Be Free And Clear
Helping Current & Future Homeowners find Financial Fulfillment, so they can live free and clear from time, money and life option constraints.
Be Free And Clear
Is AI Replacing Your Job… Or Is It Your Biggest Opportunity?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by AI… or wondering if it’s coming for your job?
In this episode of the Be Free & Clear Podcast, I sit down with AI expert Sarah Montana to break through the noise and give you a completely different way to think about artificial intelligence.
Here’s the truth:
AI isn’t here to replace you.
But it will amplify whatever you’re already doing.
And that’s where most people are getting it wrong.
Sarah shares how she went all-in on AI early, logging over 8,000 hours of experience, and how she’s now helping business owners and professionals use it as a leverage tool, not a crutch.
This isn’t about becoming an AI expert.
It’s about learning how to use it to think better, move faster, and create more opportunity in your life and business.
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
Why AI is NOT a replacement for your thinking, but a multiplier of it
The biggest mistake people make when using tools like ChatGPT
How to use AI as a thought partner instead of just a search engine
Practical ways to use AI in your job or business starting today
How AI can help with budgeting, saving for a home, and financial clarity
The power of personalization at scale (and why it’s a game changer)
How to train AI to sound like YOU, not a robot
Why your “foundation” matters more than prompts
🚀 Key Takeaway:
If AI sounds robotic… it’s not the tool.
It’s how you’re using it.
When trained correctly, AI can think with you, challenge you, and even help you make better financial and business decisions.
🔗 Connect with Sarah Montana
👉 Visit: sarahmontana.ai
(Explore her AI Foundations Workshop and Intensive programs)
🎙 About Be Free & Clear:
This podcast is about more than money.
It’s about aligning your home, finances, and mindset so you can create a life with more clarity, confidence, and freedom.
If you’re tired of doing everything “right” but still feeling stuck… you’re in the right place.
⚠️ Final Thought:
The real risk isn’t AI replacing your job.
It’s someone else learning how to use it… before you do.
Welcome to the Beep Frame Clear Podcast, the show that explores how to create an extraordinary life through your home finances and mindset. My name is John Michaela, your host, a 30-year veteran of the mortgage industry, and the founder of the Beep Frame Clear movement. This podcast is your guide to breaking free from financial stress, getting clear on what you really want, and creating the life you love. Each week, I'll bring you stories, strategies, and insights that challenge conventional thinking, showing you how your home, finances, and mindset can work together. If you've been searching for clarity, confidence, and a new way forward, you're in the right place. This is the Be Free and Clear Podcast. Hey, are you feeling overwhelmed with this artificial intelligence and everything seems to be just coming at us so quickly? Well, if so, I want you just to relax for a moment because we have the most incredible guest with us today. Her name is Sarah Montana. She is an artificial intelligence AI expert. And Sarah's gonna share us, uh, share with us today all kinds of great information and things that are gonna allow you to just downregulate that nervous system, relax into and embrace the whole AI movement. Sarah, welcome and thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Excited to be here. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know who's more excited, like um, like myself and thinking about AI or you know, some of the the folks around me that are are I've been sharing uh that you're gonna be on with us today that and they want to hear kind of the results and and and and listen to the episode. So um, but I'm pretty pretty excited. And before we dive in though, I'd love for you just to share, you know, give a little background, share some light on, you know, uh why, you know, why should we be listening to Sarah Montana about artificial intelligence, you know, where you came from, and and uh and just give us the backstory.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you bet. So I actually have a background in real estate. So I um owned a real estate brokerage in Montana. Uh I built up a portfolio of over 70 rental properties that I have been uh, you know, flipping homes, doing things like that. Um real estate has always been my uh first love and passion. Um I then moved to St. George, Utah. So I act as a supervising broker for Keller Williams there. I built my own team of agents um and sold millions and millions of dollars of real estate. Um, but as I had a transition in 2020, um I sold one of my real estate properties and I had a little bit of time to kind of like figure out what I was doing with my life. And that was right at the time where Chat GBT came out. And I was on a trip and I saw it and it was like, oh my gosh, this is the next internet. And I essentially was like, I'm gonna go all in on this. And I dove in head first and I didn't really have a map to follow because there wasn't one. Um, and I essentially just dove in and I now am probably over 8,000 hours into AI and AI experience, and I found just huge amounts of leverage and impact in my own business, and uh I have been doing it ever since. So I absolutely love it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what and you know it's interesting that um you you know you you made a great comment that like you wanted to learn about it, but there was nothing, you know, there's nothing available, right? Like it was self-taught. You had to you had to break blaze the trail essentially through that. And so I can only imagine for a lot of folks out there seeing how fastly this, you know, how fast this is evolving, um the and and feeling that overwhelm. Like, what would you say is like like what what do you how can you differentiate like what's really happening, what the hype is, what people should really be concerned or excited about. Like, can you give some insight as from your opinion what that looks like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. It's definitely moving so quickly, and I can understand how it can get overwhelming. Um, you know, most people are thinking like, oh my gosh, AI is going to solve everything. It's, you know, this completely magic wand. And while it is, that's true. Um, people need to realize that AI is a leverage tool. It's not a replacement for like judgment or you know, your own um intellectual thinking. And so it can process things faster than any other human can. It can recognize patterns, um, it can handle repetitive work and all of those things, but it's going to amplify what it is that you're already doing. So if you're already, if you're disorganized and you don't have your shiz together, like it's going to amplify that. So I think really it's about um leaning in and learning one tool and really understanding the the impact of it. And my the hill I die on is that you don't need another prompt, you need a better foundation. So taking the time to actually train it so that you can actually get the outputs that you want, not just randomly using it as a search engine or being like, hey, let's write a blog post, but not giving it any type of context. Uh, that to me is the biggest mistake that I see people making. Um, and they're gonna, you know, fall for the hype of like, oh, this is you know gonna make this huge difference in my business, but if they don't train it correctly, it's just gonna amplify crap.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. No, that makes a ton of sense. I've actually kind of experienced that um in in you know my dealings with with AI and kind of what what it looks like if you're not um if you're not headed down that kind of foundational path that you talked about. What about for like what about for um you know let's say uh a person that's working somewhere, they're you know, they're on a job and they're they're either maybe they're worried about like being replaced by AI or they're seeing it and they're like, man, I'm trying to do my job. Now I've got to become an AI expert. Are what are some of the tools that you've seen that are just like practical applications that again, like you said, that allow for them to you have that as a leverage, you know, a lever to pull versus you know being afraid of it or you know, trying to find time to become an expert like you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think it's you know kind of changing the paradigm of you don't need to become an AI expert. You're already an expert on what it is that you do. So if you can use AI to become your thought partner to essentially take the things that you're already good at or that are already in your brain and allow it to pull those things from you. So one of the questions that I really like to ask or put into AI is what questions do you need to ask me in order to know what I what you need to help me accomplish the task that I'm trying to do? So if you're in your day-to-day life, literally go to it and say, This is who I am, this is my job, and these are the things that I do on a day-to-day basis. How can you help me? How can you create things better, faster, stronger, and then have it interview you? And so don't think you have to automate every single thing. You don't need to be building like these big custom tools. Use it as a thought partner in what you're already doing, and you'll see the doors, you know, blow wide open of like it'll really expand your mind and your capacity of what it can help you do. A lot of people are using AI like a search engine right now, and that's really not what it is. And so it's really a continuation of your own thought patterns, and so you it needs to learn how you're thinking so that it knows how to answer the way that's going to be appropriate for what you want.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love that. That is that it that in itself is gold right there. That that just that one that one line you just gave is like phenomenal because I can I can see that. Um I can I can see where people would feel that way, and even for myself, like, oh gosh, yeah, I am kind of using it more along the lines of like like auditing and you know, searching versus you know actually using it as as intelligence to to help support me. So um, hey, what about all the different types of AI tools that are out there? You know, it's like everybody says, you know, I I say everybody, but a lot of times uh chat GPT comes up, but then on top of it, now there's Claude and Manis and Gamma. What what what how do people um identify what tools they should be using? Is it I mean experimentation? Is it like like leaning into somebody like you that says like go in this direction if you're trying to do it? Like what's the best route for for that?
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, there's a couple different things. Obviously, like someone like me, it's like I spend like $4,000 a month on AI tools. And so, like, I run groups where it's like you're paying me for that extra leverage of like I'm gonna tell you which ones are good and which ones aren't, so that you're not having to like get into the rabbit hole. Um, but what I would recommend is to choose a tool, like figure out what to do it, what you're doing, maybe do a little bit of research, see which one's going to work well, and then lean in and actually use it. So the AI tool that's the best is the one that you've actually trained and it knows and understands you. The LLMs, it is a race. They're all like, yes, Claude right now is great for copywriting. Perplexity is great for research. Um, uh Chat GPT, I like because you can do custom GPTs and you can really like hone in on a process. Um, but honestly, the one that you're actually using and talking to on a daily basis, um, recording all of your conversations, whether it's a sales call, whether it's brainstorming with your team members, if it's team meetings, um even just like in the car randomly thinking through your business, recording those things and dumping that into an AI tool is going to give you so much valuable information as it learns who you are and what it is that you're trying to do. Like that would be my number one thing is literally get a voice recorder. So like I just use the native one on my iPhone. Um, otter is signed into all of my Zoom calls, things like that. Just getting that context is what's so important. Um, now, like Gamma, for example, is amazing when it comes to creating presentations. Um, so I do love that if you are, you know, creating maybe a listing presentation or doing something for a client, like you can um very quickly do things with gamma, but even the regular LLMs are getting so good with pictures right now. Uh Nano Banana just got upgraded, and so you can do amazing things with pictures right now. Um one of the things that I love is Manaus, and so Manaus is a little bit different, it is not an LLM. So, like Claude and Grok and Anthropic, those are language models. Okay, and Manaus is like an agentic platform that's using all of them, so it's essentially an agent that has access to all of those different language models that can do multiple processes at one time. So rather than saying, like, go and research this thing for me, I can literally literally give it an entire task of I want you to go and research my competitors, then I want you to go and find, you know, who my target persona is, and then I want you to write a blog post, and then I want you to read the blog post from the persona and then give me feedback on what they think about it, and then write me a five-part follow-up sequence from it. And it would do all of those things at one time, and it might use perplexity to go and do the research, then it might use Claude to actually write it. Um, and so it's it gives you a much more robust access to all of those tools. So that's why I use mana specifically, but it can get a little bit expensive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, wow, that the that that starts to feel a little overwhelming. I but but but I got I got this question because this popped up as you're you're saying off, like, wow, the the power behind this is amazing. What what's what has been the most shocking or impressive thing that you've seen in AI? Like you're like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that it can do this, or or the results maybe from something. Like, what what do you think?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I obviously every single day there's something new that's coming out. Um, I do love now connectors are probably one of my favorite things, and that is allowing the AI to connect to other tools that are in your tech stack. So, you know, one thing would be I had a client and we attached it to their HubSpot and we found like $8.7 million in unaccounted revenue that it was like, oh, like this wasn't, it wasn't, it was just wasn't being tracked correctly, or being able to go in and attach it to your meta ad suite and being able to have it analyze, like I'm not an ads expert. So it can go in and look at all of the data and say, hey, this one is is winning. You should turn this ad off and you should add more ads than to this one because the analytics are showing that this is better. Um, or being able to go into and connect it to um Canva or connect it to ClickUp, for example. Like I am not an operator, like I'm not super organized in that regard, but I know I need it. And so ClickUp, a task management tool, is something that's kind of like a necessary evil in my business, but I've connected it to my AI so that I can say, hey, add in, you know, preparing for the podcast with John, um, and then remind me that I need to like pick up such and such at the grocery store, and I can say that into my AI, and it's connected to my ClickUp. So clickup then is is watching all those things, but I don't ever have to even log in to actually put all those things in my list. So it's things like that that I think is what I think is so powerful right now is being able to really have everything in your ecosystem all connected to the AI.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What what about um what about um for for like personal finance? So uh for example, like a you know, a first-time home buyer, someone that's uh trying to get acclimated to finances and or you know owning their first home, what are some applications the AI could present to them uh to help you know make progress or have you know relieve some stress? I mean, those types of things.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, same thing, like connecting it to whatever uh, you know, like I use QuickBooks. So I gave it a login to my QuickBooks and it went in and analyzed. So it can analyze spending, you could give it goals and it could create a little dashboard for you of like, hey, I'm trying to save for a $20,000 down payment. Um, you know, how this is my monthly income, these are my expenses, and it could go and analyze all your expenses of like, hey, you know, you're spending $100 a month on Starbucks, like going and buying this, you know, $200 coffee machine is gonna make it so that you get to your goals that much faster. Or um even analyzing like what loan products are out there, or um maybe different job opportunities, or like helping you brainstorm a side hustle to help you, you know, increase your revenue. I mean, there's just the possibilities are endless.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, that fits right into our B framework. So it's like you've met it perfectly. I love that. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you could literally build a chat agent that was like reminding you on a daily basis of your goals of like, hey, like I just saw in your credit card statement another fast food thing, and like we talked about it last week. Like, are you actually committed to this? Like, you could literally have it be your accountability partner or like your budgeting partner of like helping you map out your grocery list for the month. Like, there's just so many things of like once you let the juices start flowing, like you can do so much with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it actually feels like it's it feels almost like this uh creation upon creation type of thing, right? Like you get into it and it just you you blow the doors off with with with however creative you can literally be in and feed it. So what what do you see in um like untapped opportunities? What are some what are some things that are on the horizon, you know, because it is moving really fast and who knows the rise, it could be like just a couple months away. But what are some opportunities that you see for people uh to you know to to to move into to personal benefit, maybe even economic gain? Like what are some things that could could help folks with uh with a you know the the the progression of AI?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so right now I feel like everyone's talking about automation of like, oh, I automated everything, like I never have to touch anything again. And to me, like while that's cool, it can get very complicated and it's sometimes just not necessary. To me, where I think AI can shine, especially in like mortgage and real estate or really any business, is personalization at scale. So being able to write a blog post for a first-time home buyer about like what they're worried about, what the things that they're thinking about, that is a very different target audience than someone that is an upgrade buyer or someone that just moved into town that is being uh you know transferred for their job. Those are very different target demographics. And it used to be something of like I would try to write this generalized post about, you know, buying a new home, but I couldn't really speak to the pain of the new home buyer and the person that's on their fifth or sixth home. Um, but it would have taken me way too much time to write those personalized emails or personalized blog posts. And so being able to really hone in on your target audience and write personalized emails, follow-up, um, even like creating videos for them, all those things, you can create all of this stuff at scale, but have it hyper-personalized so that you really are um you know triggering those pains for people, I think that is going to make the biggest impact in people's businesses because that alone will increase your revenue exponentially if you're really feeling your customers are going to feel heard and understood.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's interesting as I've um as I've been um involved with AI, like doing the you know the things that I'm uh in working with inside of my business. What I have found is that um it it truly is a tool. I'm not using it to like replace my writing, I'm using it more for like you're explaining about creation because it it does it does feel like in the marketplace, and I've had some conversation with friends about this that you know you can almost fit it, uh pick it out when it comes through your email, or you get you know, you get the phone call with the the the AI voice. It's it they're they're really close, but you can get a sense like, oh gosh. So it really does become kind of that leverage tool versus like replacement, at least from what I'm seeing right now. What are your thoughts about that?
SPEAKER_00So, my thought on that is that if it sounds AI and robotic, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00You haven't trained it enough. And so, like, I can write an email or a blog post that sounds exactly like I wrote it, like I typed it with my thumbs. And so if it's getting that, like, oh, I can spite spot spot this from a mile along, it's because you haven't given it enough training. So taking that and putting in your voice, and you, you know, take the tent, I mean, you've been in the mortgage industry for 30 years, like give it every blog post or every nerd newsletter or every article or every email that you've written for the past two decades, put that in and it's going to learn. Oh, when John writes an email, this is what it sounds like. Like I would never start my email with, I hope this email finds you well. Like every AI, if you do not explain to it, hey, I'm Sarah Montana and I'm a badass bitch, and this is how I talk. Like I am like my business bestie. Like I and all my emails with chat soon. And even with my clients, I say with, I say, Hey John, like, how you doing? Like, I'm very informal in that regard. And so if I take the time and energy to say, this is what success looks like, this is what it looks like when I send an email to a client, this is what it looks like when I write a blog post. I start here, I unpack this, I give the impact, like whatever it is, of these are the frameworks that I follow. So taking your brain and really extracting, we all have systems and processes, even if we don't know it. Like you have a cadence and a way that you work and talk. You may not have written it down, you might not have an SOP for it. But if you actually go and ask AI, hey, how do I write a blog post? Like this is here's five of them. What frameworks do you see? What nuances are you seeing in my tonality, in my verbiage? Like what makes it feel authentic to me, then you can actually say, write me a five-part email sequence. And when you get done reading it, you'll be like, Yeah, I wrote that 100%. Because it was my brain that it was trained on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Have you worked with anyone that's doing like um like uh wealth building strategies? I know you alluded to it a little bit, like for that first-time home buyer. Let's say somebody, you know, that's um maybe approaching retirement and um and they're starting to freak out over where I'm seeing a lot of stuff out there nowadays about like the 4% rule, and you know, a million dollars is no longer enough to retire, and a lot of people are getting like freaked out over that. Have you seen anyone uh that or that you've been involved with that's using AI and the you know the wealth arena to help provide better strategies or you know direction?
SPEAKER_00So I don't know that I have like the exact answer for this. Um one thing that I kind of I know I've already touched on this, but dashboards I think are super important, having a place where all of your data is there. So if you have an investment portfolio, if you have certain stocks that you're looking at, that this is not stock advice, but it's like have it go and analyze the trends of like deciding where you're maybe wanting to put your money next or like what things in your portfolio have been working well over the past several years and where you want to lean into. Um, but really having those like dashboards and then having it be your partner. Partner of like, hey, I'm 42 and I have this much in real estate, like residual revenue coming in, but realistically I'm gonna stop working here. Like, talk to me about it. What like think about inflation and think about what is gonna be going? Like, help me unpack these things. Like, am I okay? Literally asking those questions. And then if it's like, no, you're in deep shit, like, okay, let's figure this out. Like, help me come with up with a step-by-step plan. These are my skill sets, these are the things that I'm good at. This is my current business. This is what I'm doing right now. What actions do I need to take in order to get to where I'm not gonna be in trouble in 10 years? And literally using it as your partner.
SPEAKER_02Yes, sir. That is amazing. I, you know, what I'm what I'm getting from this is each time I ask a question, what what I'm sensing and and getting uh getting from you is going back to your um the comment you made earlier about like the the the creation part of it, that it's it's wide open, that this really allows you like the deeper you go with your own critical thinking and giving it the input, the the better it's gonna be. So what I I get I guess that's gonna lead me kind of into this segue for people that are like, okay, I really want to learn this. I don't have eight eight thousand hours though, like Sarah, and I want to take some shortcuts. Um, are there some things that you can offer people that you have put together that can help them, you know, take a fast track? And you know, because time and money, you know, those are two things that like you know, they they can work interchangeably. And and boy, there are really some shortcuts that I've experienced by you know, by some reasonable investments. So would you have some of uh some opportunities available for folks?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. I want to hit on one more point you had said about from the last question. Um, the other thing is, you know, they used to say that you can find anything on the internet for free, like go to YouTube if you want to learn how to change a tire, go to YouTube or whatever. But right now, like we do have such an amazing opportunity to learn from the greats. And so the other thing that I really recommend is taking people that you admire and that you aspire to their business practices, like Dan Martell and Talkie Moore and Brendan Bouchard and um all these people, like in the real estate space, you've got, you know, all these amazing people of like the one thing and like all these different uh real estate experts and all those things. Take their books, take their methodologies and train it so that you can then ask it questions. So train it to be your coach of I follow this, you know, I follow Gary Vanderchuk for social media, I follow Alex Hermozzi for this, and literally give it those methodologies and frameworks and put it all into one thing that can be your thought partner of like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this in my business, like what can I do now? And get that advice from those personas, and that's gonna be a huge unlock for you as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, as far as like really learning the foundations, uh, that to me is the most important thing. And when I say foundations, I don't mean just like, you know, dabbling with AI, I mean extracting your own brain and creating knowledge documents that are going to be the foundation of everything else that you do. If you take the time and energy to unpack like who you are, what you do, who you serve, what their problems are, what your, you know, your social media strategy is, and you put those all into knowledge documents and you attach that to whatever language model you use, um everything going forward is gonna be that much better. So I have an AI Foundations class. It's a three-hour live workshop. It's $500. I promise you it will be the best $500 you have ever spent. Uh, and you will get back hours upon hours every week exponentially. Uh, so that is a great option. Um, I also have a two-day AI intensive that is a $3,000 program. It's again two days online where we essentially build your full foundations. We map out all those documents, and then we build a full like marketing suite for you for doing newsletters, for doing email marketing, for creating social media content. And so that would be a really good way. Um, it's kind of my 8,000 hours bundled into a like, this is everything that you need to know to really become dangerous with AI.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's amazing. I'm gonna go through and uh see if I can get uh I want to post here for just a second for uh for our viewers on YouTube uh to go ahead and look and see that we've got uh Sarah, it's Sarah Montana.ai. So if you're listening um through the podcast, it's Sarah Montana.ai. Uh grab the screenshot of this real quick, though, if you're on YouTube, so you can head over to Sarah's website and get that information. Because gosh, I I I totally agree with you, Sarah, when it comes to um an investment, and I we say it in beef frame clear that you will never get a better return anywhere um on your money than putting it into yourself. And this what a great opportunity you're presenting for people uh for this, you know, this new evolution, this new generation of um, because we really have evolved, right? From the industrial age to the information and technology age to now we're moving into really the intelligence age and and you would you have the the capacity to to help folks you know be the be on the cutting edge of that.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, love it. I love it. It I hope that it all the things that we've been chatting about have been helpful. And um, if you do nothing else, just take the time and go and talk to your AI and have it ask you questions, have it interview you. That's a really good way to start.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. Sarah, thank you so much for being here. I hope my our listeners and viewers can appreciate the value provided because I feel like this is in itself, they're getting it for free, but you've just given a $10,000 masterclass here in the last half an hour. So we appreciate you uh being here with us so much. And we look forward to uh bringing additional opportunities along uh along the way. So thank you again.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.