Business The Gen X Way

Let me ask you, with everything that we're talking about here, are you optimistic for the future? Are you pessimistic for the future? What do you think?

Well, I'm currently scared for the future because there could not have been a worse time to have AI come up into the world because there's no guardrails in place governmentally in our country at least. Nobody's paying attention right now or caring about what this is going to do. This is what I feel.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Good morning, afternoon, evening to you, Melody.

Good. Yeah, now I'm confused. It's afternoon, for sure it's afternoon.

I'm just thinking about our listener that could be listening. Good morning, evening, afternoon, human. Have you seen Spirited? No, it's a Christmas thing. But it's good afternoon becomes like, basically a swear word in that movie. So they, like. They walk up to like, good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. Anyway, should we start over?

What are words? Sure.

Hello, Melody. How are you today?

Good day, Curt. It is I, Melody.

How are you? How are you doing, lady?

I'm good. Is the American.

Yeah, that sounded so qualified.

I'm good. I am tired, frazzled. Also, like, that's just normal. I'm normal. Actually, that's a good answer. I'm normal, Melody. Normal.

Yeah, that's what you're supposed to mean when you say, I'm fine. But, like, yeah, I'm normal.

How are you, Curt?

I'm also doing fine. Like, I would say I'm. You're out of doing normal. And when I say that, what I want to talk to you about today is, like, how fast normal is changing. So, like, today, I almost feel like the way I'm doing today, maybe a week ago, I don't know if I fully would have understood what that is. Even if it is normal.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

It kind of does because, yeah, I'm feeling the same this week especially. Also, I'm coming off of, like, a month of travel, really a month and a half. I feel like where I was just gone, gone, gone. And this is my first full week back, I think, which I love. I need home, but I haven't found the peace and stillness that I am craving.

Well, I will say that coming off of travel is one of the best feelings I know of knowing that you don't have to do it for a while. Like I remember a day when like travel, how fun and exciting. It's like, oh you're so naive. I mean it is cool to go out and see other people but man, there's just no place like home. They made a movie about that.

Yeah. When I'm going to events, I'm go, go, go. There is no like normalcy. I don't get good rest. I'm in different time zones all the time. And when I started planning my travel in January or December or whatever it was, I didn't really think about how it was going to stack up and it really was back to back for a while and it was not enjoyable. And I love traveling.

In my church group I would get like back on Sundays. I would always try to get back either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning to get to my meetings for Ch. Church. Like it was so common for me to get to church and be there. Like I just flew in, I got in at 2am or something. One guy finally pulled me aside. He's like, I really need to talk to the guy that you have at work who's setting up your travel. He sucks.

Yeah.

And I'm like it's, you're talking to him. He's like what are you doing man? And I'm like it's, I gotta finish the thing and then I gotta get to the place.

Yeah, I really try to be home on the weekend so that I can see the fam. Even though they have their own stuff that they're doing. So I'm like, I'm here everybody. And then nobody stays.

It's like my wife, she gets this beautiful meal all put together. People are all zooming around or something. Like someone leaves right as she's plating it. I mean understandably, she just put a lot of energy into it. She's like, he's oh, how are we going to eat together? And I'm like well hun, like this is his pregnant, he has to go do the thing. And she's like, it just seems like if people just tell me what time they got to do stuff. And they're like honey, I just think this is getting hard to say out loud but I don't think anyone cares about eating by themselves here. And she's like well they better start caring.

Like Rachel's like, I don't care that you don't care. You're going to start caring.

Yeah, yeah, I get that I made dinner for two nights in a row but really I made them all on one night. But I was like, people better eat this meal or else I'll never cook again. So I don't understand how somebody could do it every single night. And then.

Oh, yeah.

I feel like there's a lot at stake for me when I make something.

My sweet wife, she just takes it on the chin all the time.

Well, I definitely feel, though, besides the travel, there's so many things that I think I'm going to get back to. For instance, I didn't process any of the data of all the knowledge and learning and people that I met on these trips. And so I'm like, well, when I get home, I'll just take a full day and then I'll get it all out. That hasn't happened yet. The longer it goes, the worse it gets. But I do record all the sessions now and I take pictures of all the people so I can get back to it. And then there's also like, my house is a horrific, horrific mess to me because usually my mother in law cleans for us about six months of the year. The rest of the year she's back in Morocco.

And so she not go to Morocco and come to Arizona. Because that's a mother in law and a half. Wow.

No. And so I don't think I've really cleaned since she's left.

Wow.

And we do our laundry and dishes and stuff like that. But I'm just kind of like, I don't wanna. I wanna go on computer or I wanna veg.

That is so crazy. Cause this morning I woke up, I did a bunch of stuff in the garage early. And then right around the time the sun came up, I was like, I think it's early enough. I started getting everything out of the corner of the house. I saw some dust bunnies. I was like, oh, I'm going crazy. So I kept six months. That's a long time to go.

She hasn't been gone for six.

I know, but you made it sound like maybe you're gonna ride it till she gets back.

I'm thinking about it.

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's what I say. How, how, how?

Honestly, there's only so much I can take. I will say that I'm the person who doesn't do it consistently. But then I get enraged enough about the state of the home and then I go deep. I will clean the kitchen with a toothbrush for 10 hours. You know, like, that's my. I'm.

That's ADHD. 100%.

Yes, it is.

Okay. I just have those bouts four times a week. That's.

Yeah, that's the problem. Well, I guess Matt does the laundry a lot of the times and he likes to have the dishes done, but I rinse the sink out and stuff like that. So we have a rhythm.

Let's talk about where you've been gone to. Because today I want to talk a little bit about sort of the roller coaster that. I mean, you're like in the front row of this particular roller coaster. Where did you just come back from?

Well, actually I came back from CleanCon, so that wasn't an AI event. I'm actually, what I was telling you earlier is I'm taking a four day class on building agents in cloud code. I know everybody's like, you don't even need to code, you can just do it. There's a lot that goes into this stuff and every step takes time. I don't do coding every day or even every month. So it's like learning again for the first time. Curt, you were coding before I came on and you're just like, you just do this and this and this and everything works. And I put it in a package and then I put it on my folder and everything's done.

No, actually what you just heard, this will go into our topic today too. Anything that requires more than like just a few words of typing. I'm now doing this new thing. Anyone who's using a Mac, you can use this program, it's called Hex. You can go to their GitHub repository, download it, just install it via your terminal. The point is, is that now anytime I want to type an email or a text message or in Claude code, I now just put my cursor where I want it to go. I hold down my control button and I speak until I'm done and then I processes it so that Siri doesn't mess it all up. Because Siri can't do it worth a darn.

And Apple, where are you by the way? Apple? Is your company too small? Do you not have enough smart people? Do you not know how technology. You guys like were on the first on the scene with voice to text voice code and you are horrible at it. But anyway, I do dress. Anyway, my point is, is that it takes your voice, it runs it through AI, gets rid of all the ums and the us and it puts the question marks on you to be and it does all the spelling correctly. And you basically never have to. I mean, you know, if you mumble too much, you might have to check it A little bit, but either way it's so much better. So now I am moving so fast because I don't type anything hardly unless it's like one or two words.

That resistance. I always talk about the resistance of the flow state. What keeps us from that is getting the words from our brain to our fingertips is actually a lot of work, especially if you're dyslexic or adhd. Your brain has to process in certain ways and that brings a lot of brain drain. Even though we don't think of it that way, it does. And so this is like Whisper Flow. But I like that this sounds free.

It is free. It is free. And you get to pick your own. I think Whisper Flow also uses, I think it's called Parakeet or Para or something. Anyway, there's a. There's an AI voice tool out there. It's open source and I think that's what Whisper is using. But this has been phenomenal and it's so lightweight.

I thought I was on cutting edge because the past two years I've been using LOOM to make voice memos that would automatically transcribe or video to automatically transcribe and then sticking that into AI and then having. And then prompting it into getting it to where it needed to go. And that was very forward before. And then more recently on my iPhone, I was like, wow, voice memos immediately transcribed now. And so then I was like recording everything and then still taking those transcriptions and processing them elsewhere. This is how fast technology is moving. It's messing with all of the things that I teach people as well. Like all of these frameworks and systems that I've developed.

It's almost like if everybody was in the same place with AI, they wouldn't need my systems necessarily. I'd have to invent new ones because it's overwhelming. Right. I just find it to be a lot. And that's kind of our topic today.

I feel like our future has always been. Our generation's future, has always been a moving target.

Yeah.

For example, when you were in school and you thought about what you would do for a living. Policeman, fireman, doctor, nurse, lawyer, window cleaner, grocery store attendant, window cleaner. Like all of those things were kind of like rote. Like we understood that. But software engineer or AI developer, or like self manufactured computer chip maker. Like all these things were like, sorry, what?

Influencer.

Influencer. Yeah, YouTuber. Just saying I'm gonna be a YouTuber.

Yeah.

More. But just as we are kind of nursing our whiplash and thinking, okay, I think I'm like, I can figure out how to live in this world where social media addiction is one of the most insidious things ever. Now we have AI bots that could be our parents calling us and asking us for money. And the voice would sound perfect and the intonation would be perfect, the wording would be perfect. And AI has just changed the whole world. Like, we can watch a video. It used to be, I saw it on video. It happened.

It's real now. We don't even know what's real anymore. And we don't even know how to work anymore. And so that's why I was kind of making that comment about as I've been moving, as my work has been changing and as my focus on what matters in the world is changing. Like it's a week to week situation and it's a lot. It's just a lot.

We were not meant to move at this pace and learn at this level. And it's actually not making life easier right now. I see a lot of people who are really excited about AI and we're building the agents and the bots and all the things. But is it actually making our life easier right now? Now you might say, well, it's making things possible that I never could have done before, which is true. But now we can do like hundreds and thousands of things that were not possible before. Like, it's not like one thing wasn't possible. Now that we have it, we can stop and relax. Everything is possible now in a way.

Like, we have to learn how to think bigger and creatively in a way that we never have had to.

You're right. But we're also going to start really seeing some atrophy in thinking. And the reason is because when they brought the calculator out. And they were so nervous that no one would ever know how to do math ever again. They just said, oh, well, we'll just start doing calculus. We'll make it harder, and you don't know which sequence to push the buttons in. Then we made a graphing calculator, and. And then we got computers.

The fact is, is that, yes, you've still got to know how to do some math, but certainly we won't be able to do math the way that maybe our grandparents would have done it. Like, there's just so manual, easy.

We don't need to.

Yeah, we don't need to. And, you know, I mentioned it earlier, but I don't think that we got past the social media and sort of technological debt that has crept into our own mental health. And so now we have added this exponential way of something that it moves fast because it will always move faster. It will always feel fast, because as fast as it is today, it's been learning all this time and that piles on top. And the speed just goes up so fast that tomorrow will feel faster. It will always. And it's like that Willy Wonka thing where he's going down the tunnel and he's talking, and it's like the lights start going and you're like, whoa. And he's like, moving at like, what seems like the speed of light.

I feel like that's what's happening in our life right now.

Yeah, I think what worries me about that is, like, when people are really optimistic about it because they start us off with, did you learn how to write boob on your calculator growing up? You can admit it.

Yes, I did. And I was so bad.

Yes. Something to go to hell for, you know, but, like, that's how we get into things. Like, this is like, we come at it like, oh, let's make a dog that looks realistic with our face on it or something. So it's all the fun things, and then pretty much it's going to take over all of the jobs, and then it's going to take over our thinking if we let it. Like, we don't have to let it. But as a country right now and as a world, I don't think we're united in any way to make it not take over our life. It's not like we're going to suddenly come back to nature. I hope we do, but I don't think we're suddenly going to have so much more time as entrepreneurs to that we're going to be able to just relax because the AI does it for us.

That's what they sell. And it's not going to happen.

It didn't happen with our phones. Our phones have, you know, everyone says it has more technology than the NASA had to get to the moon. Okay, cool.

But our life is easier. It's not like we have less complexity.

My kids deal with things that I just never, as a kid their age would have ever had to think about. Let me just draw, you know, an old. You know, this is so cliche at this point, but like when we were just farmers living in a log cabin, we were colder and we were hotter because we didn't have air conditioning and it was small, we didn't have a lot of possessions anyway. And we just had to get up, feed the horses, water our plants, go talk to the neighbors, come back to our candlelit house. You know, like, this is how you grew up.

Right.

My point is this isn't how I grew up. This is how people grew up.

Little House on the Prairie. Yeah.

Yes. There you go. Thank you. And now you look at today and you go, well, now we're warmer or cooler, depending on what we need. We got a computer, a cell phone, we got Internet. We're connected to everybody. We can send messages to everybody. My question to you is, is that while we can see that the quality of life in some ways has drastically improved the quality of life.

Same thing is horribly worse. And I don't think it takes a scientist to really see where those differences are. Yeah, I think that what makes me most uncomfortable is as we start zooming, as these zoomers are making us. And you gotta know all the lingo too.

The lingo, I don't need to know it.

This new generation of lingo looks like more brain rotten AI slop than anything. But if I didn't move at the pace that things are going right now, maybe I'm wrong about this. I don't think there's an alternative to going at the pace that the world requires now.

Okay, here's where I get to push back a little. Even though I totally agree with you. One of my thoughts is I'm always thinking forward. You're always thinking forward. And I thought that my clients would immediately go to robots at some point. That's why I got into AI when it came out. You're probably thinking your clients will make their own apps that will sell things or whatever, like, you know, agents. But people are stubborn.

And especially like the kinds of people that we serve, like entrepreneurs, they don't want to necessarily learn all of this and some people are going to be dragging their feet till the ends of time on it. And I think sometimes like I'm not a marketer so those, the customers for me are the people who want that human connection still, who want to know that they can build trust. And like there's a lot of things that I think people are still going to want that we're offering. And I don't know if we have to move at this speed, but I don't want to risk not moving at the speed. And that's the problem. I've done this over and over in our life. Like think about how many times we've had to do this where we had to come into a new type of like a phone. Like the.

Going from the qwerty. What is it? Qwerty.

Qwerty. QWERTY keyboard. Yeah.

A young people. That was a keyboard where you couldn't press individual letters.

Well, QWERTY is the one you can do individual. But the old like phone interface. So they used to sell the QWERTY keyboard. Oh, it's got like a computer keyboard on it. But yeah, we used to have to triple tap the two to get the third letter.

Yeah, that's right. I thought I was being. See, I don't even know. So there's still always going to be people who need less and who want less, but it feels like everybody wants more right now. And I don't know why you're feeling this way. You're not even on social media or getting influenced by it, are you?

Well, the way. Yeah, I'm not influenced by social media but Melanie, I, I need to be able to provide my customers with the most effective tools possible or they leave. Why? Because they're running a little tiny million dollar company. I say little tiny. A big old fat million dollar company with a little tiny staff, you know, and they have to. Because why did everything with a handshake, they'd have no customers. They gotta be fast and efficient and then they need to be able to provide a lot of service for the minimum amount of physical input. They're trying to cut that bottleneck.

Which technology can. There's no doubt about it.

Do you think it does though? Cause like I'm thinking of all my files that I've created for my AI. Like it started with Personas, so I was always building Personas and then it turned into other things that I'm always trying to find the things that I did last week that I can't find because. And I know there's all sorts of ways to organize it, but they're not fully organized.

Well, it doesn't have to be organized anymore if the AI agent knows and you can just say, I'm looking for this thing.

It doesn't though.

Mine does.

Okay. My Claude, I've been on Claude for two years. It can access the memory and it will not sometimes find things when I search.

I'm talking about like Claude cowork, for example.

Claude co work.

You tell it which files it needs to know everything about. Yeah, yeah, that and anything you want. It'll just tell you exactly what happened at that time.

So maybe I. I can't work in the online. See, this is another thing, like I have two years worth of history in Cloud that I now have to go through. What cowork? Or is it only. Do you see what I'm saying here?

Yeah, I get it. Look, the point of today's conversation, you are. You are absolutely painting the picture perfectly.

Yeah.

The thing is, is that what was true yesterday is not even necessarily true today. The things you're looking at on your computer, they're in high definition, 8K. It sure as heck is real.

But it's not.

It's not. That person that you're hearing from doesn't exist. The person you're talking on the phone, they're not a person.

Yeah.

And we have to learn to be okay with it. We grew up in a handshake society, and things have evolved to a point where it just feels like we're forced. If we want to maintain any semblance of normalcy, we have to adapt. And I don't think it's the adaptation that's so much a problem for me. My ADHD entrepreneurial mind loves the change of scenery. It really does. But it's that forced to adapt that makes me feel like there's always a gun to my head. Yeah, I don't like that.

I don't like that I want to learn what I want to learn because I want to learn it. And I haven't felt like that's been the case for about three years now. It's felt like I've had to move, move, move, move every single day. And I do feel like when I had my service businesses, I didn't have to move like that all the time. I could, like, just get into the flow and not grow the business or not have to learn all of the software all the time. Like, I could just kind of plot along if I wanted to, if we had enough work. And I can't do that. Anymore.

And it feels like I'm in a. I'm trapped because all I want is the freedom to do whatever I want, which is apparently to do all the things that I'm doing.

Well, that is truly the irony. I think you just said it in such a. Like we need to take a second unpack that. All I want is the freedom to do what I want. And look, you can, you can talk to someone in Egypt right now. Like again, go back to my candles lit log cabin. Yeah, you want to talk to someone in Egypt? Well, you better hop on a horse, get to the coast, get on a boat, get on a camel and go talk to someone in Egypt. Like we could literally right now go find someone in Egypt to talk to if we want to right now.

And so we can do anything we want. We can travel on an airplane, we can do anything we want. But if you want to financially stay afloat, you have to be relevant. How do you stay relevant?

Well, also though, what you just said. When I was younger, I would travel somewhere and I would meet people and then I would write them letters, but I didn't meet a lot of people and I didn't stay in touch with a lot of people. Like I kept my main people and now I meet so many people and I've connect with so many people because we learn about places that groups of people are going to be. Everybody's about connection right now. Which by the way, Curt, for you to stop doing responsicon. Right when everybody wants connection. Just saying.

Well, I mean, Melody, I couldn't sell a ticket to responsicon.

You will be able to.

So it was. It got harder every single year for anyone to buy a ticket. Why? The reason everyone gave was there are so many conferences.

There are, yeah.

And I got work to do. And the other thing is, is that I don't need to get together with a bunch of other people because all the questions I have, I'm asking AI and they're answering it.

But people want connection and community and like real life connection.

They're not voting with their feet or their dollars.

They weren't before. But what I keep hearing over and over is like, if you're looking forward, that is going to be the thing. Having true communities where people and having live events is going to be the thing that people are going to move towards again. So it's like kind of like we went down. Like you started at a place when a lot of people weren't doing events, there weren't a lot to go to. And then Everybody's like, oh, look what Curt's doing, or look what huge does. And then everybody did events, but I think it's gonna burn out and then there's gonna be space again. As my guess.

I think my first year that I did responsicon, it cost my company like under 10 grand. The second year that I did it, it cost my company like less than five grand. It was like, wow, this is going good. Because I always knew this is going to be sort of a labor of love. The last year that I did it, it cost us like 40 grand to do it.

Yeah. And that was probably cheap compared to some of these other events. I see people.

And by the way, I'm not. I'm talking about net. I'm not talking about how much it cost me in gross. I'm saying after ticket sales and everything, it just cost me.

Yeah.

That's what our company. Yeah. So I. The huge. Makes a profit.

Do they now? They run. Because they run it like a business now.

Like a business. And I ran it like a side project.

I'm very anti technology for somebody who's so forward right now in tech technology because it's a different kind of tech than what would have been in the past. Right. I am really feeling fatigued by not only, like the burden of technology and learning and keeping up with it, but also the burden of keeping up with all of these wonderful people that I meet, that I connect with, that I love, and realizing I have hundreds of these people now and I don't know how to do it. And I've been. It occurred to me this week, I'm like, why is it so hard? This is so hard. I'm like, oh, because, you know, too many people. There are too many people for me to possibly be that connected to. Unless it's in some virtual group, which I don't.

I'm not trying to do that, you know.

Yeah, well, that just adds on top of everything else. Yeah.

It's just another thing. But it's like everything is overload right now. And the answer is nature. That's what I feel.

Honestly. I get out for two hours a day to ride my bike, and I'm telling you, I don't know how I would survive without that. Like, I don't know how I wouldn't be able to do that. I have to. Because when you say it's like I was talking about getting faster and you're just talking about overload, I feel like it's like if you have an air compressor and you just watch the dial on it, like it starts to pressurize and then as it's adding to the pressure, it slow. It gets slower pressurized and. And you know that if it broke open, you know, go everywhere.

Yeah.

But I feel in my brain like that pressure gauge, it's getting faster at a faster rate. So it's like this, like. In fact, they have this sound that sounds like it's always getting higher. Have you ever heard that? Like where it's like.

Yeah.

And then like you're listening to it and you could swear it's constantly getting higher and higher, but it's actually on loop.

Oh.

And so it's like it's impending. Like, well, we're gonna get to the end any second here. But that's kind of how that pressure feels is that the pressure is like it's going so fast that at some point it hits this thing where it can't get any higher pressure.

Yeah.

And then it just keeps going so

that you get to undressurize every day. Like, I have one thing to do and then I'm like, oh, yeah. But I have 400 things that I've decided to do and I'd say like 350 of them to 399 of them are things that I decided were going to be important to me because I'm sparkly brained and I like new things. I have a half tiled bathroom that I have to finish and there's all sorts of projects that I decided. I ripped out the floor and was like, I'm going to finish this tomorrow. And then I didn't. Right. So like, I have a lot of those things.

And in fact, Curt, I'm really actually upset at myself this week because when I signed up, remember I said I signed up for a woodworking class after not having done it for a long time. Yeah, yeah. I was so excited about that. And I got there two times and I actually just took it off my calendar yesterday because. Well, because I. When I was traveling a lot, it was a problem. But then also I've had things come up at. During those hours on Wednesdays and I think there's only one or two classes left.

And I just had to take it out because I could not bear to see it on my calendar anymore and know that I was failing myself. And it's not all bad. I'm feeling it right now because there's a lot of projects that I'm working on simultaneously. Like you're working on a big project. There's no end that I can. Like, where There's a stopping point and then I feel finished. Right. I'm training an executive assistant right now for a client, so she's working with me and I love it because she's finishing a bunch of projects that have been melody things that's been nice.

But also I have like 5,000 of those things.

And tomorrow you'll have 10,000. Like, I'm not trying to be like a doomsday person here, but like, that's kind of the point of what we're talking about.

Yeah.

One of the other pieces of this conversation I want to loop in right now is, you know, we keep talking about things from our perspective, but I don't know how old this executive assistant is that you're training. But There's a generation. 29. Yeah. There's a generation of I think 15, 16 year olds coming up right now. It's probably about where I'd lock my

kid and your kid that are seeing

the world as like, this is the world we live in. It's the same thing as when, when like a kid grew up with an iPad or cell phone in their hand. Like, yeah, this is the world we live in. And so I'm not sure that this is a great thing for them. I'm just saying that from a normal perspective, what our baseline is and what we've adapted to isn't necessarily what they're adapting to. It's the world they live in.

I'm curious. My son is very much like, you can't make me do AI because he's a contrarian. Do you find that your kids are like really into it or are they just like, eh, whatever, you know.

Both of my younger kids, so I have two older kids, one is a programmer and one is a UX designer. And both of them are like, they use AI for work every day. Like it's just part of their life. Yeah. My other two, they're mountain bike racers. They ride with me and both like to be outside.

Yeah.

Throwing rocks and stuff. So that.

That's my kid.

Correct. But let me just, let me just make sure that this is a real fine point I'm putting on it. They know that when they're watching a video on YouTube that it could be completely just someone in their basement making a video that looks real. And not to take anything at face value, they know that if they don't know the answer to a specific question, they're not a Google search away. They're a AI search away. They just know that they can do that. They've both been in the car with me, I get into fights with Claude and not fights, but, like, I do a lot of researching and arguing about different religious things or Christopher Columbus, like, was he a good guy? Was he not a good guy?

Let's.

Let's talk about this. And I want you to, right now take the position opposite of mine. And I want you to, like, go with it. And my kids have experienced this and they're like, wow, this is kind of a handy tool. Not researching in the sense of like looking up all your sources and doing bibliographies like you and I did when we were kids. But to say I'm curious about why certain animals grow stripes and others grow spots. And we can do this right now. And you don't have to go to this library and find an encyclopedia.

And I'm not going to bake it into a paper. I'm going to bake it into my. My thoughts. But then those thoughts can get thrown away.

Yeah.

Because I can replace them so quickly with other thoughts.

Well, that's the thing is it's so much disposable information right now.

Disposable. Very nice words.

It's a big problem. It's interesting because on the one hand, I am desperate to teach my kid skills and AI because I don't think it's the skills even, it's the thinking processes that are going to need to evolve with people right now. And I think of the kids in school, they're not being taught AI. They're not being taught to think with it. They're just taught. Kind of like the thing I get from my kids school is kind of like, you can't use AI for these things or you can't, you know, kind of like calculators. When we were kids, you can't use calculator in the test. But like, the world is changing so fast.

It scares me that they're going to do like the normal thing of like, let's go to college now or something, but the world isn't normal anymore and most people don't even know it. And I have sounded like a crazy person. It sounds like I'm saying the world is ending and God is coming back, or Jesus is coming for three years now, even though I'm talking about AI, I'm using that example because I just sound like a crazy person and it's been slower.

Let me stop on that for a second. I think that's a really important point you just made. Certainly I have family members. This is what they do is they talk about How? Well, it's all right because God's coming back. It's like this finish line they've put in their head. Like, don't worry. We don't got to fight the system. We don't got to fight to live another day.

God's going to come take it away from us. I will say that I understand the peace that people get in that, like, you know, I get it. But I also want to say there's a lot of danger in that mentality. I don't know if our listeners right now are having what kind of thoughts they're having. It'd be interesting to, like, hear what people's outlook is on this. This crescendo I've been talking about. The problem is, I heard it once said that when you say a prayer to bless all the people around the world who don't have food, it gives you a certain amount of peace.

Oh, yeah.

But hopping in a car and taking food to people down the street that don't have it, that gives a different kind of peace. I just want to say that as you're all loving God and final, like, hope of things coming to an end if it happens, like, that's wonderful. Like, I can't wait. That's great. But it can cause a certain amount of inaction.

Yes.

In the day. And I think that one thing that, you know, whether you call him God or Jesus, I call him Jesus. But what Jesus showed in his life is that we need to take action and not to sit on the couch and wait for a time to come. Now, I know that not all people are using that in that way, and I don't mean to say that that's an excuse that people are. Yeah, but maybe like, a parallel way of thinking. And I understand that, but I. I want to make sure that that thought doesn't ever get transitioned into some sort of, like, sedentary excuse.

But I think that's the same thing for AI people, too. There's so much resistance, and it's interesting. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this, but I will. Matt. Matt and I talk about AI a lot because he makes fun of me, and also he resents it. He resents the fact that we have had to learn in a certain way our whole life. And now a robot could do his job. Technically not.

But, like, now robots will be engineers and agents will take over engineering. And I think when you work so hard for knowledge, like we have in our generation, like, I don't know what it looks like to not. Well, I do, actually. We've experienced it during our lifetime of people who have. We didn't have coaches, and then people came in and they did have coaches, and their businesses accelerated quicker because they took.

Wow.

Right.

Yeah.

And so I wonder what the example would have been before us. Like, before that example there. I'm sure there's other, like, books, right?

Yeah.

You didn't have the knowledge to do something. You had to figure everything out. But then you could read a book.

Well, even audiobooks. I remember when audiobooks became a thing, I would be out working and listening to audiobooks. I go filling my brain while I'm earning my money.

Yeah, yeah. But we have a capacity as humans in learning. I'm sure that will change as our brains adapt to this. But I feel like I'm at constant capacity right now. I think part of it is I just keep playing this story in my head of, well, if I just finish this one thing, then I'm free to go do the other things I want to do outside. And then that one thing is not ever quick or easy, even with AI not quick or easy, because I can design better, more complicated things.

We bring up. Bring up this point now, too, though. Like, AI can make something quick and easy in terms of getting. It's always happy to oblige you with an answer, whether it's true or not. So now 90% of what it tells you is true, but you got to filter out that other 10% and you got to be vigilant on it. So you go, wow, that's cool. I have this disposable knowledge that I can get really fast. I like that term that you use.

Yeah.

But not all of it's true. And we're acting on it right now. In fact, sometimes I found with like, Claude code, for example, I'm not careful and say before you start doing anything, I'm entering plan mode right now. You can't say, I wonder what would happen if we did this and expected to know that you're entering a plan mode. It'll like, boom, I just did it. And you're like, but that was a terrible idea. I wanted to talk about it first. You know? Anyway, this is a key element, too, is that we get this information that's 90% correct.

And that's wonderful statistically, except for you only have to get shot with one out of 100 bullets and you're dead.

And human information, I would say, is like 70% correct. Maybe. But we understand how to read the cues of human behavior. We have A better gauge. Because if somebody has told us something that's untrue, but they say it with like, this is absolutely. Yeah. With authority. How many times do we get fooled before we're like, yeah, they're just a blowhard.

They always say stuff, you know, but we don't have. And we kind of have that with the robot, but not in the same way.

You know what, you just brought a good point. When you know someone who isn't a blowhard and they're really wise.

Yeah.

They actually usually the wise people are the ones who go like, don't quote me on this or I really can't say with any for sure certainty, but I believe based off of the information I have someone who's very wise, speaks that way. Yeah, I does not speak that way.

No.

I would never like prompt itself to like deprecate whether or not it knows. It always speaks with certainty and it's almost always right, which is where the real challenge is. Right.

Does Claude ask you questions now about like where you want, what directions you want to go in for things?

Yes, it does. I think that's why I lean towards Claude so hard right now, is because Claude actually does do a lot of like, I can go this far with the information you have, but now I need to know a couple more things and I. And then I also like that you can enter in plan mode with it and like. Okay, well, that's a good question. I have some questions for you. Let's pause on our progress and let's just beat this up a little bit. Yeah, but it's not perfect, that's for sure.

We have a lot of knowledge and wisdom at our older ages, elderly ages, younger people. Gen Z does not have. I mean they do, but they don't. They don't have the same knowledge, wisdom, information that you have at 50. You don't have the same at 30 that you do at 50. Even though we've felt like we did and we don't know what 70 year olds know. Right. And so I'm wondering how, how it's going to change.

Looking at life experience and wisdom and like the human experience of. You know what I mean?

Yeah. There's so much in that, you know what a 70 year old doesn't have along with all their wonderful wisdom. What 70 year old does not have the energy, time or ability to change or time like and a 70 year old typically is gonna have. Like at my age, I wish I could be a sprinter.

Yeah.

But any fast twitch muscle I was ever gonna get it's done. Like I might be able to add

a fight or two with that attitude.

Well it's just physiologically how it is now. That all said, I'm still really energetic and I have tons of slow twitch my fibers that like can, I can go all day. That's cool. I used to look at a 40 year old as like they called it over the hill and they're old. You know, here I am 40, I'm almost 50 years old. I don't know, like somewhere in 46, 7, something like that. Oh wait, 6, 7. I did this.

Oh no, yeah, I just did it.

All right.

Anyway, I'm in that range and I have way more energy than I ever thought someone my age would have when I was a kid. So I'm doing pretty darn good energy wise. I think I'm still doing pretty good adaptation wise. But what happens over age and what these kids have on older people is their ability, their resiliency, their adaptability.

Yeah.

Like the things that are changing they have the energy to put right into it. So with that they have this advantage like I would just almost say like this God given advantage to someone who's

younger if they utilize it.

But then there is this danger and this is what I'm foreseeing right now. Yeah, I predict that all the technology that we're building right now, the new generation comes up and can maintain it. But I think that there's going to be a really important distinction between those who understand it and those who understand it through AI.

Yeah.

Which means that I can engineer stuff really well with the assistance of AI and I can maintain some things but I won't be able to be that, that much more innovative and I'll be limited by the innovation that I can afford to it. And if there ever becomes a point where someone needs to be able to do it without AI, I, you know, just example here for us is I need to do the math without a calculator. If you don't know how to get a piece of paper out and do a longhand division or longhand math problem, you're going to be limited in what you can do. And when you're standing on the shoulders of giants, there does still need to be some scaffolding around it. And my worry is this really adaptable generation coming up. What percentage of those are going to be able to provide the actual mental scaffolding? When everything comes so easy that I can get this knowledge so fast and easy, dispose of it and not have to be an expert in microchip Design because I just use computer aided devices.

I wonder if school for the first time ever is going to have to adapt quickly. I don't think it can, but I wonder if it's going to have to adapt and to teaching a completely different way. I honestly don't know how that would be possible at this point because of how slow bureaucracy moves and especially schools and all of the teachers.

How long after computers were around did you see a computer at school?

Well, I don't know. I was in sixth, fifth grade when I was actually using like a Mac. And I'm 49, so I remember the dot printer. I would just make banners like I was the kid who would sit in the computer room and. And just. It was like a dark closet, actually. And I would just make long, long banners that said happy birthday for somebody.

I remember in fifth grade, they brought a computer into our classroom and we could sign up and take turns and use it. And mainly we used it for, ironically reasons, brand new technology to play the. The Pioneer game.

Oh, I was playing where in the World is Carmen? San Diego.

Yeah, we had that too. We had that.

Loved it because I got to travel the world. It was amazing.

What was the one where you. You're on a wagon train going across.

Oh, I think that's Pioneer or something. I don't remember playing that.

Oh, yeah.

If we had a choice, I was traveling.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it took me until I was almost graduated before we had in our high school, like a real true computer lab. Really got one hour a day to do it. Now kids, like, they go to school and they're, you know, hey, here's your laptop for the year.

Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of that going on, which, I mean, obviously, how could you live in the world if

you have to have it?

Every subject needs to. Yeah, exactly. So their adaptation in technology, I understand why they got to be a little bit slow and cautious because you got to make sure you're not teaching a bunch of fads and sending people out into the world with a bunch of fads that aren't actually real. But with the speed that things are moving, a slow bureaucracy is not going to be able to serve no AI

is so much changing every day. All the new tools, the old tools, like every AI is different every day and they're all different from each other because we're in it right now and we're moving so fast. Like we are envisioning a way in which the world will change, but we also can only move as fast as all of humanity is moving. Do you know what I mean? Like, we, we think that they're going to push us into this. Like they being AI, like the bros who own AI. But I don't know if that's true or not. And there is pushback. I mean, look what's happened with OpenAI, with when the government said, we don't like you anthropic because you want to have rules around how we can kill people with your AI.

How dare you. But. Or like, I want to watch all of the Americans with your using your AI tools. And then OpenAI was like, we'll let you do it here, take it. I mean, they lost 2 million plus subscribers really quickly and a lot more cloud users went to cloud. And cloud is better anyway. You know, they're different.

Let me ask you, with everything that we're talking about here, are you optimistic for the future? Are you pessimistic for the future? What do you think?

Well, I'm currently scared for the future because there could not have been a worse time to have AI come up into the world because there's no guardrails in place governmentally in our country at least. Nobody's paying attention right now or caring about what this is going to do. This is what I feel.

But Melanie, just real quick, there's no guardrails in this country, but would it even matter? Because you can just get a vpn, be anywhere in the world you want that doesn't have guardrails.

Well, what I mean is, like, everybody's talking about how our workforce is going to be wiped out. In the past with other governments, people would have cared about that and would have started putting through Congress like laws about AI or what AI can take over, or can it be in a monopoly? Can it charge us a low price right now and then raise it when everybody's addicted to it? Addicted to it, which is, you know, the Walmart way. Get all the small businesses out of town with your cheap prices and then it's jacked up, you know.

Well, we're going to have gpus. Like, that's going to be the hottest commodity. And we got to cool all of them. Like, literally, they'll be hot. We got to cool them all down. And how is that going to affect the environment? And these server farms are going to be going up like crazy because we're going to stop using our own brain. We're going to start using the brains of these server farms.

That's one good thing about humans. We do have to adapt, right? So there will be New technology that will have to come in order to make it so that we're not using all the water and not using all the things. Like, maybe it's desalination. I'm not sure what it is. I mean, we already have that, so I'm not sure why they don't use that. But, you know, I was listening to the radio, a radio show the other day, it might have been Radiolab or something, and they were talking about scams, and they were talking about how now with AI scams, you. You touched on it a little bit, that the person whose whole job it has been in the government originally was to help people not get scammed. And she literally is like, I don't know what to tell people right now.

Like, there are so many complex things when it comes to the evolution of scams and how quickly it's evolving now. She's like, I don't know how to tell people to stay safe because it seems like almost impossible right now. And she said, technology, it's going to be AIs, again, fighting against AIs, essentially, which is kind of weird. But one of the things she brought up that I think is important is social trust and how low social trust has become because of all the scamming over the decades. Right. It used to be very high. Our cumulative social trust was very high. Probably 50s, 60s.

I don't even remember what the ages, what the years were, and now it's very low. That's an indicator of where we're at in general. Like, it sat in my mind up until now of, like, what does that mean for us when we don't have the level of trust that we kind of had for most of, like, our younger years, at least, I would say. And what does it mean when the world is going to be a robot soon? And does trust even exist in the future? I think it will.

Well, the nice thing about cryptocurrency is the, like, when you buy something on, like, Facebook Marketplace, you have to pay them and leave. And hopefully it works. Now with cryptocurrency, we've got these cool contracts built in digitally that are all held on the blockchain. I mean, look, I agree with you that seeing what was believing, it's not anymore. Everything is changing. And the one thing I'm saying about this younger generation coming up is that what right now we're adapting to is sort of what they know is just normal and real. And I am pessimistic for the future in terms, like you said, scared. I think that that would probably be a more accurate, actually word for me.

But I'm so curious, how does this go? But everybody is running. I think if you talk to anyone individually, they'll tell you we're running straight into a brick wall.

Yeah.

And they go, but why are you running? Stop running into the brick wall. I have to. I'll be trampled by the crowd if I don't.

Yeah.

And so you go, so is it the brick wall I'm afraid of or the crowd? I guess I'm just. Right now the immediate problem is the crowd, so I have to run with them. And then as we run off this cliff or into this wall, we go, well, we knew this is happening.

I think everybody.

We know this is happening.

I actually have hope for the generation, though, because one thing about generations is that they don't like whatever the last generation really likes. They will rail against things. Like, I look at my son who drives me crazy, but he just is like, no robot's going to tell me what to do. Right. So I want him to learn AI. And also I still want him digging holes in the dirt. He has a three year hole project that he's had with his best friend down the street. They've been digging the same hole for three years.

It's like so deep and so large that they might die in the hole. But, like, that's what I want him to be doing. They might rebel against all of this. I'm very curious about that because I think, like, I'm just trying to hold on and do the best I can. And then I think people younger than us, yes, they're more tech savvy, it's more part of their life, but they know they're missing something. When you've had something your whole life, but you know that there's a different experience that you could have had. I wonder. I think there's going to be a pushback, I hope.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like those kids. That loud music were a terrible idea and this generation will never make it. And then they did. And I don't want to take that approach. In fact, the whole point of this podcast is holding space for everything. Look, tell me to touch some grass.

Right? But here's the tea. Right?

So was that what language was that?

Yeah, that's the thing is that I am doing my best to run with the crowd and I'm trying to do it composed. I'm thinking a lot about things. I used the analogy earlier that I just feel like there's a gun in my head that either play the game or you lose.

Yeah.

And I think I'm playing the game as much on my own terms as I possibly can. But I am nervous. I am nervous about it.

Do you feel like we've always felt this way though? I mean. Yes, it's accelerated right now. Have we always felt like we need to play the game or we'll lose?

Yeah, probably.

And is that just our generation or is it life?

I know a lot of people who don't play the game and they win. Yeah, I mean, I don't know a lot of people. I know people that do. You know, the guy that packs up his truck and goes out into the woods and, and homestead. You know, my wife's got a really strong feeling about my kids education where I feel like schooling is not necessarily the best education. My wife has a strong feeling about where we live around family. And by the way, I'm not saying my wife's wrong. Like we've enjoyed being close to family and having to live in a certain way.

Yeah, I love being an entrepreneur, so, you know, I mix it up that way. But I'll tell you what, on the weekends I'm digging holes, I'm using my tractor, I'm building jumps for the kids with the kids on our bikes. Like I really would be a great farmer. My dad was a dairy farmer. I wish that I grew up on a farm, but I know people who live life on their own terms. They hitchhike, frankly, at this point, looking like the hippie generation really is one that had it figured out the best, probably. But I don't do it. And I don't do it because I am in a partnership with my wife that I feel that that particular life is one that I by choosing her.

And it's not like to blame her, it's to say I chose her. This is the life I'm committed to and I'm doing the best I can with it. And frankly, if I had not chosen her, I'd be completely unhappy in other ways. And yeah, who knows that I'd be winning that game, right?

Yeah. I think the people who I see who are winning don't care about any of this. And somehow they're safe from having to worry about it. They're safe from having to think about it. And they get to work their job and then come home and do whatever they want. I guess that's my husband and maybe that's Rachel. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe it's.

We will always be like this because we're entrepreneurs. I am always worried, looking Ahead, looking at the future. And I'm not a futurist, you know, but it's more of like, I wish I was. I'm usually looking at the future and trying to figure out how to protect against pain in the future in my business, in my life. And most people who are really good at future, they're looking at how to make money. And I'm looking at how can I protect myself against future pain and still stay in business. So I'm probably doing that wrong.

Well, you're making it up as you go along, that's for sure.

Oh, yeah.

That's what we do. Josh Latimer, our friend, said, being an entrepreneur is jumping out of a plane and building a plane on the way down or something.

Parachute. Parachute on the way down.

Anyway, I always said, well, that's good for you. But me, here's my entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah.

Jumping out of an airplane and building a piano on the way down.

Same.

It's crazy, crazy life, you know?

It is. Yeah. This has helped me in our business therapy way to help me to be a little more thoughtful. I will say that I am working on my. Like, I usually have an ideal schedule that I like to run off of as much as possible. That leaves space for me to be like, it's like, melody, you have to go outside. It's like forcing me. And I haven't had that for a couple of months because of the travel.

So I was literally working on that today with this assistant and I haven't, like, been able to enjoy that. So by next week, I bet you my life is going to look very different.

And I bet the week after that it looks very different, too.

Yeah. And then I'll be happy and peaceful and everything will be perfect.

You know what? We said it last time. I'm going to say it one more time. Happiness is not something we chase into the future. It's something we catch right now.

Contentment.

Yeah. Happiness, Contentment, joy. Like, these are things that you can't say will happen. Like, if this happens, then I will. It's never worked for me.

That's true.

This last week, I've been thinking about that so much.

Yeah.

And I wish there was someone who writes quote books that would just quote me on this because. Or maybe actually someone already said this and I'm not the first. But if you are trying to chase that in the future, it just sucks because it's a slog that you never get to the finish line.

Nobody's ever said that before. Nobody's ever said, if you Chase it. It sucks.

The saying I would like to be quoted, if this is legitimately my quote, which I hope it is, is that happiness is not something that we chase for. It's something we have to catch. Everybody. We catch it at the moment. Yeah.

Because the presence is a gift. Oh. The first time I heard it, I was like, wow, so profound. And now it's on pillows, so it's not profound anymore.

Yeah.

You know what? This has been something. It's been a conversation I think we need to understand.

Just give it a name. You know, sometimes when you're like. Like, I don't know what I'm feeling right now. Like, sometimes you just need to name it, and then that kind of takes the air out of the sales and, like, kind of cools it down a little bit. Fact is, is that maybe other people feel the same way as us. Maybe they don't. Fact is, if you do feel the way we do, then at least you know that there's other people out there who are just wondering the same things that you are.

What are we going to do about it, guys?

Yeah.

What are we going to do?

I'm going to try and move with the crowd in the best, most like, intentional way that I possibly can. I know we talk a lot about spirituality, too. If I fall off the edge of the cliff, I'm at peace. I'm doing the best I can, and I know I am.

And if I fall off the edge of the cliff, I may or may not be at peace, depending.

I'll hold your hand as you fall.

Oh, that's nice. Thank you. Let's not do that, though.

No, we won't. But you know what? If you go over with your friends, it's a lot better than going off by yourself.

But if your friends jump off a cliff. Are you my mom?

Use that one all the time? Yeah. All your friends are jumping off a cliff.

Would you do that, too?

There's a snake. It would have bit you.

Yeah.

You'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to you.

Yep. Here's the last thing I'll say. As we've been talking about this, I've been in a moment. My brain has been locked in. Into this one moment that. That I came into. And my life is not the moment, though. Like, I went to hang out with the baby for two hours this morning, and we went for a walk outside.

And, like, I forget that I do more things than just the computer, but I feel like I just do computer, you know? And I guess I have to Just pay better attention and be present in the moment, which is a gift. I'm going to get it.

That is so. That is so profound. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, I made it up.

Well, I just want to say we love y'. All. It's a wonderful battle to be fighting as entrepreneurs. It's a wonderful battle to be fighting for those of you that have families, friends, and there aren't necessarily any right answers out there. But, man, it's good to talk to other people who are doing the best they can and trying to be as intentional as they can be. So, Melody, I love talking to you about it. And yeah, put in another good, solid, hard week with integrity.

Yes, I agree. Okay, let's do it.

All right, see you guys. Thanks, everybody, for joining us at the Sole Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews and it gives us the opportunity to get the word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website and maybe share some topics or ideas of other people that you'd like to hear on the podcast, feel free to go to solep proprietor podcast.com and share with us your thoughts and ideas about what we could do in the future to bring even more light into the world.