The Google Whistleblower

What happens when an ex-Google Executive Coach, elite athlete, and AI entrepreneur sits down to talk about the one thing most people get wrong about AI?

AK Ikwuakor spent years inside Google coaching sales teams through the launch of Bard - right as ChatGPT was reshaping the world. He watched the anxiety unfold in real time. And he came away with a conclusion that might surprise you: the AI race is not a tech problem. It's a human behaviour problem.

In this episode we get into:
What it was really like inside Google when ChatGPT launched
Why 95% of AI companies are not making money
How your social media feed is the most dangerous algorithm on the planet
Why task-oriented thinking is what gets replaced - not you
The shift from high performer to "aligned performer"
Why slowing down is the ultimate AI strategy
Human connection as the one thing AI should never replace

AK is the founder of LeadLyft and The Next Right Move Consulting, a former three-time All-American athlete at the University of Oregon, and someone who has coached over 40,000 people across 30 countries. He also did a five-day darkness retreat in Mexico. You'll want to hear that story.

This one goes deep. Enjoy.

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Find AK: 
Website: https://akikwuakor.com/
Instagram:   / ak.ikwuakor  
LinkedIn:   / akikwuakor  

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Website: https://www.realmissai.com/
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LinkedIn:   / keira-nesdale-b287899b  
Spotify: 
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Miss AI is a podcast for anyone curious about how AI is already shaping the way we live, lead, and work. New episodes weekly.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You wanna know something funny? I never told anybody publicly.

SPEAKER_05 0:03

Okay, go on. This is what we're here for.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

So Google AI Gemini was first part when it first came out. That was the first iteration. A couple weeks later, ChatGBT comes out, everybody's like, amazing. So if you look at it from the behavioral side, well, that's what makes all of these companies so much money. That's what they're collecting, your behavioral data. So the way in which you get more information is by the longer you're on the platform. If you see, hey, AI is causing job loss, well, if you're a CEO or a leader of a company, then don't lay off people. Find a different way to empower your people. And because I think the problem is, is that we have to start thinking this of AI not as a tool or an AI tech issue, but a human evolution conversation. That's what's happening.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Well, welcome, AK, to the Miss AI Podcast. I am stoked to have you on. And I must say, it was an incredibly inspiring journey going down the rabbit hole, looking at your past. And uh just to build a little bit of context for the audience who are meeting you for the first time, perhaps right now, uh, I wrote off a few little things that just sort of, you know, will take them through the journey of what uh you've done, where you've been, and uh sort of set the story for what we're gonna be talking about today. So uh one of the big things that really caught my eye was that a former Google executive lead coach uh coached teams through the launch of Gemini right as ChatGPT was coming out. So that was really interesting. It seems like Google was almost in a catch-up behind ChatGPT, and I want to know what it was like from the inside. Uh you coaching the scientists there.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Um something funny. I've never told I've never told anybody publicly.

SPEAKER_05 1:55

Okay, go on. This is what we're here for.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Okay, okay. She's trying to like, okay, you're trying to play. Let's let's have some fun. Let's have some.

SPEAKER_05 2:04

Yeah, that's what we're here for, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Tell me, let's what was the gossip happening inside inside Google? Like, what was it like coaching the uh computer scientists and the engineers uh that were revelly trying to launch something to catch up to um OpenAI's Chat GPT launch?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Well, it's funny. It's funny. And it's funny that you said IT and engineers, and it wasn't the IT and engineers. I was working with the sales team, this uh sales team, right? So these were the last line of defense. These were the ones that were right before they were talking to clients. Like our job was to train or retrain uh Google's uh organization on the on the business side because we were crushing it. We were crushing it. But we started to get some competition from TikTok, and because that was starting to be a really strong search engine, and there's other kind of competitors as well in the market, because beforehand, a lot of the times we were just like printing cash, right? Like search was 70% of their uh of their of their revenue. And so when you imagine that overnight, a new thing of what's this chat GPT thing where nobody's searching for the answer, but they're now getting the answer. It's like, whoa, that was a big game changer. And I was working with the sales team because there was like a lot of anxiety that was happening. Because I don't know if a lot of people know that Google's been an AI company for decades. You know, for decades. It's the thing that powers the stuff that we do. It powers our maps, it powers our search, it powers YouTube, right? And when we understand the behavioral data behind that, that's what it is, it's able with accuracy to predict what next show you're gonna watch or what ad you're gonna click on. Right? So when we look at that, that's why Google made so much money. They're just printing cash. Like so when ChatGPT came, and I should say this, the search was also connected to ads. So an ad's money is a really big important piece here.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Because all of a sudden, when ChatGPT came and you no longer needed to search for the answer, it just gave you the answer, but there was no ads attached to it. It was just, as you can imagine, pressure for Google. But not only pressure for them, it was the sales team. Because they never really knew how AI worked. So when ChatGPT came out, all the clients were like, yo, yo, tell me about this new thing of AI. And the employers are like, I don't I I'm learning this at the same time you are, right? As the world was trying to learn it at the same time. Some haven't even picked it up yet. And so at that moment, BARD was launching, but the launch didn't go that well. And so there's a lot of kind of like, why didn't it all go so well? So imagine when you're coming in and you are the big player in the AI race. You're winning it. But ChatGPT, in my mind, they've been working on generative AI for what, 2016 or earlier? So they've got a 10-year-old start to really focus on bringing something out. So I don't know if I was gonna say it. So a couple weeks before uh ChatGPT came out, we actually were testing barred. I thought it was trash. It was trash, it wasn't working, it literally wasn't working, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:24

So this is like this is the the competitive version to uh ChatGPT that Google was.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Alright, so Gemini, so Google AI, Gemini was first barred when it first came out. That was the first iteration. And so, like a couple weeks later, uh Chat GPT comes out and everybody's like amazing, right? So I think it was, I don't know how much time really passed, it was like three years ago, two years ago. Or maybe longer. Uh ChatG Bard was gonna do their big launch. And I'm like, yo, I tried that thing like four weeks ago. That thing ain't working. It ain't working. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_05 6:01

Like it would just give you random answers, or like what do you mean it wasn't working?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

It just wasn't helpful. Yeah, okay. It wasn't that helpful. Um, but it was still better. Like, the funny thing is, it was only that because we knew ChatGPT existed. Meaning, if ChatGPT didn't really exist, nobody would know what good and bad was. So, right, we had a we had a we had a we had a scam. Like, no, this isn't as good as the the Chat GPT. So when it then launched, we did the launch, um, everybody knows this is just public information. It didn't do well because BARD or Gemini or BARD at that time made up information. And so they were like, uh, ChatGPT or OpenAI is the AI company now. But Google was like, no, no, no, we've been the AI company. We've been it. Like, no, you're not. Because the world was seeing generative AI for the first time. I can make music and make it make songs. So OpenAI was able to create something that everyday users experienced in AI. Even though, on the back end, people have been using AI for a while.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

So, what was the like the feelings that people were going through, like those emotional experiences when all of a sudden they're able to write something and like pretty much talk to the internet in a very conversational way, which was like the first time that's everyone has experienced it. But the way that it got such a good reception from everybody is because it just butters you up, you know, it tells you that you're great, or hey, great idea, Kira. How about this? Or like they they flatter you, you know, and it's probably like a very intimate search engine, right? And like, how are people dealing with that? Because, like you said, it's not no longer just like I ask a question, it gives me like links. Now it's like being more emotional, like bringing myself, my personality, like growing with it, and I kind of get a little bit more attached to it because it's a little bit more fun, it's you know, a little bit more personal.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Personal. Well, there's two pieces to that, and I'll actually separate those because one is the behavioral side, and I think it's gonna also jump to the other side of the agentic and autonomous side. Because I think those are two different ways we can look at what's happening. So if you look at it from the behavioral side, well, that's what makes all of these companies so much money. You know, the reason why Netflix makes so much money, the reason why Google makes so much money, is because of your behavioral data. Right? That's what they're collecting, your behavioral data. So when they're able to determine what show you're gonna watch at a personalized level, then they can also control the actions that people take. So the way in which you get more information is by the longer you're on the platform. So if you're reinforcing a positive behavior with a dopamine effect of, ooh, you feel good, I love you. And like, let's say that person ain't getting a lot of love in their life, they're finally getting dopamine from something of validation, an always validation, what is it gonna cause you to do? Get more of it. So you get more of it, you then get what? It gives you more information. It now has more information, right? Then it is able once it understands your information, it then has a control to alter your behavior to what they want, right? The corporations, whatever the agenda is. And most people think that when you collect the data and analyze the data, or all these social media platforms are for the purposes of like, hey, I just, you know, I went to the store, I was talking about this thing, and I started seeing this thing show up.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Well, that always happens. Honestly, you're talking about washing machines, and all of a sudden the ads start generating and there's like washing machines. I'm like, I have no interest for this, or like you can kind of test it as well. I think there's been some times where people will be like, you know, talk to it, you know, or talk to their wives or their partners' um phone and be like, engagement rings, engaging rings, engaging rings, and all of a sudden it starts like popping up on their feed, right? Like, this is what it's doing.

SPEAKER_06 9:57

Is it actually listening to us all these times, or is it just actually you have to physically search?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

No, it is. I mean, it's it's it's it's what are we gonna say? We already know it's it. We already know it is. Yeah, okay. Okay, so we can be, we can be polit, we can say the politically correct answer, like, no, the privacy policy says no, it's not. Like, come on. We know it is. We don't like the cognitive dissonance in the feeling of that, but let's just no, it is. But the question is, is now that it understands you and most likely understands you better than yourself, because it understands patterns. And when you understand patterns, you can understand past, current, and even more importantly, future behaviors. So humans are a set of patterns. So when you understand the future set of the behaviors that they're gonna do, this is what AI is, you've got pattern recognition, being able to scale that, then they can actually change your behavior. So most of us see it from the perspective of if I'm talking about washing machines, then I'm gonna see washing machines. But let's say that they want you to shape your behavior towards a particular political affiliation or a particular outcome. They might know that because of your behavioral patterns, you might have a really strong negative feeling about, let's say, Republicans. Just saying example, or Democrats, doesn't really matter in the United States. But they know that if you do it so aggressively, it's gonna turn you away. So what they may do is like settle things of, oh, Republicans and Democrats get in together, but at the end, the Democrat says something like snarky or vice versa. Like when they understand your behavioral patterns, then they are able to predict and shape your actions the way that they want you to, not just because you click on an ad. That's the stuff that people are missing. It's about behavioral change and mass behavior change for their outcome. That's really what's happening here.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

But how predictable is human behavior? Or are you just saying that the stuff that we are consuming influences where we're going, but it cannot predict it correctly? So I might get influenced by certain things and it could shape my direction. But I don't know whether it would actually, I don't know, this is your specialty, right? I mean, you've just built a whole entire like coaching platform that is predicting uh like human behavior and it's using AI to predict human behavior and allowing people to um, I guess, yeah, bring the mathematics into like the human psyche and uh better themselves, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Do you want the nice answer or the I want the real answer?

SPEAKER_05 12:34

This is what we're here for.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Unfortunately, pretty damn accurate. Wow. Fairly accurate. Um, and even sometimes to the point that it recognizes the pre-patterns before you even recognize it. So that's what Palantir is. That's what Palantir is. That's what Palantir is. True. It's very, very accurate at predicting human behavior because if you understand it, we are a series of patterns. We get in the car, we go to work at the same time, we are eating at the same time, we have the same routines, we go to work out gym, we eat the same foods. Like we are a series of patterns. Because without being a series of patterns and consistent patterns, it creates chaos. So for us to find our stability, especially in a chaotic situation, we actually drive more to our natural patterns. Doesn't mean it's always a pattern that we want to live by, like I want to be the one that works out all the time. No. It then defaults to your natural behavioral patterns. And the reason why it's important is because the more data points that you have, the more accurate it's able to determine that.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

So an example. Right? So here's how it works it's a lot on language patterns.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So let's say we're here and it's a sentence or a situation that happens. AK and Cura have a conversation over Zoom about AI, and it was a positive of an eight out of ten. Okay? So AK, Akira, Zoom, or you know, interview AI. Let's say again. AK, Akira, talk in person and talking about AI, and now it's uh six. Okay, interesting.

unknown 14:22

Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

We've only changed one thing. We've only changed outside. So let's say AK talking about family outside an eight.

unknown 14:39

Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

So it's like you're now measuring that thing. So now we've only changed the location and the topic of family. So let's say AK and Tom have a conversation about AI outside, and it's a four. Wait, wait, there's a big change. We moved, we changed the person. Let's write another one. AK and Cura talk about drywall, and it's an eight. Okay, so now we've recognized the relationship of something with AK and care, there's something there. Right?

SPEAKER_04 15:15

Oh, you're like creating this big map between like connections. And the stronger that we have like an emotional or a connection with somebody or something, the stronger that affinity or that connection is gonna be. And then that creates a big like spider map web of like who you are.

unknown 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

And this is what these big data companies have.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

That's exactly, but it's about on so many different levels about what you watch, what you read, where you go, what you say, who your friends are, um, what you click, or we're even getting bigger now. And I would say this the biggest psyop that we've ever seen is ChatGPT. Because now we use it as therapists and counselors. It knows everything about us, right? So that's why I was so worried when you said ChatGPT is working with the US government. They have the most behavioral data on anybody on the planet because you're literally giving them your hearts, your desires, your dreams, your fears, your frustrations, all to an entity. And I get it. They did have a privacy policy. Then what do you do with a privacy policy? You just change it.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Yeah, that's amazing. So I and that's the thing is you're giving, you're feeding these companies or these, yeah, actually they're private companies so much information about you. It's like, what can they go do with this information? For example, like I might be talking to Chat GPT that today I'm a little bit depressed or I'm um looking for a girlfriend or whatever, and then that will stereotype me as like a character, right? And that will give like them certain data points. But like perhaps if that was just one day where I was feeling off and every other day I'm feeling super happy and like, you know, madly in love. But because I've already, I haven't spoken to AI around like the happiness, I've only spoken to AI around like the depression or the sad times, like then it's going to have me, like, what's the downstream effects of that? Because now am I some sort of like um a high insurance liability or something like that, you know, because I have this sort of behavior. Like, where is all this data that we're feeding all of these AI machines uh going to? And I don't think people realize the consequences of this.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

But I'm gonna switch it up because I think the fundamental question, I can answer that, but I think the fundamental question is, I want to answer, I want you to answer this question. Do you believe that humans are fundamentally good or fundamentally bad? Good. Okay. Then if you believe that, then everything will be okay. And the reason why is because AI is just accelerating human actions and human behaviors. There's always going to be this God mode, this God spark that was an original thought, and it's expanding that original thought. Right? So, you know, AI never created a sexually explicit image of a girl and spread that online. It was some nerdy kid in their computer that prompted and then scaled it. And so that is what we're really talking about. So if we believe that humans are fundamentally good, meaning that it's going to be humans that use AI for good, that beats out humans using AI for bad.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

And it can just accelerate the goodness. Like if you're using it or it can what whatever patterns or behaviors you're already acting, AI can be used to optimize and make them faster or make them more efficient. So like accelerate those kind of like good behaviors, but you're also saying, yeah, it can be on the other side. So, like, how does somebody go about uh starting to use AI? And I mean, at the moment, like a massive thing in society is I don't know if it's driven by the media or just driven by fear and anxiety of people behind sitting behind the computer thinking they're gonna be replaced by this crazy AI thing. Um, and like what would be like your message to them? Like, you know, it might be a lawyer or a data analysis or a doctor or a teacher. There's so many professions that there's just fear mongering within the media saying AI is gonna replace you, you know? Um, like what would be your message to these sort of people?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

You have agency. That's it. You have agency.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

We meaning that when we listen to news channels and we hear AI is taking over the world, it's gonna be mass jobs, I mean mass unemployment, chaos, mass surveillance, then we have to say that we have agency. Because I think it's and I'm gonna use this. If we use the word as AI, as an it, that's what we look at is as like it, is something like a third party.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

Yeah, it's kind of like a thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 19:47

But if we use it as he or she, it would change the whole conversation. Because then it becomes an ownership thing. Because it's not a tool, it is are we going to use this tool responsibly? And every single time we remove it from ourselves like it's some tool, we feel like we have no say it. Like we're almost like washing our hands and we're waiting for the corporations and the leaders to take over. But no, it's a human agency. So you need to understand what is the role that you want to play in this. If you see, hey, AI is causing job loss, well, if you're a CEO or a leader of a company, then don't lay off people. Find a different way to empower your people. Yeah, that's what it is. I mean, like, and because I think the problem is that we have to start thinking this of AI, not as a tool or an AI tech issue, but a human evolution conversation. That's what's happening. It is a human evolution conversation that's happening in this moment right now. And I'll give you an example about how this kind of plays out because people don't realize that once a new technology is introduced and it's somewhat adopted, then it changes the whole ecosystem and they have to change. They have to. Everybody has to actually adopt AI. And now what I mean by that. Because it doesn't change the it doesn't change the outcome. It changes the way that people or the responsibility that people have for you changes. So let's think about this from a um uh a digital transformation process. So when we all started, when we needed to get information, we went to something called a library, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

I remember encyclopedias. Like back in the day, my dad used to have, I don't know, 50 encyclopedias in the downstairs room.

SPEAKER_06 21:34

And that's how I used to do my study for my homework, go down in alphabetical order, go find an encyclopedia on whatever I had to write about elephants or something. So yeah, go to those days.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Let's go there. I think this is a perfect example, right? Before we had you said, I need to write an article or a paper on an elephant. This is gonna be actually a perfect example. We're gonna do the whole this next part of talking about the digital transformation on you writing. Writing this elephant paper. You want to wanna roll things on this?

SPEAKER_05 22:03

Absolutely. Let's talk about elephants.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Let's talk about elephants. So to give us such a real world example. So, like when you had me go to the library, tell me the process of you writing that paper from start to finish.

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Well, first of all, you'd have to go find like the books around elephants or animals and do like, yeah, go down and read them. And then I would actually have to have a create like a brainstorm around like what is my essay or what am I, what information do I need to get out of these books? And then I would go find the books, right? And then I would start to read the books, understand the information, and then you know, pull, pull together my my essay or research paper, whatever I'm trying to write. And then I would, you know, like edit it, um, find out what pieces I'm missing, go back back to the books or back to the library, or find different sections of the library that are filling like the niches where I'm like missing, you know? And then again, edit it, polish it. All right, after you. This is how I love it.

SPEAKER_06 22:59

This is how I feel about the yes, say, is this right or wrong?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Right? That's look at all those steps. Look at all the figures, look at all the iterations, look at all the like going back and forth force, I mean, back and forth and the frustration, like all of those steps of absorbing what it means to learn and search and have critical thinking. I have to decide between this book and that page and that paragraph or that paragraph. And a lot of time. Time. But now let's say this the next transformation, the desktop computer. And I mean the desktop computer, and I don't mean iPhones. I mean an actual desktop computer when they first started.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

I remember dial up.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

So tell me about that process.

SPEAKER_06 23:42

Well, first of all, you'd have to um, you know, make sure nobody needed the phone for the next three hours because uh I would say you're all of the internet line. That's where it would start. Or maybe I'd only get like a short window where I could actually use the internet before my parents needed to use the phone or something. So and then you'd hear the size, nee, no, no, like everyone knows that dial-up sound.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

Um, you'd have to plug in the internet into the wall. And uh then, yeah, I think my main search engines back then, it must have been, it must have been, I don't know if it was probably Google. And oh, Wikipedia Wikipedia was was the main thing uh where you would go and find everything on Wikipedia. And uh actually the funny joke was when I was like an intermediate, you could actually go in and edit Wikipedia, so you'll try to find fine pages and you could edit it as well.

SPEAKER_06 24:29

And like people would find like random little jokes on Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

But anyway, um, yeah, so start with Wikipedia and uh and on Google Docs, you know?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

No, no, Google Docs wasn't here.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Yeah, no, I'm actually I yeah, it was just like um a word, uh, the application on your phone. I mean, not your phone, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

No, yeah.

unknown 24:50

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Where you had to get in the car, you had to look down the roads, find the books, you actually literally walk, you actually use some body movements, and then you went to the desktop computer. It was faster, but it wasn't as convenient because you had to share it with other people and you had a limited window. Then the biggest transformation from there then was the iPhone or the mobile device. That's actually a big shift where it went from the desktop to the personal. This is where behavioral data became important. That's what happened when we got the personal iPhone. It was the moment when personal and behavioral data really started being collected. But now here, now writing a paper using your iPhone, or just when that technology came out.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

I mean, I don't know if it would, I wouldn't do it because it's it's just like on a little phone. It's too difficult. Um I I I don't think I would write an essay or a paper. Perhaps I would scroll the internet and I would be scrolling the internet um, you know, in the car or something, or or be a bit more mobile where I was doing or do like doing the activities, but I think I would actually still go back to a desktop to write the the essay.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah. But you named something really important there. Something really important. Is it now introduced the thought of learning with ongoing distractions. And why is that important? Because if you're trying to learn anything, you now have distractions that are here. So it makes it tougher to actually absorb. So this is where the critical thing became difficult because this is now where it's hard to focus on one thing because of the rise of the personal device and notifications created distraction, shorter attention spans. Our resiliency to do that work diminished.

unknown 26:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Beforehand, when we would be willing to walk through the library all day, be difficult. We don't have that anyway. We now need a skim instead of looking at whole pages. Right? That's the thing about when you understand human behavior. With the rise of distractions, created shorter attention spans. Now, because you have shorter attention spans, then what happens is the dopamine effect of ChatGPT, OpenAI. So, how did writing change from the Google to the Chat GPT?

SPEAKER_04 27:11

Well, I don't really need to put any is I don't really need to do all of the research and learning to actually create something. I can just ask at something and it gives me more than what I was expecting straight away, instantaneously, the the time period between like hitting enter or my idea, like, hey, I want to write an essay for an elephant. And I just say, hey, ChatGPT, write me an essay on an elephant. You're a you've been researching elephants like an academic for your whole entire life, and it'll give me back something incredibly fast compared to ours. Um, and probably is doing a better job than I could do myself, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

And that is the fundamental change. And there's one more thing I want to talk about because you went to the a really important piece where we then started to evaluate and reward outcome and no longer the process. Beforehand, they ask you to show their work. How did you get that, all that information? We know you did your work because you had to go to the library. But then we started to be like we started rewarding outcomes and not the process. So when you're continually out rewarding the outcome, well, well then what are people gonna do? Faster outcomes to get faster dopamine.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Yeah, but they're not absorbing what the outcome is, you know, it's just like words on a page and it looks great, formatting colors. Wow. Like even now, it's getting like the way the AI that I'm like using it, you can do some research or type something. And now, you know, it used to just give you back a, well, didn't even used to give you a document. It used to have to be within that word context. And now like Google's evolved uh so much, or like you can now, you know, write in Claude and it attaches to a Google Doc, it links up and it's like separated out. It's just like almost gives you too much information. It's almost distracting.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah. Um But it goes into the most piece you just mentioned because it went from just give me the answer to just do it for me. And that's AI agents. Where it's no longer just say write this paper. You're now saying, hey, what I want you to do is I want you to not only write the paper, but format the paper and also write a nine-page slide deck and my meeting notes I need to put underneath. And I'm gonna leave, take a nap, and come back, and it will be better than anything that I've done. Right?

SPEAKER_05 29:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Imagine that as a gift. People think that the jump from Google to Chat GPT was big. The jump from Chat GPT to agentic is like pen and paper to Chat GPT of that particular jump. And when you go to Autonomous, it's not like, yo, my teacher just uh showed up. Oh, it's the third week in uh March. Uh uh we already know that it's this date. Can we just start writing this March Madness paper and presentation that you're most likely gonna have in three weeks? And uh just something you leave. Right? That's what autonomous is. It's gonna know this. But but here's why I kind of bring this all together in that in that example is that it doesn't just change what we do, it now changes the expectations that other have of us. Imagine now somebody saying, uh you're a boss and you're managing people, and they say, Hey, there's a problem, everybody. And somebody says, Hey, let me go figure that out that problem in three days, and I'll give you uh give you some you know some options. With Chat GPT, like, no, just give me the answer. Like, just give it to me. At the library, it changed from like, don't just search for it. The computer said, just give me the results already. With a Gentic, it's gonna be no longer the task-oriented people that live tasks today. It's gonna be like, don't just tell me, don't just do it. Like, I want you to just do it for me. I want you to see a prototype, like just do it, show me the whole workflow. And an autonomous, it's gonna be like, why didn't you already know this? So it's gonna change the expectations of how people have to grow in the ecosystem. And that's why I worry is that AI adoption, AI, the tool, is moving faster than human behavior. And until we understand that it's gonna, we have to actually adopt it, or we'll become irrelevant, just like the librarian that didn't know how to use a computer when the computer came about, is gonna be the same thing for us. It's already here. We have to actually learn how to be use AI agents. Or the librarian, when they're looking for the job application, says, Well, I don't have any computer skills. We're like, well, then half the people are coming in are asking for computer questions, and I can't help you, we can't hire you. So that's what I worry about the most, is that we actually have to learn at scale, agentic and autonomous. Or the people that do, especially if they have it for bad reasons, will win out. This is a human behavior humanity conversation.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

So, how do you begin to undertake such a massive education program? Because, like, that's what it is. I mean, even for me, I work in AI every single day. And uh I always constantly feel that I'm behind, you know, a new update here, a new chatboard over there, a new agenda workflow over there. Oh, this one here is better at image generation. Oh, wait, now this one here's video generation, and it's just like so much noise. And I'm constantly using AI every single day. So when I and then people come to me and they say, hey, Kira, like what should I use for ABCD? And I said, Well, this one's good, but this one's also pretty good as well. So, like, there's so much noise, there's so much competition in the whole entire suite of things, and it's just constantly all of these different AI companies. I don't even know if any of them are really making money. They're just trying to get attention. They're just pumping money into marketing to win the big AI race, and that you become addicted to their one, or their one knows you more, or their one's got more data on you.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

So, like, how the stats have a number. You can if you want the number, we can give you the number on it.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

Do you know the number?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, I know the number.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

All right, go on. What do you got? Roll them out.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

88%. So Solana said the HBR did a uh a report on this a couple months ago. And there was one stat that was saying um of the B2B enterprise space of um products that have gone through the market into their procurement cycle, only 20% were able to get a pilot, and only 5% were actually able to get um the deal. So that means 95% of AI companies are not making money. They're not really doing it. And that was before agentic came out. Before, where you can now replace those same AI tools that used to take six months or a year in 48 hours with the new technology that comes out. So by the end of the year, most of these AI rapper conversations are either gonna get they're gonna price themselves out because they're battling to the floor, or Claude or I mean anthropic or open AI is just gonna gobble them up. It's just gonna gobble them up. So the that's where we're at. And also the reason why you're feeling this challenge and this tension is because we're still working at an a generative AI level when a gentic and autonomous are already out there. See, with a gentic, I no longer need to ask what tool that I need. I just say, dude, I need to make this, create it for me, and it will figure out the tools for me. So that's how we know that when we're trying to navigate all these tools with all of these platforms, it's like, yo, you're working someone in the generative space. We have to get into the autonomous, I mean autonomous and just ask. This is what Cloud Code coworker is, just do it for me. You figure out the tools, you figure out the best in cloud.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

So that's what you're saying. Uh, that AI adoption is not a tech problem. The tech is there, the tech can do the stuff. It's more or less a people problem, and the people needing to just, I guess, take the initiative, or is that what it is? It somebody needs to want to learn or want to understand it, or like to actually start to implement it, and then they kind of, you know, the light bulb switches on and they're gonna either gonna carry on. Because that's I think a bit of a problem is people are maybe AI curious but don't know where to start or how to start. Um, like what would be your message to these guys? Like, for um if they are curious or they do want to start to get involved, like where should somebody start looking? Because it is a little bit overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yeah, I would actually say to it's funny. I would actually say the best way to start to get adopted to AI is to stop using the word AI, honestly, and say, hey, how can I be able to um send these emails faster and then seeing how AI can solve that? Right? So use your actual everyday problems and seeing how AI or a tool or a way of being can actually get that solution for you faster. It's like almost saying 20 years ago, like, what can I do with the internet? We're literally there. Everything. So when we're talking about AI, remove the word AI and then identify how can it make your life easier and what tools are out there to allow that to happen. That's one. Now, two, let's just be real, is that it's intentional to fear. Um people have reasons. If you open up the computer, you look on LinkedIn, or any article is talking about and reinforcing and bragging about job loss because of AI. About the big tech leaders talking about it's gonna be the end of humanity. So that's one obvious reason why people should feel nervous and feel scared. But it doesn't mean that you can't decouple that, have some agency, and identify how you can use this for you. But use it for good. Right? Like nobody that's using AI for good is worried. They're only worried about the people that are using it for bad.

SPEAKER_04 36:59

Yeah, I I agree. I get I get really excited about it because it's continuously unlocking me. I mean, I'm a process engineer um by like university degree in a former life, and I've never been able to create digital products in the way that I can now. So for me, it's unlocked a whole entire new level of thing because all of a sudden I don't need to know how to code. I just need to know the process of what I'm trying to do. And I give it in my own native language and it does it and it blows my mind consistently. Um I'm I'm tapped, I'm tapped into it, you know, like it's it's a little bit like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Um, but I I want to I'm making a video game right now.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Yeah, I'm gonna say, like, I would imagine three two months ago if I wanted to make a video game, how long would that have taken?

SPEAKER_05 37:44

You couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

I've already had like in 24 hours. And thousands or hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, hundreds of millions of dollars. I've already created it now, I just have to add the designs, but it's actually um to help teach kids and adults systems thinking and architecture. So to really understand where we're at right now from a task-oriented perspective, to the overall um workflow system, ecosystem levels of thinking to understand like how to really understand agentic autonomous is actually a seven-step structure. And it's not like a nerd right now.

SPEAKER_04 38:16

No, no, you're like I'm a systems engineer, so I'm all over this. Input, output, everything is a black box in between, and this is like the system that you need to design and and do because that's the way, that's why I love AI so much, because it is just if you can get, you know, understand the flow of work or what you're trying to achieve and what comes in, AI is the black box in the middle, and it can just like it's just a process, right? Like this goes to this, this goes to that, and this goes to that, and then boom for you get a thing. So, like, tell me a little bit more around like what you're working on.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

I think it's what's interesting you're saying is, but it's not only this to this to this, but how this connects to this and this connects to this.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

That's where it is. It becomes not it's not linear, no, it's actually a 3D, 4D model of understanding interconnected relationships. So the video game that I have that we're I mean, we're developing is uh is about a grocery store, right? Managing a grocery store. And it has the different levels of decision making. And so one level is there's a cashier that's at the task level where the cash machine isn't working. The other level is, well, the workflow, once you understand the system or the task, is like that one button, but the next level up is like, no, how about you understand the overall workflow? It's like, no, it's not about making sure that this button works, it's making sure it does the checkout process as efficient as possible. Right? So the task-oriented people that are now need to think about from a workflow perspective. How does this button color change to how this works in the overall workflow? So people need to now start thinking if you don't want to get replaced, stop thinking in tasks and start thinking on workflow. Right? What is the overall workflow? So, what I'm doing is we have these different scenarios that happen, and he has to solve and grow this company or this grocery store in 90 days. And there's gonna be all of these interventions that happen. Like the cash register isn't working, um, the deli and the produce managers are getting into a fight, you have to make a decision, which one are you gonna pick? And then the next day, it shows the outcome. So it helps people understand how do you move yourself from a task-oriented thinker to much more of an understanding of an ecosystem thinker.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

And what you've gamified this whole entire experience. If somebody comes in and plays this game for 90 days, and you're teaching them, you're kind of like remodeling the way that they think, like re-inventing their whole entire like thinking. And I think it's it's actually upscaling them. There is turning them away from robot just doing, you know, the admin task, blip, blip, blip, to actually thinking, you know, zooming out, having a bigger perspective of things, and actually giving them more responsibility to think about how they can change the whole entire system, right? Which I think is a lot more rewarding rather than it's giving people actually more productive work than just going to work for work. It's going to work and like problem solving, which I think is better for your own like human development and also like your well-being, because it's not just people doing boring jobs. And I think that AI is removing the boring jobs, and now it's giving people the freedom to be able to do more interesting things, things that they uh want to do, things that they make some creative and actually think logically and do that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

But actually, but I think that's a really important word you just used logically and critically. I think both of those are important. Critically, logically is like can be much more linear. Like this makes sense, the next step.

unknown 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Critically is gonna be like, I see this, but what about this?

SPEAKER_04 41:48

Yeah, and the 3DX. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

And you need to go to 3D model of that. And so, because if you only think logically, I can control logical thinkers. That's what that's what AI is replacing.

SPEAKER_04 42:02

Logical, even dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

It's easy to predict a logical thinker because you have to just be one step ahead of them. But it's harder to replace critical thinkers, especially critical thinkers that are human, because there's the thought and there's something that AI will never have, and that's feel. So you could be able to see something in somebody, but feel something's off and be like, something's not right here. Right? Because of the feel perspective. So by I do it training more from a critical perspective and a feeling perspective. So there's moments where it causes you to feel something. So it actually having them think from a a thinking perspective and uh a feeling, so you get the full gambit. And I'm sure there's gonna be more that I'm not thinking about, but that's what's gonna be for um the V1.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Yeah, and so I want to dive a little bit deeper on that. Like your coaching and that some of your so I want to let people know way back the younger AK, um, but an absolute champion athlete on the field. Uh, I think that is some massive, incredible part to your whole entire story. So to build the picture for the listeners, like a three-time all-American athlete in um uh hurdle, was it right?

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, four by four, track and field, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:22

Yeah, track and field, absolute champion, uh, Nigerian national champion, and narrowly missed out on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So, like to understand where like the mentality and the mindset where you've come from an athlete where you're hyper focused into doing something so physical, some like your mindset was so dialed into you know achieving that one goal, and then you didn't get that goal, you know, like you missed out on the Olympics by you know, this by scratch. And then you kind of had to reinvent your whole entire personality or who you were, who your identity was. Like you were no longer. An athlete, well, you were still an athlete, but perhaps in your mindset had changed, like your everything around you had kind of changed because you didn't make that Olympic team. And then you channeled this energy into you had to reinvent yourself as like this coach and went on to coaching, you know, 40,000 people around the world across 30 different countries, uh, executives of you know high-tech companies and Fortune 500 companies, like this is where you sort of like reinvented you reinvented yourself. And then like AI has kind of like accelerated this reinvention of yourself. Like, I want to know like from your side of things, like how can people like unlike learn new new technology or like deal with change so like rapid change, you know, with this new modern age? Because you seem like you've kind of mastered it and now you're teaching people how to master it and you're building tools around how people can master this change, you know?

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah. I God, this is you're you're you're talking to me in a really like raw moment, too. Like in real time. I'm like, real time. Like if you would have talked to me three days ago, I would have a completely different answer today. And I do have a completely different answer. Because I would give you these frameworks and these tools. Um because for me, yeah, I was an all-American athlete at the University of Oregon, top program, worked at some of the top schools, Silvestre Academy, trained around the world, worked in Google, worked at like everything, right? The top, top, top. And I've always been about this thing about like high performance. Like that is what I do. High performance, high performance, high performance. Then I started to realize I don't even know what that means anymore. I really don't even know what any means anymore. Why not? Um I don't even know what it means. It doesn't mean it doesn't even make sense to me. Like cognitively, it doesn't make sense to me. Because I've worked with so many people, and there's two ways I'm gonna look at this. One of it from a societal standpoint, one of us from my own personal standpoint. Is I don't think it's more important as a societal standpoint. Is when you look at things from a high performance model, it is like, how do I be the best? But it's about it's it's it's really based on how society determines best, not how you determine best. It's about what you're reinforced for, what you are compensated for. We'll use that. So our high performance has always been based on usually, hey, this guy's a high performer. It's usually in our professional field, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:30

And tell you you're a high performer, right? You get identified as a high performer.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Work, your job, the performance, you get awards, you get rewarded for usually what people can see much, much more of the visual, right? Um, but as we know as humans, we're actually multidimensional, right? We've been we've given people high performer for having scaling a business, but at the same time getting a divorce and having nearly a heart attack. You're not focusing on their health and well-being, right? So why do we look at why are we evaluating high performance just from this performance angle of performance of work and profession versus what happens if somebody is an average performer at work with like the best dad in the world? Is that considered still a high performer in our work?

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Yeah. I was gonna say, I think it depends on uh your culture as well, because you know, like your upbringing and where you what sort of behavior you were rewarded for, or what family or what your upbringing was, depends on, you know, like what you seek as um success, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Um that's that's very, very interesting you say that. Because it depends on if we're living from an intrinsic motivation or an extrinsic motivation. So if you're doing something and you are naming it and you can only do I statements, so like I am working out because I enjoy it because it makes me feel better. That's all I statements. So you know, logically, you're working from a, actually, really, you're working from a um intro, intrinsic motivation place. But if you say, I am working out because I want this girl, immediately goes to extrinsic, right? So if your focus on success is, I hope I do good at this role so my boss will then give me a, you're now doing things based on an extrinsic motivation. And when you do things based on extrinsic motivation, it's gonna create a sense of lack immediately. Because you're not there, you cannot get there. And so it's gonna create a sense of anxiety and put you on a forever hamster wheel that you can never actually reach. Ever. You can never reach the hamster wheel of saying, I will only feel better when X happens.

SPEAKER_04 48:45

But how do you change that? Because you never get to that high performance, you never actually reach that thing. Like even when you're close to it, your mind or is already like predicting the next one, the next one, the next one. It's just like a constant, like you said, it's a rat wheel.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Yep. So you have to actually do things you enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

That seems simple.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Exactly. And why so hard? Why is everybody so unhappy? It means we're not doing the things we enjoy. That's what's wrong with the world. We just don't do things we enjoy. We do things because we have to do it, or the expectations of someone. So if I say I'm doing this, and the funny thing is, once you actually do the things that you enjoy and that you believe, you actually do better work. And for me, like when I think about my highest performances and how I got to Oregon, it wasn't because I worked hard at it. I'll be honest with you. Every time I work hard for something, I don't get it, oftentimes. It's weird. And I'll tell you this, it's like, it's weird. I just realized this. Like, I didn't go to Oregon because it was the best program. I literally just went to Oregon. I didn't even know Oregon was a state before I went there.

SPEAKER_05 49:50

How did you end up with this world of high performance then?

SPEAKER_01 49:55

And they were giving me the most money at the time. I I needed a scholarship to help my family. It just happened to be, like, I got I just happened to just go there. And then I worked at some of the top schools in the world. Another funny story though, but um, I got I worked with uh the top school in the world, like Phillips Exeter Academy in the St. Paul's school, only because the head coach at um Phillips Andover went to the University of Oregon, and the head coach from uh Phillips Exeter Academy at that time went to Penn State where my ex went to. It just happened to be like, but when I got there, I did really well. But it's not like I was like, let me get here and try to get this job. But even, and the funny thing is, is like when we talk about high performance, like I ended up doing some uh sports diplomacy work with the US government to help rebuild diplomatic relations between the United States and Haiti. Right? And so it was and Haiti at this time in 2016 was one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world that we're gonna help rebuild. And so this is really a story about me being able to um you know understand like high performance works. And so I remember going down to Haiti and there was this dangerous neighborhood. And we wanted to show humanity, right? Dangerous place. So I took this 3D camera and I had it in my hand. I was walking in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world talking about. But something happened at that moment is while I was filming that, uh, a little boy and girl walk by with holding hands in like their Sunday outfits.

SPEAKER_06 51:22

Oh cute. But it doesn't really make sense though, does it?

SPEAKER_01 51:28

But that's the thing. In the most dangerous neighborhood in the world, there's still humanity. There's still just kids wanting to go to school. But we focus on the bad, but not realizing most of the people are pretty good. So I had this camera to show with technology to say, hey, and it was gonna be a live VR event. So people could actually see this event in real time to say, yo, like I'm able to see this and I see good people here. And if I can find good people here, then I can find it anywhere. So that's a whole mission. So we I walk to the State Department, literally, I just walk in, like, hey, we want to be the sports diplomacy initiative with the US government, and we want you to come on board. And they're like, who is this guy?

SPEAKER_06 52:08

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

And I and I get the camera and I put it on the table. I'm like, look at this. And they're like, what is this? And they said, yo, how do you get this footage? The UN can't even get this information. Right? And like I walked in, I got it. And so they got the Department of Missions guy over, the guy that runs like diplomacy between the United States and Haiti into the room. I'm like, they're asking for some money because they wanted to do the sports diplomacy initiative. And then once I got the guy was like, come on, man, like, who is this random guy walking in here thinking that he's just gonna ask us for money to help us fund it? And the guy said, Where are you from anyway? And I said this, like I said this. I was like, I live in New Hampshire. And the missions guy, the guy that's running the diplomacy from the U.S. government, like turned around, like, wait, wait, wait. My daughter lives in New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

No way.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

And then he was like, but where in New Hampshire? I was like, uh, this school called Philip Sexter Academy. And he's like, weird, my daughter goes to Phillips Exeter Academy. And it was like, but where is Philips Academy? And I was all like, in Langdale Hall. He's like, no way, my daughter lives on Langdell on the fourth floor. And we are the resident advisors on the fourth floor of Langdale Hall. He walked away and said, give them the money.

SPEAKER_06 53:32

How do the stars align and the universes collide for that conversation to go down? That just shows how small the world is sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:41

So what I mean about that is like that story was like, it wasn't because of the tech. It was because of the humanity.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Yeah, there was, they didn't know the background or anything like that. It was you'd already created those relationships.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Relationship. Like, I know it sounds weird to most people, but like high performance. Like, if I don't tell anybody three days ago about what it means to be a high performer in the AI world, if you really want to be good, be really good at being human. Be really good at relationships, be really good at thinking.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

And then use AI to accelerate that.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Exactly. Exactly. We're overthinking the process. It's when we remove ourselves from the agency, when we remove ourselves from the conversation of human, then what are you scaling? You're scaling nothing. So what I ask people to do, what do you really love to do and use AI to do that faster?

SPEAKER_04 54:37

What if people don't know what they love to do? They don't know their hobbies, they don't know, like, you know, they've lost their own identity because, you know, they've been so caught up in the rat race, and then all of a sudden they've um got time or or you know, money on their hands and they just don't have any hobbies. They're just, well, like their kids have left the nest, you know. Like, what happens to those people? How do they refine their hobbies, refine their love or their purpose in life in such a fast-paced way? And yes, they can use AI to like um rapidly discover that, but like, where do they even start?

SPEAKER_02 55:13

No, you can't use AI.

SPEAKER_04 55:15

Okay. Well, how how how do you how do you find what you love?

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Sit with yourself, get really quiet. I've actually done this. The secret to AI, the secret to prompting, the secret to everything is how do you slow down?

SPEAKER_05 55:35

Which is so hard.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Exactly. Because they've been training you from the moment you went from the library to the computer, to the iPhone distractions, to the Geminis, to the I mean to the generative, to the autonomous. We get rewarded for the outcome. We don't get rewarded for the process anymore. That is the key here is to rediscover process, to really make sure that you scale correctly. But that's a human choice. The more that you decide to slow down and don't just accept the answer that it gives you, like, oh, that doesn't seem right. So every single time we do autonomous and we don't actually think for ourselves, we're losing and take away our agency. This is a behavioral change process that has been happening slower and slower and slower until you become so unaware of who you are, you don't stop it. So that's why I'm like, wake up, everybody. Wake up. This world is about to fall if we do not wake up.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

I agree. I it was a few months ago now. Um, it was in August last year, so yeah, six months ago. My one of my mentors and a coach of mine, he said to me, You're so distracted by so much uh influence, and and there's so many signals coming into your life right now. They're like a ping-pong ball, you know, like all over the show. He said, Do this exercise for me. Sit in a room and like put your phone in another room and no have no noise, have no TV, no music, no nothing. Uh, and sit and stare at a at a white wall and do that for at least half an hour. And he said, Yeah. And I was sort of like, bro, you're crazy. Like, what is you want me to stare at a white wall for at least half an hour? And he's like, the first 20 minutes are gonna be really difficult. You'll sit there and you'll be like, Why the heck am I staring at this white wall? And then push through it, push through it, and he's once you get to 30 minutes, you're like, your mind will unlock. And uh I sat staring at that wall for an hour and a half. I was just like, my I had a pen and paper, and just things were just flowing, and it was just like trying to logically and create, and like everything was just coming out. And um, I was amazed by it. I was staring at a white wall for an hour and a half, and it felt like 20 minutes, but the first 20 minutes were the hardest, and then everything else, it just felt uh it allowed me to remove the distractions and to realign my own self without you know the pings and the instant dopamine hits that you get from everything. Um I got a lot of I got a lot out of the exercise and I haven't done it again. I'm probably due to do the exercise again. I just go started a white wall. Um, but anyway, like from I want to like elaborate further on.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

I wasn't built on that, like I wasn't built on that. Like, I did a five-day darkness retreat.

SPEAKER_05 58:32

How is that?

SPEAKER_01 58:34

I did five days, silence, pitch black, no sound for five days.

SPEAKER_05 58:38

Pitch black as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Pitch black, one meal a day for five days. And all of us I didn't do this. I flew to Mexico to do this. Right?

SPEAKER_04 58:50

Wow, tell me more, please. I want I want to know like what happened and what inspired you to do this. Like, go dig.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

It was about a girl first. I got broken up. I had a pretty bad relationship that ended. Um, and this is while I was actually at Google too. So it was just a lot was happening. And uh, I just needed to kind of find myself again. And I said the only way to find myself is not externally. It's I gotta remove all the distractions, all the voice, all the voices, all the advice that I'd be potentially getting. And just can I sit with myself? And so it's weird, I've done it twice, but there's so many things. I had like a tape recorder, I didn't have a phone, I had no technology, so I had like this little manual tape recorder, and I I film like 169 episodes of just talking to myself.

SPEAKER_04 59:36

But have you put that into AI? That would be so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Oh, I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

Yeah, like your transcripts and just be like analyzed, or like I don't know, you've got obviously lots of tools that you could do it with, but that would be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Well, yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot. I mean, there's so I'm gonna carry on. Oh no, no, I mean, like, I'm chatting all day. I'm chatting the step up. Um, I mean, there's too many to count, but I think the ones that I interesting. Some of this came across my mind. Because I did five days because it's my high performance, I need to do the best, we need to do the best. And I remember the longest that I heard somebody do it for was three days. So I said, I'm gonna do it for five days. My ego came in. And what was crazy though is like when I was doing these tape recorders, I did like a hundred something episodes, and then in my brain, it was like this your inner voice gets really loud because that's all you hear.

unknown 1:00:24

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

It's super loud. And then it was like this energetic said, You have one more video or one more audio to do. And I did this audio, and then all of a sudden it felt like something left my body. Literally. Whoa, what was that? And I just had this awareness. And as I was sitting there, um, what happened was it was like, I think it was like almost like day five, and it was like day four and a half. And the voice said, any longer that you stay in here is just for ego. I'm gonna make you feel. You can stay, you're not gonna get anything new. Are you are you willing? And I was like, are you willing to actually like you've gotten everything you needed out of it? What's staying longer? Because the last thing I was staying for was the external. Like, everybody's gonna see how long that I stayed. So I was sitting there and I'm like, ugh. And I accepted it, and I'm like, you know what? And knocked on the door, and I left, right? First time seeing light. But there's something that's crazy that happened after that. So I left like a half day, had to accept my own ego. And I actually have an image, I actually have a video of me on Instagram of me walking out of the uh the cave or the door after five days, me seeing light for the first time.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:40

I gotta see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

And you look at me, I am scruffy as hell. Five days looking scruffy, right? So in my voice, it says, you know what, I really want to get a haircut. And mind you, I'm in Mexico during this time. And at the right, and so at the moment, I was like, okay, you know, I need to get a haircut. It says I need a haircut, I'm getting scruffy. And so I get on the motorcycle and I go to get my haircut to this, the there was a barber that I saw in town. So I get there and it's like a Saturday and it's closed. And then the voice says again, this internal voice that we all hear of ourselves, it says, um, I want you to go to the beach. Now, the reason why I actually forgot this part of the story was that um the reason when I left is I actually said I wanted to go and talk to somebody else that's done a darkness retreat because I haven't met anybody. I've never even heard of anybody that did it. So it's like, and then it said, go and to the barbershop, right? So, but I wasn't really aware. So then I went to the beach, and then at that time, I have the I had like this really long hair. So I didn't like going into the water because it always messing up my hair. So I would never get into the water when I went to the beach. But the voice said, get into the water. Right? So okay. So I get in the water and I'm swimming there. Mind you, I'm in Mexico. I'm swimming in the middle of the ocean. There's this guy like 15 feet away from me, swimming in the middle of the ocean. And the guy looks at me and yells, and he's like, Yo, man, to me, do you speak English? And I'm like, Yeah, why? And the guy was like, Whew. He was like, I've just been in a darkness retreat. I just got out, and I just want someone to talk to.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:13

No way, perfect. So it's like what you were looking for.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

I'm sitting there and we jam about all the experiences. Same thing happened to him. He left a half hour early as well, like a half day early as well, because he got the same thing, right? Because both of us were trying to win the activity. So what he did instead was he was focused on counting a thousand steps per day. And every single time that he counted a thousand steps, he was like, it's been a day. That's how he was getting through time.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

What? He was walking a thousand steps inside of his little room. How did he not bump into things?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Yeah, that's what he did. But he said after a while, he was so focused on getting to the thousand versus the 999 steps before.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Right? Meaning he was focusing more on the outcome and not focusing on living the experience of what he came in to do. Right? Of which comes to again our lives, focusing on the outcome versus the process, right? Being reinforced for it. But then he had to approach his own ego. Like, dude, I'm leaving. It's like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not actually living here. I'm not learning anything because I'm focused on some outcome versus being present in the moment. So it happens to be that we both had the same synchronicity moment to leave at the exact right time across different parts of the world because we can connect. So what do I see about that? When you actually slow down, that's how you get in the flow. That's how you're able to actually manifest and create things. It's already there. We just have so much distractions that we're no longer believing in ourselves. It's forced us to focus on this. So every single time we do this, it's basically telling us that we do not know. This human system doesn't know. So the key to actual really being evolved is doing less. And it's crazy to think about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:11

That doesn't really, yeah, because everyone is taught, you know, to go fast, to go achieve, and and go, go, go. Um, and and you do, you do lose a little bit of your identity because you're living on someone else's time, you know, or someone else's expectations. And um you and then you do lose it, and it's difficult to to find it again, I think, for a lot of people as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

And goes to our first point, like she said. Why don't people know themselves? Because they've been giving it away so often.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:41

And they're giving it away to like algorithms now, and that's um To companies. Yeah, to companies.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

To companies, it's to advertisers. So how does that advertisers? That's who we are. We are our advertisers. We know who we are based on our advertisers by the clothes we wear, the groups we hang out in, the places we go. We don't think for ourselves. So when we say that we are a series of patterns, no. I can we can know who somebody is, oftentimes based on their patterns and how they live their life, because how they live their life represents the pattern.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:13

So knowing all this, how do you take advantage of that?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

Um, me, uh one is honestly, I've actually, so when I was at Google, I made a boatload of money. Boatload of cash. Um did, I made a boatload of cash.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:31

Congratulations, that's what everybody wants. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

But the thing is, funny enough, I bought a whole bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:37

Did that make you happy?

unknown 1:06:40

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

No. Because like what this I this is a plant. That's a fake plant. That's that's that's some books I never read. Yeah. They look nice. But that's what I'm saying is that what I did was is I bought a lot of stuff. And this weekend I'm selling all this stuff, everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:58

So, what's happened in the last few days that your whole entire vision or perspective has just shifted from your understanding of like what is a high performance former and what's high performance mean? And what does all of these materials mean in your life? Like, what have you? Sounds like you've just gone through some transformation in the last week. And um, I'm really excited to hear what your new perspective is now.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

Yeah, so I'm not selling it. I'm selling everything and then restarting with intention of what I want, not what's gonna look good on the camera when I do interviews.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

I'm gonna finally live what I'm gonna do. I think that'll be better. Exactly. I'm just gonna live what I want. And if I have to say, if I can't say I want this because I like this item because it makes me feel something, and if I have a a they or an outside perspective in any of this, I'm not getting it. I'm living for me now. And not selfish me. I'm living for me to be a better beacon on this planet. And that's what it is. That's for me. I realized I was about an external. I was realized I was rewarding and I was being rewarded for my external self. For me being at Google, for me being at Oregon, for me being at this. But you know what? I want to be a better father too. You know, I want to be more consistent with my health and fitness routine.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:17

I think having that bigger holistic approach to life is um so much more beneficial because if you are a better father, you're eating better, you're exercising better, that's gonna naturally channel into you uh your your your works and everything will be a little bit more productive, aligned, yeah, aligned. That's that's definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

That's why since the word I'm changed, it's no longer high performer. Am I gonna be aligned performer? That's what I'm changing to. Am I an aligned performer? Am I aligning my performance based on how I want to show up in the world? And that's how I'm now evaluating my life. Not based on high performance. What is high? How high does high go? That's it's infinite. It's infinite. But no, I'm done with it. I'm doing with I, with aligned, what I want. And the funny thing is, I've made more business this week than I have in the last two years. When you're a month, congratulations.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:10

And and what what do you think that is your more like being more aligned? Is that just the way that you convey your message easier or you're just more comfortable in yourself? Or like, why do you think that you've won more business this past week? Like, what's what's changed in being aligned?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:28

I have more clarity, more peace. No more making decisions based on fear or not being enough. So I can sit with people and just be present with them. And when you're present with them, you can actually hear them. Listen, yeah. You can actually sense them, and you realize you don't have to come in with an agenda anymore. You just come in generally trying to help. That's uh generally trying to help, and that's what is been the secret sauce. And they refer and they want to help. Like, like, is it weird that just to win the AI race is just to be a good human?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:02

Well, it doesn't really make sense because AI is mathematics, crunching numbers, algorithms, sitting in front of a screen, doing something fast and everything, but it's and but the thing that AI cannot compete with is the human, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

Is the person and being a good human, even when I don't want to pick you up. Because AI will only work for you if you decide to pick it up. But a human will be like, I know you're not picking up, but I'm still gonna call you, I'm still gonna come to your freaking door and make sure you get out of the house because you just lost a loved one. And let's just talk together.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

I can still put on AI, but the best friends that you have are the ones that said, just leave me alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

Like, no, I'm here for you. I'm gonna sit with you, even though you don't want me to be here. And sometimes I'm gonna tell some stuff to you that you don't want to hear.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Because I love you. Not because I just want you to like me.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:55

Because I love you. Two very different things.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:59

Yeah, and AI can never replace that. I don't, I don't think that AI can ever, ever know somebody on that emotional connection or that wavelength to really know. And even though algorithm can, because that's the stuff that that information that you are maybe you've just lost a loved one or something, that's something that's an external influence into your life that the algorithms aren't gonna know happened, right? And that's when you have to call on that human connectivity. Pardon?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

If you lose a loved one, AI doesn't really deeply know your wife. You lost your wife. It knows you and it knows your perspective of your wife towards you, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't have an independent relationship with the thing that you lost. So if somebody, if I'm an AI and I know AK and I lost my daughter, the people that are coming here is like, but I knew your daughter. I remember that time with your daughter when she just wore that mask outfit, that Superman outfit, and it just made my heart melt.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:58

You're helping me remember the moments that I forget. Because you were there with me, you held my hand. You uh cried with me. You were there to myself. This is humans, this is it's human.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:13

Human is not dopamine, immediate gratification, it's ugly, it's messy, it's painful.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:20

And that is why AI is so it can't replace pain. I mean it can, it can manip it can mimic pain.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

But the pain of going through to the library and trying to figure out an answer and believing like I'm not gonna find the quote passage that I need, and all of a sudden you're about to walk away, like, oh, I found it. Why? Because you had tension, you had appreciation, you had gratitude. So when you have gratitude, not validation, gratitude and validation are two different things. Gratitude is an I. What am I gratitude for? Validation, what does the world think of me for? See, I think that's it. I think it's as I'm going to this roundabout answer in a way, it's like, I think what we're missing as humanity is gratitude, opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:06

They do say when you practice gratitude daily, you know, you become more aware and you become happier when you practice gratitude. But not many people take the time to be thankful, to be grateful for what they have. Um, because yeah, I mean, I've been doing a little bit lately, but like when I, you know, you can just be thankful that you've got a house, be thankful that you have food every day, because you're a minority on this world, right? Um, and and you become so oblivious to the privileges that you might have because you're constantly chasing for that high performance, that high, that next great thing, constantly comparing yourself to somebody else on Instagram or whatever social media you're scrolling through and you're like looking at these dopamine hits of this exaggerated expectations for different lives, and you start to judge yourself against that, like, hey, I'm not good enough. Like, why am I not, why am I not driving a Laborgini and have Tim Ferrari sitting in the garage? Like, why, why not? Like, I need to get there, push, push, push. But like, that's where I think it's yeah, you said you need to slow down, um, remove the distractions and um become more aligned with yourself. And uh, and then you do really find happiness.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

Um, and I think that it's the question to you would be where does something there's something to this piece. But I just want to get your question because there's something about that we're missing with happiness, because it's also forgiveness is also important. And I think people miss that piece.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:37

Tell me more around this. Like, where like how do they fit together? How does happiness and forgiveness fit together?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

Or gratitude and forgiveness. So happiness, gratitude is different than forgiveness. Like, gratitude is I, happiness. I feel something. Gratitude is like appreciation. And so when it comes to forgiveness, it's forgiving yourself for not remembering sooner to be have gratitude.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:06

I like how you put those two together.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

Yeah, it's for because I work with a lot of high performers, high performers, meaning people that run companies that do really well. And so when you're using the technology, we can measure behavioral patterns and we actually track human behavior and behavioral change. And so we were able to measure burnout and to get people from let's say it's like 30 days to get them to uncover burnout and get to their relationship satisfaction, their work satisfaction, and their personal satisfaction with like a 10 level on how they identified that. Now, most of these individuals were struggling for months, some years. But when we focus every day on these small little changes, um, they were able to get to this 10, 10, 10 roughly around 23 days. It was different for everybody. But something crazy happened is that when they got to the 10, 10, 10 for the first group when it first started, they were like, now what? Now what do I do? I got to the 10, 10, 10, and you started to notice that they started to get depressed again. Because it was a 10, 10, 10, like 10 out of like performer or happiness or they'd be like, what would make you rate a 10 out of 10 on your personal satisfaction today? Might be like, okay, right. I went to the gym, I did yoga, yeah, and I went to bed on the city.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:15

Yeah, or like whatever their relationship was with their wife or their children today. How was that out of 10? Okay, that's 10, 10, 10. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

And most of these people started like a two personal, three relational, like seven work, right? So we had to make it up. So it might have been today, you're gonna go read a book with your daughter today, and we won't underrate how you feel tomorrow. And then we can rate with uh technology did it improve or did it go down? And then if it did well, we tag that as a green zone activity to reinforce that behavior, right? So we create a reinforcement mechanism. But after the reinforcement mechanism and they had the behavioral change, they would get to the 10 and it'd be like, whoa. To be honest, there was actually an awakening that they had. Um the nervous system deregulated and they finally had a regulated nervous system for the first time. High performance is hard for them to do. Um, but they were like, what's going on? They've never been in this place. So they had they went back to their high performance tendencies. Like, now what's next?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:07

Yeah, how do I get 11? How do I get 12?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Yeah, but we said, no, no, no, that's not it. Because it's causing people to burn out and like, wait, wait, what's going on? We were actually reinforcing burnout in a way. Like they got there, they're gonna say much next way. It's like no, no, no, okay, what are we missing? And we realized it was gratitude and celebration, but not celebrating for the outcome, celebrating for their growth, celebrating them for their process. So it's not about don't be happy that you became better as a parent. Celebrate the growth. And what does that mean? Oh, I'm I'm celebrating the ability to put my phone down and be present with my kid. I'm celebrating the growth of me um um waking up and believing that I can go to the gym and do yoga every day for 30 minutes and I never believed in myself, and I'm happy that I can now believe in myself. And we say then actually celebrate as you would, as you would be for the external validation. So they'd go out and celebrate, but for their growth.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:01

Yeah, it's not just one, they don't just celebrate on the achievement, it's like on the journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:06

On the journey. And we ask them how often can you celebrate growth? Every single day.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

I was gonna say, like, if then does it like if I celebrating every single day, then I'm in a constant state of celebration.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:19

Yes, yes. So think about that, right? So I know it sounds easy, right? It's like it's like really happy.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:26

I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna celebrate all day long. Why not? But I get anything done if I'm constantly celebrating.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:31

Exactly. Because you'll feel it. You have to create the reinforcement mechanisms of gratitude, internal gratification of celebration of intrinsic value, not extrinsic value. So when you celebrate for your growth, you're internally saying, I am happy because I am happy because I did this. Creates the momentum from an internal place. Now, the funny thing is, what we realized is the challenge was even though you get to that point of gratitude, it created a sense of sadness, we noticed afterwards, because they were so happy, and then they started to reflect, not for the future, but because of their past. And the past was, oh my goodness, all the stuff that I could have done of being centered with my kid and reading her that book, I could have done this years ago, but I made the excuse that I needed to work extra hours to be able to do that, or I had to sell my company to be present to do that. So they had sadness. Because some people said, Well, I worked and worked and worked, and my kids gone away from college, and we don't, we don't have a good relationship. So they feel sad because they lost that opportunity. Or the worst ones that we saw was people that lost like a partner because they couldn't take that back. And so what we say is, forgive yourself for not remembering sooner, and then move on.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:50

You need to be yeah, you need to be able to forgive and not live in the past. You can't change what you've done, but you can change what you're like living in that moment and enjoying that moment, and then like taking that moment and making that a future moment, I think that's when like the power really comes back to the individual. Like, yeah, you can't live in the past, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:11

That's change. Because if you look at in the past, you're living in the past. You're bringing the past behaviors, actions, and behaviors into the present moment. Right? Now, if you can live it, but just don't make it turn into actions, right? And actions are also inaction, right? And people don't realize that. Everything is a behavioral change. Sleeping in is a behavioral change just as much as waking up early is a behavioral change. Causing you to lash out at a partner when you feel defensive is a behavioral change just as much as deciding to take a pause. So we say, what do you just want your actions to align to to the behavioral change that you want? And that is how behavioral change happens. But the first way to do that is you have to confront yourself and have awareness. And that's what AI needs to be able to do, or we need to prompt it to do. We need to prompt it to say, just don't give me this, but give me all the reasons that I'm not looking at, or give me all the reasons that I don't want to hear. But we have to be willing to face ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:10

And that's what you've built, right? That's this is the the the tech that you've built to does it allow people to identify, or like does the AI identify where they are they were like, you know, looking like not living in the moment? Like how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

Yeah. Living in the moment. Well, it's funny. It's funny to ask about do we need AI to live in the moment when the one that has the most control over the moment is you.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:48

Yeah, but AI is influencing that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

So if you want to live in the moment, just say, how can I live in the moment and live in the moment? Chuck your phone away. Chuck your phone away. Listen to the person in front of you and don't think about the next thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

Alright, but we have to train that. That is why we do meditation. To force us to live in the moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

Do you meditate?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

Yeah, I could do better.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:18

I must admit, I've tried at times, and I I yeah, I've only tried a few times in my life, and I know it's something that again, I'm gonna say the word. A lot of high performers, um, all of the billionaires, millionaires, trillionaires of the world, we haven't got the individual trillion year yet, maybe Elong Musk one day. But um uh they all meditate, um, apparently. Uh so I think that again, maybe it's the the meditation, they don't. But is it is it is meditation just allowing people to remove the distractions?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:51

No. I think there's an motivation, I think there's meditation, and I think there's intention. I don't know. I mean, I think if you truly meditate and you really look at yourself, but you look at yourself from the perspective of not for an efficiency gain, but for introspection. I mean, there's actually, I think, is um um uh uh Hereowitz, um, Andreasen Horowitz, the who's actually talking about a lot of the billionaires, a lot of the wealthy people don't understand the value of introspection. They think it's a waste of time. He said this, he's like introspective is a waste of time. Why do you need introspection stop thinking about the past? I'm like, what do you mean you don't have introspection? Meaning you don't take a pause to take a moment to think about your decisions and why you made those decisions and the impact that it has on people. You don't do that, then how are you knowing if you're going in the right direction and you're not causing chaos and destruction? And that's what I'm saying. For someone to say that and believe that what they're doing is gonna be good, I don't believe it. You can't have you can't have good causes without introspection. That's why I don't believe they meditate. I believe that they get I believe that they get quiet in their mind, but I don't think they have, I don't think they meditate and have introspection personally. Yeah, I think you wouldn't pass the way you did if you didn't. You wouldn't. You wouldn't do this, you wouldn't do this if you did if they if you actually truly believe that.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:21

So when you're dealing with high performers, like what is the main characteristic that you see amongst these guys that got them to that place of high achievement? And um then how are you using AI to like prevent that burnout? Is it like just monitoring their behaviors or like what is like what it is that you're actually implying there?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:46

So it matters like how society determines high performers or what high performers are. Like I will tell you about personal, like prof sorry, professional high performers, meaning working in the business world, in the in the world of commerce, right? And why I say that is because I don't believe that's a high performer anymore. I believe a high performer is when they're um successful in their um career ambitions in the relational and in the personal well-being, and the impact that they want to have on the world in a positive direction. If you can say yes to all four of those, then yes, you're a high performer, right? Because if you have good in business, good relationships, and you have a really strong personal well-being, but the impact you want to have on the world is something negative, you're just you're doing really, really well at making the world bad.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:37

We don't need that, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:41

We don't want that. So that's why I say it's like in that piece. But what I see from professional is delusion. Good, healthy and unhealthy delusion. Um, because you need that. Uh every single high performer is a futurist, whether they want to say it or not. Uh, because to be a high performer, you have to see a future that currently does not exist and believe in it so much that you continually take small actions to get there.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:08

Yeah, you kind of need to be a little bit delusional, right? To dream that big, to think that big, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

And and and then believe in it so much, even though it currently doesn't exist, but to make daily sacrifices to stay committed to small behavioral and action change to get there. Um, and most high performers that I know, and the reason why I don't they don't even consider themselves high performers is because on the external, they reached that state, but in their mind they actually want it much bigger. So you might see someone that's an Olympian that became an Olympian, the code, congratulations. What they're imagining in their head was getting a gold medal. Right? So in their minds, they haven't reached it yet. And even the guy that got the gold medal wanted the world record. Right. So we don't realize that every single high performer is still believing that they have imposter syndrome because they still haven't reached to the outcome that they want to reach. So it's a hamster deal. And the better you are as a high performer in the business realm means that you know how to play the matrix game the best.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:14

What is the matrix game?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:16

Well, yeah. So the more you know how to be a high performer, you know how to play the game of the matrix the best. You know how it works. But the question is, it's not knowing how it works and play the game, is that you have to understand and what people get lost is realizing when the game has taken over them and not understanding how the game doesn't work, right? True adaptability is understanding what you can see and what you cannot see. So the individual that knows what the matrix is and also knows what it's not, and I don't mean like neotype matrix, even though that kind of is. What I mean is what system are you in, and what does that system validate and reward? That is what it is. And here, and that's why adaptability in the AI race is extremely important. Important. And that's why most people become, like when you become older with new technology advances, why they um age themselves out. They haven't aged themselves for the new current technology and the cute and the current reality. So right now, um, AI is hot, so you need to be hot. Um, being on social media is hot in a way, so you need to be a hot. So, like, you need to do those things. Now, you cannot do those things, but you need to find another system that still validates that. Right? So, understanding what societies validate. So, for me, I'm a sports guy that validates sports, they validate technology, they validate strong speakers. So, I fit that validation. I'm just tired of the validation. I don't want to work for validation anymore. I want to work for my own personal well-being and do what I want to do. So that's what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:52

Do you think that different generations live in different matrixes?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

You know, like not generations. I believe that different people, I think everybody lives in their own dimension. Right? You can live in the dimension of right here, right now, like I gotta get this thing done. Or you can live in the dimension of understanding that the human dimension, right? We're all souls, right? So, like, why worry about me getting this, getting on time for this appointment potentially, right? Because I've been late before, but I know in the grand scheme of things, everything's gonna be okay. So it removes you from the fight or flight because you take one level up. Or in this layer of the system architecture, you just go from the task to the workload model, right? You don't focus on the here now, you focus on the next step, right? Um, with that, we then say, hey, well, if I don't want to work at the workflow level, I work at the system level.

unknown 1:29:48

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:48

So even though people, or you know, this week is gonna be good, generally in my life am I moving in the right direction. Right? Humanity always uncovers itself. But think about this everything's a mathematical equation. The same thing with the stock market. The people that get stressed out the most are day traders. Why? Because they're living in the moment, up and down. Versus a swing trader, you can think a level up. But obviously, the institutional traders, they're looking for the long term. So a simple bump up and down in the stock market doesn't cause you to be reactive. But day traders, yes, because you're living in the moment. So the way for anybody to navigate as a higher performer or to be able to navigate this piece, just take one level up in the system hierarchy, right? Instead of thinking about the task, think about the the outcome or the process or the workflow. Yeah. Right? And then that will solve most of your problems. Because it takes you a level up uh a 30,000 foot. But there's always a 30,000 foot to the 30,000 foot. Just as much as there is a 30,000 foot within a globe, there's still what? Space.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:56

And in the universe.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:57

In the universe, right? Yeah. So all we're saying is if you're ever stressed out for anybody, is just take another look, a leather layer up. Instead of thinking about the action, think, okay, if I don't get this done, what's gonna happen? Okay, it removes you to the next thinking. I'm gonna get fired, but am I gonna get fired? Am I actually gonna get fired? Is this task actually gonna get me fired? It might get you in trouble, but will it get you fired?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:24

And what happens if you get fired? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That's like another zoom out, you know, like right?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:32

So this is what we're talking about in simple, simple language is how a task-oriented person, how a person does not get replaced in the AI world. Take one level higher. Change from a tech, a task-oriented the here now to the one level up for problem solving, but still take time to slow down. But to become a problem solver, you still have to slow down and think. So to move a layer up means you have to take a level of pause to think. They work in tandem, pause and action versus just action.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:06

So I Yeah, no, I I got I got a I got a quick question that I uh just came to my mind. So if we're just saying if you if you don't want to get replaced by AI, you need to think in systems. You need to be less task-oriented because AI can replace tasks, AI can do admin work or in and out routine, boring stuff, and it can replace them. When you're saying you need to zoom out and be more systems thinking and workflow thinking, how does a driver, like an Uber driver or a truck driver, how do they zoom out and not get replaced by AI? Because um it was eight million. Okay, yeah, because that's like one thing that I think is like how like AI is, you know, autonomous driving cars are a thing. You know, you've got them in America, we don't have them here in New Zealand yet, but by God, they're coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:52

It won't replace. Um a doctor, I mean, uh a lawyer will be replaced before a what is it called? More lawyers will be replaced by an Uber driver. Because if you look at from the workflow perspective, right, it's not about the Uber driver, it's about the automotive industry.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:11

Right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:12

So to if you look at the automotive industry as a system and you you need to reinforce what how the system feeds itself is through revenue, through money, through profits. But think about it. If you're an Uber driver, you gotta bring your own car, and you have to then wait, you have to bring your own car, you're paying for the gas, you're paying for the mileage, you're paying for the repairs. All Uber is doing is just a matching system.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:41

That's it. The cost is barely minimal. Right? But look at a Waymo.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:47

So Waymo to start a company, they had to first develop the technology, build the car, go through compliance and regulatory concerns, find the route maps in the city to get in. So all of that costs, so how many times does somebody have to sit in a Waymo before a Waymo pays for itself versus an Uber driver? So the only way for a Waymo to replace an Uber driver Waymo has to be a trillion dollar company. Well, what about Tesla, not Waymo? But Uber, the thing is, who's gonna drive the Tesla?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:27

Nobody. They just came out with the cyber taxis.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:30

But the way to get a cyber taxi on board is how many cyber taxis have to get replaced before it actually comes to the human? So it's not even gonna be an efficient model. Tesla's gonna go out of business. Like, how much does cyber taxi cost? This is the unit economics. Let's say it cost $30,000 to make or $20,000 to make, right? But they're selling it for $70,000. Right? That means how many one or five dollar drives does someone have to have before it actually fulfills? And that's just the car, not the team that built it, not the not the payroll, the research and development. All of the cost of running the company before they even hit break-even. And by the time that they hit break-even, the problem is that the automotive, the car, because of depreciation.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:19

So I was thinking, yeah, I need a replacement.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:21

By the time it actually makes itself, it's gonna be have to get in repairs. Yeah. Because car companies don't even make the most money from the car, they get it from the repairs. So imagine what happens. By the time that they get to the unit economics of it now paying for itself, it's now paying for more in its own repairs than it is gonna be getting the revenue from the drivers doing it. It's not gonna work. Remo's not gonna work. Like it may, but Uber drivers are one of the most safest people there are.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:50

That's the first time I've heard of it from this perspective. And uh it's very refreshing. And I do see the logic behind it, like the ROI to actually doing what we are all saying, you know, gonna be autonomous drive cars driving around the world. Like, yeah, but it's incredibly expensive. And to actually do all of that as a massive cost, where's it all gonna come from? And and I think it also comes around to like what we're talking about beforehand, is like the with the AI companies, these companies are not even making money, they're just trying to want to tangent it, trying to get users on board and the media love it, the media talk about it, we read the media and say, you know, driverless cars are coming in, watch out Uber drivers and fear mongering that has fed to us, or you know, like no more lawyers anymore, no more jobs anymore, it's all like fear mongering. But you're saying like the thread from this whole entire conversation that I've got from you is yes, AI is here, um, but don't run away from it. Use it for good. And uh, you know, and I think that is the main overarching theme of it. Like it's here, it's new, innovative technology, it's uh it's transformational 100%. Um, and the development is outpacing adoption, of course. And um, it's about like how do we react to it, how do we take it on into our lives to use it for for good. Don't be afraid of it. Um, so but I'm not gonna I don't I don't necessarily agree with that piece. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:18

I don't agree with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:19

But don't be afraid of it or no, be afraid of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:23

Okay. Be afraid of it, but not in the ways that you think. So we're looking at the wrong thing. Because robots will not take over the world. That's not what I worry about. And that's that's actually the distraction that you're trying to give you by focusing on the external of robots and war, and that is the worry. But let's, if you had to make a guess, what would take what would bring America down? Do you think it would be another country firing missiles on us or us fighting and killing each other?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:59

I would like to think the um missiles coming in, but the reality is probably you guys fighting each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:07

Exactly. That's what's gonna kill us, right? So that's it. But people don't realize that the AI algorithm is not the robot. It's the algorithm has already come to us in real time. So the real algorithm is our social media feeds. That's the most powerful algorithm there's out there. Meaning we can see the same, a situation can happen, and we can see the same situation from different perspectives. Like a situation happened in the United States with um ICE officer and there was a guy named Alex Pretty that was shot. Right? But you, one audience was saying that he was, he had a gun, and the other person said that he had a phone. We all know he had a phone. But let's say you decided not to be on social media, and somebody walked up to you and said, Did you hear about that guy that pulled a gun on those ICE officers and got shot? Like, whoa, whoa, these people are going wild. Because the algorithm has already gone offline. So we actually have to be online to determine and understand what the news is happening, to have the critical reasoning skills to understand what is true and what is false. Because if you don't get on it, you'll just be fed whatever the environment that you're in. That's only going to reinforce the behavior. Once again, behavioral change. So the most dangerous AI out there is us, not the robots. This is a human issue. That's why people say, people keep saying, like, why does this guy keep talking about human when it talks about AI? Because it's a human issue. AI is just a pattern. Patterning us. So that's why I asked the end of the question. And this is what I'm struggling with. And I think this is what the world is struggling with, right? Do this is the world, this is the this is the dilemma that the world is going through right now. Do we believe that humans are fundamentally good? And I don't think people can actually answer that confidently right now, and that's what I think people are struggling with. And if you're an idealist, if you're an empath, you are struggling right now. I guarantee it, if you're an empath, right now the world is hard for you. Because you are an idealist and you believe that the world is good, but we're seeing so much bad for no reason. And if we don't see the world as if we see the world as bad, then that means AI is dangerous. It is very dangerous. And that's why it makes me nervous. I don't know the answer to that. And I work in human behavior. I don't know that. I'm struggling with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:33

I can hear that, and that's the very first question that you asked me. Are humans good? And I hesitate. I had to stop and think about it. And I said, I think so. You know, I think so. It's not, yes, they are. No. Um, there was that hesitation. Um, because I mean, there's eight billion of us in the world. Um, do I think everyone's good? No. Do I think everyone's bad? No. Like, you know, it's there's so much ambiguity in that one question. Um, and there's so much, yeah, so much that can that can go into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:05

But the fact that we have to the fact that we even have to question bad means we know that there is evil. That's the crazy thing. It's not about bad, because bad goes to evil. And evil means it's an intrinsic thing, meaning like you're just an evil person. Not it's not even like, it's not even like you had a bad childhood. You're just evil. Like, it's not like I had a bad childhood and I'm doing this. What we're seeing as a society is like, huh. You put humans in a room naturally, will the door open up and will people be there? I don't think people know that question, or will they fight and kill themselves in the process?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:48

Yeah, I don't know what would happen with that situation either. And yeah, I don't know if I want to think what happened to that situation. We have to. Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:00

So um or the other side wins.

unknown 1:42:02

That is.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:04

That's right. That's what that's like that. That's like that's the most fundamental thing right now. And I keep saying things that are the fundamental. The reason I have so much passion for this is because I have kids. I got a three-year-old and I got a 13-year-old. And if we don't solve this, that's the world that they're living in. So people are like, AK, what you care so much. Like, I care about my kids, I care about humanity. And people like, just relax, AK. Like, no, because if you relax, the trend is going towards not the good direction. The media thing that we're seeing is more AI is taking over in the media. And if we just do nothing, that voice wins. That voice then controls the behavior. That voice then controls the algorithm. That voice then creates strife amongst people that then ends humanity. But the only way to end humanity is that it then has to go to us to say, but what's my role in it? Will I treat my neighbor better? Will I treat my teammates better? Will I treat people in my company better than just a number and a digit and a line on my budget statement? Will I actually be human? That is what's going to solve all of this. And it starts in your home, it starts with yourself, it starts in your community, it starts in the stuff that you watch, it starts in the communities you decide to go to that don't look like you, but sometimes you need to go to the places that don't look like you and find humanity and that judgment. And if we come back to our humanity, AI will be perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:35

So AI can do a lot of things, kind of AI. And you've just really outlined your vision or where you would like to see the world evolve with AI very clearly in that last statement as well, even more so, captured very, very clearly. And I want to ask like a closing question for you. So it's AI can do so much for us right now. And what's one thing that you hope AI never takes away from humans?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:07

As someone that uses AI every day and uses it so much that Claude says you've used it too much today. So I'm not like against AI. I love AI. I use it, I have a company in AI, build AI products, but human-centered. So don't get me wrong, I don't hate AI. I actually think it's phenomenal. Um, connection. I hope AI never replaces connection. So if you ever are going through a difficult moment, don't go to AI. Go to a friend, go to a person, go to a relationship. Never replace the human connection with the tool. Replace it for your output, replace it for your admin work, but don't replace it for human connection.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:44

That's so beautiful, and I agree so much. And uh I want to say thank you so much for sharing your lessons, sharing everything today. It's been so much fun chatting. We've gone on many different avenues. Uh yeah, didn't even expect half of the conversation to come out, but it's uh it's been a lot of fun. And so, like, where can people like use your technology, connect with you, read your books? Like, where do people find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:07

Just type in akaquaker at coach aka. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn. Just reach out. I mean, I believe if you want to find me, you'll find me. And just join the conversation. I don't even need you to find me. Just do what I say. Be a good person. And that's better than reaching out to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:22

There we go. Well, thank you so much again. It's been uh really insightful and yeah, had a had a blast today.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:27

All right, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:28

Take care, y'all. Bye.