249 - How we're learning AI tools without overwhelm

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an unboring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show.

[00:00:37] Caroline: Welcome back to the podcast. It's Carol.

[00:00:40] Jason: Sick intro, my guy.

[00:00:43] Caroline: You always intro it. I don't know what to say.

[00:00:44] Jason: When you watch or listen to podcasts, how do you feel they intro?

[00:00:48] Caroline: A lot like that.

[00:00:49] Jason: Okay.

[00:00:50] Caroline: Hey, guys. Welcome back to the podcast. It's Carol.

[00:00:51] Jason: Okay, so it's good. Podcasts are cool.

[00:00:53] Caroline: No, they don't do that.

[00:00:55] Jason: Yeah.

[00:00:55] Caroline: The OGs will know.

[00:00:56] Jason: Just real quick, double preamble here. When we were just talking about, in your household, people listening to this, especially if you live with a significant other, this is important. Is one of you a constant sock wearer and the other is a sock avoider? Because I am a person who I hate wearing socks. I would prefer to never wear socks ever, because it makes my feet feel hot and I don't like it and they feel claustrophobic. I don't want to wear socks.

[00:01:22] Caroline: I think I wear socks for...

[00:01:23] Jason: And you are a full time sock wearer.

[00:01:25] Caroline: Yeah. But I think I wear it for a similar reason, which is like your feet are your temperature regulators and... but they're also like your coziness regulator.

[00:01:34] Jason: Right.

[00:01:34] Caroline: So I don't know if you knew this, but the coziness escapes out of your feet.

[00:01:37] Jason: Of course.

[00:01:38] Caroline: And so if you wear socks, the coziness is...

[00:01:40] Jason: Stays.

[00:01:40] Caroline: It stays in your body. And so this is a theory that I'm developing.

[00:01:44] Jason: Fantastic. And so it's the Cozy Sock Sock Theory.

[00:01:46] Caroline: It's the Cozy Sock.

[00:01:47] Jason: Huberman is definitely on this. There's a study.

[00:01:49] Caroline: So as we are approaching summer, I agree. My cozy winter socks, that's a weird thing to do. But I'm not doing it for the temperature. I'm doing it for the coziness. Now, here's where it becomes a dilemma. When I'm getting ready for bed.

[00:02:02] Jason: Right.

[00:02:03] Caroline: Recently we decided to turn on the AC at night. And so I can now wear my cozy socks. But there was a period there where we were not doing AC.

[00:02:10] Jason: So you were letting the cozy out, but you also had to let the heat out.

[00:02:13] Caroline: Exactly. And I didn't like that.

[00:02:15] Jason: Right. Because the cozy, the cozy was leaving.

[00:02:16] Caroline: Cozy the most at night. That's when you need it the most.

[00:02:19] Jason: Also, big shout out to our early podcast listeners when we had the whole top sheet discussion.

[00:02:24] Caroline: And you betrayed me by saying that you're a top sheet person now. And when... when we got together, you specifically...

[00:02:29] Jason: But we don't have a top sheet anymore. We did for, like, a little while but we don't anymore.

[00:02:33] Caroline: That you broke the rules. You broke the...

[00:02:35] Jason: I brought a top sheet into the house.

[00:02:37] Caroline: Yeah. How dare you? That was, like, why I married you. I was like, he doesn't want a top sheet either.

[00:02:41] Jason: All right. Are y'all keeping the cozy? And you're letting the cozy out? I'm definitely letting it out. Carol's keeping it in.

[00:02:46] Caroline: I think it's because the cozy makes you feel too comfortable. And you don't like that?

[00:02:49] Jason: No, it's just too hot. I immediately start sweating. I'm sweating now thinking about putting socks on. It's too hot. My... all my heat escapes from my feet.

[00:02:55] Caroline: I always thought that I was someone who runs hot, and then I met someone who runs hotter than me.

[00:03:00] Jason: No, you're like a campfire, and I'm like a volcano. Like, you're hot. Like, ooh, ouch. Don't drop your marshmallow in there. It'll burn. I might get your marshmallow close and it explodes.

[00:03:09] Caroline: Okay.

[00:03:11] Jason: I wanted to chat about, because this episode is kind of about AI learning and, like, just some ways to think about being maybe intentional if you're feeling overwhelmed by all the AI tools.

[00:03:20] Caroline: Yes.

[00:03:20] Jason: And I thought we could start with.

[00:03:21] Caroline: To feel overwhelmed.

[00:03:23] Jason: I think it's always fun to hear about, like, what people are building and what they're working on.

[00:03:26] Caroline: Sure.

[00:03:26] Jason: So what are some things that you're currently working on in Lovable that we're building? And that's our AI...

[00:03:31] Caroline: Things that I'm very excited about right now. I am still working on the Calm Creator Roadmap tool, which I'm, like, so pumped about, which is going to be available for everyone who joins this... But it's basically taking our Un-Boring Business Roadmap that, before, was just a way...

[00:03:48] Jason: For lack of a better way to describe it, it was just a course. It was just literally set up as, like, a course with lessons.

[00:03:52] Caroline: In... in that it was a sequence to go through our coaching sessions that would help you build your business in, like, an intentional order, I would say.

[00:04:01] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:01] Caroline: In a way that made sense. Instead of just, like, search through the dashboard, it was like, okay, now start with your foundation, then move on to your offer, etc. However, very excited because now I have the means to turn that into software that basically can create separate roadmaps based on your... where your revenue level is, where you're trying to get, what outcome you're trying to reach in your business. It will deliver to you steps and subtasks so that you can work through one thing at a time. And then within that, it will deliver to you related coaching sessions so you could go watch the resources.

[00:04:32] Jason: And what is it?

[00:04:33] Caroline: This is going to be awesome.

[00:04:34] Jason: For anybody who is a WAIMer and you've been in our dashboard. We tried to accomplish a version of this, which is what we call the mega menu at the top, where it's like topics, it's like, what do you want to learn? Like, oh, I, I want to learn Instagram. I want to learn increasing my audience. I want to learn email marketing. Like, whatever. It gives you a quote unquote roadmap, but it's just a bunch of like little assets you can click into. But this version of what you're building is so much better because it's actually pulling the applicable steps from those things out in for someone to see and to go through. And also that person can then check those things off and they can do them.

[00:05:08] Caroline: The thing I'm most excited about is it can personalize to the person's business. So the thing that we always had with just a roadmap was like everybody go through the same sequence at the same time. And in doing that, you have to make it kind of broad, but there's a different sequence depending on if you, you know, want to create content and build an audience first or whatever. So very excited about that. I'm working on that and...

[00:05:26] Jason: Okay, hold on. We're gonna go back and forth. So it's not just all about you and what you're building.

[00:05:31] Caroline: Okay.

[00:05:31] Jason: I am putting the finishing touches. I'm almost done with it. The Marketing Lab, which is a tool that essentially takes 12 marketing experiments that we did to grow Wandering Aimfully from $0 in recurring revenue all the way up to $30,000 plus monthly recurring revenue and what those specific experiments were and how they benefited us. But then like, what are the tactics that you can apply to your business? So the way the tool works, which I really think is fun and interesting, is you input your specific product name. So I'll just take the one that I created that I like to do. So it's Barista Basics, which is me, like teaching someone how to be an at home barista. And then it's like, all right, who's this for? Like, what problem is this solving? It's like, oh, this is for coffee nerds who want to uplevel their coffee game, but they don't want to buy like a whole bunch of equipment. They just want to learn a couple like tips and tricks. So it's like, okay. And they're overwhelmed by like all the things that they could do. And so essentially then with that information, the, the marketing lab builds a value proposition. And then that value proposition instructs specific marketing experiments that I should create to help market my barista basics course. Uh, so you have things like, simple things, like creating a quiz, like, you know, what's your coffee level quiz? But then I really like this kind of thing that I, I came up with. And I don't remember how this originated, but it's like a step in offer, which is like a low priced offer and then a step up offer, which is like the next thing after the course. Because so often when you sell a course, there's like so much more you could help someone with, but you're so focused on like that first stage. But anyway, there's 12 different experiments. You put in your, your product details, your audience details, and then it literally makes the experiments for your business the step by step of how to do that marketing thing for you, and it gives you suggestions. So like one for me was like a obviously like an email sequence, but I forget what the exact experiment was called. Oh, it was, it was the test drive. So it was like how to build a test drive of your product, but then how to build like a three day sequence that nurtures people, then a sales sequence. So I just really love it because it's super contextual to someone's business. It's not just generic advice. And then it also gives you prompts if you want to take those into GPT of like how to execute those things even further. Um, but yeah, I just think it's gonna be a fun resource for our WAIMers that they can do that. All right, two small ones. You have one small one and I have one small one.

[00:07:42] Caroline: The small one that I just built for myself this morning was a Launch Instagram Stories Planner. And so it's just like a little tool that helps you because for some reason like Instagram Stories are such a barrier, mental barrier for me. I'm just like, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to update with. It's hard to, like, know in the moment what you're documenting. And so I was gonna do a Notion page that helped me, like, plan out what stories to do because I know it's such a missed opportunity to not be posting in stories, like, in the lead up to the launch and during the launch. But I'm like, what's a mix of like, lifestyle stuff versus, like, this is our offer. And da da, da da. I just, like, made it in Lovable. And so it's this little, like, launch stories planner. And so you can plan out your stories, like different slides in your stories. It'll give you suggestions like, hey, do a behind the scenes. Here's a suggested caption. You can, like, edit it yourself. And then it's a mobile thing, so then it'll... You can copy to your clipboard and just post it right there. It gives you little suggestions of like, hey, do a behind the scenes. Here's what that slide would look like. Do a what you're doing today that would... here's what that would look like. Do a benefit of your offer. Here's what that would look like. So I just created it for myself this morning, and it was awesome.

[00:08:47] Jason: I think that's one of the, like, huge, like, pluses of tools like Lovable is you can just make a little piece of software for yourself to solve a specific problem. Like, I think that's one of, like, the absolute best use cases. Um, all right. My other thing that I was playing around with, I wanted to improve the analytics of Teachery. Like, when you're in Teachery and like, our analytics view has always been really bad. And so I was basically just working with level was like, okay, I know I want more of a table view because right now we have kind of like this, like, not really a bento box view, but that's kind of what it's like. I was like, I need to see this in rows so I can, like, compare my courses and like, the payment pages. And so I literally just was asking Lovable. Like, you know, throw in some mock data for conversions, views, this. Oh, also I want to see like, all the payment pages for a course. Oh, also I want to be able to sort the courses by like, most revenue, newest added, whatever. And then I shared it with Wandering Aimfully members and they're like, oh, it'd be cool to see, like, but also, like, total revenue and like, any easy view. It's like, oh, give me a grid view. So it's just like all these things that there's no way I could think to design all this stuff. And even if I did, it would take me so long and then I'd have to have a designer do it. Like, this is the game changing thing for me because then I have a prototype and I just give it to the developer and I go make this happen with like all of our data behind the scenes. So I've been really loving it for, for prototyping Teachery features. It's like the fastest way I've ever been able to get these ideas out of my head or ideas from our users into a prototype that a developer can then make, so...

[00:10:06] Caroline: Well, this little preamble is a good lead in because this whole episode is really about something I haven't really seen a lot online right now. But, like, how to not get caught up in the AI, like, get swept away by like the AI craze and get overwhelmed to the point where you burn yourself out trying to learn all these new tools.

[00:10:29] Jason: Or you just bury your head in the sand.

[00:10:30] Caroline: Or you bury your head. Yeah.

[00:10:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:10:32] Caroline: Because it can be so overwhelming. And I just feel like the pace of change is happening at a clip that is like, just feels unsustainable. And so I asked you and I was like, I know we've been developing this for ourselves of like, we're the perfect type of person who we are curious. We want to be up on what are some of the useful tools. We want to integrate those tools into our workflow so that it's useful for us, but we do not want to get so sucked in that we become overwhelmed and like, trying to keep up with every new thing that comes out. And it's just like, how do I even apply all this? And it distracts you from the work that you should be doing, which is the stuff that is still working and all of that. So we kind of thought through what would our tips be to someone who wants to adopt some of this AI, wants to learn about AI, but doesn't want to do it at a clip that most people are teaching it at, which is like the YouTubers I see who are like, you know, AI updates Monday. And it's like every new model that came out that week. Every new tool that came out that week.

[00:11:32] Jason: Yeah, I had to stop listening to. I was excited about the AI for Humans podcast when it first came out. I think I even mentioned it here, but I can't listen to anymore because it's for this exact reason.

[00:11:41] Caroline: It's too much.

[00:11:42] Jason: They're just always so excited about every new AI tool and I'm just like, hey, bro, like, I, I have a full life to live, like, outside of this. Like, and I get it. Like, that's what their podcast for. It's like, keep you up to date. But, like, I just, I want less and I want to focus on just enjoying the tools that I do like and not feeling like, oh, well, if I don't use this new video whatever, you know, AI tool that I'm just going to get left behind in creating video content. It's like, no, there's still plenty of ways to do this and plenty of tools that are helpful that don't have to be all the new tools.

[00:12:10] Caroline: And yeah, it's a bad incentive structure because all the people who are creating content in that realm of all the news, they have an incentive to tell the story of if you don't stay up on this, you, you will get left behind because that increases the value of their content. Right. If someone feels like, oh, I'll... I'm gonna get left behind if I don't subscribe to this newsletter and know what's happening in AI. And so, like, I don't begrudge them for that. Like, that's how they see the world because they want to be on the very, very cutting edge. We talk about, like, we want to be on the dull edge.

[00:12:40] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:40] Caroline: Like, we're on the edge, but, like, I'm on the butter knife's edge of AI. You know what I mean? Like...

[00:12:44] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:45] Caroline: Like, I just want to know enough where, like, it's a tool, but, like, it's not going to, like...

[00:12:50] Jason: Yeah, well, I still have a knife.

[00:12:51] Caroline: Slice through stuff.

[00:12:52] Jason: Like, I still have a knife.

[00:12:53] Caroline: I still have a knife.

[00:12:53] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:53] Caroline: I can do some stuff with it.

[00:12:54] Jason: Yeah. I'm not using like a plastic... a plastic spoon to try and like, cut through some sourdough bread.

[00:13:01] Caroline: I want it to be a knife.

[00:13:02] Jason: You ever try to cut sourdough bread? You need a really sharp knife. Like, you can't be using this...

[00:13:06] Caroline: So I think we have three main things to think about here is just like, as you develop what your personal learning approach is going to be to AI, you know, the assumption is if you're listening to this episode, you are someone who wants to... You're kind of bought in on the idea that AI is helpful. You don't think it's like, all evil or all good, and you are looking for ways to learn about it at, like a hose trickle speed, not a fire hose speed. You know, if you're someone who has decided that you don't want to use AI, this episode's probably not going to be for you because it's just going to be the whole thing. So let's just get into it, Jason.

[00:13:42] Jason: Sure. So the first one is creating boundaries around learning and consuming.

[00:13:47] Caroline: Yeah. I think I had to learn this one pretty quick because I did get so excited with the newness and the novelty of it all that I just... And I love learning.

[00:13:56] Jason: Yeah, you're...

[00:13:57] Caroline: So many times.

[00:13:57] Jason: You're a big, big learner. Front...

[00:13:59] Caroline: Learning is like...

[00:14:00] Jason: Row of the class.

[00:14:01] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:14:01] Jason: Yeah. Like, perked up.

[00:14:03] Caroline: Like, learning is a hobby for me. Like, I literally, like, instead of watching a Netflix show, like, I will watch, like, a free course on the Internet because that's... I... That's entertainment to me.

[00:14:12] Jason: Yeah.

[00:14:13] Caroline: That being said, if you're like me, it can be very dangerous because you slide into this consumption cycle where you're... you're consuming tutorials all the time. And I do think that that clutters your brain, and it also creates, like, a bubble where you do start to believe that, like, you buy into the hype a little bit of, like, I am going to get left behind if I don't learn all this stuff and that's just not true.

[00:14:35] Jason: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think as was talking about, like, just listening to the AI For Humans podcast episodes, like, I just had to stop listening to them because I was excited early on, but it was just too much. And... and I think that there's so much that's coming at us from all angles now that you just really have to be discerning. And the more you can limit how much of this content you consume, the more you're gonna feel like, hey, I don't have to feel so like, I have to keep up with it every hour of the day, which... a specific action item for you here. Two of them would be... just choose two to three trusted sources that match your vibe and values. So if you have someone who's, like, super hypey, then and that doesn't match your values, don't listen to that person. Find someone who's a little bit cozier. Maybe they wear socks all day. And then another thing would just be to, like, pick a day and time throughout your week or that, like, feels right to you for when you want to explore. So, like, you know, we... you call this an AI Curiosity hour, and it's just a time you put on your calendar where that's the time you let yourself, like, check out all the new things, but you don't let it kind of, like, hit you throughout every single day throughout the week where it's interrupting all of what you're doing because, yeah, you see like a new email or you see a new thing on Instagram or whatever, and you're just like, oh, okay, I gotta go check out this tool. And it just leads you to feel like, really kind of like stressed out about all this stuff.

[00:15:51] Caroline: And for me, instead of a time commitment, I do like a one because I usually watch YouTube with my coffee in the morning. And so my rule is like one AI video and one business video.

[00:16:02] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:03] Caroline: And then the rest need to be not in that genre because I can slide down a slippery slope pretty easily. So it's just like, that's my limit.

[00:16:10] Jason: Yeah. Okay. So definitely want to talk about this idea of avoiding the rabbit hole of all these different tools. And I think one of the things that stood out to me in this is just because a tool is trending doesn't mean that it's right for you. And I think a great, like, use case for us was basically, we started with an AI no code tool with Lovable. It was really like the first one that we use. And I think Bolt and Lovable kind of came out the same time for us in the way we were seeing these. And I remember I really liked Lovable to start with and I think it was more design friendly to start with. And Bolt felt maybe a little bit faster, but it just like the, the interface of it wasn't as good and the output design wise, wasn't, wasn't as good. And so we just committed to that one. And then, you know, then you have like Cursor got really popular. Databutton, Whisper. Like all these other things popped up. But all we've done is just said Lovable is our tool.

[00:16:58] Caroline: That's our tool of choice.

[00:16:58] Jason: It does exactly what we need it to do. And these other ones might do other things, maybe better, maybe faster, maybe have different things. But like, Lovable is enough and that's good enough.

[00:17:07] Caroline: And until I run into like a limitation. I was even thinking about this with the little launch planner thing is I was like, you know, you. I was like, oh, I'm sure there's a better tool for creating a mobile app. Like, if I wanted this to be a mobile app, then Lovable...

[00:17:20] Jason: Right. Like Cursor, that's exactly what it is.

[00:17:21] Caroline: Yeah. So I was like, okay, well maybe if I can create the prototype in Lovable, and I like where it's at and I can use it. But then it's like, oh, I really want to turn this into a mobile app. Okay. At that point when it becomes useful to me.

[00:17:34] Jason: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Caroline: And I have run into, like, a limitation of a tool, then I will, you know, again, going back to step one, I will set a boundary around learning Cursor. What's the crash course that I can do in two to three hours of like, understanding what this tool is? And, and then I can invest in, like, a deeper strategy. But I just really think kind of, you know, evaluating before you decide to hop into a tool. Where is this going to fit into my workflow? Am I... am I just excited about learning a new thing, or am I experiencing a limitation of a tool I already am using?

[00:18:07] Jason: Yeah. And I think even like the beginning of this episode is a really good example of, like, we listed off four projects that we're currently working on in Lovable. All of that time is spent creating things that people will actually use. That time could have been spent just looking at new tools and never making anything.

[00:18:23] Caroline: Totally.

[00:18:23] Jason: And I think that's such an easy place to get stuck where you're just looking for, like, the perfect tool that does everything right. It's like, there are so many things about Lovable I wish that they would do better, but it is so good at doing what we need it to do that I'm willing to, like, work with all of its downfalls.

[00:18:37] Caroline: Yeah. And I even feel that way about all of the chat tools. It's like, I know that Claude is better for writing for some and like, you know, ChatGPT versus others, other use cases, the models, et cetera. But truly, if you spend all your time trying to optimize something that's already... These AI tools are already helping you optimize your life. If you're trying to optimize on optimize, like, I think you're going too far. So I like to kind of, again, a... a butter knife approach. I like to lag back a little bit. And then if I see the one or two or three AI creators and it's like, if they're telling me that, you know, the new model for the image generation tool is like, really that mind blowing. Okay, then let me carve out 30 minutes and let me try it. Or if Claude's new update has much better writing and coding ability. Okay, let me carve out 30 minutes and let me just try it to see how it compares to. I think you've done this before where it's like you've had a task and you've been like, oh, I was curious if Claude could do this better because ChatGPT is just like where we started. And so you'll give the same task both tools and be like, which one do I like better? And so every once in a while I think evaluating is good, but only with intentionality.

[00:19:49] Jason: Yeah. All right, you want to move to the second one here?

[00:19:51] Caroline: Yeah. So the second kind of tip for having a more slow based AI learning approach we already touched on, but it's just this idea of experimenting but with structure.

[00:20:02] Jason: Yeah, yeah. And I think this is where it's really just you trying to take control of how many of these things you want to look into and setting a cadence that works for you. So if it's like, I'm only going to check out one AI tool per week, maybe you want to check out one per day, that's fine for you. But it's, it's about like kind of limiting your curiosity loops of like opening too many loops where you then get stuck in this. Like, I'm always like checking out new things.

[00:20:26] Caroline: And I think a really good tactical tip for this is that if you are someone who knows that your brain goes into open loops and so that's what sucks you in because you're like, you come across an article or a thing and you're like, well, I just have to know right now. Give yourself a little brain dump list where, where you can come back and check in on it later. So you can be like, oh, like I said, ChatGPT4 new image generation tool. Like write that down. And then when you have that structured time later on, this is my weekly experimenting time. Let me go look into it. And that's just a way to protect yourself from getting distracted from like all the work you're already doing and kind of going off into these different rabbit holes.

[00:21:02] Jason: Yeah, I mean, this... for a Google Calendar, obsessive... like, I just always throw little chunks of time on my calendar in the future for future me to go check something out that I don't need to look at right now that's just going to be a distraction. And then a lot of times what happens is like that thing comes up and I'm like, I'm not that interested anymore. And it was just like the hype around it that I was interested. It wasn't actually like, I don't need that thing to do anything for me. I think the other thing that's really helpful is evaluating very kind of like strongly of if this tool actually solves a problem in your business. And like, does it save you time? Does it improve quality? Does it add clarity? And I know for me that the, the one of the hardest things for me when I was starting to use especially like GPT was I, I felt very frictionful to get a task done. But I wasn't realizing that like a task that used to take me three hours now only takes me 30 minutes. It just feels frictionful because it's a different way of doing it.

[00:21:51] Caroline: Right.

[00:21:51] Jason: And so I think it's like you really have to, if you're feeling that friction of like, these tools are new, these tools are, they're, they're feeling like they're kind of like breaking the way that you've done things before, but they are saving you a lot of time. Reflect on that time. Like, be really cognizant of like, oh, but that, that was 30 minutes of frustration. It saved me three hours of manual effort. And I think that's a really helpful thing just to like pay attention to is you're using these tools, is realizing like, maybe you're like, like you were just saying, like it's optimizing enough. Like, that 30 minutes that you're spending rather than three hours, that is good enough. It doesn't have to take you three minutes. That's still a huge time savings.

[00:22:27] Caroline: Also evaluating, like, is this thing that I'm even, is this rabbit hole that I'm in even applicable to my business? So it's like, for example, a lot of the hype gets around these, like video generation, right? Like, so everything there was a wave of image generation and that was mind blowing. Then it was video generation. And it's like I could see down the road like generating B clips or... B clips? B roll clips for things or whatever. But I was like, like I am not like a filmmaker right now. I'm not making AI films. Like, I don't need to know what the video generation tools are. And by the way, I, I use Canva and their video library and like it's good enough right now.

[00:23:06] Jason: Also I think it's a good time to be ignoring all the video AI generated content because it's not that great.

[00:23:11] Caroline: It's not that great. And they keep coming out with this thing. It's like game changing. It's amazing. And I'm like, I go and I try and I'm like, no bro, it's not.

[00:23:19] Jason: Yeah, I, I, yeah, I think as of recording this, the Google Veo 3 was like a big one that just like came recently and everyone's like, whoa, this is amazing, whatever. And because we're in Europe, like I went to go try to use it because I was like, oh, I'm curious. I will try this out. It's like, oh, you can't use Google Flow like in your country, you know, or whatever. Like, it's only in the US right now. I was like, okay, there's a barrier. So I was like, well, I kind of do want to use it. So I flipped on our VPN and I was like, okay, I'm, you know, I'm going to try this out. And it's like, oh, to use this you have to sign up for Google One Drive for like $20 a month. I was like, all right, well, I am not meant to use this tool. This is the universe showing me that.

[00:23:51] Caroline: The barrier.

[00:23:51] Jason: And I don't need to see this tool because I don't need to use it right now. So I think it's like some of those things are also kind of like funny forced constraints that you, you realize, like, oh, I was just gonna go play around and waste time for like two hours of something I didn't need to do. And now I just need to get back to the thing I actually need to do.

[00:24:07] Caroline: And this is really the overall concept. We talked about this in our pre launch newsletter, but it's like if you want to pull away an overarching theme from this episode, it is mixing curiosity with boundaries.

[00:24:17] Jason: Yeah.

[00:24:17] Caroline: That is it. That is what it means to, I think, exist calmly in this new area and is the curiosity is staying open to experimentation and staying open to learning with boundaries, with understanding. How much time can I actually devote to this? You know, what actually makes me feel overwhelmed? What are my values? What am I not willing to use AI for? What am I willing to use AI for? Like, creating your rules and boundaries around your time, around your values and mixing that with staying open and being curious is like the overarching mindset.

[00:24:49] Jason: Exactly. And then I think just to kind of like bring it home here. Our third point is just to integrate slowly and intentionally, which is a lot of like what we've been talking about and what we always talk about. But it's like, you know, if you're going to use a new tool, don't just be like, oh, I'm going to use this tool because it's new. Like, make sure that tool has a job, like...

[00:25:07] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:25:08] Jason: You use that tool like, like, I only use Perplexity to do research because it's the tool that gives me the most up to date search results. And like, I feel like anytime I need to do research, I'm always using Perplexity.

[00:25:18] Caroline: And like I said, let your curiosity and your learning be guided by what the limitations are in your business that you're finding. So if you're like, I know I'm spending way too much time scripting YouTube videos. Okay, what are the tools that can help me take that process from 10 hours down to one hour? Like, be very specific in what you're seeking out a tool to help you do and have it be guided by what you're already doing in your business because I think that that will allow you to make that time feel purposeful and make those tools be purposeful so you're not just like paying for extra things.

[00:25:50] Jason: Yeah. And also I would say on that same token, like, don't give up if the first tool doesn't do it in a way that you want. Like, there are multiple of these tools now. Try a couple and see if it's like, oh, AI, AI just doesn't do this task. It's like, well, maybe just that tool doesn't do that task well. Maybe another one does that task better. So just like, I would give yourself permission of like, let me give like three of these a shot to see if I can get that done. I think that's helpful.

[00:26:13] Caroline: Yeah. I mean, I think also if you're someone who has a regular review system for your business, weekly reviews or monthly planning, et cetera, adding a new little column that's like just your, your AI check in where you're like, okay, what do I feel like is feeling frictionful in my workflow right now? Then add that to your, like, okay, next month I'm gonna try to get better at video creation or I'm gonna try to get better at script writing or whatever. And like really kind of just integrating that as a part of your mental check in in your business.

[00:26:46] Jason: Yeah. And you know, I think one big thought or takeaway that we're always trying to remind not only ourselves, but you as you're playing with AI, is that it should enhance your creativity, not replace it. And I think...

[00:27:03] Caroline: That was a hard agree.

[00:27:05] Jason: And it's, it's always going to be your unique stories, your unique voice, your unique experiences, your unique differences that, that make you stand out in whatever you're doing in business. AI is not just going to replace those things. And if anything, if you use it well, it will get you to share more of those things faster because you don't have to slog through all like the, the to dos and the tasks of it all. It can do a lot of that stuff for you.

[00:27:29] Caroline: Yeah. And It'll take your special sauce that is un... irreplaceable and it'll allow you to create things that are enhancing that and connecting with the people that you're trying to connect with faster and easier. Work faster so you can live slower. And so that's the part that you and I get really excited about.

[00:27:46] Jason: Yeah, I think even just like just as we're wrapping up here, like one super quick example that I think is very tangible for folks to hear about is like we do these monthly coaching sessions in WAIM Unlimited. We've been doing them for six years now. And there's always a presentation that we create. And so like those presentations are, I mean they're 100 slides long. So to write out bullets for a hundred slides, I mean even if you're going to fast, it's like a minute per slide. That's 100 minutes. It's an hour and a half writing bullets. Well, guess what we can do now? Like we can just ask GPT. You'll be like, here's our topic. Can you give me like an overview of like what's the things I should teach on this? It gives you a bunch of bullets and then you can go, okay, half of these are crap. I'm not going to use any of these, but it gives me a ton of ideas. Now I can go and write these bullets and I can copy paste some of these. And like now I have the structure way faster. Then I can just add in the design, I can add in our thoughts, I can add in our experiences, our stories, our... etc. Like these things get done so much quicker that then we use our creativity to make it feel more unique and interesting and story driven that like an AI is not gonna be able to do at least for a few years. So yeah, I think that just like a practical example of taking a part of a specific task or a thing you work on, trying to use AI to get that done faster, but also to get it to where you're doing the creative thing that makes it interesting and unique.

[00:28:58] Caroline: Totally. And like my overall takeaway is just I want people to know that because I know a lot of people that listen to the show, they consider themselves intentional, they consider themselves wanting to build lifestyle businesses, wanting to stay calm, like not trying to build a billion dollar business. And I think a lot of the AI content I'm seeing right now is just like this overarching message of like it's never been easier to create a million dollar business because of AI. And it's like it's okay to not want that.

[00:29:27] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:27] Caroline: And there... I want to carve out this space where just because... Like, using AI doesn't mean that you put yourself in the same bucket as someone who wants to build a billion dollar business. Like, AI is just a tool. There are... you can use it for all kinds of different outcomes and one of those outcomes can be I just want to take the 10 hours I was spending on a task and whittle it down to two so I can spend the eight hours with my kids. That is, is a fine use of AI. Do you know what I mean?

[00:29:54] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:55] Caroline: And so that's kind of the advocacy that I want to do for using these tools as a creative business owner is just to let people know that there is a, a different way of doing it. And it can be fun and it's, you know, overwhelming and scary at times. But if you have intentionality then you can learn all of these things at a pace that is driven by you and what you... kind of the energy that you want to carry into your day to day life. Instead of the current that feels like it's moving at a whitewater rapid pace and I'm just going to hop in the river and get taken away.

[00:30:27] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:27] Caroline: It's like, oh no, I actually found like a little side stream and I'm just going to get in my kayak and like enjoy the view over here.

[00:30:32] Jason: Yeah. I mean there's also just... It's never been easier to start a business, but it doesn't mean business is easier to become profitable.

[00:30:42] Caroline: True.

[00:30:43] Jason: That's a terrible way to say that, but it's like it's never been, it's never been quicker to get a business going, but it doesn't mean that getting a business going means you're going to make money immediately. And I think that if, if AI can help people get their, their knowledge and their experiences and their lessons learned in the hands of more people faster, that's awesome. That's what we want. Like you, you're able to share your creative skills quicker and more efficiently. That's also what we want. And so I think as we... Like, we're on the cusp in transitioning our business in 2026 to building more of these tools that are AI powered. The last thing we want to do is like, oh, this is just going to help you make money faster. It's like, no, we do want to help you generate revenue quicker because a lot of things in business are hard, but it's not about just like selling your soul to a robot doing all the work for you, and then you just have, like, a business that's just garbage. Like, that's not at all... We're interested... we're interested in kind of like uploading your... Up leveling your ability to share your creativity with the world faster.

[00:31:39] Caroline: Agreed.

[00:31:39] Jason: And I think, like, AI has given us the ability to do that more than we've ever seen before, and it's only going to happen in different ways, faster. And yes, that is a little bit stressful to see the pace at which things are going to, but it's also exciting at the same time. And it's a perfect glass, half empty glass, half full way of looking at things. And so it's... it's on us to be intentional about the fact that, like, hey, we're... we're... we're curious about new technologies, we're curious about new tools, but also we don't want to let those things drive and dictate every one of our decisions every single day. We want to live a good life, a slow life, and, like, a calm life.

[00:32:14] Caroline: Couldn't have said it better myself.

[00:32:15] Jason: Try.

[00:32:16] Caroline: Nope.

[00:32:17] Jason: Okay. All right. I think that's it for this episode. Hope this was helpful. Just a nice little measured convo about being intentional about your use of AI, you know.

[00:32:24] Caroline: That's all it was.

[00:32:25] Jason: Okay. All right. That's it.

[00:32:27] Caroline: Okay. Thanks for listening. Bye.