251 - The 3 human skills you need to be building in an AI content world

[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 me, your host, Caroline, and my sidekick, Jason.

[00:00:41] Jason: Nice. Okay, go ahead. What are your superpowers? Yeah, because I'm your sidekick.

[00:00:47] Caroline: Okay. My superpower is being able to melt into a puddle at any time.

[00:00:52] Jason: Okay.

[00:00:52] Caroline: Okay. That was an Alex Mack throwback, in case anybody was interested.

[00:00:56] Jason: Wow. That's like the most introvert superpower ever.

[00:00:58] Caroline: Yeah, I know. I just thought, what do I already get at?

[00:01:01] Jason: Yeah, this is. This is...

[00:01:03] Caroline: What?

[00:01:03] Jason: I never thought about this.

[00:01:05] Caroline: Okay.

[00:01:05] Jason: But you know the go to when people ask you the two superpowers to choose from?

[00:01:08] Caroline: Fly. X ray vision.

[00:01:09] Jason: No. Fly or...

[00:01:10] Caroline: Invisible.

[00:01:11] Jason: Be invisible.

[00:01:12] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:01:12] Jason: Think about that for a second. That is 100%, you're an extrovert or you're an introvert.

[00:01:18] Caroline: Yeah, I just.

[00:01:18] Jason: I've never thought of that until now. Exactly. All the introverts are like, I just want to be invisible. And all the extroverts like, I want to fly, I want to be everywhere. I want to show up, and I can go like a thousand miles an hour. That's really. I never thought of that. It just kind of blew my own mind.

[00:01:29] Caroline: So instead of asking someone, are you an extrovert or introvert? You can just ask them which of these.

[00:01:33] Jason: And you absolutely know who they are. Oh, wow. That. That really rocked my world.

[00:01:36] Caroline: Yeah, it did.

[00:01:37] Jason: Make that into a YouTube short and sell it. 

[00:01:39] Caroline: Okay.

[00:01:40] Jason: I have a preamble question for you.

[00:01:42] Caroline: Go ahead.

[00:01:42] Jason: Because this episode's gonna be about AI And I know that some people, they roll their eyes and they don't like AI and that's okay.

[00:01:48] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:01:49] Jason: But maybe this question will be a fun warmup to get you, like, okay, to talking about some of these things.

[00:01:54] Caroline: Okay.

[00:01:55] Jason: Remove all of the negative social implications. Just assume in this thought experiment that everyone has agreed that this is an okay thing to have.

[00:02:04] Caroline: Okay.

[00:02:04] Jason: All right. So just like, everyone calm down.

[00:02:06] Caroline: It's just a thought experiment.

[00:02:08] Jason: You get to have an AI companion. Not a physical person, but like a, a chat and Whatever, like a voice note and whatever.

[00:02:15] Caroline: Okay.

[00:02:16] Jason: Of a celebrity, a famous person or whatever.

[00:02:19] Caroline: That you can just talk to?

[00:02:19] Jason: At any time. You just talk to at any time. But you only get one. You only get one. And you can, you can call them, you can do just whatever. It's like your companions, your friend. Who would you choose?

[00:02:27] Caroline: The one that just came to my mind. Like first, first choice.

[00:02:30] Jason: Yeah.

[00:02:30] Caroline: Amy Poehler.

[00:02:31] Jason: Interesting.

[00:02:32] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:02:32] Jason: I was actually...

[00:02:33] Caroline: Fine. Cause I love her podcast.

[00:02:34] Jason: I was actually gonna think you were gonna go like Taylor Swift.

[00:02:38] Caroline: I don't, I don't need to talk to Taylor Swift.

[00:02:40] Jason: Okay.

[00:02:41] Caroline: I do appreciate her artistry and whatever. People have opinions.

[00:02:44] Jason: Yeah, of course.

[00:02:45] Caroline: But I, I, I then went to Oprah because it's like, you know, but I was like, Oprah's not relatable in any way, shape, or form to me. Like she's gonna be like, what do you mean? You have to go to the grocery store?

[00:02:56] Jason: Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:57] Caroline: Amy, on the other hand, I feel like, is that perfect mix of like, thoughtful but funny, doesn't take herself too seriously. She kind of has that like, great mom aunt energy. I just love it. I think she has good advice.

[00:03:09] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:03:10] Jason: Okay. I think.

[00:03:12] Caroline: And she makes me laugh so hard.

[00:03:14] Jason: I was, I was trying not to go with like a classic like man answer, like pick an athlete and blah, blah. But I honestly would like to have just like ongoing conversations with LeBron James.

[00:03:23] Caroline: Uh huh.

[00:03:23] Jason: Because I think he's a big kid. Like, he's a big kid at heart. So we're not going like too serious.

[00:03:28] Caroline: Thoughtful, like, you know.

[00:03:29] Jason: Super thoughtful.

[00:03:30] Caroline: He's, what is it, the shop or whatever?

[00:03:32] Jason: Yeah, he's a foodie. He's also like, you know, interested in like technology and things. And I just like, I don't know, I think it would be an interesting person, like, if I get to just have one. I'm like, I want a person who has like a ton of varied interests and like their hands are in a lot of things that like, I don't have access to.

[00:03:47] Caroline: They're very large hands, I imagine.

[00:03:49] Jason: And like, we could share. Yeah, we have really big hands. 

[00:03:51] Caroline: And you could give him some tips.

[00:03:53] Jason: I don't think there's any tips I'm giving at all. Anyway, hope that was a fun game for you to play. If you want to share who your dream AI companion would be, feel free to do that. All right, Carol set the stage for this episode. Let's do it.

[00:04:03] Caroline: Okay. So in this episode, I thought it'd be fun to talk about kind of a couple of thoughts I've been having lately about trends and about. We. You've heard us talk on this podcast, and I think we're all very well aware that we are in the midst of the big AI shift right now, and things are being rearranged and the wave is coming and it's already here and it can be scary at times, but Jason and I have decided to kind of dive in, not get swept away by it, but be curious enough to learn more about it. And so a lot of the content we've been consuming, a lot of the conversations we've been having are around this idea of how do strategies shift in an AI world for content creators, for business owners? And the conversations we kept having came back to like, these three different kind of more human skills that I think will be more valuable than ever. If you extrapolate the idea that people are going to continue to use ChatGPT to brainstorm their content, they're going to continue to. And that's not just for creators, but that's also for consumers. Consumers are going to continue to adopt AI more and, and learn from it. And, you know, you wonder, what does an information business look like in an age where information is becoming commoditized? Right. That's the real crux of this episode. And I think the answer to that question is that some of these more human messy qualities actually become promoted to a premium. And so we're going to talk about three in this episode and we're going to explain to you kind of our thoughts on why those things might be more valuable in the coming year, two years. Who knows how fast these things move anymore? But those three basic things are storytelling. The second one, I don't really know how to neatly tidy it up, but I think personality and like entertainment and weirdness.

[00:05:57] Jason: Yeah, I think it's just, it's owning your weird.

[00:05:58] Caroline: Owning your weird. Be the second one, I guess, and then the third one being transparency and your willingness to build in public, your willingness to do things and share content about it.

[00:06:09] Jason: I think the interesting through line of these three things is human connection.

[00:06:13] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:06:14] Jason: I think we've heard.

[00:06:14] Caroline: Creativity.

[00:06:15] Jason: I think we've heard, you know, in, in different areas, like this kind of resurgence of humans connecting, especially after Covid times. But then like, you know, obviously AI and all these things, like...

[00:06:26] Caroline: Communities are very big right now.

[00:06:27] Jason: Exactly. And, and you're just seeing like the, the human craving of connecting to other humans while all these tools and all these things and the AI of it all are helpful. It's also like there's a big group of people. Like, yes, I am interested in those, but I am also still interested in like being together with people so that I feel connected and...

[00:06:46] Caroline: Totally. And...

[00:06:47] Jason: My what I wanted to say was all three of these things are just about creating connection to another person through content and like being online.

[00:06:58] Caroline: Totally. And I think the bigger like kind of principle that I want people to take away is I want you to just remember that so much of business is market economics and this idea of supply and demand. And so anytime there becomes a big shift in supply and demand, like other things are going to have repercussions. Right. So it's like when the supply of information becomes so, and content, becomes so much higher and that supply is filled with a very, like I said, commodified information. People using ChatGPT, it's spitting out the same facts, everyone's sharing the same tips. Like all of that starts to become very vanilla and very homogenous. And so where's the demand then that happens on the other side of that? The demand for human connection, the demand for something unexpected, the demand for something weird and messy and an unpredictable and non robotic and human becomes higher. And so I think everyone who's focusing on like, oh, it's going to be such a noisy world and it's like, yes, yes it is. But there's an opportunity there. There's an opportunity to double down on the human piece of it. And that as a creator is your chance to excel with your business.

[00:08:14] Jason: Yeah.

[00:08:14] Caroline: And I think these qualities are all ways that you can do that.

[00:08:18] Jason: Do you want to share your unfortunate scary stat?

[00:08:21] Caroline: This scares me a lot. But I did watch a YouTube video that said that I will 10,000x the amount of content posted on every platform by 2030. I don't know how they make predictions like that.

[00:08:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:08:32] Caroline: But the point being that once content becomes so easy to create and produce, especially as some of these like video tools and audio tools and multimedia tools become better, the amount of garbage that you're going to start to see and I'm sure the platforms are all going to have to adapt. Right. Because it is going to flood the zone with like so much AI stuff is that, that just in general though is what you have to be thinking about is like, okay, well then what's my chance to stand out as a human being who doesn't want to just be creating garbage into that sea of, of crowdedness? You can sit and be paralyzed by that fear of, of this world that we're marching into that. I think that would be a Totally natural reaction. But again, Jason and I have chosen to go to take the more practical route, which is, if this wave is already coming, what can I do to find the. Find the opportunity, find the cracks to slip through, find the ways that I can still be a human being in this new world and be a business owner and have a beautiful life and slow down and fight it a little bit. And all these different things, these are all choices that we are able to make, and so that's what we're focused on. So these three things are things that Jason and I have talked about wanting to double down on in the next year. Obviously, we're going to take time off to have this little baby bean.

[00:09:55] Jason: Yeah.

[00:09:55] Caroline: When we come back, and even before then, you will probably notice that we are leaning into these three things. And so. 

[00:10:04] Jason: Before you, before you do that, I just wanted to quantify because when you say 10,000x the amount of creation right now. 

[00:10:10] Caroline: You're going to tell me how much is being posted right now?

[00:10:12] Jason: Yeah. I think what's really interesting is to look at this. So there was a report that came out from Meta directly that said it didn't say how many were created necessarily, but it said 200 million Instagram reels are consumed a day.

[00:10:25] Caroline: Oh, my God.

[00:10:25] Jason: 200 million consumed a day. So I think the estimate was 40 million are posted per day. So it's 40 million new are posted every single day.

[00:10:34] Caroline: Wow.

[00:10:34] Jason: TikTok. I just looked it up and it said that there are 34 million TikToks created every day. TikTok videos created every day, and 117 million consumed a day.

[00:10:45] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:46] Jason: So when you 10,000X that in the next, you know, five years...

[00:10:51] Caroline: It's scary.

[00:10:52] Jason: It's scary and it's a lot. But I will say there was a time when, like, there were a thousand websites on the Internet.

[00:10:59] Caroline: True.

[00:11:00] Jason: And now there are a billion websites on the Internet and you're. You can still make a website that people can still find and it can still exist. And so I think these numbers are scary, but I do think that as we move into this new era of content creation and social media and all this, like, there are. There really are. Like, there's a lot of room for gray and a lot of things in life.

[00:11:21] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:11:21] Jason: But I think in this specific scenario, there are two answers. One answer is, you bury your head in the sand. You say, I don't want to be a part of it. And, like, I'll find another way. That is your prerogative. And you can do that. But everyone's attention is going to be in these platforms, so it's going to make your life a lot harder. You can do it for sure. Just know you're opting for a really hard road or you can opt into curiosity. Learning new things, trying new things, experimentation where people are and where the attention is, and you will probably have a better chance of reaching your goals and succeeding. And I just think that, like, I'm not saying there is no room in the middle, I'm just saying that like.

[00:11:56] Caroline: I think the room in the middle is you can opt in with curiosity and create boundaries around how you use it.

[00:12:02] Jason: You don't need to make 10,000 reels.

[00:12:04] Caroline: You don't need to personally make 10,000 reels. So that's where we're where we are. And so let's start with storytelling, because this is one that I personally have leaned into over the past month and just something I'm very fascinated by right now. This really was born out of wanting to create content. Wanting to create this, like countdown series reels and storytelling is always a thing that I've wanted to get better at, that I don't feel like I'm very good at. It doesn't come naturally to me to think about the most interesting way to present an idea. I guess in some aspects, like in a curriculum, it is in a more long form format, but certainly not in a short form format. And so I have been doing a lot of education and content around, okay, how do you write a hook? Right? Because that used to be such a dirty word to me. I was like, oh, I don't want to play this game like these like three years ago, the Twitter thing of like thread.

[00:12:58] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:58] Caroline: Like, just really bummed me out. But the truth is those people jumped on what I was too late to jump on, which is they understood people need intrigue in order to devote their attention to something and storytelling. When I stopped thinking of it as like, these are just like hacking the platforms and more of. Since the dawn of time, humans have wanted to consume things in story format. So if you're writing a screenplay, you're thinking about how should I open this movie? If you're telling a story at a dinner party, you're thinking, what's my punchline? And what's my why would anyone listen to this? Everything is a story. And so I have just really, I really believe that when we are moving away from like a Here are my three tips to building a business world, it is going to be so much less about that and it is going to be about tell me why I should listen.

[00:13:47] Jason: Yeah, yeah. I mean I think it's, it's really, it's a curious thing. Right, because we have exist in the as business coaches for the past six to almost, I mean, 10 years in some capacity. It's always been about tips. Like tips are the thing. Like people come to you, they want the tips, they want to know the things are going on.

[00:14:05] Caroline: Well, we've always talked about just it's the value.

[00:14:06] Jason: Yeah.

[00:14:07] Caroline: Give people value.

[00:14:07] Jason: Exactly. And I think even like the Gary Vees of the world who like very much lean into like value, value, value, value. Like even his whole narrative has shifted as well and it is more story based, experience based and like you know, people relating to the things that you're sharing. And I think for some of you listening to this, this is very hard to hear because you're like, well I don't have any stories and I don't have anything necessarily to share. Great. Then you are in the camp of you have to do things so that you can build the stories. So you have to do a, a 30 day content challenge on Instagram.

[00:14:39] Caroline: Is going to be, is the third tip, speaking of that.

[00:14:41] Jason: Which maybe no one will watch, maybe no one will care about, maybe you'll get no views, but guess what you'll get after it. A story that you'll be able to tell and you'll be able to leverage and do that. And so I think, you know, even for people like us who have existed so like heavily in the tips based content, like it, it's a little bit of friction for us to feel this change of we need to be more story driven in what we do and how we present content. And like even like our most recent YouTube videos that I've been creating, I know they are bad for the algorithm. Like when I'm making them I'm like, YouTube does not want these videos anymore. But I also don't have the time to sit down and like construct the story based videos.

[00:15:19] Caroline: Exactly. But it's like if you double down on trying to build this as skill, which I was like, what I've been trying to do with reels, you, it will start to become in your brain more like second nature. You'll sit down to write a script and you won't have to think very hard about going, what's my hook? What's my contact?

[00:15:35] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:15:36] Caroline: You will just start to write that way. That's what I've noticed about my script writing is like, it's becoming more natural to me. I just had an interesting thought that I want to share with you, which is to me, this is like the new marketing bridge metaphor, which is this, it doesn't matter how valuable the information that you have to share is. That information lives on an island in a content world that's as noisy as it is right now and as noisy as it's going to get even more so in the future. So it's like you could have the most brilliant idea that's going to transform someone's life and it is existing. If you create a piece of content and you don't worry about the packaging and you don't worry about the storytelling and you don't worry about how to, you know, connect with someone, you just put it out there. It exists on an island. Like there is no bridge for someone to, to opt in and go, this is interesting to me. So to me, hooks and storytelling and keeping someone's attention and really thinking about that structure of whether it's you're creating a short form video, a long form video, a blog post, a thread, like what we're talking about content here. To me, storytelling is the bridge that you create so that someone can get to the value.

[00:16:42] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:42] Caroline: Right.

[00:16:42] Jason: Sure. Yeah. And, and to like come back to your point of like, if, if I personally invested time in like getting better at this for sure, but also at this very moment didn't have the time. So I did what I could do. So and my, my point there is like, at least I'm showing up in some way. So it's like kind of a, a tip for you listener who might be someone who's like, you don't have the storytelling skills yet. It's like...

[00:17:04] Caroline: Don't overthink it.

[00:17:05] Jason: Don't overthink it. But also if there's still a way you can show up where you're still creating content because you know you need to be creating content to be visible, still create something and hone the skills as you're going to get better at those things.

[00:17:17] Caroline: Of course. Because the only way to hone that skill is by repetition. For sure.

[00:17:21] Jason: Yeah.

[00:17:22] Caroline: And so yeah, I think if you want tactical tips like looking up and there's plenty of resources on this now of like, what are some popular storytelling structures for YouTube video? How do I create misdirect or like contrast in my script so that someone is kind of hooked and rehooked throughout the video to keep their attention. And again, don't focus on these things so much. These are more like the 5% incremental gains that you can make in the storytelling. But I think the principle overall of this is something that I'm interested in getting better at so that I can package my content in a way that people will opt in to consume it.

[00:17:59] Jason: Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, again, using AI as a human being. It's to, you know, plug in some videos, plug in some transcripts, plug in some things of people whose content you like that do this and just be like, hey, can you just, like, teach me a couple lessons on, like, what I could learn to, like, do this for myself? And I think there are some things where, like, again, you're not asking AI to write your version of that thing. You're asking it to teach you how to do that so you can think that way moving forward.

[00:18:27] Caroline: Exactly. You really want to have this, like, reverse engineer mindset of find out what is working people who have mastered storytelling and learn from what they do.

[00:18:36] Jason: Yeah.

[00:18:36] Caroline: And not to replicate it, but to learn.

[00:18:37] Jason: I go back to this phrase that when I was working my first job out of college. This is a story, by the way. When I was working my first job out of college, the... my boss, we had a meeting or a call with, like, the director of tennis programming at ESPN. And I, like, I felt so cool sitting in this meeting. I was a designer for the business that I worked at. And I'll never forget this phrase is this woman, she was like, we were asking about something about, like, you know, putting on a website, and she was like, yeah, just steal with pride. And I was like, steal with pride. Like, what do you mean? It's like, just if you're... If, like, copy something and, like, just go for it. Like, be okay with the fact that, like, you're learning from other people.

[00:19:17] Caroline: My caveat to that is, I think a better version of that is Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist.

[00:19:21] Jason: Sure, absolutely.

[00:19:22] Caroline: Remix it, put your own voice to it.

[00:19:24] Jason: I heard this in 2004, you know.

[00:19:25] Caroline: But I'm just saying it's 2025 now, so I'm...

[00:19:27] Jason: Exactly. But I'm. I'm at... This is my story. So you. You put. You deflated the tires on my story a little bit to, like, pull your car over the top of my car. 

[00:19:34] Caroline: I added to your story. It was a yes and. 

[00:19:36] Jason: Anyway, I think the point that we're both saying is learn from other people. Copy the things that they're doing. Don't obviously just steal verbatim, but, like, really get influenced and excited by those things and apply them to what you're doing. Okay.

[00:19:48] Caroline: Yes. Steal Like An Artist. So I think we should actually skip to the last one.

[00:19:54] Jason: Okay.

[00:19:54] Caroline: And come back to the second one in the middle because I think that as you just kind of described, this idea of building in public, of transparency, of sharing what you're working on is related so much to storytelling, because this is kind of your end to storytelling. Right. But I'm noticing this, like, huge shift in. And maybe it's just the content that I'm getting fed specifically on Instagram and places like that or YouTube, but I feel like what's working now is, like, so many people have done the tip content now of, like, this is how you build a business. This is how you launch a digital product. Us included. That where is the natural progression of when that becomes so ubiquitous? And I think the natural progression of that is, like, when everyone's sharing the same tips. How do you share something that's unique? And the way that you share something that's unique is you share the thing that nobody else has done, which is the thing that you did. So sharing your own experiences.

[00:20:55] Jason: I think it's. It's sharing your own experiences, but it's also sharing the slice of your life with those experiences.

[00:21:00] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:21:00] Jason: Like, I... I remember when we were, when I was talking to Wayne, we always say WAIM, but Wayne is a WAIMer who we've had on the podcast as a guest and has a Canva course. And early on in his days, he was like, I just don't know what to write in my email newsletters. He has like 12 subscribers at the time. And I was like, don't overthink this. Just package, like, the thing you want to talk about from a business standpoint and some photos of your cats. And he was like, why? Like, why do people care about my cats? And I was like, because anyone can talk about the business stuff you're talking about. There's really nothing that exciting or new there. But, like, tying in the fact that, like, you had these, like, floofy cats and, like, they can be a part of it. And, like, I remember reading his newsletters and I was like, I'm not even a cat person. And I just find this more compelling to read through because there was something in there. So what I'm saying to try to add to this is like, anyone can build in public and, like, make a thing. Like, share the behind the scenes of doing it, but, like, add in the version that's like your life included. That, I think makes it interesting.

[00:21:57] Caroline: Of course, which is point number two, which is the uniqueness part of it. But to me, the build in public part. 

[00:22:02] Jason: But again, like, yeah.

[00:22:03] Caroline: No, I know they're all intertwined together, but the point that I'm trying to make is, like, no longer to me, is it enough to just include information in a vacuum of like, here is the. It's like, no. People are curious about people and what they're up to. And I think that again, when everything is vanilla, when everything starts to become very AI outputy, where it's all the same and it's all one note, our human brains are going to look for the variation. Our human brains are going to look for the novelty. And the novelty is in, oh, this person just did that thing that I maybe am interested in doing. I think another piece of this is we're living in a world of, like, infinite possibilities now where it's like, you can build anything, you can do anything, you can make money in a bunch of different ways, you can go anywhere. It's infinite possibilities. Right. And so where is the limitation? The limitation is our time and our effort. And so I think what's also elevating build in public content is people are also looking for, hey, you go 10 steps ahead and try out this thing for me. Let me watch you do it, so that I can then make an informed decision about whether I want to go down that path too.

[00:23:12] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:23:13] Caroline: Right. Like, there's all. There's this uptick in, like, I left my 9 to 5 job content on these platforms, and I think that's part of it is, like, people considering and they're like, oh, what was it like for you?

[00:23:22] Jason: Yeah, And. And I. I mean, we have been using build in public for so many years, and I think the thing that we have always leaned into in that is like, hey, we're just real humans like you are. But, yeah, we're like 10 steps further down the road than you are, and, like, you can come right along with us and, like, here's what we're running into. But, like, there's nothing really that special up here. We're just showing you what's going on up here is all it is.

[00:23:43] Caroline: Yeah. And it all goes back to storytelling, which I think why this came up in the storytelling point, which is this is your edge to now be able to create content. But. But to Jason's point, you have to be doing things.

[00:23:55] Jason: Exactly. And I think that, like, the... the building in public of it all is only useful when you're continuing to push yourself maybe a little bit further out of your comfort zone to do things you haven't done before.

[00:24:08] Caroline: And what comes along with that is you then have to be willing to not just share when it goes well, but to know that you're sharing when it goes not well.

[00:24:17] Jason: Yeah.

[00:24:17] Caroline: And that I think speaks to again how you differentiate yourself from AI, which is, I'm a human, I'm messy, I'm imperfect, I'm going to stumble. And that's the human connection piece. That is, that is going to be at a higher premium because I can tell when somebody is feeding me something that has no human context to it. And you know, the AI is not going to make mistake. I mean, we all know they do, but you know what I'm saying, It's like that, like lean into the human.

[00:24:46] Jason: Yeah. I mean, I think that like, yeah, that like, I don't know, maybe AI is going to figure out in a couple years how to do all these connection based things themselves. But I do think that there is going to be some of it an easy way to know that like the person you're following you feel good about the fact that like this is a real human going through real human things that I'm going through. And like, I relate to that more than like a fictionally made up version of this that just doesn't feel relatable.

[00:25:13] Caroline: Yeah. Which I think is a bridge into the final point because okay, we all know that large language models, the way that they work is they're like prediction engines. Right. So they're working off of what do I, what do I predict based on my algorithm and based on the entire data set that I've been given, what do I think is the most logical next word and idea to present? And so that's very formulaic. And so what I think is the opposite of that is like the curveballs that anyone who has been a human on this planet knows that we are odd creatures, we make weird decisions, we are very predictable in our patterns, and then we will just do something so bizarre. And it's because we're just that complex. Right. And so the final point here is I do think that like again, in an LLM world, in a predictive world, in a formulaic algorithmic world, what then becomes more rare and valuable is weirdness. It's, it's left fieldness. It's. I didn't expect you to put those two elements together.

[00:26:14] Jason: Yeah.

[00:26:14] Caroline: That's an idea that a robot would never come up with.

[00:26:16] Jason: Yeah.

[00:26:17] Caroline: It's still capitalizing our, on our infinite human capacity for creativity. And so I think that in this next little version, I think really leaning into your personality and your uniqueness. And the reason I also say this is because I specifically remember when I had this thought when I was watching, I think, a YouTube video that was just a pure tip. Tip based.

[00:26:40] Jason: Just a tipped video.

[00:26:41] Caroline: Just a tipped video where I don't remember what the topic was. Let's just say it was storytelling. Okay. So I'm looking up videos on how to get better at storytelling, and the person is just giving me raw here, do this, do that, do this, do that. And I was so bored.

[00:26:54] Jason: Yeah.

[00:26:54] Caroline: And I. And I know, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing. I think all of our brains are rotting and boredom, you know, it takes more to keep our attention. And I was just finding it. There was no, like, bit of this person's entertainment or personality to keep me engaged and to keep me interested. And I. No left fieldness, no weirdness whatsoever. And so again, I think that, like, when all of our brains are rotting, we need those little pieces of unexpected humanness to keep us entertained and to keep us interested. And again, you can apply a judgment, whether that's good or bad, but I just think it is. I think we are where we are.

[00:27:36] Jason: And we've talked about this in previous podcast episodes where, you know, I've just pointed out, like, think about the people. And again, going back to, like, the beginning of my question at the very beginning of this, of like, you know, the Amy Poehlers of the world, you know, that you listen to, that we subscribe to and do. Like, you can name the weird things that they do or the, the funny things around them in their videos, or Wayne's cats. Like, you can call these things out. Cinnamon rolls, for me. Like, these little things seem innocuous, but they are the things that separate and create the contextual relationship.

[00:28:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:28:10] Jason: That, like, is deepened further than just like. That's an entertaining person I listen to.

[00:28:15] Caroline: I think of them as like, these little, like, you know, like, what do you call those rock climbers? Like, little handholds.

[00:28:21] Jason: Little carabiners?

[00:28:23] Caroline: No, no, no, no. I mean, like just the little handhold. Like these little hooks that, like, someone's watching your content and you're giving them, like a little foothold.

[00:28:30] Jason: Right.

[00:28:30] Caroline: You're saying like, oh, cinnamon rolls. No, it's like a little point of connection, a little point of context. A little point of something interesting for me to, like, latch onto and be interested in and be like, okay, anything else that's just information. I can get that from ChatGPT. I can get that from other places. Like that to me is just slippery. It's like, that's not interesting. That's not lighting up.

[00:28:49] Jason: Handholds.

[00:28:50] Caroline: There's no handholds. That's not lighting up a different part of my brain. So it's like, if you're a creator, think about what are those little handholds you can give people that give them something interesting to connect to, to hold onto. Maybe a carabiner actually is the better thing.

[00:29:02] Jason: Well, yeah.

[00:29:02] Caroline: Give them a little clip in.

[00:29:04] Jason: But I, I, and I think, you know, maybe you listening to this, you're like, oh, well, I don't know what those things are that like, you know, people would find interesting about me. And I think the easy answer there is just like, look around at all the people that you follow and like, what are the simple things that you find interesting about them? And I bet they are much simpler than you think.

[00:29:18] Caroline: Totally.

[00:29:18] Jason: Like it's not like a gold plated car that someone drives around. And it's not the ostentatious stuff, it's the little things. It's like the, the odd things they have on their desk. It's like the way that they always have like a quirky, like, you know, story that they tell about their kids that's like, seems unrelated but like somehow they tie it together. It's, you know, whatever the things are. I just, I totally agree. And this is, I think this has been my bread and butter as a entrepreneur since 2008 is just leaning into like, hey, here's me, I'm super weird. I'm, I'm open about being weird. I'm open about being a goofball. And you either like that or you don't like that. And the people that like it are the people that are like, oh, I could get some like, business advice or whatever from person A. Or like I can get it from this like weird, goofy person. And like, it's the same advice, but like it's packaged in a better way this way.

[00:30:07] Caroline: And I think just to wrap it all up here, like these three things, you know, some of them are, I, I do think to a degree they're skills. Like, they're, they're things that you need to like, think about and practice until they become second nature in your content, in your strategies, in your marketing, etc, and so I think they're just like three filters that I'm gonna put on our ideas moving forward is like, okay, the build in public of it all, like, what am I being transparent about? What's the thing that I'm doing that I can take people along for the ride on because there's value in me going before someone and having an experience. Then am I being thoughtful in the way that I craft that into a storytelling package to create a bridge where someone can stay engaged and be attentive and, like, want to consume it? And then lastly, like, am I. Am I actually adding my personality to it? Am I adding some weirdness to it? Am I putting my own little sauce on it? Because that's what's going to keep people around. And so I'm just going to ask myself those three questions as we move forward in the next year, because I think that as we get to the more and more AI garbage that gets, like, poured into these platforms, I do think those are the three things that are going to help you stand out. 

[00:31:17] Jason: For sure. All right, I think that's it for this episode. Those are the skills. And listen, if you want to watch how we're doing all this and you want to learn from all the things that we're doing. Shameless plug, wanderingaimfully.com, our final enrollment of our WAIM Unlimited program. Buying into this gets you behind the scene access to stuff that we're not going to post anywhere else. Our weekly video update that we do for our members only. Our monthly calls are. We're going to share all the things we're working on, all the things that we're learning. These, I think, are the really fun behind the scenes things that we don't talk about a lot, but they are the things that, like, really provide a ton of value. And I know a lot of WAIMers send us messages and they leave comments on our weekly update videos, which are just so simple, but it is the most raw, real time. Like, let us share all the stuff that's going on. And people get so much value from seeing that.

[00:32:01] Caroline: And because why? Because you're building in public. You're being transparent. You're telling stories.

[00:32:05] Jason: Stories. It's all those things. Exactly. And I'm being. And I'm being weird.

[00:32:08] Caroline: And you're being weird.

[00:32:09] Jason: Exactly. Yeah. You're not being weird, but I'm being weird.

[00:32:11] Caroline: Well, I'm a good we... We already discussed this. I'm a very good weird sidekick.

[00:32:16] Jason: But you called me the sidekick.

[00:32:17] Caroline: Well, that's a little bit of production.

[00:32:19] Jason: So, like, you're the hero, I'm the sidekick, but then I'm also the hero and you're also the sidekick.

[00:32:23] Caroline: That's correct.

[00:32:24] Jason: That's a cartoon we should write.

[00:32:25] Caroline: Okay.

[00:32:26] Jason: All right, that's it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed it. Goodbye. 

[00:32:29] Caroline: Thanks for listening. Goodbye.