Leading with Confidence in the Age of AI

Artificial Intelligence is here, and it is not slowing down. In this episode of IgniteCast, Ashley and Chris Elkins, founders of Vitality South and leaders across multiple technology ventures, join the conversation to unpack what it truly means to lead in the age of AI. From startup growth to scaling companies, they share how vision, culture, and leadership discipline shape innovation rather than fear it. 

Using the powerful “baby tiger” analogy introduced at Ignite by Noelle Russell, the discussion dives into how AI can be both incredibly useful and potentially risky. Leaders must embrace the opportunity while building guardrails, maintaining discernment, and understanding that AI is a tool, not a replacement for critical thinking. From role-playing with AI for strategic insight to understanding the dangers of blind trust, this episode explores practical ways leaders can responsibly integrate AI into their organizations. 

Most importantly, this conversation is not just about technology. It is about vision, collaboration, and stepping away from the daily grind long enough to think bigger. If you are leading a company, building a team, or simply trying to navigate the rapid changes AI is bringing to business, this episode will challenge you to lead with courage, clarity, and intentionality in a rapidly evolving world.

Big thanks to iHeartMedia—our Presenting Sponsor for the entire IgniteCast podcast and the powerhouse fueling this season’s episodes! 🔊🔥 

🎧 New episodes drop every other Thursday, packed with insight, inspiration, and actionable ideas to help you grow as a leader—right where you are.

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Transcript

S7 E3 Ashley Chris Elkins
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[00:00:00] Taylor Tutor: Welcome to Ignite Cast, where Ideas Spark action brought to you by the Community Development Foundation, your Chamber of Commerce and economic development engine. For Tupelo in Lee County, thank you to our presenting sponsor, iHeartMedia for powering this season of Ignite Cast. I'm Taylor. 

[00:00:35] Judd Wilson: I'm Judd, 

[00:00:36] Taylor Tutor: and welcome.

[00:00:37] Taylor Tutor: Welcome to Ignite Cast. 

[00:00:38] Judd Wilson: Cast. All right, we've got another episode of Ignite Cast. As you know, we're in season seven and I love season seven 'cause this is a season that follows the night leadership conference that we had in January. What a great day that was and what a great day we have today on the at Nightcast.

[00:00:56] Judd Wilson: Always love having guests in the building and the neat thing is I [00:01:00] got two guests today, which is always fun. But not only do I have two guests, it's the Elkins family. It's two of 'em. We got the husband and wife here, Ashley and Chris. It's always good to have guests in our building, but also. When they don't only work together but live together.

[00:01:16] Judd Wilson: That's always fun. So Ashley and Chris, welcome to at nightcast. Woo. 

[00:01:21] Ashley Elkins: Thank you. Glad to be here. Glad to 

[00:01:22] Judd Wilson: be that. Hey, cheers. Look at they're cheering. She's already using some, some phrase that she learned it at night, Darren. Very cheering. So, yeah. Yeah. So leadership. Let's talk a little bit about leadership today as we kind of go through this podcast.

[00:01:35] Judd Wilson: Chris. Ashley, what's the greatest leadership tip you've ever been given? 

[00:01:40] Chris Elkins: Um, for me, one thing that's always resonated when I read, um, it doesn't take a title to be a leader. Um, you know, right now I'm in a leadership position, but what, what that really meant to me is that you don't have to wait to be told to be a leader.

[00:01:53] Chris Elkins: You can just step up and do and be an example to others. And I think I gained the most amount of experience in my life, um, doing [00:02:00] exactly that, just stepping up in situations where I thought I could make a difference, believe in myself enough to just. Go and do it. You know, if you're doing it, that's, that's where you're gonna, you know, learn the right things, maybe make mistakes, but you're gonna learn and you're gonna get better at it.

[00:02:16] Chris Elkins: Um, so that, that's something that's always stuck in my mind. 

[00:02:19] Judd Wilson: I like that. I like that. Ashley. 

[00:02:22] Ashley Elkins: Mine is, you don't hire employees. You hire people and remembering that, that they're people first. They have needs, they have wants, they have goals. They have their own, um, personal family and agendas, and they have to be treated that way in order to have a long-term relationship.

[00:02:39] Judd Wilson: I like that. And, and so when you, you brought up a great point. When you're hiring somebody, I've heard this a lot too. I mean, you wanna find the skillset, you wanna find that, but really finding that right person and then teaching in that skillset. Right? 

[00:02:51] Ashley Elkins: Absolutely. We actually hire for culture first, and we have, for years now, a lot of things can be taught, skills can be taught, but you know, having integrity, [00:03:00] being the kind of person that you want to be with every day, and that you would trust with your business, your clients, your money, your resources, that that's not really trainable.

[00:03:10] Judd Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. And 

[00:03:10] Chris Elkins: you can't train personality. 

[00:03:13] Judd Wilson: That's great. And a and a good leader knows that. Right? So, um, I do have a sheet here where I'm gonna ask you questions, but I go off script a lot. Um. Because I got you here. And so, um, you know, we, we go back a few years and so I remember, um, with, with the, one of the advantages of, of kind of running the Chamber of Commerce is we actually get to manage the Renaissance Center for ideas.

[00:03:36] Judd Wilson: And I, I re I remember these young entrepreneurs coming into my building and looking for space, uh, at the time. And y'all started Vitality South and, and it's kind of neat because, you know, we have people that come in and outta the incubator and they, and they graduate sometimes three to five years, not the Elkins, I mean, they were there for like exactly one year and y'all [00:04:00] exploded So quickly, kind of tell us how that grew so fast, and then maybe also the expansion of, of the other businesses that y'all are in now.

[00:04:10] Chris Elkins: Well, I'll start. So, you know, one thing, um, Ashley and I have actually worked together, I guess since. Since 2013 at this point, you know, dating back when we were, um, both at the Daily Journal Yeah. And really started, um, you know, a, a mini digital, digital marketing agency then. But the one thing that we've always loved, we love technology and we love helping people.

[00:04:33] Chris Elkins: And so at the end of the day, that's what it's all about for us is, is bridging that gap for people, bringing them solutions and, you know, uh, bringing resolution or outcomes to people that they really appreciate. Um, so that's, that's our number one goal. And so to us, you know, technology's a big broad field.

[00:04:50] Chris Elkins: You know, it started with, um, marketing agency, um, because Ashley's got a lot of experience, you know, her, her MBA and her emphasis in, in marketing. And I [00:05:00] helped with technology and getting into web development and all the, all the technical side. Um, and it grew from there. You know, we, we rapidly realized, you know, that that kept expanding and growing.

[00:05:08] Chris Elkins: And then I realized, you know, I wanna offer it, it makes sense for us to offer IT services. Um, so we, we started that, you know, in the marketplace, and then later we acquired Active Datacom, um, to bring it all into the fold. And just, you know, with all of these things, we have the same shared vision and culture.

[00:05:26] Chris Elkins: Uh, that's, that's paramount to us of, of bringing good solutions to people, um, being trustworthy, high integrity in the marketplace. And so, you know, we've, we've slowly grown more units. The, the latest one is Wire Safe Solutions. Um, a low voltage cabling company to run ethernet cables, network infrastructure, wiring cabling, wifi.

[00:05:48] Chris Elkins: Um, and then we also have a software development company RISE software to again, bring, you know, solutions to both small and large businesses. Um, so at the end of the day there, to me, it's all [00:06:00] technology. It's all bringing technology solutions and, and helping people. 

[00:06:04] Judd Wilson: I love that. Ashley, speak a little bit, I mean, Chris kind of talked about the expansion through that, but he mentioned a key word of vision.

[00:06:11] Judd Wilson: Do y'all meet about that regularly? What, what, how do y'all come together to, to, to build that vision and just, and how do you adjust it and then, and grow through that? 

[00:06:21] Ashley Elkins: So, Chris and I have a shared vision and we have a big picture and then we have midterm kind of vision, and then we have like little small kind of goals and stuff like that to get there.

[00:06:33] Ashley Elkins: But that's our favorite thing. We go on vacation. And we literally talk business the whole time because you're finally unplugged enough to dream and have ideas, and we do a lot of dreaming. But for us, um, we have an amazing leadership team. And the leadership team does a whole lot of figuring out how to get it done and working in the day to day to not drop anything.

[00:06:56] Ashley Elkins: And so we have some really, really, really [00:07:00] amazing people on our team and I feel like that's how we've been able to execute that vision. 

[00:07:04] Judd Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:07:05] Chris Elkins: It is, you know, it's funny, living together and working together, it's hard to, to turn it off. So it, it's really important, I think, paramount that we always love what we do and so, you know, while it's, it's always, you know, a, a hard topic to not always bring up all the time, you know, we, we do go out and have fun and do other things too.

[00:07:24] Chris Elkins: And not just work, but. The good thing is we do love what we do. You know, and again, I bring it back to, um, it, it's, we, we love to learn and grow and improve ourselves all the time. And then we, we love. You know, knowing that we brought a great solution to somebody, a great outcome, um, you know, it, it gives you that internal drive to keep doing what you're doing and work hard every day knowing that you've got happy customers, happy people, you know, out there.

[00:07:51] Judd Wilson: Yeah. And it's neat. I mean, we've, we've talked to, uh, some people on this podcast before and, and dealing with entrepreneurs. We, you know, I've come across those [00:08:00] that are, that are married like y'all are. Um, how do you separate those roles sometimes as leaders to figure out, hey. Here's what I'm good at.

[00:08:07] Judd Wilson: Maybe you're better at kind of talk through 

[00:08:10] Ashley Elkins: that. So that's been a little trickier one to navigate because you know, you don't want too many kids, and I'm not a licensed 

[00:08:15] Judd Wilson: marriage counselor by the way, but you can continue to. 

[00:08:18] Ashley Elkins: But we've really kind of gotten to a sweet spot as the time has rolled by because we kind of know what our lane is like.

[00:08:25] Ashley Elkins: I would never dream to make a technology decision that didn't go through the filter of Chris and he wouldn't make a major financial. Without running through me. 'cause I kind of serve more as the CFO. He serves more as the CIO of our businesses and we've just kind of figured out, hey, that's really a Chris question.

[00:08:42] Ashley Elkins: Hey, that's really an Ashley question. And then the gray areas we just kind of discussed together. 

[00:08:47] Judd Wilson: Yeah, 

[00:08:48] Chris Elkins: yeah. You know, and it's a give and take. It took a long time to learn and that's something that we're constantly evolving, but you know, um, it's both of us, you know, are the kind of people who love to take the [00:09:00] reins and run with something.

[00:09:01] Chris Elkins: Um, and I think, you know, one of the biggest things that I've learned is, you know, learn your own strengths. Learn your own weaknesses, and then lean on, you know, your teammates, your individuals. And for me especially lean on Ashley, um, because there's so many things that she's better at than me. And so, you know, I always have this natural desire to just take the reins I want to do.

[00:09:21] Chris Elkins: I have an idea, I wanna run with it. And sometimes after to. You know, I, I realize, and I've learned over time that you know what other people bring a lot of value to, and she probably has an even better idea. So we, we collaborate a lot. I think that's important. Communication is paramount. Um, but, but knowing your weaknesses and trusting those around you to, um, you know that they have a good idea and, and let them contribute.

[00:09:46] Judd Wilson: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, um, one thing we do on this podcast, we'd love to play clips. We're gonna play a clip now from. Noelle Russell, she was a speaker at, at night. The good thing I love about the Elkins, I always look out, I'm when I, I can see who's [00:10:00] in the audience y'all are always at at night.

[00:10:01] Judd Wilson: So thank you so much for always coming to the at night leadership conference. You had your whole team there it looked like this year. So a lot of good folks here. But Noelle is specializes in ai. So we're gonna listen to this clip and then I want to kind of uncover some AI and some leadership stuff, uh, through that.

[00:10:16] Judd Wilson: So let's listen to this clip. 

[00:10:17] Noelle Russell: It's actually more like baby tigers, which is why I have bruiser here with me. Um. It's more like a baby tiger because when a new AI system co-pilot chat, GPT Gemini comes into your life and you ask it a question, and I have helped design these systems. Our job, the number one goal of this system is that you ask it a question and it gives you an answer, and your reaction is something like, well, that's not terrible.

[00:10:43] Noelle Russell: That's pretty good. I didn't, I never thought it would do that. Even if it's not right. It doesn't, like you're just like, well, that's not terrible. Right. So that's the idea of a baby tiger, right? Is that it's super cute and fluffy. You get a little AI model, it gives you some good answers. You're like, oh my gosh, I love it.

[00:10:58] Noelle Russell: This is it. This is the world you're in. Baby [00:11:00] tigers are everywhere. Every model you use is a baby tiger. But I don't know if you've heard this one, right? Baby tigers become big tigers and big tigers kill people, right? Right. Here's the good news, though. Every good AI system. It doesn't get to great unless it goes through this phase.

[00:11:17] Noelle Russell: So it has to start with the baby tiger. It has to get your attention, it has to get you to go, you're so cute. But then as soon as possible, you wanna be able to trigger your mind to think to yourself, wow, baby tiger. Look at those paws. 

[00:11:30] Judd Wilson: So it sounds like good advice. I know as leaders sometimes you'll hear people say, oh, I, I dabble in ai, or.

[00:11:37] Judd Wilson: Uh, I don't even wanna mess with that because the robots are gonna come and kill us all are, Hey, I'm, I'm too scared. So I, I guess hearing her quote through that, what would you suggest to leaders when they start kind of uncovering AI and then maybe using it as, as a leader in their company? 

[00:11:55] Chris Elkins: Well, so, you know, first what she said with, um, I couldn't [00:12:00] agree more that it, it is like a baby tiger.

[00:12:02] Chris Elkins: You know, it, it draws you in it first because it is neat. There's all these great capabilities creating artwork, creating, you know, the, this promise of, um, being more productive. Um, so, you know, at the same time, you've gotta understand some of the weaknesses about it too. You know that it does have those pauses that can.

[00:12:20] Chris Elkins: That can bite you. Um, you know, right now they're, they really optimize for engagement. Um, you know, and they wanna pr and they do that by providing value, but the engagement's all about keeping you there. So it's, it's not good at saying, I don't know, or not giving you an answer. It will always give you an answer and it wants you to engage with it and, and, you know, they look at time spent in the tool.

[00:12:40] Chris Elkins: Um, you know, so I think it's very, IM important to go in it. It can be such a great tool. I would encourage all leaders to explore it and use it. We're all discovering new ways to use it, um, every day. Uh, at the same time understand its weaknesses, you know, issues around cybersecurity, privacy, um, AI [00:13:00] hallucinations, all these things that that can happen.

[00:13:02] Chris Elkins: And especially now that we're getting into agents and autonomous agents and allowing AI to do workforce, you've gotta really make sure you plan for all the guardrails. Um, checks and balances. You know, a lot of, a lot of leaders go in and they deploy these tools to all their, their employees, and they want them to be more productive, but they didn't plan for maybe some of the guardrails that are needed, you know, about what information went into the system, how much do we trust, what came out of the tool.

[00:13:31] Chris Elkins: Um, you know, there, there's a lot of issues in planning for those. Making sure that, uh, that you've got the right guardrails and checks and balances in place. 

[00:13:41] Judd Wilson: So Ashley, where, where do you think a small business owner, you know, like yourself and somebody that you know, started these businesses and they're growing, what are some good AI tools that they could use to kind of help their business maybe that y'all have used?

[00:13:53] Judd Wilson: Um. 

[00:13:54] Ashley Elkins: So one super powerful way that business owners and employees alike can use AI in their [00:14:00] business is to ask it specifically to role play. Because when you tell it what role it's playing and then you give it questions, you can actually get it to think in those terms. So for example. Pretend that you are my CFO and tell me what I need to do.

[00:14:16] Ashley Elkins: Where is my budget looking? A little fat here. Or you can say, Hey, pretend to be my marketing agency and tell me, you know, what types of questions I should put out there. Um, to ask customers to see, to get some real feedback. And so when you can tell it exactly what role you need it to play, it's like having someone that can ask those questions.

[00:14:36] Judd Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. And that's neat. Where would you maybe see an area. That you wouldn't delegate to ai Maybe. 

[00:14:42] Ashley Elkins: Oh, well, see that's, that's the real question because AI can never discern for you and can never do the thinking. So like you can use a calculator and get an answer and, okay, this answer looks good, but if you don't understand the math and the answer here is a negative and you're expecting a positive, then how do you even [00:15:00] know?

[00:15:00] Ashley Elkins: It. It's not even close. Yeah. And so when I get an answer, I mean, sometimes I have to say, whoa, that's not even close to the direction we were going. And so you have to be a thinker and a discerner, it has to make sense. You don't have to know, you know, if you're trying to speak another foreign language, you don't have to know every word, but you have to know enough words to realize.

[00:15:18] Ashley Elkins: This is not the direction I was planning to go in. Yeah. And so you have to have some familiarity. It's not for people that have never heard of marketing or never heard of math. 

[00:15:27] Judd Wilson: Right. 

[00:15:28] Chris Elkins: Yeah. Right. You know what we like to say too, you know, LMS like Chat, GPT and Gemini, um, is garbage in, garbage out. So you've got to be really explicit.

[00:15:37] Chris Elkins: You've got to have some level of understanding. You can't put too much faith or trust into the tool to just give you something. You've gotta give it a lot of guidance, um, and direction as well. And so I would say you've gotta look at it as a leader in terms of. Um, you know, the amount of risk if you're using it to post on social media, that may be a lot less risky than having it write a contract for you, [00:16:00] where all of a sudden you need to probably spend a lot more time checking through, verifying everything.

[00:16:06] Judd Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So let's talk a little bit about, about. Leadership as well. So you, you mentioned that, you know, you're running these companies, you're doing this stuff. What are some of the things you do as a leader outside of the business that kind of helps let you grow? Whether that's giving back service wise or whatever.

[00:16:26] Judd Wilson: Kind of talk about that help how, how that helps you as a leader as well. So. 

[00:16:32] Ashley Elkins: Anyone that knows me knows that I'm very, very engaged in the community. Yeah, I, I participate a lot with CDF. I'm in other networking groups. I am in, um, service groups. I'm on several boards. And what I like to do is surround myself with people that are better than me, smarter than me, um, have more ideas than me.

[00:16:50] Ashley Elkins: Because when you have a party of one, you have ideas of one. But when you surround yourself with people that have new things that are doing exciting things, then you get to [00:17:00] kind of. Rub elbows with them and ask them a question, learn from them, listen, watch. And it really helps you to be a better business person because of that.

[00:17:08] Ashley Elkins: And I also read a lot. I read a whole lot. And so that helps as well. 

[00:17:12] Chris Elkins: Yeah. And Ashley's always been this way when I met her when we were in college, I think she was in 12 different social clubs, you know, at the, at the w. But you know, it's, you know, she, she's puts in a lot of, um, work and effort going to all of these groups, meeting people, um, you know.

[00:17:28] Chris Elkins: Listening, being an active listener to people and then, you know, ultimately finding ways that we can contribute and help like her, her being on boards and Yeah. Yeah. And other service groups. 

[00:17:38] Judd Wilson: So it kind of goes back to that finding your lane of what you're good at and, and, and leaning on that, but also gaining knowledge from others that.

[00:17:47] Judd Wilson: Where you might have a deficiency, you, you, you've made contact with somebody that, hey, we can kind of maybe reach out to them or, or lean on them a little bit. 

[00:17:54] Ashley Elkins: Absolutely. What you find is, is that most people that have been successful, [00:18:00] first of all, they were helped by somebody else too, and second of all.

[00:18:05] Ashley Elkins: They, um, are happy to help ask 'em a question, they'll tell you an answer. And so when you really just get to know people and you're not taking advantage of them, but you're having a real, I give and I take kind of relationship where it's two-sided, then most people will be willing to do a lot for you.

[00:18:21] Ashley Elkins: Yeah. 

[00:18:22] Judd Wilson: Yeah. 

[00:18:22] Chris Elkins: One other thing I'd add on a, on a, just a very personal level is sometimes it's very important to just, we, we all have, can fall into the trap of, um, getting lost into the, in the day to day. In the work, um, taking the time to actually step away to think about bigger picture items, um, to look holistically at things.

[00:18:41] Chris Elkins: And I think, you know, it's, you've gotta find a way to, to separate yourself from the daily grind, um, to give yourself the time to do that. 

[00:18:50] Judd Wilson: Because if you're always in it 

[00:18:52] Chris Elkins: right, 

[00:18:52] Judd Wilson: you don't look, and kind of as you mentioned earlier. Even when y'all are on vacation, it gives you a time to kind of step away from the business, even though you're on, [00:19:00] but you're, it's okay to talk about the business 'cause you're, you're looking more into the future in, in the bigger picture.

[00:19:05] Chris Elkins: We've had our best ideas. In a pool on vacation. 

[00:19:10] Ashley Elkins: Wow. And that, that's where the idea of vitality south was Cabo, Mexico. We were literally in a hammock beside the beach and we're like, Hey, let's start our own. 

[00:19:18] Chris Elkins: When you are outside of that, that daily grind, yeah. You, and you get to dream, you know, you get to think big.

[00:19:24] Chris Elkins: You get to, um, analyze and think differently. We're not worried about, we've gotta pick up our kids later this evening. What events do we have? You know, um, it's that that's when some of our, our best ideas have happened and we have this joke every year that, oh, I wonder what we'll decide and think of next on this vacation.

[00:19:43] Judd Wilson: Yeah. It's time to, you gotta unplug as leaders to have the vision to go forward. What a great podcast. We've learned so much. You know, only thing I wish if we were in a hammock right now by a pool that maybe made it, made a little bit better. But, but thank y'all so much for what you do in the community.

[00:19:59] Judd Wilson: Thank [00:20:00] you. What you do for entrepreneurship in our area. Uh, you're, you're a, a, a great light to that and, and we just appreciate the great work that both of y'all do. Thank 

[00:20:08] Ashley Elkins: you. 

[00:20:08] Chris Elkins: Thank you 

[00:20:08] Judd Wilson: so 

[00:20:08] Chris Elkins: much. 

[00:20:09] Judd Wilson: Yeah. Good having you here dear.

[00:20:15] Taylor Tutor: Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Ignite Cast, presented by iHeartMedia. For more leadership insights and engaging conversations, be sure to hit subscribe. And if you enjoyed today's episode, we'd love for you to leave a review and remember, go for and do good things.