00:01:34
I didn't want to, but out of necessity, I decided to start my own business. And I started as a career coach because I was going through a career change and I knew everything about that. So I launched some programs for that and I helped several people get new jobs. My most successful client, she went from a confidence level of two to a confidence level of eight. And over the period of about four years of working with me a couple different times, she grew her salary by over $50,000, which was amazing. She was around 34 at the time. So I really love that. And then here's what happened, right? Natural progression. What goes with careers? Everybody needs to be on LinkedIn. So this was like 2016.
00:02:22
And so I rebranded to the LinkedIn bakery, serving up bite-sized tips for busy entrepreneurs. So I was helping career people position themselves on LinkedIn to get found. And then I was like, wow, this is a great platform for business owners and it's free and we can just be on there and get seen, get known, get heard. So that's when I shifted to B2B, helping the business owners. And then fast forward, things change. In 2022, AI started tiptoeing, right? Tiptoeing into our lives. I mean, let's be real. Our phones, Siri, Alexa, AI has been around for over 50 years. It's just now it's in the hands of the everyday person. So in 2023, I saw all this AI stuff and I was like, no, not happening on my watch.
00:03:14
I didn't want anything to do with AI. I am all about connecting conversations and people. So I was like, no, I don't want to use AI on LinkedIn. No, no, no. And then somebody was doing a certification course and a friend of mine signed up for it who has a successful marketing agency for over 20 years. She's worked with Coca-Cola and Disney, like big names. And I'm like, okay, if she's joining us and getting certified, maybe this is something I should look at. And I couldn't be happier with that decision to become a certified AI consultant because we fear what we don't know, right? So it was that fear of, is it going to take over? Is it going to take jobs? I was a career coach.
00:04:01
Well, it is going to take the jobs of those that don't know how to use it, especially in marketing, right? And so it's kind of like computers. Everyone was scared of computers. Well, maybe not you too, because you probably grew up with them. My generation, we didn't grow up with computers, right? So it was that fear of the unknown. Oh my God, it's going to take over our lives, the privacy. It's going to take over jobs. And there is some fear that is warranted with AI and we're going to have to work through that. So I teach business owners how to use AI effectively, efficiently, and ethically. That sounded really good. I'm going to need to write that down. We'll send you the script. I like that.
00:04:49
Literally, I just made that up, but I like it. So my other thing is, you know, when I'm working with business owners, so many small business owners, it's a team of one or three, it's a small team. And so what I do is I help take the chaos out of your life by creating human-like AI assistants. So I help you create an army of AI assistants to do the jobs that you don't have time for, you don't like doing, right, but need to get done. And that doesn't mean that I'm replacing a person, because someone's got to run that AI, someone's got to train it, right? So it's not about replacing people. I look at AI as a productivity tool. So. No, I think that's very true.
00:05:35
There's so many things I would want to touch base on. What I really like is when, at the very beginning, you said you didn't want to become an entrepreneur because you saw your father be an entrepreneur, you saw what it actually meant. And I was just thinking, like, this is exactly how I ended up doing what I'm doing as well, because my dad was an economist, and I was like, ain't no way I'm ever going into management. Ain't no way. So I was like, I'm gonna do something with, like, do medicine. But then, like, things happened. I wasn't allowed to study medicine, become a doctor. So I was like, okay, I'll go into biomedical engineering. That's the next best thing. And then I actually realized I really don't want to spend my entire life in a lab.
00:06:18
And I was like, yeah, what can I do to avoid becoming too much of a specialist? I guess I'll have to do management. So I think that's just really funny, like, how you actually avoid it. But at the end of the day, it's just who you are. Yeah, well, and I think that when we talk about being a business owner today in 2024, it's very different for the different generations. So being an entrepreneur for me growing up, like, and I'm not afraid to say this, I'm going to be 60 in, like, a week. Yeah, like a week and a half. And so for my generation, like, being an entrepreneur, like starting your own business, are you crazy? Like, go to school, get a job, right?
00:07:02
So I feel like it's evolved and there's more opportunities now to become an entrepreneur. And the gig economy has taken off because of COVID. Let's be real. The gig economy probably doubled in size once COVID hit. And you can be a contractor or freelancer, start a side hustle. Maybe you're great at design. Maybe you're a marketer during your day job, but you really love designing. So then you can start that side hustle of being a designer, a creative designer, a marketing designer. So I feel like becoming an entrepreneur in today's world is a lot different than it was even five years ago. Pre-pandemic, it's changed. There's more opportunities. And now it's actually in college too, like entrepreneurship. That's a thing now. That wasn't a thing when I went to college.
00:07:54
It's true. I did entrepreneurship in university. Yeah, everybody's doing MBA in entrepreneurship and stuff. Well, yeah. And I think the job market has changed over the last 40 years, right? So it used to be, get a job, you'd get a pension. So even when you left, you would get money. Well, those days are gone. Get a job for the health insurance, the vacation. That has just shifted. It has changed so much that I don't think that that is the right thing for everyone. It's right for some people because owning your own business is not easy by any means. And I've been in this nine years. You know, those first three to five years are the toughest and you have to be strong. You have to be disciplined.
00:08:45
It's not about, oh, I'm working from home. I'm going to watch TV or I'm going to go for a hike today. There are days when you can do that. But I am up every day and typically at my computer at 7 a.m. That's my schedule. I try to do the same, but it just doesn't work sometimes. But you have to find your own schedule. So I'm coaching a young woman who has this great business concept and helping her get things up and running with a lot of A.I. help. OK, saving time and energy. And she is a creative and she gets up at 3 a.m. and works to 11. Because she said that 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. nobody's interrupting her. She's really creative.
00:09:32
She can get stuff done and then she takes a nap. I'm like, you know what? That's what entrepreneurship is about. Defining your schedule, finding one that works for you. It's not about being lazy. It is not about taking a gazillion days off. And I'm not even sure about laptop lifestyle. Can I work from everywhere? Yes. Do I want to? No. I don't want to be on an island working. I don't want to be at the beach working. If I'm at the beach, I want to be at the beach. So I'm not quite sure I buy into that laptop lifestyle. For me, that's not something I want. I like my little office here. I want to work here. Yeah. For me, it's rather to see the family whenever I want.
00:10:14
Because my family, they don't live here in Belgium. I'm originally from the Czech Republic. So it's rather that I take my laptop with me and I can have quality family time without actually, like, for example, giving up on the clients or that I can still do my activity even though I am going for longer to spend family time. And that makes sense if you're going on trips. But for me to just be like a digital nomad, for me, no, I like my home. I like my little office set up. And I am leaving on a trip and I am taking my laptop because I do have some client work. So I feel like a plane ride is a great time for me to get some work done. No one's interrupting me.
00:10:50
I have a question because you said about the army of AI assistants. So what does it actually mean? Do you leverage the GPT or also other models? Or what does army of the AI assistants mean? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So an army of AI assistants. So it could be, let's start with what everyone typically is starting with, like a marketing assistant that helps you generate marketing ideas. It could be an email marketing assistant. That's very popular. It could be a copywriter, content writer, landing page, HR person. Maybe you need an SOP, standard operating procedures. Everybody should have that in their business. I just helped two business owners create those. Two, just create those two weeks ago. And now they have this beautiful SOP document that they can share with their staff.
00:11:45
And they hire contractors. So wouldn't it be great to say, here, here's what you need to do. And one of them is in the photography business. And the other one I think was in the window business. So very different businesses. But you need to have your SOPs in line. So depending on your business, so all the work I do is very custom. It's one-on-one, me and you on the phone, setting these things up, testing them to make sure that it's on brand for you, right? This is not generic prompting. This is customized prompting, creating your human-like AI assistants that can take the weight of all those repeatable tasks off. So your email funnel or your email funnel or email campaign or follow-up emails. I have an event person.
00:12:39
So I'm helping someone who does monthly events. We're getting that all dialed in using her event AI persona assistant. I use them for proposals, tracks, presentations. Who likes spending hours doing presentations on Canva? Yeah, nobody. Nobody ever raises her hand. Yeah, I made just one maybe in my life in Canva presentation. Right, well, so there's so many different AI tools. So I work with a business owner to understand what their pain points are. What do they wish they could hire an employee for, right? We don't have a need as a small business owner. We don't always have a need for a full-time staff or even part-time. So that's where the army of AI assistants come in, right? Here's the great thing about AI assistants. They don't call in sick, right?
00:13:32
They don't ask for a raise. They don't talk back. They don't tell you, no, I'll get to it later, right? They don't say, oh, that's a bad idea. Most of them might not do it right now, but maybe in the future, we don't know that yet. Maybe, but as of today, they don't do that. So, you know, wouldn't it be nice to just have this? I mean, the number of the prompts might be like the rise of the feast, right? The more requests you have, the more prompts you are using, the more you need to pay. For example, ChatGPT is also limited. I know that SAP is leveraging ChatGPT, and it's super expensive to actually leverage ChatGPT for the software industry. Well, there's so many different tools out there.
00:14:17
So ChatGPT is great for short-form content. Cloud is great for long-form and analyzing. There's Gamma. I use, love that for presentations. You know, I've played a little in meta AI for the images. I don't think the images are there yet. I think they will be in, I don't know, three months. Sometimes you get some weird stuff in this. Yeah, it's so much better than when I started, right? I just made myself into a mermaid with a dolphin. It was kind of cool. I will not ask why a mermaid with a dolphin. Mermaid with a dolphin. I wanted to be a mermaid and I love the ocean. And then I have a picture of me kayaking with it, and it's a real picture of kayaking.
00:15:02
And then a dolphin is like in front of me that my husband took. And so I was like, oh, wouldn't that be cool if I could enhance that? So I had DALI create a different image. Do you maybe still have these kinds of pictures so that we can show it to our audience afterwards? I do, I do. They're in DALI. So AI, again, so I have a couple things when I'm talking about AI. It is a productivity tool. It is not to replace people. It's to help us be more effective and efficient. Also, it's not 100%. So I want to make sure the audience, whoever's listening to this, it's not copy paste. It's perfect. I like to say, think of or remember the 90-10 rule. And I just kind of made this up.
00:15:47
AI gets you 90% to the finish line. The other 10% is up to you. You've got to put your human eye on the AI and tweak it and finesse it and make sure it's like you. But when you work with me, right, I have a whole process of how we set up your AI assistants so they sound like you. Yeah, what I also see is like it gives you until the mark of good enough. But if you want to be great, that part is still all about you. Like from a productivity perspective as well, I think I see that a lot at work and here. But imagine like taking, writing a really great blog and then turning that into 10 pieces of content and then turning that into a video.
00:16:33
Like I went and spoke at a chamber event on AI, the how, when, and why to use AI in your business. And I had a videographer there film me. It was about a 30, I think it was like 35 minute, maybe 40 minute talk. I took the raw footage, put it into my tool, generated 42 micro clips with captions. Back in the day, I would have to pay my VA to do that. And it wasn't always like, and it's not. And sometimes I'll be like, hey, to my VA, take this and create those captions, create that content. But how great is it to have tools that can do that for us? Are they perfect? No, but you know what? 42 clips, did I use them all?
00:17:20
No, because they weren't, I would say like 10 of them I really liked, but it literally took five minutes. Yeah. So you took like a job that probably used to take like five hours or even more and in five minutes, you got a good footage and then like 10 minutes, you have great footage because you- Right. So you can take that, then you can turn that into a blog. You can turn that into micro content. You can turn that into text content. So it's, for me, when it comes to content, it's about repurposing because as you guys know, I'm a LinkedIn strategist and most people don't know this. I'm going to share a secret. Are you guys ready? Yeah. Sure. Okay. So when you post something on LinkedIn, they send it out to 10% of your network.
00:18:03
That's it. I also have this feeling. But it's true. They send it out to 10% of your network. So if you have 10,000 connections, they're going to send it to maybe a thousand, right? And then if in that first couple hours, people are engaging, liking, commenting, sharing LinkedIn, that tells LinkedIn algorithm, this is good content. People like this. We should share it to another 10%. So it's really important to know, like you can share things more than once on LinkedIn, probably on any platform. So that AI video that I took, right? And we made it into the 42 clips and I like 10 of them. I'm probably going to share those more than once on LinkedIn and just write a little different captions or a different call to action or, you know, because people don't see all of your content like you think.
00:18:58
You think your entire audience, everyone you're connected to on LinkedIn is going to see every single post. That is not how it happens. Now, if you're engaging with somebody on LinkedIn on a regular basis, you're going to see their posts. Okay. That makes sense. I was always curious about that. Like what, especially when you, when I accidentally repost something that I already post, I'm like, I'll better delete it because people will see that I'm repeating myself. If you just posted it, yes. But if you, you know, it's January and you're posting some content and you're like, okay, February, let me reshare a couple of those. If it was high performing, reshare it again. You know, you have to train your network. You have to engage. Like I always tell people there's three parts to LinkedIn.
00:19:43
One is to have a branded LinkedIn profile, position yourself as the expert and share who you are as a human. Because in this day of bots and AI, people want to connect with humans. People buy from people, not profiles. So you really need to humanize your profile. It needs to be branded. You need to share something fun about you. You need to fill out all the sections and that takes time to do. So I, that's one of the services I do. It's done for you because people don't want to do it. I get it. I hated doing my own. I was like, oh, I need to do this for myself because so much has changed in my business. So, you know, getting a profile, a positioned profile, that's like the foundational piece.
00:20:26
Step number two or phase two is building out a strong and strategic network. Who are you connecting with? It's not about followers. It's about the right followers, right? And then the third piece is content and engagement. Are you educating your network? Are you inspiring them? Are you telling a funny story? Are you promoting yourself? It's not promote, promote, promote. It's mixed media. It's different levels of messages. And then probably more important than anything these days is actually commenting and engaging on other people's posts. Yeah, so it's to develop your LinkedIn profile and it's the network. And the third is the engagement. So the comments, liking, etc. Every time you comment, your headline and name appears. But here I have a question. Like, is it easier to grow your audience as like a person on LinkedIn?
00:21:27
Or can you get the same traction as a business profile? I've already answered that question. Yes, your personal profile is where you're going to get the most traction. But as an entrepreneur, you still need to have a company page for that credibility. People, you know, it takes 12 touches in marketing for someone to do business with you. So LinkedIn can be like five of those. Because you can put your website. In the contact information, you can put your email, your website. You know, I think I have my Facebook page. Then you have a company page. You have your personal profile. So think about all those touch points of people clicking around. So yes, you need a company page. I believe in having one.
00:22:06
I believe in putting some content up there because people will follow you sometimes over there. I still 100% focus on the personal profile. It's also I heard this kind of distinct, really nice distinguish that the social media comes from the name social. So like, of course, people will always be really interested in the gossips about the neighbor more than for example, how your company is performing well. So it's really like the social media is like what we could actually have in our normal lives, like where the people are really interested in gossips and what the Kate from the other classroom is doing and these kinds of things. And it actually started like a Facebook like that people, you know, like commented on. It was like classmates who actually wanted to chat together.
00:22:53
So it's of course that the social media rather like will rather put the different content about the Kate from another classroom than about your business that is scaling. But on the other hand, the LinkedIn is a bit. LinkedIn is a professional community though. So there's social like, I mean, I'm going to share things on Facebook, my private Facebook page because I don't connect with people on Facebook anymore unless I know you like that. I actually, if you go to my Facebook page, it says this is personal for friends and family. If you professionally want to connect with me, go to LinkedIn. Because I get hit up a lot on Facebook for MLMs and just, I don't know, just stuff I don't want. Like, no, if you want to connect with me professionally, great.
00:23:44
Go over to LinkedIn. That's where my professional network is. But I still feel like I do when I do a personal post, which I actually need to do more of. I tell my clients too, right? But when I do a personal post, I get a lot of traction and engagement. So I just posted about my mom, which also has to do with my business. Because when I started my business, it was because of my mom's condition, having the Alzheimer's, needing to be there for her. We lost her in 2016. So I had two years with her and I started my business from day one. Part of my mission statement was to give back to the local Alzheimer's Association, honoring my mom and the disease. And so I don't share that story enough.
00:24:31
And I realized that when I moved to Arizona, people don't know that story of why I started my business. And it's a powerful why. And so I did a post just, I think it was last week. And there was all these photos of my mom and telling about the Alzheimer's story. And I share that for two reasons. I give back. So when anyone buys anything from me, we give back 3% of the profit. No, 3% of the sale, not the profit. That's the difference. And I really want to get that up to like 10% of sales. 10% of all sales just go to. helping Alzheimer's patients. But the second part of that, dude, I forgot. So there's that part, I just lost my train of thought. And the awareness for the Alzheimer's.
00:25:17
So part of me sharing my story, there's always someone that is going through that. And I'm like, hey, I'm here for you if you want to talk through it. Because I know what's coming down the pipeline. And until you go through the experience of someone that you're caring for that has Alzheimer's, you do not understand what it is. Because I didn't. You think it's a disease where people forget things. That is like this much of what it is. It's so much deeper than that. And so many things happen. As I said, my mom went missing. We had police and SWAT dogs. We had dogs and SWAT team looking for her in the middle of the night. It was crazy. She did some crazy things at our house.
00:25:57
I had like take she started a fire. There's so many other things that happen. And so by sharing my story, I want to be able to be a resource for people. It's really impressive story. And also, I think that this awareness is really needed. And especially not only today, but also to give back. And I think that this kind of dynamic is really needed, especially when you are an entrepreneur. But because a lot of people, they think that they just start entrepreneurship and from day one, they want to have a success. But it's really about to have the balance to navigate the society, to tackle the problems that the society have. And the best is to actually, what is actually driving you, which is that you should have the drive of what is powering you, how you want to see the future tomorrow.
00:26:48
And this is how you are, why you are actually doing your activity as who you are. And I really like your impressive story about Alzheimer, etc. Because I believe that the awareness should be out there because many times, people don't know about these things and what are all of the aspects of Alzheimer or any other illnesses. Also, for example, I have it with the handicap. I'm not handicapped myself or anybody in my family, but sometimes I'm really thinking about that people don't think about how the barriers are really important. For example, disabled people, that we don't really realize when we are healthy, how disabled work is. Then like really normal, casual movements. We take it for granted. Yeah, exactly. And I think that this is really important to actually speak about it.
00:27:46
Because then it can be like from one day to another, and it will not be the normal world for you anymore. And we should be more like speaking about these things. So when I do events, you know, I've been the host of LinkedIn Local San Diego, LinkedIn Local Phoenix. And with every event I've ever done, part of my personal branding, because that's the other thing, right? Part of my personal branding is that give back component. So with every event, we showcased a nonprofit. So whether it was foster kids, we did building bridges through books. So we did a book drive for a low income school in the area. We did a luggage drive for foster kids because foster kids when they age out, they leave with a trash bag.
00:28:36
They put their belongings in a trash bag and go to these group homes. So we wanted to give them some dignity by providing them with suitcases. And then Moms Helping Single Moms, that's another nonprofit that I've partnered up with. They help single moms get out of bad situations and go back to school and get degrees. A lot of them go into like the medical field, nursing and things like that. And we have them come and share their story. So we help the nonprofit get more visibility. We help them on social media when we partner up with them. Sometimes we do like gift card collections for the moms for like groceries, because that's like something they need. Or I think we did like car washes and groceries and gas, and then suitcases for the OCJ kids for the foster kids and books for Guadalupe Elementary School.
00:29:31
We've, you know, I always feel that as a business owner, as a human, you should give back your time, talent and your treasure. So as a business owner, I strongly feel from day one, you need to incorporate that into your mission statement. And it doesn't mean that you have to give hundreds of thousands of dollars. Every penny counts. Every post can make a difference. So at these different events, what I love seeing is that people are like, wow, that's an amazing organization, I want to get involved. So either they give money, they give their time, or they donate. This is what I always find it like so impressive with like entrepreneurs and business owners, like you already invest so much time in let's say growing your own business, and then you still find the time to give back.
00:30:20
How do you actually manage that? Like I generally struggle famously with my time management, and I never have enough. But the amount of activities that you just listed, like, how do you manage that? So I do some speaking for some of the OCJ kids, I spoke at one of their galas, the event that was built into my business model, hosting LinkedIn Local Phoenix for two years here. And then in San Diego, we did LinkedIn Local in San Diego, and then COVID happened. And so you know, that got shut down. And so I feel like it just has to be built in. So for your business, what's your give back component? Are you giving back to handicap? And I think when you get partnered with the right organization or the right cause, like it drives you, right?
00:31:13
Like, yes, I write a check every year to Benevia. That's the organization here in Arizona that helps seniors and Alzheimer's and all that. They were one of the first ones to that I partnered up with, I've met them, I've, you know, we raised money, and I write a check every year. But more than that, I share about them on social, just every once in a while. So, you know, for the quarter, like, who do you want to support? Can you do a social post? Can you tag them? Can you help build their brand? I think it's also like, about your like core values, because like, for me, it's really like digitalization that I was always passionate about.
00:31:53
And currently, I am associated with an NGO, which is Digitize Czechia, which because I can really see that the environment in Czechia is really behind in terms of digitization. That's like people who consider themselves in a tech, as a tech consultant, they are actually like providing services, like how to set up Slack, how to do Mirrorboard. I mean, this was like 10 years ago. I mean, like, the tech is totally somewhere else right now. And the companies are just such a behind, so that I'm doing this a good cause of actually helping to bring the technology from abroad to Czechia. And it's the Digitize Czechia, because I believe that the people who have access to digitalization and to technologies are actually happier.
00:32:37
And it was also like from the statistics because I did study with the European institution, where we actually found out that the member states in the EU, which had digital strategies as a government, the people inside that governments with digital strategies, they were happier because they knew what they should do when they went on the home office because they didn't lose the purpose of their life. So it's I think, also driving the kind of value forward that you have some idea about your business, what you want to do. Sometimes, also there is ups and downs, you don't always like to perform at the peak, and you also sometimes do your services, for example, in underestimated value. I think that everybody was there at some point, even though I am not, I'm always like, yeah, go for it.
00:33:22
Like, you should really like set your price. But I think as entrepreneur, it's like up and downs. And sometimes you're not really reaching the exact amount that you would like to. So it's why we also I think, find the time to maybe do the good cause that it's like draining. And it doesn't have to be all the time. But um, so there's an organization in San Diego called shine San Diego. They were the last nonprofit that we featured at LinkedIn, local San Diego. They help women get out of sex trafficking. And so that yeah, so this and they help them start a business. So the owner and I got to know each other. And so I went and I provided free training for the women on how to set themselves up on LinkedIn.
00:34:09
You know why that helps with business, some social media stuff. So what are you good at that you could give to a nonprofit or an organization? So the digital marketing stuff, right? With the shine San Diego, I'm going to be there's something coming up. I think it's an August or September. So about once a year, I work with them. There's an opportunity to be a business coach. So just to kind of help the women as they're going through things. There's a lot of opportunity out there. And yes, we are all busy. We're all busy. Absolutely. But we have we make time for what's important to us. And it doesn't mean so in your mind, you might be like, Oh, I don't have four hours. Who said four hours?
00:34:54
Maybe it's 30 minutes a week. That's it. Maybe having a conversation with someone. I have a question because I see that like, you are like full of energy. And I also see that you are really like taking care of yourself and everything. What is actually your like biohack? Like, where do you take all of this energy? Like, do you have some kind of like rituals like daily that you can share with our audience? How to actually keep the positive and vibrant energy that you are sharing with the people? I love that. Thank you. Okay, so coffee. Like literally, I know, one cup a day, I literally have like one cup of day and then water. I try to drink two, three of these a day.
00:35:38
I try to get sleep like I am not I did not start my entrepreneur ship to work 14 hours a day. That is not me. And there are seasons when I have 12 hour days and I complain about them, but I get the work done. And then there are times where we're taken off for four months. I don't work 12 hour days. That's too long for me. I go swimming. So I don't get to swim today. But swimming is like my outlet. If I'm upset, if I go jump in a pool, I get out of the pool happy. I love swimming. You know, hydrating yourself and getting that sleep. I'm a woman of faith. So like this morning, before I get out of bed, I can't read first thing in the morning, but I turn on my Bible app and I just kind of listen to my Bible app.
00:36:36
And then I get up and I greet my my cats who are not here. Usually they're walking all over. And then I just for me a schedule works. So you need to understand who you are at the core and what works for you. Are you a night owl? Then shift your schedule. You guys are looking at each other. My husband works nights. We have opposite schedules, but we make it work. I take a break at 3.30 in the afternoon to spend time with him. Yeah. How do you make it work? Because I feel like we also sometimes have opposite schedules. I mean, he's for sure like a morning person, but I am night owl, but not extreme. I like to wake up early, but I also like to sleep long.
00:37:17
So it's like for me one day, I like to sleep long and one day I like to wake up early. It's like that I need to compensate. I cannot find the exact. Yeah. So I didn't, I wasn't always a morning person, but you know, there's a couple really good books that you can read that like sleeping in, you lose so much of your life. You just do like learning to get and it doesn't mean that you have to start getting up at 5am. But man, there are days I get up at five and by seven, I'm like the laundry's done. The dishes are done. My emails are done. I'm ready for my calls. I mean, it's great to, I just learned that I would rather get up early and have a productive day.
00:38:00
I also plan my day like this is not like, oh, I wake up what's going on the day, the night before I set my alarms for all my meetings. So my phone is going to go a client. So, um, you know, that's a hard stop. 11 o'clock, get ready for that call. And then, you know, I, you've got to have, so for couples, you got to have date night. You have to, when you are busy business owners, you can't leave it to chance that your relationship will function on its own. You have to put the time in. So there are times where it's 12 hour days. We're not good. You know, it's hi, hello, blah, blah, blah. Do this, go to the store or whatever.
00:38:47
And then you have to make that time where it's date night or, and that can be Netflix and a pizza that can, you know, going to a concert. We love concerts. We, um, went to a little speakeasy by our house impromptu and ended up having the best night ever. Um, but you have to have that. No, it's actually quite interesting. Cause we actually had date night yesterday, but we almost forgot about it. But we, in the end, we were like, we, we booked it in our agenda. So let's go. Even though actually we were not ready, but we still were like, no, let's go. We, we, we booked it already. You don't have your relationship. You have nothing. You can build a different business.
00:39:28
You can get a job, but you know, if you do not have your relationship, if you, I, I'm a big person of love. I love love. I love my friends. My friends are so important to me. So if you don't make time for people, you will be alone and you will be sad. Money cannot buy love. Money cannot buy friendships. Money can buy things, but things will only make you happy for this much. So take stock of what you're putting your time into. Build a business. There are going to be 12 hour days. There's going to be seasons where it's long and it's hard, but make sure that you're making time for yourself and for your loved ones.
00:40:12
And this is maybe the sign that you should, uh, the audience that is watching us, that they should actually reach out to the person that they didn't do for a long time. Maybe it might be some of your close relatives or different and to reach out to them. I mean, like this, this is the invitation. Just someone. Yeah. Someone that's on your mind. I will. And don't text them. I'll put that challenge out, pick up the phone and call them. Hey, you were just on my mind. I just wanted to say, hi, I do that probably once a week. Yes, I will call someone randomly. I'm like, you know what? If they're busy, guess what? They won't answer. Because I think in today's society we think, oh, I don't want to call someone.
00:40:51
They could be busy. Oh, I don't want to, you know, we, we, we put obstacles in our way. So stop putting the obstacles, stop answering for your friends, your family, or your clients. I'm not going to follow up. I don't think they can afford it. It's not a good time. Follow up, pick up the phone, call someone and just say, oh, I just want to call and say, hi, how are you doing? What's new? You need help with anything? Yeah, just reach out because sometimes people don't want to like reach out. They want that people will reach out to them and then they feel lonely, but it's like maybe the thing that you need to do the first step and then just reach out to your friends, to the people around you.
00:41:30
I have a one question because you already mentioned it at the beginning, but it's a really important question that we need to cover here at this podcast. And it's, it's the AI going to take the jobs. What is your opinion about it? It's going to take some jobs and it's going to enhance jobs. So marketing, if you don't understand how to use AI and marketing, and you're going to apply for a job, and there are two candidates that understand AI, it, you're not going to be the lead candidate. Right? So yes, it's going to take jobs, but it's also going to make jobs. It's going to make a lot of jobs. You know, someone's got to run the AI. It's not plug and play yet.
00:42:10
And at the end of the day, I don't think it'll ever be totally plug and play because it has to have the person built into it. You still need the human eye on the AI. I think that the whole job market is shifting between the gig economy, AI being accessible to all of us. I think it's like when computers came on, everyone was afraid, gosh, computers are going to take all the jobs. They're here to enhance our jobs, make it more effective and more efficient. The three E's. I'm going to have to coin that. I completely agree. We even had a discussion about that, I think, with another friend of ours. It'll take over jobs. I'm also a firm believer that, I mean, it's not going to remove people from the job, but it will place them where they will have more value for themselves and for society.
00:43:03
Just like anything else that comes down the pipeline, computers, software programs, you know, back in the day, PowerPoint. Now it's Canva. Now it's Gamma. I use Gamma now. So it's just about up leveling your skill set. So there is fear out there. And I want to address anyone who's fearful of AI. I want to validate that fear. There is some fear of, there's the other side of AI where it is scary because anything in the wrong hands can be damaging. So you don't want to take that away. Like if someone's like, well, it's going to change the world. It is. I'm just optimistic and praying that we can figure out a way to not regulate AI, but to keep us all safe. And anything in the wrong hands is dangerous.
00:43:52
Yeah, definitely. And also everything in excess is also not good for you. So like you still need to moderate. You still need to use your brain. Yeah, but if you're using it as productivity, like, think of all the project management tools, like ClickUp, Asana, Monde, they all have AI built in. You know, tasks can talk to each other. Google Sheets, you can use ChatGPT with Google Sheets. There's just those are productivity tools. So when you're saying the human part, I think we're really talking about marketing content, landing pages and emails. So my last question would be about, because you helped and supported a lot of people about how they can build their AI army, etc. And how to help their businesses. So what would be an advice for people to start with an AI?
00:44:43
How would you, what would be the one advice that you would give to people? How to start? Let's say that I'm the person who really, yeah, just have a computer, know how Microsoft Office works. And I'm like, I'm not really sure if I want to do this thing. Well, I would say have a call with me and let's talk about it. Because it depends on your business. Can AI be infused in that? What do you hate doing in your business? Ask yourself that question. You know, what is the one thing you're like, so back in my corporate days, I was an executive assistant, and I had to take minutes for board meetings. I hate that. Like, if I ever had to do that again, I'd be like, no, I can't take that job.
00:45:24
Now you can't offer me enough money to take that job. But today with AI, I could do that job and it will not affect me, right? I mean, there's so many tool factors. So what do you hate doing that you wish you could hire someone for? So you need to identify what areas you could use AI in your business. Don't go sign up for every AI tool out there. So I just had an email today from someone in my LinkedIn and Lattes group. They're like, have you used this tool? I was like, and I looked at it, I looked it up. I said, Actually, no, I haven't. I tried one similar, wasn't a fan. That doesn't mean this one's not good.
00:46:03
And my suggestion is, if it's something you have to pay for, if you can get a two week free trial, sign up and use it. Or if you have to pay for it, sign up for one month and cancel it right away. And then go and use it. So $20 $30. Okay, you're figuring out if it's a good deal, or work with someone like me who has tested 1000s of not 1000s, but 100s of AI tools. And I can, you know, pretty much direct you into which ones I think are great for your business and your needs at your price point. You should maybe do some database like of the AI tools that you have tested and maybe like, if you don't have one. Well, I don't have that.
00:46:44
But I can offer everyone every Thursday around 7am Pacific Daylight Time, whatever time that is right now. On LinkedIn, I have a LinkedIn newsletter. And it's AI news, what's going on and AI tools and one LinkedIn update and our podcast. We have a business podcast called scale up strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. And so it's a quick read. But you get the latest AI news. And I usually feature like four to five AI tools. Cool. So I think that this is an amazing closing. So in case that you're interested in an AI, then you can just give a call to Mary or like sign up to her newsletter about the latest tools. Because I think that definitely this was a fruitful discussion about what is going on on LinkedIn and how you can leverage AI for your daily activities in your professional but also personal life. And maybe you can start your little business, even tomorrow, maybe because you have now an army of AI assistants. So thank you so much, Mary, for being with us today. And we will be then in touch with you on the social media. Okay, thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye.
