October 3, 2025 • 27 mins
Can climbing a mountain, trekking across the globe, or even saying yes to something new shift the entire trajectory of your life?
In this episode of That Will Nevr Work, Maurice Chism speaks with Jon Stamell, a lifelong adventurer and leadership thinker, about how personal adventures—big or small—can reshape your mindset, unlock clarity, and redefine success. Jon shares his own stories of challenge and discovery, and unpacks how those moments outside the boardroom have helped him make smarter, braver choices inside it.
If you've ever felt stuck in a routine or disconnected from purpose, this conversation invites you to step out, reflect, and maybe even plan your own leap into the unknown.
🎧 Tune in and explore how your next adventure could be the key to your next breakthrough.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stamell/
https://oomiji.ai/
Resources:
In this episode of That Will Nevr Work, Maurice Chism speaks with Jon Stamell, a lifelong adventurer and leadership thinker, about how personal adventures—big or small—can reshape your mindset, unlock clarity, and redefine success. Jon shares his own stories of challenge and discovery, and unpacks how those moments outside the boardroom have helped him make smarter, braver choices inside it.
If you've ever felt stuck in a routine or disconnected from purpose, this conversation invites you to step out, reflect, and maybe even plan your own leap into the unknown.
🎧 Tune in and explore how your next adventure could be the key to your next breakthrough.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stamell/
https://oomiji.ai/
Resources:
- Well Why Not Workbook: https://bit.ly/authormauricechism
- Podmatch: https://bit.ly/joinpodmatchwithmaurice
- *FREE* 5 Bold Shifts to help you silence doubt and start moving: https://bit.ly/5boldshifts
- Maurice Chism: https://bit.ly/CoachMaurice
- Website: https://bit.ly/mauricechism
- To be a guest: https://bit.ly/beaguestonthatwillnevrworkpodcast
- Business Email: mchism@chismgroup.net
- Business Address: PO Box 460, Secane, PA 19018
- Spreaker: https://bit.ly/TWNWSpreaker
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you very much for tuning in to that Will
Never Work Podcast. Today, I have a fabulous guest, and
I have a question for y'all. What if your next
big career breakthrough isn't found in a boardroom, but on
a trail, in a risk, or through in an adventure
(00:22):
you never expected. We'll talk about it right after this.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
That Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach
(00:53):
Maurice I.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Thank you very much for tuning in. I thank you
very much for tuning in. Now, thank you very much
for tuning in. And So I have a gentleman who's
prayer to live eight to twenty different life. And so
we're going to talk a little bit about just understanding
individuals and people and how to use those experiences to
(01:17):
grow you your business and just life in general. So, John,
you've lived a life filled with bold experiences. How have
your personal adventures shaped the way you show up in
business and in leadership? That's a good.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Question I think, and first of all, I should take
it's a pleasure to be on your podcast. But also
I always have this view that there are no boundaries
in life, that you can do things that maybe you
never thought you could do. And oftentimes the best thing
to do is, if something seems challenging or forbidding, go
(01:58):
there and do that and see what happens. Now, there
are risks in doing that. I was wash overboard in
the middle of the Atlantic. I had a lifeline attached
to me on a seventy six foot sailboat, and if
I hadn't had the lifeline, I wouldn't be here to
(02:19):
talk to you today. I had a near death experience
when I was younger, falling into a raging river that
ended in a hundred foot waterfall, and I was able
to somehow get myself out of that by jumping from
rock to rock. But I think when you go through
those experiences, as arrowing as they are, you kind of learn. Okay,
(02:44):
I got through that, What did I learn? Well? I
learned I'm pretty I do some stupid things at times,
but I also learned that, you know, I can meet
some challenges. I went to graduate school to learn Mandarin
and that was very challenging, but I found it in
(03:08):
my case if I really apply myself. I think this
is true in most people to the challenge, that you
can meet it. And that later resulted when I had
I started an advertising agency and I didn't see any boundaries,
and I ended up from the small town of Portland, Maine,
(03:32):
doing business in South America, in Asia, in Africa, in California,
which from Maine is a different country.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Basic and.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Then when I moved to New York, basically continued on
that path as well. And today I'm doing some things
that people said that can't be done. So a lot
of that comes from that initial idea that go where
it looks challenging and looks a little scary.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Some of us don't like to look outside the box, John,
because we might not have seen it. You know, we
get caught up and being safe. The things that you're expressed,
we're not seeing. That's the way you feel it, right,
you know, Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And I don't think you know, I'm not saying, well,
you should go and sail on a boat across the
ocean or fall into a raging river, but I think
that you should take on challenges and look at what
you learn about yourself, you know. And a challenge is
that the level of challenge is different for different people too.
(04:45):
It could be something very simple but you just don't
want to do that. It could be going in and
talking to your boss about a raise or something you
want to change in your place of business and thinking
it through. You know, we're now in this world of
the AI. A lot of it may be you know,
AI is going to take away my job. Well, if
(05:06):
it's going to take away your job, learn everything you
can about AI so that you can either defend your
job or learn to do something new.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And when we think about these things of that's outside
of the box, i e. Learning AI again something that
feels foreign, you know. And so we even look at entrepreneurship.
A lot of us go in and we're like, hey,
you know, we're kind of focused, we're laser focused, and
we don't look at anything else, we don't hear anything else,
(05:35):
and we don't always put ourselves in a position to grow,
especially if this is our baby, we're trying to protect it, right,
you know, So how do we get into that position
or that place to say, you know what, maybe I
need to tweak something. Maybe I need to grow here
or expand there because a lot of us seem like
we can't get into that place because we want to again,
(05:58):
like I said, we want to stay safe and we
want to protect what is ours.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
So there's an old story and I can't really give
you the source at the moment, but it's a study
that was done at Stanford Business School many many years ago,
and they looked at students who had a business idea
and they believe they developed it to perfection, and looked
(06:24):
at students that said, I've got a German idea, I'm
going to try it. I'm going to get it out there.
I'm going to get feedback and see what happens. And
they looked five years after what was the case. About
eighty percent of the ones that felt they had the
perfect solution were out of business, and the ones that
were out there just experimenting, testing seeing how people responded
(06:48):
were very successful. Out of my years of owning a
very successful ad agency, I had an idea I had
been carrying along with me, and the basic idea was
companies like to tell their customers what they should be
interested in, but wouldn't we go further in creating a
(07:12):
relationship with customers if we ask them what they're interested
in and then we adapt it. So people say, well,
there's no way you can do that. You can't do it.
And I thought about, well, you know, when you walk
into a retail store, the store clerk asks you questions,
you get answers, and you start to develop a little
(07:34):
relationship there and after a little while, the clerk or
storekeeper knows what you want and can tailor it to
your specific needs. Well, why can't that be done digitally?
So we've developed a process and a methodology to do
that digitally. Okay, now we thought we got the perfect
(07:55):
idea and everything, and we're getting some feedback and getting
clients and AI comes along, so now we start to say, well,
there are some things that we do, could they be
done better with AI? Well, we don't know. So we
started to test them. And now we have three sections
of our platform that are basically run by integrations with AI.
(08:18):
We're adding more. It's not always perfect, but it's pretty good,
and we're learning to refine it, and we're testing. We're
always putting something out there and checking and seeing how
that works. And I think, I think I'm confident will
be successful. And we're getting good feedback and and and
(08:38):
enabling our customers to build relationships of trust with their
customers because they're getting to know them.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So let let's just stay there real quick with AI.
So we view AI as that that little, mean, little
monster in the corner that's going to take everybody's job,
you know, and not understanding that we could use AI
to enhance everyone's position, everyone's job, whether it's doing it
effectively more efficiently maybe, And I use your marketing ad idea,
(09:13):
because sometimes we look at font relationships, color theories, things
like that, you know, those type of things, and so
sometimes we again we get caught up in that again
that focus where AI might be able to just twist
it just a little, maybe put a little sprinkles on it,
you know, or whatever. You know. So I think those
(09:33):
are the type of things that we don't consider that
and we get too caught up in Hey, I don't
want to lose this or I don't want to lose that.
And more especially those people that we love. We hired
these individuals because of what we thought they you know,
brought to the table, and we don't want to replace them.
So how do we know how to integrate that into
our business relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Well, I think, like many things, where what and how
and breaking things down tell you is this really a
threat or is it something that we can use to
enhance and to make things better. And so it's not
a question, you know, are we eliminating jobs. No, I
think we're improving jobs and we're making jobs better and
(10:18):
coming up with new jobs as well. Now, when you
look at the different kinds of things that AI does,
it can write for you. It's not going to take
on your personality. I mean that's one of the things
we have to realize. It has no empathy and it
has no sense of humor. Try asking an AI platform
(10:41):
to tell you a joke. What you get? But if
you say, tell me a joke that's in the style
of David Letterman, and you maybe give it some qualification.
So now it's got more information, it can do some
research and it can come back with something there. So
a lot of is ref finding what you want from
(11:02):
it and also looking at So that's on the writing side.
And I would say if you ever use AI to write,
make sure you read it and you look at how
can I add my personality into it? As well. The
other thing which we use AI a lot for is analysis.
So you can load in all kinds of information of
(11:22):
data and ask it to analyze and it can literally
take tasks that would take you two weeks and do
it in a few minutes. So then, well, how do
I get that kind of a result. Well, that comes
from learning how to write prompts or there's a job
okay writing prompts. And the more specific you can get
(11:45):
with a prompt, the more you learn about how to
ask it to analyze data those kinds of things, the
better your result will be. It is a garbage in,
garbage out proposition, So don't give a garbage and a
lot of learning how to do that, and you only
learn that by experimentation. You know, if you look at
(12:08):
my bookmarks, I probably have twelve different AI platforms that
are booked marked there. There are a couple I use
more than others I got there. I've got two from China,
and I got the ones in the US, and I've
got European one and a couple of others and that
that kind of thing. And I have subscriptions to some
and we have an integration on our platform with one
(12:34):
I'm learning every day how to get better results from it.
And you know, that's what I think people need to do.
I've noticed that what I see on LinkedIn is that
there's this whole new segment of AI consultants and AI trainers.
You don't need that. Start just start getting on a platform,
(12:58):
asking questions the information, asking it to do things, and
you'll learn what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And I really really appreciate you taking a time because
I was coming from those individuals that are a little
more pessimistic about this, right. You know. I had a
bad experience because that's what we're talking about, experiences and
adventures things like that, right you know. And so I
had a bad experience with that, and I hear what
they're going to do, and sometimes we get too caught
(13:25):
up in fear. Fear is leading us, you know, and
so and I really really, I mean really appreciate you
John helping to dispel that a little bit and explaining
how it can enhance us and not hold us back.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, and you know, and I think to that point
of fear, it is eliminating some jobs, but it's it's
it's improving others. We had a we had a task
on our platform where we're providing a client within and
now every quarter of their email performance, of their engagement
(14:06):
with different types of customers, the trends that they're seeing,
the most popular articles, what gets a result, what gets
a response, those kinds of things. It was all done manually,
and that would take about a week for someone to
put together because there's a lot of data. So yesterday
I said, you know, I think what can I do here?
(14:28):
And I with one of the platforms that's great in
making presentations, I bloated in twelve months of data of
emails that had been sent out by this client and said,
give me a presentation that analyzes all of this data.
And I had maybe ten different points that I wanted
for it, and ten minutes later, I had a really
(14:52):
great presentation that needs a couple little out of tweaks,
but it can go right to the client. So now
to the employee that developed that, you don't have to
do that anymore. But I got three or four other
things for you to do.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And I see. I hope anyone that's out there listening
you understand what John just offers, like, like, listen to
that tidbit, especially for those of us that are in
podcasts and you're looking at it for sponsors. It's the
same idea, right, you know, John just gave us the
secret sauce real quick. I hope that y'all heard that.
(15:28):
You know that that is a tool that you can
utilize that will enhance what you're doing. And so in, John,
so in that because we don't feel like our story
is even interesting or whatever it is, even AI can
assist us in putting in the right words in the
right places, make it grammatically correct and certain, you know,
(15:51):
for certain things or whatever else. So I think those
are the type of things that we could use it
for too, to ensure that, hey, yes, I fell off
you know the boat boat you know, wild's canoeing or
whatever it is. You know, but the story doesn't sound right.
But I need to do this presentation. How can I
make it interesting enough, you know, to enhance that. So
I think those are type of things that we can
(16:11):
use AI for that help us to say, hey, our
story is real, is authentic. You just need a few
little points because some people are not playing people. I'm sorry,
some people are not playing paper ideas. They need some
bullet points.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I think the way to think about it is one
of the most vexing problems that I have. How can
I solve that problem? And then what inputs do I
need to help me solve that problem? And so you
make a list of all of the inputs, and so
what data creates those inputs? So now I have that,
(16:48):
and then what would be how would I design a
solution describe that? Okay, upload all of that to one
of the AI platforms, right your prompt? See what you
get back?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So why you gotta make it sound so simple, because
unfortunately sometimes we overthink things, we over complicate things, and John,
you just make it seem like, hey, you know, while
you're sitting there eating your cookies and milk, you can
get this thing done. You know. But when we take
(17:23):
a look at this and now we're implementing this where
I'm sorry, we're bringing this in, we're getting this data,
all that type of stuff. Are we now putting ourselves
in a position to be a thought provoking leader, you know,
one that can help lead the team. You know that
can help out a client, it can help out our
(17:45):
pitch deck, whatever it is. You know that we've now
put ourselves in a position where we don't have to
be fearful that AI is going to take our job. Also,
like you stated as well, AI does not have a personality,
and because of the person that's inputting information, it's going
to take on your personality, not someone else's, you know,
(18:05):
and so you'll still be able to be yourself in
that process as well. I think that's the other thing too.
We feel like we're going to lose ourselves.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
No, I think I think that's right, And I think,
you know, the other thing I would encourage people to
do is to have fun with it. Do stupid things
with you see what comes back. You know, it's like that,
It's like that, tell me the joke kind of thing,
you know. Yesterday, yesterday I was trying to demonstrate one
of the platforms I've been using to create presentations, and
I was looking for one that I had created and
I couldn't find it. And then I said, oh, well,
(18:34):
let's try this, and I gave the instruction I give
me a create a slide presentation on how my dog
ate my homework, And it gave me this seven or
eight slide presentation on why my dog might have eaten
the home my homework, How that happens, what happens when
(18:54):
a dog is pad. I mean, it just thinks that
I would not have fun of and so it was
really fun and and so do those kinds of things.
But don't you know there was you may recall, and
I think I was. I say it's Nike that during
the Olympics they had an ad about a young girl
(19:15):
who was a runner and admired one of the Olympic runners.
And so it was an ad from Google Gemini advising
that your daughter can use the used Gemini to write
the article to the person she admires. Okay, And there
was an uproar. Is that how we want to teach
our kids to write? And I would say no, But
(19:37):
there are better ways to use AI. You can say,
I want you to write your best letter and then
we'll check it and see what AI would do with it.
How would AI make it funny? How would they make
it compassionate, compelling or whatever. So use it to teach
lessons to kids as well, and teach them better grammar also,
So there are all kinds of things that you can
(19:57):
do with it. You know, my kids, my kids who
are now adults, would joke that when they would bring
me a paper to write, or when it was on
the computer. But the joke was basically, if I had
a paper, I would get a red pen in each
in each hand, so I start marking it up and everything.
And so you know, those are tools, but you use
(20:19):
different tools now, and that's that's.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
All it is, right, And I again, I appreciate you
sharing that, you know, because people are really nervous about AI.
They really are, and they and people are really nervous
that their story isn't strong enough to go into business with,
(20:41):
to do a speech with, to even start a podcast with.
You know, it feels like, hey, you know, my voice
is not valuable enough. I don't have value in my life.
And I think these type of things like, hey, here's
my story, how can I help to enhance it? Just AI,
Just you know, give me give me some outline.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's that. You know, that's a really interesting idea. I mean, actually,
and you could you could say you could take the transcripts,
let's say, from your last five podcasts, put them an
AI and say, you know, I'm getting tired between podcasts,
I'm trying to come up with another career. Can you
give me ten suggestions and it will do that, it'll
(21:23):
roll those out now, nither of them might be crazy
or maybe they lead to another idea, but maybe there's
something there. So it's those kinds of almost almost every
day kinds of things where it can help.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You, right, and again that's thinking outside the box. Yeah,
you know. And here's the other thing too, hearing what
you're thinking because I didn't think about that. I didn't,
you know, you know, I'll and I'm gonna be honest
with you. I use AI to get the show notes
from the show right to help me, you know, create
the show notes. So whatever it might be, just like
(21:58):
I have some pointers or whatever it is, you know,
but I never thought about, Hey, you know what, here's
the last five shows, whether it's me by myself or
the people that I've interviewed. And here's the thing, you know,
for those of you who are out there, you can
even ask AI, what is the common theme amongst these
five people that they all share. Right now, I can
(22:19):
tell you from my end, each and every one of
you have overcome a situation that puts you in a
place where you are now. You don't allow that to
pull you back and make you hide behind a rock.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That's right, that's righte You.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Get what I mean, you know, and so I think
that's some of the things that we need to understand
just from a pure human perspective quote unquote, right, So
talk about AI just from a human perspective of Hey,
you know what, all of us we are the same,
we all feel the same, we look the same, you know,
whatever it is. So I think that's a that's a
great idea. I might have to use that though, John,
(22:57):
I think the way.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
To think of it is, here's a tool for me.
How can I use it to achieve more? Right, whether
it's whether it's in business or home with family, whatever,
how can I what are the problems I face and
what would advance my thinking on that problem? It still
comes down to you and how you're going to use.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
It, right, right, John Man? I think you man, You
know you you provide a whole lot of thought provoking ideas,
and you made it so simple. It was just again
just a general conversation, right. You know something that that
those of you who are out there that's listening and
that's going to watch does video. You can do it too.
You're no different from where we are. You can make
(23:38):
it happen, and don't get too caught up in Ai.
That's going to take your whole life away. You'll still
be breathing, trust me.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Now. Now, now let me tell you that my company's
website address is the name of the company is Uniji
oh o am i Ji and the address is dot ai.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So is that legal? Can you use? But no? But
I brought that up because again, people are nervous, right,
They're not sure, they're not sure how they can make
things happen, you know, So again I thank you for
providing that idea, you know, thinking outside the box and
(24:27):
how we can utilize this tool to enhance what we're doing.
I appreciate that though. John, Yeah, you're very welcome, And
of course I was going to ask you to provide
any information how they can get in touch with you,
but you've already done it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You can find me on LinkedIn. It's John stanmil and
S C. A N. E. L. L. And also.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
AI and of course y'all all his information will be
in the show notes. So if you're one of those
people that's out there on the canoe, if you're out
there running a hiking and John, he just so happen.
He showed me where he is and you know, this
beautiful Marina. So if you're out there on the boat
and you're listening, you know, go knock on John's door
and have some tea with him or something, Maria, you know,
(25:13):
But John, I think very much for coming onto the show,
and of course I have to ask you my question though,
before I let you go. Would you rather question? So, John,
thinking outside the box as you have been, would you
rather choose three doors or a forking road? Three doors
or a fork in the road.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The fork in the road?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Why a fork?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Because it's unknown as to what side in either direction,
so something interesting is going to be there. But you
can say the same thing about the three doors. I
don't know what's behind doors one, two, and three, So
I think, to me, either of them present some unknowns
and some possible adventure.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yes, they do. And again you know it's you know,
there's no right or wrong in this situation. You know,
I asked everybody when everybody used their imagination, and there's
no parameters, you know, because sometimes when we look at
these type of things, whether it's a fork or the door,
it's our limitations that we put on that. So I'm
(26:18):
gonna I'll give you an idea that one of the
guests who answered the question right, He said, Maurice, Well,
my door's a glass. I already know what's behind them.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Well, you know, there's that old poem I think by
Robert Frost. I took a walk in the yellow wood
and came across a divided path, and I took the
one that less traveled, and I think that was that.
I think that was That's really what I'm talking about.
You come to a to a fork and a path,
(26:52):
and you see one that's heavily trod and the other one.
Do something down that other one.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Right right, Well, John again, thank you very much. I
appreciate you, Thank you, appreciate you too. You're welcome, You're welcome,
and of course everyone, thank you very much for listening
to that Will Neverwork podcast, and I'll talk to you
just a little bit later.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time. That Will Never Work? Or Will It
Thank you very much for tuning in to that Will
Never Work Podcast. Today, I have a fabulous guest, and
I have a question for y'all. What if your next
big career breakthrough isn't found in a boardroom, but on
a trail, in a risk, or through in an adventure
(00:22):
you never expected. We'll talk about it right after this.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
That Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach
(00:53):
Maurice I.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Thank you very much for tuning in. I thank you
very much for tuning in. Now, thank you very much
for tuning in. And So I have a gentleman who's
prayer to live eight to twenty different life. And so
we're going to talk a little bit about just understanding
individuals and people and how to use those experiences to
(01:17):
grow you your business and just life in general. So, John,
you've lived a life filled with bold experiences. How have
your personal adventures shaped the way you show up in
business and in leadership? That's a good.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Question I think, and first of all, I should take
it's a pleasure to be on your podcast. But also
I always have this view that there are no boundaries
in life, that you can do things that maybe you
never thought you could do. And oftentimes the best thing
to do is, if something seems challenging or forbidding, go
(01:58):
there and do that and see what happens. Now, there
are risks in doing that. I was wash overboard in
the middle of the Atlantic. I had a lifeline attached
to me on a seventy six foot sailboat, and if
I hadn't had the lifeline, I wouldn't be here to
(02:19):
talk to you today. I had a near death experience
when I was younger, falling into a raging river that
ended in a hundred foot waterfall, and I was able
to somehow get myself out of that by jumping from
rock to rock. But I think when you go through
those experiences, as arrowing as they are, you kind of learn. Okay,
(02:44):
I got through that, What did I learn? Well? I
learned I'm pretty I do some stupid things at times,
but I also learned that, you know, I can meet
some challenges. I went to graduate school to learn Mandarin
and that was very challenging, but I found it in
(03:08):
my case if I really apply myself. I think this
is true in most people to the challenge, that you
can meet it. And that later resulted when I had
I started an advertising agency and I didn't see any boundaries,
and I ended up from the small town of Portland, Maine,
(03:32):
doing business in South America, in Asia, in Africa, in California,
which from Maine is a different country.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Basic and.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Then when I moved to New York, basically continued on
that path as well. And today I'm doing some things
that people said that can't be done. So a lot
of that comes from that initial idea that go where
it looks challenging and looks a little scary.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Some of us don't like to look outside the box, John,
because we might not have seen it. You know, we
get caught up and being safe. The things that you're expressed,
we're not seeing. That's the way you feel it, right,
you know, Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And I don't think you know, I'm not saying, well,
you should go and sail on a boat across the
ocean or fall into a raging river, but I think
that you should take on challenges and look at what
you learn about yourself, you know. And a challenge is
that the level of challenge is different for different people too.
(04:45):
It could be something very simple but you just don't
want to do that. It could be going in and
talking to your boss about a raise or something you
want to change in your place of business and thinking
it through. You know, we're now in this world of
the AI. A lot of it may be you know,
AI is going to take away my job. Well, if
(05:06):
it's going to take away your job, learn everything you
can about AI so that you can either defend your
job or learn to do something new.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And when we think about these things of that's outside
of the box, i e. Learning AI again something that
feels foreign, you know. And so we even look at entrepreneurship.
A lot of us go in and we're like, hey,
you know, we're kind of focused, we're laser focused, and
we don't look at anything else, we don't hear anything else,
(05:35):
and we don't always put ourselves in a position to grow,
especially if this is our baby, we're trying to protect it, right,
you know, So how do we get into that position
or that place to say, you know what, maybe I
need to tweak something. Maybe I need to grow here
or expand there because a lot of us seem like
we can't get into that place because we want to again,
(05:58):
like I said, we want to stay safe and we
want to protect what is ours.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
So there's an old story and I can't really give
you the source at the moment, but it's a study
that was done at Stanford Business School many many years ago,
and they looked at students who had a business idea
and they believe they developed it to perfection, and looked
(06:24):
at students that said, I've got a German idea, I'm
going to try it. I'm going to get it out there.
I'm going to get feedback and see what happens. And
they looked five years after what was the case. About
eighty percent of the ones that felt they had the
perfect solution were out of business, and the ones that
were out there just experimenting, testing seeing how people responded
(06:48):
were very successful. Out of my years of owning a
very successful ad agency, I had an idea I had
been carrying along with me, and the basic idea was
companies like to tell their customers what they should be
interested in, but wouldn't we go further in creating a
(07:12):
relationship with customers if we ask them what they're interested
in and then we adapt it. So people say, well,
there's no way you can do that. You can't do it.
And I thought about, well, you know, when you walk
into a retail store, the store clerk asks you questions,
you get answers, and you start to develop a little
(07:34):
relationship there and after a little while, the clerk or
storekeeper knows what you want and can tailor it to
your specific needs. Well, why can't that be done digitally?
So we've developed a process and a methodology to do
that digitally. Okay, now we thought we got the perfect
(07:55):
idea and everything, and we're getting some feedback and getting
clients and AI comes along, so now we start to say, well,
there are some things that we do, could they be
done better with AI? Well, we don't know. So we
started to test them. And now we have three sections
of our platform that are basically run by integrations with AI.
(08:18):
We're adding more. It's not always perfect, but it's pretty good,
and we're learning to refine it, and we're testing. We're
always putting something out there and checking and seeing how
that works. And I think, I think I'm confident will
be successful. And we're getting good feedback and and and
(08:38):
enabling our customers to build relationships of trust with their
customers because they're getting to know them.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So let let's just stay there real quick with AI.
So we view AI as that that little, mean, little
monster in the corner that's going to take everybody's job,
you know, and not understanding that we could use AI
to enhance everyone's position, everyone's job, whether it's doing it
effectively more efficiently maybe, And I use your marketing ad idea,
(09:13):
because sometimes we look at font relationships, color theories, things
like that, you know, those type of things, and so
sometimes we again we get caught up in that again
that focus where AI might be able to just twist
it just a little, maybe put a little sprinkles on it,
you know, or whatever. You know. So I think those
(09:33):
are the type of things that we don't consider that
and we get too caught up in Hey, I don't
want to lose this or I don't want to lose that.
And more especially those people that we love. We hired
these individuals because of what we thought they you know,
brought to the table, and we don't want to replace them.
So how do we know how to integrate that into
our business relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Well, I think, like many things, where what and how
and breaking things down tell you is this really a
threat or is it something that we can use to
enhance and to make things better. And so it's not
a question, you know, are we eliminating jobs. No, I
think we're improving jobs and we're making jobs better and
(10:18):
coming up with new jobs as well. Now, when you
look at the different kinds of things that AI does,
it can write for you. It's not going to take
on your personality. I mean that's one of the things
we have to realize. It has no empathy and it
has no sense of humor. Try asking an AI platform
(10:41):
to tell you a joke. What you get? But if
you say, tell me a joke that's in the style
of David Letterman, and you maybe give it some qualification.
So now it's got more information, it can do some
research and it can come back with something there. So
a lot of is ref finding what you want from
(11:02):
it and also looking at So that's on the writing side.
And I would say if you ever use AI to write,
make sure you read it and you look at how
can I add my personality into it? As well. The
other thing which we use AI a lot for is analysis.
So you can load in all kinds of information of
(11:22):
data and ask it to analyze and it can literally
take tasks that would take you two weeks and do
it in a few minutes. So then, well, how do
I get that kind of a result. Well, that comes
from learning how to write prompts or there's a job
okay writing prompts. And the more specific you can get
(11:45):
with a prompt, the more you learn about how to
ask it to analyze data those kinds of things, the
better your result will be. It is a garbage in,
garbage out proposition, So don't give a garbage and a
lot of learning how to do that, and you only
learn that by experimentation. You know, if you look at
(12:08):
my bookmarks, I probably have twelve different AI platforms that
are booked marked there. There are a couple I use
more than others I got there. I've got two from China,
and I got the ones in the US, and I've
got European one and a couple of others and that
that kind of thing. And I have subscriptions to some
and we have an integration on our platform with one
(12:34):
I'm learning every day how to get better results from it.
And you know, that's what I think people need to do.
I've noticed that what I see on LinkedIn is that
there's this whole new segment of AI consultants and AI trainers.
You don't need that. Start just start getting on a platform,
(12:58):
asking questions the information, asking it to do things, and
you'll learn what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And I really really appreciate you taking a time because
I was coming from those individuals that are a little
more pessimistic about this, right. You know. I had a
bad experience because that's what we're talking about, experiences and
adventures things like that, right you know. And so I
had a bad experience with that, and I hear what
they're going to do, and sometimes we get too caught
(13:25):
up in fear. Fear is leading us, you know, and
so and I really really, I mean really appreciate you
John helping to dispel that a little bit and explaining
how it can enhance us and not hold us back.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, and you know, and I think to that point
of fear, it is eliminating some jobs, but it's it's
it's improving others. We had a we had a task
on our platform where we're providing a client within and
now every quarter of their email performance, of their engagement
(14:06):
with different types of customers, the trends that they're seeing,
the most popular articles, what gets a result, what gets
a response, those kinds of things. It was all done manually,
and that would take about a week for someone to
put together because there's a lot of data. So yesterday
I said, you know, I think what can I do here?
(14:28):
And I with one of the platforms that's great in
making presentations, I bloated in twelve months of data of
emails that had been sent out by this client and said,
give me a presentation that analyzes all of this data.
And I had maybe ten different points that I wanted
for it, and ten minutes later, I had a really
(14:52):
great presentation that needs a couple little out of tweaks,
but it can go right to the client. So now
to the employee that developed that, you don't have to
do that anymore. But I got three or four other
things for you to do.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And I see. I hope anyone that's out there listening
you understand what John just offers, like, like, listen to
that tidbit, especially for those of us that are in
podcasts and you're looking at it for sponsors. It's the
same idea, right, you know, John just gave us the
secret sauce real quick. I hope that y'all heard that.
(15:28):
You know that that is a tool that you can
utilize that will enhance what you're doing. And so in, John,
so in that because we don't feel like our story
is even interesting or whatever it is, even AI can
assist us in putting in the right words in the
right places, make it grammatically correct and certain, you know,
(15:51):
for certain things or whatever else. So I think those
are the type of things that we could use it
for too, to ensure that, hey, yes, I fell off
you know the boat boat you know, wild's canoeing or
whatever it is. You know, but the story doesn't sound right.
But I need to do this presentation. How can I
make it interesting enough, you know, to enhance that. So
I think those are type of things that we can
(16:11):
use AI for that help us to say, hey, our
story is real, is authentic. You just need a few
little points because some people are not playing people. I'm sorry,
some people are not playing paper ideas. They need some
bullet points.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I think the way to think about it is one
of the most vexing problems that I have. How can
I solve that problem? And then what inputs do I
need to help me solve that problem? And so you
make a list of all of the inputs, and so
what data creates those inputs? So now I have that,
(16:48):
and then what would be how would I design a
solution describe that? Okay, upload all of that to one
of the AI platforms, right your prompt? See what you
get back?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So why you gotta make it sound so simple, because
unfortunately sometimes we overthink things, we over complicate things, and John,
you just make it seem like, hey, you know, while
you're sitting there eating your cookies and milk, you can
get this thing done. You know. But when we take
(17:23):
a look at this and now we're implementing this where
I'm sorry, we're bringing this in, we're getting this data,
all that type of stuff. Are we now putting ourselves
in a position to be a thought provoking leader, you know,
one that can help lead the team. You know that
can help out a client, it can help out our
(17:45):
pitch deck, whatever it is. You know that we've now
put ourselves in a position where we don't have to
be fearful that AI is going to take our job. Also,
like you stated as well, AI does not have a personality,
and because of the person that's inputting information, it's going
to take on your personality, not someone else's, you know,
(18:05):
and so you'll still be able to be yourself in
that process as well. I think that's the other thing too.
We feel like we're going to lose ourselves.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
No, I think I think that's right, And I think,
you know, the other thing I would encourage people to
do is to have fun with it. Do stupid things
with you see what comes back. You know, it's like that,
It's like that, tell me the joke kind of thing,
you know. Yesterday, yesterday I was trying to demonstrate one
of the platforms I've been using to create presentations, and
I was looking for one that I had created and
I couldn't find it. And then I said, oh, well,
(18:34):
let's try this, and I gave the instruction I give
me a create a slide presentation on how my dog
ate my homework, And it gave me this seven or
eight slide presentation on why my dog might have eaten
the home my homework, How that happens, what happens when
(18:54):
a dog is pad. I mean, it just thinks that
I would not have fun of and so it was
really fun and and so do those kinds of things.
But don't you know there was you may recall, and
I think I was. I say it's Nike that during
the Olympics they had an ad about a young girl
(19:15):
who was a runner and admired one of the Olympic runners.
And so it was an ad from Google Gemini advising
that your daughter can use the used Gemini to write
the article to the person she admires. Okay, And there
was an uproar. Is that how we want to teach
our kids to write? And I would say no, But
(19:37):
there are better ways to use AI. You can say,
I want you to write your best letter and then
we'll check it and see what AI would do with it.
How would AI make it funny? How would they make
it compassionate, compelling or whatever. So use it to teach
lessons to kids as well, and teach them better grammar also,
So there are all kinds of things that you can
(19:57):
do with it. You know, my kids, my kids who
are now adults, would joke that when they would bring
me a paper to write, or when it was on
the computer. But the joke was basically, if I had
a paper, I would get a red pen in each
in each hand, so I start marking it up and everything.
And so you know, those are tools, but you use
(20:19):
different tools now, and that's that's.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
All it is, right, And I again, I appreciate you
sharing that, you know, because people are really nervous about AI.
They really are, and they and people are really nervous
that their story isn't strong enough to go into business with,
(20:41):
to do a speech with, to even start a podcast with.
You know, it feels like, hey, you know, my voice
is not valuable enough. I don't have value in my life.
And I think these type of things like, hey, here's
my story, how can I help to enhance it? Just AI,
Just you know, give me give me some outline.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's that. You know, that's a really interesting idea. I mean, actually,
and you could you could say you could take the transcripts,
let's say, from your last five podcasts, put them an
AI and say, you know, I'm getting tired between podcasts,
I'm trying to come up with another career. Can you
give me ten suggestions and it will do that, it'll
(21:23):
roll those out now, nither of them might be crazy
or maybe they lead to another idea, but maybe there's
something there. So it's those kinds of almost almost every
day kinds of things where it can help.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You, right, and again that's thinking outside the box. Yeah,
you know. And here's the other thing too, hearing what
you're thinking because I didn't think about that. I didn't,
you know, you know, I'll and I'm gonna be honest
with you. I use AI to get the show notes
from the show right to help me, you know, create
the show notes. So whatever it might be, just like
(21:58):
I have some pointers or whatever it is, you know,
but I never thought about, Hey, you know what, here's
the last five shows, whether it's me by myself or
the people that I've interviewed. And here's the thing, you know,
for those of you who are out there, you can
even ask AI, what is the common theme amongst these
five people that they all share. Right now, I can
(22:19):
tell you from my end, each and every one of
you have overcome a situation that puts you in a
place where you are now. You don't allow that to
pull you back and make you hide behind a rock.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That's right, that's righte You.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Get what I mean, you know, and so I think
that's some of the things that we need to understand
just from a pure human perspective quote unquote, right, So
talk about AI just from a human perspective of Hey,
you know what, all of us we are the same,
we all feel the same, we look the same, you know,
whatever it is. So I think that's a that's a
great idea. I might have to use that though, John,
(22:57):
I think the way.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
To think of it is, here's a tool for me.
How can I use it to achieve more? Right, whether
it's whether it's in business or home with family, whatever,
how can I what are the problems I face and
what would advance my thinking on that problem? It still
comes down to you and how you're going to use.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
It, right, right, John Man? I think you man, You
know you you provide a whole lot of thought provoking ideas,
and you made it so simple. It was just again
just a general conversation, right. You know something that that
those of you who are out there that's listening and
that's going to watch does video. You can do it too.
You're no different from where we are. You can make
(23:38):
it happen, and don't get too caught up in Ai.
That's going to take your whole life away. You'll still
be breathing, trust me.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Now. Now, now let me tell you that my company's
website address is the name of the company is Uniji
oh o am i Ji and the address is dot ai.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So is that legal? Can you use? But no? But
I brought that up because again, people are nervous, right,
They're not sure, they're not sure how they can make
things happen, you know, So again I thank you for
providing that idea, you know, thinking outside the box and
(24:27):
how we can utilize this tool to enhance what we're doing.
I appreciate that though. John, Yeah, you're very welcome, And
of course I was going to ask you to provide
any information how they can get in touch with you,
but you've already done it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You can find me on LinkedIn. It's John stanmil and
S C. A N. E. L. L. And also.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
AI and of course y'all all his information will be
in the show notes. So if you're one of those
people that's out there on the canoe, if you're out
there running a hiking and John, he just so happen.
He showed me where he is and you know, this
beautiful Marina. So if you're out there on the boat
and you're listening, you know, go knock on John's door
and have some tea with him or something, Maria, you know,
(25:13):
But John, I think very much for coming onto the show,
and of course I have to ask you my question though,
before I let you go. Would you rather question? So, John,
thinking outside the box as you have been, would you
rather choose three doors or a forking road? Three doors
or a fork in the road.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The fork in the road?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Why a fork?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Because it's unknown as to what side in either direction,
so something interesting is going to be there. But you
can say the same thing about the three doors. I
don't know what's behind doors one, two, and three, So
I think, to me, either of them present some unknowns
and some possible adventure.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yes, they do. And again you know it's you know,
there's no right or wrong in this situation. You know,
I asked everybody when everybody used their imagination, and there's
no parameters, you know, because sometimes when we look at
these type of things, whether it's a fork or the door,
it's our limitations that we put on that. So I'm
(26:18):
gonna I'll give you an idea that one of the
guests who answered the question right, He said, Maurice, Well,
my door's a glass. I already know what's behind them.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Well, you know, there's that old poem I think by
Robert Frost. I took a walk in the yellow wood
and came across a divided path, and I took the
one that less traveled, and I think that was that.
I think that was That's really what I'm talking about.
You come to a to a fork and a path,
(26:52):
and you see one that's heavily trod and the other one.
Do something down that other one.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Right right, Well, John again, thank you very much. I
appreciate you, Thank you, appreciate you too. You're welcome, You're welcome,
and of course everyone, thank you very much for listening
to that Will Neverwork podcast, and I'll talk to you
just a little bit later.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time. That Will Never Work? Or Will It
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