Your Brain Called. It Wants Its Job Back

You already know AI is everywhere right now — but here’s what no one’s really saying:

When business owners start outsourcing their thinking to AI, their actual ideas suffer.

In this episode, I’m calling out the creative atrophy that happens when you stop flexing your own brainpower. Think about it: we’ve already outsourced our memory to Google Maps and our friends’ birthdays to Facebook. But your IDEAS? That’s your last line of defense as a thought leader.

I share:

• Why defaulting to AI before you think is a dangerous game
• The difference between using AI to support vs. sabotage your creativity
• What Socrates warned us about (that’s actually still true)
• The real reason your content might feel a little… off

If you’re in the business of ideas — speaking, teaching, coaching, or leading — you can’t afford to lose your creative edge. This episode will help you reclaim it.

🎧 Listen now and let your brain do what it was built to do: THINK.

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

https://heathersager.com/episode245

P.S. If you're tired of AI making everyone sound the same and want to develop your own unique voice and message — that’s exactly what I help people do. Check out my Spotlight Session if you want to work on your speaking topics.  Fair warning: I’m not the cheapest, but I’m damn good at what I do. 😉

Transcript

Heather (00:11)

Well, what up friend? I am so happy to be here today. I hope you are too. Welcome back to another episode of the Ramble refinery. I'm your host Heather Sager and we're digging in to a topic that everyone is talking about. And honestly, I didn't want to record another episode about AI because I gotta be honest, it's...

starting to get a little annoying and exhausting to read hooks and headlines and everybody and their mom is talking about AI and it's just a little redundant. Not a lot of new information brought to the party, but I want to talk about it from a really specific...

angle today. And hang on, I'm pulling up my notes here on my phone. Let me just set the scene real quick. I am in a baseball cap, in a hoodie. I am ⁓ on vacation right now. My house is quiet. We're actually doing a staycation this week at a resort about, I don't know, 20 minutes away from our house. It's the same resort that we came to every year since my oldest was born. So now this would be our 11th summer.

And it's the reason why we moved to Bend. It was doing that trip every single year that got us dreaming and imagining, but what if we lived in the high desert? Like what if we were here all the time? And it was that little wonder that led us to Bend. It's also the exact same place that I had the idea to start my business back in 2017 and 2018 when I was pregnant and then had my second baby.

I remember that summer pushing that baby in the stroller with Owen on his Strider bike. We were walking all over the property in the heat. And I just remember talking over and over again to my husband around the business idea. And at that point in time in 2018, I was trying to figure out which direction I was going to go in my business. Ironically, neither of them was speaking. I don't know that I've ever actually told this before. The two different business ideas that I had were one,

I really was passionate about, this is kind of embarrassing. I was really passionate about my personal goal setting process. I have this thing that I do where I call it my ⁓ yearly five, where how I set goals, I pick my five specific goals each year and I put all my time and attention into just those five goals and every year I accomplish those five goals. So I wanted to go into personal development to share what I had learned in my personal development journey for the

15, 20 years prior and my goal setting process was going to be a pinnacle of that. So I thought I was gonna create a course, a program or something around my goal setting process. But then I'm like, oh man, that's so fluffy. I don't know, that just feels harder to sell. So the other thing that I wanted to sell, which is a big part of what I've been teaching on stage for the previous 10 years and that was around customer experience. So as you probably know, cause I've rambled on this many, many times before starting my business.

I was the vice president of learning development for a management firm in healthcare where my team led the training for private practice doctors all over North America. And we specifically trained on the patient experience process. So from how to answer the phone to how to treat the patients when they come in the office to the entire consultation process with the audiologist or the hearing aid dispenser to teach them how to have the conversation and then pitch hearing aids, right? How to sell hearing aids, which...

was a whole journey on its own. And then the follow-up care, and then how do you actually retain those customers to keep them as a patient for life? That was the name of the flagship program that my team and I trained. Anyways, the whole thing was based around customer service. So was passionate about that. And the more that I started looking online around who else taught customer service, the more that I saw it was these huge ass companies that had these tech solutions for companies for customer service. And I got really intimidated thinking,

Who am I? Like, what do I have to bring on this topic? I've been working with these like small businesses. Like I don't have big business experience. And so I talked myself out of doing it. And then I don't remember how, I don't even know how I landed on speaking. I have no idea how I landed on that. I just knew it was something that I knew how to do well. I had been teaching it to my team for years. I had built an entire internal.

program around speaking for employees since it was a huge part of our company. Anyways, this is a really long tangent, but it all started here on this week of vacation. What was that? Seven years ago, seven years, eight years, whatever, 2018, that's seven years ago. Anyways, so that actually brings up, I think a really good segue into our topic today is those same concerns I had around...

the customer service business, right? Which who knows what that would have even been about. But I think a lot of coaches, course creators, service providers are having a similar WTF. Who am I going to be? Like, how am I gonna stand out? One of the things I hear all the time from clients, in fact, this was just happening last month when I was working with a client on a keynote she did for Amy Porterfield's mastermind event.

And she, as we were prepping for it, one of the things she said almost flippantly as we were walking through it, she's like, I mean, I know this content is good, but I mean, but like, why me? Like what makes this different coming from me than anyone else? And of course we handled that and she had her own unique stories and her own unique twist on it. But even some of the most successful entrepreneurs have these moments of thinking.

But honestly, like why would someone listen to me when that content already exists online or there's dozens or hundreds or thousands of people who do what I do, the content already exists online. And it is this, I wouldn't even say it's an illogical fear. I think it's a very rational question that we all ask. Who am I to do this? And let's just little side tangent here. The big like,

egotistical typically middle-aged white men who have the confidence of a horse. I don't know why that was the metaphor that popped into my mind. They're not asking the question, who am I to do this? They're just doing that, right? This is something that we share a lot of times as women, we have a lot of insecurities around the who am I to do this? And right now it's rearing its head quite a bit when it comes to AI. So ironically, I used AI to help me brainstorm a couple of questions.

that people are having some rational or irrational fears that people have and are asking around AI right now. And here's some of the chatter that came back. Question number one, will AI replace me? Wondering if clients will still pay for your programs, coaching or intellectual property when AI tools can spit out the answers, templates and strategy in seconds. Question two, why would someone buy my...

DIY course or any kind of course, right? When they can get it from ChachiPT. This fear is driven from the death of digital courses, right? Which side note, let's be honest, people have been talking about the death of digital courses for like a decade, which is there is no death of digital courses. It's just a cycle of information we go through and we say, that's dead. Email marketing is dead. Webinars are dead. Blah, blah, blah. Side note, just so you all know, that is like.

1000 % a marketing tactic. It's a formula. I don't know who started it, whether it was Jeff Walker or the original guy or whatever else. Russell Brunson talks about it. It's this whole idea of pitting the old world versus the new world. You talk about something that people have been doing for years and you talk about why that no longer works and why it's dead. And then you juxtapose it to your solution. So your solution looks great. So that is 100 % why people say

webinars are dead, what you need instead is this, email is dead, what you need instead is this, lives are dead, what you need instead is this. Like it's not that those things are dead, they're just discrediting them to give you their solution. So let's just be honest here, that whole idea of like courses are dead, it's a marketing narrative that serves a very specific solution. Question number three, people are wondering is I don't know how to use AI without sounding like everyone else.

So I know this is one that I'm hearing a lot, especially with my clients as we're talking about leveraging AI to help create content. You get afraid that your voice is going to sound like everyone else. I don't know about you, but I certainly, when I'm reading newsletters that I get, I get, I'm signed up for quite a few newsletters, although I've been doing a purge and unsubscribing to a lot. So I know if you, if I follow you and I've unsubscribed, please don't take offense to that. I'm just.

clearing out the digital clutter of my life so I have less things to consume. But anyways, a lot of people are like, am I gonna sound like everyone else? And we have to watch for it, right? So back to what I was saying, I read newsletters and I'll actually see AI patterns in it. One of the tells right now for me, it isn't, I don't know, a lot of people on threads were complaining about dashes and how dashes scream AI and.

I'm from the camp that I've been using dashes my entire writing career. I love a good dash. I also love a good ellipses, you know, the dot dot dot. I don't know technically how to use either, but I use them all the time in my writing when I need to like, I want you to pause when you read what I'm saying. that's a weird confession. I don't actually know how to use some of those punctuations in grammar. just do what I, for me, writing's a little bit more about feeling versus around rules. So if you are a

a trained writer, sorry, a cringe. Anyways, but I'll see. One of the ones that I see right now is, this is the one that's nails on a chalkboard for me, is it's like the, what I say, it's like, not this, not that, just this other thing. So it's like, not hustle, not grind, just ease. That line, the not and the just, is like screams to me.

AI and I have to tell you, saw it in like 12 newsletters in the last couple of weeks and I just, it's a weird thing for me. It's like a cringey thing that I'm very sensitive to right now. Anyways, one of the fear, going back to the question, I don't know how to use AI without sounding like everyone else. There is this fear that if you use it, you will be quote unquote found out for using it. You're cheating. ⁓ You sound like everyone else.

It's just gonna blend in like how do you make it sound good while still sounding like you so right? It's not necessarily a fear of AI, but it's a confusion around. How do you actually tap into the tool? Number four if I don't use AI I'll get left behind this one I Valid like I very much valid right how many of you are sitting here going people keep talking about AI Heather I don't even want to listen to this episode because I'm so sick of hearing about AI and I'm I'm dinking like around with it, but I haven't

fully figured out how to use it in my business. I'm still dicking around with the tool, right? I haven't actually figured it out and I'm definitely not using it intentionally or in any kind of way that I see other people talking about building bots and tools in their programs and using it to streamline their podcast show notes and all those things sound great, but I haven't had Tom to figure that out. So therefore I feel left behind. Number five, if my audiences uses, this one's good. If my audience uses AI to create their own content,

Do they even need me? So this one comes out of fear of if you actually give someone your framework, your method, if you teach them to it inside their program, what's gonna stop them from taking that and then using AI, they won't need you anymore, right? Like they're not gonna come to your office hours or they're not gonna buy your backend coaching program or whatever else because they have what they need and now they're gonna go use your little AI Bobby, right? Whatever fear that is.

As I listened to all of these fears, and this is probably not even all the questions, right? You probably have some other additional thoughts around AI as I shared for the last couple of weeks, my frustration with AI, it's all good on the rabbit hole where it, I get a little tease moment where I get excited. like, Ooh, this is going to be good. And then as I brainstorm back and forth, I end up down a rabbit hole. And I find myself actually wasting more time using AI because I start taking all these side tangent trails.

exploring ideas and then I'm like, wait, what the F was I working on? And crap, it's still not done yet. So anyways, these are concerns, questions that, and maybe you're listening to this going, I have no problem. I'm like rocking it with AI. This episode is not for you. If you're like rocking it and you're like totally excited about the future AI, I didn't record this episode for you today. This is for my AI curious folks who are still trying to wrap their head around it, but deep down wondering is this...

going to F up things in my business. Because the real, I think through line between all of these questions and concerns is the question we're all asking is how does this impact me? Which sounds really selfish to say, but that is literally the question that we are all asking all the time. In fact, one of the old school training acronyms that I like totally cringe at.

that like old dudes who are traitors, sorry, I'm really ragging on the old dudes today, but ⁓ they make the joke around the key to engaging with your training group is you have to tune in to WIIFM, What's In It For Me Radio. And they think they're really clever because they think they're like referencing a radio show, but WIIFM.

What's in it for me? It's the station we're all tuned into all the time. I have no idea who originally came up with that acronym, but I think it's the worst dad joke. And I love dad jokes, but I won't use that one. But it's the what's in it for me. We're always thinking that even though I know we care about our audiences, right? We care about helping other people. It's the whole idea, put on your own face mask before applying it to other people. We all focus on what about me first.

It's biological, it's how we're wired. Of course we think about that. And side note, you can go back a couple episodes where I talk about the whim technique, right? Of how do you actually frame your ideas in a way that it actually answers that question for your audience. So go back, I think it's two episodes, W-I-M, it's the whim technique. But let's go back to this. So I think the through line, when we think about AI, how is this impacting me? I truly think...

the deep rooted fear that anyone who feels uncomfortable with AI, the true fear that we're having as experts, as course creators, as thought leaders around this is the fear of no longer being relevant or needed. That's the true root fear that all of these questions are coming down to is what if I'm no longer relevant?

What if my content is no longer relevant? What if my program is no longer relevant? What if my ideas are no longer relevant? What if my podcast is no longer relevant? What if it's no longer needed? Because, dot, dot, because people can find that information on AI, because people have access to bots where they can plug in the prompts, or they can plug in the whatever and then customize it. There's a lot of hypotheticals, but it comes down to this idea of what if I'm no longer needed? And that human...

need to be wanted and accepted, it is a force. It is a total force. mean, we're as humans, we're wired to connect with other people. So if the idea of how we make money, how we do business, our quote unquote worth as a business in the world is threatened, it's no wonder that we then start

trying to figure out, what am I gonna do when we start making decisions and trying ideas based off of panic and fear and not from intentional strategy that works for our ideal clients and for ourselves. So that whole idea around the simple question is, will AI replace us? I'm gonna be honest with you. AI is gonna replace a lot of quote unquote experts.

in your industry, in any industry. Are they gonna replace you? No, don't think so. But let's talk about what I mean by the idea that AI is going to replace you. So the idea of technology coming into an industry to take over some things is not new. In fact, I was looking up some examples of this.

earlier online and an example that was like a big throwback. I didn't know this, but did you know in the 1400s, when it was specifically in the 1440s, when the printing press was invented, people feared that it would ruin the memory, like memories of people, like it would ruin people's brain, it would ruin memory, oral tradition, and scholarly rigor. This was the terminology around this.

people feared that by putting information in books, AKA through a printing press, they feared that it was going to ruin people's memory, the oral traditions of telling stories, passing things down from generation, and this idea of like valuing, knowing things and being smart, like that scholarly piece of it. And Nadeva noted that prominent thinkers like Socrates,

He warned around how, about like how writing and publishing these were going to weaken memory. Fascinating, right? This idea that they think about it back in the day, there was no access to information in books. It was literally passed down generation to generation and by people to people. So the idea is when this like printing press arrived, many of these quote unquote elites, these information rich people worried that printing would lead to misinformation, lazy thinking,

or a flood of low quality texts. This is kind of sounding familiar, isn't it? What actually happened though was knowledge became scalable, literacy increased and those who could organize and communicate ideas clearly, AKA authors, ⁓ theologians, that's a fancy word, ⁓ scientists, they became cultural authorities. So the takeaway was the fear was real.

The result though was progress. It elevated great thinkers, not erase them. So there, and there's many more examples of like the industrial resolution, revolution, resolution, revolution. There's these ideas where technology have come in and disrupted. But I thought that one about the printing press was really interesting because what's that? Like in the 1400s, gosh, is that, that's a long ass time ago. But this idea that information, access to information did not exist. It was only preserved

to the most elite. Like information was a rich people problem. Now I bring it into where we're at right now is I see that AI and access to information, whether you're using AI for automation, you're using AI for information, which, just got that one is, I don't know if you've had the experience where AI just spits out things that are absolutely not true. And then if you go, is that true? They're like, actually, no, it's not even true at all. That's why they have the disclaimer on the bottom that you need to fact check anything important.

But anyways, but this idea of access to information, I think this is gonna unlock something amazing for our world. I think having access to information, be able to ask questions back and forth, I think it's only going to help make things more information rich. Now, the problem that we see with the access to information is one, this fear of misinformation that Socrates had around with the printing, right? That's my fear, right?

chat GPT and whatever else I look at my kids, I have a 10 year old and a seven year old and a one and a half year old. And I want to make sure that they truly, truly understand that you cannot believe what you read online. And that's, usually take it with a grain of salt, right? That's easier to teach. But when you go into chat GPT and ask it a question and it literally spits up made up information, that to me is a little terrifying. It's terrifying that my 10 year old could

Granted, my kids don't have access to a computer on their own. So this is not a logical fear, but my 10 year old could hypothetically go online and ask information and then think, oh, well, it must be true. And this side note is a big issue that we've had socially when we think about spreading misinformation on Facebook or on TikTok or on whatever other platform is that people, can literally just post something online, true or not. And then it could take off and spread and you'll have...

like your grandparents thinking that this thing is true, which it never actually happened, but because they saw it posted in media format, it must be true. So all this to say, it's going to become more important than ever for experts to maintain, share their expertise because even though information is available,

that information has to come from somewhere. We have to be able to have true experts who actually know what they're talking about, who have lived experience, who have perspective. Those are the people that we're going to wanna look to and listen to. Because even though someone can go online and look up information, right? It might be a quick, like great example, my sourdough starter, right? I'm gonna go on ChatGPT and ChatGPT teaches me how to feed my starter, how to make sourdough English muffins.

But if I really want to become really good at sourdough, if I wanna make fancy things, or let's say I wanna start selling it, I'm not gonna do that with ChatGPT. I'm gonna go actually find someone who actually knows how to teach and has videos. And I'm actually gonna spend some energy and effort learning how to do it because it's important to me. But like little simple questions, hell yeah, I'm gonna ask me my chatty Clive. I'm gonna ask him and he's gonna answer the question.

What we need to do is release this grip that we have to be the only one who has the answers. This is not new people, right? Access to information is not new. Before all of these conversations with ChatGPT, was like the whole thing was all of this information exists on YouTube, all this information exists on Google. And this was like an objection you had to validate when you were selling your course anyway of why...

If somebody could find all this information on YouTube or Google, why would they hire you? This is the exact same fricking objection, just wearing new clothes. And it's because of this. People don't get results based off of knowing more information. People don't get results based off knowing more information. If that were true, I mean, I would have a six pack right now and be a billionaire because I know a lot of shit because I love to learn.

There's a difference between knowing shit and then using that and applying it to create results in your life. And I think this is where you really have to carve out your role and your claim as the expert that you are. Because if you sit on this identity that I know a lot, therefore I should make a lot of money and be successful, you are in for a rude awakening, my friend, because

Experts who just spew out information, those are the ones who are going to go away. Those are the ones who are going to be run out of business. And this has happened over and over again with industries that have been disrupted. But the experts who actually understand that information is powerful, but what people actually want is transformation, which requires action. And the experts who get

hyper focused on how do I generate, like how do I create action within people? How do I help people get results? How do I help people experience a transformation? And those who geek out around, okay, how do I learn how to teach better? How do I learn how to get people to see things different? How do I learn how to shift people's thinking? How do I learn how to teach skills?

How do I learn how to shepherd people through the messy middle? How do I learn how to get people to believe in themselves? Because number one, your audience isn't lacking information, they're lacking belief. I'm gonna say that again. Your audience isn't lacking information, they are lacking belief. Belief that it's possible, belief that it's possible.

for them belief that you're the one to guide them, whatever that belief looks like and chat GPT or any AI tool is not going to give them any more belief. It might give them proof, but that does not install belief. A good coach can do that. A good speaker can do that. It's not gonna happen in an AI tool. So that's really what I want you leaning into of saying, okay, if information exists,

online, if people could even input their own information and spit out whatever online, like here, a great example. I have absolutely zero concerns or worries around people using ChatGPT to create their signature talk, right? You can go online right now and be like, hey, ChatGPT, help me build a signature talk. And it could spew out something that is, it might even be good. I'm not worried about that being my competitor. And it's because of this. ⁓ First of all,

The message itself that ChachiPT comes up with, even if you influence, at the end of the day, that's not going to be a truly unique message, and it's not going to have truly come from you. Therefore, your conviction when you deliver it, it's going to be mildly flat. I know, I'm being kind of harsh right now.

But the reality is, is when you regurgitate someone else's content, even if you think it's yours because you quote unquote brainstorm a chat GPT, the amount of conviction you have isn't going to be as high as if you were coming up with the information yourself. I'm gonna die on that Hill. I know somebody is gonna argue with me on that, but I am a true believer that if you wanna stand on a stage and say you're a thought leader, you sure as hell better be bringing your own damn thoughts.

If you stand on stage and say, am a thought leader, I am an expert, follow me, and you're regurgitating chat GPT's thoughts or chat GPT reviewing your transcripts and reflecting back to your own thoughts. We need to have a conversation, my dear, because as a thought leader, as someone who you're going to shape people's thinking, if you're literally taking the ideas and experience of your life and in your brain and you are sharing with an audience,

and you are too lazy to come up with your own thoughts and ideas, we have a problem. And the problem is the people that do that, they are going to get booked because they might come up with some sexy hooks and some sexy ideas on face value, it might look and sound good, but they're not gonna get rebooked because audiences don't need more information. No one likes an information overly loaded pack talk.

where someone's like just jamming in, cramming in the information, it feels exhausting after. Even in a moment I'd be like, oh, that was so great, but it doesn't actually do anything beyond the stage. And what organizations are wanting, what event hosts are wanting, what audiences are craving is not just a kick in the pants, not just more information. They actually want things to resonate and move the needle in their lives. And...

those who take the time to actually understand how their ideas ⁓ impact an audience and how to share their ideas in a way that shift perspectives and increase people's beliefs, those are the people who are going to stand out. So going back to it, I'm totally fine if people wanna go to ChatGPT and brainstorm back and forth, but I'm not worried about it because speaking to an audience, actually creating change and transformation, it is a skill and you can't...

outsource the skill to ChatGPT. Now you can use it as a partner. I have very intentional ways that I leverage ChatGPT. Great example. Last year I was facilitating a mastermind retreat in Cabo. So my client, Linda Sadu, I helped her with her signature talk last year and she was hosting a retreat for her ⁓ Mixer Mind, which is her, it's like a mastermind collaboration group that I'm a part of.

and ⁓ she needs some help with the retreat. And I'm like, I can facilitate. So I facilitated the retreat. And as we were going through the themes, I had all the themes down. I'd come up with her, the whole architecture of these are the main three things of the event. And I wanted to come up with a metaphor, a metaphor to overarch the event. So I took to ChatGPT and brainstorm metaphor ideas.

And that metaphor, I had a story I wanna tell about the time I was on the beach with my family, but I needed a metaphor to go with that. So brainstorming a metaphor with ChatGPT to help into the opening of the talk, and then I infused that metaphor throughout the event. Boom, great. Like I don't get bonus points for being creative coming up with my own metaphors. Side note, I am kind of like a metaphor queen and I have an uncanny ability to come up with really weird metaphors. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I'm sure you've experienced many of those moments with me on the show.

But sometimes you gotta ask for help. So getting a metaphor or an example or a great example, me going to ChatGPT today, say I need to go back and find some historical evidence that shows that industries have been disrupted. And that's how I came across the whole idea around the printing press and Socrates. So no, these are not my ideas. I'm not claiming them as my ideas. I'm bringing in kind of outside perspective to validate my ideas and make what I'm talking about even richer and more compelling.

You notice the difference? So I think that the speakers and the educators, thought leaders, course creators, whoever, those who use chat GPT to create their content, I think we're going to see an influx of that. And then they're going to then slowly start fading back. I think a lot of these people online are building, ⁓ what would be the metaphor here? It's like they're building a really beautiful house from the outside, but inside structurally that shit's gonna fall down pretty quickly.

And it's because on the outside, looks like they're cranking out content. It looks like they're successful, but again, it's not really based off the pilter, like the pillars of their own ideas and their own IP and their own knowledge. They're not really building that up. They are, ⁓ in my opinion, creating kind of a facade. Now, I don't know that to be true. That is my gut instinct, but it feels like a lot of people are hyping up how successful they are, but I think, I don't think they are as successful as they are claiming to be. So I totally...

probably eat my own words on that later, but that's how it definitely appears from the outside. Anyways, all that to say,

AI isn't going anywhere, but technology disruptions are not new. here's what I would, if I were in your shoes, here's what I would be thinking. One, what skills am I working on right now that help me connect with my audience and elevate their belief in their ability to get the results they want relevant to your topic? Like what skills

Can I be helping them or what skills do I need to be developing in order for me to fully support them? Now, I'm a big fan of that skill is persuasive speaking. That skill is the ability to coach. That skill is the ability to sell seamlessly. That skill is the ability to tell stories. Those are all skills in my opinion. Coincidentally, I teach all those skills. So stick around friend, we'll address these and I have a.

bajillion podcast episodes that can help you with many of these. But what I would start doing is doubling down on stop trying to do transactions in your business. And I don't mean like sales transactions. I mean cranking out tasks on your to-do list. You have so many tasks that you're trying to tackle every single week. And you're probably asking, how can I use AI to farm out those tasks? Which is fine. Take the actual task tasks and get those off your plate. Automate, delegate, whatever you gotta do. But what I would start asking is saying,

What skills can I improve on that make everything easier? Great example, the skill of writing, the skill of speaking, the skill of storytelling, the skill of selling. These are skills that have a ripple effect and you use in a lot of different areas of your business. The better you get at these skills, the better you're going to be positioned to help audiences with the transformation that they desire.

the better you're gonna get at moving away from content dumps and into these transformation rich sessions. I probably should have a better way to phrase that, but whatever, you're following, right? I want you to really focus on that. The seconds of skills, number one. Number two, I really want you focusing on sharing your perspective through story.

Now, stories, it's one of these things that's been around forever. Everyone's talking about, more stories. It's like this glorified thing. But we also have all been on the receiving end of somebody yammering and telling stories and going like, what are we even, it feels like a waste of time. Just because you've experienced people telling fluffy stories that feel like a waste of time does not mean that stories don't work. It just means that they were not effective or strategic storytellers. I want you to get better at telling stories because the thing that AI can't do

is it doesn't know how to connect. Even if you use AI to tell stories, you, every story, doesn't matter the formula that I've given to AI, every story that AI has pumped out, it's shitty. It's shitty. It's not how to tell a good story. So you can use it again for metaphors. You can even help it say the story faster, but it misses the mark. What I notice is the stories,

It reports a lot of facts. It's more of like, dear journal, here's what happened today. And it's like a reporting of the facts or the events. That's not a really good story. That's a shitty story. A story is about a moment in time where you connect emotionally and pull your audience in where they see themselves through your story. You have to get better at telling stories because that's the thing that really truly connects with people. You've heard before people make decisions based off emotion, not based off logic. Yet most of the educators that I work with, they wanna like...

prove it to people why what they do matters. They wanna prove it to people why they're relevant, why this content's relevant to them, why they should buy this, why they should do this, like proof, proof, proof, proof. And proof is a piece of it, but that emotional resonance to increase someone's belief, that's done through story. That's done through story. And this is a huge area of opportunity for the majority of the business owners I work with is taking the time to one,

understand what stories you could be telling and two, start practicing the story. The problem is most of you are being too precious with your stories. You think you have to have this big sweeping life story. Like you hear the story when I talk about my hearing loss or when my mom died when I was little or the story of my traumatic birth experience with my third son in the NICU. Like you think, I don't have any big ass stories like that. Well, but the like little story, like how I was talking about how I come here.

to bend, I come here from Bend every summer. I started today's episode with little stories. I've been infusing little stories throughout the episode. Little micro stories around your day. Little micro stories of something that you've observed with others. Even what I talked about with Socrates in that example, that was a story. was what I call a borrowed story from another source. Sight, sight, you're borrowing a story, right? Don't claim it as your own. But there's different ways that you can use stories. But what I really want from you is I want you to make an intentional effort to start

telling more stories because your lived experience shapes your perspective and it's how you connect with your audiences. So skills, stories. Those are the things I want you to focus on. Number three, I really want you to focus on strategy. You need to start asking yourself some deeper questions around what sets you apart from AI? What sets you apart as that thought leader? Really, what is that thing that is making you relevant and needed? What is a unique thing that you do?

And then the question around strategy is like, okay, so how do I connect with people in that way? So strategy is a word a lot of people throw out all the time. You got to think about there's different strategies that you can apply in your business model. There's different strategies you can apply in your traffic strategy, in your marketing strategy, in your speaking strategy. Obviously I helped you with that last one. But I want you to start thinking more strategic, said differently, more intentionally.

instead of just doing a lot of things to try to keep up with the Joneses, instead of going, I should get a chat bot in my course. Ooh, I should automate things. I should give people prompts. You need to pause and ask the question, is that truly what your audience needs? Or are you reacting based off the fear of no longer being needed or relevant? The fear of not keeping up with the AI Joneses. You need to ask those questions. So I want you to be intentional and strategic. So skills, story, strategy.

These are things that I want you focused on. These are things that we talk about all the time on the show, but AI is not going anywhere. I think the hype around it is going to die down eventually. It is the new thing that every, it's not really new, but it is the hype thing, right? Every industry, have their moments where they glob onto something. And it's just like back when I was teaching audiologists, the big hype was they were really, really upset around Costco's and Big Box coming in with hearing aids.

There's a big hoopla around that. So we had to talk about how the big rocks to disruption, right? It is gonna pull a piece of the market share, but it's probably gonna pull a piece of the market share for people who were never gonna buy from these high-end private practices anyway. Let me actually just make this point here real quick, cause I went over that really quick. Back when I was working with audiologists, these were private practices all around the country. Some of them took insurance, some of them were private pay. So these were, let's say like higher-end boutique style private practices.

And every once in a while they get really freaked out that, my gosh, a Costco open and Costco has a hearing aid dispensary in it and people are buying cheapy cheapy hearing aids from Costco. And it was thought to say like, is it even the exact same model? But there were a couple of things that were different, right? A lot of times Costco employees weren't really trained to fit the hearing aids appropriately for the patient. So even if they had really good technology, it wasn't that they were gonna work very well. So you like pay cheap, you kind of get cheap experience, right?

versus the higher end doctors, right? They actually took the time to use technology and instruments and specific protocols to ensure the technology was fit, adjusted appropriately into that patient's lifestyle. And they had a follow-up process to make sure that they acclimated. And they had programs to help them retrain their brains to get acclimated to the new technology so it actually worked. So they actually not just had the technology, they got the successful result of hearing better and being part of their lives.

Can you see the parallel that I'm drawing here? So what happened was there was this high-end boutique experience that a higher-end boutique-style patient would pay for. And when you think about the whole pie of the industry of people with hearing loss like me, I have a hearing loss, I wear hearing aids, there are gonna be different buying times, right? Of course, you're gonna have the people who are just never gonna buy it and they're just gonna deal with it. Then you have the people who are like, I'm gonna buy it, but I'm gonna buy it as cheap as possible.

Then you have the people who are like, I wanna buy kind of somewhere in the middle and they're kind of shopping and they're kind of weighing the pros and cons between which direction should I go? And then you have the people who are like, I'm not even exploring the cheap, I want the best. This is every fricking industry. And what happens is when disruption happens, it just creates this more intentional buyer. And if you are a higher end service based provider or a coach or like me, like I'm not a cheap speaking coach. You can go probably online and find a speaking coach for like $50 an hour.

You could do that. Totally great. I, when I'm working with someone to book me for a 90 minute session, it's $2,000. I am not inexpensive, but I also am trained very specifically for a business owner of how to use your voice to get results in your industry. I'm trained in a very specific way. So I'm very confident in my pricing and very confident in my expertise. I'm also very confident in knowing that I'm not going to serve every single buyer who's interested in speaking.

Case in point, last week, someone slid into my DMs on Instagram and on LinkedIn. I got the same message within probably the span of a couple hours. They came across me on YouTube. They came across the episode where I interviewed Kim Kiel and I did a live coaching session to help her develop her speaking topics. This person then emailed me and said, hey, I would like to book that same session. How do I go about that? So I sent them the link to my spotlight session, which is a 90 minute session.

comes with one week of Voxer and it's $2,000. I sell multiple of these each month. It's the cheapest way to work with me one-on-one. It's a quick hit session. It's no like ongoing coaching program. Like by normal one-on-one coaching, it's three grand a month, a minimum of three months. So this is a much more affordable way, but it's a very like quick punch. And I have great success for my clients who book these spotlight sessions. So this person, sent them that and they replied back and say, ⁓ I was actually hoping you'd spend only about a thousand dollars.

I'll just keep looking. And while I could have responded and tried to like validate my prices and whatever else, I'm not for them, right? This person found me on YouTube. They're not even on my email list. They didn't even like fill out my book a call form on my website or book a, or apply to work with me for my website. They literally just DM me asking for this. So for me, I could get all up in my head being like, my gosh, I'm too expensive. Or just this is not my buyer.

Right? They're looking for a more affordable solution. Now, if they would like my solution in my brain, they're gonna pay the higher price. But the point around all of this, coming back to AI, what AI is going to do, it's going to serve a different kind of buyer. It's gonna be the buyer who wasn't gonna buy anyways. It's gonna be the buyer who's looking for the cheapest free option, or it's gonna be the people in the middle who are kinda like, ⁓ I'm not entirely sure, but they're not really fully in.

And that's where I'm not necessarily worried that AI is gonna replace us. It's just going to take those other people that weren't gonna buy anyway and give them a solution to get in. And then who knows, maybe those people will get in and then start looking for a more advanced solution. So case in point, back to the audiologists, the fear that they had around Costco taking over, what often happened is patients would go to Costco and have a mediocre or terrible experience. And then they would go to the private practice doctors.

and say, I had this terrible experience, please help me. And then they would become patients of that practice. So all this to say, AI, don't get distracted by it. Don't freak out by it. It's another disruptive tool that happens all the time with industries. You have to start asking the questions. How am I gonna use it intentionally?

but how am I not going to sacrifice the quality of my work and the quality of my own thinking and leading with my ideas, which you need if you're gonna stand out as a thought leader and really become known as a thought leader in your specific industry, you cannot compromise and outsource your own thinking. You better stand on your own two legs, you better stand on your own thoughts and you better start developing those muscles because just like Socrates fear around how books...

We're going to make people like lose their memory. I think AI is going to make people go dumb dumb when it comes to creating content. I think people are gonna be staring at a blank page and be like, I don't even know what to say, what do I do? And then go to AI and generate ideas. And then they're gonna be in a loop of not their ideas. And then they're gonna go down the rabbit hole of questioning whether or not they're like have anything to say. Who's gonna listen to me? Well, if you're getting your ideas from ChatRBT, I'm gonna ask that question. Who's gonna listen to you because there are no ideas in the first place.

So you need to preserve that idea muscle that you have. You need to push yourself to continually to update those ideas, challenge yourself before you type a question in chat GPT, ask yourself the question and give yourself space to come up with some answers before you then go to chat GPT. Do not let your brain muscle of being creative and provoking your own thinking and trying to problem solve. Do not farm that out because if you don't use it, you will fricking lose it.

And that I think is going to be the regret that so many course creators and experts have a few years from now, even six months from now, is they're going to realize just like when Google Maps and Apple Maps came on the scene, you know how this goes, right? How you used to know how to get everywhere in your neighborhood or you moved to a new town and you like would figure out the lay of the land. But now you pop your phone up on your dashboard and you turn on the maps and you have it up all the time. Just for the, is it busy?

just for the, what's the fastest route, just for the drive time. I'm saying this from experience, cause this is how I operate, but I really would have to work hard to figure out how to get on the other side of bend right now, because I don't have that in my brain. I don't have to think, I don't have to memorize, I just like phone numbers. I don't know them because I don't physically need to know them because they're available to me.

You track it with what I'm saying here. You don't know phone numbers anymore. You don't really know directions anymore because you've outsourced that thinking to a smartphone, which is totally fine. But what I don't want you doing is outsourcing your own thinking around your expert topic to chat GPT because you will lose that brain like muscle, if you will. I don't want you to sacrifice that. So even as you use AI, even as you lean on AI, please, please, please be highly cognizant.

of how you're using AI because as an expert, as a thought leader, you have to protect your thinking. Okay, friend, that was a rant. I gotta go ⁓ back to my vacation. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I really would love to hear from you. What's your relationship with AI? How are you using it? What, like, have you experienced any things that we talk about or we talked about today? What resonated the most?

I really do enjoy hearing from you. So shoot me a DM over on Instagram. I'm at the Heather Sager and hey, I'll see you on next week's episode. Bye friend.