Technology Leader Warning: How to WIN In An AI World

Terry Brock: They saved the man's life because of AI. the United States Marines say it so well, improvise, adapt, and overcome. didn't know who Jeff was, but Jeff was a at that time president of a little company called Microsoft.

Paul Leon: a three-time TEDx speaker, you're a technology leader, and you run a community of entrepreneurs. Paul Leon, college dropout, who ended up getting an MBA, still developing the skill of AI. Where should my focus be in the next six months for anybody who doesn't know you, Who is Terry Brock to them in the world of technology leadership today?

Terry Brock: I'm a person who works with my clients to help them understand how to deploy AI, how to leverage the daylights out of it, so that they can reach more people building their business in a mutually beneficial way. And so it's not about the technology as much as building relationships and growing business that way.

Paul Leon: I think what's also important to introduce is kind of your background and where you've came from. Because you used to be a blog writer for a very well known space in the technology world. I don't know if you'd want to speak to that as well. 'Cause I thought that was very impressive about you.

Terry Brock: sure, with Skype. They asked me to come on board and help them out on writing, putting some ideas together. I'd been doing some writing about that at that time, it was a few years ago. It was unusual to use Skype for business. It was mainly grandma and grandpa talking to the grandkids, which was great, wonderful. But I said, wait a minute, I bet you could use that in some business things too. And so they did it and they told me, Well, Terry, we've been passing your notes around the world to our various executives. And nobody's doing what you're doing. We were thinking about doing that. Could you come on board and help us out? So I got a chance to work with a great group of people worldwide and doing that. And I enjoyed that a lot. And then later went to work with ATT as the chief enterprise blogger there, doing some editing and s for their main blog that was going out, helping with a lot of really, really smart techie people take that new technology that ATT might come up with. And present it in a way that people can use why they would want to buy it, not just because of all the nuts, bolts, and wiggle pins that are in there, but rather here's the business purpose that it really accomplishes.

Paul Leon: You've seen the evolution of computers, you've seen the evolution of blogging, content marketing. You've seen that, and you've lived that and you've worked with some very strong industry industry leaders, and you've seen some industries go away who didn't keep up with it. I feel like when we talk about AI, there's only two types of opinions I see. One is it's absolutely abysmal and it's going to destroy mankind. The other is this is like the new industrial. Revolution, people are going to get picked up. And I feel like so many people are covering this topic, but very few have your expertise who have seen this evolution. And I'm just curious, top of mind thoughts, where are we in the landscape of AI in terms of just your average person and what is important for that average person? to know about artificial intelligence.

Terry Brock: I think those are two very good questions that business leaders need to think about and need to understand where are we? Well, we're in something that is dramatically changing our world. I know that can sound like hyperbole. It's like, wow, it's a great thing. Well, it really is. It's bigger than the printing press, it's bigger than the internet, it's bigger than all of that stuff. And at the same time, it's got some challenges, and I think too many people focus on the negatives.

Paul Leon: Right.

Terry Brock: We've heard that. We talked about that yesterday in our Stark Raving Entrepreneurs program. People were saying, we're scared that it does this. We ought to stop it now. We ought should stop AI. I think, wait a minute, you're gonna stop that, but are you gonna get the the Russians and the Chinese the others around the world to stop that as well? No. We need to do it, and like any technology, there's some really good sides of it. We're seeing that profoundly, but also there's some scary sides, so we need to know what's there. And not cover our ears up and not say, no, we want to ban it all. We have to embrace it to help people, use it to really help people get the job done and to really literally save lives. We're seeing that in the medical profession. They're finding areas where human beings, really smart, really caring human beings in the medical profession, just couldn't see it because they're, well, they're human beings. But AI, coupled with the knowledge of the medical professionals. Can really help us to see, ooh, what's going on here. We saw that a couple of weeks ago. We were at one of the clubs Gina and I, my partner and I visit, and a person came in who is a medical doctor. He graduated from Harvard Medical School. He was able to talk about what he was doing. I said, Well, how are you using AI now here, doctor? What are you doing? He said, Well, Terry, let me show you. And he reached in, got his phone, and he showed me a picture of what he called a heart. And it was, you know, we didn't study a lot of medicine when I went to business school. But you know, it was there, and I saw that, he goes, This was the heart of a man that came in here. I had six other surgeons looking at this and everything's looked okay. Yet the AI said there's a problem with heavy medical term, heavy medical term, et cetera, et cetera. They looked at it and thought, my goodness, that's right. Actually, I think they said something a little more colorful, but we'll leave it at that. They looked at it, realized the man needed surgery right away. They saved the man's life because of AI. It was able to detect things medically.

Paul Leon: Ha ha ha.

Terry Brock: That even well-trained, well-caring, well-meaning professionals couldn't see. So I think taking the best of AI, combining it with the best of human care and human insight, we're going to be able to achieve the kind of results that we want that really are s changing our world. So we have to embrace it. Well, the for the listeners that are listening to this right now or viewers that are seeing it, this is something you want to embrace. Don't get scared with it any more than people got scared when airplanes first came out. I mean, Paul, when you think about it, you and I both know airplanes are the safest form of transportation today. And yet people still have been killed and lost their lives that way. Tragically so, when we feel for them and their families. But that doesn't mean if there's a crash that we say we're never going to fly in an airplane again. It's too easy to jump to that extreme, I think, in human nature. We have to say, wait a minute, what went wrong? What did we do wrong? What can we do to fix that so it never happens again?

Paul Leon: Right.

Terry Brock: And when we see, hey, there's some good things with this technology, whatever the technology is, we embrace those to see how it's going to help people and in business how to help us to achieve those business goals.

Paul Leon: I I like your example a lot about the surgeon and and in this podcast that's really dedicated to giving new people leaders the leadership tips they need to succeed in their career. Sometimes, Terry, what I have to do is play devil's advocate just in the conversation. I think about that surgeon example, and I I totally understand like that's an incredible story that it Saved a man's life. Six surgeons could not see what the computer caught that little microscopic deep. And in the medical world, I can still see how that in that context makes sense 100%. Because you still need a surgeon's hands afterwards. You probably know where I'm going with this already. I think sometimes where my mind goes to, and I think a lot of People who are average, and I consider myself in that average group as well. I don't think I'm better than anybody, is okay, but what about other industries? what I'm basically trying to say, because you also mentioned your community of entrepreneurs that you host. And I'd like you to speak to that. But what does the average person 101 AI conversation look like? Okay. Is it? You need to just learn how to type prompts into Chat GPT, or is there more there for the average person who's not a doctor, lawyer, etc., that can capitalize on this wave to level up and capitalize on where AI is gonna go? Like what would you say to that average person now?

Terry Brock: Yeah, Paul, I like where you're going with that because that's what really matters. It's how the average person can use this. And the answer is that classic, it depends. For the surgeon that I was talking to, he knows that it relates in medical ways in these specific ways. A week ago I was team speaking to some of the top leaders, CEOs, and C-suite, and about a hundred and fifty of them at a particular meeting were looking at what's going on in their business, very important business. And the industry they're working in is going through some challenges.

Paul Leon: It depends.

Terry Brock: They want to know how AI could help them. AI is a tool that can help from the medical over to many other areas. And I think what we need to do is to realize: okay, this is something we can't just put it away. We can't just say, it's all bad. Don't worry about it. Don't do anything with it. We should just get rid of it and go back to whatever they think we should go back to. We need to embrace it, understand that, like anything, there's good. And there's some negative. I often like to say kind of like my buddy Og. I remember when he came up with this invention a while back called fire back in the cave. And so Og had this thing called fire. Ooh, this is good. It'll heat the place. Yeah, that's good. It'll cook the food for us. Yeah, this is good. but there's po problems too. It could burn everything down. People could die with it. Well, yeah, that's true. And so any technology that we've had all the way back to fire has had pros and cons. I think we've got to do is look at it. With a bit of skepticism, hey, I'm a journalist. As a journalist, you go to journalism school and they teach us how to sit back and go, Yeah, right, uh-huh, sure. I mean, we think that way. But what we've got to do is go beyond that and say, Well, there are some real good points to this. And that here's a benefit. Here's a benefit. Many jobs are being created today that many can say are even better jobs than the people had before. Okay, that's a good thing. People are making more money, they're in a safer environment.

Paul Leon: Right.

Terry Brock: They're doing something they enjoy. That's good when we see that. We also see there are many, literally thousands of people that are being laid off because their job is being replaced. And I know that hurts. And I look at people like back in, I've done a lot of looking history. I love studying history. Look at the people that operated the elevators long, long ago when I was a kid. I remember in Michigan, not too far from where you are now. Michigan, we go to the the store downtown.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: And like the real tall stores there, the real big ones were maybe like eight or nine stories. Woo-hoo, that was a biggie. But we'd get in there and there was a nice person, usually a man, all dressed up in a very nice suit and costume, and he would ask us, which floor do you want to go to? And we would say, We're going to the the toy store. And he goes, that's on floor number three today. One moment. And he'd press the button, we'd go up to floor number three and get out and it was good. And on the way, he might mention nice weather today, or, hey, be sure and ask about this or that. Very friendly person. Those people were laid off. Technology, electricity, took their job. And we don't have people doing that in elevators now. Now we just get on an elevator, push the button ourselves, and there we go. But those people who did that still had the skills of being able to connect with people, to be able to talk to people. They use those skills that they gained from conversing with people, not so much pressing the right button and remembering toys are on floor three

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Terry Brock: But they learn to connect with people. And that's the advantage that we have over any AI. It's the you that you can put in. Paul, you do that very well in your podcast, in what you're doing. You let your personality come out. Let your feeling and the concepts that you have learned as you recently finished your MBA program. Congratulations to you, sir, on getting through that. I know how tough that can be. I haven't gone through myself. And so we know that. Congratulations on what you've done on that.

Paul Leon: Appreciate that. Okay.

Terry Brock: But I think what we do is we want to keep learning, keep growing, and taking a mindset that says, okay, this exists. It's probably not going away. I mean, realistically, any more than the internet's going to go away, or electricity, or elevators that can operate with people just pushing a button. We can't go and say we can have pickets up and down the street. We need to bring back the hotel or the elevator operators. My mother, my mother.

Paul Leon: Right.

Terry Brock: was what w was called a hello girl. Hello girl for the telephone company, where she got on these things, put the headphones on. She would punch these little cords into little slots there in the telephone company. And that's how the telephones worked. Well today, silly we wouldn't do that. We'd take just pick up our phone and we call literally anywhere in the world, done the right way, you have zero charges. A completely different world. Well my mom lost her job.

Paul Leon: Hmm. Yeah.

Terry Brock: to electronics and electricity and those kinds of things, the telephone switching, and many, many others did, predominantly women. Do we now say, no, we need to go back to the telephone switchboard operators? No. We have new technology today. We adapt and adjust to that. And by the way, mom ended up with an even better job after she was laid off there, raising me and my brothers and sisters. So it was a different thing. But we learned what to do.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: How to adjust and adapt. And I think that's the lesson that we can learn to go back to your question. What we have to do is say, okay, this is going to happen. And sometimes people are going to be affected. Their job will be lost to AI. I'll kind of put that in air quotes. But the key is we learn to, as the United States Marines say it so well, improvise, adapt, and overcome. Understand this is what's hitting us. We can cry about it. We can run and hide, but no, no.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: We learn from the Marines that we improvise, adapt and overcome and adjust and wiggle around in it, and learning to be nimble, I think is the real key. I'm so nimble people call me gumby. But I think what we have to do is we have to adjust and adapt to whatever is going on there and make sure that we can solve the problems of that day.

Paul Leon: Yeah. For those who don't know, Gumbi was a clay cartoon back in the day. I understood that reference.

Terry Brock: Yeah, not everyone would. That's right. If you don't understand I used to say we would say Google it, no, not anymore. Chat GPT that, Gemini that, Claude that, and see what's what that is. But Gumby, yeah, that's what we want to think like. And really that is a good example. Gumby would twist around and adapt. And that's what we've got to do, that mental s mindset to say, All right, this is happening. It's not as good. And my stoic friends of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: That I look to and learn from, they say, look, bad things are happening. And when a bad thing happens, you can complain about it. It's not usually going to fix it, as we've seen throughout history. But you can adapt. You can always decide how you're going to address it by learning new skills, by moving over into something else, realizing if I'm going to lose my job as an elevator operator, okay, I don't like that, and I'm going to it's going to be tough. But what skills do I have now? And even more importantly, What skills can I learn that will help me to do even better later on? I think that's the key.

Paul Leon: You're a three-time TEDx speaker, you're a technology leader, and you run a community of entrepreneurs. Talk to me about your community, if I may, just for anybody who's never heard of it. what does that mean to them, the community you run, and how they could learn more about that community? And I'm gonna ask some follow-up questions to connect it back to AI shortly.

Terry Brock: Sure, but thank you for asking. It's a community that what we have, we being Gina Carr, my fiancé and my business partner and I, we put together, and we call it Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. So a little bit cheeky there. We want to get out there, and we help people to figure out what in the world this AI thing is, how they can use it, and particularly what we focus on is a lot of the content creation. How do you write better using AI? Not letting it do the writing for you, but how do you use it? How do you use it for video production, for podcasting? How do you use it for connecting with people with pictures and various ways that people will use it in their own entrepreneurial business? We show them how to do that. And like yesterday we had our regular weekly meeting. People were looking at what's there. One of our members was doing a program and someone was very concerned that AI is exposing this material. She was our member was showing what is available a lady in the audience got upset. You shouldn't say that. She said, it already exists. We need to know what it is. And just putting our hands on la la la la, I'm not going to pay attention doesn't eradicate it. What we got to do is realize, okay, this thing exists. What do we do to adapt and adjust to it? Again, they improvise, adapt, and overcome. And so I think what we can do is look at there's opportunities out there. We embrace those opportunities and we make it better based on what we can do.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah. Using that framework, improvise, adapt, overcome from the Marines and using kind of your community in collaboration with this conversation, is there anybody that stands out to you who is doing it well? kinda like that surgeon example that I really enjoyed because that was just a really powerful story and a really powerful example. Is there anybody in your mind that you can think of in your community that you're like that person who didn't know anything? they got it. they figured it out. maybe we can talk to that one person and what you witnessed and saw. Is there anybody like that that comes to mind?

Terry Brock: Well, I think of many of our members that I've been working in different areas for a while, have been able to see what AI can do for them, and they're able to adapt and adjust. I think of one gentleman who's been writing for many years, but now he's using AI, and the AI is helping him not to write what he does, he's brilliant in what he does, but he writes it and then lets AI look at it differently so that it can adjust and creating graphics. That's something that's really nice, as you know.

Paul Leon: Hm.

Terry Brock: we can with our words create beautiful, magnificent pictures and graphs that look pretty good. I like using it for infographs. Really good. But we also realize we're not going to let it do the whole job for us. We look at people that are doing another a lady that's with us, she's written a book, being able to use AI to bring in information for her book so that it's much easier. She was able to get a lot more research done and get the get it that way.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: the research is particularly important because with that we're f able to find out items that we couldn't do at all. I mean, you were just got out of your MBA program, completed that. And you know that research is really important. I remember when I was there, we did it, of course it was a whole different technology then, but we did the research to find out not just that I would sit back and go, Well, my gut tells me that we ought to do this. Well, Terry, with all due respect to your gut, it can be wrong.

Paul Leon: Yeah. yeah.

Terry Brock: Yeah, and many times is. But if we look at the real hard data, this is what people are saying by using AI, going out there and saying, What are they really saying? Not just in a focus group where w they think, yes, I like the yellow widgets better than the blue widgets. Yeah, and then they go out and they buy the blue widgets rather than the yellow widget, just because there's a difference. What you want to find out is where people hang out, like Reddit or TikTok or Facebook.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: LinkedIn. What are they really saying that they believe? Look at that information they're saying they like the yellow widgets, but really they like the blue widgets. And so you look at that and you can see that if you ask the right questions using Gemini, using ChatGPT, Groc, and the other LLMs and other tools that are out there that do, frankly, a fabulous job of it.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: And I think that we need to learn those skills. Learn how to do it, just like people who going back to my idea, the people that were in the elevators punching buttons, when they lost their jobs, they had to learn some new skills. But build on top of what they do and learn how to learn fast. Learn fast on relevant industry-changing ideas and sectors of what's going on. If you do that and you learn how to learn, you're going to be a lot better off.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: And then bring in your own human personality. You want to put in your own view. If someone is, I think, and then you got to take whatever AI gives us and customize it to yourself. I often like to say you have to you eyes it. You've got to take what you're doing and put your feeling in there. If it's someone Mary, I would say she needs to Mary eyes it. Bob would need to bobize it. I'm Terry, so I like to Terry eyes it. Just sounds kind of cool saying it that way. But you you want to.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah. I like it.

Terry Brock: Go in and put your feeling into it because AI doesn't know about your feeling regarding this situation. It doesn't know about that conference you went to last October, where you heard this speaker and she was fabulous. I mean, she really had her points down right. She gave you something that could be really good in that presentation. You can talk about that in your work and then have A go back go back and check for spelling. Let it check for grammar.

Paul Leon: Hmm. Yeah.

Terry Brock: Let it check for maybe a couple extra ideas that it might give you and you go, that's a good one. Not quite right. That one's okay. here's a good one that it gave me. Let me that and customize it with my own words, pulling in that information from what happened to me when I was in eighth grade. Let me tell that story, because AI doesn't know about those kind of things. That's where we as human beings can really sparkle and be ahead.

Paul Leon: me personally, I'll give you some specifics of how I'm using AI and maybe we can I'm and I and I invite you, Terry, to give me feedback. One of my beliefs is feedback is fuel. I think feedback that's just my belief I have. I use Grammarly. As that when you were in college, you you they're allowing you to use Grammarly, which is good so you can write better papers and stuff.

Terry Brock: Yes, absolutely.

Paul Leon: I feel like sometimes even when I saw other students using AI, or they call it dark AI. And for those who don't know, and you know, it's just people who are using AI even though they're not supposed to. This is kind of like how that evolution came. My perspective from a lot of professors from I saw is that they kind of get technology last in the education world. At least this is just my perspective. I'm not saying this is gospel. There was a book by a guy named Paul Zayn Pilzer. I forget the name of the book, but he he talked about how whenever there's new technology, typically the roadmap is the military will get it first. For example, cell phones.

Terry Brock: yeah.

Paul Leon: were actually a military product before it was given to the public as like a common example. The weird thing about AI, I think at times, it didn't take that traditional road of where at least maybe I'm wrong. You correct me if I'm wrong. It it feels like that the road was Sam like this is how most people see AI. It was like Sam Altman AI. You know what I mean? Like that's kind of where it feels like the road goes. Sam Altman AI, and then now it's to the masses. just trying to figure out how can I Paul Leon, college dropout, who ended up getting an MBA, still developing the skill of AI. Where should my focus be in the next six months to capitalize on this skill? And I think that's where I'm really trying to nail down with you. hey, you need to be focused on chat GPT or perplexity if you're a ghostwriter, I've heard from other AI leaders. That's where I'm really trying to take this conversation and that weird word salad that I just gave you, Terry. What are your top of mind thoughts?

Terry Brock: Mm-hmm. Well, I think what you're talking about is what many people can relate to. They're wondering, where do I go? What do I do with this? And I and I have found that it's not about addressing the one tool. What is the tool I should get? Okay, tell me what it is. I'm gonna write it down. Because it's changing all the time. Because what was that? and early, you know, thirty minutes ago it just changed again. but it's changed just now. Yeah, no, it's changing so fast we can't do it. What you want to do is I think you want to look at yourself as the creative conductor.

Paul Leon: I know. Yeah.

Terry Brock: The more I think about it, the more I come up with the idea of it's very much like an orchestra conductor. Think of that person. He or she is probably pretty good at a particular instrument, maybe good at the clarinet or the trumpets or percussion or whatever it might be, maybe more than one. But the conductor is not the one who is the very best on every instrument in that orchestra. But the conductor knows when to blend in the trumpets, when to bring in the

Paul Leon: Creative conductor.

Terry Brock: When to have the percussion do that special thing that they do that's so magical. What they do, and that conductor knows how to blend it. That's what we need to do. Now learn certain learning certain tools is going to be important. Chat GPT is a given, at least as we're recording this now. They've gone up, they went down a little bit, and then they came back stronger than ever and kind of like that. I've seen others, like for instance, you mentioned perplexity. I was past tense using perplexity a lot.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: Until I got

Paul Leon: okay.

Terry Brock: in and read the fine print where they say you cannot use even the pro version, I was paying the twenty dollars a month, cannot use that for commercial use. You can only use it for personal. You are in violation of their terms of service if even at the twenty dollar a month level you go out and get some information and then use that in a commercial application.

Paul Leon: Hmm. okay. Really? I didn't know that.

Terry Brock: And so I thought, whoa, I didn't realize that. Or I heard about I did some extensive many, many hours over several months of study of it. And sure enough, it is that way. But that's just an example. I think they got a great tool. And if you're willing to spend the $200, $300 a month, then you're allowed to do it. But at the $20 a month, you are not, according to their terms of service. So I would say, yeah, that's something I didn't realize. I looked at and I thought, ooh.

Paul Leon: Okay. really? I didn't know that.

Terry Brock: If I use this in a commercial just for a client, I do some research on it and I come up with here's the trend of widgets in the ookie boogie industry. Okay, whatever. I look at that and I go, ooh, and if I mention that, I'm in violation of their terms of service. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to violate, but I can I can do it if I'm using Chat GPT or Gemini or Grok or Claude or some others that are out there. So I said, thank you. I just downgraded to a free version.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: of perplexity to have something there. And it's a good tool. But that's that's just an example, not to attack perplexity because they're wonderful people. But it's just saying, be aware these things change rapidly. So for a one of the things we need to do is constantly update ourselves. What's going on now that is relevant in my industry? I'm not a surgeon, but if I were a surgeon, I'd want to know some magazines, some websites, p places I can tap into, or what is going on with AI right now.

Paul Leon: Yeah. No no no, it's okay.

Terry Brock: for surgeons, if I were a surgeon. So I'd want to do that. For me, I'm a writer. I'm a consultant. I work with a lot of marketing ideas. I want to find out how people are using that and then customize it to the people that are there and what they can do. A couple months ago I was speaking to some people big industry meeting for some of the CEOs out in the nursery and landscaping industry and what was going on. I got a chance to do the research so I knew the issues that were confronting them in their state.

Paul Leon: Yeah, with sur okay.

Terry Brock: So what we did is I just picked up my phone, went into Chat GPT and said, Hey, what do you know about the such and such problem that's there? And they kind of lit up and go, ooh, he knows about that. Go, yeah, what should we do? And then I had Chat GPT talk back to us about what to do, literally in English. It's talking to us what to do. And one of the persons in the audience said, yeah, but we kind of know that. I go, that's exactly right. We've now just established, though, that Chat GPT knows a little bit about this. Let's go even deeper.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: And then we went into an even deeper, more sensitive subject. And I said, that's something real. And they're going, yeah, yeah. I said, Chat GPT, what do you think about this and this and this? And they thought, that's amazing. It started saying things that they were writing down real quickly, tapping into their keyboards, saying this is important. So I think the key is you want to find what's relevant. Don't try to grab everything, but stay current with it. Use the voice mode. It's a way that we have been operating since we were born, talking to people.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Who have information that we need to know from our parents through grade school, other kids there, teachers and others out in the workforce. We talk to them, they give us answers back and forth with a lot of, yeah, but what about kind of questions? So we can throw those in there and ChatGPT and the other tools that are out there, the LLMs, I love Grok and what Grok can do. It's got a little sneering side, but also a more helpful side.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Hm.

Terry Brock: Then a more caring side. You select the voice you want, but if you some people like it, I've tried that once on that little kind of sneering, sarcastic side. And I'd say, what do you think about that? Well, what does it matter to you? It's the kind of answer that comes back. I thought, some people like that. Okay, good. But you got to find what works for you and keep study. And very important, get involved in a community. One of the things we say often in our Stark Raving Entrepreneurs program is the Japanese saying that's been embraced in Silicon Valley a lot.

Paul Leon: Wow. Ha ha ha.

Terry Brock: None of us is as smart as all of us. And so you need that community you can plug into and say, got a question, everybody, how do you do this? Or I ran into this. Has anyone come up with that? We see that all the time in our stark raving entrepreneurs. Someone will ask a question and Gene and I will say, Well, we think it's this and this, but anyone else dealt with that? And someone will say, I was dealing with that last week. Here's what we did. And now we're getting the answers from the community.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Terry Brock: Find a community or a few communities, I'd say two or three tops, that you can plug into where you can get good answers. And then you also provide to them, give value to them. Don't look at it as a way you're only going to receive. Get out there and study it. Go to the University of YouTube. As we say that with tongue in cheek, there's a lot of good information out there. Not all of it, so keep your jaded journalist

Paul Leon: Mm. Right. Yeah.

Terry Brock: stance on there as you listen to it. Some of it's good, some of it isn't, but a lot of good information is there, and then be able to give back to others. This is how our world works today. And really it's the way to survive. Which, you know, Paul, when you think about it, that's what we had to do for our ancestors eons ago. You stayed within the tribe to protect yourself and others from the outside forces. Whether that was other tribes that were trying to take over your village or nasty animals that were coming after you because they looked at you as lunch. And so you had to adjust and adapt. Being in a good, strong community that can help you in studying regularly is really a par for the course. You have to have that in today's world.

Paul Leon: Hmm. No, it's a good frame. I like that Chinese quote. You're not smart. I said say that quote again. It was really good. It was Japan. Sorry.

Terry Brock: From Japan, from Japan. None of us is as smart as all of us.

Paul Leon: Nothing none of us are smart as all of us. I like that. I'll have to write that one down or chat GPT it. Or joining com or or a chat or Grocket. Right? Since you're suggesting communities. I think it's it's interesting because I feel like there's gonna be this they're either talking about a

Terry Brock: Yeah. Rocket, yeah. There you go.

Paul Leon: bubble. And I I I don't want this to be like always just a good cop, bad cop conversation, Terry. That's not what I'm trying to frame our conversation around. I think it's just Yeah, I

Terry Brock: You're looking at all sides. I like that. The journalist in me likes it. You don't say, yes, this is the way it is. We must do it this way. You have a lot of like I do. Yeah, but what about kind of questions? And those are healthy.

Paul Leon: Yeah. And and from a like critical thinking type frame. It's not like like a negative, but like now a lot of stuff in the press. Like I was at the gym this morning at like four thirty AM listening to a podcast. They were talking about that the this bubble when it pops, it's gonna be big. Like that's that's like what's starting and I I understand To be fair, I under I get it. Media is a negative sales type solution. Let's just being real. Yeah. Yeah, just like when there's a car wreck, cause traffic slows down to look at it. I get it.

Terry Brock: Sure. They get more listeners that way, more readers that way.

Paul Leon: Well when I look at the data and I look at data reports that say it's six hundred and thirty four billion dollars and to replace these data centers every five years and there's all this other data. A part of me and here's an even s more singular example. We lost power the other day. And I was just for an hour. That was just for an hour. But in that hour, couldn't open our garage. We were See and what I thought in that moment, like, what if this power outage just gets even longer and longer? You that's when people needed to raise their hand, and that's where I feel like there's gonna be a wave of where I think biology will always go back to the the conversation around AI at some point.

Terry Brock: Yeah.

Paul Leon: But if it does pop and we're starting to see signs of that, of like remember Sora? Did you ever use that app? Do you remember that?

Terry Brock: yeah, yeah, it was good until AI took a open AI took it off the market and it sounded like the biggest thing that was going to be there. Really looked good for a while and then fizzled.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah, and I remember making a few of those goofy videos. I had one with me and my wife rapping and her dog rapping with us. Like I'll had fun with it. And then all of a sudden the story I heard was that Disney there would be like a billion dollars something deal and they just it wasn't even enough money to fund the initiative. And that's yeah, and that yeah, that's a lot of money. Like I I'm not a millionaire.

Terry Brock: A billion dollars in that. One billion dollars. Yeah, where I grew up out in the country, we called that serious money.

Paul Leon: Yeah, I what do they think? there's a comedian I like. His name's Dusty Slay. I don't know if you ever heard his material. I don't know if you like I don't know if you like stand up or not. But he does a joke that I like where he's like we wanna get that real money. That's the joke. He's like he's like, Let me get that real money. He's like, Aside from what? You know what's the difference? Yeah.

Terry Brock: yeah. and what is unreal money?

Paul Leon: But I I feel like if that bubble does pop, what are the what are your do you feel we're gonna go back to a society where it's like AI will just get cut out entirely or will it just be kind of like this is just a temporary thing? Because I feel like the capitalization of teaching AI is where it's gonna be at. This is just my opinion. I know I don't I'm gonna go a little deeper and I feel like I'm talking a lot and I apologize, Terry. I ha I had a meeting this morning and we were we produced a vi we were producing a video and the expert was like the audio in this is terrible. Like have you ever considered AI? And I said and I'm the kind of person where like feedback just kind of blows off as long as you don't like criticize me as the person just project feedback's fine. I don't like feedback where it's like

Terry Brock: Sure. Well, it's okay.

Paul Leon: you're ugly. That's not feedback. And yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's

Terry Brock: Yeah, not personal, but talk about the product. Talk about the principles that we have. That's by the way, in politics like that, not the person, but the principles. That's where we need to focus.

Paul Leon: Exactly. Yeah, and that's why I can't personally stand like political type content because it's always about division and argument, which I don't think is leadership, but that's just my opinion. And the girl was she wasn't coming from a place of being hurtful. She was just like, This sounds like you'd record it in your bathroom, this is ugly. And some of the tools we're using, I c I I agree, needed work. And she's like, Have you ever considered AI? And I had said

Terry Brock: Yeah. I agree.

Paul Leon: Black and white. Well, I'm one hundred percent open to any solutions you have. What do you recommend? And she's like, I don't know. She go she goes, I'm not an AI expert. And I was like, Well, wait a minute.

Terry Brock: let me write that down. I don't know. There's a good product.

Paul Leon: And and the thing is, like, I don't think she came from a place of where she and I my intelligen my definition of intelligence is invitation. This is just my definition. I feel like if you can make something more inviting to the masses and you can level up their skills and you make that invitation easy to consume, that to me Is intelligence. And that's why I'm curious about your thoughts on yes, we need to pivot to being teachers of AI, like get that good at it. Because if that bubble pops, once we rebound, that's where the opportunity is. Or is there more in between those lines, Terry?

Terry Brock: Well, I think that we've got to realize bubbles do pop, and this does happen. And we need to know how to work around them. Like in the audio, as a podcaster to podcaster, I've had times usually it works out okay, but there are times when it doesn't. There it was too soft. Or I had two channels. This one was too high high, that was bad. I see you're using Riverside, which is a great little tool. I've got a s

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Meeting coming up with a Riverside later this afternoon with some people that are using that right now. We're going to be doing that for another project. But there's a tool called Auphontic. A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C. Auphonic. They have free tools that you can use, and they've got an incredible program where they you feed in that MP3 file, that M4A audio file, the MP4, and you say, man, the audios were level, we're different.

Paul Leon: Fonti. Okay.

Terry Brock: A phonic will automatically with AI go in there and adjust it so that it's just right. There might have been a noise in the background. It will find that noise. You like that sound there? Pull it out of there. It'll do it just like that. I I without the that Terry puts in there. But it'll put in there all this kind of stuff. And and I'm not selling, I don't get a commission on this or anything, but I use it, I put in like eleven dollars, and they give me two hours every month, which is way more than I need.

Paul Leon: Hmm. Yeah yeah.

Terry Brock: And I haven't done had a n reason to spend any more. I think one time something went bad and I needed a little bit. I was delighted to give them an extra eleven dollars. Just they do such a great job. So look into that. And if that works for you, let me know and next time we get together the first round of drinks will be on you.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll use some of that good money as you called it, right? Was that the I'll use some of that good money. you have mentioned your podcast. Would you want to speak to your podcast and what people can gain if they go ahead like go let's go ahead and name your podcast so the listener can check that one out as well and what to expect from it if they decide to subscribe and to your podcast and content, Terry.

Terry Brock: There we go. Sure, we put the podcast as the audio from our video that goes on YouTube. And it's real simple, it's Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. So you go to same name, go to YouTube, Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. You'll see the videos that we put out and the posts that we're putting in there now, a lot of those produced by AI with love and care. So it's us putting our information in there in a way that people like. But it gives you answers on how to deal with this wacky AI system.

Paul Leon: Okay, so same name. Cool.

Terry Brock: What to do to make sense of it all. And as something new comes out, the journalist that I am, the guy raised on reading news, this breaking news just in, da-da-da-da-da. Well, we put that out there now on video. And it works really well. I find I use that a lot for the other videos that are on YouTube. There's a wonderful wealth of them out there. I like those, and then I'm contributing back to others. And I'd say if you're listening to this or watching this video,

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Take a peek over there, see what it's like. Take a look at some of the videos. And if you find something that works for you, we'd love you to think about that. Maybe like it and subscribe, as they say. But more than anything, if you got questions, let us know. We want to hear from you on how we can do that. I think it all goes back to again that community that we need to be involved in. Different because we all learn together. No one of us is just by ourselves.

Paul Leon: You speak all around the world, as I mentioned earlier, three time TEDx speaker. when we last connected before we agreed to do a podcast together, you were speaking at some pretty cool companies that you had on your roadmap and traveling. What are you seeing around technology and your recommendations with all the companies you're speaking to and in your travels?

Terry Brock: What I'm seeing and what I'm reading about is I see what others are saying and when I do my researches on Chat GPT, on Gemini, on Claude and others, and Grok, I love Grok, getting out there and seeing what they're doing, what I'm hearing is that yes, people are concerned, and particularly those who are losing their jobs. We feel for them. I remember last year we were at Gina's reunion. They have a reunion every year, every five years where she where she graduated. And one of the people that wanted to be on the panel that she was heading up. was a guy that Jeff Tieper. I didn't know who Jeff was, but Jeff was a at that time president of a little company called Microsoft. And working at that told telling us about what's going on. Now Jeff has been promoted from president of that division now to an executive vice president, even higher at Microsoft. But he wanted to be on the panel there with Gina because they graduated in the same place. But he was telling us about the layoffs that Microsoft was going to do. This was a little over a year ago and sure enough

Paul Leon: Okay. Hmm.

Terry Brock: Few weeks later, it was in the news that they were doing that. And I realized, you know, that several thousand people laid off from not only Microsoft, but Amazon, from many other companies. And I feel for the people that were laid off, but this has been true throughout history. So the key is don't sit back and think, I can relax now. I'll just put my feet across my feet, put them up on the desk, lace my fingers behind my head, and I can relax now. It doesn't work that way. Hey, welcome to Planet Earth. Here's how it works. You got to get out there and work, no matter what. When you think of it throughout history, it's been tough for human beings. Right now we think it's gonna be real nice and everything's great because we're we're getting a little bit soft, we're getting a little bit lazy. I just see that in myself. And I wake up and go on, Terry. That's what I call myself because that's who I am. I say, Terry, what are you doing here? Get up, you gotta get moving. Come on, get out there. Do the push-ups, do the exercise, do the reading.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: do the things that I know are noble and good, medically safe, or advised by the medical doctors and doing those kind of things. And that's what we have to do. I think we have to keep learning, keep adjusting, and again, as the Marines say, improvise, adapt and overcome on a continual basis. That's the key, I think.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Are we disjointed as a community overall you feel? And I mean like not like in a dystopian sense, but I know for me, I would say I'm still developing the skill of leveraging the internet. I don't know if that's even the right word now, but I mean that's what we grew up with. so I'm just gonna say it. Are we disjointed in terms of like we're too much online?

Terry Brock: Sure. Yeah.

Paul Leon: Because I'll admit myself, it can feel between podcasting and just this morning I had another thirty emails of people wanting to be on the podcast. And it's just like trying to keep up with the demand and the internet and people wanting their voice to be heard. Is there a point like what do you recommend people ba how do people better balance technology? community and a good healthy living is really what I'm trying to say. Cause even me, I feel sometimes because of the demand of technology and everything, I feel disjointed at times. Wonder what your thoughts are there.

Terry Brock: Yeah, Paul, I think you're bringing up a point that is very appropriate. I think that we're all going through what you're talking about there from time to time. We've got to focus on what matters most. We've got to be grounded in reality, much more than, this breaking news just in, bad thing just happened over on this side of the world, and we all get in a tither about that. Our bodies work that way. Psychologists, mental health professionals who are way, way smarter than I am in this will tell us that's how our brains work. Uh-oh, something bad going on. And

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Perhaps it goes back to the s when our ancestors were on the Sahara and they were out there and they were going running around and there's a saber-toothed tiger coming after them. Well, they had to be aware of that. Was that just wind hustle, you know, hustling the grass over there? Or is there a saber-toothed tiger there that is looking at me and thinking, ooh, lunch? And so what we got to do is step back and think, we have to continually get anchored in that. I think one of the best things to do is read books, particularly that are really, really old.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: And that are really good and have been around for centuries. They give us wisdom. I love reading from the Stoics, as I mentioned before, what they have to say. They're grounded in reality. They had different technology, they had a different language. Yeah, I get it. Look at folks like Marcus Aurelius and what he did. He was an emperor of Rome. I mean, strongest and the biggest man in the world for what he did, but yet he was very vulnerable. And he wrote his notes and his meditations that he had intended it just for himself.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Now we're getting to see that as well. But look at other people, what they've done, how they have overcome it. And I find that we can learn a lot from them, looking at the stories of the how they have done this, what they have done, Fyodor Dostoevsky's books in Russia, Leon Tolstoy's books also in Russia, just geniuses in what they said. The issues they were going through were different than ours, but we can learn what matters most. And one of the things I think is real good is take time every day. to have some quiet meditation or prayer or just quiet reflection time where you can be quiet within your own mind. And this is what mental health professionals will tell us who are way, way smarter than I am in this, and that's a good thing to do. Get away from the phone. There you turn the phone on, or not your phone, you turn yeah, your phone on or you're looking online or what's going on, you're going, look what the knuckleheads in Washington did. Same thing, what are the knuckleheads in London or in Tokyo? Or in Canberra or in Moscow or Peking, Beijing, whatever they wherever they are, what they're doing, we've got to focus on what matters most. And that is being true to the the that which keeps human beings good. And what we can do is focus on helping other people. Gina and I talk about live and let live. Do whatever you wanna do. I mean, use your imagination as long as.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: Number one, you do not initiate force against others. You don't harm them. And number two, you don't take their stuff. That's just kind of simple. I think if we could embrace that in our world, we would have a much more peaceful world to live and let live peacefully. Now there's going to be times that somebody does something and I go, ugh, that's kind of wacky and goofy. But the question is, wait a minute, Terry, are they hurting anyone? No. Are they bothering anyone? Are they taking something from someone?

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: No, they're just doing something that I think is goofy or weird. Let them do it. They're not harming anyone. Let it go. And I think that kind of approach is good. And that grounds us so that as we see these changes in AI, as we see new opportunities which are going to keep changing and probably at an even faster rate for the rest of our lives. And we know that we can deal with that if we maintain that centeredness. Many people find the philosophy, the religion, whatever it is that works for you.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Embrace that so that you can live and run it by is this peaceful? If it's peaceful and the other person is doing it peacefully, let's go, let have it and let have whatever they want as long as it's peaceful and doesn't harm others.

Paul Leon: I like that. I don't think there's anything I don't align with what you just said personally. I went to the library yesterday. And

Terry Brock: Library, I've heard of those things. Yeah. We still have we still use them, by the way.

Paul Leon: And it it felt and I'll be honest with you, it felt peaceful. if I'm being just totally transparent, I this is why I'm using this frame to align further in what you're saying and anchor it for the listener or viewer, wherever they are right now, that when I had my phone in my pocket and I turned it off and the reason I went to the library is I'm I'm writing this book, it's a long story, it's a like a like a thriller professional professional development type book. It's a project that I'm working on. it felt really good just to have my phone off and go through the aisles, r study what books I can model in for this project. And just that feeling was just really it's like a something I haven't had in years because I've been so Endow with AI and I I I would encourage anybody to take Terry's advice and just get outside if you can. Like I know if you gotta like keep your phone on, like if your kids are at daycare, obviously keep your phone on you. But that feeling was just like, man, this is really this is nice. it was just like my phone wasn't buzzing. Like even in this conversation, I'm getting texts right now from my son who's supposed to be ice skating, saying, I'm not ice skating. And I'm just like, Okay, I'll have to deal with that once this call ends. Terry, what is it that we have not talked about in the world of technology leadership that we should talk about now?

Terry Brock: I think we've covered a lot of good things. You have done a great job as an interviewer and as someone who has has worked in radio and undergrad degree was radio TV newspaper. I do I commend you on your style, what you're doing. I think we've covered a lot. I think the most important is to understand our world is changing fast. Well, duh, we know that, but also that means how do we live then? How should we then live, as philosopher Francis Schaefer would ask. What do we do going forward, knowing this?

Paul Leon: thank you.

Terry Brock: And all these things are happening. I think we've got to be grounded in certain principles. For me, I've got the principle living life, live and let live. Gina and I embrace that fully. Also to continue every day, S E S for study. Learn something new every day. E exercise. Treat that body of yours right. Do what the medical professionals tell us to do: stretching, exercising, strength building, the kind of workout that work for you. And then meditation.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: Meditation of some sort. That might be prayer. It might be quiet time, might be a formal form of meditation. Find what works for you. And I find that when I do that every day, I d do much better. Just this morning I was doing actually switching things around a little bit based on a conversation I had with a couple of LLMs yesterday, finding on tweaking what's gonna work right for me, what works right for others, looking at people of, you know, what are what does Elon Musk do? What is Warren Buffett doing? What did Steve Jobs do?

Paul Leon: I like that. Yeah.

Terry Brock: What are Jo Joe Rogan? Different people, what do they do in their morning routines? And I found that and put it together and then it pieced together from me what I like to do. And it the beautiful of the LLMs would come back and say, Terry, you need to do your study, your exercise meditation in this way. And it showed me a different way to do it because it knows me and knows I talk about study, exercise, meditation. Actually, it flipped it over and it said, Terry, you need to start with meditation first. Then exercise, then study. So I tried it. By the way, I'll just tell you, Paul, and all the listeners, first time ever in my life, I did it this way and did it and it worked out really well. So hey, that's pretty good. I like it. So it gives me the motivation to get up in the morning too. Because I know everyone listening to this, you can relate to this. The alarm goes off. And you go, you know, I can really use just a couple minutes extra sleep. I don't know if I'm the only one that ever has that happen. But today I just said, no.

Paul Leon: Ha ha ha.

Terry Brock: And forced myself to jump out, and I'm glad I did. Because I got up and got moving, got into the morning routines and did all that. And the meditation was particularly good. The study, very good. The exercise, hey, it was really good. I did my push-ups and things like that. I like to get in there and do it. Building back up to my thing I like to do every so often, I do one one thousand eighty push-ups in one day. Yeah, one thousand eighty. Why one thousand eighty? Well, I was only doing a thousand, and then I thought, wait a minute, what's Instagram? The dimensions?

Paul Leon: Holy smokes. Wow.

Terry Brock: 1080 by 1080? There you go. Do that. So I do it. Not all at once, but throughout the day. And that's just my thing. You got to find out what works. And anyone that's listened to this, you check with your medical folks before you do something like that. But find the thing that works for you. What is your goal of pushing? Everyone watching this and listening to this, what is it you can do that's safe, sound, legal, moral, ethical, and check with the medical professionals to make sure it's okay for you and push yourself to that area where you grow.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: Where you grow and you go beyond it. That'll give you the ability to embrace AI and whatever else is coming out, because it's going to be wild and crazy. We're going to go through some what what are we going to do? And also I think Paul and Jub talked about, sometimes it's good to take that phone, that wonderful device with all that it does that's good, put it over here and just set it down. Don't worry about what the knuckleheads are doing in capitals around the world. Don't worry about some terrible tragedy that happened. You can't do much about it anyway. Don't worry about this. And then come back later after you've gone through your own version of study, exercise, meditation for the day, and deal with it. Okay, if you're gonna go vote on something, fine, go vote on that, but go in with the knowledge. Don't just walk in going, well, I'm just gonna vote eny meeny miny mo. No, do your study, find out what's going on. If this is something you want do, go for that and do the right thing. But ground it in the principles that work, principles that have worked for centuries.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Ha ha ha Yeah.

Terry Brock: And I think we'll be a lot better off facing whatever comes in the next several years.

Paul Leon: I like that. And I appreciate the compliment that you felt I was a good host, especially somebody who interviewed Nixon.

Terry Brock: Yeah, actually I did not interview him. I covered the inauguration. Yeah. I was yeah, I was there watching what was going on, but I did not get to meet with Richard Nixon. Would have loved to do that though. but just to see what it's like. And by the way, for those of you that are under 40, yeah, Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States. Okay. He was there. But I think the key the key is I've had a chance to interview some wonderful people through the years, people that I get to know through speaking and that, and I found that those who are sometimes the most famous.

Paul Leon: inter nah I misunderstood you. Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brock: those people can be some of the most kind and wonderful people you'll ever meet. That's been my experience. I know there's some others that are can be rascals, but I've met some wonderful people that have given me gems of wisdom, how to live life and what to do is we're all going through this thing called life, trying to get by to do a little bit better this year than we did last year, to make sure that our friends, our family can do better and know that someday we're not going to be here. And when that comes.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Terry Brock: We will know that we've lived a good life and we've been able to help people and make life better for them. I think that's the real key.

Paul Leon: Amen. Well said.