Your Wisdom Is Your Superpower Against AI w/ Ted Yang

Full Episode Transcript

This is the full recorded conversation from The Human Protocol Podcast, published by The Human Protocol Group. © 2026 The Human Protocol Group. Please link to and attribute the original episode when referencing this conversation.

mykel (00:01.727)
Your experience is not obsolete. With AI, it may become more valuable. Welcome to the Human Protocol, the podcast about staying human while building the future. I am your host, Mykel Salomon. Today's conversation is about performance and not burnout, not squeezing more out of people until there's nothing left. We're gonna be talking about a different kind of performance.

the kind that asks, hey, what if your best years can last longer than what you think? Right? And for decades, we accepted a familiar career, something that we were you know familiar with. You learn, you build expertise, you rise, you pick, and eventually speed, energy, recall, and stamina began to decline. But AI may change that curve. And with us today, it's Ted Yang

Author of Ace Let's Pick Performance, the Playbook for AI powered excellence. Ted is also an MIT engineer, entrepreneur, former finance executive at firms like Bridgewater and Citadel, founder of more than 12 companies and non-profit. And Ted, I have to tell you, you have been a little bit busy, right?

Ted (01:20.086)
A little bit. A little bit, Mike. But n not too busy to come talk to you, man. So

mykel (01:26.283)
I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to have you today with us and and I'm looking forward to to this conversation. I know this is something that you are you're very passionate about. And before we kick things off, is there anything that you want to share with our audience that haven't mentioned yet?

Ted (01:44.171)
No, I mean, I think you gave a pretty good intro. I I the only thing I'd add is that the reason I wrote the book is because I'm still on this journey myself. I think that the people who are the most knowledgeable about what's going on with AI or chatbots or LLMs, they only have a few years of experience. So I think the the important message for all of your listeners is that listen, man, this is a tool. You can still learn it. It was built by humans, and it's something that you can use to make yourself more powerful, but it's not too late, right? So you can get started anytime.

mykel (02:14.739)
I love that. So so everybody knows that really there is no experts. Everybody's trying to figure things out as we go, right? This is the beauty of of of this type of conversation and especially what's what's going on with with AI. So it's it's you're not late. This is why we're having this conversation and it's it's good to have that reminder so people don't don't think like you have experts because we're talking about this. No, we're trying to share what we think.

Ted (02:22.626)
Yeah, man.

mykel (02:42.975)
will be valuable for for people to hear about.

Ted (02:46.261)
Exactly. Exactly.

mykel (02:47.935)
So let me start with something that I know that you are very passionate about. Can you tell us a little bit what is it what do you call ageless peak performance?

Ted (02:59.288)
Sure. So as you said, people have a kind of performance curve. And here I'm talking about your intellectual capability, your ability to do your work, your ability to do your work even at home. So whether it's in the office or not, basically your ability to get things done, right? So none of us are as fast as we used to be when we were younger, right? So your speed, the raw speed that you can get something done in is in your brain is about in your 20s, right? And that is what is something that unfortunately fades over time. And we can't fight the biology.

On this one. On the other hand, in traditionally, before AI, long before anything, humans have evolved. And what we've evolved is that as we get older, we get wiser. And this isn't just something made up for old people to feel important. It's not just something your parents tell you. Literally, there's neuroscience that justifies what happens is your brain adapts to what it learns. This seems obvious. And then as you see things happening, you learn and you say, listen, I've seen this happen before. I know what happens later.

Well, that can also be called judgment or strategic thinking, pattern recognition, right? And this is what had traditionally gets stronger when you get older. But something gets weaker, something gets stronger. That means the peak is a limited amount of time for most people between 35 and 55, when you're at your best in terms of your career, your home, your ability to really get things done, right? But now, and this is the point where I say ageless, and of course it's aspirational, but the idea is that AI changes the game.

AI is a cognitive tool, again, that humans built, but it can actually help you think better. Now, if you want to use it in a dumb way, it can also help you be lazy and dumb too, right? So the key is if you use it in a way that helps you think better, that helps you be smarter, it actually can make you perform at your best. And thus the concept of ageless peak performance.

mykel (04:48.181)
Right. And it's it it is like any other technology or tool. It depends on what they use that you give it to. At the end of the day you're gonna get out of it, even on your personal relationship between human beings, you're gonna get from people what you put in.

Ted (04:53.582)
I'll get to set.

mykel (05:01.329)
It's the same story. It's it's with AI. And and I think this is very interesting to think about it this way, Ted, in a way that, you know, maybe depending on how we use it, our best years can last longer than what we think, right?

Ted (05:18.786)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, listen, the the these kinds of things that happened, you know, Tim Ferris wrote his book about the a a four hour work week. People have been talking about optimizing your physical health. And now what I'm writing about is optimizing your mental capability, right, with AI. And so again, I look, everyone wants to find a way to stay younger, right? Whether they're actually being you know, no one actually gets younger, of course, but everyone wants to be younger in terms of the way they perform, right? But

mykel (05:43.563)
True.

Ted (05:47.801)
But the point is that we can do something about it, right? As humans, we can do something about this, right? This isn't just all made up. This isn't all just, you know, wishful thinking. There are honestly things that we can do to help ourselves perform at our best as we get older. And that that's the whole point of the whole reason I wrote the book, the whole reason that I'm out talking with you and and and other people, whether those are you know on stages or for at companies, because I think that message needs to be out there, right? And and so much of the message about AI.

Does not fit your podcast. It's nothing about humans. It's nothing about, you know, how humans can use it. It's all about get rid of humans, right? Like we're gonna replace everybody. And, you know, Elon Musk, if you believe him, you it's like, well, forget it. Don't why bother? Everyone's just gonna be replaced in the next 10 years and everyone will have AGI. So just don't worry, right? And like, do people really believe this? I mean, come on.

mykel (06:24.728)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

mykel (06:35.595)
Ha

Yeah, it's if if if we pay attention to everything that is being told and it's been said today about AI, people are gonna get crazy, right? This is why this conversation are trying to make sense of what really we need to focus on, right? To put our brain, to put our mind into really what is it that we are gonna get into and how we can leverage the tool to help us in so many different ways. Like this topic that you're very passionate about, which is from my point of view.

Ted (06:46.872)
Right.

mykel (07:07.373)
It's very interesting, right? Because when you think Ted about the traditional career arc, right? For example, you develop skills, you get better, you get promoted. You know, the career ladder used to be, you know, with time, something that you look to to get to. But AI and this new future, it's changing that part.

Ted (07:09.646)
Yeah.

Ted (07:28.952)
Yeah.

Ted (07:33.219)
Yes, absolutely. And and and listen, I'm not gonna say that people aren't gonna lose their jobs because any new technology causes job loss. I think that what we hear now is completely overblown. It's so much hype, right? It's it frankly companies will say, Hey, we're ketting getting rid of people because of AI because Wall Street likes that. They don't wanna say, Yeah. Exactly. So they're so they're just using AI as an excuse, really.

mykel (07:52.283)
Absolut the stock market goes up r as soon as y they see the news.

Ted (08:00.984)
But that's not to say that it's not going to be disruptive. Of course it's disruptive. And you can see the power of it when you start to use it. You go, wait a minute, this thing can write better than I can. It can read faster than I can. It can do a lot of things better than I can. But that's all true. But that doesn't mean humans don't have a role. It just means our role is changing. Right. And so a lot of I think the why I'm passionate about this is that I want to get another narrative out there. And no, you're doing this too. Other people are out there.

But we are the minority of the voices out there, right? That are saying, listen, okay, humans, there's 8 billion humans. We're not going anywhere. All right. We need to be productive and think about how you can use this as a tool. And again, my my whole soapbox, if you will, is that there are plenty of ways that you can use AI, especially the ways that they encourage you to use AI, or AI encourages itself for you to use AI that actually will make you weaker, right? So this is no different than.

You know, b kids writing term papers or using AI to write papers and cheat on tests. Listen, dude, people were cheating before AI. If you're a cheater, yeah, if you're a cheater, you're a cheater, man. You're only short changing yourself, right? That's as simple as that, right? Especially going to college. I mean, geez, you or your parents are paying all this money and you want to you want to just jump to the end? That's on you, man. But the the point is if you do the look at it the other way, right? And say, listen, what can I learn with this tool?

mykel (09:04.839)
Nothing new there.

mykel (09:14.251)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ted (09:24.94)
As opposed to having it do my work, can it help me learn better? And the answer is yes. You just need to approach it in a different way.

mykel (09:32.211)
Yeah, it's you know, and and f depends on where you are in your professional career, this may have an impact different than others. For example, if you're beginning your career right now,

The way you approach and the way you face AI may be totally different than someone that is more experienced and that had been work in the workforce for years. But at the at the same time, I think this is leveling the playing field in a way, right? Because it's now getting where you are, and even without that experience, it's allowing you to expand your capabilities. Right? So it's it's all depends as you were saying on what it's

Ted (10:00.302)
Well.

Ted (10:09.624)
That's right.

mykel (10:14.601)
The use that you give it, and to think strategically about your career and how you can continue to add value with the help of AI and the technology.

Ted (10:25.772)
Yeah, let me give you an example, right? So I think you know, if everyone says you need a mentor, right? I think everyone understands this concept of getting a mentor, but getting a real mentor or a good mentor is hard. And mentors are obviously just humans, right? So it's like, well, go get a mentor. Well, that's really helpful. But the reality of this is a lot of this it when you say an equalizer, I completely agree with you because what happens is whether it's because of socioeconomic or race or different conditions that people have, right? You tend to find mentors that are like you.

And if there aren't people that are like you, then it's much harder for you to find it, right? And obviously for younger people, it's very hard in general, right? How do you find that first mentor, right? Until you start to be able to expand your career. Well, AI can help mentor you. Now, is it as good as a really good human mentor? Of course it's not, right? But on the other hand, a really good human mentor is not available 247. They don't want to hear about what you had for breakfast. They don't want, right? You might even be embarrassed, right? Because you're saying I have a really good mentor. I don't want to waste her time.

mykel (11:18.795)
Ha ha ha.

Ted (11:23.148)
Right. I only want bring but I have a really stupid question. You can ask AI that stupid question. Right. So this is really leveling the playing field for younger people, right? If you if you let it, right? You can they again, please don't just do everything AI tells you to do. That is dumb and that's gonna make you stupider. But if you ask AI for advice as opposed to answers, you can have it act as a mentor. And that can make a big difference to people starting their careers.

mykel (11:23.53)
Yeah.

mykel (11:28.096)
Yeah.

mykel (11:49.705)
Yeah, and you know, it's that specific example that you gave, it's it it it tells me that, you know, yes, even though AI may not be good at everything, as we like in the example that you just gave, finding a good mentor is actually hard.

But at the same time, a good mentor probably won't have the patience that this tool will have with you. So it's a it's a trade-off as life itself. It's a it's it's a you know, it's our trade-offs that we need to give and we need to continue to try to find our way one way or the other.

Ted (12:16.652)
Exactly.

Ted (12:27.118)
Absolutely. And and I think, look, it it it's a new tool, as we said before, we're gonna start this, right? So there where people are exploring new ways, the tools are constantly evolving. Even if it has the same name, it does something different, right? Even if you keep using it in your, you know, you have a very long context window, it starts to act differently. So there's a lot to learn about how this can work, both just generally, but then also specifically for you. And that again, the reason I wrote the book is because it's it's designed as a playbook. It's designed not necessarily to read it cover to cover.

But to really offer you ideas, suggestions, examples, stories for how you can use it in ways that help you expand your capability. Again, so you can perform at your peak, right? Because you don't need my help to use it in a dumb way, as we keep saying, right? And we have Google to thank for this, right, Michael? Like, you know, you type in something into Google, you expect it to like, the first few links, something's gonna give you an answer. Well, of course, I think we've all realized that that's gotten worse and worse. There's so much advertising, there's so many people that are that are.

There are SEO games and these kinds of things like that. The results get worse and worse. But you still kind of rely on either Google or Wikipedia or whatever, basically just to give you answers. And that is your therefore. Yeah, yeah. And but no one thinks that's as important as actually understanding something, right? So it it you know, and this this this goes into education, all those kinds of things, which we can talk about later. But certainly with it comes to AI, you don't have to ask it for the answer, right? You can say, Teach this to me. You can say, I don't understand this, explain it again.

mykel (13:30.781)
What you find, correct? Yeah.

Ted (13:52.515)
You can ask it because it's interactive, right? Because it's a chat type interface, at least for the LLMs that we're talking about here. So your ability to really adapt it to your thinking and you adapt to its thinking can together again make it more powerful. And that that is the human AI aspect.

mykel (14:10.193)
And and that's the powerful thing of this, right? That that it's not only the output, it's works with cognition. And that's what we all need to think about. And you know, historically humans we have used many different tools. Tools that extended our hands, for example, strength, movement, ability to calculate, you name it. Now, what AI I see that is so powerful and different, it's because it really works with cognition. It touches thinking.

Right, memory, analysis, creativity, it's kind of a lot covering a lot in one in a way.

Ted (14:45.836)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and you know the thing is there's always a trade-off, right? So as I write in the book and I say, you know, when I'm on stage is Socrates complained people were getting dumber because they were writing, because previously you had to memorize everything, right? And so if you were writing things down and reading, well that's a form of cheating and that's making you lazy, right? And in a way he was right, because who can who can recite a big a poem at all, frankly, but who can recite like a large epic poem like they used to do, right? Used to.

Or thousands of years ago. But that was the way in which they learn, right? But writing enables something even more powerful because now you can share that information with somebody else. It now it's not there's no loss necessarily because every time you tell the story, it's something a little bit different, right? So the capabilities increase at the same time in which you make a trade-off, right? And again, AI, as we've said before in this previously, just right now, is just another tool, right? And because it works on your cognition, it works in very interesting ways.

mykel (15:39.613)
Yeah.

mykel (15:43.485)
Ways.

Ted (15:43.704)
But we should not lose sight of the fact that it is a tool and humans built it and humans should use it.

mykel (15:46.771)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and that's that's where the danger is in a way, right? Is we should not forget who is using whom, right? And as far as we continue we, when I say we human beings, being the one that continues to use the tool, not the tool using us, then I think we will continue to find ways to to enhance our capability in a way that expand our ability and and and and our reach, right?

Ted (15:58.017)
Exactly.

Ted (16:03.852)
Yeah.

Ted (16:21.824)
Absolutely. And and I I think that the again, the humility we talked about, no one is that far ahead. You can catch up, you can go do this, you can find something new. It because it really is personal, right? This goes again to the title of your podcast, right? Because it really is about humans. It's really about your own protocol. It's not about what someone else can tell you to do, right? So my book, it's a playbook, it's offering you suggestions, giving you examples, but it this is something that's incredibly personalized, right? And that is its power, right?

mykel (16:28.426)
Right.

Ted (16:49.036)
Go back to learning, right? Go back to teaching, right? So Socrates and these guys, but the only teaching that they did was for the super, super rich, right? Like literally royalty, right? Where these people who who honestly, nobility, royalty really had only one job, which was to be academic and understand. Or they were literally kings and princes who they were teaching. Okay. So the access was nowhere, but it was one-to-one. It was customized, right? Now, right, what happens? We go to school.

We sit in a classroom, right? For twelve, fifteen years, no matter what however many years, right? You just basically sit and somebody tells you stuff. Okay. Now, listen, even thanks to the internet, we know that model was pretty broken, right? And the the pandemic showed us that this model, there's there are other ways that people can learn, right? It doesn't mean just go zoom, okay, but it means there are other ways that people can learn and be more effective. It's not just sit there, 20 people listening to one person. Okay. But AI now is one to one personalized. Again.

mykel (17:18.452)
Yeah.

mykel (17:35.219)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (17:44.587)
Is it as good as a really good human tutor? No, who can afford a really good human tutor? Okay. So I mean, really, but you know, for 20 bucks a month, and again, you can use the free tier, but I always recommend people pay something because if you don't pay, you're the product and they're training off of you. So if you pay, if you can afford the 20 bucks a month or whatever, then you can get something that's much more customized towards the way you learn, right? That's pretty amazing. Like that's that's unbelievable.

mykel (17:56.309)
Yeah.

Ted (18:10.264)
Right? You twenty bucks an hour, twenty bucks a day, you you couldn't even find a person. Good luck. Right? So so therefore again, it's only been the rich in our current society that are able to have this level of tutoring. And now you can. That's amazing.

mykel (18:24.223)
Yeah, accessibility. No one can complain about about accessibility nowadays, especially with these tools, because they all offer free trial or free, you know, tiers in a way that you can use it and not even pay. So accessibility, you know, it's something that it it has improved a lot for sure. So it's you just need to start using it. And it starts finding its way to work with you. And and the more you use it, the more it learns about you. as you were saying, this is very customized.

Ted (18:33.697)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ted (18:42.637)
Exactly.

Ted (18:49.656)
Yeah.

Next time.

mykel (18:54.197)
It's kind of you you know you have a copilot that knows a lot and keeps learning about you.

Ted (19:00.81)
Exactly. But the key, I think, is as you say, and actually the word protocol, which is in your title, again, for me, it's a really about the rituals. It's about the protocol. It's about how the process of how you use AI, right? Because it's like going to the gym. Okay. You can go to the gym and screw around and like lift a few weights, and that's not gonna make you any stronger, right? It's not gonna make you healthier, it's not gonna get you fitter, right? You actually have to have a discipline and understand how to use it well, right? And that that I think that's the same thing here, right? You it really need to put do you really need to put in the work. If you don't put in the work,

Then what you're basically doing is you're outsourcing your brain, and that's not going to make you better, right? But in order to actually make yourself better, you have to basically turn it into training for your brain while you're doing things, right? But again, it's that gym analogy, right? If you if you really want to understand how to do it well, maybe you're intuitively good at it, probably not. You probably just, you know, use some pointers, follow along. Again, that's what trainers are for, but not everyone can afford a trainer, but everyone can go on YouTube and watch videos of all sorts of people.

mykel (19:47.795)
Yeah. Yep.

Ted (19:59.287)
And I telling you how you can work out. Now that's on you to figure out how to do this, or you could use AI, right, to help figure that out. But again, it's this is the something that you have to figure out a discipline, a protocol, a process. That's how you're going to get better over time, right? If again, if you want to screw around, it's fine to screw around. We all can screw around, right? But if you really want to make yourself better, that takes a process.

mykel (20:10.997)
Yeah.

mykel (20:22.345)
Yeah, and this is the perfect, you know, segue to to talk about this, which is what is it that you we the options are there, or you become a casual user, or you become someone that is actually adopting AI. Right? And this is what this conversation and this type of conversation I want people to think about. We want you to get to a point.

That you are adopting it because we understand that there's so much that you can get out of it. Because you know, people can use Chat GPT and these LLMs that you know, Ted. Write an email, summarize a document, something easy like that, right? But there's something very different, which is you becoming what you call what we call an AI adopter. Can you tell us a little bit more so people really understand why we want to push more into that direction?

Ted (21:00.834)
Yeah.

Ted (21:08.109)
Yes.

Ted (21:14.476)
Yeah, so I think the difference here is when you when you really adopt AI, you're really committing to working together with it, right? It's no different than working with a person, like a team or a teammate, right? You're you're looking to do something more than just ask it some questions and do whatever, right? And and again, what is possible here is really learning things, being more strategic in the way you do things, communicating better. And in my book, I articulate these as superpowers.

Right. So the book is laid out with an introduction, lays out the tools history. It talks about principles for using AI, and there's four of those that should stay basically true over time, regardless of the technology, regardless of what LLM or chatbot you use. And then I got one of the superpowers. And that is basically the expression of how you can use this. And that's what adoption to me means, right? You're not looking just to on the edges use AI. You're using it to really try to rewrite your core.

And by the way, Michael, this works for companies too, right? Because people in your careers, right? The people that we're talking about here, whether you're early or not, at some point you're in the leadership position. Hopefully, you want to be in a leadership position. You know, that's a different question. But when you lead people, now all that leadership is not just gonna be up human teams, it's gonna human AI hybrid teams, right? It's gonna be humans using AI, it may be AI agents, it's probably a combination of all that above, right? And that is changing the nature of how you actually lead, which I also go into later on in the book. But the point is.

mykel (22:31.13)
Mm.

Ted (22:37.61)
It's that's what adoption means, right? It what's you for something you use for you, you something you use for your life and your work, something you use for your team and as a leader. And again, what this is about is really transforming the way in which you are working. It's not, you know, it just really that keep that open mind and say, listen, this is something that could be revolutionary. You don't have to have it be revolutionary, but if you aren't want it to be an adopter, you want to be revolutionary.

You can really think about how you can transform this for different aspects of your life. And I get that that's not always comfortable. It's certainly not always easy. But if you start to make progress towards that, it starts to move towards adoption, you can understand and see the value, right? and and you know, again, this is not actually anything about being technical. I think that's I think that's again something that people get in their heads, and that especially you know, people like just like you know, prior generations do with the internet, they that's something for young people. This is not gonna be the case, this is going to be for everybody.

mykel (23:31.381)
Hm. Yeah.

Ted (23:35.053)
Okay. Unless you're literally just right now sitting on the beach and going fishing every day. And if so, hey man, have a great time. You're probably not watching this podcast. Okay. If that if that's what you're doing, great. Good luck to you. Everybody else, you know what? This is gonna be part of your life. It if it's not already, it's it is, you just don't know it. Right? You're it's something you use already today. Someone you're talking to already today, they're already using the AI to help them be better. So why not you?

mykel (23:41.227)
Yeah. Yeah.

mykel (23:53.641)
Yeah. Yeah.

mykel (24:01.375)
Yeah, and and you know, you have to start somewhere. And the starting point in all of this is the experimentation phase. This is what everybody should start, right? Experimenting, trying the tool, see how you can leverage and what you can learn to work with the tool, how you can, you know, maybe implement some bring some use cases of your personal and professional life and see how the tool can help you in a way. But what we're talking about is you should not get stuck there.

Ted (24:05.304)
Yeah.

mykel (24:30.079)
This is just the entry phase. We want you to get out of the experimentation and start kind of being that AI adopter in a way. Because once you get there,

You're gonna have you're gonna start seeing a lot more of what this tool and this new future will be. Like you were just saying, we're gonna have AI agents and AI solutions embedded in organization. It's gonna be humans plus AI in in in a lot of ways. And this is kind of the the future that we're heading towards. And this is what we want people to start understanding. And you can only start understanding that when you adopt it, because that's what it's gonna open your mind.

to a world of possibilities and then you're gonna start seeing how companies, organizations, and even regular human beings are using AI once they get into this adoption phase.

Ted (25:23.476)
Exactly. Exactly. And and and it's transformative, honestly, right? And listen, it's not that it's going to be only one you know, one direction up, right? Obviously, it has bumps, it's a curve, but the directionality of it is certainly going to be up. but it but I believe it's really transformative. I what I think what we're seeing now, and again, there's all sorts of hype. So I understand people saying, there's hype. In fact, we just said it ourselves. There's so much hype. Don't believe all the hype. But that being said, because the nature of how AI worked as a cognitive tool, its ability to transform.

In my mind, what we're seeing now is the same revolution that we saw for blue collar work that's happening for white collar work. Okay. It's it the same exact thing where people said, listen, this is the job that I have. I'm very valuable. I have really good skill. No one can replace me. I feel important. I provide for my family. Well, we can see what that ha what's happened there, right? Automation, factories, all that thing completely changed the nature of that. And, you know, is results in a lot of the political situation we have in our country right now because people basically said, well, no, things will be fine.

Okay, listen, things are not going to be fine. You have to make sure that you're on top of the curve. There are plenty of people over time when that revolution happened, right? Who were left behind, but then who got back, they trained up, they did the right thing. You know, obviously not everywhere, but some places they were able to really do better. But those jobs fundamentally changed. But the people were still people, right? And they had to go figure out where they wanted to be valuable. Now the same thing is happening here, right? man, I had.

X years of experience, you know, I I've been I've been in my office, you know, for so long. I am the best expert, this, that, the other thing. But wait a minute. Now AI can do what I do, right? In five seconds, but takes me five hours. Okay. So you can no longer rely on the fact that you're an expert at that anymore. Now you at least have to say, listen, I can now manage a whole bunch of AIs doing that and I can make sure the quality is good that we're getting the right work done. Okay. But you can't just simply say, Who cares about AI? I'm just gonna keep doing my job. Well, maybe your company says that's fine.

mykel (27:15.996)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (27:18.392)
Then sooner or later your company's gonna have problems, right? Because you just can't stop that progress. So it's the same thing. You can say, again, hey man, I've been coming to the factory every day for 20 years doing the same job. Well, guess what? You've been going into the cube every for 20 years, so you come in the office 20 years doing the same job. It's just not gonna work anymore, folks. So now you can get ahead of this and understand, like once you make that shift and say, listen, I have to do something about this. Now you can figure out what you can do. And this is again where AI can help you along that.

You can't view it as something that's just gonna take your job. You view it as something that's gonna make you do your job better and maybe get a better job, right? That's and that's where it's gotta

mykel (27:56.105)
Hopefully that's exactly where where things are heading, right? And and you know, we we talked also, we briefly talk about this generational gap, right? On how this may be kind of leveling the playing field in a way, right? Now, when I also look at this Ted, I think that experience, right, in a way.

it's gonna be really the ultimate AI advantage as I see it, right? And and and the reason why I think about that is because you being experienced professional, someone with experience, you're still gonna have hopefully better judgment, right?

Ted (28:25.143)
Mm.

mykel (28:36.875)
And maybe being able to identify with the help of AI kind of what are the patterns that you're seeing, and how to determine the best strategy moving forward. It's a, you know, there is kind of a narrative out there that really younger people automatically will have the advantage with the new technology because historically younger people have been adopting and consuming new technology easier than you know older generation.

But in times of AI and in times of you becoming an AI adopter, really experience I s I think it will add a lot more value to your relationship with AI than those that don't have the experience. Curious to hear your thoughts on on this.

Ted (29:25.984)
Yeah, I mean listen, I agree with you. I think I think experience and judgment are the important skills. And again, if you don't have experience, you can try to figure out as we talked about how younger people can work on developing their judgment using AI. Just don't ask for answers and try to develop your abilities to learn. Use everything as a learning opportunity. But real judgment comes from real experience. And that is something that, again, look, just simply sitting around and having life go by you for 20 years doesn't give you experience, right?

Have to, if you're learning from it, if you're understanding something, you're learning something new every day, then you are building that experience. And then again, that is what's valuable because the way I look at this when things change thanks to AI, it's no different than in you change your career if you move from basically being a do or individual contributor to a leader, right? You are now more responsible for things that previously you were not responsible for, and the way in which you get things done.

Is not by doing the job with the people on your team because obviously it doesn't scale. And that's not the reason you're a leader, right? At least not in a good in a good company or whether your own company or somebody else's, right? if you think your job is just to do your employees' jobs, then why why do you why do they exist or why do you exist? One of you is redundant. So your job is always to get them to do better and to make sure that you're doing the right work. Well, that's gonna be true for AI too. That experience, that judgment comes with time, right? And that that is where

Experienced people have that leg up, right? And in fact, I I it it's it is very different from other technologies, right? Don't get me wrong, young people are native to it, they they they they breathe it in just like oxygen, right? They understand in a way that older people it's it's much more difficult for them to understand. And of course, again, look at the curves, it's harder for you to learn new things as you get older. But the difference here is that because the judgment, your judgment, is what's important, that is.

mykel (31:01.451)
Yeah.

mykel (31:18.283)
That's the advantage, yeah.

Ted (31:19.776)
Yeah, that's an advantage, man. You can now look at situations. Like again, so AI can do writing for you. If you let it do all sorts of writing for you without exercising judgment, you are going to get into trouble. You're gonna get fired. You're gonna you're gonna break up with your your spouse or your your your kids are gonna hate you, whatever it is, right? You don't let it just go do things for you. No different than you would let a junior person in your company go do things for you. No l different than you would let your son, who's the teenager, go write something.

That is going to send to your boss. That's crazy talk. He would never do that, right? You would review it using your judgment and be like, hmm, is this right? Maybe it's right. But maybe, more likely, this is how you can make it better iteratively. And that's something you can do with AI. And if you want to again expand and adopt and understand the way which you can do that, and that is leveraging your judgment, right? And that is gonna be more powerful.

mykel (31:55.115)
Yeah.

mykel (32:14.761)
Yeah, it's you know, it's that it's the old conversation about young people, they have the speed, they are younger, you know, everything works faster when you're young. Now more experienced people have the contact, right? They have the experience. They can hopefully make better decisions and have better judgments based on the experience that and the experiences that they have.

Ted (32:24.622)
Yeah.

Ted (32:30.85)
Yeah.

mykel (32:41.855)
They have gone through. It's again, it's back to the trade-off. It's how we can level set both in a way that we get the best out of one plus the best out of the other, and and try to work with the best that we can. So and and how do you think, Ted,

Ted (32:56.394)
Exactly. Exactly.

mykel (33:01.791)
Those experienced professional that are maybe afraid or are trying to avoid working with AI and or maybe intimidated by the technology, how we can get those people out of that and and try to get them to where we need them to which is you need to start using AI.

Ted (33:22.828)
Yeah. So so look, I I I think the first thing is to understand that this is not going to go away, right? And even you know, every day, you know, people are saying, this will go away, this will go away, this will go away. And while the impact may be different than what we imp maybe it'll take longer, it'll probably take longer, frankly, than most of the hype that certainly you know the the the guys in Silicon Valley are saying, it will happen, right? And so the again, because this reset is happening, you have a chance to get ahead of that curve. Now, so so look at that as an advantage to do this, right?

Now, if that's not enough to motivate you, and you think you can dig in your heels, I'm just gonna say you're probably wrong. It depends how long you're trying for, right? If you think you can dig in your heels for a year or two, yeah, you might be able to get away with it. What do I know? But if you think you can dig in your heels for five years or more, there's no chance in hell, right? Like this is there, there is no chance in hell. And what will end up happening is that wherever you work will either give you opportunities and the training and these kinds of things, you take advantage of it again, no different than blue-collar work, at least in good companies.

Give you an opportunity to retrain, do something different. But if you don't take advantage of that, at some point your boss has no choice, or his boss has no choice, or her boss has no choice, right? They're gonna be like, listen, I what can I do here? Right? Like you need to get with the tools that we use here, or you can't work.

mykel (34:35.997)
Or or they will hire someone that used the tool and so

Ted (34:39.466)
Exactly. And so so I so that should be enough motivation, I think, for most people. And then and then it's more of the how can you get past the frustration, you know, shame, fear, all that kind of stuff. And again, let's go back to what we said earlier. It's early. Okay. It it's not a big deal if you're behind it, but it you know, and maybe you can't admit that to anybody, your children, your spouse, your your boss, you can't admit to anybody. Well, that doesn't that still doesn't matter because you sitting in front of your computer or your phone using AI, no one else needs to know, okay?

Unless again, if you're not paying for it, then the entire universe knows. So, but if you pay for it, then you're you're you're buying some privacy based upon their terms of service. No one else needs to know. Okay. And so you can ask the stupid questions, you can interact with it in stupid ways until you get up to speed. You don't have to be intimidated, right? And this and I understand this is again part of the reason I put this as a book, part of the reason I'm out there talking to people, because I understand that not everyone learns the same way. And younger people.

Okay, they're gonna go on their phones, they're gonna go watch videos, they're gonna go, you know, messaging their friends. Different ways to learn this. Older people need to be shown. They need to have a reference. And the book serves as a physical reference if that's what you need, or electronic if you want to get the ebook. Doesn't matter. It's the same thing. It's a way to crystallize that in a form that I think other learners that people have, and again, certainly older learners, but people, you know, it's a way that I think is less intimidating than watching a video.

mykel (35:41.567)
Many different ways, yeah.

Ted (36:04.94)
Of some 20-year-old kid saying, use this prompt, watch all the amazing things that this can do. And you can sit there and go, I have no idea what you're talking about, man. I don't even know the words you're using. Right. And I think that you gotta get past that, right? So so I think the book or the other formats in which this this content is being available, being made available by me or by you, the people who are having this conversation out there, this is an opportunity for people who are you know, again, fear or a fear of of looking stupid or failure.

mykel (36:13.105)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (36:31.798)
these kinds of things, they can just get out there and use the tools in a way that is much more safe, right? and then I would say, look, the the it's a feedback thing, right? So you you don't go to the gym, you know, and and and start to bench press 250 pounds, okay? You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna hurt yourself, right? Really? No one would ever think you could do this, right? The same thing is true here. No one expects you to become, if you're not an AI expert, if you're again, I don't I don't anyone in any position right now will say I don't use AI.

mykel (36:51.655)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (37:01.304)
Like except for very few jobs, you know, like like a doctor or you know, make a professor and these kinds of things where very protected people, right? I I I'm sure in most, if you're if you're kind of a corporate person, I guarantee you that you can't sit there and be like, I don't use AI, boss, screw off, right? No way. You at least have to be like, sure, I'm trying it. Okay. But in your heart, you may know you're not really trying it and you're trying to wait it out. Right. And so this is this to me is look, just look at it iteratively. Just get started.

mykel (37:01.695)
Yeah.

mykel (37:18.815)
Yeah.

mykel (37:25.514)
Yeah.

Ted (37:30.508)
Right. Don't try to go out there and bench press 250 day one. That's not gonna work. Go out there and do something small and maybe not even work related. Maybe something personal related. Right. And and and just s just give it a chance. Right. You can follow along with my book. You can follow along to you know your podcast. There's plenty of other people that have come along and just just try to do what they do. Right. And if you don't, if you don't get it right, no one's gonna know. Right? But then just start you find. Hopefully you get something started. Hopefully you get something right.

mykel (37:53.651)
Yeah, just get started, right?

Ted (37:59.735)
And then you keep going. And then and then you'll find, and and I I see this all the time. Like some of the people that I meet that I would I you know, first of all, they're blown away. And then you know, a month later, they're doing some stuff that I'm like, I'm I'm like, whoa, I can't believe you're doing this stuff. And they're like, well, yeah, well, I wouldn't die, right? Like, of course I'm I'm out there like and they're just like, my god, it's so easy. It's like, yeah, dude, it's not that hard. And and it really is.

mykel (38:15.701)
Just taking that first step, Ted, right? That first step. And there's no way back.

Ha ha

Ted (38:25.206)
It it really is in many ways a democratization of a lot of things that previously had to be pretty technical to understand. And don't get me wrong, there's tons of stuff that's super, super technical that very technical people are doing. But a lot of that I think is is honestly jargon. It's very intimidating, but it's not even necessary. Right? The the makers of these tools understand their real audience is not just techies. Okay, techies are the early adopters, they're gonna use it a lot. You can see that happening already. They're using code to using AI to write AI. I mean, there's also really cool things happening.

The vast majority of the people on this planet are not techie and they would certainly never call themselves that. They need a way to keep it more accessible. And that's frankly why it was designed as a chatbot in the first place. Is because it's much more accessible to have a conversation, right, than it is to just literally like type out esoteric commands. Yeah. Yeah, two user friendly maybe. But but the point of it is it it yeah.

mykel (39:05.023)
Mm-hmm.

mykel (39:10.983)
And it's so user friendly, right? It's so user friendly, it's as easy as it can get. Two, two, I agree. Yeah.

Ted (39:21.664)
It's designed for you, right? It's designed for more people, not just techie gearhead people, right? You are, you don't need to do this. Like this is this is this is unbelievably true. Could pre- look, you could have used AI in other forms, okay? No problem to help solve your problems. But they're so hard to get up that learning curve, okay. If you don't have that previously, you're gonna go and like adopt machine learning techniques and your data. Like you have to figure out, I there's a hundred things that you need to do, and that you're not gonna go do.

Okay. Now you just iteratively go do it back and forth. But again, if you don't put your judgment in there, you run a lot of risks. But if you do and you follow a protocol, you follow a process, you follow a guidebook or a playbook, you can you can do it. That's it.

mykel (39:57.279)
Mm-hmm.

mykel (40:04.521)
Yeah, absolutely, you know, and and and to get to this new next topic of human performance since we have been talking about performance all along. It's what is human performance in the age of AI, right? And it's not only quantity, but also it's the quality of of the decision, of the judgment that we put in on on on the questions that we ask this tool. So what does peak performance mean for you, Ted?

Ted (40:33.888)
Yeah. So so I think I think you said it right there. because I think it is really about quantity over quality. I think for so long we have been limited, when I say we, I mean companies in general, right? And people, but really companies have been limited by their resources in terms of how much quantity they could have, right? Certain things, most things scale only based on the number of people you have. That's why you see these gigantic companies, right? In which they hire so many people to get things done because

Know that's the only way in which you scale up. Now, of course, as you have more people, you also have more overhead, right? Because people need to be managed and they need, you know, to be paid and they have benefits and all this other stuff. And problems happen and people don't work well together. So the scaling isn't perfect, but human scaling by the number of people, right? And that was how you manage to get work done. But still, that became a scarce resource, right? And and and I, you know, I'm from a technical kind of background. You know, I've done a lot of kind of technical started technical companies, kind of built technical products.

And in that space, it's been very acute, meaning that the the dreams of the founders or the dreams of the product people are far exceed the ability of the people who are writing the code to implement those dreams, right? And that's been the case up until recently, thanks to AI. But in this particular sphere, and this is true for other places, the raw output, the raw quantity has now changed. You can now write way more code, but that doesn't mean you should, right? You can write way longer papers. That doesn't mean you should.

Just like you can write way longer emails, does that help you communicate better? No, it doesn't, right? So you have this ability to do so much more, but quality is what matters, right? Peak performance is about quality. And this is true whether it's mental, physical, emotional. It's about quality. Now I get that the fact that here in America, we love quantity, right? We love to do more, do more, do more. But really, this is a mind shift.

mykel (42:11.381)
Yeah.

mykel (42:20.243)
Output transcript:

Ted (42:26.828)
Right. This is a mind shift that I think people need to get past. Because just simply doing more, if it's not the right thing, doesn't get you anywhere. Like the analogy, you know, but like to use the space analogy or whatever. But like you have a big engine, the engine can get you someplace faster. But if you can't steer, you don't have good guidance, you don't know where you're going, what's gonna happen? You're not gonna get to where you wanna go. You still need to figure out where you need to go. Right. And now that's the limiting factor, the judgment, the quality.

mykel (42:30.077)
I think so. Yeah.

mykel (42:45.269)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ted (42:54.658)
That's the limiting factor. You can't perform at your peak just by doing more. You have to do it better. You have to do it smarter, right?

mykel (43:01.969)
with the intention, w you know, with the strategy, knowing where you want to go. That's that's where the magic happens. And I'm gonna and you know, a clear example of these since we're talking about output and and people, you know, some people when you when they talk about

Ted (43:09.099)
Exactly.

mykel (43:18.737)
AI and automation, they are very quick to just link the two more output, which in a way that's where companies want, right? More output, less people in a way. But a clear example of all this that is if you are on LinkedIn, if you're watching this episode, you're on LinkedIn, you probably have seen a lot of you know AI generated posts, AI generated comments, people just using AI to just automate their thoughts, and people are noticing that, right? In a way that

And if you comment on one of my posts and I notice, because we know this is AI generated, that you didn't even put anything on it to provide it, you know, to provide some substance and you know quality to it, I'm not even responding anymore. So back back to this. It's we need more intention. We need to use it in a way that we we the quality needs to be there. And I think I agree with you 100%. That's what the human performance and pick performance.

Ted (43:58.606)
Yeah.

Ted (44:06.624)
Exactly.

mykel (44:18.541)
performance is about as you're saying.

Ted (44:20.834)
Yeah, and listen, this has been true. Look at social media, right? Social media really screwed people's heads because it's it it created this weird concept that like the number of followers or friends, depending on what platform, that's what's important. But those people aren't followers or friends. They don't give a crap about you, right? That this is this is false illusion, right? This is not real communication. These are not real relationships. This is BS. This is this is this is not even

mykel (44:27.893)
True.

Yeah. Yeah.

mykel (44:37.437)
Yeah. It's a false illusion.

Ted (44:48.588)
Facsimile. It's a it's it's it's something that they pretend. It's like it's basically completely fiction that these things are relationships, right? And you can test this very easily on social media. Just go and see, right? How quickly your people will turn on you if you stop becoming the you that they think you are, right? And now go and look at what's happening now on on again, like you said, on LinkedIn, which is of course is a social network these days. What do you see? Right, and so it's not just people are stop responding to it.

mykel (44:59.936)
Yeah.

Ted (45:16.662)
I think it's it it is overwhelming for people, right? And and and what the gut reaction for most humans is normal, which is to say if I'm overwhelmed, I'm gonna stop. Right? I just have to stop.

mykel (45:19.271)
It's overwhelming.

mykel (45:26.985)
Yeah. That is very true. Yeah. That's what we do.

Ted (45:30.764)
And this is, yeah, that's what you do. You're like, I can't respond to this. Like, I can't, you know, and it's it it starts to become comical. But the point is, the AI responses, like AI, like all these like weird tools that help you communicate and whatever, none of that really works. It's all just pretend, right? That that's actually what makes people want to communicate with each other, right? What makes people communicate to each other is really one-to-one. Now, I understand, look, you and I, I'm pretty sure we're both real human beings, okay?

mykel (45:49.387)
Yeah.

Ted (45:58.115)
Now, I get the fact that technology will be able to pretend and do this pretty clearly, pretty easily, pretty soon. That doesn't change the value of it. It just means that you have to do it earnestly and honestly, right? Authenticity is what matters, man. And and and that again, it's not quantity. Quantity, it's like, man, like, dude, I look, I made 50 posts today thanks to thanks to AI. That's crap. That doesn't do anything, right? That doesn't help you to do anything. I mean, it's funny because I

mykel (46:09.427)
Authenti Yeah, with authenticity, absolutely, yeah.

Ted (46:27.308)
You I I put out videos on LinkedIn and YouTube on YouTube and and Instagram or whatever. And sometimes people go, that's a total bot. Bro, let me just tell you, I write all of my own stuff. I don't even use AI at all to write my content. Now, first of all, I tried doing that. And it was like, this isn't better, faster. And certainly, you know, it doesn't come out. Like, but so I actually take it as a bit of a compliment that people go, wow, like your stuff is so well polished that it like AI wrote it. No, thank you very much. And like, you know, I I I feel good about that, right? It's like

mykel (46:56.519)
It's it you know, it it you you you made me think that people that have always used dashes, which is a very you know, historically dashes have been linked to people that knows how to write in a professional way. This is a good thing. But with with the help of AI, thank you AI and they're using dashes for everything. Now people think that everybody that uses dashes on their writing it's because it was AI generated. So

Ted (47:05.644)
Right. Right.

Ted (47:11.021)
Yeah.

Ted (47:25.454)
I know it's so funny, right? And and it is it is certainly true that AI has tells, but I'm Michael, this is that's gonna change. Okay, it's it's already changing. Now the funny thing is, I read some stuff about students, right? They're like, well, obviously, you know, when AI writes my stuff, like my professor can tell. So I use another tool to make it more sound like me. And then they're there, and then they were like, well, now they have obviously they make you type it in in real time. I use another tool.

mykel (47:32.905)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ted (47:53.283)
that pretends like it's typing it in. Like it's like, my God guys. Like if you're gonna cheat, you're gonna cheat. Okay? Come on. Why don't you just write it?

mykel (47:57.041)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And since you taught Yeah, I agree. Since you touch on a student, Ted, what's gonna happen if AI can do a lot of what the entry level jobs were for younger student or people graduating from college?

and AI can do not only entry level or junior level type of task, what's gonna happen next? How this younger generation will find a way to continue to get jobs.

Ted (48:29.869)
Yeah.

Ted (48:36.716)
Yeah. So a couple things. I think that certainly the number of jobs is going to go down for junior level positions, right? That's already happening and it's realistic and everyone can understand that. And obviously a lot of Gen Z people are upset at this, and properly so. companies still need people, right? Ultimately, people still need people. Now, they may need fewer people, but they still need people, meaning they still need a pipeline. I think what has to happen is on both sides. It's not just the fact that

Entry level positions are gone. A lot of those entry possessions were garbage. They were crap. Okay. Like, yeah. Think about, you know, and I know I've had, I don't know about you, but I think most people have had internships that are really terrible because they they the person they assigned you to didn't even know they were getting interned until like that day, probably, maybe the day before. Okay. They have no idea what they're doing, right? They're they're they're busy with their own life, with their own work that they're being measured on, not how well they're help helping you do your job. And so

mykel (49:07.231)
That is true.

Ted (49:30.24)
Interns then, you know, they they try to figure out what to do. They be try be very helpful, which is again, by the way, one of my principles and the way that a lot of the chatbots were written is like, you they want to be like an intern. They're very helpful, but you shouldn't treat them like sorry, you should treat them like interns and not treat them like they're oracles or treat them like they're they're experienced people. They pretend to be experienced people just like an intern. But that's what an intern had to do because a lot of those internships were designed terribly, terribly. And and so what you end up having was interns either just not

Being productive or working on stuff that was completely made up, that was nothing to do with real work, and they weren't really learning anything, right? And then the really good ones were the ones that are very self-motivated, right? In terms of the interns, not because the programs were. And then, of course, the really good programs, the ones that were very structured. But there were very few of one, the very few of the other, right? And that wasn't working very well. So a lot of entry-level jobs, they will change because a lot of the work that they had previously done was not that useful or productive. And so

That evolution is happening and it's causing a displacement and it's hurting people. Understood? It will shake out, right? It will move the bar will move up. And I think this is I I take my my my my example here from social media, which again we just were saying was bad. There are obviously some good things about social media. For example, people, plenty of people I know don't spend a penny in marketing and they're able to get attention for their products and their and okay. Now

To really scale, you gotta throw in the money. That's what these wall gardens are very good at trying to get you putting their money in. But you can still get attention, you can still build expertise, you can still build a following for your product, your company, your launcher, even for yourself. Okay. Would you hire someone to do your social media that they themselves don't have a strong social media pro you know, a site, they don't have a strong social media presence. Would you? You would never do that. Never, never do that. Okay, so that means that that.

mykel (50:57.523)
Right.

mykel (51:12.141)
Mm-hmm. No. Right.

Ted (51:19.574)
Student, that child, that kid, okay, with building that themselves. They didn't have to wait for some company to tell them to go do this. They went and they built their own profile. They went and they they launched their own product, whatever the hell they did, right? And now as an employer, I see that and I go, yeah, that's the person I want to be the junior person in my company because she's already built, you know, a bunch of different stuff. She already launched a bunch of different stuff. Whether it's successful or not, it doesn't matter. I can see her doing that for my products, right? And so

mykel (51:47.903)
Yeah.

Ted (51:49.549)
So that's happening already. That happened before AI. Okay. So you know, show me your portfolio, in other words. Tell me what you've already done, right? I'm not going to teach you this stuff. You already know it. You probably know it better than me. Why am I going to hire you unless you've already done it for yourself? Now the same thing is true for AI. So a lot of this junior level learning, I think, has to happen in the education side of the house, right? So as opposed to again sitting around one person in front of 20 teaching, and then the student six is just to absorb and then later on they figure out how to apply it.

Already again before AI, experiential learning, right, Michael? Experiential learning. Why do you learn in one place and do it the other? You should be doing it together or at least in a cycle iteratively, right? And now use AI to make that cycle even faster. Again, one of the biggest things I think that intentionality, authenticity, but doing it deliberately matters. Again, you can use AI to deliberately knock down these knowledge silos.

mykel (52:22.899)
Yeah, that's it.

Ted (52:46.604)
Right, that exist in every company. And the reason they exist is not because people are bad or or they're just looking to protect their jobs, although some people are, okay. It's because you don't have time. Okay. You don't have time to write the documentation, to build the training module for everything like that. You're not being measured on that. You're being measured on getting your job done. You get very good doing your job. And now you're magically supposed to train somebody else. That's not gonna happen. You're not a teacher, you're not a professor, right?

mykel (53:01.929)
Yeah. I'll get it.

mykel (53:10.25)
Ya.

Ted (53:11.554)
But now AI can do that for you. It can do 80% of that work for you. And now you put your judgment on top and there you go. Right. And now you're able to train other people. You're able to train people to help you, not just necessarily help the company, right? So all these things are now possible. They're all they're now unlockable with AI.

mykel (53:29.363)
Yeah, yeah, we need we really need to rethink and redesign how we treat education, right? 'Cause education historically it's it it has been preparing people to memorize. We absorb, we absorb, we absorb. what about developing capabilities, right? And and and that's what I think things should start moving towards and and especially education, you know, preparing

Ted (53:45.247)
Very good.

mykel (53:54.015)
this next generation, this next workforce to a world that is very different than than than what we have faced. So

Ted (54:00.331)
Absolutely. And that that, you know, I think that's beyond the scale of this podcast or beyond the scale of anybody, but that is ultimately what has to change. Right. We our our you know post World War II based education model that includes that includes university, right? That includes secondary and tertiary education, has existed for you know only that long. Okay, only sixty some some years, sixty seven years. Okay. It's not eternal. Prior to that, we didn't learn that way. That's not how that's not how it worked.

Okay. And and prior to that, we learned a different way entirely. So you know what? This is normal. It's normal that this evolution has to happen. But you know, the and again, I I said this to a friend literally just yesterday. The the skills that were important back then in terms of preparing people to whether they go into a factory or they go into an office, it's still the same thing. It's still multiple people reporting to one person who's basically telling you what to do. Okay, that model is changing. And the the the key skill set that were important there.

mykel (54:52.71)
Mm-hmm.

Ted (54:59.01)
Right? Even down to the bell that rings in your school was just no different than the bell that rang in the factory that told people to go take a break or go move on to the next task. Okay? Like literally, it was designed for that reason. Okay. And then the this stuff that's all old. That all is all the not the way in which we do work anymore. And now we're jumping ahead to send in some another different model. And of course, education has to change together.

mykel (55:08.842)
Yeah.

mykel (55:16.883)
Yeah.

mykel (55:20.489)
Yeah.

mykel (55:26.205)
L listen, I know you you don't and I don't take displacement and job displacement as something that w no one should appreciate. But when you look historically, there's some jobs that were very task-driven that you say, why we were doing and spending our time on doing this? And and AI is really amplifying and bringing to our faces why you guys human beings were doing this before, and these were people.

Ted (55:46.934)
Exactly.

mykel (55:56.109)
People's jobs, you know, it's there's some things that AI is putting a lot of attention to us, like hey, you guys can create, you guys can use your judgment, you guys can add value in so many different ways. But again, job display displayment is a tricky subject, and no one wants to lose their jobs, but it's it's it's where the future is heading. Things are working, your job will will change, the task that you have been doing will change. It's

It's a totally n new feature that we're heading towards for sure. Yeah.

Ted (56:29.398)
Hundred percent, hundred percent. And and and nothing about that has changed because of AI other than the speed of it, right? And and if it wasn't and by the way, soon it will again, AI is very generic term, but it'll be something different. Right now it's all about chatbots and LLMs.

mykel (56:35.283)
Yeah, right.

mykel (56:42.579)
That's how I see it too. It's hey give it a few years and something something new will come.

Ted (56:48.65)
thing new will come and and and so eventually yes of course the it this is the the fact is things change faster and faster i mean no one i think gen z already knew they weren't going to go do the same jobs that they started when they finished okay because their parents weren't the baby boomers their parents were you know my generation or so right or a little older like so they they already knew that that was broken right you're not working for life you're not gonna make fine but now it's it's like literally the tasks that you do you're in fact the tasks having to do tasks at all becomes less of the job

Creativity and judgment become the job. Right. And that, that again, the displacement is huge. And I think a lot of people are going to be sitting there and and having an opinion that ultimately is grounded in fear. And so that, and that's again, if people get anything out of this, it's the, it's not too late, get started. You know, my book is a way to help. Doesn't have to be, right? This podcast is a way to help. There are plenty of things out there, but you got to get out there. You got to get out there and just go do it. That's the key.

That's the key. It's it's you know, get out there because it it it it you do not want to miss this one. You cannot miss this one.

mykel (57:51.763)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ted, we are approaching to the final part of our conversation today. And I want to ask you something that I ask my guests every single time, which is what would be your piece of advice for a younger version of yourself? Let's say that you see a young Ted today, what would you tell that kid?

Ted (58:15.042)
Yeah. so so I I think the the the advice that I would have for for myself or anyone younger, right, is that this is an amazing time and it's pretty freaking scary, but you've got to just focus on what is important to you, right? And I think the important part of the doing it for you is what we've said. It's the go out there, make sure that you're learning, make sure that you're out there exploring and doing things.

And take advantage of every opportunity that you have. Because when you're younger, those opportunities are everywhere. And then, you know, i i it it's kind of like the way the pattern of life, right? It's like as you get when you're very young, everything's just kind of more and more opportunities. And then at some point you pick something and you specialize, right? But now that's not really not necessary anymore. Because again, hyper specialization is some of the things that can be picked off by AI. Just the doing of hyper specialization, right? Except for particular fields, at least for now, right? like medicine.

But still, the idea of you don't have to go out there and close your mind, right? To what I would say to myself, which is like, don't just pick a path and be like, this is the ultimate path, I'm gonna go do this. No, like go into this broader space and really just think about all the different things. Just make sure you're doing what's right for you. And that's that to me is is absolutely the only advice that really matters. And of course, yes, AI, but whether it's AI or not, I think honestly life is what matters for that.

mykel (59:40.783)
Absolutely. Appreciate you providing this advice and being with us today. If people want to find you, Ted, what are the best way to to reach out and find you?

Ted (59:53.315)
Sure. So my book is Ageless Peak Performance. And that's also the website. So AgelessPeakPerformance.com. And that has links to everything, right? It has links to me, it has links to my socials or whatever. But you can also follow me directly. I'm Ted Sensei on LinkedIn or Ted X Sensei on Instagram or whatever. There's so many different ways to find me. it's not that difficult. so if it but but going to the book site really gives you a lot of information about me and the book, and then again from there you can link to where.

mykel (01:00:21.787)
Awesome. Thank you one more time for taking the time to be with us today. It has been a very enlightening and interesting conversation. So appreciate you for you being with us today, Ted. It's a pleasure. And for you guys, if this episode made you think about AI and your own future, share it with someone who needs to hear what that experience is, not that obsolete. Follow us, the Human Protocol, and talk to you guys next week. Take care.

Ted (01:00:31.362)
Thanks, Michael. Thank you for having me, man.