Stay Curious Always | Nick Priest | Full Battery Media

I sat down with Nick Priest and we went deep on what content has become and what it should be, from chasing dopamine and algorithms to rediscovering curiosity, education, and meaning in what we create. 

We talked about why most brands are just making noise, how asking why changes everything, and how the best content doesn’t chase attention, it earns it by actually helping people. If you’re building anything today, this conversation might shift how you think about your entire strategy. 

Are you creating content to be seen or content that actually matters?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Praise and push. Right. Um, I say you guys need to learn how to praise yourselves, right? Find the moment of uh accomplishment and the thing that you've done, and then recognize where you can push yourself. I said, because no one else is gonna do either of those things for you in life, right? Once I'm gone from this earth, no one's gonna say, hey, I'm proud of you. Right. And you'll be chasing that moment. I said, but if you can teach yourself how to be proud of yourself for the thing that you did, right, for dragging that horse across the finish line and finishing the thing, right? You can say, I'm proud of that, but acknowledge that that is not as good as you can get. And that's where you got to push yourself, because people are always looking to push you down. But you have to be able to march back into the world and say, no, I can do that. Don't tell me I can't do that, right? I know I have it in me to do that. And if I can, I'm gonna figure out how to do it, you know, because because that's the goal I have for myself. So I try to try to break it down because again, if you want to inspire that curiosity, you have to do it through that positive self-building, you know. Um, and and that's persistent through everything in life. I'm like from cleaning your room to to taking care of yourself to work to to whatever it is. Like that's that's the that balance you have to to to build for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Welcome everybody back to the Full Battery Media Podcast. I am your host, Sean Trace. I'm happy to be with you. I've got an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, yeah. So uh my name is Nick Priest, and uh I work um in healthcare marketing. Um, and so, you know, for the majority of my career, um, I have worked in pharmaceutical, uh rare disease, and now medical device uh advertising and marketing. Um I worked for agencies and I work uh currently uh in-house at uh GE Healthcare. Um and it is a it is a pretty uh incredible job, you know. Uh it provides you the opportunity to be creative and you know, create content and um, you know, be a part of the thing that you know makes a lot of creatives tick uh while also you know kind of doing something a little altruistic and helping people um, you know, identify the things that are going to help them uh from a health perspective.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

I love that, man. I I I love a couple layers of that because we see content everywhere in our lives these days. You know, content marketing is essentially marketing now. I mean, it is really where it's at. And people forget, though, that it's still an instrument for change. I come from an educational background, and I firmly believe that content marketing should be a type of education where we're teaching people and helping them get better skills to interact with our world, to learn about art, music, science, health, whatever it might be that we want to share with them. You know, if you're a musician, educate people on great music. If you are, you know, working in the health sector, educate people on how to be healthy. You know, it it to me, um, there is so much that can be done with content. But I wanted to ask you some questions because you've got uh such a cool background and you you talk a lot about curiosity and childlike wonder, which I love because I used to teach kids. When did you personally feel like you lost that? And how'd you get it back with your content?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah. Um, you know, it's it's funny. Um, you know, you you can easily lose it, right? And I think like uh, you know, especially in the in the early 2000s when when clickbait really became the tactic for folks, um, you know, I think it became about capturing numbers and not about capturing people's attention. Right. Um to your point about you know, the idea of um, you know, educating people, right? Is that it it stopped being about that, stopped being about sharing information, it started being about let me have your attention, right? And I think that we even see that now, still today, you know, is that um, you know, apps like TikTok and you know, uh Instagram, right? And even, you know, social media platforms like like Facebook, they're so quick to just try and get your attention in in that scroll, right? Yeah, uh, that they aren't taking the time to educate. And now the audience is becoming so focused on the dopamine hit, completely unaware, right, that that's what they're chasing, um, that they're missing things, you know, and we're actually building our own echo chambers, whichever direction they stand. Um, you know, because you got an echo chamber full of, you know, twinkies and nutter butters, right? It doesn't matter what it is. Um and we're not we're not chasing education. I I say to my kids and to my to my nephew all the time, I'm like, you live in a in a time as a kid where you have unfettered access to quite literally almost anything that you could possibly want to know. And yet I find you watching Minecraft tutorials, right? I'm like, fine, that's fine. It's it's all well and good, I guess. But like when I was a kid, right? And I I know I was a bookworm, I was a bit of a nerd, fine, whatever. Right. But like I would I would go and like throughout the week, like make a list of like things that I was like, oh, I have a question about this, right? Oh, you know, dinosaurs or whatever, right? And then I would get on my bike and I would bike up to the library, and I would grab the friggin' Dewey Decimal card system and and go look it, right? But like that's how I had to access information for years, right? And kids don't have to do that, right? It's like, no, dude, pull out your phone, pull out your iPad, hop on your computer because you've you've got three devices in your house, right? And like let yourself down a rabbit hole of curiosity, you know. And so to actually answer your question, um, you know, after a few years of working, you know, I realized that I was just kind of like processing requests, right? I wasn't asking why, right? And I remember, you know, um I had a a boss who uh was like, listen, I don't like making get. And I was like, what's what is the what? What is that? Right. And he's like, people will come to you and ask for things and they don't even know why they're asking for it. They just know that it's a metric they're tracking.

unknown 6:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

It's your job to ask them why they need it. At the end of the day, you will probably still have to make it, but you will force them to have to ask the question why to themselves. And that's a gift that you can give them as they move through life, right? And like as I sat with this, I was like, you're right. Like, why are we not asking why more often? Right? Why are we just taking everything as is and just processing, you know, like like cogs in a gear system, you know?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Um, so that was kind of like what what the the impetus of you know the whole thing kind of kicked off as.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

I it's interesting too, because what you're talking about is you're preaching to the choir right now for me. One of the things that I I've been looking at, and is is something that is is very front of mind in anything that I'm doing content-wise, is this. Um, I've had when I go and approach people for when I go and approach people for my daughter's YouTube channel, I line it's a world podcast for whatever it might be, I sit there and I think about the great conversations. So I had this one guy the other day, and he was like, Well, tell me your metrics, tell me your numbers. And I'm like, it's a new, you know, it's not gonna be where you want it to be. Like, if that's the question we're leading off with, I will tell you right now, it's not where you want it to be. And yet, this is the conversation I want to have because I think that the knowledge you have is so interesting. And you know what? And I I'm the type that person that I'm relentless. Like, I will keep this up. I'm not the type of guy that, you know, in two months this podcast is gonna be done. No, dude, like that's not who I am. And that's just the type my wife, we just finished a music project that was three years in the making, and everyone went bailed on it, and I was dragging that dead body to the finish line. But when it got there, it was it's one of the best things that we've done yet. It's such a masterpiece of a song, and that's to me important. And so when I talk to people like that song, again, the same type of thing. The numbers were not there, the promise wasn't there, but we created absolute art. And I'm not saying every single podcast is absolute art, but I'm saying that when you focus on the right things and when you focus on educating people, and when you focus on like when I go about creating questions for people, I I try to dumb, I use AI, I use ChatGPT and Claude to help me kind of scrub data and to think about look at people's backgrounds. And then I'm like, all right, you guys are it's way more thinking in this. 10-year-old is is getting this information. How can we dumb this the fuck down? How can we take this down to the lowest level because and people can get something out of it? Because to me, that's the educational point. And what what what actionable questions can I create that people can actually go, wow, that episode gave me something I can do.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah. And that's the thing, right? Is is to to take the notion of education and feed it to people in a way that they're currently receiving information, right? And I think that's why so many folks are latching onto content marketing, right? Because they're like, oh, there's a there's a story in here that I'm willing to listen to, right? There are there are sound bites in here that that really attracted me. And then all of a sudden I knew X, Y, and Z, right? And and people who aren't storytellers are finally catching on to the importance of storytelling, right? Um, and and you know, that's like has that has kind of like been my shtick, right? Is you know, use curiosity, use that why as the as the way in to hook people, right? It's not clickbait, it's interest, right? Drive interest and and then open their world to that that space, that topic, whatever it is, right? Um, and it's it's it's so important, you know. And you know, I that's that's why I say like you have to take that playbook from from kids, right? Like take that page and be like, lead with curiosity, you know, don't don't lead with, you know, because I want, don't lead with um, you know, because I don't like, right? Don't lead with with anger or frustration, right? Lead with curiosity. You know, it's it's how kids literally literally move through the world, right? You know, what's that? Why? Why? Why? What's that? Why? Yeah, right. Yes, or answer the question, engage, you know. There's yes, it it feels frustrating because our expectations of uh as adults are different, right? We've been we've been given this this responsibility and we don't um we don't harness it for what it could be used for, we conform to the system, um, whatever that system might be. And there's a certain sense of irony in that that I like to point out to people, which is never forget that any system that exists was created by people. Therefore, it can be changed by people. And as long as we continue to ask why and we continue to be curious and we continue to evolve, then guess what? Over time, those systems will change, right? And they will change to fit the need of society, of people or of that segment of people or whatever it might be. And people need to be open to that, right? And of course, change is one of the hardest things that we have to do as creatures, you know. But it and it's funny, uh, last night I was talking to my kids because my kids hate cleaning their rooms, right? Like any kid, right? And uh I'm trying to teach them this idea of um praise and push. Right. Um I love that. I say you guys need to learn how to praise yourselves, right? Find the moment of uh accomplishment and the thing that you've done, and then recognize where you can push yourself. I said, because no one else is gonna do either of those things for you in life, right? Once I'm gone from this earth, no one's gonna say, Hey, I'm proud of you. Right. Yeah. And you'll be chasing that moment. I said, but if you can teach yourself how to be proud of yourself for the thing that you did, right, for dragging that horse across the finish line and finishing the thing, right? You can say, I'm proud of that, but acknowledge that that is not as good as you can get. And that's where you got to push yourself because people are always looking to push you down. Right. You have to be able to march back into the world and say, no, I can do that. Don't tell me I can't do that. Yeah, right. I know I have it in me to do that. And if I can, I'm gonna figure out how to do it, you know, because because that's the goal I have for myself. So I try to try to break it down because again, if you want to inspire that curiosity, you have to do it through that positive self-building, you know? Yeah. Um, and and that's persistent through everything in life. I'm like from cleaning your room to to taking care of yourself to work to to whatever it is. Like that's that's the that balance you have to to to build for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

One of the things to, and I'm not I'm gonna push on content, and maybe people can be like, that's the wrong bit of advice. I am tired of people hearing telling me of like chase the algorithm, chase this, chase the chase what you think. For my daughter's channel, Ailani's Little World. We started interviewing um all of these scientists, like started mixed podcast kids stuff, you know, where Eilani gets to meet these cool scientists and we interview them kind of podcast style. We're kind of doing some green screen stuff. It's cool, it's new. No one else is kind of doing that right now. And you know what? It's freaking fun, and she enjoyed it. She likes talking to these scientists, she likes talking to these people. And then I talked to some people and were like, you're doing your channel wrong. You're you're going the wrong path because you know, and I was just like, and like, because you you deviated from the norm and you went left with the algorithm wants you to go right, stay on the right. I was like, dude, my daughter's talking to cool scientists, and if the algorithm's not recording, like like rewarding us for that, the algorithm sucks. Like at that point in time, that's where it's at. And so for me, what I think we should be doing is not chasing the algorithm, but chasing great content, crazy, chasing like the I will do that. My daughter's popped in to tell me to turn off the lights. Uh, chasing great meaning, chasing great meaning. You know, like my my my little like person that reminds me of what we're doing is right there. Today, my wife was singing a song, and after all that's going on in the world and all the craziness, uh, she wanted to sing the world. Yeah, I don't know if I said this. My wife is a famous singer in Vietnam. And so she she does cool stuff, and she wanted to do a cover of the song We Are the World, you know, the old 80s song, because it was a time where people came together and talked about, you know, all the stuff that was going down and all the drama. And she's like, I think our world needs that type of message right now. I was like, I think so as well. And as I'm filming that, I realized, you know what, some people might not even a lot of people probably don't even know what this song is, you know, especially some of the younger generation. But does that mean that we shouldn't do it? Does that mean we should only focus on the stuff that's gonna get us high reward? Or maybe we release something that's actually meaningful or meaningful to us, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Right. Yeah, people, you know, it's funny. Whenever you hear someone say, hey man, you know, stick with the algorithm, or hey man, you know, like that this is the way things are, right? It's like so, so when you are is a follower. Right? Or you're afraid to lead. And that's okay, right? Like, I'm not I'm not knocking you for that, but like you should recognize that in yourself, right? Is that you don't you don't want to lead, right? You want to, you know, follow the crowd because that's the comfortable path, right? Um, and I mean, you know, Robert Frost, right? The road less less taken, right? Um, or less traveled. Um there's there's beauty in forging a path, right? Um, you know, and no, the the goal of forging that path is not because you're looking to be followed. The goal in forging that path is because that is the path you want to take, right? Because because you see beauty down that path, because you see opportunity down that path, because you see whatever it is you see ahead that says, yeah, this way, man. Right. And I think that's like what's beautiful about your dog's, you know, uh YouTube channel right now is you guys are creating something because you see beauty and value in it. Right. Yeah. And from that, right, perhaps people will also begin to follow. Like, think about unboxing videos or tutorial videos, right? Like somebody, hey, you know what? Like, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna open this in front of a camera and I'm gonna talk about it. And then someone else was like, hey, like that's getting clicks. I'm gonna go do that too. And now it's a thing, right? But it's a thing because people made it a thing. It's not like this is like, you know, uh again, staying on the on the content path. This is like, you know, in the in the early 2000s when people were like, How do we go viral?

unknown 17:45

Right?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Like, you know, I'm I'm hiring to make me go viral. You're already gonna fail. You're not gonna go viral because you want to go viral, right? Like you can't impress upon a group of people an action because you want it to happen in an in an organic way, right? Like you're you're naturally making it inorganic by doing that, right? Right. Um, you know, it's it's like the that that you know law of science that's like, you know, just by observing something, we're changing it. Right. Yeah. Um and and people have a hard time acknowledging that. Um, you know, but like for me, you know, when you when you create an ecosystem of content, right? Because like that's the when you when you talk about content from a from a corporate perspective or from a business perspective, right? Like the goal is to create an ecosystem. It's like, well, why? It's like because the goal isn't to go out and like grab someone and shove them down my sales funnel. The goal is to put stuff out into the world that they then find, right? And then they can build that path for themselves. And eventually they're gonna go, yeah, you know what? This is the right choice. I mean, think about how much how much effort you might put into looking for a consumer-based product, right? Because like I know that like when I go to like buy a robot vacuum or I go to buy whatever it is, really. Like, I'm like, okay, like what's what am I looking for? What's in the market, what's out there? And I wind up doing hours, days, weeks worth of research, depending on you know how much money I had to spend. And if if at the first touch point it was a salesperson calling me, I'd be like, yeah, no, we're not talking. I I'll do this on my own. I'll I'll inform myself and we'll talk later, right? And that's kind of really where we are as a society. We're we're a society of self-curators, right? There's so much content in the world that we're the ones now looking for. We don't need to be sold. We need to be provided information and educated. Um, and when you do that, when you seed with good information, people will will come to you, right? Yeah. And and then from there, you know, you can take over a natural sales funnel, you can do whatever it is you want to do. But you know, you have to provide a good narrative. You have to provide the content, give it to the to the people, and the people will figure it out. You know. Um, I know people will disagree with that, right? They'll say no, you know, force them down the hole and give them what you know you, you know, they they don't realize they need, right? And I would say that that's a path towards hypercapitalism in which you know everyone loses.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Um, but you know, I'm just a writer, so I I agree with you, man, because one of the things too is like you hear people and they just preach about authenticity left and right right now. And like, but the thing is, is they're like there was this one, I don't know what Adam Sandler movie it was, but Steve Buscemi was trying to play like a high school kid, and he's like, Yeah, I'm a high school guy, and like you just look at him and going, it was obvious that he wasn't, you know, and it's like just like every time I feel like a brand trying to dress themselves up, going, Yeah, we're authentic. The only one that I see absolutely crushing it right now is Wendy's, and their roasting of the McDonald's CEO for his small bite has been the most brutal highlight I've seen. And I don't, I think that they just let their social media to department have free reign and just be like, guys, have fun, you know, and and they just go to town. But I wanted to ask you this question because a lot of brands literally overcomplicate things. For you, what's the simplest version of great content that actually works today?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

You know what's funny is that if this was five years ago, I'd say I would say it would be the website and email. Right. Um but the world has changed so fast in five years that we're still trying to figure out what the best way to get a hold of people really is. Right? Um because Email doesn't work the way it used to, right? I mean, think about how many things that you're subscribed to that you just delete on a daily or weekly basis, right? You don't even open it. You know, and and for companies where they value the click-through rates, right? They value the open rates, they're like, oh my gosh, like no one's opening our emails, right? No one's reading this stuff. Or, or it it's every week it's dropping off, or you know, whatever it is. I think that what has to work is a better strategy going forward than today, which is we don't know who we're talking to, right? Or we know a general audience that we're talking to. We don't really know our audiences, plural. Um and we're not we're not building a I'll call it a tree of a tree of content opportunity for folks, where people can find their way in based on who they are. Right. Because think of think of the touch points, right? Man, I mean, like, you know, like I might I might see a brand for the first time on Instagram, you know, and be like, what's this? You know, I might see, you know, a random, you know, uh ad on a billboard and be like, what's that? Right. Like there, there is content is is everywhere. Like we are saturated in in content, and it's getting worse every day. That like, where do I even look? You know, um, and it and it changes by market, right? So, you know, in in the med-device healthcare space, we're talking to healthcare providers, we're talking to hospitals, right? Like, you know, the the products that that we're typically talking about are not really focused on by patients. Um, but is there an opportunity, right? In a in a in a market where uh you know patients are constantly self-educating before they head in for any kind of procedure, right? I want to know what equipment's being used, right? Like, is that where things are going? Maybe. I don't know. You know, I I hate the I I almost hate the idea of that because it feels like you're almost over-commercializing something that shouldn't be commercialized. Right. Yeah. Um in that particular space. Right. But think about how much, how much, how many marketing dollars people puts into you know, beauty shots. Right. They they, you know, make your mouth water with with you know the sex appeal of you know hard metal I've I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. Oh. Um, you know, and so you know, it's a it's a hard question to answer, and and one that I think is gonna be slightly different for everyone. But I truly believe that if you lead with true authenticity, to your point, right? And you educate and you put the information out into the world at the right places for the for your audience, you're gonna succeed. You're gonna just just by default, you're gonna. Authentic brands, we don't talk about enough. Yeah. You know, because because they aren't dumping millions and millions of dollars into marketing material. They're they they know who their audience is, they're leaving their their content where it needs to be left, and they're stepping back. You know, um and then you have people who try too hard, like McDonald's, clearly. Uh, you know, I'm trying to be authentic in that moment, and then literally being mocked by by millions of people uh because of it. Yeah. I mean, and look, like that is actually a great example of placating uh people and not being true to ask the the asking the why question, right? Is that you know there were at least three people behind that camera who all said, Great take, Mr. CEO boss man. You nailed back.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

This is the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah. Honestly, like, I mean, as someone who has who has worked with C-level executives who has stood behind a camera and been like, put your hands down. I need you to put your eyes here, I need you to take a deep breath, right? Like, you need to like make them not look authentic, but you need to relax them so they can be authentic, right? Is that no one stop that man and said, This looks like you're a dead person being inhabited by a robot. Right? You you aren't like, dude, like you might not like like McDonald's, and that's fine. Like, I'm not gonna knock you for being healthy, right? But like if you are gonna sit in front of this camera and market this new sandwich, take a bite out of it, my guy. Right? Like, yeah, genuinely, even even despite his his more stale appearance, if he had genuinely taken a bite of that burger, no one would have mocked it as hard as they did. No, yeah. It was just it was it was not a bite, it was brutal.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

It wasn't a bite. And you can tell if he does any burgers, man. That's obvious.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, it was it was you know, the the most performative action I've ever seen in my life. Um, and we were so quick to praise that we don't push, right? We don't say, hey, listen, like I know you're the boss, and I know I'm just like the guy behind the camera, but that didn't look good, right? And like I'm I'm being honest with you, like you you can be happy with it. Like, I'll that's a take you want. That's why you're paying me. I'll go and we'll cut it and we'll do the thing. Or you can be like, hey, that that just didn't look. Can we can we do it again for realsies? Because like otherwise I think it's not gonna sell. And there might be someone on the room who's saying, no, that was great. You did great. Right. And so then it's down to the person to actually admit whether or not they feel that was a good thing. You know, but I think more people need to stay, take a step back and go, is is what I've done good? Is it going to do good? Is it going to be a good thing, or did I just make a thing to make a thing, to check a box and say we did that, you know, for the metrics, for the algorithm, for the you know, the the you know, KPI, right? Like we we we did it. Okay, but what did we do? What did we do? I bet you I bet you you'd actually see a drop in how much content is produced on an annual basis if more people thought like that. Because then people would be still producing content, but they would be working to produce better content than just produce as much content as they can.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

I'm a hundred percent with you. And I for anyone that comes through the doors for my company, like that is one of my actual clients, not like a client that a client has contact uh contracted me to work on. For any of my actual clients, I push back hard on something that I think is horrible, on something that it's I think is spam, because I see so many people using AI scripts, and you know what? People don't want to be spammed by AI scripts, you know. Like the other day, I used AI to help me to get some cool points, but there were points that I think it's something I just posted on LinkedIn. I'm driving down the street and I look over, and this kid has is he's got an action 360 above him. He's got a uh some type of small cannon mirrorless pointed back at him on a cyclo. He's DJing while the guy rides the bike behind him. It's like the ripshaw where he's sitting in the front, he's DJing in the front of the of the bike. And I was like, I just made a video. I was like, if you're not doing content like this guy, like you're doing it wrong. And then I thought, like, I brainstormed some ideas. I got you know AI to help me kind of like kind of two dial in my my bullet points better. And then I made a video while I'm out walking with my daughter. We walked into a 7-Love and we make it, and I was just like, and at the end, I was like, and this is my motorcycle because I ride bike everywhere and I love it, you know. And I was like, and I don't, I'm not making as many videos, but stuff like that. People are like, this was fun, this was fun, this is interesting. I I actually liked this, and I I enjoyed watching. I could just see a little bit of Sean's life and Sean's world, and I don't spam people, you know, and I think that versus I could be here are the top five ways that you can be creating content that hits right at the right time, you know. Dude, no one wants to watch that shit. Like, no one wants to be too dialing into that. It it's not what people want. And at the end of the day, I I think that we gotta stop doing that, and we gotta stop thinking that that's okay because it's not really okay, you know. And I mean, I think that what we can do is start asking questions of is this adding like a net positive to the people that are watching, you know? Is it giving them something actionable? Is it giving them something that they can do with their day that's worth their time? You know, and I try to think that too. Like, you know, when my daughter, you're talking earlier about kids, and I am so with you. Like, my daughter, she gets into some crap sometimes, and I just sit there and go, you know what, this this is this is not something that's actually really something I want you doing or watching. And we we kind of tone back from it, you know, and step back from it. And what I have to remember is that, you know, at the end of the day, are we creating something that's making this world a better place? Are we filling it up with noise? Because I don't want to be part of noise. And I think most people out there don't want to be part of the noise, they just don't realize they don't want to be part of the noise. And that's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, yeah. If we all subscribe to the notion of leaving the world better than we found it, then I think that you know we would operate differently, but we don't. We operate off of the bottom line, right? Yeah. Um and that I think, you know, intrinsically is gonna hurt uh more people than it helps. Um my actual hope with AI is that um it kind of drops the it it affects the algorithm for those kinds of videos that you're talking about, right? The you know, how to make top five content or what is it, you know, all those like little niche videos that wind up being five to 15 minutes long, um, that are mostly AI-driven videos to begin with, right? Um but now people don't have to go and search for those videos. They can ask AI to do the search for them and then to aggregate the information, right? And I think that if we teach our kids and you know, people in general, but you know, our kids too, how to still be critical thinkers while leveraging AI, I think that's where we're gonna see the greatest level of success, right? Um so I have I have oh yeah. I was just saying, I have um I have writers on my team, you know, who are like, oh my gosh, like are our jobs gonna be replaced with AI? And I'm like, well, only if you let it, right? Like only if you let someone replace you with AI because the the machine isn't gonna replace you, someone else is gonna replace you with the machine, right? Yeah, so how do you use the machine to be better? Right. And so I say to my writers, I'm like, imagine if you had a junior copywriter with you, right? I'm like, think of AI like you still have to put input the creative brief, you still have to think of the strategy, you you know the client, you know that the ask, you know what. I said, input that information, give it to your junior copywriter and ask your junior copywriter to do something. I said, and then you, as the senior copywriter, you're gonna read it, edit it, proof it, work it, you know, maybe ask it more questions, and then you're gonna refine it, and then you're gonna move it forward. Right. Yeah. I said, don't let, don't let the machine do the work. Don't let it do the strategy because it's not gonna. Right. So I've been using, you know, AI now for a couple of years, and what I found is that despite it being extremely useful, it tends to build a very personalized echo chamber for you.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

It tends to, it tends to like validate, you know, you.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Uh you're doing a great job, Sean. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

I agree with that. Yeah. That's that's right. And and and I noticed the more I use it, the the more it would it would refine itself to me. And so I challenge it very often to keep it from you know being overly uh uh, you know, um in that way. Um, and I also remind myself that it's doing that and that way, yeah, because again, echo chambers are real easy to listen to, right? It's like, yeah, you do believe in what I believe in. Absolutely, I'm right. This this validates me, right? Um and we have to be careful of that kind of stuff, you know? Yeah. But there's there's a future with AI in it, and you know, it's either it's either you know some twisted version of Skynet or it's what we make it. Because again, we're beings built it. You know, like it's it's not like it was dropped off here and left for us to figure out like we created it. Uh and you know, so that that means that we're its keeper, you know, like anything else, you know, we're in we're in control of that system. Um, you know, so how far are you gonna let the system get out of our control before it becomes a problem?

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Yeah. I wanted to ask you one one more question, because I I love where we're going with this. Like, if someone's starting from scratch today, no audience, no brand, what would you tell them to focus on in their first 90 days?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Knowing who they are and what they want, you know, you really have to know who you are. And that can evolve. Like, I think like people get so set in stone with things, right? Uh yeah, you know, so my wife and I also contribute to to our local, you know, government uh as a community, you know, um uh thing. And you know, when you talk about the creation of anything, people get so uh so firm in in the existence of the thing. Yeah, right. Um so like I mean, for a long time people would say that this is a living document, right? Um it's like all documents are living because we wrote them, right? Like it's literally not in stone, right? Like we we've evolved past the carving of things into into the the permanence of that, and we can we can change whatever the hell we want, right? Like that's the beauty of it. Um, so you know, the only restriction is your capacity for understanding and your uh uh capability of autonomy, you know? And so, you know, define who you are because when you define who you are and what you want out of the thing that you're gonna create, you then have a much clearer path of how you're how you want to move forward, right? Um because because at the end of the day, Sean, right, anything you create is just a box. Yeah. Right. But if you know who you are and you know what you're saying, then the only question is how that fits into the box, right? How it shows up on social media, how it shows up, you know, on YouTube, how it shows up, you know, uh on Billboard, wherever it's gonna show up, it's just a box.

unknown 37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

You know, and that's why that's why strategic thinking, critical thinking is so important to narrative content development, right? Yeah, because you have to be willing to think hard. And that's the most amorphous thinking that can take place, right? I actually just went through this exercise the other day with with some colleagues. Um, you know, we were trying to figure something out, and you know, they were they were very quick to try and hone the words that were being written down. And I was like, those are just thinking words.

unknown 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

And they were like, what the hell are you talking about?

unknown 37:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

And I was like, those, those, those might not be the words that we use as we move forward with this project, but those words help us establish the strategic context for the thing that we're that we're gonna make. Right. Yeah. And that helps us align to the foundational elements to drive whatever the messaging might be. And yeah, some of those words might come forward. All those words might come forward, right? But that's that's the box. You know, stay out of the box for a minute, right? Stay over here with me in this really uncomfortable space and just talk about what you want. You know, and when we're aligned to that, then we can walk forward together. So I would really task folks in the first 90 days of anything to really think long and hard strategically about what they want and who they are. Um, and you know, devising a plan and devising a strategy. And again, that doesn't mean I'm gonna do 20 emails a year, I'm gonna do social media, those things come later. Those are all the boxes that you're gonna fill. They're all there for you, they're always gonna be there for you. They're gonna change over time, right? There'll be new boxes that come in and old boxes that die away. That's fine, right? No one uses newspaper anymore, right? People aren't really advertising their like those things have changed. They're boxes, right? It's the strategy, it's what you stand for, what you believe in, and and and the message you want to move forward with. And that could mean your product, that could mean your campaign, that could mean, you know, any any particular thing. Because again, there's still more boxes. Uh, you know, but you have to be willing to take that step back and just stop yourself and have a very honest conversation about who you are and what you want.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

I love it. Where can people find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Oh my gosh, I guess just uh just Google me. Uh, you know, I can I can give you a link to uh my my portfolio site, um, you know, and they can they can find me there. Um, you know, I live in uh in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the US. Uh so you know, if folks Google Nick Priest, Burlington, uh, all kinds of information will come up because like I said, I uh I do a lot of you know uh work with the with the local town government. Um, you know, so I'm kind of everywhere there. Um, you know, and then my contact info is is all all in that. Um and I'm always I'm always willing to talk to folks because I think, you know, like you said, sharing information and educating is is you know more than half the battle.