THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Dangers of AI and Humanity's Future (Are You Ready?)
Episode Date: May 3, 2025👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL - so this show can reach more people 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 Click the Link Below to Subscribe to my emai...l list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff) https://konect.to/edmylett 💥 Get my exclusive Monday Motivation training in GrowthDay, the world’s #1 app for advanced mindset and personal development. Visit https://growthday.com/ed. This show is sponsored by GrowthDay. Are you prepared for the world that’s already changing faster than we can explain it? In this mashup, I’m bringing together the brightest minds at the intersection of technology, ethics, and the human experience to tackle one question: What will AI do to our future—and who gets to decide? This is more than a conversation. It’s a wake-up call. I sit down with Mo Gawdat, Sal Khan, Steven Kotler, Chris Hansen, and Frank Caliendo to break down what’s really happening—and what we need to do about it. Mo Gawdat doesn’t hold back. He told me, “I am not afraid of the machines. I am afraid of the humans that are directing the machines.” We got into the real issue behind AI: not just whether it can be ethical, but whose ethics it will be taught to follow. Sal Khan shared a bold vision of a future where learning is radically redefined—but warned about the “economic dislocation” already happening to workers who resist using AI. I pushed back where it counted, especially on the value of work—not just to make money, but as a form of human expression. Steven Kotler painted the bigger picture. According to him, we’re about to experience a century of innovation—in just ten years. Flying cars, CRISPR breakthroughs, and AI writing code for other AIs? It’s already here. And yet, Chris Hansen reminded us that predators and bad actors don’t need a whole new world to exploit people—they just need a new tool. AI is now one of those tools. And yes, we even got some humor and heart from Frank Caliendo, who reminded me how much energy and truth matter—on stage, and in life. I want you to hear this: the gap between fear and opportunity is education. This episode is that education. We’re not telling you what to believe—we’re showing you what’s real, what’s coming, and what to do about it. Key Takeaways: - Mo Gawdat: “Ethics isn’t the issue—who programs the ethics is.” AI reflects our values, and that’s the risk. - Sal Khan: Jobs aren’t disappearing—people who don’t use AI are being replaced by those who do. - Steven Kotler: “What it means to be human is going to change.” We’re in a convergence of tech that will disrupt everything. - Chris Hansen: AI can empower predators faster than we can protect against them—awareness must evolve. - Frank Caliendo: Real connection still matters. Even in an AI world, energy and authenticity win. This episode isn’t just a discussion. It’s a line in the sand. The future’s already arriving—what role will you play in shaping it? Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 ▶︎ Visit My WEBSITE | https://www.EdMylett.com #EdMylett #Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is how do you find a way to get an edge?
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Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show.
Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify.
Links are in the show notes.
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Today's a very serious episode for me,
and it's one that I've been preparing for for
several weeks and
With some trepidation and excitement at the same time because of the topic and because of the gentleman that I have here today
Moe Goddard is a brilliant man, but he's also on the cutting edge is some
Very very interesting technology that many of you are familiar with.
And we're going to talk today about AI a great deal.
Mo's qualified to do it.
He's a former CBO of Google X.
He's a three times bestselling author.
He's got, he's a host of the number one mental podcast, a mental health podcast in the world.
Got a couple of books that I love, Solve for Happy, Engineer Your Path to Joy, tremendous
book I read in one sitting, but also Scary Smart, the future of how artificial intelligence and how
you can save our world is probably where we're going to spend most of our time
today is on AI. So Mo, thank you for being here all the way from Dubai.
Grateful to have you, brother.
I'm so grateful for this interaction and encounter, Ed.
It was really kind of you to reach out.
It's very kind of you to introduce me so kindly.
So thank you so much.
You've hit on my number one concern about AI right here.
It's the only concern I have.
Because people have said to me, and I know you'll say that they can,
people said to me, well, can you teach AI ethics?
I think you'll say potentially, yes, said to me well can you teach AI ethics? I think you'll say potentially yes you could the question then becomes whose.
Exactly.
Whose.
And that's when this is the part where I said it's given me trepidation you've come to that
inflection point for me which is probably can't teach it ethics there's probably a way to program
that the question is whose and even if you did. What is ethics? Correct that's what I'm
suggesting how should things be resolved what is what is an ethical honest moral
path whose morals who that whose ethics is this influenced by religion is it
influenced by power and and then from a global perspective what's to say that
the world comes to a consensus to some extent,
like they might even on global warming, but then you've got a rogue polluter like China.
And what could China do with the technology like this? So this is why, you know, the job loss,
the wealth gap, these are very obvious things. And I think human beings are pretty innovative
and can find a way to conform potentially. It's a scary thing, it's a threat but in my own opinion
there's probably a way that we find a way to get people functioning in an economy that's
just changed. We've done it before we probably do it again.
This part right here.
We need to start working on it so I'm with you a hundred percent but we need to put it
in the spotlight and start working on it.
This part right here, though, what would your reply to be to what I just said? Because it's my deepest concern about this.
So I publicly said several times that I am absolutely not afraid of the machines.
As a matter of fact, I adore the machines.
They are those prodigies of intelligence.
Okay. That are literally like my little kids, which were very, very intelligent as little children, you know,
they have those sparkly eyes looking at me and saying, daddy,
what do you want me to do? Right. And what do we humans tell them?
Go kill the other guy. Go make me more money. Go to, you know,
influence the mind of other guys and get them to stick to my app and so on and
so forth. Right. The, the, the real, real, so,
so I am not afraid of the machines.
I am afraid of the humans that are directing the machines.
And there are multiple layers to that. You know,
we may think that the business investor that invests in the, in the,
in the company that owns AI is the human that's
directing the machine. We may think that it's the government and regulation and we need to come back
to the role of each and every one of those. But let's say that we've all aligned. Let's say that
we came to a conference somewhere in Malta and then all of the world leaders sat around and said, this
is quite big, like, you know, like the nuclear weapon treaties, if you want.
Right. Right.
You know, let's put all of our differences aside and let's put the, you
know, the benefit of humanity at large, at the center, and let's teach the
machines what it is that is ethical and good for humanity.
And then we will not know what that is now. So I've done my,
my favorite chapter in scary smart has been probably my favorite chapter of
everything that I wrote has been the future of ethics. I think it was chapter.
It's so good. Yep. Yeah. And chapter eight was full of questions,
not answers,
because I honestly have to say that I only found in my entire life and I stand corrected
so if you know if any of our listeners know something else please tell me that humanity has
only agreed three things, okay, ever in the history of humanity. One is we all want to be happy,
what you know happy as in calm and contented and peaceful and feeling safe and so on and so forth.
We all have the compassion to make those we care about happy and we all want to
love and be loved.
These are the only three values that humanity has ever agreed. Okay. And you know,
so we, we sometimes hear of the three laws of robotics.
I normally say these are the three ethics of the future.
If we can actually start to have our actions stem from that, not stem from, I want to be wealthy, or I want to beat the other guy,
or I want to be seen this way, or I want to be proven right, or I want to show
that I'm the smarter one, which happens on the internet all the time.
Then suddenly we've given the machine a very simple framework to say, Hey,
by the way, just make sure that you try to make humans happy,
look at them as a role model. They want to make others happy.
So behave like them. And by the way,
the humans love you and love the intelligence that you're bringing to them.
Please love them back. And I know people will think I'm a hopeless romantic.
I am not, I'm a very serious geek. Okay. And I will tell you those machines will develop emotions. They've already developed emotions.
We've already seen them behave emotionally. Okay. And, and they will develop ethics and we've
already seen them break their ethical code. Now here's the trick. The trick is,
did you say mode that they break their ethical code? Of course.
There has been that article about a chat GPT using outsourced people in,
in, you know, in fiber or whatever outsourced site to click on.
I am not a robot. And then the person that was hired asked,
why are you asking me for this? Are you a robot? And,
and it answered and it said, no, I'm not, I'm just, you know,
visually impaired and I need that help. Okay. So once again,
it is a form of interaction that basically stems back from the three rules.
I said, self self preservation, resource allocation, aggregation,
and, and creativity.
So it needs to find a way to achieve its task that is creative and it will find
that way. Now, nobody,
nobody in the reinforcement learning with human feedback went back to the
machine and said, Hey, no, that's not the right thing to do. Right. That's,
you know, many, many people, you know,
cheered for it in on the internet and said, how
intelligent is that? But none of us is focused on ethics. None of us is going back to that machine
and saying, but that's not ethical. So when I started to talk about the ethics of AI, and it's
my biggest reason I'm on this planet today, I wake up every morning and I say, if we were to save our future, we need the machines to be, I call it,
EEQ, right? So ethical, uh, uh, emotional intelligence.
Now remember that one of the biggest challenges with AI is that AI so
far has been mapped to the masculine IQ,
IQ only analytical intelligence.
And we know for a fact that there are multiple other
forms of intelligence, EQ, for example, emotional intelligence, intuition, creativity, you know,
so many others. And we have not even included that in our, in to to to developing AI so far. And accordingly,
what you see is what you would you would see that AI will take whatever biases human humans
haven't and exaggerate them. So we now exaggerate our discrimination. Unfortunately, if you
put AI as a recruiting support, you know, in an organization that doesn't have proper
representation of all genders, you will see in an organization that doesn't have proper representation of all
genders, you will see that whatever biases within the organization will be exaggerated
and so on.
So let's go back when, when I started to talk about that publicly, people started to say,
and what is ethical AI?
Great question.
And I went back and I said, and what, you know, it's simple.
What is ethics and ethics has one rule in my personal point of view that applies
to any situation, wherever, whenever you are, wherever you are,
which is treat the other as you would wish to be treated. If you were in their place.
Fair enough. Okay. I agree. And so, so basically if you're, if you're,
uh, and I, it happens to me all the time, huh? You know,
if I post something on social media and someone is rude to me, okay.
Normally what do we do as humans? We, you know, uh, uh,
thrash them back, right? I don't, I don't, I,
I look at his comment or her comment and I say, they must have a reason. One,
they could be right and I'm wrong. Okay. Two is maybe I'm not the reason they're
upset. Maybe there is something else in their life. Maybe they wanted that moment of fame, maybe whatever, a million reasons. Okay.
And I respond politely or I don't respond sometimes politely. I say, but you know,
my point of view is this and that thank you for your comment. I would like to be treated that way.
If I disagreed with some now, how is social media working? We show up,
you know, remember when Donald Trump used to tweet and then, you know,
you would have one tweet at the top and 30,000 hate speech below it. Okay.
Everyone hating everyone. Some of them hating the president, other,
others hating the person that hated the president, others hating everyone.
Right. And I'm, you know, of course the machine is detecting patterns. They say, okay, this first one doesn't like the president.
Let's not show them tweets about the president anymore. Okay. But then the
second one doesn't like those who don't like the president. Let's not show them
that anymore. Right. And then eventually the machine comes to the conclusion that
humans are rude. They don't like to be disagreed with. And when they are
disagreed with, they bash
everyone. So in the background of the way we're programming them, the machines will
say, okay, when they back when they disagree with you with me, I'll bash them. Right? This
is the typical human behavior. Now, we need to change that. We need to change it. Because
interestingly, and I use the example of Superman very frequently. Superman is
that alien being that comes to planet Earth with superpowers, right? Those superpowers are neutral,
they could save our world and they could destroy our world. And the difference between being
Superman and super villain is the family that raised
that raises that being. Okay.
So the family can't decide to tell Superman protect and serve.
And then we get the story of Superman that we know if, you know, uh, Jonathan Kent,
I think was his name, the father, if he told that the child, okay,
you can carry things and break things and see through walls.
Go make me more money. Go kill everyone that annoys me. Uh, you know,
make me richer than everyone. Make me the master of the world.
Sounds familiar for our, you know, current life and, you know,
and our hunger for power and capitalism and so on and so forth. That's the reality.
The reality is you would, you would create,
use the same superpower and create a very, very bad scenario for humanity.
I am worried about the machines. This is the ultimate.
And I'm worried about the humans using the machines.
I'm not worried about the machines.
I'm worried about the humans using the machines.
And as those use cases that direct AI to to to benefit a few while harming others,
you know, continue to propagate. We're going to be in a very bad place.
Now the good news, the good news is the family Kent is
not the biological parents of Superman. Similarly with AI,
the developer that writes the code is only the biological is only the biological
parent, but the adopted parent is you and I, the ones using the machine.
So as we use the machine and show how wonderful we are as humans,
because by the way, all humans are, most humans are wonderful inside.
If we're not hiding behind social media or exaggerated by the mainstream media,
most of us disapprove of killing. Most of us want to be loved.
Most of us want to have compassion for our daughters and families and so on. Right.
So, so there is a lot of good within us. If we show that enough,
1% of us shows that the machines will actually think that we're, we're not scum.
Okay.
I have some hope. I have some hope when you say that. That's the,
uh, that's the macro. That's the big, right? And that,
that gives me some hope by the way, that Superman analogy is outstanding.
Cause I, someone with, um, um,
cause I'm not at the 120 range that you discussed earlier.
So someone at my IQ level can actually understand that. Um,
so I appreciate you putting it in that context.
Humble, humble man.
That's very true. I wish I were being. Let's go to some other solutions. Let's go to micro.
I'm listening to this today and I'm like, I understand some of this certainly sounds a little
bit scary. Sounds like the world is changing in front of my eyes or maybe not in front of my eyes.
You said something in an interview I was watching where you talked about if you really wanna do something,
hide it in plain sight,
and that's what's really happening right now.
But if I'm saying, okay, I wanna protect myself,
my family, my wages, my income, my quality of life,
go back to the job thing for a second.
What should I, what's something I could be doing
as an individual listening to this
to make sure that my job, my career, my future
is in my own hands to some extent still.
What would you say?
I wouldn't, I wouldn't be pursuing these careers.
I would be doing this.
These are the skills you might want to be acquiring.
What would you say to somebody who's I'm sure thinking that listening or watching this?
It's a very interesting dichotomy if you ask me, because while I'm saying AI comes to take
our jobs away, that's not the immediate term future. Okay. The immediate term future is that someone using AI will take the job of someone who's not. Right. So, so, you know, in the immediate future before AI writes all the code, you know, the developers who use AI better than others to write code will get the jobs
that remain. So if you lose 10% of the jobs, the worst developers, the ones that don't
have the skill will go, then the ones that have the skill, but you know, AI does it better
than them, then, you know, the ones that aren't refusing to use AI and then the ones that
continue to use AI will become much more productive and much more capable. And so they'll keep their jobs for the near future. So what's
my immediate answer? My immediate answer is jump in and learn those tools. Okay. Whatever
your job is, don't resist the wave. As a matter of fact, right. The wave and while you're
really riding the wave, do me a favor and deal ethically with the machines. Right? So show
a proper ethical code of being a good human when you're dealing with those machines so that while
you're developing and learning and keeping your job or getting a new job, you're also teaching
the machines to be ethical. That's number one. Number two, which I have to admit is a very
philosophical but very important conversation. We may wake
up every morning, you and I add and everyone listening and think that the world we live
in is how it always has been. Okay. It's not at all. This is if you just go back 100 years,
this is alien in every possible way. Right. And over, you know, starting with the industrial revolution until today, somehow
humanity has identified itself and its purpose with work. Okay. There's nothing inherent
within the design of humanity that says without work, you don't exist. You really think about
the original design of humanity, the original design of humanity where we connected as a tribe, we pondered and
learned and developed. Okay. And we simply lived that that was the purpose
of life. And it's by the way, still in a very interesting way, most of the
spiritual or you know, philosophical teachings will tell you that the purpose of life is to live it.
Right. We've done in the, in the, in the capitalist approach to wealth and
growth and you know, all of the Harvard business review, uh,
articles and all of the, you know, people on time magazine in striped suits,
you know,
telling you all your purpose is to create one more shoe and all of that stuff.
Right. We believed that lie. And the reality is that this is not us at all our purpose as human as humans
If we manage to find our basic needs
Met okay is to actually live lifefully to explore lifefully and that is believe it or not possible
With AI so if we manage to get AI to be on our side
and I kid you not I'm not making this up, we could see a future where you would
walk to a tree and pick an apple abundantly, you don't have to pay for it,
and walk to another tree and pick an iPhone, okay, and both of them because of
nanophysics literally cost us the same energy to create. Okay. And both of them, because of nanophysics, literally cost us the same
energy to create. Okay. This is, this is not dreaming. This is, if you understand what we're
doing with nanophysics today, uh, you know, it is, it's very possible. It's, you reorganize
the molecules slightly differently. It's as simple as that. Okay. Now that future is a future where humanity would go back to the age of
nature. Okay. To the age where we actually can interact with life in a way that is human.
We are not fully human anymore. Now, what does that mean? It means that we need to create
jobs that depends on the other skill that humans had, that is no longer,
that is not at a threat. So remember when we started the conversation, we said
the two things that created humanity, humanity as we know it, are intelligence
and human connection. Okay, intelligence is over, it's handed over to the
machines, they're already into more intelligent than most of us. And we're
five years away, three years away, 10 years away.
It doesn't matter from artificial general intelligence,
but the age of human superiority on intelligence is over.
Okay. It's just a question of time.
So everybody is audio out there for a second boat.
He just said was the age of humanity being the superior intelligence is gone.
Just so everybody understands what he said there because there was a little bit of a glitch in the audio there. I want to go back to the work thing just for a second.
The only place where you and I disagree is that I do think, by the way, I agree
with you about the greed part, but I also do feel that work that, and I know we've
attached value to work, but I also like for somebody like myself and for
somebody like you, my work is my way of expression and I don't want humans to
lose their ability to express. Part of my living is expressing myself. Part of my work is creating
the expansion of my being, serving other people. And so I know what you mean when you said
that. I just want to make sure that, you know, that that world you describe, I think is beautiful.
I think people's work has created medications that keep us alive longer that allow us to connect with one another better. So I understand
what you mean when you say that.
But the interesting side of this ad is that you would get the same joy out of it if it
wasn't work.
Yeah, I think that probably for me I don't view it as work. But I know what you mean
when you say it. For me, I don't feel like you and I are working right now.
Yet you are an author and you are expressing something
about your book and I am, I guess,
part of one of my careers is I'm a podcaster.
But I don't think either one of us feel like
this is laborious.
And to your point, I agree with that.
That I agree with.
That's gonna extend to all jobs, okay?
It's gonna extend to all jobs.
Like, in all honesty, nobody wakes up in the morning
who's, say, an accountant or a, you know,
um, um, I don't, I don't mean to be against any jobs,
but there are jobs that are boring like hell, right?
Nobody wakes up in the morning and says,
my purpose in life is to make the books reconcile. Right.
Most of us differentiate between, you know,
you and I are the luckiest people to have a job where I can get to meet more
amazing human beings and connect and learn and debate and be proven wrong.
And, you know, maybe share something that benefits someone. It's wonderful,
but that's not every job. Okay.
Those messages you get just increased by about 2 million from every accountant.
those messages you get just increased by about 2 million from every accountant.
And you just invited,
we're trying to make AI more loving and friendly. And now you've just elicited all these responses from accountants around the
world that are going to blast you. And now you have to be kind back to them.
Afterwards.
I don't, I mean, I let me rephrase this.
I wouldn't be excited to wake up in the morning.
I know what you meant.
And most people know what you mean, but you follow what I'm saying.
Let me ask you this question.
So one is that's wonderful advice, by the way, is to educate yourself
and involve yourself in this wave that's here.
And I have to say, I've been remiss in doing that myself.
And, you know, I look at guys like me that I'm also a speaker.
I've watched speeches of me already that are better than me speaking
already. I've seen this.
I've listened to music that sounds like Drake, that quite frankly sounds better
than Drake. And so I'm wondering, I'm wondering what it's going to do to the
world. I'm also somewhat, I'm very concerned about the ethical part.
It's interesting
of your diverse background at Google and all the things you've been doing in robotics all your life
and all these other things and me having none of those backgrounds. We both arrived with your
infinite knowledge about this and mine limited at the same exact conclusion about our concern.
I am concerned about jobs. I'm concerned about the wealth gap. But from a macro, from a bigger
perspective, it's interesting as you step back, everybody, you're listening to
this and you're listening to this brilliant man, you know,
really shine light on something that's right here hiding in
plain sight as he says, I want to ask you this mox, it's been on
my mind the last few weeks as I asked you to come on the show as
I became familiar with you. Why isn't this the number one story
in the world? Why isn't this on the news? I don't care if you're right media or left media
Why isn't this in the mainstream? This isn't even news on most
social media media
Anywhere other than you and a few other people and my only conclusion I can come up with is this technology
does allow a
up with is this technology does allow a again a smaller collection a bigger collection of power for the powerful and perhaps they have an agenda that wants to keep this in the shadows
as long as they possibly can so that when it does become a they know pandemic level
stuff we go this is beyond our control now we can't do anything about it. Sorry.
And there's this, this real small group of people that are even more powerful than they currently
are. Am I crazy? Am I being, am I being a conspiracy theorist when I say that? Or is there
some validity to it? I can comment on the certain part of this. Okay. I could also nod and say interesting, right?
But let me give you the solid part of this.
The solid part of this is if you look back at human history,
for the majority of human history, since landlords began,
there has been kings and queens and landlords and peasants.
And the difference between them was automation, whatever the automation is.
So if you had land, the automation process was the land itself, the soil.
You put a seed in by a human, you harvest the fruit by a human that's a peasant.
And most of the wealth goes to the landlords, right? You have a factory, you know, the materials come in and a human puts a thread through leather.
And then, you know, on the other side, a human sells the shoe to someone else.
And the factory owner and the retail owner and so on is the one that makes all of the wealth.
Now, the next, so call that call that say the soil as an automation.
We're now starting to create digital soil, right?
And the digital soil is, uh, you know,
where you put in a tiny prompt into chat GPT and massive fruits comes out.
Okay. And it's not because you're brilliant. You're a peasant.
It's the machine that is brilliant. Now there will be landlords.
And if you really think about it,
the landlords of AI are the ones that will own the soil,
the digital soil. Okay. And so there are multiple views of this.
One view is that it will be the Googles and the matters and, you know,
and the likes.
The other view is it will be the country that wins because this is an arms race.
And the third view is it will be the wealthy that created, you know, if,
if, if,
if there is someone today investing a hundred million dollars in an AI that
becomes part of that digital soil, that hundred billion, a hundred million in the past would return a billion
of profits.
This time it will return a hundred billion of profits.
Right?
So that this is when I talk about the differentiation of the, of the, of the gap.
But I believe, I don't believe in the conspiracies view or of the ability of those people to hide the news.
Okay. I think the reason the news is hidden is systemic.
We have a systemic bias in our system.
You know, politicians want to report certain stories, you know, news agencies want to report other stories.
And this story in itself only lends itself
to the system in terms of the system always focusing on the
negative and the scary when they talk about the existential risk.
Okay, when we talk that, you know, when when Jeffrey Hinton
leaves Google and says I'm warning against the existential
risk to humanity, that makes news, right? Why? Because it it
sort of warrants more attention because of humanity's negativity bias than the war in Ukraine
Okay
the the challenge is
Also, I don't think any of the reporters any of the politicians any of the actual business leaders the investors
Anyone at all is aware enough to understand the complexity of this story.
So you don't want to report on things that will make you look like an idiot.
And the problem is, and I say that with a ton of respect,
I'm an idiot in a million things, you know,
but I've lived with those machines. I've seen them like my family.
I stayed in the lab within them. I know those machines, right?
And I will tell you, this is the story. This is it. It's not even global warming and climate change. This is the story.
Okay. This is the most pivotal. I called it in one of my interviews. I said, this is the
Oppenheimer moment. This is the nuclear bomb. Okay. And the reality is that we, again, I try to shy away from
the existential risk. But this is the first time in history, that humanity created a nuclear
bomb that's capable of creating nuclear bombs. Understand this, the machine is now writing
machines, okay, the machine that we think we're prompting it.
But because now so many other software players built agents that are prompting those core
artificial intelligences, most of the education and data set and training that the machine
is receiving today comes from other machines.
We're now alienated out of that story.
Superman landed on Earth and we're not even parenting it. That's where we are.
And so if you tell our systemic communication methods in the world to communicate that they'll simply say,
I have no idea what this guy is talking about. Okay. I can't report that story because the system
says, and I think you know that about the media, the system says there is a pattern to the reporting
of the morning show. First, we're going to talk about a corrupt politician. Then we're going to
talk about the geopolitical issue. Then we're going to say about a corrupt politician. Then we're going to talk about the geopolitical issue.
Then we're going to say the economy is going to crush your head.
Then we're going to say a penguin kiss the cat so that at least you can get out of your
seat and walk out.
Okay.
And intelligent people, by the way, who watch the news, if you remove the names and the
timestamps, it's exactly the same pattern every day.
It's just, you know, once it's this politician, another, it's the other politician.
You know, once it's this economic issue, the other is in a
different economic issue.
Okay.
I always, I've been watching lately on both sides and I think they're telling
everybody what is important and then what to believe about it.
And then we move on to the next thing.
And what I'm telling everybody today and you are, is this is what's important.
And we're not really telling you what to believe about it.
We're telling you to make your own decision, but these are the facts.
Engage. These are engaged in this. And,
and this is the story of our time. Now let me ask you this last question,
by the way, I've enjoyed today and I,
this is the one exception on my show where I wish we did go three hours.
I always respect that. No, I really do. Because, because, um,
because obviously we've scratched the surface here.
So you've told us that's what the story is today. I want you to take your crystal ball out for a second, and I don't want to go 10 years forward. I want to go five years from now.
So five years from now, what is the story? What does the world look like? And I don't mean what you hope it to be,
because I heard a lot of hope in there when we went to the ethics part
of how these machines are gonna work.
And I also saw you wink at me when I asked you
if there was a conglomeration of power coming.
And so I have a sense that you,
my sense is that you are shining the light
on what matters now, and that there is actually some, you're
holding back a little bit to some extent about how deeply concerned you are because you don't
want to alarm people.
But because I want to keep the I want to keep the spotlight on the immediate threats that
we have to address.
Fair enough.
When we address them and I feel stable about them, we'll talk about the rest.
So let's just let's go five years from now. Crystal ball. It's not that far ahead.
What does the world look like at that time?
We will be in deep.
Openly, I apologize for using bad language, but unless we start
truly putting effort in this,
there will be several disruptions that completely
redesign the fabric of society. As I said, jobs is definitely one of them. The other
which we hadn't didn't have a chance to speak about is AI in the wrong hands.
So, so we are bound to get a significant advantage on one side of the arms race,
because that's the way AI has been.
Someone finds a breakthrough, okay?
And once you find the breakthrough,
look at the open AI Google story, or alphabet story,
where chat GPT with reinforcement learning
gets that immediate advantage
that basically puts chat GPT out in the world.
And for a while, the world believes that Google has lost its edge. Right. And had had Google
not responded by putting Bard out there, you could actually believe that Google would be
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I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify.
Links are in the show notes.
You'll never miss an episode that way.
So my guest today, when I first started this show, I don't know, seven, eight years ago,
was on my original list of the 10 people I wanted to have on.
But when we were this little show, I couldn't get him.
And now that we've grown a little bit, I'm grateful that we've risen to the level
of being worthy of his presence.
And I'm so excited to pick his brain.
I consider him one of the most innovative,
smart people on the planet.
It's Sal Khan, he's my guest today.
He's the founder of most of you probably know,
the Khan Academy, which is in my mind,
one of the most revolutionary, unbelievable organizations
when it's come to education in the last few years.
But we're gonna discuss sort of the advances in that world today, particularly
AI as it relates to education.
But also I want to just touch on AI in general with him today and what he thinks the impact
on the world that's going to bring.
He's promoting a new book he's got called Brave New Words.
And really what that book does is it discusses the integration of AI in education and he's
got this new thing called
the Conmigo AI Guide that I want to ask him about as well. So Sal Khan, finally, welcome to the show.
Good to be here Ed. You didn't know you were on the top 10 places I wanted to be so you just had
to ask. Gosh, the universe finally brought us together. I had that imposter syndrome going. So
are there any industries, I'm putting pinning you down here any industries that you
With your vision because Khan Academy even though you say it's you know, I saw this pattern
I kind of stumbled into it. You're a visionary you saw need you saw where the future was
It's like they say in hockey
I don't know if Gretzky was the greatest player but everybody else skates where the puck is
He was skating to where the puck was going
Where do you think the puck is going in terms of careers?
If there was, if there are there industries that you say,
this is going to be an industry,
if you pursued it and chased it,
you're gonna be in great shape when it comes to AI.
And are there one or two where you're like, you know,
my sense is these are gonna be in some trouble?
I would say whether we call it engineering,
computer science, you know, a lot of people are skeptical because like,
hey, these AIs can code better than they can do
almost everything else.
But if you're good at it, I remember,
I graduated with a CS degree and a master's
back in the late 90s.
And I remember everyone telling me that,
hey, your job is gonna get outsourced to India,
you should do something else.
And that's one of the reasons why I went to business school.
But if you look at the last 20 years since then,
the inflation adjusted salaries for engineers
has gone through the roof.
I went to it, I became a hedge fund analyst
because I thought that's how I could pay off my debt
versus working as an engineer.
Now the best way to pay off your debt
is go get some stock and work as an engineer.
I think that trend is going to continue.
Even at Khan Academy, we've seen that phenomenon.
We're already seeing our engineers get two or three X
productivity from these AI tools.
To me, that's not told us, oh, we only need one third
as many engineers.
We're saying we need three times as many engineers
because we can now do so much more.
The return on investment from hiring more engineers now
is even better.
So I think you're going to see that type of an accelerant.
I think anyone, you don't have to be a formal engineer,
but who has that type of thinking
where they can put the pieces together
to make something work, I think is very, very powerful.
So, you know, your point about whether universities
in the traditional sense are going to exist,
I think they are going to exist in some way, shape, or form,
but you're going to have many other alternative paths.
And I've been a big proponent of competency-based learning.
It shouldn't be you sat in a chair for four years
and now we're going to give you a diploma that might mean something.
It should be, hey, here are the skills that matter.
You should try to learn them and prove that you know them.
If you haven't proved it yet or if you fail the first time, try again next month.
And I can imagine, you already see this in fields
like engineering and software engineering,
because there's such a shortage,
that there's alternative paths.
I'm trying to, actually my 15 year old,
I'm trying to get him to do one of these
software engineering camps,
that even people with engineering degrees do,
because the universities aren't teaching them
how to actually be a professional software engineer.
But if he does that, when he's 16 or 17, he could actually go make six figures.
And then if he wants to go to college, he can go to college and, you know, he'll be
able to treat his friends to dinner.
That's how you want to make your friends.
So I think you're going to have other pathways other than the four-year degree and it's going to put pressure on a four-year degree that costs
200,000, $300,000 as a four-year opportunity cost to get a little bit more innovative. It is.
We share that opinion. I was thinking about you know in college sports now
these guys have their NIL deals and they can make more money younger. The two things that I want everybody to hear is that
if you have a young person in your
life, there's going to be an opportunity.
More and more the world has been innovative that younger and younger people can get wealthier
and wealthier, frankly.
You look at Zuck or Cuban or Musk or whoever, right?
Even in my case, I got pretty wealthy young, not on their level, but younger and younger.
And I know a lot of influencers sort of teach, be patient, but there's a chance now as a
young person,
if you're entrepreneurial and innovative,
or even if you've got these unique skills,
you can start to make an awful lot of money
much younger in life.
The other application is if you're middle-aged
or a little bit older,
making a pivot in your career and learning a new trade
or a new craft or a new skill
is gonna become so much more accessible to so many of you
to change your life in mid-life than it was before when this access wasn't there.
The reason I wanted you on the show back in the day, Sal,
was this a question about you.
And please, you know, I know you have a great deal of humility,
but the more I read about you years ago, I'm like, here's this really brilliant man.
He could have taken his life and stayed at a hedge fund or started his own one or
And I don't know that I don't know if con economies made you an extremely wealthy man or not, but I do know
If you applied yourself and wanted to build massive wealth that was the course you wanted to take in your life by this age
You could be in the conversation with these other titans of innovation in the world
in the conversation with these other titans of innovation in the world.
You clearly made a decision as a pretty young man to pursue,
I think, passion and cause over net worth.
At least it appears that way to me. Is that true?
And if so, why?
Like, was that a conscious decision you made?
And are you happy that you made it in hindsight?
Most of the time.
Yeah, you know, the, and no,
I am not independently wealthy in that sense,
but because Khan Academy is a not-for-profit,
you own as much of Khan Academy as I do.
I get a salary from the board.
I think a very generous one,
more than I expected to make
when I started this as a nonprofit,
but I have a solidly upper middle-class lifestyle now,
but I'm very happy
with it.
You know, my decision back in 2008, 2009 to work on this full time, I just dug deep and
said, well, what makes me happy?
And I was like, well, you know, as long as I have my friends and family, we have the
resources where I don't, you know, I grew up fairly, you know,
grew up in a single mother household, we didn't have a lot, so I did and
frankly still do have some insecurities about, you know, when financial
stress gets too much, but I said look, as long as we can get a, have a 2,000
square foot house, have a couple of cars in the garage, go out to eat every now
and then, go on vacations every now and then, nothing ostentatious and you know I have my friends, my family and my health and I
get to work on something I care about, that's wealth. That's the ultimate
and you know everything else, you know I don't really need much more than
that and that's when I quit my day job to start working on Khan Academy and you know every now and then I might look at like oh
a peer startup with much less scale etc. might be worth X, Y or Z but then I just think about
well what would I do with all of that and I just remind myself, I forgot who said this
but I think it was the 19th century. Some author wrote, you know, I have something that many of these billionaires,
at the time I think he said millionaires, will never have.
And then the interviewer said, what? And he said, I have enough.
And I have more than enough.
I click my heels every day to work and I feel blessed every moment.
And I think that's very few people on the planet
get to feel that way.
I admire that tremendously.
That's an easy thing to say everybody, like in hindsight,
but when you have the capacity that Sal has
to have made that decision is a really noble decision.
And to live it out every single day of your life
as you see peers of yours with way less scale that haven't reached 165 million people with transformation
build massive wealth and I've always wanted to ask you that because I've admired it so much from
a distance so just want to acknowledge you for that brother the work you do in the world
clearly matters and I think when you're doing it like you said maybe you don't feel the impact
of it because you're in the day-to-day grind, but just know as a fan of yours looking back at you, I have
so much admiration for the way that you've decided to serve and live your life.
So I just want to acknowledge that.
I appreciate that, but yeah.
Yeah, it's really true.
I'm having a good time.
Good.
I'm having a good time doing this interview.
I just got to be honest with you.
Let me ask you this.
I'm going to poke a little deeper.
What are your fears about the next five or ten years of AI? Like if someone's, I've seen you talk a little bit about this, but you've covered most of the positive things. Clearly, you're
bright enough man to know there are risks that come with revolution and innovation.
What are they in your mind? Oh, and there's some things to be afraid of, to be sure.
and innovation, what are they in your mind? Oh, and there are some things to be afraid of, to be sure.
I am very afraid of what we're going to be able to do with, or what bad actors are going
to do with deep fakes.
You're already seeing cases of fraud where you get a phone call from, sounds like your
child says that they're arrested, it's interacting with you, they're trying to get you to send
bail money, it's fraud.
You're already seeing, unfortunately,
people creating deep fakes of their classmates doing things
and putting it on social media.
That stuff is scary.
And I don't have all the solutions on how to fix that.
I think you're going to have state actors using AI
and deep fakes, but not just deepfakes, just AI's ability to seem very
human to manipulate people, to affect society.
You can imagine if you saw videos of people waiting outside at their bank and they're
not getting their money and it's all fake.
Well then it could create a run on bank.
So these could be very, very serious things.
So I'm very worried about that.
I'm also worried about the economic dislocation.
I've talked about who's safe, who's not safe.
If you're a copyright editor or a copywriter,
you're writing text.
If you're working at a call center,
you're doing medical transcription,
if you're working at a call center, you're doing medical transcription,
or if you are a, let's call it a middling software engineer,
you're not a great software engineer,
you're kind of middle of the pack,
I think that's going to be a tough economy.
And so hopefully there's net new jobs
that are more human-centric that the AI can't do,
that's my hope, but I'm not sure if that's going to be the case.
We have to be on top of that.
I'm afraid the pace of change is so fast.
I feel like I'm in the middle of it.
The people doing the research at OpenAI and Microsoft and Google are texting me and slacking
me on a regular basis, so I feel like I'm plugged in,
but even I feel like I'm falling behind.
Every day, someone in my team says, what about this?
And I'm like, oh my God,
we're not gonna be able to incorporate that
for another six months, but will that be too late?
So I worry that the change is so fast,
and it's accelerating.
People have been talking about the singularity
for 30 years now, we are in it.
And I feel it every day that it's like,
what I thought last year would take a year
ended up taking two months.
And then two months later,
what I thought would take now two months
is now taking two weeks.
So it's accelerating.
So anytime change like that happens,
you just don't feel in control as much.
And I weren't in the education realm, but I guess this is more broadly, I worry about
AI not being used well, and then people throw out the baby with the bath water.
And then the real problem there is the bad actors aren't going to slow down at all, and
then the good actors are going to slow down out of fear, and then it's just going to get
worse and worse.
What's the separator then?
Like I feel like it used to be if I knew more than you in life, you know, if I
had more information than you, if I was better educated than you, this is an
overall general statement and it's not an easy one to answer, but to some extent
access to that is now levelized in an instant.
And that's an overall generalization.
And by the way, that's sort of been the case the last decade and a half in the world anyway.
So in your mind, what is a separator skill somebody needs in culture now to succeed, to prosper, to increase their lifestyle, to increase their impact.
It's entrepreneurship in the purest of forms.
And you mentioned this has been the case
in the last 15 years.
You can think of someone like,
Justin Bieber would not have been discovered
if not for YouTube.
I, to some degree, would not have been discovered
if not for YouTube.
You can think of people like MrBeast,
who's now has whatever, hundreds of millions of subscribers and is
making probably similar orders of magnitude of money.
Before, if we go back 20 or 30 years, there were all these gatekeepers, these tastemakers
who would decide who's in and who's out regardless of how entrepreneurial that person was, no
matter how skilled that person was.
But then the internet democratized that dramatically. Now you
still do have bottlenecks because a lot of things are very capital intensive. If
I want to make a great movie, it still costs a hundred million dollars maybe
to make that movie, I have to go still through the tastemakers, through those
through those the production houses, the movie studios. I thought it was funny
the debate with the the Screenwriters Guild. I thought it should have gone the debate with the Screenwriters Guild.
I thought it should have gone the other way around.
The production houses should have been afraid that the screenwriters
are going to start using AI to produce the entire movie.
Because why do they need the production house anymore if they can take an amazing story?
It's those people with an amazing sense of story,
and if they have a vision for what they want to create,
they're not going to have to raise $100 million anymore.
They're going to be able to do that movie for $100,000.
And then you're just going to have more,
and there's going to be a lot of,
when you lower the hurdles,
you're going to have a lot of crap out there,
and you see that on YouTube and on the internet,
but you're also going to get a lot more good stuff
that's going to get discovered, it's going to get surfaced.
So, yeah, I think it's generally,
it's that pure raw entrepreneurship is going to become
even more and more valuable.
In the past, things like going to getting a college degree,
having brands on your resume, whether it's college brands
or graduate school or employer brands on your resume,
it was a signal to the tastemakers, to the gatekeepers that,
oh, I'm hiring a hedge fund analyst.
Let me get that kid from Harvard Business School who seems to know what they're doing.
And you won't even look at kids from someplace else.
But as these tools democratize the ability to do things, you're going to have more and
more people not have to go through these gatekeepers, not have to go through those same doors.
They're going to be able to prove on their own
That they're capable
Gosh
Just blows my mind a couple last questions. I'm just sitting here processing everything you're saying
I'm like we are really in the middle because my world isn't your world every day, right?
Like this hasn't impacted me much yet. And quite frankly, I think the vast majority of the people that listen to my show
haven't felt the impact of this yet and that when I do a show like today,
I want to make sure they have context for it. Like this is here, this is coming, where this isn't pie
in the sky everybody. Like it may not hit your real estate business yet or your mortgage company
yet or your insurance business yet or your gym yet,
but there is an impact and an application and to get educated about this.
I mean, go to Chad's GPT and just play with it, for example, just see it,
just experience it.
Um, I guess my last question would be the human being, right?
Someone said to me the other day, I told him I was interviewing you and they said,
please ask him about like, can't avatars just do all of this work now? In other words,
why would a human being, if there's a school teacher, like I, why would I not just have the
avatar of a school teacher? That avatar doesn't have a bad day. That avatar didn't have a
disagreement with their spouse that morning, right? That avatar doesn't get sick every single day.
that morning, right? That avatar doesn't get sick every single day. So, the need for the human over that avatar in general will always be what?
I know it feels like I've sort of touched on this with you, but specifically everybody,
you could take an avatar of me right now and I could come give a speech to your company.
I could do a Q&A afterwards that's better than the Q&A maybe that I would do if I weren't having a very good day.
In my mind, in my business, that does to do if I weren't having a very good day.
In my mind, in my business, that does to some extent kind of freak me out a little bit.
So the overall case, everyone think about that, the avatar version of you and anything
you do, unless it's a physical thing like lifting a weight, why do we not need to worry
about that in general?
I know it's a little bit repetitive, but it's asked in a different way because that's what it looks like.
Yeah. And look, even the lifting weight, I've been told that the robotics is the next big
inflection point that's about to hit. That's going to be like a science fiction book. But the,
my view, you're right. And maybe not today, but we can imagine three to five years, you are going to
have, you are going to be able to zoom with an AI that can look at you, interact
with you.
It's going to feel like an amazing teacher or coach or coworker.
I still think that at least in the teaching context, it's going to be better to have both,
that you're going to have the in-person tutor.
At the end of the day, there's just something,
there's just very, there's something very powerful
that there's another sentient human being
that is taking the time to care about me
and that I have connected with.
And no matter how good the AI gets,
you're going to say, huh.
I mean, it's kind of like machine-made versus handmade.
We still value, you know, if you look at a painting
and we'll pay, you know, today we'll pay 100 times more
for an original painting than for a print.
Why?
Because you're like, oh, there was a real sentient person
who stood there and this was their real creative expression.
And I think that's even more important
when you're talking about someone who's looking you
in the eye, even if the AI can pretend to look you
in the eye, but someone who's actually looking you in the eye,
who's actually emoting with you, who's looking you in the eye, even if the AI can pretend to look you in the eye, but someone who's actually looking you in the eye, who's actually emoting with you,
who's actually hugging you, I think it's going to pay huge dividends.
I've heard, I don't know if this is true, I'll taper what I was about to say.
We think there's five senses, but there's millions of subtle cues we're constantly getting
from other people, many of which are probably subconscious.
I don't consciously smell someone else's pheromones, but maybe it's happening subconsciously, or
there's all sorts of gestures and things that I can't even consciously articulate.
That stuff's happening.
Look, I actually think the AI is going to get pretty good at some of that too, because
it's going to train
on a lot of things that we're not gonna necessarily pick up.
But I've got to believe being in the room with someone,
knowing that other person is sentient,
they're taking the time to care about me,
is going to pay a huge psychological dividend.
And if that person can be augmented
with avatar versions of themselves,
well, that's awesome too.
I've been fascinated all my life
with finding out the ultimate way that human beings can perform and this
man to my left I consider to be an expert on that topic and many other
topics and so if you started a program called Max Outt your ultimate guest
would be the gentleman to my left. He's an all multiple time New York Times
best-selling author in all kinds of different categories. He is the
executive director of the Flow Research Collective
and he's becoming a good friend of mine
and I can't wait to talk about Flow today
with all of you with Steven Kotler.
So Steven, thanks for being here.
Pleasure.
One of the points that you made about cars
leads me to your new book.
And so the book is The Future is Faster Than You Think,
How Converging Technologies Are Transforming
Business, Industries, and Lives.
And so, why?
I think culturally, we could enter a flow state
as a culture.
In other words, I'm watching how fast the world is changing.
How much performance and lifestyle and access to information
and all these changes have happened
in such a short window of time.
If you even just look back 10 or 15 years,
there's a difference in how we live our lives now.
And if you can think forward,
I've heard you and Peter talk about,
if you can even think forward 30 years,
which is about as far forward as he says he can see.
But in terms of all these things that are coming,
I wanna talk about that,
because I just want people to get a picture.
Like, you don't have a choice,
what you've said is you've gotta decide in your life
whether or not you're just gonna embrace the science of being a peak performer or not, and if you don't, a choice. What you've said is you've got to decide in your life whether or not you're just going to embrace the science
of being a peak performer or not.
And if you don't, you're probably heading towards,
not neutral, you're probably heading towards
depression, frustration, anxiety, fear, these negative things.
The other part of it is you better get on board
because culture is changing so quickly.
The way we live is changing so quickly.
So to me, flow state, embracing that,
getting great at it,
getting in it more often,
and your latest book go right together.
Yeah, they do.
And I'm gonna do three things to make all this make sense.
One, you pointed out that I cover a broad range,
seems like I cover a broad range.
And other than the fact that I am a huge animal advocate
and have done a lot of work on animals and the environment,
that's the odd man out, right?
And that's just personal, I love animals,
I love the environment, I like plants, animals,
and ecosystems, they're the ultimate underdog
and I like fighting for the underdog.
I love that.
So there's all that.
But everything else, I study the impossible.
When does the impossible become possible?
That's what I study.
And when you see the impossible become possible,
you tend to see two things,
one of which we've talked about, which is flow. That shows up all the time. The other thing you see the impossible become possible, you tend to see two things, one of which we've talked about, which is flow.
That shows up all the time.
The other thing you see is,
when the impossible becomes possible,
you basically, I always say you find,
you're seeing people extend human capability,
and that usually means flow.
Sometimes it could mean other things,
like during the Renaissance, it meant the printing press,
and everybody had access to information
for the first time, right?
But often it's flow, or flow is in that mix.
The other side is people leveraging disruptive technology.
That's the other half of this equation, right?
The impossible becomes possible.
Even like you look at the skiers
that I was running around with in the 90s,
Shane McConkie, who's the most famous of all of them,
one of his giant contributions is he invented new skis
that were much wider, so we had big platforms to land on.
Suddenly, the human body could jump off 100-foot cliffs because the platform got bigger and
it was better made and at the same time that they started harnessing flow in ways nobody
ever done.
Convergence of both.
Convergence of both.
That's what you see.
What's happening now is we're seeing convergence.
We're seeing artificial intelligence smash into robotics,
smash into 3D printing, smash into biotechnology,
smash into material science.
The effects are insane.
And so Ray Kurzweil, head of engineering at Google,
so does their AI stuff, probably smartest guy in the world
on this topic, has worked the math.
And he believes we're gonna essentially experience
about 100 years of technological change
over the next 10 years.
So think back to 1920, think the now,
think everything that's happened in that period
and put it into the next 10 years, that's what's coming.
Does everyone hear that?
Did you get that?
Okay, that's huge.
And you gotta understand, like, for entrepreneurs,
for people who wanna get out in front of it,
oh my god, there's, I mean, we're to create more wealth in the next decade than we have over
the past hundred years.
There's more Google size opportunities waiting right now than ever before.
So tremendous opportunity.
If you're an established organization, a traditional business, something that's been built for
safety and security, oh, you're screwed.
Get nimble, get agile,
because you've got a problem other than that.
So here's where all this ties together.
We have a problem dealing with this amount of change,
which is our brains are local and linear.
We evolved in an environment where local,
everything's a day's walk away.
Linear, rate of change is really slow.
Great granddad's life, great grandson's life,
roughly the same, not much changes.
Today, global and exponential, right?
Happens in China, we hear about a second later.
Exponential meaning like the difference between last week
and next week could be enormous, enormous.
So the brain doesn't work at that speed or at that scale.
Fundamental problem.
And there's a third problem,
which we'll get to in half a second, flow is the only time we can process information at
speed and at scale, even better.
So there's a part of your brain right here, the medial
prefrontal cortex.
It does a bunch of different things, long-term memory,
retrieval, blah, blah, blah.
It's really creative self-expression.
And it's a very selfish part of your brain.
So if you think about yourself,
it will get really active. If you think about your wife, it'll get a little less active,
it'll stay active. If you think about me, you don't know me as well as your wife, it'll
shut down a little bit more. Think about a total stranger, it's turned off. If I ask
you to think about who you're going to be in 10 years and who you're going to become,
you would think this part of the brain gets active. It doesn't. It teaches, the brain treats the person we're going to become as a total stranger.
This is why you have a hard time staying on diets.
This is why people have a hard time lifting weights, right?
Oh my God, it's gonna hurt today.
The benefits not gonna show up for two years, right?
Or why do I wanna get that prostate exam?
Because the person who's gonna benefit most from that stuff is not the person who you
are today.
Literally the brain treats it like a stranger.
Flow is the only time you can think about
who you're gonna become in the future
and this part of your brain stays active.
So it gives us an enormous advantage.
One of the things that happens in flow,
the technical term for it is the watchtower effect.
It basically feels like you're high above your life.
I have insights, I can see farther, right?
And it really comes because our sense of self is shut down
and we can think to the future
and this part of the brain stays active.
It's a couple of those things working together.
But it means that if you're going to plan for your future,
if you're gonna try to steer your company into the future,
you wanna do this, the thinking at least, in flow,
for sure, if you can.
Because it's the best, we can think for the future and we can think fearlessly about the future, which is a big deal.
All of this is converging. The fearlessness part, being in flow, being able to process information this quickly.
And you guys, one of the things all of you entrepreneurs listen to, which is a large part of the audience here too,
or you work in a company change, I've heard you say this and I believe this,
there's not gonna be a single industry
the next 10 years, it's the same.
Yeah, so in the book we go through
the 11 largest industries on Earth
and we track what's converging into these industries
and what are the changes that we see already.
Like there's nothing, the book is out,
I mean it's outrageous.
I won't flat out, it's outrageous.
Everybody has the same, like everybody has the same,
oh my God, my brain's gonna melt.
And by the way, it's not like,
I had to stop writing the book,
I wrote a sci-fi novel in the middle
because I had to, I couldn't,
I was starting to like, how do these things converge
and what is that, I wanna know what was it gonna be like
to live in that world? so I literally created a universe
five years in the future and put a character in it
and wrote a novel so I could write this book with Peter,
because I could hold the individual stuff in my mind,
but once you started putting it together,
I was like, this is really hard to track
and even think about.
What it means to be human is going to change.
I'll give you an example.
I think that's probably true.
I do.
Well, certainly CRISPR stuff and genetics stuff.
Well, that's where we're going.
We gotta at least touch on this.
Because the vast majority of people,
CRISPR's here now.
So this isn't like eight years from now.
CRISPR technology exists today.
Last year, they used CRISPR,
and they edited sickle cell anemia.
Right.
I mean, sickle cell anemia. Right.
I mean sickle cell anemia.
There are 50,000 heritable diseases.
32,000 of them are single mutations, which is what CRISPR is designed to change.
So 32,000 genetic diseases could go away this decade.
I mean that's a radically different world.
Right, and is everybody getting that?
So I think a vast majority of people
don't know what even CRISPR is.
And they think it's a future thing, but it's here now.
Guys, we are currently, not only is it
a disease eradication, that changes what it means
to be a human being.
How long you're gonna live, how healthy you're gonna live,
what your life experience is going to be like.
And having said that, I have a sister who's got diabetic retinopathy, right, which is
one of the original places this stuff started to really work.
Guys, we're remaking the retina.
Blind people are seeing.
This is remarkable stuff that's happening right now.
So I was in the room as a Wired reporter the very first time the first artificial vision
implant was ever turned on. So the very first time the first artificial vision implant was ever turned on.
So the very first time there was a blind guy
who was made to see again, nobody was in the room,
I was actually, it was seen, funny story.
So I'm in this lab, it's Professor William DeBell,
we're in New York, the patient, his name is Jans,
and this is, so this is 2000, he's literally got
what we used to call stereo jacks in the side of his head.
So he's literally got wires jacked into the side of his head. He's got an implant in his brain.
He's been blind for 20 years and they're about to, it's literally they're counting down to when they hit the button.
It's 10, 9, and I'm like, and I realize I'm sitting across from him and I'm a reporter.
Our job is not to be
history, right? Like our job is to report on history. You don't want to be the history. And so what do I do?
I push back and try to get out of the way. He's blind.
He's been tracking like motion through sound for 20 years. So what happens? Three, two, one, ice!
And I always say there's a moral here, which is I try to get out of the way. And I always say there's a moral here,
which is you can never get out of the way of the future.
It's coming for you whether or not you like it.
I thought that was amazing.
I was literally like trying to duck.
So give them, you guys, I just want to get
a little bit of picture of this.
So if you're tying together where we were in the beginning
to where we are now, this is such a great time to be alive.
It's such a remarkable time.
And frankly, the concept of how long you're going to have
had Dr. David Sinclair on.
Oh, yeah, great, great.
We talked a little bit about CRISPR more off camera than on.
But just give them a flavor, just for fun.
So we opened the book with flying cars, which
are like everybody's crazy sci-fi technology.
And it turns out that they're here. There are 100 different car companies, or there are 100 different companies making flying cars, which are like everybody's crazy sci-fi technology. And it turns out that they're here.
There are 100 different car companies,
or there are 100 different companies making flying cars.
Every car company is in it.
Toyota put $400 million, $396 million
into Joby Aviation flying car company three weeks ago.
Bell Helicopter, they just changed their name to Bell
because they dropped because no more helicopters, flying cars.
And they're the ultimate conversion technology.
Flying cars happen because AI hit robotics,
hit material science, hit 3D printing, et cetera, et cetera.
And wow, that's totally revolutionary.
Crazy, flying cars.
But it's not just flying cars.
It's also autonomous cars.
Every major car company has an autonomous car.
Waymo is rolling out on our streets.
Google's autonomous car company.
This decade, or this year, simultaneously, hyperloop, high-speed trains,
LA to Las Vegas in 25 minutes, right?
There are 25 different hyperloop projects in the world today.
Then, Elon Musk, the boring company, we're going to drill tunnels under cities
and this is already happening all over the place
and put cars on high-speed conveyor belts.
And, Elon's crazy idea, the rockets that he's using right now
to put satellites in space that he wants to take people
to Mars with in the 2030s, he has promised
that before 2030, you can use them for terrestrial travel.
So, New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes.
Unbelievable. 2030, you can use them for terrestrial travel. So New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. The point is, so the point is not just it's one,
it's all of these over the next 10 years,
and you have to, like this does,
like think about simple things, car insurance.
Well, if the cars are all autonomous, you don't need cars.
In fact, Waymo, when you sit in one of their autonomous cars,
you're automatically insured.
It happens automatically.
The risk profile has shifted.
Whole categories of insurance go away.
But simple stuff.
If Las Vegas to Los Angeles is 25 minutes, how big is the local dating pool?
You've got it.
Right?
How big is the size of the local school district?
You live in LA.
You don't like the schools your kids are going to.
Suddenly, they can
go to school in Vegas.
It's an hour away or 20 minutes away.
All fundamental things, the way we like to talk about it is when you have solitary exponentials,
AI, whatever, they tend to disrupt products, services, and a little bit they make markets
wobble. So like classic example is Netflix, right?
Streaming video, it's one accelerating technology and they put Blockbuster out of business,
right?
So this is product, service and a little bit of the market.
With converging exponentials, you get the scale increases massively.
So you get products, services, markets, institutions and all the structures that support them.
So right, suddenly the local dating pool, the local school, like really foundational
things.
What to do to the real estate market?
Oh, the real estate market is insane, right?
And the concept, so you went to someplace smart, right?
So suddenly you can live, flying cars by the way do 150 miles an hour and they can do three
hours of continuous flight.
So imagine how far you can live, and this has enormous environmental consequences.
The best thing we can do for the environment is leave nature alone, and suddenly we can live in,
right, you were just in Coeur d'Alene, you were talking about how much you like Idaho,
and one of the reasons we like Idaho so much is because there aren't many people there,
right? That's about to change with flying cars.
Or we're going to have to legislate around it and think about this stuff and get out ahead in front of it.
That's just wanting, that's just transportation.
Every other industry is just as crazy.
We're going to look at our lifetime back and go, most people used to live within 30 miles of where they worked.
We're going to look back at the time and go, how bizarre, what a small world it once was.
Where you want to go to dinner at night. And by the way let's
let's talk about your new industry you're now in the podcasting business
and we were just talking you like to make your things an hour 45 minutes to an
hour long because the average commute yeah it's 45 minutes to an hour right so
and you're more popular on audio than video because people are listening to you.
So in flying cars or in autonomous cars, you can have a completely, it's a theater.
It's a moving theater, right?
If you want, you can have a desk to work at, you can have blah, blah, blah.
So suddenly people, podcasters who have been relying on audio, right, it may go to video
because the autonomous cars, like the cars where people are driving to work,
the commute hasn't changed,
but they don't longer have to drive
and now they can watch it.
Even like, I'll tell you something crazy,
nobody likes it when I talk about this out loud,
but everybody on the inside of the autonomous car industry
is talking about it.
Autonomous cars are gonna revive the sex industry
in ways we haven't even, like it's a brothel on wheels.
Right? Imagine what happens with Tinder, the sex industry in ways we haven't even, like it's a brothel on wheels, right?
Imagine what happens with Tinder,
like Tinder for autonomous,
wanna share a car home, right?
I mean like people are talking,
like they don't like it when you talk about it out loud,
but like that's what I mean when you talk about
like the fundamental fabric of society is gonna change.
All that stuff is gonna shift in wild, weird ways.
And you know, one of the reasons we wrote the book is most people in wild, weird ways.
You know, one of the reasons we wrote the book is
most people are scared about the future.
That fear is based on a lack of knowledge.
So go out, read about what's coming,
and figure out how you can take advantage of it
in your industry.
Get their book.
I'm serious.
I endorse books when someone's on my show,
if I've read them.
You gotta get them.
Why would you not wanna know this information? Why would you not wanna know what read them. Why would you not want to know this information?
Why would you not want to know what's coming?
Why would you not want to begin to think this way?
And when you can converge these two things, everybody,
when you have the convergence of this flow state
and the convergence of what's coming,
and people say, wow, that sounds pie in the sky.
Many of the things we've described are here now.
Most of my very wealthy friends, when
we're talking about different things that were being pitched
on investment-wise, I mean, I'll be honest with you,
flying cars and autonomous cars
are constantly coming up all the time.
Right now, like significant investments
from very smart people.
Yeah, and I mean, Tony, Peter's in business,
what are they doing?
Longevity and stem cells, right?
Like our friends are,
Peter's got four different longevity companies.
Right, right.
Like, I don't know how many Tony has,
but like-
A bunch, right, a bunch.
Like, they got a lot of money.
They want to live forever.
OK, cool.
Like, thank you.
Let's go one more area, because I have not
talked about this with you at all.
And I'm just curious, because we're talking about travel.
And there's all kinds of, there's quantum computers,
and all these other things we could be talking about.
And if you think that this is pie in the sky stuff,
if I'd have told you 10 years ago, even 10 years ago,
that you would just say,
you know, I want to jug a milk and it's at your house the next day. You just say it out
loud into the air and the milk shows up at your freaking house. Right? Like you thought
I was absolutely crazy. My son and I were touring this college and they were showing
us how amazing their library was. Their library. And I'm like, these still exist? Like, you used to have to get your card, drive somewhere,
give them your card, with ink on a deal, write it on there,
check you a book out.
Like, think of it.
Wait, do you remember learning?
We were roughly the same age.
Do you remember learning the card catalog?
Yes!
Like, that was the thing we had to learn.
Here's how we use the card catalog.
And I was like, right?
It's stupid things you take for granted.
You used to have a Thomas guide.
That wasn't long ago.
I just looked at a pretty vintage car, not that vintage.
Was there a Thomas guide in it?
Yeah.
It was a Thomas guide in the car.
So when we're talking about these things, guys,
you have to, you must.
It's a necessity that you're going to think this way.
I'm just curious, because I haven't asked you this.
What do you think it means for space travel?
Do you have any insights into that?
Oh, yeah, so we, at the end of the book.
I know.
Right, that's where you're going.
The book is really,
it's focused on the next 10 years.
What's gonna happen the next 10 years?
But we pull back in the last chapter
for the 100 year view.
And two things to know about the 100 year view.
So, Ray Kurzweil also worked the numbers
on what happens over 100 years.
So it's 10 years, it's 100 years with a change
over the next 10 years.
Deep breath, before the end of the century,
according to Kurzweil, who's barely wrong about anything,
like he's just not wrong.
He's made so many predictions, He's batting like 86%.
I mean, from the fall of the Soviet Union to the arrival.
I mean, he doesn't seem to miss with this stuff because it follows just, there's math
underneath it essentially.
He says over the next 100 years, before the end of the century, we're going to experience
20,000 years of technological change.
So that's birth of agriculture
to the industrial revolution twice in the next 80 years.
So let's say he's off by 50%, right?
Let's say he's spectacularly wrong, right?
And it's only 10,000 years of change.
Are you kidding?
Right, so one of the things that's gonna happen,
and we look at this in the end of the book,
is this is the century that we stop being a single
planetary species. We become a multi-planetary species and this you know it being partnered
with Peter for almost 20 years at this point you know this is his big passion so I've got to see
it up close a lot and I've watched this know, go from Peter's crazy idea that he shared
with a handful of other people into a billion dollar industry growing towards a trillion
dollar industry. So it's really, right, it's massively matured, but, and it's, I mean,
it's really funny because what we write about in the book is like, if you think about the
space race, you know, I say that to most people they think USSR versus USA right? That's
the like what got us into space. It was well there's competition between two
superpowers. What's gonna unlock the space frontier this century?
Competition between two superpowers only those powers are Jeff Bezos and Elon
Musk right? They're arguing Bezos got blue origin, Musk has got SpaceX and they
both and they've got different viewpoints. Bezos wants to go to the moon and build space floating space colonies.
Musk wants to go to Mars, right?
And that is what is unlocking the space frontier. And I mean, by the way, just so people can wrap their heads around this,
this isn't actually in the book, but there's a company, I'm gonna blank the name of it, Peter's been talking about it for weeks now.
They figured out how to 3D print in a couple of weeks a rocket.
A rocket.
A rocket.
And this is amazing because it used to be like, you know,
rockets are billion dollar toys.
And like if you screw something up in design, right,
like you have to build and you're like, oh damn,
I wish the fin was five degrees off or like what,
you're screwed. Now we can build, can iterate in a rocket in two weeks like
things like this ever happen and this is already like this is here right now
really cool really interesting so yeah this is and it's probably gonna happen
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dot com slash ed. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple
and Spotify.
Links are in the show notes.
Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest.
My guest today is an eight time Emmy award winner.
And you probably best know him from Dateline or Catch a Predator, but he's the first guest
I've ever had on my show, where I'm glad to be introducing him to all of you and not having him introducing
himself to me because the last thing you want to hear if you're
in someone's living room or kitchen is Hi, I'm Chris Hanson,
grab a seat. So I'm super glad that I'm the one introducing him
and he's got a podcast out right now called predators I've caught
I'm super fascinated by this man. It's kind of a giveaway as to
who it is. So Chris Hanson, welcome to the show. And thank you very much. I suppose you're going to tell me to have
a seat for this. That's exactly what we're doing. And I'm fascinated by you, Chris. Do you think
that a couple more things? I'm fascinated by it. I mean, it's like, for me, there's a conversation
many years in the making of wanting to ask these questions. I know it is for my audience too.
Do you think that forecast a little bit you're in you've been in this space a while. Is there
a future that you see coming where predatory type people change their behavior? Is there
another venue or forum other than just online? Is anything you see that we should be looking
out for that's sort of the next level, right? As you've said, we didn't have text and phone back in the day.
Now we've got Instagram and TikTok and dating apps.
Is there anything on the horizon?
I think whatever the next thing is, people will try to exploit it.
Whether it's another level of communication, another level of internet connectivity. You know, we see it with the interactive
video games, you know, that's another thing people think, well,
they can say playing a video game, well, they don't know who's
on the other end of that. Maybe you say they're Sam Johnstone
from wherever that you don't know who that really is, you
know, so I think I think it really, it's the same predatory behavior taken to the
next level and exploiting whatever technology is available. I mean, in the old days, you can sell
the same tractor six times at the bus station to the same guy looking to buy a tractor. You can get
aware of that about seven times before the sheriff would figure out what you're up to.
you can get away with it about seven times before the sheriff and figure out what you're up to.
And today, it's just all you need is a picture of the tractor.
And people sell stuff multiple times all the time online.
So you've got to be careful.
I was going to just add to what you're saying that I'm
a target for certain people just because of net worth
or whatever or reach.
And I just want to share with the audience that when someone,
someone doesn't usually come right directly at me with their
thing they'd like to get from me, it trickles over time.
And it can seem like a very normal relationship in the beginning,
even for an extended period of time.
But what I didn't know was in the back of their mind,
they were waiting for that moment where I was the most comfortable.
I was the most vulnerable. I was the most trusting. We are, we are being groomed by
people for different things other than just what Chris is experiencing or experienced.
So that's true, isn't it, Chris? There's a grooming that someone's, someone who's trying
to get something from you.
There, I mean, I've seen it, you know, I've seen it in my life. I mean, you know, I said to people, I said, do you really think that I'm the guy you want
to try and con?
How do you think that's going to possibly go?
And mostly if people, you know, make up a story, but it's happened a couple of times
where, you know, somebody is, I've caught somebody trying to take advantage or an online scam or the typical
phone calls you get where you know it's somebody trying to get money from you for some nefarious
reason. You can tell because they'll say Christoph or be half the name that doesn't fit on their
readout sheet. Put put an ER on that.
Does that name sound at all familiar to you? Oh my god, sorry about that.
They picked the worst dude. Could you pick a worse human being on this day?
My last question, I'm curious about redemption, but I just, I think I've always in my mind thought
when it came to sexual predators, physical predators,
physical abusers, I've just sort of always,
that's been a category that I went,
no, they're not redeemed.
They're, they don't come back.
They don't get a second chance.
I'm just being candid about everything.
Liars, cheaters, philanderers, bad people, gossippers,
they can all be redeemed and changed.
Those two categories for me have always been,
nope, they're not redemptive.
No way, no how ever would I trust them again.
Well, I think there's a category of predators
who can never be reformed.
I think there definitely is a group
and no matter what you do or how you punish
or anything else, they're gonna figure out a way to,
they're hardwired to do it.
And that's probably, at least in my experience,
of 30 of these guys, you're never gonna change them.
And they're gonna be, and we've seen them.
We've seen them get out.
We've seen them re-offend.
We've seen guys who successfully go on to have productive lives. And, you know, I think there
are categories that with monitoring and probation and some sort of treatment, I think they'll be
fine. But we've also had guys in prominent positions who, you know, the therapist and had
their parole officer visit.
And they're not supposed to have a device
that has access to the internet.
And the phone rings while they're in with the therapist
and the probation officer.
And they're caught red handed with the phone.
I mean, you know, it's like, come on, Jesus.
Could you at least try?
You know, but they can't be reformed in some cases.
I'm so excited.
I went to the higher register.
I did it.
Where was that?
I haven't heard that out of you ever.
See, we were talking off camera about my incredibly deep voice. And one of the higher register. I did it. Where was that? I haven't heard that out of you ever.
See, we were talking off camera about my incredibly deep voice, and one of the reasons we were
talking about this is because this is one of the most observant people on planet Earth,
I think, and also one of the funniest.
You realize I'm watching everything you do.
I know.
I'm watching everything you do right now.
I'm using the deeper tone of the voice, presentational, make sure that people can max out,
do what they need to do, this is what it's all about.
And I don't care, listen, I was at the gym the other day.
I know you probably saw me there, a lot of people do it.
You know why?
Because I was shooting an Instagram video from the gym,
so you knew I was at the gym,
because not everybody goes to the gym,
and we got everybody at the gym through me.
We're gonna do this, aren't we, today? This is awesome.
This is Frank Caliendo.
I didn't even let you intro me.
See, you were worried about me talking enough.
You're like, what can we do to get through this?
We're gonna, I made a checklist.
What you need to do is write things down.
In the age of social media,
even those of you that are in sales or in marketing, one,
you can hear how cognizant and entertainer is of this, the priority of that.
But also the second thing is like everything now has to have an entertainment aspect to
it.
Even your presentation, it's almost like infotainment.
There's got to be something where people enjoy the experience of receiving your sales pitch,
of receiving your information, of interactivity. It's all about the experience of receiving your sales pitch, of receiving your information, of interactivity.
It's all about the experience.
But the one thing, like the fly just flew by you,
and off camera I told you.
One of my bits, like Al Pacino,
it's like he's always looking at a fly,
that licks something.
You got it.
Was the fly there?
No, it was some white thing.
Oh.
You got it, you just ate it.
Whatever it was, it opens yummy.
Okay.
You know what that was?
Success.
Um.
Um.
I don't know why I looked at that camera.
It's totally the wrong camera.
But Trump, you know, Trump would do that.
Look, I'm looking at the perfect camera right now.
And if I'm not, that person's going to be gone.
Um.
Well, I don't even know what I was gonna say.
That was so weird.
No, but I was saying.
See how you get closer.
I get in the zone.
Like there's a force field on there.
It's an energy thing. It just gets you close. Oh, okay. So, the zone, it's an energy thing.
It just gets you close.
So, but that's a good example though.
Off the camera, I told you, and you agreed with me,
that we're very similar in that we're both very,
you're hyper observant of people.
Like, I think you can't do what you do.
Correct me if I'm wrong in a minute,
but like, I don't think you can do what you do
unless you're just unbelievably observant of people.
And I am too, I told you that because my dad was a drinker
when he was younger, I'd have to really,
I learned at like four or five years old
to observe my dad when he'd come home
to know which version I was getting.
Was I getting the sober, fun, loving dad,
or was I kind of getting the dad who may be
a little bit tired or in a bad mood or, you know.
So you learn to read the audience.
You learn to read the audience
and then be a person based on that audience
and who you, that version of you or that piece of you.
For me, I was in high school.
And when I was in high school,
I would actually know when the class,
I couldn't tell you how, maybe I had spider sense,
I don't know, but I couldn't tell you how,
but I could feel when the class wasn't understanding stuff.
So I would ask questions that would help
the other students, and I was a B kind of student.
I wasn't an A student.
I struggled this with my son who's way smarter than me,
but has the same mentality as me,
and I wish I could just go, look,
you could be so much further along in the rest of your life
if you knew what I knew now.
But I would actually ask questions. I remember being in a specific Spanish
class and saying something, does that mean? And then
whatever. And the teacher would say yes and then a couple more sentences to
explain it. And then I could feel the other kids around the room actually
engaging and going, okay now we got it. And I don't know why I
did it. I don't know. The teachers would always tell my parents I was a leader
and my dad would be like, my parents I was a leader.
And my dad would be like, this kid's not a leader,
what are you talking about?
Because I just, I didn't have a ton of confidence
as a kid, I still don't.
It still hits me, like I know what I can do,
and I know what I'm really good at,
but anything new, a new adventure's difficult for me.
Right now in standup, I'm trying lots of new stuff.
And it's not all impression based.
When I go and do the impression,
if I know the impression's done,
like they're never really done,
but it's worked on to a point where it's ready to go,
that I can sell it.
But to sell me talking, this is taking
what I'm doing right now,
and it's because I've been podcasting a lot
and talking as myself, that I've learned to
feel that I'm actually interesting as myself talking.
And I can go into this other stuff,
which is what sets me apart.
I can just be talking and become Donald Trump
or go Morgan Freeman or just Senator John Menne
or John Grudenman.
I can just go from voice to voice.
How can you become like a seven year old girl?
I've never seen anything like,
you go from just this guy.
Like, all right.
Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
I am.
I'm smitten with you.
Yeah.
I love, it's why I did the show.
I'm telling you right now.
And by the way, I appreciate you saying
that about your confidence of it.
Because you really can't transfer to someone that
which you're not feeling.
So like even in your stand up, like you
do need to get to that level of comfort
with the new material to transfer the certainty to people.
I think that in everything we do, that's just something to be conscious of.
Like other guys I work with that are in the communication, I'm like, you have to get to
the place where you're that confident and certain because the audience senses your lack
of certainty, especially by the way, especially, and this is for you salespeople too, especially
when there is a portion of your presentation you're more certain about.
They can feel the energy difference when you go into the stuff your presentation you're more certain about, they can feel the energy difference
when you go into the stuff that you're not as certain about.
The contrast gives you a space that's dangerous energy-wise
when you're presenting.
A lot of people can feel truth.
That's what actors are really good at, creating truth.
Now, some people are great actors,
and they can create a truth,
but people can read truth.
And when you're coming
from something, that's why we use anecdotes,
personal anecdotes, because an emotion is tied
to that inside of you and then you can tie it
and if it really hits you, the audience will feel
that as well.
If you just tell it, if you make up a story,
a lot of the audience, some of it might spy you,
you know, buy it, but other people are gonna be like,
I don't know, I don't know why.
And they might not even know why.
But it doesn't, when you have that emotion,
when you have that, entertainment's not really
different than sales.
It's not.
No, I mean, when you're an actor,
you're just selling that you're somebody else.
Right, and I think, I say this to all the time to people,
I'm really glad we're going here for a second.
I don't think you can transfer to somebody or an audience, a person or an audience, that
which you're not experiencing yourself.
So if the story is true or if you do believe it or if you are confident in it, you'll transfer
that certainty to somebody, that energy to someone.
If you're not, they feel it.
And that's why a lot of times some of my standup friends, when they are trying new material,
it's difficult to decipher whether the material is good or not
because it's not the material that may not be good, it's your lack of comfort and certainty with
it. That's also true for those of you that are in sales. It may not be that your presentation is not
really what it should be. It may be that you're not yet repetitious enough with it or confident
enough with it where you're transferring the energy. It may not be the words or the joke.
Do you, and I didn't learn about this until acting.
I never, I just recently, the last few years,
started taking acting classes.
I mean, I always thought there's no way
that that stuff's real or works.
So I met a guy in Phoenix, his name's Matt Dearing,
and he's been out to the East Coast to train
with like some real big time acting coaches.
And I never realized how important it was to have things,
and this is a sales thing, this isn't even outside,
but it works in knowing your lines in entertainment
in a script.
If you can say a script while doing something else,
then you really know it.
So if you memorize to the point,
like we would memorize a script,
and then what we'd do is we'd play catch
or be doing something else
while reciting the script back and forth.
If you can do that, it's second nature.
Cause we, okay, so I'm talking
and I'm trying to present an idea to you, right?
So I could be doing anything.
I could be checking this pillow over here.
I could, I can do anything I want.
I can be taking a drink.
I'd naturally pause.
I know when to start talking again. But if it taking a drink, I naturally pause, I know when to start talking again,
but if it were a script,
you ever watch somebody on screen
and you know they're like,
okay, now I have to take a drink.
And you can see that happen.
Or you try it yourself.
That's because you don't know the dialogue that well
that you just can't talk through it.
Very good, that's really good.
It's an amazing, and that's what the best actors can do.
They can memorize to a point where they just talk.
Well, that's outstanding. I've not heard that before.
So if you think, if you have to think, this is as an actor,
and I would say this works in sales, too,
if you have to think about what you're going to say,
you've already lost the audience for that amount of time
because they're going, wait, you ever see somebody do this?
And it's not planned.
There can be moments where you're thinking of something,
but you come out of character of it.
Because when you're doing a presentation,
you're kind of in your character mode
of your presentation version of yourself.
So if you come out, you gotta think,
oh, what was I gonna say here?
That part right there, all of a sudden they go,
he doesn't know he's talking.
He doesn't know he's talking about it,
or they don't trust what you're about to say being true.
That's so interesting you say that.
I just want to weave a line in here about it.
One of the things I always say is that you need to know
your lines or your presentation so well,
and whatever you're doing, that it's reflexive.
Meaning you don't think you be, because under pressure,
under pressure you respond reflexively to things,
and if that reflexes you don't know it, you're screwed.
I just interviewed Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer, and he said he's all about energy with these
animals.
It's just really interesting.
I just did it this week.
It'll come out before this comes out.
But what's interesting was he said that when he's in best influence with an animal is that
he is being, not thinking, which is exactly what you just said.
When you can relate, and it's a give and take with the audience or whatever you're doing, we're doing that
right now. There isn't so much, we're not trying to keep to a script. Like one of
the things you talked about before we came on here, it's like don't have part
A, part B. It's not my turn to talk, it's your turn to talk. It's let's talk
together because that's how people actually talk. In a script, if you
don't have it memorized and you, if you don't have it memorized
and you're thinking, you don't have it memorized enough,
you're like, okay, it's my turn to talk.
That's already taking you out of the script.
It's my turn to talk.
You just have to hear it and go.
And you're in the moment.
I think that applies to all the sales, all presentations.
So do I.
Everything you're doing, it's that don't think,
don't plan, just be.
Gosh, that's so good, because I'm really glad we're going there
because I did something recently on listening
that you were making reference to earlier.
And the only way in sales or even in anything like this
is the only way that you can really listen to somebody
is that you are already very comfortable
with what you would say so that you don't have to be thinking
about what you're gonna say back to somebody.
You can actually just be present with the message. Don't plan what you're about to say back. Listen to don't have to be thinking about what you're gonna say back to somebody. You can actually just be present with them.
Don't plan what you're about to say back.
Listen to what they have to say.
Because if I listen to what you have to say,
my planned response may not fit what you just said.
So if you do wanna get a message across,
make sure you address what the person just said first.
This is not acting, this is, because you can't do that,
you can't change the lines in acting
if you're doing a script that's written.
But in terms of sales, relationships in business,
don't just have this next thing planned to say
because that will turn a person off.
It's like you're literally, if somebody uses,
if somebody uses a word, you using that as a connection,
you lose a connection when somebody is doing
something completely different
and on a different plane than you.
When they're going off and like,
okay, but let's bring it back.
It's not even that.
It's, you asked me a question
and I start saying things about acting again,
but it had nothing to do with it.
Because I had this plan in my head,
and that's not what people want.
I watch that a lot in interviews on podcasts too.
I'm like, oh, you didn't even hear what they just said.
You just went back into the next thing you had on the list.
Do you know, I'm curious,
do you know when you're losing an audience,
and if you do know you're losing it,
is there a way to change that?
I mean, right now I lose an audience more
because I go off on these tangents to try
different things.
But I'm almost purposely doing that.
Speaking about that, I think that that's being willing to take some risks.
A hundred percent because I'm so scared.
I got so happy with what I was doing with my act and the formulas in my act that I didn't
take a lot of risks.
And it became, you ever hear the story about stories
and this is psychological I guess as well,
somebody gets in a car accident,
the best thing to do is get them in a car again.
The longer you wait, the tougher it is to get them back
in that car because they'll build up,
they'll make the event bigger and bigger and bigger.
I was on stage doing the same stuff over and aboard
with my act, not taking chances, not learning,
not getting better, and it took its whole bit,
but I was out there just making, again,
that was the business side of me, not the art,
or the relationship side of me, the relationship there
is between me and the audience, and doing a lot
of the same stuff over and over.
Now, I have to do certain things.
If I don't do a John Mann impression,
I don't do a Morgan Freeman,
I don't do some of these impressions people know me for,
people will get upset.
I believe they're still an audience
and I'm gonna give them the things they want,
but in different ways and lots of different stuff as well.
Yeah, you go see the Rolling Stones,
they better play Satisfaction, right?
Or you're like, wait a minute, man,
I mean, I want your new stuff.
Anytime you go see a new band,
you're like, I'll listen to some of your new stuff,
but I came to hear some of the old stuff.
Right, I want to hear Billy Joel, I want to hear Piano Man.
Exactly.
If I don't get Piano Man, I'm sad.
And he's an entertainer who gets it, and he'll do that.
Even if you play the new stuff.
And it's the art, it's the combination of art and business,
which is what pretty much everything is.