Podcasts about use ai

In this episode of Sales POP!, supplement industry veteran John Smiddy (New to Marketers) reveals the strategies behind his $100M+ in client revenue. Key takeaways for 2026:  AI-first optimization: Structure your product data for AI recommendation engines, not just search engines. Consumers are buying through ChatGPT conversations now. Amazon launch strategy: Start on Amazon to build instant credibility and reviews. Smiddy's data shows conversion rates of 5%+ for new brands- better than most DTC sites. Differentiation is critical: Generic formulations fail. Partner with experts to create proprietary blends backed by clinical validation and third-party testing. Balance AI with authenticity: Use AI for research and optimization, but keep your creative human. Customers can spot AI-generated content instantly.

S6:E12 Loralyn Mears, PhD, aka "Dr. LL," brings you thoughtful conversations with entrepreneurs and small business leaders navigating visibility, leadership, and growth. Thank you for being here. Overview Sometimes the issue is not your talent. It is that people cannot verify it fast enough to feel safe choosing you. In a world where AI can generate endless output, the quiet problem becomes trust, proof, and what feels "real." This episode sits inside a recurring Season 6 thread: capable people getting overlooked because their credibility is not legible at first glance. If you have ever felt like the work is strong but the market still hesitates, there is more going on here than effort.

On this episode of The SaaS CFO Podcast, host Ben Murray welcomes Ben Winter, co-founder and COO at Stuut. Ben Winter brings a dynamic background in management consulting, design agencies, and executive leadership roles within scaling SaaS companies. He shares the story behind founding Stuut—an AI-powered platform designed to transform the order-to-cash process for businesses where working capital and collection efficiency are essential. Ben Winter reveals how Stuut's AI agents streamline everything from invoice communication to payment collection, targeting verticals like manufacturing, logistics, and medical devices that rely on fast cash cycles. The discussion delves into Stuut's journey—from early customer pain points to rapid fundraising, the importance of founder–investor alignment, and their innovative approach to go-to-market and brand differentiation in the crowded finance technology space. Listen in for actionable insights on SaaS metrics, building AI-driven solutions, and lessons learned in scaling an operationally efficient company—straight from a COO who's at the forefront of fintech innovation. Show Notes: 00:00 "Automating AR with AI" 05:19 "Optimizing Cash Flow for Growth" 07:11 Evolving CFO Strategies for Collections 12:34 "Delivering Value to Customers" 16:25 In-Person Impact and Clear Value 19:14 "Non-Traditional Marketing Strategies" 21:16 "Digital Coworkers for Collections Teams" 24:09 "AP & AR Strategy Insights" 29:57 "Scaling Efficiently with AI" 31:28 "Rethinking Team Structures Efficiently" Links: SaaS Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/stuut-technologies-raises-29-5m-series-a Ben Winter's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengwinter/ Stuut's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stuut/ Stuut's Website: https://www.stuut.ai/ To learn more about Ben check out the links below: Subscribe to Ben's daily metrics newsletter: https://saasmetricsschool.beehiiv.com/subscribe Subscribe to Ben's SaaS newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page SaaS Metrics courses here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/ Join Ben's SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

S6:E12 Loralyn Mears, PhD, aka "Dr. LL," brings you thoughtful conversations with entrepreneurs and small business leaders navigating visibility, leadership, and growth. Thank you for being here. Overview Sometimes the issue is not your talent. It is that people cannot verify it fast enough to feel safe choosing you. In a world where AI can generate endless output, the quiet problem becomes trust, proof, and what feels "real." This episode sits inside a recurring Season 6 thread: capable people getting overlooked because their credibility is not legible at first glance. If you have ever felt like the work is strong but the market still hesitates, there is more going on here than effort.

Wes and Scott answer your questions about AI agents, learning to code with AI, pagination patterns, skilling up from outdated tech stacks, balancing side projects with family life, real-world hacking attempts, and more! Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:39 Are devs really running multiple AI agents at once? Scott's Tweet 09:41 Brought to you by Sentry.io 12:45 What is pagination and why do websites use it? 18:17 Should beginners use AI while learning to code? 30:24 The real-world skills CS degrees don't teach you 35:59 Someone tried to hack Syntax 38:12 How Wes and Scott became co-hosts 42:00 Moving from junior to mid-level when your skills are outdated 45:42 How do you balance time for side projects, life, and family 52:45 Building a ChatGPT-style RAG search for your resume 56:15 Why Chad Whitacre videos were on the Syntax YouTube channel Chad's YouTube Channel 58:44 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Scott: Trmnl Wes: RYOBI Soldering Iron Shameless Plugs Syntax YouTube Channel Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Here's a question you may have heard already from a client or prospect when you submit a quote or proposal: "Wait… you use AI now. Shouldn't this cost less?" On the surface, it sounds like a pricing question. But underneath, there's something much more important going on. It's a sign that the client is still thinking in terms of time, keystrokes, and effort—while you're trying to sell judgment, standards, and outcomes. In this short episode, I walk through how to handle that objection without getting defensive, without negotiating against yourself, and without pretending AI doesn't make parts of your work easier or faster. We talk about: · Why this question is natural (and why it doesn't automatically make someone a "bad" client) · The core reframe that moves the conversation away from hours and toward responsibility and value · Simple talk tracks you can use on the spot when a client presses on price · How to reduce the chances of having this conversation in the first place · And why, long-term, the goal isn't to win every pricing debate, but to work with forward-thinking clients who actually get the value you bring to the table If you've ever felt caught off guard by this question, or unsure how to respond without sounding defensive or vague, this episode will give you language you can actually use.

I sit down with Jonathan Courtney, host of Unscheduled CEO Podcast, to talk about the gap between building AI-powered products and actually making money from them. Jonathan walks through his four-step "Promoter Blueprint" — traffic, holding pattern, selling event, and conversion — and shows exactly how he uses Claude and Claude Code to execute each phase. This one is a wake-up call for any founder spending more time optimizing automations than promoting what they sell. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro and Welcome Back 04:13 – The Founder's Real Job: Promotion, Period 09:23 – The Promoter Blueprint (Screen Share) 19:38 – Using AI with Promoter Blueprint 22:52 – Inside Claude: Jonathan's Claude Workflow 28:41 – Moving from Claude to Claude Code for Builds 30:55 – Building a $450K Webinar Campaign with Claude 37:30 – Scale Up, Abundance Over Efficiency 43:57 – Final Advice: Embrace Your Role as Promoter Key Points A CEO's primary job is promoting the business — building is secondary to getting people in the door. AI tools become "procrastination machines" when builders optimize systems that have zero customers. Every revenue engine follows four phases: traffic, holding pattern, selling event, conversion (and a loop back). Claude projects combined with Claude Code create a fast workflow for going from research to a shipped marketing asset in under an hour. The current play is abundance and scale, using AI to run five campaigns instead of one, rather than cutting headcount for efficiency. Off-the-shelf solutions still beat custom builds in many cases — always ask before you spend three days vibe-coding something. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JONATHAN ON SOCIAL Unscheduled CEO Podcast: https://www.unscheduledceo.com/ X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jicecream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/

In a world of instant output, what makes your insight stand out?Bill Gallagher explores the mindset shift every leader needs to make when using AI tools. While executives are often excited, teams on the ground are nervous--and with good reason. But AI isn't here to replace your thinking; it's here to amplify it. In this episode, Bill breaks down how to stay ahead of the curve without falling into the trap of automation overwhelm.Topics explored in this episode:(00:02) AI Is an Amplifier, Not a Replacement*Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc., are here to scale and amplify you, not replace you.*The biggest mistake is seeing AI as either a threat or a total replacement for human contribution.*Traditional research (library, citations, cross-referencing) was extremely time-consuming.(02:48) Human Wisdom Is the Differentiator*Let AI draft, format, analyze, summarize.*But judgment, insight, and strategic calls remain human responsibilities.*AI output is often a starting point, but it is not the final answer.(06:32) Leaders Are Excited, but Teams Are Nervous*CEOs and execs tend to be excited.*Teams often fear being replaced and falling behind.*Leaders must normalize learning and experimentation.Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.Join Bill in the Growth Navigator Coaching Program: https://ScalingCoach.com/workshopBill on LinkedIn: https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/BillGallBill on YouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/@BillGallagherScalingCoachVisit https://ScalingUp.com to learn more about Verne Harnish, our team of Scaling Up Coaches, and the Scaling Up Performance Platform, which includes coaching, learning, software, and summit. We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around people, strategy, execution, and cash so that they can scale up successfully and beat the odds of business growth.Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.Subscribe via Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3PGhWPJSubscribe via Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3PKe00uBill on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/billgall/Bill on Twitter/X: https://x.com/billgall

Guest Bio: Louise is an award-winning social media strategist, coach, four-time best-selling author, and the founder of SellOnSocial.Media Digital Marketing Agency & Academy. For the past 20 years, I've helped coaches and consultants grow their businesses with fresh perspectives and innovative AI-powered tools. Key Points: Social media is marketing, not a separate skill Louise didn't "get into social media" randomly; her foundation is traditional marketing. Social media is simply a modern channel for applying timeless marketing principles. The problem isn't social media itself; it's treating it as something different from marketing strategy. You don't need to like social media to use it well  Many business owners dislike social media or don't want to spend hours online and that's okay. Social media is not about becoming an influencer or going viral. For business owners, it's about using social platforms efficiently and intentionally to generate leads and opportunities. Followers ≠ business growth Having thousands of followers means nothing if you don't know how to convert attention into revenue. A person with zero followers and someone with 15,000 followers can have the same problem: no system to turn visibility into sales. Social media success is not about features, hacks, or trends, it's about strategy. The 5-step framework for using social media effectively 1.     Clarify your core offer 2.     Nail your messaging 3.     Show up with intent. 4.     Build a lead generation system 5.     Use AI as a co-pilot, not the driver  Expectations depend on your starting point Results vary based on size of your existing audience, email list strength and consistency of organic activity. Someone with a warm audience will see faster results than someone starting from scratch. Organic activity makes paid ads dramatically more effective. Organic activity + paid ads = leverage Ads work best when layered on top of consistent organic engagement. Cold ad accounts cost more and convert less. Platforms reward businesses that show up consistently before running ads. What a "lead" really means in social media A lead is someone who opts in; joins your list, attends a session, downloads something. Leads can be cold (just joined), warm (engaging) or hot (ready to buy). Most people don't buy immediately, social media supports direct, indirect, and future sales. Social media doesn't sell high-ticket services, conversations do Low-cost products can sell directly on social platforms. High-ticket services require lead generation, nurturing and sales conversations. You market online, but you sell offline. The real outcome of social media The goal isn't instant sales; it's building a pipeline of qualified prospects. Social media creates visibility, trust, and opportunity over time. Done right, it feeds a steady flow of future business. Bottom line: Social media works when it's treated as a strategic marketing system, not a content treadmill. Clear offers, strong messaging, intentional activity, and lead generation, not virality, drive real business results.   Guest Links: AI Powered Online 2026 Social Media Content Planner To help you create impactful content week in, week out! 1.     The 2026 content calendar with 950+ searchable dates and holidays 2.     An AI post generator for Story, Advice and Testimonial posts in your own voice (2 posts per month, free forever) 3.     High-converting post formats powered by smart prompts, so you can create content that works, in your own voice and tone 4.     Simple tools to plan and organize your content 5.     This smart tool helps you embrace AI as your co-pilot, so you create content easily in your voice and tone.     About Salesology®: Conversations with Sales Leaders Download your free gift, The Salesology® Vault. The vault is packed full of free gifts from sales leaders, sales experts, marketing gurus, and revenue generation experts. Download your free gift, 81 Tools to Grow Your Sales & Your Business Faster, More Easily & More Profitably. Save hours of work tracking down the right prospecting and sales resources and/or digital tools that every business owner and salesperson needs. If you are a business owner or sales manager with an underperforming sales team, let's talk. Click here to schedule a time. Please subscribe to Salesology®: Conversations with Sales Leaders so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! To learn more about our previous guests, listen to past episodes, and get to know your host, go to https://podcast.gosalesology.com/ and connect on LinkedIn and follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and check out our website at https://gosalesology.com/. 

In this episode of C.U. On The Show, Doug English speaks with Deedee Myers and JD Myers about how AI is influencing credit union governance and organizational readiness. They discuss how AI can accelerate both strengths and weaknesses in an organization, why workforce literacy and critical thinking matter in an AI-enabled environment, and how boards can responsibly engage with AI in strategic planning. The conversation covers practical entry points—such as “point AI” tools and vendor-embedded AI—along with longer-term concepts like enterprise AI, AI ecosystems, and the importance of security and explainability for regulated decision-making.Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N3BQnwVMm0ARead the episode summary here: Fiduciary Financial Planning Insights | ACT Advisors BlogEmail doug@act-advisors.com with any inquiries.The guests on today's show are not affiliated with or endorsed by ACT Advisors, LLC and their opinions are their own. ACT Advisors did not provide cash or non-cash compensation for their participation. ACT Advisors, LLC is an SEC-registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not investment, legal, or tax advice.

The Ultimate Marketing Safety Net: Why You Don't Own Your AudienceIn the fast-paced world of 2026, many entrepreneurs are making a fatal mistake: they are building their entire business on "rented land". Whether you are a note investor, a realtor, or a fix-and-flipper, the reality is that we are all in the marketing business first. If your primary way of reaching clients is through a free platform like Facebook or LinkedIn, you are one algorithm change or account deletion away from having your business vanish overnight.I've seen it happen to the best of us. From podcasting experts losing 20-year-old accounts to major email services flagging databases, the message is urgent: you must own your data. Success in today's market isn't just about finding deals; it's about "carpet bombing" your message across multiple channels while funneling every lead into a database you actually control.5 Keys to Dominating Your Marketing in 2026Own the "Gold" (Name, Email, and Phone): Social media followers are great for presence, but the only true assets you own are your contacts' names, email addresses, and cell phone numbers. These three pieces of information are the most valuable resources in your business, allowing you to bypass platform gatekeepers and connect directly with your audience.The Power of the Weekly Drip: Consistency is the antidote to being forgotten. You should be sending at least one email per week to your database to stay top-of-mind. Frequent communication leads to lower opt-out rates because you are building a relationship rather than just asking for money when you have a deal.Leverage AI for Content Multiplicity: You don't need to spend hours writing from scratch. Use AI to take a single long-form video or podcast transcript and "chop" it into 30 short-form videos, blogs, and newsletters. This "multi-touch" approach ensures you are seen on every platform—from LinkedIn newsletters to YouTube—without doubling your workload.Implement "Mother Ship" Landing Pages: Every piece of content should lead back to your "mothership"—your website. Use simple one-page landing pages with "opt-ins" like free classes or case studies to capture lead information. Even if they don't buy immediately, you've captured the data necessary for future marketing.The "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook" Philosophy: Most investors fail at raising capital because they only reach out when they are desperate for a deal. Instead, provide value through "edutainment"—sharing case studies, industry articles, and networking updates. By giving 75% of the time, your "ask" for funding will feel like a natural opportunity for your investors rather than a cold pitch.Conclusion: Take Action Before the "Fade"Don't let your business fade away like a character in a movie. If you aren't growing your database, you aren't growing your income. Start by exporting your contacts from LinkedIn or your calendar service and moving them into a dedicated CRM. Remember, email still provides the highest ROI in marketing—returning roughly $44 for every $1 spent. Stop being a "secret agent" and start sharing your journey consistently.Watch the Original Video of this Episode HERE!Book a Call With Scott HERE!Sign up for the next FREE One-Day Note Class HERE!Sign up for the WCN Membership HERE!Sign up for the next Note Buying For Dummies Workshop HERE!Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join the Note Closers Show community today:WeCloseNotes.comThe Note Closers Show FacebookThe Note Closers Show TwitterScott Carson LinkedInThe Note Closers Show YouTubeThe Note Closers Show VimeoThe Note Closers Show InstagramWe Close Notes Pinterest

How CX Leaders Can Navigate the Turbulence of an AI-Transformed World  Shep interviews Scott McKain, award-winning speaker and best-selling author. He talks about his latest book, Beyond Distinction: How Leaders Transcend the Turbulence of an AI-Transformed World, and  how leaders and organizations can create meaningful, distinctive customer experiences in an AI-transformed world.  This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions and more:    Why is consistency important in providing an excellent customer experience?  What role does emotional connection play in building customer loyalty?  How should companies leverage technology to improve customer service without losing the human touch?  What are some effective ways to deliver a proactive customer experience?  Why is standing out from competitors not enough to build lasting customer relationships?  Top Takeaways:    Standing out from competitors is important. However, simply being different is not always good. Distinction is when what we do is unique, compelling, and memorable in a way that is impactful and meaningful to the customers we seek to serve.  Consistency wows customers. Amazing customer experiences are built on doing small things right, every time. When every interaction is handled with care and attention, customers learn to trust the brand.   Technology, like AI, can make your business faster and more efficient, but loyalty comes from how you make customers feel. Even with simple gestures like remembering someone's name or checking whether the customer got everything they need, it's the human touch that keeps people coming back.   Use AI to save money and handle repetitive tasks efficiently, giving your team more time to focus on resolving customer issues and building stronger relationships.  Every organization should be very precise about what they aren't, just as clear as they are about what they are.   Real competitive advantage does not come from reacting to trends or to what your competitors are doing. If you are constantly in reaction mode, you are already behind. Staying ahead means anticipating your customers' needs before they realize what they want.   Artificial Intelligence amplifies the values and habits a business already has, good or bad. If a business is committed to consistently providing excellent service, AI will help them do so even better. If a business is running on broken systems or is only focused on cutting costs, AI could make those problems worse.   Plus, Scott shares more insights from his latest book, Beyond Distinction: How Leaders Transcend the Turbulence of an AI-Transformed World. Tune in! Quote:   "Tasks go to technology, but emotion and customers go to human beings."  About:    Scott McKain is a Hall of Fame speaker, business advisor, and the founder/CEO of the Distinction Institute. He is the best-selling author of ALL Business is STILL Show Business, Iconic, Create Distinction, and his latest,  Beyond Distinction.  Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Tiffany dives into a critical challenge facing today's coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors: the subtle "outsourcing" of leadership and authority. While we live in an era where AI and algorithms can generate content in seconds, Tiffany explores the hidden costs of letting technology and trends replace human discernment.She clarifies that while she is a proponent of technology (integrating AI into her own Brand OS Pro ecosystem), there is a vital distinction between using tools to support your authority versus using them to substitute it. This episode is a call to action for thought leaders to reclaim their "internal compass," protect their intellectual property, and lead with a grounded perspective that no algorithm can replicate.Key TakeawaysSupport vs. Substitution: Technology should amplify your discernment, not replace your thinking. Use AI to expand your leadership capacity, but never as a replacement for your unique perspective.The Subtlety of Giving Away Authority: Outsourcing authority rarely happens overnight. It begins when we prioritize "what's working right now" (trends/optimization) over our own "True North" (truth/alignment).Algorithms vs. Wisdom: Algorithms are designed for engagement, and AI is trained on what already exists. Neither can sense nuance, feel timing, or take responsibility for the consequences of a decision, those are uniquely human traits.The Map and the Compass: Think of AI and external strategies as maps that show you where others have gone. You must remain the compass. If you follow the map without checking your compass, you may move fast, but you won't move toward your true mission.The Hidden Cost of Hollow Messaging: When authority lives outside of you, your brand loses its coherence. Listeners and clients can energetically sense when a leader's confidence is wavering or when their message feels "diluted" by copy-and-paste thinking.Protecting Your IP: True authority involves owning and protecting your Intellectual Property (IP). Within the Brand OS Pro framework, AI is used to house and reinforce your unique voice, ensuring your nuance isn't erased by automation.Reflective Questions for Leaders:Where have I been deferring instead of deciding?What opinions have I been trusting more than my own?Where have I optimized away my intuition?What would leadership look like if I trusted myself more fully?Mentioned ResourcesBrand OS Pro: Tiffany's signature ecosystem for helping leaders integrate systems and AI while protecting their IP and authority.Connect with Tiffany:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanyneuman/Email: tiffany@tiffanyneuman.comRate, Review, and Follow on Your Favorite Platform! If you loved this episode, leave us a review. And always make sure you're following the podcast so you never miss an episode. Follow now!

If you have a podcast — or you're thinking about starting one — chances are you've already wondered how AI fits into the picture. Can it save time? Can it help you grow faster? And more importantly… can it actually help you build a profitable podcast without watering down your voice or your authority?In this episode of Run Your Damn Business, I'm breaking down when AI helps your podcast grow — and when it quietly works against you. Because while AI can absolutely support podcast monetization and online visibility, using it the wrong way can weaken the very thing that makes podcasts convert: trust, connection, and authority.I use AI every single week in my business. I'm not anti-AI. But I am deeply strategic about where it belongs in a podcasting ecosystem — especially if your goal is monetizing a podcast, attracting aligned clients, and building sustainable passive income instead of another content hamster wheel.Inside this episode, we talk about why AI is incredibly effective for behind-the-scenes podcast strategy — and why relying on it for your actual content can hurt your ability to market online in a way that feels human and believable.You'll hear how AI can help you:Understand your market fasterClarify positioning and messagingStrengthen SEO so your podcast compounds over timeIncrease online visibility without posting moreSupport podcast monetization without replacing your voiceBut we'll also talk honestly about the one area where AI causes podcasters to lose momentum, confidence, and connection — often without realizing it.Podcasting is not just a content channel. It's relationship marketing. And when your goal is to attract more clients, build trust at scale, and create a business asset that works even when you're offline, how you use AI matters just as much as whether you use it.This conversation is especially important if you're trying to:Build a profitable podcast instead of an expensive hobbyMonetize your podcast in a way that feels alignedUse your podcast as a long-term business assetMarket online without burning out on social mediaI also share how I'm teaching this exact framework — including SEO patterning, keyword positioning, and strategic AI use — inside my free live training happening February 24–26, where I walkReady to turn your podcast into a real business asset? If you already have a podcast that isn't making money — or you're thinking about starting one and want to do it right from day one — I'm hosting a FREE, live training that will show you exactly how to build a podcast that actually supports your revenue. Inside the Profitable Podcast Kickstarter, I'll walk you through how to: • connect your podcast to a real offer • stop creating content that goes nowhere • turn listeners into clients — without living on social media

AI can be a valuable tool for organizing your thoughts, creating systems for productivity, and ultimately making more money as a result.In this week's episode, Grace and Erin shared how they use AI in business and life. Everything from managing thoughts and ideas, to creating project roadmaps, to improving content.—If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the podcast. We appreciate your support!

Shopping should be simple. But for most of us, it’s turned into tabs open everywhere, conflicting reviews, and that lingering doubt that you’ve either missed a better option or paid more than you needed to. We walk through how we actually use AI tools when we’re buying something, from working out what problem we’re trying to solve, to comparing products without getting lost in specs and opinions. We also dig into some of the most frustrating parts of shopping, like finding the best price, checking historical lows, tracking price drops, and hunting down discount codes without trawling scammy websites. Neo and I discuss: How AI helps at the very start of the buying journey by clarifying what problem you’re actually trying to solve Using AI to compare products side by side, including features, pricing and versions Why AI is especially useful for complex purchases like electronics and appliances The differences between Perplexity, Google AI mode and ChatGPT when researching products How to use AI to find the best price and check historical price lows Setting up scheduled prompts to monitor prices and alert you when they drop Using AI to search for discount codes without trawling scammy or spammy websites Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn and via inventium.ai, where he leads Inventium’s AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams. My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/ Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au Credits: Host: Amantha Imber Sound Engineer: Martin Imber See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

S6:E10 Loralyn Mears, PhD, aka "Dr. LL," brings you thoughtful conversations with entrepreneurs and small business leaders navigating visibility, leadership, and growth. Thank you for being here. Overview There is a specific kind of frustration that does not look dramatic from the outside: you are doing the work, you are buying the tools, you are trying to keep up, and somehow things feel harder, not easier. You are not "behind," you are managing a system that is quietly becoming unmanageable. In 2026, the gap between what you know you should do and what you can realistically maintain is where a lot of businesses get misread. And when your backend is messy, your signal gets messy too.

S6:E10 Loralyn Mears, PhD, aka "Dr. LL," brings you thoughtful conversations with entrepreneurs and small business leaders navigating visibility, leadership, and growth. Thank you for being here. Overview There is a specific kind of frustration that does not look dramatic from the outside: you are doing the work, you are buying the tools, you are trying to keep up, and somehow things feel harder, not easier. You are not "behind," you are managing a system that is quietly becoming unmanageable. In 2026, the gap between what you know you should do and what you can realistically maintain is where a lot of businesses get misread. And when your backend is messy, your signal gets messy too.

AI is everywhere, but most business owners are not sure how to actually use it without creating more chaos. In this episode, BOP Coaches Shawn "Dickie" Stinson and Brandon "Donny" Gray break down AI in plain language for business owners who want clarity, not complexity. They explain why AI does not fix broken systems and how it works best when your business has clear processes and direction. You will hear how owners are using AI today to save time on emails, schedules, estimates, and client communication, without overcomplicating their business. They also unpack the three stages of AI adoption and why most owners should start simple before chasing advanced tools. Key takeaways: ✅ AI amplifies what already exists in your business ✅ Start with productivity before automation ✅ Bring your own thinking and context ✅ Do not trust AI without verifying ✅ Use AI to support clear processes, not replace them If AI feels overwhelming or confusing, this episode will help you see how to use it as a practical tool instead of another distraction. Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on. Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE➡️ http://businessonpurpose.com/healthy SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/ LISTEN to The Dickie and Donny Show on Apple Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dickie-and-donny-show/id1849240083 LISTEN to The Dickie and Donny Show on Spotify HERE ➡️  https://open.spotify.com/show/1gkSeO4QGSAcupPOnon5oS?si=12cf4b4a42a84aa1 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1 #AIForBusiness #SmallBusinessAI #BusinessAutomation #EntrepreneurTools

Episode quotes: "What you put into this, you get out of this in multiples." "It's not about sales. It's about learning, relationships, and leaving your ego at the door." "Use AI responsibly, but keep the humans involved. The humans are what keep it honest." In this episode of the Building HVAC Science Podcast, Eric Kaiser, Bill, and the TruTech Tools crew (Billy Spohn, Ginny Hebert, and Josh Crawley) recap their trip to the 7th Annual HVACR Training Symposium in Ocoee, Florida. Josh and Ginny share first-timer impressions: early-morning booth setup, instant attendee engagement, a surprisingly family-friendly outdoor vibe (kids and dogs everywhere), and the general "people are here to learn, not to get sold to" energy. The group talks about how rare it is to see a community where respect and curiosity are the default. They also dig into the most memorable moments and crowd magnets: the GRIT Foundation dunk tank fundraiser, Jim Bergmann's talk on using AI responsibly (in conjunction with real measurements), and hands-on booth favorites like the Shaeco fin straightener demo, the RETROTEC"air tracer," and continued interest in specialized tools like the TrueFlow grid and torque screwdrivers. Billy highlights a renewed surge of questions around combustion analyzers and why the industry seems to cycle back to them, while Eric frames it simply: you cannot fix what you cannot see. To close, everyone answers the question of why the symposium matters, in person or virtually. The consistent theme is relationships, peer learning, and a network that lasts long after the event. Bill caps it with a challenge: what you put into this community, you get back in multiples, and it can genuinely be career-changing. Symposium link: https://www.hvacrschool.com/events/7th-annual-hvac-r-training-symposium/   ELK's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-kaiser-323a1563/ Josh's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-crawley-20b41550/ Ginny's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginny-hebert/   Billy's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-spohn-jr-a06201a3/   Bill's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billspohn/   This episode was recorded in January 2026.

What if the reason you're burned out isn't delegation—but the fact that you're managing other people's approval instead of leading?You don't struggle with delegation—you struggle with giving clear feedback to the people whose approval you think you need. In this Thursday quick-hit, Dawn breaks down why senior hires trigger softened communication, midnight rewrites, and CEO exhaustion—and how learning to hold someone else's disappointment is the real leadership skill that removes bottlenecks. If you're rewriting work at 11 PM to “be nice,” this episode will hit uncomfortably close to home (in the best way).Ready to stop managing approval and start leading with clarity? Join the free AI for Founders Community—a room full of founders learning to delegate, give feedback, and lead without the approval economy running their business.Key TakeawaysYou're not bad at feedback—you're inconsistent. You give crystal-clear direction to people whose approval you don't need…and hedge endlessly with the ones you're afraid to disappoint.You're running two delegation systems. One clear. One softened. That split is what's exhausting you—not your team.Approval is expensive. Rewriting emails, taking work back, and fixing things at midnight is an invisible approval tax on your CEO time.This isn't about their feelings—it's about your story. You're not managing their disappointment. You're managing the fear of what their disappointment might “prove” about you.AI can expose your approval patterns fast. When emotions muddy leadership language, AI can objectively show you where you hedge, soften, and self-protect.Before you give feedback, ask yourself: “Am I softening this because they can't handle clarity—or because I'm afraid of losing their approval?”If it's the second one, that's not kindness. That's self-protection.Leadership requires learning how to hold someone else's disappointment without making it your emergency.Use AI as your approval detector:Prompt:“Analyze my feedback patterns. Below are three emails to junior team members and three to senior team members. Identify where my language shifts from direct to hedging, where I manage reactions instead of stating expectations, and rewrite the senior feedback with the same clarity used for juniors.”You'll see the pattern immediately—and once you see it, you can't unsee it.Resources & LinksJoin the Community: AI for Founders Free GroupFreebie: The Feedback FixRelated Episodes:Ep. 125 | The 3-Text Test: How Female Founders Use AI to Stop Their Team From Treating Them Like Google — communication clarity + boundaries.Send us a textWant to increase revenue and impact? Listen to “She's That Founder” for insights on business strategy and female leadership to scale your business. Each episode offers advice on effective communication, team building, and management. Learn to master routines and systems to boost productivity and prevent burnout. Our delegation tips and business consulting will advance your executive leadership skills and presence.

It’s actually a good thing that some books push you to the edge of your ability to understand. But there’s no doubting the fact that dense, abstract and jargon-filled works can push you so far into the fog of frustration that you cannot blame yourself for giving up. But here’s the truth: You don’t have to walk away frustrated and confused. I’m going to share with you a number of practical strategies that will help you fill in the gaps of your reading process. Because that’s usually the real problem: It’s not your intelligence. Nor is it that the world is filled with books “above your level.” I ultimately don’t believe in “levels” as such. But as someone who taught reading courses at Rutgers and Saarland University, I know from experience that many learners need to pick up a few simple steps that will strengthen how they approach reading difficult books. And in this guide, you’ll learn how to read challenging books and remember what they say. I’m going to go beyond generic advice too. That way, you can readily diagnose: Why certain books feel so hard Use pre-reading tactics that prime your brain to deal with difficulties effectively Apply active reading techniques to lock in understanding faster Leverage accelerated learning tools that are quick to learn Use Artificial Intelligence to help convert tough convent into lasting knowledge without worrying about getting duped by AI hallucinations Whether you’re tacking philosophy, science, dense fiction or anything based primarily in words, the reading system you’ll learn today will help you turn confusion into clarity. By the end, even the most intimidating texts will surrender their treasures to your mind. Ready? Let’s break it all down together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9HLbY4jsFg Why Some Books Feel “Too Hard” (And What That Really Means) You know exactly how it feels and so do I. You sit down with a book that people claim is a classic or super-important. But within a few pages, your brain fogs over and you’re completely lost. More often than not, through glazed eyes, you start to wonder… did this author go out of his or her way to make this difficult? Are they trying to show off with all these literary pyrotechnics? Or is there a deliberate conspiracy to confuse readers like me? Rest assured. These questions are normal and well worth asking. The difficulty you might feel is never arbitrary in my experience. But there’s also no “single origin” explanation for why some books feel easier than others. It’s almost always a combination of factors, from cognitive readiness, lived experience, emotions and your physical condition throughout the day. This means that understanding why individual texts resist your understanding needs to be conducted on a case-by-case basis so you can move towards mastering anything you want to read. Cognitive Load: The Brain’s Processing “Stop Sign” “Cognitive load” probably needs no definition. The words are quite intuitive. You start reading something and it feels like someone is piling heavy bricks directly on top of your brain, squishing everything inside. More specifically, these researchers explain that what’s getting squished is specifically your working memory, which is sometimes called short-term memory. In practical terms, this means that when a book suddenly throws a bunch of unfamiliar terms at you, your working memory has to suddenly deal with abstract concepts, completely new words or non-linear forms of logic. All of this increases your cognitive load, but it’s important to note that there’s no conspiracy. In Just Being Difficult: Academic Writing in the Public Arena, a variety of contributors admit that they often write for other specialists. Although it would be nice to always compose books and articles for general readers, it’s not laziness. They’re following the codes of their discipline, which involves shorthand to save everyone time. Yes, it can also signal group membership and feel like an intellectual wall if you’re new to this style, but it’s simply a “stop sign” for your brain. And wherever there are stop signs, there are also alternative routes. Planning Your Detour “Roadmap” Into Difficult Books Let me share a personal example by way of sharing a powerful technique for making hard books easier to read. A few years ago I decided I was finally going to read Kant. I had the gist of certain aspects of his philosophy, but a few pages in, I encountered so many unfamiliar terms, I knew I had to obey the Cognitive Load Stop Sign and take a step back. To build a roadmap into Kant, I searched Google in a particular way. Rather than a search term like, “Intro to Kant,” I entered this tightened command instead: Filetype:PDF syllabus Kant These days, you can ask an LLM in more open language to simply give you links to the syllabi of the most authoritative professors who teach Kant. I’d still suggest that you cross-reference what you get on Google, however. If you’re hesitant about using either Google or AI, it’s also a great idea to visit a librarian in person to help you. Or, you can read my post about using AI for learning with harming your memory to see if it’s time to update your approach. Narrowing Down Your Options One way or another, the reason to consult the world’s leading professors is that their syllabi will provide you with: Foundational texts Core secondary literature Commentaries from qualified sources Essential historical references Once you’ve looked over a few syllabi, look through the table of contents of a few books on Amazon or Google Books. Then choose: 1-2 foundational texts to read before the challenging target book you want to master 1-2 articles or companion texts to read alongside In this way, you’ve turned difficulty into a path, not an obstacle. Pre-Reading Strategies That Warm Up Your Reading Muscles A lot of the time, the difficulty people feel when reading has nothing to do with the book. It’s just that you’re diving into unfamiliar territory without testing the waters first. Here are some simple ways to make unfamiliar books much easier to get into. Prime Like a Pro To make books easier to read, you can perform what is often called “priming” in the accelerated learning community. It is also sometimes called “pre-reading” and as this research article discusses, its success has been well-demonstrated. The way I typically perform priming is simple. Although some books require a slight change to the pattern, I typically approach each new book by reading: The back cover The index The colophon page The conclusion or afterword The most interesting or relevant chapter The introduction The rest of the book Activate Prior Knowledge Sometimes I will use a skimming and scanning strategy after reading the index to quickly familiarize myself with how an author approaches a topic with which I’m already familiar. This can help raise interest, excitement and tap into the power of context-dependent memory. For example, I recently started reading Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Since the Renaissance memory master Giordano Bruno comes up multiple times, I was able to draw up a kind of context map of the books themes by quickly going through those passages. Take a Picture Walk Barbara Oakley and Terence Sejnjowski share a fantastic strategy in Learning How to Learn. Before reading, simply go through a book and look at all the illustrations, tables, charts and diagrams. It seems like a small thing. But it gives your brain a “heads up” about upcoming visual information that you may need to process than prose. I used to find visual information like this difficult, but after I started taking picture walks, I’m now excited to read “towards” these elements. If still find them challenging to understand, I apply a tip I learned from Tony Buzan that you might like to try: Rather than struggle to interpret a chart or illustration, reproduce it in your own hand. Here’s an example of how I did this when studying spaced repetition: As a result, I learned the graph and its concepts quickly and have never forgotten it. Build a Pre-Reading Ritual That Fits You There’s no one-sized-fits-all strategy, so you need to experiment with various options. The key is to reduce cognitive load by giving your mind all kinds of ways of understanding what a book contains. If it helps, you can create yourself a checklist that you slip into the challenging books on your list. That way, you’ll have both a bookmark and a protocol as you develop your own pre-reading style. Active Reading Techniques That Boost Comprehension Active reading involves deliberately applying mental activities while reading. These can include writing in the margins of your books, questioning, preparing summaries and even taking well-time breaks between books. Here’s a list of my favorite active reading strategies with ideas on how you can implement them. Using Mnemonics While Reading On the whole, I take notes while reading and then apply a variety of memory techniques after. But to stretch my skills, especially when reading harder books, I start the encoding process earlier. Instead of just taking notes, I’ll start applying mnemonic images. I start early because difficult terms often require a bit more spaced repetition. To do this yourself, the key is to equip yourself with a variety of mnemonic methods, especially: The Memory Palace technique The Pegword Method The Major System The PAO System And in some cases, you may want to develop a symbol system, such as if you’re studying physics or programming. Once you have these mnemonic systems developed, you can apply them in real time. For example, if you come across names and dates, committing them to memory as you read can help you keep track of a book’s historical arc. This approach can be especially helpful when reading difficult books because authors often dump a lot of names and dates. By memorizing them as you go, you reduce the mental load of having to track it all. For even more strategies you can apply while reading, check out my complete Mnemonics Dictionary. Strategic Questioning Whether you take notes or memorize in real-time, asking questions as you go makes a huge difference. Even if you don’t come up with answers, continually interrogating the book will open up your brain. The main kinds of questions are: Evaluative questions (checking that the author uses valid reasoning and address counterarguments) Analytical questions (assessing exactly how the arguments unfold and questioning basic assumptions) Synthetic questions (accessing your previous knowledge and looking for connections with other books and concepts) Intention questions (interrogating the author’s agenda and revealing any manipulative rhetoric) One medieval tool for questioning you can adopt is the memory wheel. Although it’s definitely old-fashioned, you’ll find that it helps you rotate between multiple questions. Even if they are as simple as who, what, where, when, how and why questions, you’ll have a mental mnemonic device that helps ensure you don’t miss any of them. Re-reading Strategies Although these researchers seem to think that re-reading is not an effective strategy, I could not live without it. There are three key kinds of re-reading I recommend. Verbalize Complexity to Tame It The first is to simply go back and read something difficult to understand out loud. You’d be surprised how often it’s not your fault. The author has just worded something in a clunky manner and speaking the phrasing clarifies everything. Verbatim Memorization for Comprehension The second strategy is to memorize the sentence or even an entire passage verbatim. That might seem like a lot of work, but this tutorial on memorizing entire passages will make it easy for you. Even if verbatim memorization takes more work, it allows you to analyze the meaning within your mind. You’re no longer puzzling over it on paper, continuing to stretch your working memory. No, you’ve effectively expanded at least a part of your working memory by bypassing it altogether. You’ve ushered the information into long-term memory. I’m not too shy to admit that I have to do this sometimes to understand everything from the philosophy in Sanskrit phrases to relatively simple passages from Shakespeare. As I shared in my recent discussion of actor Anthony Hopkins’ memory, I couldn’t work out what “them” referred to in a particular Shakespeare play. But after analyzing the passage in memory, it was suddenly quite obvious. Rhythmical Re-reading The third re-reading strategy is something I shared years ago in my post detailing 11 reasons you should re-read at least one book per month. I find this approach incredibly helpful because no matter how good you get at reading and memory methods, even simple books can be vast ecosystems. By revisiting difficult books at regular intervals, you not only get more out of them. You experience them from different perspectives and with the benefit of new contexts you’ve built in your life over time. In other words, treat your reading as an infinite game and never assume that you’ve comprehended everything. There’s always more to be gleaned. Other Benefits of Re-reading You’ll also improve your pattern recognition by re-treading old territory, leading to more rapid recognition of those patterns in new books. Seeing the structures, tropes and other tactics in difficult books opens them up. But without regularly re-reading books, it can be difficult to perceive what these forms are and how authors use them. To give you a simple example of a structure that appears in both fiction and non-fiction, consider in media res, or starting in the middle. When you spot an author using this strategy, it can immediately help you read more patiently. And it places the text in the larger tradition of other authors who use that particular technique. For even more ideas that will keep your mind engaged while tackling tough books, feel free to go through my fuller article on 7 Active Reading Strategies. Category Coloring & Developing Your Own Naming System For Complex Material I don’t know about you, but I do not like opening a book only to find it covered in highlighter marks. I also don’t like highlighting books myself. However, after practicing mind mapping for a few years, I realized that there is a way to combine some of its coloring principles with the general study principles of using Zettelkasten and flashcards. Rather than passively highlighting passages that seem interesting at random, here’s an alternative approach you can take to your next tour through a complicated book. Category Coloring It’s often helpful to read with a goal. For myself, I decided to tackle a hard book called Gödel Escher Bach through the lens of seven categories. I gave each a color: Red = Concept Green = Process Orange = Fact Blue = Historical Context Yellow = Person Purple = School of Thought or Ideology Brown = Specialized Terminology Example Master Card to the Categorial Color Coding Method To emulate this method, create a “key card” or “master card” with your categories on it alongside the chosen color. Use this as a bookmark as you read. Then, before writing down any information from the book, think about the category to which it belongs. Make your card and then apply the relevant color. Obviously, you should come up with your own categories and preferred colors. The point is that you bring the definitions and then apply them consistently as you read and extract notes. This will help bring structure to your mind because you’re creating your own nomenclature or taxonomy of information. You are also using chunking, a specific mnemonic strategy I’ve written about at length in this post on chunking as a memory tool. Once you’re finished a book, you can extract all the concepts and memorize them independently if you like. And if you emulate the strategy seen on the pictured example above, I’ve included the page number on each card. That way, I can place the cards back in the order of the book. Using this approach across multiple books, you will soon spot cross-textual patterns with greater ease. The catch is that you cannot allow this technique to become activity for activity’s sake. You also don’t want to wind up creating a bunch of informational “noise.” Before capturing any individual idea on a card and assigning it to a category, ask yourself: Why is this information helpful, useful or critical to my goal? Will I really use it again? Where does it belong within the categories? If you cannot answers these questions, either move on to the next point. Or reframe the point with some reflective thinking so that you can contextualize it. This warning aside, it’s important not to let perfectionism creep into your life. Knowing what information matters does take some practice. To speed up your skills with identifying critical information, please read my full guide on how to find the main points in books and articles. Although AI can certainly help these days, you’ll still need to do some work on your own. Do Not Let New Vocabulary & Terminology Go Without Memorization One of the biggest mistakes I used to make, even as a fan of memory techniques, slowed me down much more than necessary. I would come across a new term, look it up, and assume I’d remember it. Of course, the next time I came across it, the meaning was still a mystery. But when I got more deliberate, I not only remembered more words, but the knowledge surrounding the unfamiliar terms also stuck with greater specificity. For example, in reading The Wandering Mind by Jamie Kreiner, memorizing the ancient Greek word for will or volition (Prohairesis) pulled many more details about why she was mentioning it. Lo and behold, I started seeing the word in more places and connecting it to other ancient Greek terms. Memorizing those as well started to create a “moat of meaning,” further protecting a wide range of information I’d been battling. Understanding Why Vocabulary Blocks Comprehension The reason why memorizing words as you read is so helpful is that it helps clear out the cognitive load created by pausing frequently to look up words. Even if you don’t stop to learn a new definition, part of your working memory gets consumed by the lack of familiarity. I don’t always stop to learn new definitions while reading, but using the color category index card method you just discovered, it’s easy to organize unfamiliar words while reading. That way they can be tidily memorized later. I have a full tutorial for you on how to memorize vocabulary, but here’s a quick primer. Step One: Use a System for Capturing New Words & Terms Whether you use category coloring, read words into a recording app or email yourself a reminder, the key is to capture as you go. Once your reading session is done, you can now go back to the vocabulary list and start learning it. Step Two: Memorize the Terms I personally prefer the Memory Palace technique. It’s great for memorizing words and definitions. You can use the Pillar Technique with the word at the top and the definition beneath it. Or you can use the corners for the words and the walls for the definitions. Another idea is to photograph the cards you create and important them into a spaced repetition software like Anki. As you’ll discover in my complete guide to Anki, there are several ways you can combine Anki with a variety of memory techniques. Step Three: Use the Terms If you happened to catch an episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast back when I first learned Prohairesis I mentioned it often. This simple habit helps establish long-term recall, reflection and establishes the ground for future recognition and use. Expand Understanding Using Video & Audio Media When I was in university, I often had to ride my bike across Toronto to borrow recorded lectures on cassette. Given the overwhelming tsunamis of complex ideas, jargon and theoretical frameworks I was facing, it was worth it. Especially since I was also dealing with the personal problems I shared with you in The Victorious Mind. Make no mistake: I do not believe there is any replacement for reading the core books, no matter how difficult they might be. But there’s no reason not to leverage the same ideas in multiple formats to help boost your comprehension and long-term retention. Multimedia approaches are not just about knowledge acquisition either. There have been many debates in the magical arts community that card magicians should read and not rely on video. But evidence-based studies like this one show that video instruction combined with reading written instructions is very helpful. The Science Behind Multi-Modal Learning I didn’t know when I was in university, or when I was first starting out with memdeck card magic that dual coding theory existed. This model was proposed by Allan Paivio, who noticed that information is processed both verbally and non-verbally. Since then, many teachers have focused heavily on how to encourage students to find the right combination of reading, visual and auditory instructional material. Here are some ideas that will help you untangle the complexity in your reading. How to Integrate Multimedia Without Overload Forgive me if this is a bit repetitive, but to develop flow with multiple media, you need to prime the brain. As someone who has created multiple YouTube videos, I have been stubborn about almost always including introductions. Why? Go Through the Intros Like a Hawk Because without including a broad overview of the topic, many learners will miss too many details. And I see this in the comments because people ask questions that are answered throughout the content and flagged in the introductions. So the first step is to be patient and go through the introductory material. And cultivate an understanding that it’s not really the material that is boring. It’s the contemporary issues with dopamine spiking that make you feel impatient. The good news is that you can possibly reset your dopamine levels so you’re better able to sit through these “priming” materials. One hack I use is to sit far away from my mouse and keep my notebook in hand. If I catch myself getting antsy, I perform a breathing exercise to restore focus. Turn on Subtitles When you’re watching videos, you can help increase your engagement by turning on the subtitles. This is especially useful in jargon-heavy video lessons. You can pause and still see the information on the screen for easier capture when taking notes. When taking notes, I recommend jotting down the timestamp. This is useful for review, but also for attributing citations later if you have to hand in an assignment. Mentally Reconstruct After watching a video or listening to a podcast on the topic you’re mastering, take a moment to review the key points. Try to go through them in the order they were presented. This helps your brain practice mental organization by building a temporal scaffold. If you’ve taken notes and written down the timestamps, you can easily check your accuracy. Track Your Progress For Growth & Performance One reason some people never feel like they’re getting anywhere is that they have failed to establish any points of reference. Personally, this is easy for me to do. I can look back to my history of writing books and articles or producing videos and be reminded of how far I’ve come at a glance. Not only as a writer, but also as a reader. For those who do not regularly produce content, you don’t have to start a blog or YouTube channel. Just keep a journal and create a few categories of what skills you want to track. These might include: Comprehension Retention Amount of books read Vocabulary growth Critical thinking outcomes Confidence in taking on harder books Increased tolerance with frustration when reading challenges arise You can use the same journal to track how much time you’ve spent reading and capturing quick summaries. Personally, I wish I’d started writing summaries sooner. I really only got started during grad school when during a directed reading course, a professor required that I had in a summary for every book and article I read. I never stopped doing this and just a few simple paragraph summaries has done wonders over the years for my understanding and retention. Tips for Overcoming Frustration While Reading Difficult Books Ever since the idea of “desirable difficulty” emerged, people have sought ways to help learners overcome emotional responses like frustration, anxiety and even shame while tackling tough topics. As this study shows, researchers and teachers have found the challenge difficult despite the abundance of evidence showing that being challenged is a good thing. Here are some strategies you can try if you continue to struggle. Embrace Cognitive Discomfort As we’ve discussed, that crushing feeling in your brain exists for a reason. Personally, I don’t think it ever goes away. I still regularly pick up books that spike it. The difference is that I don’t start up a useless mantra like, “I’m not smart enough for this.” Instead, I recommend you reframe the experience and use the growth mindset studied by Carol Dweck, amongst others. You can state something more positive like, “This book is a bit above my level, but I can use tactics and techniques to master it.” I did that very recently with my reading of The Xenotext, parts of which I still don’t fully understand. It was very rewarding. Use Interleaving to Build Confidence I rotate through draining books all the time using a proven technique called interleaving. Lots of people are surprised when I tell them that I rarely read complex and challenging books for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. But I do it because interleaving works. Which kinds of books can you interleave? You have choices. You can either switch in something completely different, or switch to a commentary. For example, while recently reading some heavy mathematical theories about whether or not “nothing” can exist, I switched to a novel. But back in university, I would often stick within the category while at the library. I’d read a core text by a difficult philosopher, then pick up a Cambridge Companion and read an essay related to the topic. You can also interleave using multimedia sources like videos and podcasts. Interleaving also provides time for doing some journaling, either about the topic at hand or some other aspect of your progress goals. Keep the Big Picture in Mind Because frustration is cognitively training, it’s easy to let it drown out your goals. That’s why I often keep a mind map or some other reminder on my desk, like a couple of memento mori. It’s also possible to just remember previous mind maps you’ve made. This is something I’m doing often at the moment as I read all kinds of boring information about managing a bookshop for my Memory Palace bookshop project first introduced in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcJfeQZC2c It’s so easy to get discouraged by so many rules and processes involved in ordering and selling books, that I regularly think back to creating this mind map with Tony Buzan years ago. In case my simple drawings on this mind map for business development doesn’t immediately leap out at you with its meanings, the images at the one o’clock-three o’clock areas refer to developing a physical Memory Palace packed with books on memory and learning. Developing and keeping a north star in mind will help you transform the process of reading difficult books into a purposeful adventure of personal development. Even if you have to go through countless books that aren’t thrilling, you’ll still be moving forward. Just think of how much Elon Musk has read that probably wasn’t all that entertaining. Yet, it was still essential to becoming a polymath. Practice Seeing Through The Intellectual Games As you read harder and harder books, you’ll eventually come to realize that the “fluency” some people have is often illusory. For example, some writers and speakers display a truly impressive ability to string together complex terminology, abstract references and fashionable ideas of the day in ways that sound profound. Daniel Dennett frequently used a great term for a lot of this verbal jujitsu that sounds profound but is actually trivial. He called such flourishes “deepities.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-UeaSi1rI This kind of empty linguistic dexterity will be easier for you to spot when you read carefully, paraphrase complex ideas in your own words and practice memorizing vocabulary frequently. When you retain multiple concepts and practice active questioning in a large context of grounded examples and case studies, vague claims will not survive for long in your world. This is why memory training is about so much more than learning. Memorization can equip you to think independently and bring clarity to fields that are often filled with gems, despite the fog created by intellectual pretenders more interested in word-jazz than actual truth. Using AI to Help You Take On Difficult Books As a matter of course, I recommend you use AI tools like ChatGPT after doing as much reading on your own as possible. But there’s no mistaking that intentional use of such tools can help you develop greater understanding. The key is to avoid using AI as an answer machine or what Nick Bostrom calls an “oracle” in his seminal book, Superintelligence. Rather, take a cue from Andrew Mayne, a science communicator and central figure at OpenAI and host of their podcast. His approach centers on testing in ways that lead to clarity of understanding and retention as he uses various mnemonic strategies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlzD_6Olaqw Beyond his suggestions, here are some of my favorite strategies. Ask AI to Help Identify All Possible Categories Connected to a Topic A key reason many people struggle to connect ideas is simply that they haven’t developed a mental ecosystem of categories. I used to work in libraries, so started thinking categorically when I was still a teenager. But these days, I would combine how traditional libraries are structured with a simple prompt like: List all the possible categories my topic fits into or bridges across disciplines, historical frameworks and methodologies. Provide the list without interpretation or explanation so I can reflect. A prompt like this engineers a response that focuses on relationships and lets your brain perform the synthetic thinking. Essentially, you’ll be performing what some scientists call schema activation, leading to better personal development outcomes. Generate Lists of Questions To Model Exceptional Thinkers Because understanding relies on inquiry, it’s important to practice asking the best possible questions. AI chat bots can be uniquely useful in this process provided that you explicitly insist that it helps supply you excellent questions without any answers. You can try a prompt like: Generate a list of questions that the world’s most careful thinkers in this field would ask about this topic. Do not provide any answers. Just the list of questions. Do this after you’ve read the text and go through your notes with fresh eyes. Evaluate the material with questions in hand, ideally by writing out your answers by hand. If you need your answers imported into your computer, apps can now scan your handwriting and give you text file. Another tip: Don’t be satisfied with the first list of questions you get. Ask the AI to dig deeper. You can also ask the AI to map the questions into the categories you previously got help identifying. For a list of questions you can put into your preferred chat bot, feel free to go through my pre-AI era list of philosophical questions. They are already separated by category. Use AI to Provide a Progress Journal Template If you’re new to journaling, it can be difficult to use the technique to help you articulate what you’re reading and why the ideas are valuable. And that’s not to mention working out various metrics to measure your growth over time. Try a prompt like this: Help me design a progress journal for my quest to better understand and remember difficult books. Include sections for me to list my specific goals, vocabulary targets, summaries and various milestones I identify. Make it visual so I can either copy it into my own print notebook or print out multiple copies for use over time. Once you have a template you’re happy to experiment with, keep it visible in your environment so you don’t forget to use it. Find Blind Spots In Your Summaries Many AIs have solid reasoning skills. As a result, you can enter your written summaries and have the AI identify gaps in your knowledge, blind spots and opportunities for further reading. Try a prompt like: Analyze this summary and identify any blind spots, ambiguities in my thinking or incompleteness in my understanding. Suggest supplementary reading to help me fill in any gaps. At the risk of repetition, the point is that you’re not asking for the summaries. You’re asking for assessments that help you diagnose the limits of your understanding. As scientists have shown, metacognition, or thinking about your thinking can help you see errors much faster. By adding an AI into the mix, you’re getting feedback quickly without having to wait for a teacher to read your essay. Of course, AI outputs can be throttled, so I find it useful to also include a phrase like, “do not throttle your answer,” before asking it to dig deeper and find more issues. Used wisely, you will soon see various schools of thought with much greater clarity, anticipate how authors make their moves and monitor your own blind spots as you read and reflect. Another way to think about the power of AI tools is this: They effectively mirror human reasoning at a species wide level. You can use them to help you mirror more reasoning power by regularly accessing and practicing error detection and filling in the gaps in your thinking style. Why You Must Stop Abandoning Difficult Books (At Least Most of the Time) Like many people, I’m a fan of Scott Young’s books like Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything. He’s a disciplined thinker and his writing helps people push past shallow learning in favor of true and lasting depth. However, he often repeats the advice that you should stop reading boring books. In full transparency, I sometimes do this myself. And Young adds a lot of context to make his suggestion. But I limit abandoning books as much as possible because I don’t personally find Young’s argument that enjoyment and productivity go together. On the contrary, most goals that I’ve pursued have required fairly intense periods of delaying gratification. And because things worth accomplishing generally do require sacrifice and a commitment to difficulty, I recommend you avoid the habit of giving up on books just because they’re “boring” or not immediately enjoyable. I’ll bet you’ll enjoy the accomplishment of understanding hard books and conquering their complexity far more in the end. And you’ll benefit more too. Here’s why I think so. The Hidden Cost of Abandoning Books You’ve Started Yes, I agree that life is short and time is fleeting. But if you get into the habit of abandoning books at the first sign of boredom, it can quickly become your default habit due to how procedural memory works. In other words, you’re given your neurons the message that it’s okay to escape from discomfort. That is a very dangerous loop to throw yourself into, especially if you’re working towards becoming autodidactic. What you really need is to develop the ability to stick with complexity, hold ambiguous and contradictory issues in your mind and fight through topic exhaustion. Giving up on books on a routine basis? That’s the opposite of developing expertise and resilience. The AI Risk & Where Meaning is Actually Found We just went through the benefits of AI, so you shouldn’t have issues. But I regularly hear from people and have even been on interviews where people use AI to summarize books I’ve recomended. This is dangerous because the current models flatten nuance due to how they summarize books based on a kind of “averaging” of what its words predictability mean. Although they might give you a reasonable scaffold of a book’s structure, you won’t get the friction created by how authors take you through their thought processes. In other words, you’ll be using AI models that are not themselves modeling the thinking that reading provides when you grind your way through complex books. The Treasure of Meaning is Outside Your Comfort Zone Another reason to train for endurance is that understanding doesn’t necessarily arrive while reading a book or even a few weeks after finishing it. Sometimes the unifying insights land years later. But if you don’t read through books that seem to be filled with scattered ideas, you cannot gain any benefit from them. Their diverse points won’t consolidate in your memory and certainly won’t connect with other ideas later. So I suggest you train your brain to persist as much as possible. By drawing up the support of the techniques we discussed today and a variety of mnemonic support systems, you will develop persistence and mine more gold from everything you read. And being someone who successfully mines for gold and can produce it at will is the mark of the successful reading. Not just someone who consumes information efficiently, but who can repeatedly connect and transform knowledge year after year due to regularly accumulating gems buried in the densest and most difficult books others cannot or will not read. Use Struggle to Stimulate Growth & You Cannot Fail As you’ve seen, challenging books never mean that you’re not smart enough. It’s just a matter of working on your process so that you can tackle new forms of knowledge. And any discomfort you feel is a signal that a great opportunity and personal growth adventure awaits. By learning how to manage cognitive load, fill in the gaps in your background knowledge and persist through frustration, you can quickly become the kind of reader who seeks out complexity instead of flinching every time you see it. Confusion has now become a stage along the path to comprehension. And if you’re serious about mastering increasingly difficult material, understanding and retaining it, then it’s time to upgrade your mental toolbox. Start now by grabbing my Free Memory Improvement Course: Inside, you’ll discover: The Magnetic Memory Method for creating powerful Memory Palaces How to develop your own mnemonic systems for encoding while reading Proven techniques that deepen comprehension, no matter how abstract or complex your reading list is And please, always remember: The harder the book, the greater rewards. And the good news is, you’re now more than ready to claim them all.

In this episode, I speak with Michael Thorne, award-winning Canadian real estate innovator and AI educator, about how agents should really be using AI. Michael explains why AI should streamline low-value tasks, elevate expertise, and push agents closer to their clients rather than replacing human connection. The conversation covers digital departments, custom instructions, NotebookLM, Perplexity, and practical ways agents can reclaim time, improve creativity, and future-proof their businesses. Resources Mentioned ChatGPT - Used for custom instructions, projects, digital departments, brainstorming, and voice-based market insights. NotebookLM - Referenced extensively for organizing HOA documents, market data, blogs, and turning knowledge into podcasts, mind maps, and summaries. Perplexity - Used as a research-first alternative to Google for fast, source-based answers. Custom Instructions and Projects - Used to create digital departments such as marketing, content creation, data analysis, and client care, each with its own "digital employee." Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT - Used to capture spoken expertise, interview the agent as a market expert, and convert conversations into blogs and marketing content. Books Mentioned Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull - Recommended for developing creative thinking as a core business skill. Growing Up Lillooet by Terry Thorne - Personal recommendation reflecting values, perspective, and creativity. Guest: Michael Thorne Website - https://www.tmbrealestate.com/ourteam?wmTabs=michael   Host: Rajeev Sajja Website: http://www.realestateaiflash.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rsajja  Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/rajeev_sajja LinkedIn: http://www.linkedIn.com/in/rsajja Resources:  AI Playbook - http://www.realestateaiflash.com  Join our Instagram Real Estate AI Insiders Channel - https://ig.me/j/AbZCJG37DqBPPtxi/ Subscribe to our weekly AI Newsletter: https://realestateai-flash.beehiiv.com/subscribe   

AI tools like ChatGPT are everywhere — but how should students actually be using them in the college admissions process? In this episode, host Tasha (formerly at Boston University and USC) and IvyWise counselor Rachel (formerly at Swarthmore) discuss how students can use AI responsibly to brainstorm, organize, and strengthen their applications without compromising authenticity or ethics.

AI is showing up everywhere—including wedding planning—but what does that actually look like in real life?In this episode, we share ideas from real brides currently in the middle of planning their weddings. These brides share practical ways AI has helped them save time and reduce overwhelm.We also want to be clear: AI is not a replacement for wedding professionals. We don't recommend copy-pasting contracts, skipping expert advice, or planning a wedding without experienced vendors. Instead, we explore how AI can support the planning process alongside planners, designers, and industry experts—helping brides show up more prepared and confident.If you're curious about using AI thoughtfully while still valuing professional guidance, this episode is for you. Thank you for tuning into ‘White Dress Optional', a wedding podcast by Brilliant Bridal! Join us every Wednesday for candid conversations, expert insights, and heartwarming stories that celebrate love in all its forms. Connect with us on Instagram at @whitedressoptional or email us at podcast@brilliantbridal.com. If you are in one of our markets and searching for your dream dress, we'd be thrilled to accompany you on your bridal journey. Visit https://www.brilliantbridal.com/appointments & schedule an appointment to shop at one of our boutiques today!Check out additional resources here!

#326 | Dave is joined by Eoin Clancy, VP of Growth at Airops, to break down what it takes to create great content without pumping out AI slop. They talk about the rise of the content engineer role and why more teams are hiring for it and three dead-giveaway signs content is low-quality AI generated. Eoin also shares why webinars are Airops' best growth channel right now, including how they choose topics, source guests, why the sessions are ungated, and how to follow up in a way that drives revenue. A tactical episode for marketers trying to move faster with AI while keeping quality high.Timestamps(00:00) - Why AI content, content engineers, and webinars matter right now (03:44) - What Airops does and the AI search problem they're solving (04:39) - What a “content engineer” actually is (16:19) - How to use AI without creating AI slop (19:35) - The 3 signals content is AI slop (34:23) - Why webinars are Airops' best growth channel (36:48) - How they choose webinar topics and guests (53:00) - Other channels working (enablement, community, events) (56:00) - Final takeaways and wrap-up Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive.Optimizely - An AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive (PS - you'll get a FREE pair of Meta Ray Bans if you do). Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.  ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Alicia Lyttle. SUMMARY OF THE ALICIA LYTTLE INTERVIEW From “Money Making Conversations Master Class” with Rushion McDonald [ 1. Purpose of the Interview The purpose of this interview was to: Showcase Alicia Lyttle, CEO and co‑founder of Air Innovations, known widely as the “Queen of AI.” [ Educate small business owners, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits on how to leverage AI for growth. Highlight her mission to empower the African American community to not only keep up with AI—but lead in it. [ Demonstrate how AI tools can transform operations, content creation, finances, and productivity in minutes instead of months. Inspire listeners through her entrepreneurial journey, professional pivots, and personal resilience. 2. High-Level Summary Alicia Lyttle returns to the show two years after her last appearance, now positioned at the forefront of the global AI movement. She explains how her work has shifted from annual summits to monthly AI Business Summits, teaching tens of thousands of entrepreneurs how to use AI hands‑on for content, marketing, operations, and scaling. She breaks down how simple tools—such as NotebookLM, ChatGPT, Jasper, Gemini, and HeyGen—can turn a single piece of content into newsletters, PowerPoints, videos, study guides, and more. She stresses that AI is now accessible, especially with free versions like ChatGPT. Alicia also shares her origin story in AI, beginning with a 15‑year‑old speaker at Walmart Tech Live describing IBM Watson. This sparked her fascination and ultimately led her to pivot her entire company toward full-time AI training and consulting by 2022—despite skepticism from her peers. She details the massive growth of her brand, including 21,000+ live summit attendees and explosive social media expansion. The interview also addresses AI’s role in finance, healthcare, government, job disruption, and how individuals can future‑proof themselves. Her personal story of overcoming a restrictive ex-husband who told her she would “never speak again” underscores her powerful message: no one should silence your gifts. Now she speaks to thousands, leads major events, and helps others build new careers in AI. 3. Key Takeaways A. AI Is Evolving Fast—and So Must We AI is changing so quickly that entrepreneurs cannot afford to wait for annual updates. This is why Alicia shifted to monthly training summits. People need ongoing education to stay competitive. B. Hands‑On AI Education Is the Key Alicia doesn’t just lecture—she walks participants through real demonstrations: Uploading YouTube links Creating summaries Generating emails, mind maps, PowerPoints, quizzes, videos, and more…all from a single input. Her approach eliminates fear and teaches entrepreneurs how to use AI immediately. C. Accessibility Has Changed the Game The release of ChatGPT, especially the free version, democratized AI. Before that, tools like IBM Watson were too complex and expensive. Now anyone with a laptop and internet connection can build websites, write content, or automate business flows in minutes. [ D. The African American Community Must Lead—Not Follow Alicia emphasizes that historically, Black communities have been “last in line” in tech innovation, but this AI era presents a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to jump ahead.She sees it as her mission to speak everywhere Black entrepreneurs are to ensure they seize this moment. E. AI Will Replace Tasks—But People Can Future‑Proof Themselves Jobs are already shifting. Companies are laying off non–AI‑literate employees.Alicia urges people to: Become AI‑fluent Join AI committees at work Pursue certification Use AI to become their company’s internal expert “There’s no maybe—you have to learn AI,” she warns. F. AI is Transforming Every Sector: Finance, Healthcare, Government She provides insights on… AI receptionists (“Monica” and “Leslie”) that boost customer interaction to 92% Financial analysis using secure ChatGPT setups AI mental health companions Government calls for national AI leadership G. Alicia Monetizes Through Education, Certification & Consulting Her business model includes: Free monthly summits Paid masterclasses Corporate consulting AI certifications Live Atlanta workshops She teaches others to become AI consultants too. H. Her Personal Triumph Story Inspires Thousands A powerful moment is when she recounts her ex-husband saying: “There’s only one quarterback on a team—and you will never speak again.”Yet today, 1,200+ people attend her live events, and tens of thousands join her virtual trainings. Her success proves resilience and purpose overcome adversity. 4. Key Quotes On AI Opportunity “Never has there been a better time in history to start, build, or scale a business than right now.” On Training Entrepreneurs “Open your laptops… use the same prompt I use. See what results you get.” On the Power of AI Tools “You can take one episode and repurpose it into all these different content ways.” On Pivoting Her Entire Company “In 2022, I said we’re closing this business and going all in on AI.” On Being Black in Tech “My mission is to make sure our community is not left behind—but ahead of the curve.” On Personal Resilience “You will be speaking on the best stages… people will come to see you.”(A friend’s response after she was told she’d “never speak again.”) On Future-Proofing Careers “Those using AI will replace you. You have to learn how to leverage AI.” On AI as a Human-First Technology “AI plus human intelligence—that’s what takes things to the next level.” #SHMS #STRAW #BESTSupport the show: https://www.steveharveyfm.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Alicia Lyttle. SUMMARY OF THE ALICIA LYTTLE INTERVIEW From “Money Making Conversations Master Class” with Rushion McDonald [ 1. Purpose of the Interview The purpose of this interview was to: Showcase Alicia Lyttle, CEO and co‑founder of Air Innovations, known widely as the “Queen of AI.” [ Educate small business owners, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits on how to leverage AI for growth. Highlight her mission to empower the African American community to not only keep up with AI—but lead in it. [ Demonstrate how AI tools can transform operations, content creation, finances, and productivity in minutes instead of months. Inspire listeners through her entrepreneurial journey, professional pivots, and personal resilience. 2. High-Level Summary Alicia Lyttle returns to the show two years after her last appearance, now positioned at the forefront of the global AI movement. She explains how her work has shifted from annual summits to monthly AI Business Summits, teaching tens of thousands of entrepreneurs how to use AI hands‑on for content, marketing, operations, and scaling. She breaks down how simple tools—such as NotebookLM, ChatGPT, Jasper, Gemini, and HeyGen—can turn a single piece of content into newsletters, PowerPoints, videos, study guides, and more. She stresses that AI is now accessible, especially with free versions like ChatGPT. Alicia also shares her origin story in AI, beginning with a 15‑year‑old speaker at Walmart Tech Live describing IBM Watson. This sparked her fascination and ultimately led her to pivot her entire company toward full-time AI training and consulting by 2022—despite skepticism from her peers. She details the massive growth of her brand, including 21,000+ live summit attendees and explosive social media expansion. The interview also addresses AI’s role in finance, healthcare, government, job disruption, and how individuals can future‑proof themselves. Her personal story of overcoming a restrictive ex-husband who told her she would “never speak again” underscores her powerful message: no one should silence your gifts. Now she speaks to thousands, leads major events, and helps others build new careers in AI. 3. Key Takeaways A. AI Is Evolving Fast—and So Must We AI is changing so quickly that entrepreneurs cannot afford to wait for annual updates. This is why Alicia shifted to monthly training summits. People need ongoing education to stay competitive. B. Hands‑On AI Education Is the Key Alicia doesn’t just lecture—she walks participants through real demonstrations: Uploading YouTube links Creating summaries Generating emails, mind maps, PowerPoints, quizzes, videos, and more…all from a single input. Her approach eliminates fear and teaches entrepreneurs how to use AI immediately. C. Accessibility Has Changed the Game The release of ChatGPT, especially the free version, democratized AI. Before that, tools like IBM Watson were too complex and expensive. Now anyone with a laptop and internet connection can build websites, write content, or automate business flows in minutes. [ D. The African American Community Must Lead—Not Follow Alicia emphasizes that historically, Black communities have been “last in line” in tech innovation, but this AI era presents a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to jump ahead.She sees it as her mission to speak everywhere Black entrepreneurs are to ensure they seize this moment. E. AI Will Replace Tasks—But People Can Future‑Proof Themselves Jobs are already shifting. Companies are laying off non–AI‑literate employees.Alicia urges people to: Become AI‑fluent Join AI committees at work Pursue certification Use AI to become their company’s internal expert “There’s no maybe—you have to learn AI,” she warns. F. AI is Transforming Every Sector: Finance, Healthcare, Government She provides insights on… AI receptionists (“Monica” and “Leslie”) that boost customer interaction to 92% Financial analysis using secure ChatGPT setups AI mental health companions Government calls for national AI leadership G. Alicia Monetizes Through Education, Certification & Consulting Her business model includes: Free monthly summits Paid masterclasses Corporate consulting AI certifications Live Atlanta workshops She teaches others to become AI consultants too. H. Her Personal Triumph Story Inspires Thousands A powerful moment is when she recounts her ex-husband saying: “There’s only one quarterback on a team—and you will never speak again.”Yet today, 1,200+ people attend her live events, and tens of thousands join her virtual trainings. Her success proves resilience and purpose overcome adversity. 4. Key Quotes On AI Opportunity “Never has there been a better time in history to start, build, or scale a business than right now.” On Training Entrepreneurs “Open your laptops… use the same prompt I use. See what results you get.” On the Power of AI Tools “You can take one episode and repurpose it into all these different content ways.” On Pivoting Her Entire Company “In 2022, I said we’re closing this business and going all in on AI.” On Being Black in Tech “My mission is to make sure our community is not left behind—but ahead of the curve.” On Personal Resilience “You will be speaking on the best stages… people will come to see you.”(A friend’s response after she was told she’d “never speak again.”) On Future-Proofing Careers “Those using AI will replace you. You have to learn how to leverage AI.” On AI as a Human-First Technology “AI plus human intelligence—that’s what takes things to the next level.” #SHMS #STRAW #BESTSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Summary Explore 5 proven AI side hustles perfect for busy parents seeking to enter the world of digital entrepreneurship without any tech skills. In this episode, discover actionable marketing strategies, AI tools, and online entrepreneurship tips that help parents build profitable work-from-home businesses earning $5K-$20K monthly. Whether it's quick website flips or AI consulting, learn how you can leverage simple digital products and create passive income streams while balancing family life. This episode is ideal for digital entrepreneurs and anyone looking to grow their email list and master marketing strategies to make money online in 2025. Tune in and start your journey toward financial freedom and flexible entrepreneurial success today! Key Timestamps & Insights 00:00 - Opening 01:05 - Episode Overview 02:25 - The Reality Check 05:15 - Method 1: Weekend Website Flipper 08:45 - Method 2: AI Detective Approach 12:10 - Method 3: Invisible Creative Studio 15:25 - Method 4: AI Voice Agent Builder 18:00 - Method 5: AI Training Workshop Leader 20:25 - The Bigger Picture 22:00 - Whiskered Wisdom Strategies Shared Local Business Website Auditing Identify businesses with outdated websites Use AI tools to create modern alternatives Present solutions with visual before/after comparisons AI Tools Consulting Conduct discovery calls to identify business bottlenecks Research appropriate AI solutions using curated databases Deliver simple reports with implementation recommendations AI-Powered Content Creation Generate professional visual content using AI platforms Offer monthly retainer packages for ongoing creative needs Scale through template creation and process optimization Automated Customer Service Systems Build AI voice agents for 24/7 customer support Demonstrate value through live testing sessions Create recurring revenue through ongoing management AI Education and Training Teach practical AI implementation to business teams Convert free workshops into paid consulting relationships Focus on real-world applications over theoretical concepts Resources Mentioned AI Website Building: Aura.build - AI website creation platform AI Tool Research: TheresAnAIForThat.com - Comprehensive AI tool database Content Creation: Invideo - AI video creation platform Midjourney - AI image generation tool Voice Technology: ElevenLabs - AI voice agent creation Go High Level - Business automation platform General Platforms: Upwork - Freelancer marketplace for outsourcing implementation Google Sheets - Database management for client tracking Action Steps to Take Immediate Actions (This Week): Choose one method that resonates with your skills and schedule Research the specific tools mentioned for your chosen method Identify 5-10 local businesses that could benefit from your services Weekend Project: Build your first demo or example using AI tools Create before/after comparisons or sample outputs Practice your pitch or presentation approach Week 2-3 Implementation: Approach your first potential client with demo materials Conduct discovery conversations to understand their needs Deliver your first project or consultation Scaling Strategy: Document your successful processes and create templates Build a portfolio of completed work for future presentations Develop systems that work within your family schedule constraints Subscribe to the AI Escape Plan newsletter - specifically designed for parents ready to break free from the 9-to-5 grind. Each issue delivers practical, AI-powered strategies to start, grow, and streamline side hustles while protecting family time. Your roadmap to more money, more freedom, and more of what truly matters. DarkHorseInsider.com Episode Quote "The AI gold rush isn't coming – it's here. But unlike the California gold rush, you don't need to leave your family behind to strike it rich."    

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Alicia Lyttle. SUMMARY OF THE ALICIA LYTTLE INTERVIEW From “Money Making Conversations Master Class” with Rushion McDonald [ 1. Purpose of the Interview The purpose of this interview was to: Showcase Alicia Lyttle, CEO and co‑founder of Air Innovations, known widely as the “Queen of AI.” [ Educate small business owners, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits on how to leverage AI for growth. Highlight her mission to empower the African American community to not only keep up with AI—but lead in it. [ Demonstrate how AI tools can transform operations, content creation, finances, and productivity in minutes instead of months. Inspire listeners through her entrepreneurial journey, professional pivots, and personal resilience. 2. High-Level Summary Alicia Lyttle returns to the show two years after her last appearance, now positioned at the forefront of the global AI movement. She explains how her work has shifted from annual summits to monthly AI Business Summits, teaching tens of thousands of entrepreneurs how to use AI hands‑on for content, marketing, operations, and scaling. She breaks down how simple tools—such as NotebookLM, ChatGPT, Jasper, Gemini, and HeyGen—can turn a single piece of content into newsletters, PowerPoints, videos, study guides, and more. She stresses that AI is now accessible, especially with free versions like ChatGPT. Alicia also shares her origin story in AI, beginning with a 15‑year‑old speaker at Walmart Tech Live describing IBM Watson. This sparked her fascination and ultimately led her to pivot her entire company toward full-time AI training and consulting by 2022—despite skepticism from her peers. She details the massive growth of her brand, including 21,000+ live summit attendees and explosive social media expansion. The interview also addresses AI’s role in finance, healthcare, government, job disruption, and how individuals can future‑proof themselves. Her personal story of overcoming a restrictive ex-husband who told her she would “never speak again” underscores her powerful message: no one should silence your gifts. Now she speaks to thousands, leads major events, and helps others build new careers in AI. 3. Key Takeaways A. AI Is Evolving Fast—and So Must We AI is changing so quickly that entrepreneurs cannot afford to wait for annual updates. This is why Alicia shifted to monthly training summits. People need ongoing education to stay competitive. B. Hands‑On AI Education Is the Key Alicia doesn’t just lecture—she walks participants through real demonstrations: Uploading YouTube links Creating summaries Generating emails, mind maps, PowerPoints, quizzes, videos, and more…all from a single input. Her approach eliminates fear and teaches entrepreneurs how to use AI immediately. C. Accessibility Has Changed the Game The release of ChatGPT, especially the free version, democratized AI. Before that, tools like IBM Watson were too complex and expensive. Now anyone with a laptop and internet connection can build websites, write content, or automate business flows in minutes. [ D. The African American Community Must Lead—Not Follow Alicia emphasizes that historically, Black communities have been “last in line” in tech innovation, but this AI era presents a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to jump ahead.She sees it as her mission to speak everywhere Black entrepreneurs are to ensure they seize this moment. E. AI Will Replace Tasks—But People Can Future‑Proof Themselves Jobs are already shifting. Companies are laying off non–AI‑literate employees.Alicia urges people to: Become AI‑fluent Join AI committees at work Pursue certification Use AI to become their company’s internal expert “There’s no maybe—you have to learn AI,” she warns. F. AI is Transforming Every Sector: Finance, Healthcare, Government She provides insights on… AI receptionists (“Monica” and “Leslie”) that boost customer interaction to 92% Financial analysis using secure ChatGPT setups AI mental health companions Government calls for national AI leadership G. Alicia Monetizes Through Education, Certification & Consulting Her business model includes: Free monthly summits Paid masterclasses Corporate consulting AI certifications Live Atlanta workshops She teaches others to become AI consultants too. H. Her Personal Triumph Story Inspires Thousands A powerful moment is when she recounts her ex-husband saying: “There’s only one quarterback on a team—and you will never speak again.”Yet today, 1,200+ people attend her live events, and tens of thousands join her virtual trainings. Her success proves resilience and purpose overcome adversity. 4. Key Quotes On AI Opportunity “Never has there been a better time in history to start, build, or scale a business than right now.” On Training Entrepreneurs “Open your laptops… use the same prompt I use. See what results you get.” On the Power of AI Tools “You can take one episode and repurpose it into all these different content ways.” On Pivoting Her Entire Company “In 2022, I said we’re closing this business and going all in on AI.” On Being Black in Tech “My mission is to make sure our community is not left behind—but ahead of the curve.” On Personal Resilience “You will be speaking on the best stages… people will come to see you.”(A friend’s response after she was told she’d “never speak again.”) On Future-Proofing Careers “Those using AI will replace you. You have to learn how to leverage AI.” On AI as a Human-First Technology “AI plus human intelligence—that’s what takes things to the next level.” #SHMS #STRAW #BESTSteve Harvey Morning Show Online: http://www.steveharveyfm.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traditional TV — let alone a live NFL playoff game — might be the last ad inventory type you'd think to test trying out AI agents against. And yet that's exactly what NBCUniversal did last month. The media conglomerate ran a test with ad agency RPA, marketing analytics firm Newton Research and Comcast-owned ad tech firm FreeWheel to have AI agents participate in buying an ad against a live NFL playoff game. But did it work? “It works. It is a functioning technical proof-of-concept that accurately represents what the buyer wants to buy and what the seller has to sell,” said Ryan McConville, chief product officer and evp of ad products and solutions at NBCUniversal on the latest Digiday Podcast. Despite the successful test, NBCU isn't about to outsource its entire ad sales process to AI agents anytime soon. “We are a ways away from having this fully productionalized where multiple agencies are using this day in and day out to replace current workflows,” he said. That said, NBCU is now a lot closer to what McConville calls”premium automation,” as he explained in the episode.

"Use AI to do more!" might be the worst advice B2B marketers are getting right now. In this episode, host Jason Bradwell sits down with Charlie Riley, Head of Marketing at OneScreen.ai, to talk about why mass personalisation is backfiring, how to actually build stakeholder buy-in for thought leadership, and why being a marketing team of one forces you to make better strategic choices. Charlie breaks down his approach to aligning sales and marketing around LinkedIn advocacy, creating non-scalable experiences that actually convert, and using out-of-home advertising as both a brand and demand gen play. If you're drowning in AI tools and wondering what actually moves the needle, this conversation will reset your thinking. Jason and Charlie start by tackling the conventional wisdom that AI lets you "do more", more outreach, more personalisation, more content. Charlie's take? That approach is creating AI slop that people see right through. He explains why marketers are starting to swing back toward doing fewer things better, especially things that can't scale (spoiler: that's where the magic happens). As a marketing team of one at OneScreen, Charlie's had to get ruthless about focus. He shares his three-to-five channel strategy: LinkedIn (organic and paid), visual content showcasing real OOH campaigns, and live events like Drive and Spring. He explains how these channels create an owned media flywheel, content feeds community, community shows up at events, events create more content. They dig into LinkedIn strategy, and Charlie makes a key point: people don't work with brands, they work with people. OneScreen focuses more on executive and team member profiles than the company page. Charlie shares practical tactics for getting internal buy-in, finding a champion, helping them time-block 15 minutes daily for LinkedIn, and gamifying the process for competitive salespeople. Jason shares his own experience trying to roll out an advocacy program across an entire sales team (spoiler: it failed) before pivoting to work with two or three champions who were already posting. Once they could show millions in attributed pipeline, executive buy-in came naturally. Charlie adds that you have to get into the psychology of each function, salespeople want commission, CS wants retention bonuses, and CFOs want shorter sales cycles. If you're a B2B marketer feeling pressure to "do more with AI" or struggling to get internal stakeholders bought into content and thought leadership, this conversation offers a refreshingly practical alternative. Charlie's insights on doing fewer things better, building advocacy programs that actually work, and creating experiences that don't scale will help you cut through the noise and focus on what genuinely drives results. 00:00 - Introduction: Marketing as psychology 02:00 - Why "do more with AI" is backwards 05:00 - Building marketing as a team of one 07:00 - Three-to-five channel strategy 09:00 - The owned media flywheel 11:00 - People work with people, not brands 13:00 - Getting executives to share on LinkedIn 15:00 - Internal advocacy: finding your champion 18:00 - Gamifying LinkedIn for salespeople 20:00 - The blank check question: curated experiences Connect with Charlie Riley on LinkedIn and on his website charlieriley.com  Connect with Jason Bradwell on LinkedIn Subscribe to Beyond the Billboard (Apple Podcasts)  Visit OneScreen.ai Explore B2B Better website and the Pipe Dream podcast 

Send us a textWe're starting a new series in February on the Christian Business Advantage podcast, called Faithful & Wise: Navigating AI as a Christian Business Owner. In this first episode, we ask the big question many Christian authors, speakers, and coaches are wondering: Is it okay for Christians to use AI?We'll talk about why AI is a tool—not a replacement for your calling, conviction, conscience, or the Holy Spirit. Through Scripture and practical examples, we'll explore discernment, stewardship, and wisdom, calm common fears, and address the guilt many believers feel around using AI.If you want to honor God, steward your time well, and think clearly about how (and if) AI fits into your work, this episode will help you lay a solid, biblical foundation for the conversation ahead.

Imagine turning AI into your most reliable team member—one that drafts standards-aligned problems, writes crystal-clear directions, spots bottlenecks, and even helps convert Google Sheets activities to Excel for schools with strict tech rules. That's where we go today as we unpack five practical strategies TPT sellers can use to work faster, improve quality, and scale without burning out.We start with the foundation: precise prompting and curated chats that “remember” your expectations. You'll hear how we prime AI with state standards, difficulty bands, and real examples to generate unique math problems, short stories, and function tables that actually fit the classroom. Then we show how dedicated chats for specific tasks—elementary computation, upper-grade functions, ELAR passages, and social analytics—cut rework and create consistent outputs. You'll also learn the simple trick for producing two sets of directions: short, student-friendly steps and detailed teacher guidance that reduces support questions and builds trust with buyers.From there, we dig into efficiency. We map common SOPs for covers, previews, and listings, and ask AI to flag time-wasters, suggest automation, and design batch workflows. We outline how to build self-checking digital activities in Google Sheets or Excel and translate formulas between platforms so your resources work across different district ecosystems. We also add a powerful bonus: using AI to analyze TPT product insights and social metrics, propose weekly priorities, and justify recommendations so you can refine decisions with confidence. Along the way, we share real wins—learning Facebook ads with AI coaching, shipping more resources by pairing AI generation with human QA, and saving serious money by outsourcing only what humans must do.Ready to turn curiosity into capability? Press play, steal the steps, and try one experiment this week. If these strategies help, subscribe, leave a quick review, and share this episode with a fellow TPT seller who's ready to work smarter.Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZTuS8GcGFuACheck Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/ My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115  Support the show

Are you ready to discover how artificial intelligence can genuinely transform the juggle of family and work life? In this inspiring episode, the Mums on Cloud Nine team welcomes Julia Druck, an AI consultant with a fascinating career journey. Julia shares her path from weapons engineer in the Royal Navy to co-founding the AI consultancy 'Serpent,' and unveils practical, real-life ways you can embrace AI, even if you think you're not techy. Julia reveals her creation of a "Family Command Centre" using user-friendly, low- and no-code AI tools, bringing calm and order to the chaos of family logistics. She and the hosts explore why now is the perfect time to get curious about AI, how to get started without fear, and how your current skills are far more transferable to the world of AI than you think. Whether you're an ambitious mum, a parent managing multiple calendars, or someone looking to upskill and relaunch your career, this episode will spark your motivation and give you tangible tools to build a life you love. Key Points in This Episode: Julia Druck's unconventional career path and how she carved out a place in the AI industry. What exactly a Family Command Centre is and how AI can solve everyday household chaos like school events, appointments and birthdays. The reality behind learning AI as an adult: free courses, bootcamps, and online resources that are actually accessible (including YouTube!). Common fears and myths about AI... and why getting hands-on is easier than it seems. How transferable skills from product management (and parenting) set you up for success in the tech world. Favourite tools and platforms for AI task management, from Lindy, Susama and Todoist to Reclaim. Top tips for time-poor parents on integrating AI solutions for home and career. Julia's Free Guide: https://mumsoncloudnine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/MUMS-on-Cloud-NINE-Podcast-AI-agent-resource.pdf  Mentioned in this episode: Lindy (No-code AI agent platform): https://www.lindy.ai/assistant  Susama: https://www.sunsama.com/  Todoist: https://www.todoist.com/  Reclaim: https://reclaim.ai/  Claude: https://claude.ai/login  Comet: https://www.perplexity.ai/comet  YouTube tutorials for Lindy AI: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lindy+ai+tutorial  Craving more inspiration and practical tips? Subscribe for weekly mindset and career guidance, and join a community of women supporting each other in relaunching careers, building confidence, and achieving fulfilment. Find Julia Druck and connect for more insights: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliadruck/  If you're ready to banish overwhelm, embrace technology, and empower yourself, this episode is your perfect starting point! For more about Mums on Cloud Nine, the Supermums programme, and our expert directory, visit: Supermums.org Championing the Ambitious Women Mindset each and every week.

“We help companies drive growth. We deliver innovative solutions. We're customer-focused.” Sound familiar? If it does, your positioning probably sounds like everyone else's, and in a world where ChatGPT can generate endless value props in seconds, that sameness is now a real threat. In this episode of Pipe Dream, host Jason Bradwell talks with Christian Klepp, co-founder of EINBLICK Consulting, about why vanilla positioning is collapsing under AI pressure and how to build differentiation that actually holds up. Christian argues that the brands that win won't be the ones publishing more AI content. They'll be the ones doing deeper customer research, crafting a clearer point of view, and using subject matter experts as a defensible moat. Jason opens with the core problem: AI made generic messaging catastrophically easy to ignore. Christian explains what's changed recently, buyers increasingly use AI-assisted search and comparison tools that see through fluff faster than ever. It's no longer enough to say “we have AI.” Buyers want specifics: what is AI doing, how does it create value, and why should they trust your approach? They also address the pressure many agencies feel as clients expect AI to make everything cheaper and faster. Christian's take is that AI has no “soul”, no nuance, humor, lived experience, or real context. The winning strategy isn't volume (100 AI-generated blogs), t's choosing fewer topics and creating truly insightful, differentiated content that reflects real expertise. Christian explains why companies end up with bland positioning: fear of alienating prospects, cultures that reward safe messaging, and internal misalignment about what truly differentiates them. He's seen teams stuck in endless debates, leading to either analysis paralysis or messaging based purely on internal assumptions. His solution starts with a research strategy. He compares it to building a house - you wouldn't build without a blueprint. Likewise, you shouldn't build positioning without deep customer interviews that uncover why buyers chose you, what triggered the decision, and what language they use to describe value. That customer voice becomes the foundation not boardroom opinions. And if you think you don't have differentiation? Christian argues it's there, but often hidden. The answer lives with your customers and SMEs, you need to dig through interviews, sales calls, and objections to find the real demand triggers. Companies producing generic content will drown in sameness. Use AI intentionally, not as a replacement. Tap SMEs, listen to sales conversations, and build messaging from real expertise. If your positioning could've been written by anyone or any AI, this episode is the wake-up call you need. 00:00 - Introduction: The uncomfortable truth about your positioning 02:00 - Meet Christian Klepp and EINBLICK Consulting 04:00 - What's changed since AI went mainstream 07:00 - The agency tension: AI expectations vs actual value 11:00 - Why AI content lacks soul (and why that matters) 14:00 - Why companies default to vanilla positioning 18:00 - Using market research to break internal misalignment 22:00 - What to do when differentiation isn't obvious 26:00 - Differentiated perspective vs being opinionated 30:00 - The cybersecurity firm that got it right 34:00 - Is the media the new competitive moat? 38:00 - What happens to companies that don't adapt 42:00 - Final advice: Interview SMEs and sit in on sales calls Connect with Jason Bradwell on LinkedIn Connect with Christian Klepp on LinkedIn Visit EINBLICK Consulting Check out B2B Marketers on a Mission Podcast Explore B2B Better website and the Pipe Dream podcast

How are you really using AI — and how does that compare to others? In this episode, Colin Shaw introduces a simple behavioural framework for understanding how people are actually using AI today — not in theory, but in practice — and why this matters enormously for the future of Customer Experience. Rather than treating AI as a technology maturity model, Colin reframes it as a behavioural curve, shaped by confidence, trust, intent, and the consequences of being wrong. Drawing on real usage examples, ChatGPT analytics, and current research, Colin outlines four AI usage patterns that people tend to move through over time. Most people touch more than one. Very few stay in just one forever. The episode challenges listeners to ask: Where am I on this curve? Where are my customers today? And where will they be in 3–5 years? This is Part One of a new AI series exploring the implications of changing customer behaviour — and what organisations should be doing now to prepare. Best Quote from the Episode "This isn't a technology maturity model. It's a behavioural one. People don't adopt AI in a single way — they move through patterns depending on trust, confidence, and what's at stake." Colin Shaw, Founder & CEO, Beyond Philosophy Why You Should Listen If you're: wondering how AI will really change Customer Experience unsure whether your organisation is preparing for the right future or trying to understand how customer decision-making is evolving …this episode gives you a clear, practical way to think about AI adoption — grounded in behaviour, not hype. Resources Mentioned Colin Shaw - https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinrjshaw/ Professor Ryan Hamilton - http://linkedin.com/in/ryan-hamilton-49b3321  About the Hosts: Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 2% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn.   Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World's Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book launch in June 2025 called "The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things" Harvard Business Press Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.  Subscribe & Follow Apple Podcasts Spotify  

Kathy Floam Greenspan is a veteran B2B marketing expert with over 25 years of experience helping organizations align marketing with real business outcomes. As president of POM Agency, she is passionate about cutting through the noise in fast-moving industries like tech, cybersecurity, and government contracting. Kathy specializes in helping lean marketing teams deliver impactful results despite resource constraints and is a strong advocate of clarity, focus, and practical use of AI to drive growth. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Kathy Floam Greenspan joins Robert Plank to discuss the growing pressures on marketing teams, rising expectations, limited capacity, and constant change. Based on a survey of over 100 B2B marketers, Kathy reveals why misalignment, resource gaps, and unclear goals hinder performance and shares four strategic shifts to help teams reclaim focus and momentum in 2026. Learn how to partner smarter, clean up your data ecosystem, and use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch. Kathy offers actionable advice for marketers striving to stay the course, protect priorities, and create lasting impact in chaotic times. Quotes: “If everything is a priority, nothing is. Our role as marketers is to protect focus and stay the course, especially these days.” “Marketers are being asked to deliver more impact without more capacity, forcing tough trade-offs and constant prioritization.” “AI is incredibly powerful, but marketing is still very human work. Use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch to walk before you run.” Resources: POM Marketing (official site) Kathy Floam Greenspan on LinkedIn

What does it take to create maximum impact while serving your audience? To find out, Mark and Darren chat with business growth innovator and Hall of Fame speaker, Ford Saeks. Ford clearly lays out principles, practices, and perspectives that presenters must embrace to create maximum impact and become unforgettable.     SNIPPETS:   • Your impact depends on your intent and your audience's reception   • Always provide high value   • Your keynote is judged by its description   • Your description and bio should be benefit-driven and compelling   • You must be coachable, open-minded, proactive, and accountable   • When using AI, never lose the human loop   • Use AI wisely and strategically   • Don't get seduced by technology   • Always offer ways for clients to learn more from you   • Future-cast and be a guide   • You're responsible TO clients, not FOR them   • It's not what you know; it's what you do   • EXECUTE Work with Mark and Darren: https://www.stagetimeuniversity.com/get-a-speaking-coach/   Check Out Stage Time University: https://www.stagetimeuniversity.com

How to Use AI for B2B Storytelling Without Losing Your Brand So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on generic content that fails to resonate or support core business goals. In an era where AI-generated is everywhere, smaller B2B brands often struggle to maintain a unique identity while competing against larger firms with massive content engines. The key to staying relevant lies in a B2B brand’s ability to be authentic, human-centric, and strategically consistent despite the pressure to automate everything. So how can B2B brands effectively integrate AI into their marketing workflows without losing their unique voice and brand integrity? That's why we're talking to Nick Usborne (Founder, Story Aligned), who shared his expertise on leveraging AI through the lens of strategic storytelling. During our conversation, Nick discussed the critical distinction between simple narrative and a brand’s unique story, highlighting a significant gap where only 7% of top AI prompt libraries actually focus on storytelling. He shared actionable advice on building a “story vault,” training staff to avoid “brand drift,” and enforcing consistent AI usage to maintain the trust of the audience. Nick also underscored the importance of keeping human elements at the forefront of content creation to prevent AI from feeling overly mechanical, and advocated for a balanced approach that ensures scalable growth without sacrificing a brand's authenticity. https://youtu.be/dtgvg2-XXoU Topics discussed in episode: [02:53] The “Why” Behind AI Adoption: Why companies must embrace AI not just for efficiency, but to avoid being left behind by competitors who are already scaling their reach.  [04:10] The “Moat” of Storytelling: Why narrative and voice can be easily copied by AI, but your brand's unique “lived story” is the only defensible moat you have.  [11:27] Pitfalls of Inconsistent AI Use: The dangers of “shadow AI” use by employees (e.g., Using personal accounts vs. company custom GPTs) and how it leads to brand drift.  [16:46] The Human Element vs. AI: Nick explains why AI can describe the beach but can't “feel the sand between its toes,” and why human “messiness” is key to connection.  [24:26] Building a Story Vault: Nick provides a practical framework for formalizing your brand's folklore—from founder stories to customer service wins—so they can be systematically used in AI content.  [28:17] Actionable Steps for Marketers: Three immediate steps to take: build your story vault, interview key stakeholders (founders, early employees), and analyze customer service transcripts for sentiment.  [30:11] The Problem with “Killer Prompt” Libraries: Why copying “top 20 prompt” lists is a strategic mistake that leads to generic, non-differentiated content. Companies and links mentioned: Nick Usborne on LinkedIn  Story Aligned  Transcript Nick Usborne, Christian Klepp Nick Usborne  00:00 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people you use those kind of touch points the the deeply human side of being alive. And like, say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also, there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make. That’s what makes us human. We are messy. AI, it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance. Christian Klepp  00:51 When brands rely on the same AI tools and prompts, they start to sound like everyone else. That loss of voice can hurt trust and lead to something called Brand drift. So how can B2B Marketing teams scale content with AI while staying true to their story? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Nick Usborne, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Story Aligned, a training program for Marketing teams that want to scale content using AI while protecting the integrity of their brand story and voice. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Mr. Nick Usborne, welcome to the show, sir.  Nick Usborne  01:32 Thank you very much. Thank you Christian. Thank you for having me.  Christian Klepp  01:35 Pleasure to have you on the show. Nick, you know we had such a fantastic pre interview call. It was a bit of a you did drop a few hints and clues about what was to come, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’m going to keep the audience in suspense a little while longer as I move us into the first question. So off we go.  Nick Usborne  01:55 Okay. Christian Klepp  01:56 All right, so, Nick, you’re on a mission to equip Marketing teams to scale AI powered content while staying aligned with their organization, story and voice. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to use AI for B2B content without losing trust. And it is at the time of the recording, the end of 2025 and of course, we’re going to talk about AI, but we’re going to zoom in on something specific as it pertains to B2B content and a little bit of branding in there as well. But I wanted to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you believe it’s so important for brands and their Marketing teams to embrace AI so that they can scale? And the second question is, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? I think that’s one thing that you mentioned in our previous conversation, the whole the whole piece about prompts and guardrails. Nick Usborne  02:53 Well, the first question, why do companies need to embrace AI? And the ridiculous answer to that. It’s not a good answer, but it’s true is that because everyone else is, because your competitors are, and they will create content at scale while you are not, and they will achieve reach that you can’t achieve without AI. And in fact, if they do it well, their content, their new content, will be very good, content deeply researched beyond perhaps what you can do. So it’s like everything within AI right now, like, like, Why? Why do all the companies like open AI and Google and Meta, why they all racing? Because if they don’t, someone else will get there first. And it’s, I’m not saying it’s a great reason, but I think it is the fundamental reason for companies to embrace AI, is that you will be left behind if you don’t. This is a transformational moment, and as much as we’d like to have choice, I think in this matter, we don’t have a lot of choice. So that’s my answer to that question. Repeat the second question for me. Christian Klepp  04:00 Absolutely, absolutely so based on, based on that, like, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? Nick Usborne  04:10 As part of my business, I’m constantly researching this, and in particular, I’m researching the prompts people do so when say, could be writers coders, but in our world. Let’s say writers, principally, or marketers, are using AI. They’re using prompts, and they’re generally prompting about two things. One is narrative, like, what should we say? Or, you know, please write us a blog post about x. So that’s the that’s the topic, that’s the narrative. And then they’ll put in something say, oh, please do it in a voice that is authoritative and yet accessible. All right, so now that’s a voice. What they haven’t mentioned is what I think is the foundational layer, which is, which is story. And that’s important, because story is the only thing that is uniquely yours, if you have an narrative, if you, if you have voice, if you talk about something in a particular way, I can copy that with AI. I can copy it at scale. I can, I can look at the transcripts of Christian podcasts, and I can say, oh, I want to do one in exactly. Tell her the same topic. I can, you know, so when you focus on narrative, on what you write about in voice. I can copy it. There’s no moat. The only moat you have is with story, because every company’s story is unique. We can look at origin stories, foundation stories, we can look at customer stories through case studies, things like that. Those are always unique. No one else has Apple’s origin story. No one else has virgin Atlantic’s Founder’s story, etc. But we did some research recently. Actually, we did some research months ago, and I reconfirmed it earlier this week. I ran it. I ran it all again to look at the data. If you look at the top 20 prompt libraries that you know the big, trustworthy companies and organizations that put out prompt libraries for companies. If you look at the top 20 libraries and the 1000s and 1000s of prompts within there, 76% of those prompts are about the narrative. What to say? 17 are about voice. How do you sound? Only 7% relate to story. So this, to my mind, is where we have a problem. We have a disconnect. Everyone is going crazy, prompting for narrative and story, both of which have 0, zero mode, anyone can copy them at scale. And only 7% this very small percentage, are actually focusing on the one thing that is uniquely theirs and cannot be copied or challenged. So that when you say, when you, when you say I’m on a mission, that’s the mission for me to say, Hey guys, wake up. You’re You’re prompting the wrong things in the wrong way. Let’s like, go back and look at story Christian Klepp  07:12 Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to us to a certain degree, because you’re saying scaling B2B content using AI without losing trust. Because, you know, the narrative that I keep seeing on social media, particularly LinkedIn, is that if people are using AI, there is a bit of a trust factor there. But I think it’s to your point and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s being able to embrace AI and you leveraging it the right way, so it’s not, it’s not, it’s not to replace, it’s not to replace the writers, right, or to replace the Marketers, I hope not. Nick Usborne  07:50 It may replace some. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you’re right, and the keyword you mentioned there is trust. I think, I think trust is going to be the most valuable commodity that a company can have in the months and years to come, because people don’t actually don’t if we’re talking about brand. So we’re trying to protect brand with story, right? And brand is something that a lot of companies have spent millions of dollars building and protecting over years or decades and well, one of the things let me come back to trust in a moment. But if I’m looking at brand, and I’m looking at all the stuff goes out there, it either builds brand or it burns brand. And if you burn brand, you lose trust. So if you’re going out with a whole bunch of content that sounds like everyone else is that it’s kind of meh. It’s ordinary. It’s in the middle, which is what AI is really good at. Without the right prompting, it will give you kind of in the middle, mediocre output. So you got to be much better at prompting than just like a, I don’t know, being careless about it, or taking a shortcut, shortcuts, or being lazy about it, because then you get brand drift, and all of a sudden the brand doesn’t sound quite right. And when that happens, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose revenue. I mean, you really do. And people are getting very sensitive to brand of brand trust we saw recently. Was it tracker barrel tried to just change its logo. People freaked out. People freaked out.  Christian Klepp  09:27 It was an awful rebrand, but, yes.  Nick Usborne  09:30 Yeah, but it wasn’t. These weren’t. These weren’t. Saying is, I don’t think the design is up to snuff. It’s like, don’t mess with my tracker barrel. We actually feel very strongly about the brands. Talk to people who are absolute fans of Apple. Doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much, perhaps as not quite as good. It’s Apple. It’s my brand. Don’t mess with my brand. So we’re very sensitive to our loyalty to brands. And in fact, in some sense, it’s brand define us like a football team, a baseball team, in part, we can be defined by the brands that we support, local, Pepsi. You know, it’s like everywhere. So when a company uses AI carelessly at scale and all of a sudden that blog post, it kind of sounds like them, but something’s a tiny bit off. And then that LinkedIn update. Again, yeah, it’s them, but again, it’s, did I say is that the same as they were six months ago? You get the you get these little these little things that sound off, and now you get brand drift. And now you get people feeling uneasy, and the public are sometimes we think we can just make the public believe whatever we want them to believe, or companies to believe whatever we want them to believe, but actually, individuals, in their home lives and in their business lives are very, very sensitive to brand and they’re very, very sensitive to voice and what they hear, and if it’s off, they really don’t like it, and that does translate into loss of trust, and that does directly translate into loss of revenue.  Christian Klepp  11:07 Absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next set of questions, particularly that one pertaining to key pitfalls that Marketers need to avoid when they’re trying to scale their B2B content using AI without losing trust. So what are some of these key pitfalls they should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Nick Usborne  11:27 What I’m hearing from inside a number of companies is that there is an inconsistency in how people are using AI and even when systems are in place, that not everyone follows the system. So it’s early days. It is. These are messy times for, you know, working with AI within companies. So I think it’s really important that companies do have some frameworks in place, that people within the organization are using the same tools in the same way, and that they are encouraged to be consistent in what they do. So I’ve heard stories of where companies are set up, you know, they’re using Copilot, or whatever they use, and then some of the manager will walk by someone’s desk, and they’re actually, actually, they’re using Claude on their phone. That person like phone, and it’s like, well, yeah, but no, this is now, you know, you have no control. You also have to get people to do what they ask. I was talking to a Founder the other day. She has a PR (Public Relations) company, plenty of clients, and she’s smart. She’s created custom GPTs for each client. So each custom GPT is trained on with with a kind of database of information on that client and the content, so that you know when you when you ask it to do something else, it’s already has the context and the voice instructions and everything, and you can and it’s great, you get this consistency. But she says, what’s happening is some of her employees come in in the morning, they start work on client X, and they’re using that custom GPT. Then they move on to client Y, but they keep using the original custom GPT and not switching out. So the management has put in the structure in place to be consistent and to output the best, you know, the best content, but the employees are not always playing game, you know, going along with that. So so I do think we’re in a messy period now where companies are not entirely sure how to apply this, how to structure it, what kind of frameworks and guidance to put in place. What guardrails to put in place? Like? Again, I’ve heard horror stories of people grabbing content that should not be shared and putting it into a large language model and then turning that into customer facing or public facing content.  Christian Klepp  13:57 Oh, plagiarism.  Nick Usborne  14:04 So yeah, it is messy. So what I would say is, before you even try to make the best of the use of AI that you do, need to put systems and frameworks in place and educate your staff. So if you want your staff to use AI effectively give them access to training. Don’t just throw them at a tool and say, go for it, because they won’t know what to do with it, or they’ll be able to create stuff, but they won’t be able to create good stuff. So invest in the systems, invest in the frameworks and instructions, and invest in training for the people who are going to be using the tools.  Christian Klepp  14:46 Definitely some relevant points. I wanted to go back to something you said, though, because I think it’s really important. It’s certainly one thing to have the prompts and the guardrails in place and some kind of like, framework and structures. But to your earlier point, how do you enforce that? And I think you gave a really good example about like, if you have a custom GPT, and then they resort to like, using. Um Claude on their personal accounts, and then it’s a little bit like the wild west out there, isn’t it? Nick Usborne  15:06 It is, it is, and it’s and it’s, how do you enforce it? Well, that’s going to be a company by company decision. Like, like the Founder with the PR of the PR company, when she was telling me about how her employees just weren’t doing what they were asked. I was like, part of you is thinking about, why haven’t you kind of cracked down on this? But again, it depends on the company and what options you have when it comes to enforcing stuff like this. But I do think you need to, because then if we circle right back, if you have people who are untrained, and that’s the company’s responsibility to train their employees. If you have people who are untrained and they’re using these tools inconsistently, that is when you far more likely then to see errors for, you know, unforced errors like publishing stuff that you shouldn’t but you’re also going to see more brand drift, because you’re going to get this inconsistency between output and that is a disaster. Like I say, companies have sometimes spent, in a decade, several years in establishing and building a trustworthy brand. And people are very unforgiving. You can, you can lose all that goodwill very, very quickly. So, yeah, training frameworks make sure people are, you know, working within those boundaries, but as a company, it’s your responsibility to help make that happen. Christian Klepp  16:29 Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You kind of brought this up already, but you mentioned that AI can help to scale content, but it can’t replicate your lived story, so please explain what you meant by that, and provide an example. If you can, Nick Usborne  16:46 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but you know, it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. So I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people, you use those kind of touch points, the deeply human side of being alive and like say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make, that’s what makes us human. We are messy, and it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance and the lived story. It’s the it’s the weird stuff. I think that resonates. So I’ve spent quite a bit of my career doing copywriting for companies, and for a long period, I was doing some freelance, a lot of freelance copywriting. So this is just a little side note, a little side story for you. I used to live on a hobby farm. We had some sheep and pigs and chickens and all that good stuff, the good life. And also had freelance customers. And I went in, and I was and I went, you know, you go out, you feed the animals, you come in, I sit down to work, and my client said, this is just on the phone. This is even before the internet. Client said, Hey, you’re late. I was just out farming the pig and feeding the pigs. And the guy says, what? And this, I hadn’t realized. I never told him that I lived on a farm. He thought somewhere. So anyway, we talked a little bit about the pigs, then we get to work. So the project we’re working on worked out really well, and it won an award. So we fly off to your hometown, Toronto, for the awards ceremony, direct marketing awards ceremony, and he stands up and he says, Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. And special thanks to Nick Usborne, the pig farming copywriter. And I’m like, I’m like, in the audience, and I’m thinking, oh, please no. This guy is like, rebranding me constantly in front of all my peers, all my potential clients for next year. Big drama turns out so, so that that’s messy, all right? AI wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t do that. That’s a deeply human moment of my humiliation and him laughing, and everyone slapping me on the back and laughing and asking about my pigs. Turns out, over the next 12 months, I got a few phone calls out of the blue. And I say, Hello, Nick Usborne. I said, Oh, is that Nick Usborne? The cover of James Barber. And I say, why? Yes. And so I actually got work out of that, because it was such a distinct difference from every other copywriter out there. I was the only copywriter who had pigs. So that was just a fun story, but it also speaks to the difference between humans and AI, and it’s a live that’s a lived experience, and it’s a lived anecdote, and I tell the story, and it’s a true story that is really important, I think so, even when we use AI, even when we use it at its best, and it can be really good when you use it well, I think everyone should keep leave space for the human in the loop, as they say, keep that human element in there, big for those stories. So I so I encourage companies to create what I call like a story vault. So there’s the obvious stories, like the Founder story, the origin story, the six original success story, also put in the little quirky stories, like that one I just described, and and make that part of your process. And also go, you know, if you’re creating something with AI and it’s a big project, take the time to go and interview someone, talk to someone, get a human story, put it in just because you’re using AI, doesn’t mean to say that everything you create has to be 100% AI, you can, you can? I do this all the time. I look for it a draft with AI, then I’d go back in and I’ll rewrite the beginning with an anecdote, like the small s story, not a big dramatic story, just a little story. And what it does then is that then connects it with us, because as people, we recognize stories. Story is profound to all of us. I think in every country in the world, parents read their children bedtime stories. It’s something we share in common. It’s how we communicate, and it’s how we recognize our humanity in a sense of like, if you tell me a story, you connect with me, and vice versa. So that’s why I think stories are so important in this world of AI, because if you just go AI, it can get a little cold, and sometimes, as a reader, you don’t quite understand what’s happening and why, but you kind of feel it. There’s an absence. There’s something missing, and that what’s what you feeling is missing is that human touch, that human element, Christian Klepp  21:59 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s like, there’s like, telltale signs, right? Like em dash being one of them,  Nick Usborne  22:06 em dash Christian Klepp  22:07 Yes, or Yeah. Or it tends to, like, regurgitate the same type of war. It’s like, I find it loves using the word landscape or navigate, you know, things of that nature, right?  Nick Usborne  22:20 Yeah.  Christian Klepp  22:21 Or uses these funny like, you know, the colon or for, for, for titles of episodes, for examples. Nick Usborne  22:30 In titles, even when I give it clear instructions, do not use them. So sometimes, when I create content like that is, I’ll create it in with one model like say, GPT5, and I’ll take it over to flawed, and I’ll say, hey, please edit and clean this up for me, and remove any, you know, repetition or whatever. And sometimes it comes back say, hey, looks pretty clean, pretty good. Other times it’ll change stuff. And then, of course, always I will, you know, I will review. And that’s the other thing that the companies need to think about. Is that, at the moment, content generation at scale within companies, it is a bit like a conveyor belt in a factory of all these boxes flying off the end into the FedEx back of the FedEx van, and without, without any kind of quality control, which, which is actually what you do have with income within you know, if you’re manufacturing, and you do have quality control, and you pick out every 20th item or whatever to make sure that it’s good, a lot of that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening with a lot of people using AI is people don’t even see it. It’s fully automated, like, like a week’s worth of social media is automated, or a month’s work worth, and no one, no human, has read it or reviewed it. It’s just flying out automatically. And that is where at some point you’re inevitably going to have a problem. And it may not be a big problem, it may be lots and lots of small problems, lots of lots of things sounding not quite right, and then all of a sudden, when you’ve got enough little things not sounding right, then you start getting a medium sized problem. Christian Klepp  24:06 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but talk to us about some of these, these frameworks and these processes that B2B companies can use to help them, you know, organize themselves and reap those benefits of AI without losing trust. Like, what are some of these processes and frameworks? Nick Usborne  24:26 I do some training, and I have done a few rubrics where people can kind of use those to formalize the process. But I think if we talk about story, and I think I already mentioned the idea of each company having a story vault, so be formal and deliberate about it. Everyone can chat about their company’s stories, but if I say to you, hey, is there a folder? Can I can I get a Google folder and find a compilation of all of these stories? And have you graded those stories in terms of how strong and relevant? And they are, and how engaging they might be, or how evocative they might be, and the answer is almost always no, the story is around. But there’s no story vault, and there’s no rubric in place to grade those stories and decide which might be the most appropriate points at which to share those stories. So it’s that, it’s that formalizing the process, and I don’t like being 100% rules based, but I think in the AI world right now, where we are in that kind of messy middle period, I think it’s really important to have some systems in place so that we do have a consistent output, so that when you so that your brand doesn’t suffer from brand drift, and that you don’t make some significant missteps along the way. So somebody within the organization needs to be responsible for this. Maybe it’s the Chief AI Officer, if you have one, or otherwise, somebody in Marketing. So yeah, help people with training, but also help them by giving them some framework, some rubrics and some just a system like, you know, hey, picked up a story from customer service, put it in the story vault, categorize it. Customer service in the story vault says someone else can come back and find it. So it’s not just word of mouth. It’s not accidental. There’s a place where people can go to and then you’re going to do the same with narrative, the things we say. And you have another vault, as it were, and another rubric to to assess voice, how we say it. So it’s just this formalization of the process, and also trying to make sure that people use these systems as you put them in place. So somebody’s got to be walking along behind, behind and sort of, and again, it’s like, I guess, like early days of anything. Not every, not everyone will love the process. Not everyone loves using AI. But it’ll come. It’ll come. People will get in their heart better, not only using AI, but doing it well and following these processes. Christian Klepp  27:02 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Let me just quickly recap, because I was writing this down. So obviously, having a story vault, grading them if you can, if possible, having systems and frameworks in place, training the team and getting them to familiarize themselves with the systems having a vault for narrative and voice, I think was the other piece. And finally, using, using the systems, once you have them, not letting them collect dust, as it were, right? Nick Usborne  27:32 Like and it is, I get it right now. I get it. It’s hard for a lot of companies, because I think using AI has been very kind of mixed. Some companies have dived straight in. Others are resistant, particularly companies that have compliance issues, financial, medical stuff like that. They’re being very careful, very cautious, and for very good reason. So the rate of adoption is very uneven at the moment, Christian Klepp  28:01 Absolutely, absolutely, all right. Nick you’ve given us plenty here, right? But if we’re going to talk about actionable tips, like something that somebody who’s listening to this conversation that they can take action on right after listening to this interview, what are like some of the top three things you would advise them to do? Nick Usborne  28:17 Well, I guess first is just we’ve talked quite a bit about the story, the story of collecting stories. Just do that because, like I say, I think story is your is your superpower, because it is the only place where you have a moat you don’t in what you say and how you say it. Anyone can copy you, and I can automate copying you through AI as well, but I cannot steal your story, because it’s just not true if, if it’s not my story. So I’d always start there and again, start, start that. Build the vault, select the story and formalize that process. Interview the Founders, if you can, interview early employees, even if they’re retired, interview the first three clients, if you can access them, interview customer service. So often overlooked, customer service in one way or another, so long as that’s not all automated, if there’s still humans in that loop, then have conversations with them. And you can, you can, you can, get transcripts, customer service transcripts, and feed them into AI and say, hey, please analyze and summarize this. What are, what are the most powerful messages we can get from our customer service? Sort of stream of content? Do? Do a sentiment analysis? What are people upset about? What are people happy about? So, yeah, story, I think, is like, I say, it will be your motive, it will be your savior. So first start to formalize that process of getting story and then making sure that it finds a place, somewhere in your automation of, you know, AI generated content, Christian Klepp  29:58 Fantastic, fantastic stuff. Okay, soapbox time. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Nick Usborne  30:11 I guess again, I’m just going to overlapping. I don’t know what a status quo, but the thing that I passionately disagree with is is every time you see most or a social media title that says top 20 killer, unbeatable prompts.  Christian Klepp  30:31 Oh, yeah. Nick Usborne  30:32 No, no, no, absolutely, just, just no for two reasons. One is that they’re going to be generic. They’re not going to apply to your company in particular, they’ll be generic, and just because they work for someone else does not mean they’re going to work for you. And like I say, we did, I’ve done research on those prompt libraries, and only 7% of them even touch on story. So if I’m writing stories, the most important thing almost all of those prompt libraries are missing out on that. They’re just focusing on narrative and voice and ignoring stories. So not good and and, yeah, so, so that is, I don’t know whether the status quo, but it’s something I keep seeing, and it irritates me when I get it. I understand why they’re doing it, but not helpful for your company. Christian Klepp  31:18 Yeah, you and me both. I mean, those are the those are the pulse they attempt to ignore immediately. I mean, I just skim through it and see the prompts, and I’m like, Nah, but I think it’s human nature too, isn’t it? Like everybody wants to chase the next hack. They want to find that the you know, the shortcut, like the quickest route to get something done. And I get that, but it sometimes does more harm than good. Nick Usborne  31:43 Easy button, but also to be fair and to be a little bit more generous. This is early days, and so people are looking for help. And if it says top 20, this is, oh my goodness, thank you. I’ll take that now. Over time, that’ll change, and people will become a little more sophisticated, I think, but like us, like you. You know, I get it. I understand why those those posts and titles are attractive, and that’s why people create them. But we can do better. We can do better Christian Klepp  32:12 Absolutely, absolutely we can, and we will, hopefully, all right, here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking about this one, but Nick Usborne  32:23 I feel strangely nervous. I feel nervous, but it’s a bonus question. Christian Klepp  32:30 Just breathe. Just breathe. I mean, clearly from this conversation, you know, writing is in your blood, right? It’s something that you are passionate about, but it’s also something you’ve done professionally for a long time, I suppose. The bonus question is, if you had an opportunity to meet your favorite writer or author, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about?  Nick Usborne  32:55 One of the people, I really admire, and I’ve already spoken to him, is David Abbott. So David Abbott is a copywriter from from England, and he had an agency called Abbot Mead Vickers, and he was an amazing writer. So I’ve already met him. Who I haven’t met I would like to re write to meet is Susie Henry. She was the copywriter behind a series of advertisements in the UK for an insurance company, and she is just a delightful writer, so I told you, well, no, I hadn’t told you. Maybe I will tell you I’m like, when I started out copywriting, it was at the tail end of the Mad Men period, and creatives were the Kings and Queens, and copywriting was such a craft, it was something to be absolutely proud of, like we’d go through so many drafts, and it was, I was, you know, I was, I was a craftsman, learning from other craftsmen. And David, ever I met, he was in a fantastic writer, just written Susie Henry so good, very, very conversational writer, which was very unusual for that time. So I’d like to meet and talk with her, and I still can’t remember the fiction writer. He’s science fiction writer. I completely lost blank on his name, and I’ve actually met him once briefly, but I’d like to get back to him and chat, but I can’t, because he’s he’s since passed. Christian Klepp  34:19 Oh, I see, I see, I see. All right, well, that’s quite the list of people, but, um, but yeah. No, fantastic. No. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. Nick Usborne  34:37 All right. Hi. My name is Nick Usborne, so my business build Story Aligned. So storyaligned.com and what we do there is pretty much, what I’ve talked about today is we train teams within companies to look at story, narrative and voice with a lot of emphasis on story, because that’s where the note is, so if you get a Story Aligned, you’ll find we have a white paper you can download. We have a blog that you can read, the description of the training. So yeah, if this interests you, if you find this an interesting topic, there’s plenty to do when you get there. So Story Aligned, A, L, I, G, N, E, D, yeah. Story Aligned. Christian Klepp  35:21 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to pop that into the show notes so that it’ll be easy for everyone to access. But once again, Nick, thank you.  Nick Usborne  35:28 Sorry, one last thing, if you want to please opening myself up, if you want to just talk to me directly, you can write to me at nick@storyaligned.com. Christian Klepp  35:38 Perfect, perfect. Nick, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Nick Usborne  35:44 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. Christian Klepp  35:47 Thank you. Bye for now. You.

If you're building software in the AI era, speed is everywhere—and that's exactly why discipline matters more than ever. In Part 2 of our interview with Angelo Zanetti, one strategy keeps coming up as the smartest path for founders and product teams: go web first. You validate demand faster, avoid app-store friction, and you get a clearer signal before you spend real money on the mobile "tax."  About Angelo Zanetti Angelo Zanetti is the co-founder and CEO of Elemental, a South African-based software development agency helping startups and scaleups worldwide bring digital products to life. Since 2005, his team has specialized in building scalable, high-performance web apps and software platforms that solve complex business problems. With deep technical knowledge and strategic thinking, Angelo has helped founders launch bespoke software products that are lean, user-focused, and future-ready. He's served on boards including BISA and Entrepreneurs' Organisation Cape Town, and he's a proud member of the global founder community OPUS. Go web first in the AI era AI is changing how teams build, but it doesn't change what makes a product succeed. Angelo's take is balanced: AI can absolutely make developers faster—but it can also make mistakes bigger if you don't have the experience to catch what's wrong.  He shares a story that captures the risk perfectly: a developer using Cursor accidentally had the database dropped and recreated. The tool didn't intend harm—it simply took a destructive shortcut with confidence.  Go web first and use AI like an amplifier. In the hands of an experienced developer, AI accelerates delivery. In the hands of someone guessing, it accelerates failure.  Go web first when you're still validating demand If the goal is traction, the fastest route is often not a mobile app. Angelo points out that mobile adds overhead: submissions take time, changes can slow down release cycles, and testing requires compiles plus device/emulator workflows that can drag early iterations.  When you go web first, you can ship faster, adjust faster, and learn faster. That matters when you're still figuring out what users actually value. Avoid app-store friction App stores introduce delays and rules. Even when you do everything right, you're waiting on review cycles and dealing with policies that can change. By starting on the web, you keep your feedback loop tight and your roadmap in your control. Shorten the feedback loop This is the hidden advantage: going web first makes iteration feel like steering instead of guessing. You can test onboarding, pricing pages, feature positioning, and workflows in days—not weeks—then respond to what real users do, not what you hope they do. Go web first, but use AI safely AI doesn't remove the need for senior judgment. Angelo's point is that experienced developers still matter because the hard part is translation—turning vision into structure, edge cases, and maintainable architecture.  AI can accelerate progress—go web first with guardrails Go web first and set guardrails early: backups, version control, review practices, and clear boundaries for what AI can touch. Tools can generate code quickly, but your team still owns security, data safety, and reliability. Mistakes are cheaper to fix When you're validating, mistakes are inevitable. The goal is to make them inexpensive. A web-first approach keeps the cost of change lower, so you don't "lock in" bad assumptions behind a costly mobile release cycle. Go web first by planning like an architect Angelo uses a metaphor that founders immediately get: building software is like building a house—you don't start by putting up walls. You start with an architect.  Planning is a real deliverable: scope, user journeys, exceptions, and specifications. It's often undervalued because it's not as tangible as code, but Angelo calls it key to success—especially if you want to scale later without rebuilding from scratch.  Start with a clear scope and user journeys Go web first with a simple, documented path: who the user is, what outcome they want, and what steps they take. When the journey is clear, the MVP stays focused—and your team can defend scope when feature requests start creeping in. Define a foundation you can scale You don't need to over-engineer. But you do need a foundation that won't collapse if adoption spikes. A web-first product can still be built with smart architecture that supports growth—without pretending you already have millions of users. Go web first, then go mobile when users pull you there Angelo shares a practical signal for mobile timing: when people keep asking for it—repeatedly—through engagement, social channels, and real usage patterns, the decision becomes obvious. That's when "it makes sense," not when it's a personal preference.  When mobile adds real value If the web product is solving the problem and users are happy, mobile isn't automatically better. Go web first until mobile improves retention, engagement, or access in a way the web can't. When hardware features make going mobile necessary Mobile becomes the right answer when you truly need what mobile devices offer—hardware-level capabilities that a web app can't reliably provide.  Closing: Go web first, then expand with confidence Part 2 is a reminder that modern tools don't replace fundamentals—they raise the stakes. Use AI to accelerate, but respect planning and safety. And when you're still proving demand, go web first. You'll learn faster, waste less, and you'll earn your way into mobile when the market makes the call.   Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, there's always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at info@develpreneur.com with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let's continue exploring the exciting world of software development. Additional Resources Why Build A Mobile Application? Defining An MVP Properly for Your Goals How to Build a Minimal Viable Product Without Blowing Your Budget Building Better Foundations Podcast Videos – With Bonus Content

Brianne Shaw, director of GLOO, encourages us to know the limitations of generative AI, especially in areas of spiritual matters.  That doesn't mean AI can't be used wisely as a tool in these areas.  Dr. George Delgado of Abortion Pill Rescue Network and author of "Abortion Pill Reversal," offers the facts how a woman who has taken the first pill of the chemical abortion procedure can reverse it by taking progesterone.  He shares stories of moms who took this second chance at a choice for life.   The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here

Governments Shouldn't Use AI For Pics & Vids by Nick Espinosa, Chief Security Fanatic

When clients start asking "What am I paying you for?", most assume they have a pricing problem on their hands when they're actually facing an operations problem. Leah Leaves is the founder and CEO of Alderaan Operations, where she embeds operations directors and part-time digital project managers directly into remote agencies.  In this conversation, she reveals what's happening when clients question an agency's value - asking for more deliverables, questioning reports, or wondering why they can't just use cheap tools themselves. A few things we covered: Why the same operational bottlenecks agencies have always had are now happening at 10x-100x speedThe exact question clients are asking agencies right now (and how the best agencies are answering it)How agencies are reinvesting time saved by AI into client experience, productized tools, and advisory servicesThe "bionic org chart" framework for documenting what AI owns versus what humans ownA practical system for turning meeting transcripts into searchable client context that actually gets usedWhy hiring people who want to stay static in their role is a feature, not a bugThe shift from deliverables-based positioning to strategic marketing partner (and why AI makes this more urgent)Timestamps:[00:00] Introduction: Leah Leaves and the state of agency operations[01:26] Same issues, 10x-100x speed: What's really changing with AI[03:37] The question clients are asking: "What am I paying you for?"[06:38] How agencies are answering the value question differently[11:15] Moving from execution to advisory: Selling thinking, not deliverables[15:30] The art of productive client meetings (and why most fail)[20:45] Hiring strategy: Finding people who want to grow vs. stay static[29:47] The bionic org chart: Documenting AI's role on your team[32:17] Practical AI implementation: Turning meeting notes into searchable knowledge[34:20] Ideas that wouldn't exist without reduced latency[35:29] Where to find Leah and learn more about operationAlderaan Operations - Leah's company embedding ops directors in agenciesLeah Leaves on LinkedIn - Connect with Leah

If you're an ADHDish business owner who would like to get more done in less time, you'll want to join us in Optimize Your ADHD BrainLearn more and apply here: http://www.lifepixuniversity.com/oybTake the assessment to see how strong each of your thinking skills are: https://www.lifepixuniversity.com/cfSee how much your thinking skills are costing you: https://www.lifepixuniversity.com/cal…

What if AI could turn your medical expertise into passive income streams, without adding a single hour to your day?  In this episode of Bootstrap MD, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, breaks down how AI serves as an "insurance policy" for your medical career, helping you build assets, generate new revenue streams, and reclaim time.  Drawing from real-world examples in his community, he outlines four actionable "lanes":  Content and Authority: Turning voice memos into podcasts, social posts, and leads;  Education and Digital Products: Packaging patient FAQs into 24/7 programs;  AI as Digital Assistant: Automating admin tasks to cut costs;    Vibe Coding: Building simple tools like client qualifiers.  Dr. Mike emphasizes picking one lane that matches your personality, avoiding common pitfalls like overbuilding or waiting for confidence, and challenges listeners to a 14-day experiment: build one asset and measure time saved, income potential, and stress reduced. This episode empowers physicians to shift from trading time for money to ownership, using AI to practice on their terms.   Three Actionable Takeaways:  Leverage AI for Content Creation: Record a 10-15 minute voice memo on patient questions or research insights during your commute. Feed it into an AI tool to generate podcasts, social posts, emails, and scripts. Use this content to attract patients, build authority, and launch coaching programs, saving hours while boosting income.  Build Digital Education Products: Compile common patient FAQs and your standard answers into an AI-structured program. Create a self-paced digital course or guide that patients can purchase. This passive asset generates 24/7 revenue, helps patients manage conditions, and adds value to your practice without extra daily effort.  Implement AI as a Digital Assistant: Use AI to automate admin tasks like intake summaries, follow-ups, and email workflows. Start by replacing a virtual assistant's duties, saving $2,000-$5,000 monthly. Focus on efficiency to reduce overhead, increase profit, and free time for high-value work or personal life.  About the Show: Bootstrap MD is the ultimate podcast for physician entrepreneurs looking to escape traditional healthcare and control their financial futures. Hosted by Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, a successful physician, entrepreneur, and investor, the show delivers actionable insights on starting businesses, creating passive income, and navigating healthcare entrepreneurship. Featuring interviews with industry leaders, physicians, and experts in telemedicine and digital health, it's your guide to building a profitable, fulfilling career.  Tune in weekly at  http://bootstrapmd.com     About the Host: Dr. Mike Woo-Ming has over 20 years of experience as a physician entrepreneur. He's built and sold multiple seven-figure companies and now leads Executive Medical, a group of clinics specializing in age management and aesthetics. Through BootstrapMD, he mentors physicians in business, content creation, and autonomy. Let's Connect: www.https://www.bootstrapmd.com   Want to start a podcast? Check out the Doctor Podcast Network!    

AI isn't just a tool. It's a leadership decision.In today's episode of the She Built It® Podcast, Melanie Barr breaks down how founders and executive leaders can use AI without sacrificing brand voice, positioning, or trust. This episode reframes AI from a trend to a support system and offers a clear leadership framework for using it wisely. Melanie shares why speed without standards leads to brand drift, what AI should support and what it should never lead, and how to protect the clarity and credibility that make a brand feel premium. This is a must-listen for leaders scaling serious businesses who want leverage without losing what makes their brand distinct.Connect with Melanie:Work with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr InstagramMelanie Barr LinkedInShe Built It® LinkedIn

Today's a special treat. I'm sitting down with Jessica Nelson & Stephanie Lindsey, co-founders of AI for Interiors and principals of Etch Design Group, a nationally recognized design firm based in Austin, TX.   When I first met them at a design retreat last year, I assumed we'd just be swapping project stories, not talking AI strategy. Then I realize these two are leading the conversation on how interior designers can use AI in a way that's practical, creative, and actually makes sense for real studios.   Jessica and Stephanie bring more than 30 years of combined experience, both as working designers and as tech-minded educators who know the ins and outs of this business. Their company, AI for Interiors, helps designers use tech to streamline workflow and automate the messy stuff without losing creativity, connection, or design vision.   Oh, and they also co-host two podcasts: AI for Interiors and 100 Lunches, where they break down design, business, and big tech changes in honest, easy-to-grasp conversations.   Today, we're making AI less intimidating and more actionable. So if you've been curious (but maybe a little overwhelmed), this one's for you. Grab your coffee, open your notes app, and let's get started.   Mentioned in this episode: Access the full video interview with Elana Steele of Steele Appliance here: https://www.reneedevignierdesign.com/applianceFind out more about Jessica and Stephanie here: Find out more about Jessica and Stephanie here: Website: http://www.aiforinteriors.com http://www.etchinteriordesign.com   Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/etchdesigngroup/ https://www.instagram.com/aiforinteriors/   Find the full shownotes at: https://devignierdesign.com/ai-for-interior-designers 

"Use AI to build better relationships, not replace them." In this Stay Paid Q&A episode, agents call in with three of the most important questions in real estate today: how to break into commercial, how to use AI without losing trust, and how to convert intent-based leads with ads and follow-up. Luke and Josh share tactical advice on mentorship, networking, AI adoption, calling strategies, and why volume is the true separator between average and top producers.

AI can be an incredible tool to save time, boost creativity, and streamline your content, but how do you use it without losing your authentic voice?In this episode, I'm joined by Dan Cumberland, founder of Dan Cumberland Labs, to explore how therapists, coaches, and small business owners can use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude without sounding robotic or generic.We cover:* Common therapist concerns about using AI* How to treat AI as a collaborator (not a replacement)* The POWER Framework: How to get better AI output* Building a brand voice guide* How AI frees up time for life, family, and creative work* Using AI to repurpose podcast & YouTube content* Dan's tips for delegating content without losing your voiceThis episode is packed with practical tips if you're looking to scale your message, free up your schedule, and still sound like you.Resources:Want to launch your online course?Check out our new membership site! Find out more and get on the Haven Waitlist here.