Your Guide to AI: Chad Harvey | Always Lifting Ep. 3

Always Lifting dives deep into the intersection of technology, leadership, and humanity with strategist, coach, and “tech whisperer” Chad Harvey.

Chad has a unique gift: he can walk into a room, talk about AI, and leave you feeling both smarter and more aware of just how much is changing around us. He recently led an AI training for our team at American Crane, sparking lightbulb moments that are still glowing.

In this conversation, Chad and Karen explore:
• How to separate shiny tech objects from real strategic value
• Chad’s “AAA framework” for thinking about AI: Augment, Automate, Accelerate
• Why mindset—and embracing discomfort—is critical for leaders and organizations
• The future of work, jobs, and how AI is reshaping our skills and roles
• What convergence of technologies could mean for our species and society
• Why true leadership is about enabling others, not just leading them

From Vikings to AI, from burnout to breakthroughs, Chad shares insights that will challenge you to rethink not just technology, but what it means to lift others in times of change.

If you’ve ever wondered how to ride the AI wave instead of being crushed by it, this episode is for you.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe to Always Lifting 
👉 Learn more about Chad at https://chadharvey.com/
👉Chad’s own show, AI for the C-Suite https://aiforthecsuite.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadcharvey
https://www.youtube.com/@ChadCHarvey
https://www.instagram.com/chadcharvey
https://www.facebook.com/ChadHarveyCoach/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Today's guest is the kind of person who can drop into your company, talk about AI, and somehow make you feel both smarter and like you've been living under a rock. He recently ran an AI training for our team at American Crane, and it was one of those sessions where the light bulbs went off and haven't turned off since. He's a strategist, a coach, and a tech whisperer, and he's helping leaders avoid being flattened by the future. And not just bracing for change, but lifting with it. Chad Harvey, welcome to Always Lifting.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Thank you, Karen. I appreciate the introduction. And it's always nice to know that I've turned some light bulbs on for people.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Excellent. Well, how are you? What do you think of my latest shiny object toy? I just read your intro with uh uh an augmented reality pair of glasses.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I absolutely love it. And uh we were talking just a little bit before the show. I love the idea and the promise of both VR and AR. It's never truly materialized, but things like this I think get us a lot closer to that promise. So very neat.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Yes, and I found they the I have a shiny object problem. Many of my employees would tell you that. Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. Um and it's get it is getting closer. This is uh uh I haven't quite found the the perfect practical use for it, but as kind of a second monitor, third monitor kind of thing, it certainly is interesting. So yeah. Well uh let's get into it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Um so I I wanted to ask you a question. I I know um you know I have you here today with the with the background of me and you meeting, which is around learning about AI. And but you're more than that. You're also uh a vistage chair, which you know I'm in a vistage group and it's been so valuable to me. And you know what how what is your journey? How did you get into um I don't know, the maybe the journey into coaching? And then how did the coaching or where where did how did technology and AI and all of these things um you know have it?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Sure. So uh this is a two-hour podcast, right? I've got time. Okay. Uh so my journey is very twisted. I've got a very unique career path. Uh I like to tell folks that I'm uh a recovering attorney that never really practiced. Uh I've been a lobbyist. Um if you rewind, uh I may have maybe made a joke about this in the session I ran with your folks. I used to build uh web pages for beer money when I was in college. Uh I was very much present at creation at the dawn of the internet. And so I've always had an interest in technology. Uh I think if I'd had a little bit more courage in the mid to late 90s, I would have probably dropped out of college and moved to Silicon Valley. But I did not. Uh stuck with that, went through the whole traditional higher education track. Ended up running uh a number of organizations and entities uh predominantly involved in construction, first in residential construction, yep, and then in commercial construction, but with a uh a data bent. And the last organization that I uh I ran and I was involved with, we built our own software, uh, but we were also in the process of being disintermediated. And uh, in all fairness to the board that I reported to at the time, I don't think they truly understood the business that we were in or the fact that somebody had moved our cheese. So I came in, there was a lot of cleanup uh that had to happen, there were a lot of initiatives that needed to be done, and that's when I realized I needed support. So I actually sought out a peer advisory group and an executive coach. And many years later, when I exited out of that role, quite frankly, very burned out, uh, I wanted to take some time. And the time that I took was a lot shorter than I thought it would be. And I like to tell folks I got into this line of work accidentally on purpose. So people started knocking on my door, can you help me with this project? Can you help me with that? And then uh the vistage chair that I had had during my journey uh said something to me that I was then in a place to hear, which is I think you'd be a good vistage chair. And I said, Well, let's explore what that means, because it's not quite as easy as raising your hand and saying they have a process about that. They have a process at least 10 years ago when I got engaged in this, there were a battery of psychometric tests, there was a whole bunch of stuff. I won't bore you with all the details. But the consulting and some of the project work and then vistage uh was my foray about a decade ago into this line of work. And I have always tried to marry my passions uh with what I do professionally. And one of the things that I often tell people now is that every business is a technology business, whether you recognize it or not. Because there's only three things that power organizations it's people, it's process, and it's tech. And I don't care if the tech is a crane or if it's an AI system, right? It's all the same. It's all technology. We are uh very inventive apes uh and we make tools. And that tools, uh or those tools rather, they come from tech. So that is uh kind of my journey and a very high-level overview of uh why I uh am in the space that I'm in right now.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

I love that. Well, we we kind of you know universe has a way of taking us to exactly where we need to be. I'm s really grateful that this is the space that you're in with that kind of background, because you know, the advice that you had given to us and when working with my team and just i from your podcast listening to things gets my mind going. So I really appreciate you sharing that with uh with the world. Um if we get into it a little bit more, maybe we'll go back here to my X-Real glasses. These are the one pros for anybody who's curious. Um shiny object syndrome, okay? Like how do we go from shiny object to actually picking something that has strategic value? Do you have advice on that?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, it that that's really tough. Um, because uh oftentimes shiny objects do turn into areas of strategic value. And there is no one way, I think, to vet or evaluate what's a shiny object versus what is going to drive real value. Because I'll give you a perfect example. Crypto is an overhyped area, uh, very much over overhyped. And I think a lot of the ways that people are viewing AI are actually through the crypto bubble lens. Uh, they're looking at this as a new technology that is never going to pan out because the last one didn't, right? But if you really take a look at crypto, the underlying blockchain technology is extremely useful, and I think it's going to drive tremendous amounts of value and change in our society and in organizations going forward. So I mention this because it's uh it's an example of something with strategic value nested inside something that's overhyped, right? A shiny object. So discerning truth or uh, as Nate Silver would say, signal from noise uh can be very difficult sometimes. But I think it involves experimentation, it involves iteration, and it involves keeping an open mind and a mindset, and this could be recency bias, because I was just working with Dr. uh Eve Maseda on fixed uh growth uh yeah, that whole thing with uh fixed mindset, growth mindset, all that good stuff. And I think that um a growth mindset is a really good approach vector for how to discern what's a shiny object versus what really has value, because if you are open to change, if you are open to the idea that things are really uh uh uh going to um change in transformative and in new ways, especially if you apply yourself, then I think you can start to separate some of that out. So it goes to mindset, it goes to evaluation, but you really need to try and figure out for yourself, for your company, what is the signal and what is the noise, because that's another pet peeve of mine right now. We are surrounded by noise. Yeah. There is so much noise and so much information overload that I think it makes it very difficult at times to figure out what is that signal, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Aaron Ross Powell, yeah, definitely. I mean, and we talk about AI, and you know, you can go to, you know, I love sci-fi. I have a feeling from listening to your podcast and you love sci-fi. Maybe a little bit. You know, it can go all the way to like the foundation and and the the new Apple series and the AI who's like trying not to kill the world, but noji is, you know, kind of thing to um to AI literally is in your Outlook email helping you just actually it's doing your auto-spelling. Is there any you know when we talk about the noise and you're you're talking about the noise and how to dis disintegrate it? And I know me and you both you obviously way more than me, but um know a little bit about AI. Is there any sort of if you were to break it down because it's it's like you said with black, there's there's um there's crypto and then there's blockchain underneath. There's AI and there's all these other different things underneath here. Do you have any sort of framework about just sort of bucketing into any sort of um I don't know does this make sense to you? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, no, it does. I I think there's a lot of ways that you can slice this, and we could easily have a very technical conversation about uh the different types of AI and and the different types of applications that are out there. I've actually been thinking about this for the last couple weeks because I've realized that there's not a really good framework or shorthand out there for people to begin to assess this. So I uh I hope that I'm not torturing a metaphor here, but I came up with the idea of a triple A rating, right? And I haven't written anything about this yet. I'm I'm unpacking this here for the very first time. That's exciting! Yes. Um but here's the way that I'm I'm viewing AI. And when I say triple A, it's three A's. It's you can do three things at three levels with AI, in my view. You can augment, you can automate, or you can accelerate. And when I say augmentation, that is often uh where organizations are looking first. They're looking to augment workflows, they're looking to increase the capabilities of the people that they have and augment their abilities. The next level up, which involves process mapping and skill sets with the individuals in your organization that have already figured out how to augment, is automation, right? And this is well beyond standardized robotic process automation or some of the other um tools that we're familiar with from the last 20 years. This is true automation, and I think the promise of agentic AI is going to help to fulfill an awful lot of that. Then the third level of this, which I've been thinking about, which I don't think many people are at yet, is the acceleration, or perhaps a better word would be evolution, but I'm gonna stick with the AAA rating because I really like it. I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

I think I can I'm holding on to this.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And that's when you're going to really accelerate your organization into new and novel uh paths and uh different areas. You're going to invent new ways of doing things, you're going to invent new products and services using the first two levels of uh you know, the augmentation and the automation in conjunction. So I think when you ask about AI and how you can view it, I think the technology matters less than what you can do with it and how you view it through a strategic lens. Because as you know from our workshop, I view very much where we're at right now, almost in a homebrew computer club sort of way. It's very simple in some ways to use the tech, and in other ways, it's very complicated. Like you need all these different connectors. Once we uh figure out how to eliminate a lot of the connectors and disintermediate that section of the workflow, that's when I think we're gonna really start to see uh not just automation but also acceleration, in my view.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Aaron Powell And do you feel you know, my thoughts around this love that I think it's super helpful. Um and I think sometimes in order to stay abreast of what's going and and at least at least know it's it's you have to take some sort of action. You have to play with it.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

You know, I I we use um in our our company we talk about crawling with technology, and then you walk and then you you run. We we're thinking in the context of additive uh manufacturing where we started where we were we were crawling with it, we were messing around, um, you know, just made a few um uh brackets and and things to help. And then eventually it turned into, okay, well now we figured it out enough. Okay, actually we can we can use this on our actual crane. And we we came up with um an application that was beyond uh like a tooling, and then eventually now we're running with it, we do have like actually some components that we we added a print. But it took a little while to go there. And that's I mean, that's like a for us, it's on a very basic level. Um there are people who are doing way more with additive. But that crawl walk run, um making sure you play with it. Um thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, I I'm a big fan of the of that. I think that to the extent that you can also overlay that uh crawl walk run with the idea of failing uh and iterating a little bit faster and a little bit cheaper. I I see an awful lot of organizations get bogged down in the crawl stage, uh and they are very risk-averse. So it doesn't really matter if we're talking about AI or out of manufacturing or even just standardized process improvement. I think that you want to do everything in your power to accelerate uh those first two stages and learn as much as you can quickly. And then that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is mindset and equipping your folks with the skills and uh the frameworks to understand this and to drive innovation. Because that's the other thing. You're fighting against human nature here. Uh we are quite frankly, we're hardwired uh to want to wake up and do the same thing, most of us day after day after day.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Milo, right? Our brains literally, we're we we create those pathways and they're there and you have to break them. It's hurt to do that. That's right. If we ever try to get rid of a habit. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Because it's it's scary, it's uncomfortable when we do different things. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about evolving uh, you know, the way that we build things uh through additive manufacturing, if we're talking about our emotional intelligence uh personally, it doesn't matter. It hurts. And we are hardwired to shy away from pain. Look, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I play one sometimes uh in my coaching sessions. And these are the the things that make us human. And I think that's the other big thing to keep in mind, not to get too high-minded here. We are uh at a point in uh the evolution of our species where I think we need to start forcibly evolving our mindsets and forcibly evolving a lot of what we are and how we show up, because it's not serving us well anymore.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Aaron Ross Powell Interesting. I I I really love that. And I'm seeing it in not in a tech space, but that same application in the leadership space and you know, my belief on how uh we run our company and moving away from the the um authoritative kind of leadership to empowering people and that mindset shift it like you know just on that microcosm of an organization can be so empowering. But man, if we were to apply that as you know, as a species, even as you know, even a country or whatever, it would wow, right? Like amazing things could happen. And there's a lot of problems that need to be solved. There are um in this space. Well, back to your mindset uh piece, you know, I I feel like um you know we have to learn how to surf this AI wave versus being crushed. And I think you're alluding to ways to be able to do that. And you had a really great quote in um your tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah. What did I say that was so great?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Well, you know, you quoted, excuse me, you quoted Jeff DeGraffe. You had a great, great quote in one of your little tidbits, which I appreciate your leadership insights, daily insights. And it was um for those who learn to work with paradox, instead of resisting it, chaos becomes clay. And that resonated we me. I'm a big believer that change is the only constant, you must disrupt or be disrupted. And can you just kind of tell us a little bit about what that means to you and this idea around change and and what your thoughts are there?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, I I think that change is an overhyped word and an overused word. Um, but that it's overhyped and it's overused. Do you have another word for that that you like to do? I don't. Uh the best example I could give you it's the same reason that Stairway to Heaven was played incessantly in the late 70s and 80s. You know, just because it's overhyped doesn't mean it's not great. Okay. Okay? Or bound. Good, good, good, good. Okay. So I'm dating myself there again. Sorry. No, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

I feel like we're uh from the same time frame.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I'd I'd love to be able to throw out some kind of Kendrick Lamar reference or something like that, but I'm just not as hip to the new music as my kids are.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

So uh I don't even know what that is, so I am absolutely not hip.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

So I was just trying to make myself sound culturally relevant.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

I think yeah, that was good. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

All right. So uh I I think that change is again, it's it's overhyped and it's overused, but it's overhyped and overused because it is so critically important. And this goes kind of back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago in terms of the evolution of the species and where we are. So the way I think about this is that the entire uh uh history of documented uh human civilization is one of change, right? It's one of evolution and change and pushing boundaries and growth. And a lot of times that change has been uh spread out over longer periods of time and it's been more manageable. And what we are seeing right now is a compression of the time frame in which we have to change. Uh change in terms of our expectations about uh, again, society, change in terms of our expectations about work, change in how we work, change in all manner of different ways. So with that quote that you surfaced there regarding uh clay and change being the medium, I think that we really need to understand that, again, we have to be uncomfortable, uh, we have to continue to push ourselves, but we also have to understand that it is exhausting. It is absolutely exhausting. Uh I work in change day in and day out. And sometimes when I come home, I don't want to change anymore. Right? If my daughter's got something that she wants me to change or something that uh we talked about that she, you know, whatever, oftentimes I'm just not in a space to hear it right away. Yeah. So when we have change, the point I'm driving at here is whether it's at home or whether it's at work, we really need to make sure that we've got recharge space and we've got white space, and that we know when we are primed uh to engage in conversations or action, even better yet, uh that is going to drive change and when we need to just sit with that for a little bit and table it. So uh those would be my thoughts about change and about that uh quotation that you surfaced there.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Yeah, no, that's great. And um in that thread that I picked up too is this idea, because it can be overwhelming. I mean, you talked earlier about being burnout. I mean, I know what burnout is, it it's real.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

I think in our lives in general, we have to find the space to recharge and you've gotta do, you know, self-care, they say, and whatever that is for you in order to be successful implementing AI or in your life or just taking the amount of information and and whether you're you know running a business, coaching, or just like you could just be a mom with your kids trying to manage your life. Like there is so much technology and things coming at us as human beings that we've gotta find those spaces. Uh I think that's a really well-said point.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Thank you. Um we we do need to find the spaces. And uh I also think that we need to really lean into the idea, especially in the workspace, that work should work for us and it should work for the individual that is the us in this instance. And I know that sounds very high-minded. However, there is work that I draw energy from and there is work that sucks energy from me. And I want to do less of the work that sucks my energy and give it to people that it might energize them. Yep. And that's really, I think, the ultimate promise of capitalism and of work if we can ever fully get there.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Oh, it could be it's competitive advantage if you can say that, right? That's right. You know, I know when I'm in my sweet space of what my strengths are and what energizes me, I could just keep doing it forever, right? And it's, you know, almost I have to really stop myself from being in those spaces. Whereas there's the things that drag me down, but I have, you know, there's people that I work with who love to do those things. Like, isn't that a wonderful gift that we can give each other when we can identify that?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

It really is. I love the way that you portrayed that. It is a gift. Yeah. It is a gift. And at the end of the day, I'm a firm believer that no matter how much money we make, no matter what our accomplishments are, the only thing that really matters is this right here. It's the relationship with the person across the table from you or around the table with you, and it's these moments. It's it's the human interaction. Because at the end of the day, while AI uh is uh both a shiny object and a huge driver of change and potential for our society and our organizations, it's never going to replicate this. And we can't ever forget that the human element and the human connection is really what drives everything.

unknown 20:27

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Yeah. Well said. Well said. So as we move on a little bit here, um sorry, my brain has got me thinking about all kinds of things. I love it. Um I guess let's let's unpack a little bit more, you know, some of the fears that are out there. Um there, I think it's the Nvidia CEO had said that um AI won't necessarily take jobs, but those that learn to leverage AI effectively will be the ones who gain a competitive advantage in the job market. And I feel from everything you're saying, you're actually communicating this and and I believe this that it that competitive advantage, yes, it's with the individuals, but it's also companies, right? Like you've got to lean in if you can lean into this, you can make it a competitive advantage. Yes. But specifically around the jobs and oh, AI is gonna take my job. It's gonna you know what are your thoughts on his quote there?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Aaron Ross Powell I don't like the phrase uh take my job. I think a more I I split a lot of hairs for a living. And I can get very down in the weed and very nuanced here. But I think what we need to understand is that just like the typist pools of the 1950s went away, so too many jobs are going to uh either go away or change significantly. The problem that we're facing here is that we are looking at a technology that has all the preconditions necessary for rapid scaling, uh, and it's going to disrupt cognitive work. And we've never had that before. So the fact that it's cognitive work that's being disrupted, the fact and it's not just cognitive work, I should mention that there's overlap. Uh we are going to see See over the next five, six years, a convergence as robotics and AI come together, uh as semi-autonomous robots and different AI systems come together. There's a flywheel effect here. Uh we'll just put that aside for a second to get back to your primary question, though. All good. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

I like your rifting.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

I'm interesting stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

So yeah, it it's absolutely fascinating. So uh I think that um at the end of the day, uh I say that a lot, at the end of the day, um that's probably a verbal tick of mine. When we look at jobs and we look at this idea, just like Luddites, uh, and the term comes from folks that smashed looms and machinery in Britain at the end of the 19th century as the uh traditional weavers were put out of business because we had automated looms and factories, right? This is a great example of how humanity pushes back, often in violent ways, when we are scared about change. And that was change that was spread out over a long period of time. Uh I one of the examples I like to give is that when the telephone first came out, you had people that swore it was the tool of Satan. Uh I I kid you not. You can go back and find news articles and all kinds of screeds from all kinds of people all across the spectrum about how this is a tool of the devil. And I think that goes less to whether this is a demonically possessed tool and more to the fact that humanity doesn't like change. So when we talk about change of jobs, when we talk about the evolution of the workforce, I think we need to be very, very deliberate about this and not hyperbolic. We need to acknowledge the reality that an awful lot of jobs that exist today are going to evolve to a point where they may be semi-recognizable in the future uh versus where they are today. Uh it's um, you know, another great example I like to give is the great horse manure crisis uh in New York City at the end of the 19th century. They had dead horses, they had, I forget how many, hundred or thousand metric tons of horse manure that they had to deal with every day. It was a big problem. It got national attention in New York City. And in 20 years, that was gone because of the automobile.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Right? And a lot of those jobs and a lot of things that pertained to that and the horse-drawn or the horse-powered economy significantly evolved and changed. The people that were delivering ice per se, or beer, or other groceries and goods with horse-drawn wagons, their jobs didn't go away. The truck driver, the delivery driver today is the spiritual successor to those folks that were uh carting uh wagons by horse uh around New York City a hundred and some years ago. Uh but their jobs look very, very different uh than those jobs did then. Right. So I think evolution is the key, uh understanding that things are gonna change, but they're gonna change in a compressed time frame. So we've got to help folks upskill, we've got to help them develop more flexible mindsets, we need to understand what this means and take a step back sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

And I think the the thoughts you have around that are both we can do as individuals, but then also leaders need to be aware of that too, right? Like trying to overcome the fear of um people embracing new technology. Um you you've talked a little bit in in um some of the articles that you've highlighted or or and in your podcast about using the AI as a superpower, right? Right? So if we I feel like that's the channeling of um getting the flexible mindset, being able to and allowing the evolution to happen so you can come along for the journey. Right. We can we can learn to surf this AI wave. We just have to like we have to put some effort into it, which is exhausting and requires work, but I think is worth it in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Aaron Powell It it is. And I I think a lot of people get discouraged, not just because they don't know how to use the technology, but because it's not giving them immediately what they want uh in a magic fashion. Uh there's there are yeah, it's very true. A lot of people are. I just ordered something the other day from uh Amazon and I had it in two and a half hours. Wild. It is wild. Uh and so you're absolutely right, though. It's that now. I want it yesterday. I want it before yesterday. I think there's even like a key and peel sketch about that. Uh I want it before I even know I need it, right? Uh precognition ordering. So it just extends out and ripples into our expectations about things. Uh I think I shared with your group when I worked with them. So there are some AI tools and prompts or projects that I've set up. I've gone through 18, 25, 32 different versions sometimes to get to the ultimate outcome. But then once I get to that outcome, I've got systems and workflows now that are powered by AI that I haven't touched in eight or twelve months because they just work. And they're specific to me, right? So when we're talking about using AI to parse information and to create information, I think relying on the default outputs is a huge mistake because then you're sacrificing a big piece of your humanity, right? But if you use them to augment your workflow and then automate, again, going back to my triple A idea, you can really start to lean in and harness the power of this. But it involves experimentation and failure and being uncomfortable to go back to where we were originally.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Yeah, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, right? It's it's we need that to grow just as humans in general, as leaders, and as we're using technology, right? It's never been more important. Yep. Um let's go. I like this whole thought you had and the way you were talking about like our brains and humanity and where we're going. And I did have a question I really wanted to ask you about. Well, you talk about the intersection, and we're talking about it now, the intersection of tech and humanity. And what about our brains? Okay, so like I am obsessed with the Vikings. I talk about it all the time. I have a whole model on how I believe we should be leaders, we're gardeners, we're warriors, we're storytellers, and uh that whole philosophy. So I spent a lot of time looking into their history.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

They all did oral traditions. So it was all speaking. They have these things called things where they would come together and it was like the law, you know, uh point where they would actually be, you know, kind of judging people and saying, you know, here's what's going. The the king would say, you know, you're exiled, you're not, that give this farmer 10 cows, like whatever. It would have all happened in this thing, and there was a like a lawkeeper. It was it was all oral. This person had to remember everything. And they had to remember. They also had a very much a tradition of um poetic tradition and scalds and this idea of using your mind and remembering and teaching everything through um stories and sagas. So then comes the printing press and the written word, and like boom, I think I can't remember anything without the written word. I can't remember what I'm doing without my task list. So I feel like our brains kind of have evolved ever since that printing press phase. Then we go to cell phones, and I don't know anybody's cell phone number ex except my husband, which happens to be passwords to things, and it's probably the only reason why, and or my old phone number, you know, before we had cell phones. Um but then, you know, e even the fact that you can pick your phone out and you can instantly check Google or GPS. And you know, I've heard stories that there's actually things where people follow GPS so well that they, you know, drive off of bridges and things. So AI. How is it gonna change our brain? Good, bad, help us. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah. How much time you got? Ah. All right. So uh a number of things. You started with the humanity, you ended with uh technology and kind of circled it back around to how's it gonna change our brains? I think the oral history and tradition example that you gave is a really good starting point because language is technology. We didn't, as a species, come fully formed, able to speak uh in complex English sentences, right? We've gone through I we don't even know how many hundreds of different languages, lost languages, right? Some written, mostly oral, but uh. So there's an evolution. Uh we continue to get more efficient, and as we invent new technologies, uh the oral tradition, the printing press, the cell phone, the written, all that stuff, we are generating more and more and more information. And I personally believe, I may have even mentioned this to your group before, AI was inevitable because we lack the capacity to absorb, process, make sense, and derive value from the voluminous amounts of information that are, quite frankly, exponentially increasing, right? Yeah. It's again, it's that question of signal versus noise. So we as uh uh uh a tool-making species need to invent better and better tools in order for us to wrap our arms around this. Now, that doesn't go directly to the question of evolution here in our brains, because our brains are not evolved to deal with the environment that we're in right now. And I don't know that we are going to be able to organically, uh, this is a question for uh maybe your spiritual advisor, but also neuroscientists and neurobiologists uh and and evolutionary biologists about how fast we can organically evolve our organic uh both hardware and wetware here, quite frankly. And so where I think this is going is we're going to have in the next decade or two, if you read uh about uh the development of CRISPR, and if you read about the uh the research scientist behind that, she's absolutely brilliant. If you read about a lot of these technologies and if you think about what's going on right now in the world, Amy Webb from the Future Today Institute uh gave a great talk at MIT's EmTech uh this past year uh in 2024 about this, we are starting to see overlap and convergency in different technological areas. And it's almost, again, like a flywheel effect. And so, to bring this full circle, what I think is that as a species, as a society, uh we are going to have to grapple with forced evolution uh and what that means. And it's gonna be very scary. You're gonna have religious sectors that push back against it, you're gonna have uh philosophical uh pushback against it outside of the religious sector, you're gonna have societal pushback. But I think where we are going with this is we are going to start to forcibly evolve who we are and what we are in order to deal with the world that we've created, because one thing I know we don't retrench well. Uh and so it's this idea of constantly forward, forward, forward, forward, right? Go back to your idea about the Vikings. They were constantly pushing forward, right? We're still finding evidence that they went further and further than we originally thought. Oh, yeah. Right? It's hardwired into us as a species. And so I think the only way forward is for us to begin to have conversations about deliberately evolving who and what we are.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Aaron Ross Powell So interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Yeah. Uh fascinating to kind of dream about what that feels like and and the impact of all this, you know, what we're trying to tease out these places where we can practically apply, but the it it is fascinating when you think about it on that kind of scale. Um there's a great neuroscientist. I don't do you know Dave Eagleman? Have you heard of him? Yes, I have. Yeah, he I was I'm reading or listening to his um most recent book, and he does talk about he talks a lot about um people who are blind or can't hear, and then how they get a device that helps them um using signals and and then also the talking about what happens to the areas of the brain. Um and the the cool thing uh gives me some hope is he says that like um and I I'm gonna I don't remember the name exactly, but like, you know, the the the the highway in the brain that's that all of these things, the peripherals, our eyes, our ears are all plugging into can be reprogrammed to do a different area. So maybe there's some hope that with some forced evolution and just the the the amazing brains that we as human beings have that uh we'll be able to uh tackle this in the future.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Aaron Powell I I think we will. And uh you've kind of touched on, even though you didn't use this uh phraseology, metacognition, right?

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

And the idea of thinking about how we think and the structure and the way in which we think. And I personally believe that what you're talking about here in terms of the inputs and how we rewire sensory data and information and how we process it, I think that affects how we think. Because I have come across individuals that have been in different environments, or you talk about hearing impaired or visually impaired individuals, sometimes they will think differently and in different ways because of the different types of inputs and the different sensory experiences that they've had. And that all goes back to this idea of metacognition and thinking about how we think. And I think it's very fascinating. The whole topic to me, uh look, I know enough about a uh a number of things to be dangerous and sound like I know what I'm talking about, but I'm the last person you want tinkering with your genes or doing brain surgery or even under the hood psychological plumbing. So uh I thought go find an expert, please. Uh but in any event, the concepts are very fascinating, and I think they're very relevant to leadership and to organizations. These are not esoteric things that should need to sit on a shelf and purely be discussed in an academic setting. Uh I think the academic shelf has fallen and the books have spilled out and they're all over the floor of your office right now.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

So such a good way to say it. I like that a lot. So Well, okay. Then with with technology and with what's coming around with AI, um is there like is there any, you know, application I mean we talked about a lot of things that that is coming that we haven't even thought about. Like, you know, I know I was listening to to um the IP um podcast you had, and you were talking about legal really getting disrupted, or you know, I can see a lot of ways in in my industry and and jobs that could be disrupted. But what what like the like the um the manure Yeah, that's a lot of I get another I get another another bleep uh on my podcast um to deal with to turn into the truck drivers, right? Like what do you think we haven't even thought about? Like just something to kind of blow our minds a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah. What haven't we thought about? Well, I I can't claim that anything here that I'll say will be original, because there's a lot of really smart people out there thinking all the time. So I'm gonna get my own bleep, right? Uh and I I I think what we don't understand again is the power of all the convergence of these different technologies. If you look at uh the rapid evolution and growth curve that AI is on, if you look at the rapid uh amassing of information in the biological sciences, if you look at uh I just read a great article yesterday, last night, about fusion and how we are a lot closer to fusion now than most people think. Right? If you look at a lot of these things, it's easy to look at them in silos or as isolated instances and and not think about how they're related. But it's all overlapping. Energy, food, biological sciences, data, cognitive processing power through AI, we are, I think, about to enter into, and I don't want to scare your listeners, uh I think we are I think we're about to walk through some fire, quite frankly, uh for the next decade. Maybe more.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

We are forged in fire, right? So sometimes pain does at least drive us into action. So keep going.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

I think if I was going to put on my futurist hat uh and say what is going to happen, we're gonna walk through some pain, uh, both globally as well as domestically. We're gonna walk through pain sociologically, we're gonna walk through pain politically, we may even walk through um some pain pertaining to uh basic Maslow uh needs. Once we get through that pain, and I think that pain is going to be pain that is a focal point uh because of a lot of this change and a lot of these converging technologies that we are uh witnessing out right now in the world. Once we get through that pain, I think that you referenced foundation earlier in our conversation. I think a lot of what especially Western but also Eastern science fiction writers have been thinking about for the last 50, 60, 70 years, I think we are going to walk into a world of endless possibility that is both exhilarating and terrifying. So I don't want to sound too high-minded here. You were asking for some specific examples. Uh I think it's very possible that we are going to walk into a world in the next 20 years where you have got custom medical uh tailoring to you, right, uh based on your individual genome, and that we don't go to doctors anymore, and that we don't have situations where we are dealing with traditional medical establishment practices. I think that is going to change very rapidly and rat um radically. I think that one of the things that we haven't grappled with as a society, quite frankly, and I talked about this in an unaired podcast episode coming up in September or October with someone recently, I think that we have yet to grapple with closed loop systems and the finite nature of materials uh in this world. We are continuing to build and produce things as if there are no repercussions. And that can't continue uh indefinitely. Uh the last big thing that I think is going to be very, very interesting to see how we handle is we are going to reach a population tipping point in the next 50 years and the world population is going to radically decline. We have never had a situation other than in uh the black uh death ages in the right where we have seen population decline and it will be sustained long-term population decline. And I mentioned that because while it's not an immediate concern for most leaders today, you're if you're thinking about multi-generational businesses, your kids and your grandkids are going to have to deal with this because we live in a world predicated on increased growth, increased consumption, increased growth, increased efficiency, increase, increase, increase, increase. And we're going to head into a world where we are no longer able to increase uh based on sheer population decline. That is something that gets talked about a little bit in politics. You read articles every now and then, but I don't think people truly understand what the second and third degree implications of that are. I can't pretend to understand it, but I see it. And I see it's going to be a big issue. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Quite a mega trend that can have you know very we were already having shortages of finding workers and things like that. And you know, there's so much more to that than just you know individual businesses. But my goodness, like yeah, you have to rethink a lot of things. And um you're right, we're always trying to have that sustainable growth to keep going with inflation, to, you know, all these different pieces. But to to break that paradox or that model and have to rethink it will be very interesting and difficult.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

I I think it's very possible that uh our children and grandchildren are going to look back on this era the same way we look back on uh 19th and 18th century Europe, and we say, why were they at war for 70 years, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Or why was like this whole this whole uh time frame that technology thing, it was so slow. It took them so long to get AI moving, right? Meanwhile, we're like, oh my God, I'm crushed. I don't even know what to read or look at.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Like, you know, oh that's so funny. I I yeah, it's probably uh it's probably gonna be the case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

So the question is, what do you do now? And I think what you do now is you take every day um as it comes, but you also keep your eye on where the puck is moving, like Gretzky said. You look for the outliers, you look for the indicators uh like I'm talking about with convergence and technologies.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

I think convergence seems to be a space you're really highlighting that we should kind of keep on our radar should be.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I think it's really important because I I think we have never before seen so much unparalleled uh change and growth in different, seemingly different technological sectors, and we are going to start to see them overlap. And that I think is the the real message here at the end of the day. Again, I'm using that for the fifth time. That's okay. Um even though it's the morning. And that is really where folks should be paying attention is what do seemingly unrelated technological developments in other industries, areas, or sectors possibly have to do with me? Because I guarantee you that there's an impact.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Yeah, definitely. It's great advice. Um I want to change gears a little bit and and maybe tap into your your well, I think it actually applies to to AI, coaching, everything. Um I like to ask my guests, you know, in your experience, what do you think the difference between someone who leads well versus someone who truly lifts others? Um what do you think that difference is? And have you seen that?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Someone who leads well and someone who lifts others? That's a great question. There's no one way to be a leader. Ah well said. Yeah. And there I uh I I had uh someone I knew in the nonprofit space years ago used to love to say, uh you've seen one association, you've seen one association, they're all different. And I I think it's the same thing with leaders. There are some through lines. Um I think that the most effective leaders are the ones that understand that their job is not to do, their job is to enable. Uh I think that if I was going to try and distill this down into some type of fortune cookie wisdom, that would be uh the takeaway there. You need to enable, enable more and do less.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

Yes, that that's sometimes you do more by not doing.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Right? And and then and that's also true in the space of wanting, you know, back to the subject of technology and AI, right? Like you have to empower your people to be able to do this. You cannot you cannot assess and make this happen on your own. You're gonna have to um empower others to do that.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

So you know, you you talk about empowering others. Uh you wanted a a radical takeaway. Here's a radical thought for you, uh, especially as it comes to people. I think there is one possible future scenario where everybody is their own business. Uh, and that the traditional employer employee relationship is turned on its head for a variety of reasons. And I think that goes directly to empowerment and to leadership here as well. There are going to be uh more finite cognitive and people resources in the future than there are today. We already see it. And I I think the good leaders, I talked about enabling uh your your folks. I think good leaders understand this inherently, even if they can't quite articulate some of what I'm saying here. But I I would encourage you, we are coming off of um 200 some years uh of industrialization and a movement away where people uh you know uh uh there's a whole lot of economic uh stuff here that I'm not gonna unpack, but we're moving away from from one model and I think we're in transition right now.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

And I I wouldn't be surprised if one of the possible future scenarios is everyone is their own independent LLC, their own uh S-corp, their own whatever, and that we contract with folks as needed for different things. And that's what's missing an awful lot in modern workforces. It's empowerment and a sense of agency and purpose along with meaning.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

It's a lot to think about. But um really interesting things. Thanks for sharing that. Sure. Um So what's lifting you right now? Like is there is there a book, a habit, a mindset? You know, what it you know, it could be about the tech. It does what what or what you know uh you talked about Red Red Book, the sci-fi book uh that I'm gonna have to add to my reading list.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Like, oh uh red shirts. Oh red shirts, red shirts, yes. John Scalsey. Uh I love John Scalsey. In fact, uh I was very privileged. I got to go to a book signing. Uh my son and I uh went to one of his book signings at the Midtown Scholar, a little shout-out for Harrisburg uh bookstore there uh a couple months ago. So that was really cool. He had a new book coming out, he signed it. He actually signed uh one of my first uh edition, not that it's ever going to be worth anything, uh, but first edition print copy of Old Man's War that he wrote. Um so yeah, that that was fun. Um what's lifting me right now? I think what's lifting me right now is um uh a sense that even though we're in very uncertain times uh and there is an awful lot of chaos and pain right now, that we're on the cusp of something really uh interesting uh and and really potentially special. Again, I think we're gonna have to walk through some fire to get there, but that's lifting me. I think the other thing that's lifting me, and this is much closer to home, uh, are the age of my children and where they are in their journey. I've got a son headed to college this fall, uh, I've got a daughter that uh is headed into her senior year, a stepson headed into his senior year, um, and getting to see the world the way that they see it, uh, to the extent that they allow that uh with me, right? Uh that's a gift. Uh I recently got to spend two weeks out west with my son. Uh we went out uh as a result of his high school graduation. We spent a week in Yellowstone. We spent some time in Cody and Thermopolis, Wyoming, had some really interesting experiences out there. Um we got surrounded by a herd of about 500 buffalo for 40 minutes at one point in the backcountry. Yeah. So things like that are lifting me. Those experiences, because again, it's the experiences, it's this one-on-one connection. That's what lifts me.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

So there's hope for us with the tech. We're gonna figure this out. And and while it can be scary, you know, I'm hearing there's lots of things to be excited about. And then I love bringing it back to the humanity. I mean, it it spending time with your family, spending time in the outdoors, right? Like in nature, um, is probably even more important than it's ever been, right? Making sure you you unplug and and um get those photochemicals, I'm probably saying that wrong, whatever it is we're getting from nature, which I know is more than just yeah the good vibe, but that's what it feels like. Um you know, really, really well said. Well, thanks so much for coming today.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

Um you've lifted our thinking, um, you plugged our brains into the future without frying our circuits, I think.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

I hope.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

I hope. Um, hopefully sparked some of us into action and uh reminding us that emerging tech doesn't have to be overwhelming, it just has to be approached with curiosity, clarity, um, and having the right guide. And uh I want to thank you today for being our guide on that journey.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

You're very welcome. And if I had any parting wisdom for your listeners, it'd uh channel uh Lawrence Fishburne in the Matrix. Don't be afraid to take the red pill.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Ooh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Or maybe it's Alice in Wonderland. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Um good stuff. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

You bet. Thank you, Karen.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

My head is still spinning from that conversation. Check out the show notes for more information on Chad and his podcast, AI for the C-suite. Remember to subscribe to our show and always lift.