Hello and welcome to the Coaching Mixer podcast with Aaron and Lena. Um, we're drinking today. Yeah. Yeah. The last episode drove us back to drinking. No, not really. Seriously, I after everything that we talked about last time, I was like, I'm nervous to actually drink a cocktail with you. You get things out of me that I'm not ever planning to share. So, I'm terrified about what we'll talk about. Oh, no. You do have editing powers. So, I'm gonna We're gonna keep it real. It's real. We get real here on this here podcast.
And I think uh you know we we had talked a few weeks ago about some different things and thank you to people who are reaching out with ideas for us with things that you want us to talk about. Um we also will take cocktail recipes. Yes, please. Yeah. What have you got today? So I have there's a cocktail called the bees knees which is you are you familiar? No. But it sounds amazing. It is. So, we're drinking gin today. Um, and my drink is gin and um lemon juice and then a honey syrup which I just mixed honey with warm water and that's it. And then I had um fresh blueberries in my fridge and I can't resist a fresh fruit in a cocktail. So, I just like squished them up and put them in which it's tasty but um blueberries look kind of gross when you squish them up. I didn't realize. So, I like it. It looks like a sciency like potion kind of thing. I like the little murky and slimy looking, but it's delicious. I love it. What are you drinking today? Okay, I'm so glad I didn't go with my basic because I am such a ginonic person. I was like, "Oh, that's so boring if I just bring a ginonic." Um, but this is like my my basic [ __ ] uh appperal spritz. M this is instead of procco, it's gin because I didn't have procco. Um and this is a it's not appperal. It's called appertifi royale which is from a local distillery kind of local to me that does like spins on more like commercially made things. So this is like a a little local goodness and I put some tonic water in it because I do love a genonic. So it's a ginonic with appperalesque
booze. That sounds amazing. Yes. On booze on booze. Boo on booze. Yeah. I I have only drunk like three sips of this so far and I think it's pretty strong. So we'll have an interesting Cheers. Cheers. My nails look so crazy. For people watching, I had I had meant to Oh, yeah. That one doesn't look so bad. We were in Salem uh last week, so I wanted to have magical looking nails. Um but I'm also really bad at like redoing them and taking them off and all that stuff. So, yeah, they look great. And from this distance that I actually I thought you had like stuff at the tips. So, it's just peeled. It's just nail polish. We're real fancy here. Real fancy.
Okay, so the gloves are coming off today. We're going to have very controversial conversation. Um, we're gonna talk about AI and as it pertains to business because I think people have very strong feelings. I have very strong feelings. My feelings about AI have changed a lot since it all came out. I I know you and I have different opinions. Uh so we're gonna drink our gin and fight about it. Oh, amazing. I feel like it might be a little underwhelming. My opinions might not be as strong as you're making them out to be, but Okay. So, like what is your what are your thoughts on AI and business? Like where are you at with it? So, when it first kind of like started to be the big trending thing, I really hated it. I was like, uh, this is like it's terrible. It's turning out just like garbage and we have enough garbage in the world. And I also really felt strongly about like artists who were feeling like their work was in jeopardy. Um, you know, there's been things where writers, I mean, I'm a writer. I have I have several books. Those books were being uploaded illegally into databases and like basically stealing work. So, I don't like that. I think that's terrible. Um, I know that interesting. There's a lot of debate about the environmental impact about AI, um, which some people say is overblown and that people talk about how it's like killing the planet, um, without actually following through with the sources that are saying that. Like sometimes it's just somebody on TikTok who wants a lot of views and is making some claims that we don't maybe have all the information on. But you know I consider myself an earth lover. So I was very not into it at first. What about and then Oh, you want to hear my Well, I want to hear where you're Yeah. So, um, I'm basically like a 19th century technophobic woman in the body of a 40-year-old woman. So, I I would say I feel pretty like just personally like get it away from me when there's some big new technology. Um, so like on a personal level I'm kind of like why when and I know there are reasons for it and I know there are business reasons for it which I'm sure we'll get into. Um, but I do think like a lot of I see a lot of people like outsourcing a lot of the creative process that I that gives me life to AI. And I think like why like what's the point? Which is kind of interesting. Like I think AI is raising really interesting questions about the creative process. Um and like why we do it and why we're compelled to create and what creating actually means. Um, but personally I haven't found a compelling reason to like integrate AI into my everyday life on a personal level or a business level. Also, I echo all of the like ecological concerns that you raised as well as the um societal concerns in terms of like people's jobs being being taken over which to some degree we can separate from the question of AI but to another degree we live in the world and it doesn't seem like at least in the US the government is like thinking about how to protect jobs and I don't necessarily have a lot of trust in that. So I have some concerns when it comes to that. Um as well as you know the plagiarism of artists work to feed the algorithms. So
that I will say that was like sort of my starting point. Yeah. I feel like a big hypocrite because actually in the last like two weeks I was searching for um a way to get YouTube videos get to make like uh social media clips from YouTube videos for this podcast. Yes. And I landed on a software that I didn't understand like what it was exactly, but it like took the YouTube video and spat out a clip that I could use on social media. So like I'm actually kind of now like h Yes. Okay. I mean, I I can see I'm like maybe coming around, but also all of the previous concerns are still there. So, that's sort of where I'm at right now. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, we're not going to fight about it because that's that's like I think that's all super fair. And what's really kind of interesting is I think the first couple years it was just so bad. And there were people really like trying to sell how great it was, but there were not a lot of like really useful intuitive tools. You still had to be a computer programmer to get anything but nonsense from any AI tool, right? But where I'm kind of at with it right now is, you know, a big argument that I will sometimes get when I offer it as a potential supportive tool for a business owner who wants to have a lean team, who maybe doesn't have a huge budget to hire, you know, copywriters or social media manager or someone to go through our long drunken conversation and pick out some
you know, not everybody like has those resources. And I think that something that when I started my business, it was just such a constant learning curve that I understood why most people quit within the first six months to a year. Not everybody's a great marketer. Not everybody's a great copywriter. Most people don't want to sit and review their own content.
And until those tools kind of started to get better, I was just like, "No, I'm out." My lovely husband, it's so funny cuz I grew up on Star Trek, so normally with tech things, I'm like, "Beam me up. When can I get a cry quarter? When can I be healed with a little?" So, we're opposites in that sense. Like, I would I would like get me on a starship. I'm I would be right there.
But it really took Steve actually doing an experiment with me where he uploaded our entire book into a closed loop system that does not write it back to the general public because I was like tus I'm not feeding the the bot don't feed the machine. and he started training it to help me get some like rough draft ideas for social media content that we could pull things from the book and turn it into like a nice little pathy thing that I could stick on Instagram. and starting to work with that and train it, I realized that it actually was teaching me how to give really direct and specific feedback, which is something I think a lot of business owners struggle with and why sometimes the humans that they hire can't deliver according to their expectations. Because if you're like, "Hey, social media manager, I just don't like this post." Uhhuh. That's not feedback that someone can use. Oh, that's so interesting. So, it like taught you how to manage. It taught me a lot about how to be more direct. I mean, I think I'm pretty clear. I think I have pretty good communication skills, but when there's another person where you're like, I mean, we all humans do this. If I say if I think to myself, ooh, this is way too fluffy or gh this is used the word transformation like five times. blah. Like, this is so cliche. I couldn't just say that to some really nice new social media person on my team. I would have to like position it and try to find out how they're going to receive it. Like, I would do all of this behind the scenes mind drama to try to convey what I really wanted to say, which is tighten this up. Don't use cliche words. Speak to the client. Don't speak like a coach. Mhm. But I can say that to AI and it will just give me another draft which will help me give it better feedback. That's so interesting. Yeah. And so I started kind of playing with this. I was like still like I don't know now that I'm writing another book having that as a tool to not have to spend hours writing copy, writing content to have just sort of like a thinking partner on my team who gets it and will give me something instantly and revises without drama. Um who I mean they cost $20 a month because it's just whatever the subscription to the service is. It helps me invest in higher quality training for myself because I don't have to pay a salary of someone to do that for me. It helps me invest more time into my book projects and my kind of deeper thinking. So I I hear the argument that people are are really concerned that we're losing our ability to think if we outsource that thinking to AI. But I've actually experienced, at least personally, I can't speak for everyone, but I've experienced that it's helped me externalize things that I would just stew on for days and days and days and actually get feedback and have a conversation and make things that were just kind of running on in the background much more explicit, much more immediate. Um, I can have an idea and I can say, how could I say this through the lens of one of my superbound tools and it will give me 10 ideas that function as a really good jumping off point for deeper creative processes. Even when I hate it, even when I'm like that is stupid, or I disagree with that, that gives me kind of like an a creative position to work with.
I still wouldn't listen to AI written music. Huh? Still don't think that like I don't think I would be buying AI generated art. I I still like like is that as a principle or because you don't think it's good enough? I don't think it's good enough. And I just think that I'm not using AI to replace something that I would normally pay someone else for. I'm using Ann to replace myself because I've never found a social media manager who was like good enough to keep forever. Oh, that's so interesting. You know, like it's just it's actually reduced my mental load within my personal life, within my business. It's given me back so much more time. Mhm. Um, but not because I'm having it do things that replace me. Like I would never spam people. Like I know this is this is my annoyance with AI is people who are like I'm going to create an AI bot to like slide into people's DMs and tell them ask them a very personal question about how much money they make or how their business is doing. That I'm not down with. Mhm. I think I I hope that we can use these kinds of tools to give us back more time to do the human stuff better.
I'm having such an interesting experience right now. There's like a huge cognitive dissonance that I'm experiencing that like on the one hand I'm like this this vision you or it's not a vision it's like a reality that you've created of your relationship with AI is in some ways like the dream creative experience like it's like I mean I often envision it as externalized with another person or group of people but it's like being able to share ideas freely to experiment with things, to throw out ideas that don't land without like a lot of angst about it. Um, and the also the idea to or the the um experience of being able to like hone the things that you're really good at and outsource the things that you're not. So, on one level, I'm like, "Oh my god, that sounds like a utopia. That sounds amazing." And then on a and like this might be too philosophical for a coaching podcast, but I'm like are we because like I hear you that you haven't found a social media manager who you're able to develop this relationship with, but are we like replacing are we trying to like replace relationships that we could like build or foster that are going to be messier and maybe like a little more complicated? Are we trying to replace that with a robot? Like, is that okay? If we are, I don't know. It I I mean, I don't have an answer. I think it is I think it's not too philosophical. I think it's a really good point. Um I know that like just for my personal business, it's the last thing I like really want to invest time and money into. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to like I'm I am actually I for a while I was like, "Oh yeah, no, the dream is to have the social media assistant who when people send me a DM, they're like, "Oh, hi. This is Aaron's team and blah blah blah." I'm like, "Actually, I just want people to be able to reach out and know they're talking to me. I don't want like an intermediary. I actually think it's provided me more space and time to connect with people. So I totally, you know, and I and I have friends who are social media managers and who like do amazing work and they work with people at a level where I think that there is no AI that can do what they do. Yeah. What I think is happening and where I think a lot of people do feel some of the push pull is AI can do pretty well. So that means we as human and and we'll maybe maybe we'll talk about this one because this is another new trend um AI as coach or therapist as coach or therapist. Yeah. I know so many people who no longer have a therapist, no longer have a coach because they have developed a relationship. And on some level, I'm like, "Yeah, this is you. You know 100% that you will not be judged. You will not have to deal with another human's bias or what they think you should do or who they think you should be. You have a space that is very safe that you can engage with at any moment of the day. Mhm.
It I think it means I'm like I don't get scared about that. I'm like that means that the human experience that I have with someone has to be exceptional. Yeah. I get a little bit scared of that. Do you? Oh my gosh. A little bit. Not not threatened like not necessarily threatened you. You're amazing. But a little bit. Oh. Um, I don't know how I feel about it because I think um, a lot of people are craving emotional validation and I don't I think like they're like a almost like a vitamin deficiency. I think a lot of us are vitamin deficient in emotional validation. And I also think a lot of coaches are not skilled at offering emotional validation while also empowering the client to change their thought patterns. That's a whole other tangent. But um so I think on the one hand yeah like it's good it's good that there are outlets for people to get that and I think part of the value actually like most of the value of a therapeutic or coaching relationship is in the like humanto human connection that you build over time and like the rupture and repair that you experience within in a connection. Like I think that's what helps people heal from traumatic experiences. It's what helps them understand what change looks like. It it's what brings like more meaning to relationships. Yeah. So, I do worry about the like engaging with an AI that's like validation without human connection and the messiness that comes from that and like that's a little scary to me to be honest. I I hear you. Um, you know, and it's interesting, too, because
Steve was like, "Are you ever afraid you're going to get replaced?" And I'm like, there's just so much I think people do also crave human connection. And yeah, like there is something really special about having a place where your like nervous system can land and AI cannot do that at this point. Maybe maybe someday we will feel like deep resonance and or maybe people are already feeling it. I don't know. I I have not gone down that rabbit hole because um I really feel like the co-regulation and the um resonance with another person is part of it to your point like even the rupture and repair also my thought about it and I don't even know if this is true but it's the thought that I have and so it's the one I'm picking for now is that at least from what we do as like for you as a creative coach um for me as a business coach, AI can only give you what it's already got. It cannot in like it can take in someone's whole business model and it can give you a playbook based on what else is out there that's already been done. What it can't do is say, "This is a possibility for your business. Here's my intuitive hit on what we could explore here." Or like, "I notice you're saying these things, but your facial expression or your your your your mannerisms are giving me a different energy." Like, it can't read the person. It can't sense energy. It can't get intuition. and it can't innovate in that specific creative way yet. Mhm. So, I still think there's room for coaches and I think there's room for consultants and and all of that, but I do think it's it requires like us to just be better. Yeah. It means we can't just be like, "Oh, I learned this one tool that now there's an AI program that can deliver this tool to clients for a fraction of the price, which I think is also great. I'm like, it's more accessible. There's a lot of people who cannot afford therapy and cannot afford coaching that can get something from Chash GBT. I'm like, more power to them and that's healing and that can be amazing as a an entry." um it's better than nothing. But I think for those of us who want to carve out a business and maybe are competing in some ways with AI now, I think it's like ooh we have to be really good. Yeah. Yeah. I do think I Yeah, I agree with you in that like I think co there will always be a market for coaching because people are always going to be yearning for connection. I don't think that's ever going to stop. Yeah. Um and I don't think AI will at least how I current how I can conceive of it. I don't won't see that replacing humanto human connection. Guess we'll see in five years we'll be like, "Oh, actually here's AI."
Yeah. And like I also there is a part of me that's like in a vacuum with like a different political landscape. I could conceive of a world in which it's like let's collaborate fully with AI. Let's see what it can do and what it can't do. Let's take care of like human needs and then focus on that. I know we do not live in that world. Um, so it is an interesting idea and this idea of like coaches needing to get better to think I think in my mind like what getting better means is like being radically present with the clients like the wrote questions that we learned in training. Flossing your teeth isn't going to fly. Flossing your teeth isn't going to fly. Oh my god.
10 years ago. Totally fine. Mhm. Yeah. We just had to change our thoughts about it as Clay, right? Oh my god. But I
