's Adam Taylor Innovate Path, uh, Adam Taylor's innovative path in finance and leadership. And dude, I don't even know where they got these images from. I guess the internet. Like in his office, at BA, like we just you tell it to go get it, and then you assemble it, right? Find me magazine templates, find me covered sexy, go put it to work, and then get me advertisers like the ones in four. You just ask for all of it, and it goes and gets the links and everything, bro. It is unbelievable. So think about this. So all my members now have their own magazine. Wow. I gotta tell you, who's the fastest publisher? Who's the what's the best paper? You just put the thing to work and you produce humans can't do that. Now, you gotta have a human doing some of that. But human in the loop. It may it makes you invincible if you start to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01So I'm excited. Will I be able to get my hands on one of those when I see you in uh next week? You got plenty in the office?
SPEAKER_00Listen, listen, you're asking all the wrong questions. The the question is, how do I get in? How do you get in it? Right? How do you get in it? And here's the funny part. What we figured out is is so this is the first magazine. So board of advisors.com forward slash magazine. Now, when you have a physical copy, boom, you're gonna open it. It's gonna be in the article. Here's Carrie Charles, twofold mission with broad staff and retention partners. So here's a QR code right in the middle that then brings you to her pod that our podcast with her, Board of Advisors podcast with her. Yes, and her product, her service, the interview. How do you connect? So this is the first magazine where you are able to literally read the magazine, then go experience their product and their interview, and then apply or connect with them at an upcoming call or meeting. So you get to meet her through paper.
SPEAKER_01I like that a lot. This is a new thing. Episode one, edition one.
SPEAKER_00Uh this is episode good idea. Uh you know, zero zero beta. But now it is becoming a thing because we're leveraging, like, think about this. I have my members sitting right here next to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, then boom, Rick Jordan, you know what I mean? Like Chris Dinnert, Dwayne Johnson. You just take all the right people, all the right articles, boom, stack your people next to it. Everybody's famous.
SPEAKER_01So prior to using these tools, you just wouldn't have it would have been a great project to do, but bandwidth would not have allowed for it.
SPEAKER_00Project I always wanted to do, never had no clue, you know, how does it work? Yeah, yeah. It's it's just one of those things that you begin exploring. Well, I can get I got that little thing done. Could I get this done? And then you just keep pushing the envelope. Yes. That's really probably the challenge. Push the envelope of what is possible. Like at VA, we say anything is possible with the right people. Yeah. Right? Coming together in a collaborative spirit and mindset. Working together, right? Yeah. Sharing resources, experiences, you know, leverage. Anything is possible. I got to add AI to our entire slogan because it's one of the things that makes it possible faster.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Save a seat at the next event for Chat GPT. I'm sure it'll be showing up.
SPEAKER_00Probably going to be in our pockets, all of us. That's what I'm saying. It's going to move so fast. Yeah. That by the time we think we have to learn it, it's going to be working for us. Because here's the thing. So uh we we we're we invest in a lot. Um we're actually starting our new fund, which is exciting. Just got off for the attorneys. Congratulations. AI is going to be a major focus. The X fund. It is so it'll be called the X fund. And that fund will be focused on the future of tech AI, not only crypto, but utility-based crypto, all of this stuff is going anything that reduces friction, increases efficiency, speed, and accuracy, you know, that that's where things are going. So one of our investments, Cohere, which came through another member, one of our guys that brings all the right early stage pre-IPO, well-qualified opportunities,
but Cohere is integrated inside Salesforce, Oracle. See what they did right is they're not trying to convince people to go build AI into their business. They're going to all the business solutions and already integrating AI into the solution. So you're going to be using it before you know it, whether you like it or not. And all of these things are going to be getting smarter right under your nose, which is why I say just begin to understand it a little better through exploration. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Hey, so Mike, if people are interested in participating or learning more about the BA community, because I I myself have been to several events, and it's A, it's players. Everybody in that room is taking care of business. B, very warm, not an ego environment where you'd expect for all these high achievers to be, you know, measuring each other, not happening. And the insight that's being shared is like pivotal moments for businesses, like really high impact stuff. So if there's business owners out there who are interested in finding out more about that, where should they go?
SPEAKER_00Well, board of advisors.com is the primary URL. Board of Advisors.com forward slash magazine is the magazine. But if you want to get an invitation to hop on the platform, jump on a call, learn about our full-time operation because we are not just events. Get your invite at bainvite.com and we will actually schedule a call and begin the conversation of who are you? What are you doing? What is your business? What is your product, platform, or service? What are your initiatives? What are you trying to accomplish? Who do you want to meet? And then we also look at the luster of who might want to meet you, right? Yes. Because there's a lot of cool people out there doing a lot of cool stuff. And there is a there's two sides to the coin where you bring value and competency, you bring solutions and experience and you bring resources. We catalog all that stuff, stack it on the platform, but then we marry you with whatever you're solving for, whatever you're looking for, your initiatives. You know, I got a guy coming on to the platform, great product platform service, but you know, he needs strategy. And to save him before he gets out there too big, he might get out there so fast that a competitor who's bigger and more well-funded before he's protected could literally just knock him off and take and negate his entire approach, you know, approach to the market. So strategy is mated with competency and you know innovation. It's an environment where we grow, but we grow smart and we grow better and more efficiently and more profitable together. BAInvite.com, you know, I I gotta tell you, we donated or we uh sorry, not donated, dedicated the entire first day of our last physical in-person engagement where people come from all across US, Australia, Japan to AI. The entire day. Every hey, and by the way, you know this, and I'm gonna say something weird, but you already know it. At BA, there are no speakers. There are no speakers, nobody's speaking on anything. It's all members sharing their expertise,
their experience, their plans, their strategies, their challenges. It's a member-driven engagement. This isn't about coming to see who a lot of these people think. Think about this. A lot of these speakers are out there talking about it, but they're not doing it. My people are doing it, and that's where you're really getting the value because it's not just, hey, I learned something from him, but we might be able to actually put you two together to create even more leverage for your mutual benefit.
SPEAKER_01I love it. Mike, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00The I'm sorry, you get me all excited, Chris.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well I'll um I'll send you something to temper that. Um, you know, every time I do these interviews, and I I'm a power user, my entire organization. We we use it, and still I have a conversation with somebody like you, and I get this new perspective. So uh I want to thank you for sharing that with me, and I'm looking forward to uh getting this out to the public and letting more people understand how to use AI at work. Thanks for tuning in to Using AI at work. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations about how to use AI at work. And a special thank you to our sponsor, Chief AI Officer, for empowering businesses with AI education and training. Visit their website for a free AI readiness assessment and AI strategy guide to help you get started using AI at work. That's www.chiefaiofficer.com. Well, thanks to our producer, Evan Desponier, for making this episode possible. Follow us on Twitter at the handle usingAI at work and visit www.usingai at work.com for free resources to help you harness AI in your role.