Authentic AI Marketing with Molly Mahoney on Building AI Boston

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Authentic AI Marketing with Molly Mahoney"

Building AI Boston | June 15, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of Building AI Boston features Molly Mahoney—digital marketing strategist, keynote speaker, and founder of The Prepared Performer—for a vibrant discussion about authenticity in AI-driven marketing. Host Anna and co-host Chris, both seasoned storytellers, guide the conversation through Molly’s personal journey from Broadway to a seven-figure online business, and her unique approach that merges humanity, joy, and advanced AI tools. The group explores how AI can be used not to replace, but to amplify authentic voices, with practical tips for business owners, creators, and anyone looking to harness AI while staying true to their values.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Molly’s Origin Story: From Musical Theater to Marketing Innovator

• Personal Journey: Molly explains the shift from performing on Broadway and touring to founding The Prepared Performer, initially as a coach for singers and actors.
  • [01:27] Molly: “I made a giant list of all the things I love to do. I made a giant list of all the things I thought people would pay me to do… teaching people how to show up on camera... Facebook Live was brand new.”
• First Big Breakthrough: She leveraged Facebook Live in 2016, pivoting to teach business owners performance techniques.
  • Launched “Camera Confidence” in an empty Facebook group, grew rapidly, and shifted pricing from $47 lifetime to $5,000.

Lessons from Failure & Validation

• Failed Launches: Early setbacks taught Molly to validate offers before building content and to avoid calling her audience "starving artists."
  • [02:39] Molly: “I learned so much in that failed launch… I now sell it first. I validate my offers… when you call someone a starving artist, turns out they don’t want to pay you.”

The AI Content Club: Dancing with the Robots

• Pioneering AI Content Membership:
  • Molly started teaching AI for marketing before it was mainstream, partnering with Jasper (formerly Jarvis) and launching “Dancing with Jarvis,” later rebranded to “AI Content Club.”
  • She describes working with automation as akin to “dancing with robots: you have to know you’re not going to get a perfect dancer every time.”
    • [06:26] Molly: “It’s like an ebb and a flow… it was wild.”

Overcoming AI Skepticism & the Trojan Horse Strategy

• Addressing Fears:
  • Biggest challenge: People fear losing their humanity to automation.
  • Solution: Use AI as a “Trojan horse” to get clients to do essential self-development work.
  • [07:06] Molly: “We use AI as a Trojan horse… the core of it is that you have to figure out who you are as a human being first.”
• Critique of “Easy Bake AI Experts”:
  • Warns against just copying scripts and templates without grounding in personal expertise.

Virality vs. Strategy on Social Media

• Going Viral & Its Pitfalls:
  • Molly describes a viral Facebook video (bath bomb with “termites” – 39 million views, paid $30k)
    • [09:29] Molly: “Facebook paid me $30,000 for that one 13 second video… The reason that it hit 39 million is because all these bug experts were arguing about what kind of bugs they were.”
  • Profit came not just from views, but from selling a course about going viral ($160k total) and using it as an educational tool.
  • Insight: Virality can be stressful and may not serve long-term business goals.
    • [12:49] Molly: “In that moment, I decided I didn’t want to play social media that way… I want to do something that is going to serve the right people.”

Authenticity and the “Quesadilla of Awesome”

• Business Joy and Differentiation:
  • Molly is a fierce advocate for joy and individuality in business.
    • [15:59] Molly: “Standing for Joy as a fierce form of activism… Different is better than better.”
  • Being weird and infusing personal flair makes a brand memorable and sustainable.
• Quesadilla of Awesome:
  • An exercise encouraging people to list 20 unique traits—serving as a foundation for both human confidence and giving AI the “right ingredients” to generate authentic content.
    • [21:31] Molly: “When you have this list… you fill yourself up with this awesome. But it’s also now something that you fill AI up with.”

Notable Client Success & AI Deployment

• Marie Forleo's B School:
  • Molly’s team built AI assistants for B School, including creating a mascot-like avatar ("B School Buddy") to deliver guidance via engaging animations.
  • [18:14] Molly: “She was really big about being analog AF… so we made an AI avatar… the B School Buddy did all of the training videos.”

Community, Inclusion, & Women in AI

• Advocacy for Women & Diverse Voices:
  • Discussion around Reese Witherspoon’s viral AI-learning video and the backlash it received highlights the need for more supportive, inclusive AI dialogues.
  • [26:04] Molly: “We just really need more voices, more human voices in the mix. So props to Reese Witherspoon…”

Human Connection in an AI World

• Blue Dot Flu:
  • Reference to the trend of high-profile events or concerts being canceled due to low ticket sales (available seats shown as blue dots on Ticketmaster), reflecting the desire for meaningful—often more local and human—connection.
  • [31:04] Chris/Molly: “It’s an interesting time where people are craving more human connection than ever.”

Bringing Humans Together: Events & Education

• Live Events:
  • Molly shares her recent initiatives—like in-person intensives (“Bots and Broadway”) and “pretend cruises” as innovative ways to build community and teach AI marketing hands-on.
  • [35:40] Molly: “It’s all cruise ship themed… building an event space at our house actually to do these pretend cruises… Not just like go sit and watch a boring video, but come and hang out with human beings and build your AI team.”

Podcasting, Content Repurposing & Embracing Imperfection

• Molly’s Podcast Experience:
  • She stresses that simply hosting a podcast leads to opportunities and connections—even if episodes are sporadic.
    • [38:11] Molly: “Even just saying you have a podcast will get you more conversations, for sure. I really think about the fact that what you do around your podcast is actually almost more important than what you do in your podcast…”

AI For All: No Shame, No Laggards

• Encouragement to Jump In:
  • Molly demystifies the AI “adoption curve,” emphasizing there is still plenty of room for new voices and marking “no shame in my AI game.”
    • [41:20] Molly: “I think there’s space for everyone here and you still have a chance to be part of the early majority… Just don’t wait any longer because I don’t want you to be a laggard.”

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Memorable Quotes

• “We use AI as a Trojan horse, because when people join our programs… you have to figure out who you are as a human being first.”
  — Molly Mahoney [07:06]

• “Standing for Joy as a fierce form of activism. Different is better than better… when you figure out what makes you weird and you weave that into your business, you are going to actually enjoy your business more.”
  — Molly Mahoney [15:59]

• “There are a lot of people who I call easy Bake AI experts, where they’re not actually taking the time to go and figure out who they are as humans.”
  — Molly Mahoney [08:15]

• “In that moment, I decided I didn’t want to play social media that way… I want to do something that is going to serve the right people at the right time and be more strategic about it in my business.”
  — Molly Mahoney [12:49]

• “If you don’t understand what makes you unique, how do you expect AI to understand that?”
  — Molly Mahoney [22:58]

• “There is no shame in my AI game. I think there’s space for everyone here…”
  — Molly Mahoney [41:17]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:27 — Molly’s career shift and early business lessons
• 04:49 — Transition from performer to AI entrepreneur
• 06:26 — Origins of “Dancing with Jarvis” and leveraging AI for content
• 07:06 — The “Trojan horse” philosophy for authentic AI integration
• 09:29 — Viral Facebook story: bath bomb video and the reality of virality
• 15:59 — Joy as activism, differentiation, and visual branding
• 18:14 — Success story: Marie Forleo’s B School and AI avatars
• 21:31 — The “Quesadilla of Awesome” explained and tied to AI
• 26:04 — Women, advocacy, and the Reese Witherspoon AI backlash
• 31:04 — “Blue Dot Flu” and the need for human connection
• 35:40 — Live events, “pretend cruises,” and immersive learning
• 38:11 — Podcasting as a tool for visibility and connection
• 41:17 — Encouragement to join the AI movement, without gatekeeping

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Final Takeaways

• AI and authenticity are not opposites—they can align beautifully to elevate businesses when grounded in real human connection.
• Joy and individuality are vital for standing out in marketing and should be celebrated, not masked.
• Building with AI starts with self-awareness—know what makes you unique, then leverage technology to amplify, not replace, your voice.
• There’s still time and space for everyone in the AI world; the key is to jump in, be curious, and stay authentically yourself.

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Free Resource

Molly’s free tool for identifying your ideal client:
MollyLiveAIBoston (confirm link before use)

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For more on Molly Mahoney: visit molleymahoney.com, check out her AI Content Club, or subscribe to her podcast “Elevate Your Awesome.”

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Transcript

[Molly Mahoney]

Foreign.

[Anna]

Welcome to Building AI Boston. Our guest today is Molly Mahoney. She's a digital marketing strategist, keynote speaker, book author, musical theater legend, both as a coach and performer from Broadway to Vegas and around the world. Today we break down her views on AI and how she created a seven figure online business. The prepared performer that is proof that AI and authenticity are not opposites. Molly, welcome to the show.

[Molly Mahoney]

Hey. I'm so glad to be here. We're gonna have a blast.

[Anna]

We are gonna have a blast. So Chris and I are excited. Chris. This is kind of a launch, I feel, of a friendship. So, you know, welcome to Chris and meeting Chris's superpower. By way of explanation, Chris and I had a podcast doing storytelling, and this was during the Pandemic. So we're on air every single day on podcast and radio. And while we were doing this gig, nobody thought to do social media. Right. Crazy. And meanwhile, Molly was busy cracking the code on Facebook Live. And. And if I may say, you were making bank teaching people to find their inner. Awesome. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that story and what you were up to? Why did you go from broadw to coaching business?

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, I mean, well, and the. The Facebook Live stuff was something that came out of an opportunity. Right. So I had. After doing all of my work in New York and Vegas and cruise ships and all of that as a singing, dancing, musical theater lover, I met my husband, who was a bass player. We toured the world with a flying car with the national tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was so fun. It was awesome.

[Chris]

And.

[Molly Mahoney]

And we wanted to have kids. So we left our 400 square foot apartment in New York, moved back out to California, and I found myself wanting to teach other people to do what I had done in New York and all of this. So I launched my company, the Prepared Performer, initially as a coach for singers and actors to help them both with their singing, their, you know, audition skills. And I launched a. A live event called the Ghost Light Vocal Jam. It was a Broadway themed open mic. It was just. It was really awesome. And then I found myself realizing that I could do something more scalable if I taught them how to do things online. So I had this brilliant idea to be the cure for the starving artist syndrome. And that was like the tagline for this program. And guess how many membership spots I sold in that program?

[Anna]

Crickets.

[Molly Mahoney]

Zero. Which I'm so glad, because then if I had sold one, then I would have been stuck teaching that to one person. But I learned so much in that failed launch, I had pre recorded the whole entire thing, decided never to do that again. I now sell it first. I validate my offers. And I'm careful about the messaging because when you call someone a starving artist, turns out they don't want to pay

[Anna]

you remind them way they can't afford you.

[Molly Mahoney]

Right, Exactly. What was I thinking? And I had such good intentions, but it didn't work out. So. So I made a giant list of all the things I love to do. I made a giant list of all the things I thought people would pay me to do. And then I made a list of the opportunities that were available, like in the world. And one of the things that came together, that clicked all the boxes was teaching people how to show up on camera. And Facebook Live was brand new. So instead of teaching performers how to have a business, I decided to teach business owners how to perform. Much better idea. And so we brought in $50,000 within the first three months. It was so awesome. We launched the whole thing in an empty Facebook group. I had a spreadsheet where I wrote down 30 different things that I wanted to teach. So I went live every single day in that Facebook group. I sold it for 47 for lifetime access. One of the craziest things I've ever done. By the time we closed that camera confidence program, we were selling it for $5,000. And everybody who joined at the $47 rate got grandfathered or grandmothered in. And it's been just an awesome strategy to use in the future too. So it's been good.

[Anna]

That's amazing. Chris, don't you wish we'd met her back in this day? I mean, we. How many, how many Facebook lives did you and I do? Like two in four years.

[Chris]

Everything was a struggle, not because of us. And, and, and just for the record, I was trying to do social media every. We literally got poo pooed about doing social media.

[Molly Mahoney]

They were like, that's not gonna do anything.

[Chris]

It's not gonna do anything.

[Anna]

It's crazy. Molly, when I dive into your goodies online and everybody should check out your website, remind me it's the perfect. The prepared performer dot com.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, if you go there, you'll find the archives of tap dancing and all that. But I've, I've actually decided recently because my tap dance terminology page was the number one search result on Google until about a year ago. And that isn't what I'm doing. News flash. So I decided to move to Molly Mahoney.com but the prepared performer.com has loads of magic. Just Molly Mahoney.com is the more up to date AI stuff and all of that.

[Anna]

Yeah, and so this is really crazy too, Chris, she. In like 2021, long before AI was a buzzword, you launched like the world's first AI focused content membership. Is that what you've been talking about or is that. Yeah, that's it.

[Molly Mahoney]

No, it's wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So. No, no, so the one that I was talking about before was called Camera Confidence. That was in 2016. So we had like three big, major, monumental moments. So 2016 with Facebook Live, it was awesome. And I ended up partnering with so many tools as their, like, spokesperson or brand ambassador, where they would pay me to do videos about their tool, which was awesome. Then after Facebook Live, when messenger bots came out, I started combining automated messages with live video and it was wild. And that's where I first really realized this gift that I have for taking things that are technical and complicated and making them like you guys are doing, telling stories, making it user friendly, making it engaging. And so manychat hired me to speak on their behalf about messenger bots and automation. So my, my fascination with the robots actually started back in 2018. And then when AI came out, two years before ChatGPT, we started working with the company that's now called Jasper. And, and man, I just loved everything they were doing. And so we launched the AI Content club was actually called Dancing with Jarvis when it first started, and it was about how to dance with the robots because you have to know that you're not going to get a perfect dancer every time. And you've got to. It's like an ebb and a flow. So that was wild. And then now it's just gotten even crazier as we've grown. So it's pretty awesome.

[Chris]

What was, what's one of the biggest challenges that you had trying to get people to buy into incorporating that the, the automation?

[Molly Mahoney]

Well, I think in the beginning the problem was actually the same as it is now, which I was gonna say there was like a change in it, but I think really it's that people are fundamentally afraid of losing their humanity. And so that is where we really. Okay, this is a big secret. We use AI as a Trojan horse, because when people join our programs, yes, we have amazing systems for AI, but really the core of it is that you have to figure out who you are as a human being first. And for some reason, when you dangle the AI agent carrot on this side, they'll actually do the work that is needed to be done. Before we had the AI carrot, they were like, yeah, yeah, I don't really need to know that. But now because of how fast AI goes, it like slaps them back in the face with how bad their messaging is. Is.

[Anna]

I love how Chris and I leaned in like it was a big secret.

[Chris]

When he said secret, I was like,

[Anna]

yeah, you heard it your first kids. It's just a carrot. It's a Trojan ors.

[Molly Mahoney]

I love that.

[Chris]

In a way it makes sense. I mean, it's the, it's the shiny new thing you're dangling in front of somebody that they haven't used before.

[Molly Mahoney]

Well, and I do think it's amazing. Like, no joke, I think it's amazing and I'm, I'm certifiably obsessed with it. But I think there are a lot of people right now who I call easy Bake AI experts, where they're not actually taking the time to go and figure out who they are as humans and bring their own expertise in. And it's at no fault to them because there's a lot of people teaching you how to be an easy Bake AI expert, where they're just giving you a template, telling you to duplicate it, and then giving you a script to go make sales. And that is where we get into trouble. And because people don't actually really take the time to, to, to bring their true expertise to the forefront. So it's an interesting, tricky time, I think.

[Anna]

And you say something, one of your value claims is really like, you don't have to sell your soul to the social media gods. I mean, I've had people tell me you got to be posting three times a day. You disagree with that?

[Molly Mahoney]

I totally disagree with it. And I can tell you if you want to go crazy viral, there's things that you can do. Like, I had one video. I don't remember if we talked about this before, but I had one video that hit a reach of 39 million views.

[Chris]

I saw that on your site. Yeah. What was the video?

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay, before I tell you what the video was, Facebook paid me $30,000 for that one 13 second video.

[Chris]

Awesome.

[Molly Mahoney]

Facebook is not doing that anymore. They pay like a hundred dollars for a 30 million views. Not really, but it's not, it's not like it was before, but I, the reason that I posted this was because I knew Facebook was doing this wild thing with reels when they were trying to be tick tock. Right. So rather than following my normal strategic system for social media, I went through my phone, and I just scrolled until I found something that I thought was weird.

[Anna]

Pay attention, Chris.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, okay. And I'm going to tell you, like, the good about this, and then I'm going to tell you the bad about this, too. So I just scrolled the video that I found, which I don't always share in public because it's kind of embarrassing, but the video that I found was me holding. I was, like, holding my phone so you couldn't see me. I wasn't in the video, and I was whispering. So it was very asmr. And I was recording the bathtub with a bath bomb in it. So it was like this pink. It looked like the slimer in the newer Ghostbusters, which it was around the same time that that Ghostbusters came out. So I think that helped also. So it was like a trending top. So it was like pink slime. And then it was me. When I first found the video, all you could hear was me saying, I was about to get in the bath, and I. With this awesome bath bomb. And I thought, oh, is that lavender? Because there was, like, little specks. And then I say, no, they're flipping termites.

[Anna]

That one went viral.

[Molly Mahoney]

Wait. Because then. So I was like, oh, this video is weird. It'll grab people's attention. So then I put on top of that, I'm never taking a bath again was the hook that I put. And then. No, I know it was. I got in the bathtub and saw this dot, dot, dot, with, like, big eye emojis. And then the caption was, I'm never taking a bath again. But then I paired it with the trending sound, that song. Oh, no. Oh, no.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Molly Mahoney]

No, no, no. Right? So about two weeks after posting it, it had hit. I, like, looked in my Facebook to show my clients how to see their. Their stats and their analytics, and it had hit 7 million views. And I was like, what? Like, not even something I expected, right? I knew I was playing with the gimmicky clickbaity, you know, whatever. Eventually, it ended up hitting 39 million. But the reason that it hit 39 million is because all of these, like, bug experts were arguing about what kind of bugs they were. And then these people that I didn't even know would, like, chime in and, like, full on, cuss people out, because people were like, there's no way that came from the bath bomb. Like, why the F. Are you telling her where it came from? It's her effing bathtub. Like, people were all yelling at each other. And then I realized my adrenaline levels during that, like, two week period were not healthy. I was like, so jacked that I would force myself to badly play the piano on live streams just to calm myself down and, like, stay focused. And then people in the chat would be like, tell us about the video. Tell it. Like, everyone was going crazy about it, but in that moment, I decided I didn't want to play social media that way. Right.

[Chris]

So funny.

[Molly Mahoney]

Right?

[Chris]

Right.

[Molly Mahoney]

I sold a course on how to do it teaching other people. So we ended up making $160,000 off of that one video because we made 130 selling a course on how to do it because I can teach you how to do it. And then again, Trojan horse people to say like, yes, I'll give you what you want, but then I'm also going to give you what you need, which is an actual sales system behind the scenes. And we have to let our ego go about the viral numbers because even today I'm like, oh, but don't I want to do something that'll go viral? No, I want to do something that is going to serve the right people at the right time and be more strategic about it in my business. Anyway, that's how we do it.

[Chris]

Cool.

[Anna]

Yeah. Chris is always mentioning this to me. Like, it's great to have this show where we talk about AI, but if it's not relevant.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And I can't think of anything more clever than a hook like that. I mean, that's what people want to do is trickier social media and cool stuff with AI And I think just proving that they can. I love the book title AI Ify their business is that. When did that book come out?

[Molly Mahoney]

20. 23. Three, maybe.

[Anna]

Okay. So people. People are just ramping up to kind of start using.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah. So it's. Right. It's really more of a business book and then how you can interject AI into the different levels. So I'm due for the next version of it because now we're doing so much with AI. Like, that book was more about putting the right prompts in the right place. It's very platform agnostic. But I'm getting ready to go on a cruise and I think on this cruise I'm going to write the second version of it because we're definitely due because there is some wild things that we're doing with AI.

[Chris]

Oh, so is that what you're talking about? As far as the course? That's the AI Content club.

[Molly Mahoney]

So we have. The AI Content club is mainly where we help people to create content with AI that generates leads. So it's not like viral con. I can. I mean, there's some stuff on that in there, but mainly it's content that generates leads. And then we have a next level above that called AI Stars, where in there we have seven different AI certifications. We help you to truly build out a team of AI agents in your business. And it's more for people who either really want to add a full AI infrastructure into their business or those who want to sell AI services. So we have both of those things in there, and it gives the whole gamut of the business where the content club is really focused on content.

[Chris]

Got it. So it's get the two levels of that are getting people in to your business and then actually restructuring parts and running your business.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, totally. Yeah.

[Anna]

Love it. Hey, Chris, listen to this mission statement. This is. This is for you. And I know the more fun you have, the more money you make and the more lives you change. I can't agree more. And yet there are a lot of people just scratching their head about that. Can you talk about the authenticity piece for this reason? Like, if. If you think. I mean, there's a lot of epic fail going on in business right now and scaring people out of, you know, thinking they're going to lose their job. But what's the. What's the upside? Why. Why is it a good idea to be a fierce advocate for Joy right now?

[Molly Mahoney]

Oh, my gosh. Yes. With my Stand for Joy shirt that I'm wearing today. Standing for Joy as a fierce form of activism. So even if we just look at this from, like, a business growth standpoint, different is better than better. And if everyone is talking about the fear behind AI and the serious side of AI simply by having more fun, you're going to stand out. So that's gonna, you know, that's gonna allow you to attract people in a way that stands out from the sameness. I was talking to someone this morning about how there's so many AI training websites that are all beige and, like, serif font, and they're so lovely and beautiful. And then there's me who's like, here's a disco ball and a palm tree, right? Like, it's so. It makes it so that you stand out. And the disco ball in the palm tree may not be your thing, but maybe your thing is, like, I was talking to Michael Hyatt about this the other day, that his thing is like the compass and the North Star, and it's very we didn't say this word, but it's almost very like sophisticated nautical kind of. Not in like the ship way, but like a, an. An explorer kind of. Not necessarily nautical, but you know what I mean by that, like the, the maps and that kind of stuff, which makes his brand stand out as well. And I'm just talking about on the visual side of it. Right. But when you figure out what makes you weird and you weave that into your business, you are going to actually enjoy your business more, which. What a novel concept, right? I think we build ourselves into these holes and then we don't actually like what we're doing, and then we've just, just. We're not bringing freedom. We've replaced ourselves with, you know, another set of handcuffs or something that we don't. Not even cute, like sparkly handcuffs, just like boring burlap handcuffs. I don't know. Burlap has its own place, so maybe that's your style. But

[Chris]

anybody?

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah,

[Chris]

what is it? So in all of these, in all of the companies that you've worked with, and you don't need to tell me a specific name necessarily, but like, do you have one that stands out for you as like, one of your favorites that you've helped incorporate?

[Molly Mahoney]

I can tell you, and I'll tell you a name. So we used to fully build out the AI bots in the back end of people's businesses. At this point, now we're really focused, staying in our lane on teaching people. But we actually built out all of the AI assistants in the backside of Marie Forleo's B School, which was so cool. And she's just like the greatest human and also so freaking specific about what she wants. And also, like, so, you know, talk about a dream client who has everything got her ish together behind the scenes. So the way that we did it, we built out these individual tools that are based on her frameworks, and she has these things called fun sheets, so they help people to complete the work. And she was really big about being analog AF and not wanting AI to take over everything. But one thing that we did that was so great and it would be really awesome if I would build something like this for myself. But what we did for her was I had this idea to take a character like an AI avatar. Instead of having the videos explaining how to use the tool coming from her, because she was like, I don't know if I have time to do all those videos, we made an AI avatar like a cartoon character called the B School Buddy. And then the B School buddy did all of the training videos. So my amazing team member Kevin created all these videos with hey, Jen. And then did really awesome automation or animation with it, teaching people how to use the tool. So that's probably like, my proudest AI build that we've done.

[Chris]

That's awesome. Yeah, a little bit of, like, instructional design as well, it sounds like.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, totally. Because we knew that not everybody would be familiar with the tools, and we didn't want to have all this, like, you know, backup and support trying to learn how to use them. So each tool came with its own video instructing how to use it, which was really cool.

[Chris]

Very cool. Yeah, that sounds super engaging too. I, I, I just, I bounced over and looked at the site really quick. I'm gonna have to explore that.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, it's, it was super awesome.

[Chris]

Very cool.

[Anna]

We chatted about something. I want you to explain this both to both Chris and I is what is the case idea of awesomeness?

[Chris]

Okay.

[Molly Mahoney]

The quesadilla of awesome is a very important system that I actually invented when I was auditioning for things in New York and I went to an audition, and I'm sure you guys will understand this, I went to an audition where I was not a member of the Actors Equity union yet. So I was a non ec, as you call them, back in the day. And at this time at the Actors Equity building, they wouldn't let you into the area where the auditions were held. It was a long time ago. It was very different. But you'd have to sit out in the hallway and wait for them to open up up the opportunity to audition. And so after being at the audition for several hours, I needed to use the restroom, and I went up to the woman at the front desk, and I was like, hey, I'm here for the audition. Like, can you point me towards the restroom? And she said, do you have an Equity card? And I was like, no, but I'm here for the audition. I've been here for a couple hours. And she said, yes, you can walk down the stairs and around the corner. There's a McDonald's in Times Square. Yikes. I don't know if you've been in the McDonald's in Times Square, but it is, like, not the most friendly place to hang out.

[Anna]

So I've been to that one. That's weird. Chris is from New York, so we get it.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, exactly. Okay. And this was a little rougher New York back then before they had, like, blocked off Broadway and all that. So in that moment, I was like, you know, I don't know if this is, like, the best thing for my spirit and my sanity and my soul. So that was one of only two auditions that I've ever left. So I decided I packed up my shoes and my music and all my stuff, and I. I went home to use the restroom. But on my walk home, I realized that I needed to stop coming into these auditions trying to prove myself to someone else. I needed to come in with my own sense of who I was. And when I started working with performers, and then when I started working with business owners, I realized it was the same exact, like, lack of wor that was coming up for sales calls or for videos or things like that. So I created this thing called the quesadilla of awesome, which is where you make a list of 20 things that make you a uniquely awesome human being. And then when you have this list, there's a process that we go through where you fill yourself up with this awesome. But it's also now something that you fill AI up with. So AI understands what makes you unique, what makes you different. And if you don't understand that, how do you expect AI to understand that? It's great for networking, sales calls, content, all of it. It's amazing.

[Chris]

What makes it a quesadilla?

[Molly Mahoney]

Well, the point is.

[Chris]

I know. I'm just teasing.

[Molly Mahoney]

No, there is something.

[Chris]

Because I do want to know what

[Molly Mahoney]

has something that makes them uniquely awesome. If. Even if it's just that you make an amazing quesadilla. Because what do you put in your quesadilla?

[Chris]

Me?

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Oh, well, it depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

[Molly Mahoney]

Hey, that's a good point. So, like, right now, what kind of quesadilla would you want?

[Chris]

I put some cheese in, like, Monterey Jack.

[Molly Mahoney]

Oh, okay. Very different.

[Chris]

I put some maybe pickled jalapenos.

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay. A spicy quesadilla.

[Chris]

Some grilled chicken.

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay.

[Chris]

And maybe some peppers.

[Molly Mahoney]

I love it. Okay, now question. Have you ever had a quesadilla with fig jam in it?

[Chris]

No.

[Molly Mahoney]

It's real good.

[Anna]

See, I would do the fig jam. And I want to say, you know, Chris and I are always threatening to be weird together. We have a closet list of weird ideas, and I even call it the Wikipedia of weird. Chris, give me the eye roll. Because, you know, you know, like ours.

[Chris]

I don't think I've ever heard you

[Anna]

say about cookology, where we talk. Literally, our quesadilla is stacked from the word go. As children with weird parents who were dove into weird conspiracy theories, my dad

[Chris]

Was a UFO investig.

[Molly Mahoney]

Amazing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah. And my dad liked everything ufo. And this is how we met. We met at a party here in this studio where I'm sitting right now, Dog and Pony studio. And I immediately. The next day, Chris called me and said, what do you want to podcast about? I'm like, great. He's into something. And then we've done everything but what we're really good at. So, yeah, building AI Boston crowd. You heard it here first. Chris is nudging me out the gate with just storytelling, which is what we've won awards for together. And we use ChatGPT to prompt us to, you know, what's your story for next week? We did this last week.

[Chris]

I'm giving the announcement, what's your topic?

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You said, what topic do you want to talk about? And I said, chat GPT give me a topic to talk about.

[Anna]

And it was memory. But, you know, I was so excited. I thought, I've never been this excited since Chris and I did the daily. Because that's his superpower. That's my superpower, and we're going to own that. You know, we forget. But you know what, Molly? I think it was because you and I chatted, and I went, what are we good at? Like, what do we really love doing? And I just want to say we need more. We need more female voices. You and I chatted about this. I mean, look at. Look at how a girl got shamed for saying women should learn AI our friend.

[Molly Mahoney]

Dude, I was. I did another podcast this morning, and we were talking about it also, and it's so ridiculous to me, and I think we just really need more voices, more human voices in the mix. So props to Reese Witherspoon for being a part of the conversation. Yeah.

[Anna]

And I think it did what it was supposed to because there was so much backlash. You heard this, of course, right, Chris? Chris is.

[Chris]

Of course.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

I'm the one that sent you news stories.

[Anna]

I know. Hey, Chris, what's going on in the world? I don't get out enough, but Chris is a newshound and done a lot of, like, fan fan sites and is a really good bloodhound for story. But, yeah, I just think, why shame a girl for making a statement?

[Molly Mahoney]

So can we say one other thing about that? Because this morning I was talking about this. There's another thing that people were shaming her for not just the AI piece, but another thing that came up. And for those of you that don't know what happened, Reese Witherspoon did this video in her. In her kitchen, like, making a smoothie, and said, I've been thinking lately, I think we should have more women learning about AI. Do you want to learn with me? That's, like, the very truncated version of her video. So I had commented, right, like, almost the same day, like, same hour, whatever, right away when she posted it, because a bunch of people had tagged me. And so I was like, yeah, this is awesome. I'm stoked that she's going to be talking about this. And then all of the, like, AI slop. AI slop. AI slop, like, death to AI comments came in. And then I started seeing all of these posts from people who were saying that it was an undisclosed ad and that really she had an AI offer on the back end and that it should have said hashtag ad in this because she was doing this to promote something else on the back end, which I'm like, okay, y'. All. She actually followed the quintessential best social media strategy that we teach, which we call Whitneying. And you guys will love this, right? So you know the song I have Nothing by Whitney Houston?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay. In that song, Whitney Houston starts it off. You see through, right?

[Chris]

It's like, oh, that was really beautiful, by the way.

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay, so we're like, what, Whitney? What are you saying? Right? And then she gets to the part where she's like, I don't need to. I don't really need to look, right? And it's, like, grittier.

[Chris]

And then you're like, singing with you. Yes, absolutely.

[Anna]

You got Chris going.

[Molly Mahoney]

Okay, I love it. And then she gets to that. Don't make me close one more door. Right? It gets, like, crazy there. And we're like, okay, yes, Whitney. But then she pulls it back a little bit and is like, if I don't have you, right? Then you hear that, and then you're, like, listening again. And then what does she do? She does it. Don't make me close on my door. But then she goes, don't make me close one more door. Right? And then she's, like, fully key changing and belting her face off. And at that point, everyone wants to throw their credit cards at her face, right? That is exactly what Reese Witherspoon was doing by validating the offer and putting out a little, like, teaser there. And why on earth would we chastise her for that? Like, I think she's putting it out there to see if people are interested. And as women, men, aliens, whatever, we should be cheering on humans that are actually out there. To do some good and make some money on it so they can do more good. Like, I. I am so deeply disheartened by the other women. I have seen do full videos about how bad it was that she was promoting something like. What on earth are you talking about?

[Chris]

Yeah, I think. I mean, I think we liked you on your soapbox mic drop. Yeah, I think that a lot. I mean, my perspective on the whole thing was that a lot of the backlash wasn't so much directed at hers. It was just anger about AI.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Just as a whole and just because I've seen enough online that anything that comes up about AI, you get a ton of people that just jump in and just want to talk about AI slop. It's data centers doing this data center's doing that. Valid things.

[Molly Mahoney]

Totally.

[Chris]

Obviously agreed. But that said, it's like they just apply it blanket to anything AI at this point. It's. It's. I'm surprised to see how divisive it's become, like, within the last even just few months.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah. And I think there's more room for conversation around the good as well, so.

[Chris]

Absolutely.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That's what we're trying to do here. Yeah.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah. That's why I wore my Stand for Joy shirt today, because I was going to be recording several podcasts today, and I was like, I'm gonna stand for AI Joy all day long.

[Chris]

Yes. Well, I think.

[Anna]

I think I found that early on. The only thing that got presented to me back when Chris and I were doing stories for a living was somebod said to me, yeah, Chad, GPT can do your job. And I immediately recoiled and I got. I. I did a throwdown, I think, in one of our sessions, Chris, where I'm like, I'm gonna write a limerick for National Limerick Day. And then I'm.

[Molly Mahoney]

You.

[Anna]

You would give me your AI Slop. Because I was really nasty about losing my job to a robot. And my. Of course I crushed it. Of course we're better than AI but at that point, I don't think it was presented to me in a very nice way. And I think a lot of people are salty, thinking they're gonna lose their job.

[Molly Mahoney]

I think they're scared. Right? They're salty and scared. There. There is major fear. Have you guys heard about this thing called the blue dot flu?

[Chris]

Yes, I actually have. Yes.

[Anna]

No.

[Chris]

Do you want to explain why? This is my understanding of it. Jump in as I'm going. Okay, so the blue dot flu is. So there's concerts that are out touring the country. And when you go on Ticketmaster, when it says that there's an available seat, it's a blue dot.

[Molly Mahoney]

Right. It's all the little blue dots that you can find.

[Chris]

So people, when they're not going to concerts, they're saying that, you know, like, say, like, I'm just picking a random. I don't know why this Post Malone

[Molly Mahoney]

was one that I heard about that.

[Chris]

Yeah, Post Malone is who. I was going to say Post Malone. Like, he's suffering from blue dot fever, and it's because.

[Molly Mahoney]

Fever or blue dot flu.

[Chris]

Blue dot flu, yeah, that. I'm sorry, I said the wrong word. Blue dot.

[Molly Mahoney]

No, I keep the kids. Yeah.

[Chris]

Specifically because those dots are empty seats. And when they get enough of those empty seats, they're like, oh, I'm not feeling well. I think we're going to cancel this part of the tour.

[Molly Mahoney]

I had you explain it because I hadn't heard. I thought it was that they were just canceling because of low ticket sales. And then it was actually. Then it was, like, causing them to feel bad afterwards. I didn't realize they were saying they. That's why he was canceling. Because he has the blue dot flu.

[Chris]

Yeah. I don't know if it was him specifically, but I do know that there were some artists that they mentioned in the article or the video that I watch. They were talking about how, oh, I'm just. Yeah, I'm suffering from exhaustion. I got to take a few nights off. We're going to cancel these tours, these dates, reschedule them. And it was because they just weren't

[Molly Mahoney]

selling in those places, which is really sad. And it's such a huge reflection of, like. Do I think AI is now doing concerts that are taking over and selling well? No, but I think that we're in a really interesting time where people are craving more human connection than ever. Prices are going up. And so if ticket sales are so expensive also, or traveling to get to a show is expensive because of, like, gas prices and whatnot. I think that it is a really interesting time where we need humans and maybe even, like, locally, because I will say our local children's theater, we had 113 kids in a production of Shrek. There was no Blue Dot Fever at that production of Shrek because it was totally sold out. So it's an interesting. Really interesting time.

[Anna]

It's an interesting time. Go ahead.

[Chris]

There was a. There's a. There's a clip that's from years ago. Probably like 30 years ago.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Chris]

With they're. It's on MTV and they're like interviewing Nirvana and talking about how expensive concert tickets are and how they get, they keep their tickets cheap for their fans. And they say something like, oh well, they say to Kurt Cobain like, yeah, like some people are charging like $50 a ticket. Which seems quaint now, right? But he goes, but he, but he just goes like shock. He goes, who's $50 a ticket? And, and they're like, oh, that's Madonna. He goes, oh, of course Madonna, you know, of course she can charge $50 a ticket. And now it's like if I find a place, if I have a concert that's $50, I'm like, oh my God, bargain.

[Molly Mahoney]

I know, right?

[Anna]

I got a fifty dollar Virgin Airlines ticket to LA once and I just, just was. And that was the best flight experience

[Molly Mahoney]

I was gonna say. And I'm so sad that Virgin Air is gone because it always matched my brand. Like I look like I'm on a Virgin plane right now.

[Chris]

You do, you do.

[Anna]

Well, you know, I, I was gonna ask, you know, for people that want to know, can you be seen on stages anywhere? Are you doing a lot more public speaking? You want to.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, actually. So, okay, two things. One is yes, I'm speaking at a lot of events, you know, conferences. Like I just did Social Media Marketing World. Coming up this year I have AI Marketing World Eugentic. Hopefully I'll be doing something at the high level event that's like my favorite. I mean they're all my favorite, but I really love the high level event called Level Up. And so AI Marketing World is going to be awesome. There's lots of really cool things that I'm speaking at. And we did something super wild last week, which back to. I didn't even make this connection. So thank you for asking that question. But back to the idea of wanting to do things in person and doing them locally. I wanted to go back to New York to see Beaches, which I'm a producer on. So I wanted to see the musical Beaches in New York. And I decided I was going to find a way to like make it work money wise for me also. So I launched a one day intensive called Bots and Broadway where we're going to be doing an implementation day where I'm going to help them build their own AI agents. I will actually install our AI agent system into their business. Like they'll bring their computers, we'll set the whole thing up. And then that night we're all, I'm going to take everybody to dinner and then we're all going to go see beaches. And because I'm working with the production, like, I'm going to be able to give them like a full, you know, magical experience with swag and blah, blah, blah, all these things. And this is basically a different version of what we've been selling here, where we sell pretend cruises. Did I tell you this, Anna?

[Chris]

No.

[Molly Mahoney]

What?

[Anna]

I know. Chris, clear your calendar.

[Molly Mahoney]

Let's do this.

[Anna]

Why are we not following Your hat?

[Molly Mahoney]

At 1 for 10 cruise, we had 120 people RSVP for our last one. I didn't count them as they came in, but it was definitely over 100 people. And it's all cruise ship themed. Usually we do some sort of teaching or implementation. That one was a part of social media marketing world. So it was just a party, but we're building an event space at our house actually to do these pretend cruises. So I was like, how can I do these other places? Well, I just find something fun to do in the area. So my team this morning sent me this copy that we're going to use for a new. We do these auctions that are really fun online and we're going to do a new auction with Camp Claude. And so we're doing all these things with Claude, but we're making an experience. Not just like go sit and watch a boring video, but come and hang out with human beings and build your AI team so you can spend more time with humans.

[Anna]

That's phenomenal. Your quesadilla is better than mine and I just.

[Molly Mahoney]

That's not true. That's not true.

[Anna]

I'm not having enough fun. I've been playing around with Claude. I gotta give a shout out. Our co host, Cara, just struck a deal with Anthropic and her legal justice app. You don't know this, Chris, but this is a big news.

[Chris]

No, that's amazing.

[Anna]

Yeah. Describe is now with Anthropic. So. Hey, Carl, we're going to be whooping it up in Boston Tech Week. We have to get you to a live event somewhere where the three of us are just like, hitting the ground and having a good time.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, I love it.

[Anna]

Yeah, I'm making a prediction that we're gonna do that. You also have a podcast. You want to tell us a little bit more about your podcast?

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, so I have a secret story about my podcast also, actually, which I don't say out loud very often. So my very first podcast was called the Prepared Performer Podcast, and it's all about acting and auditioning and things like that. It is out There in the ethers. You can go find it. Since then, I have launched two other podcasts. One is called the Glam Go Live and Monetize podcast, where you can learn more about live video and all of that. And I have another one called Elevate your Awesome. And this one is the one that we are really reviving so that we were going to change it and make it the authentically awesome podcast and change the name. And I did a big old announcement about was a pinned post on my Instagram for at least six months. I had hundreds of people commenting saying they wanted to do, you know, be on it or listen to it or whatever. And then I just never launched it.

[Chris]

Things happen.

[Anna]

That's okay.

[Molly Mahoney]

My mom was really sick. My mom ended up passing away. There was like, my arm was in a cast for nine months. So I had, like, very legitimate things that were getting in my way. But what I realized was even just saying you have a podcast will get you more conversations, for sure.

[Anna]

Chris, we are working way too hard. We could just say we have a podcast and then not. And then. Can we get away with that? No, we can't.

[Molly Mahoney]

I really think about the fact that what you do around your podcast is actually almost more important than what you do in your podcast, because you can take a podcast episode, repurpose it, you can talk about it, bring people back to it. Now, the podcast itself is obviously where the gold is, but you're missing out on so much if you don't do all these other pieces around it. So we have the Elevate youe Awesome podcast and we've fully rebranded it and we're going to be doing a new launch of that, which I'm super stoked about.

[Chris]

Very cool.

[Anna]

Yeah, that's all cool. And I. I have to say, I'm signing up for classes. We're going to drop some links. I. And our producer is. Is like saying, hey, if you're not getting with Molly, like, what are you doing? This is a great introduction.

[Molly Mahoney]

Shout out, shout out. He's awesome.

[Anna]

Yeah, he's.

[Molly Mahoney]

Aw.

[Anna]

Do you have any final words, Chris? Was this awesome or what?

[Chris]

This was. This was fantastic. No, very informative. I love that we get so many things that are. Like when we talk to people about AI, where it's so specific that it kind of. It's very niche. I. I'm not saying it like it loses, like, loses people, but, like, it's. I. I feel like this applies to so many more people and so many more areas because of the way the approach that you Take to it.

[Molly Mahoney]

Oh, thanks. Yeah, yeah. No, no human left behind. We're bringing us. We're not going to become a wall E world.

[Anna]

I like that you're championing authenticity, being weird. I think more people would, you know, not tend to ostrich if they knew they could just show up and ask crazy, silly questions or, you know, and.

[Molly Mahoney]

And be supported by the system that allows you to do that. Right. So, like, we're really big about using AI to help define your ideal client. We're really big about using, like, seasoning your AI system. And in Claude, we've built out all of these amazing skills that build out your AI operating system and your. Your agents and all of that, which are the things that are doing things for you rather than just the talking back and forth with chat GPT. But for those people who haven't fully dug in yet, I think there's still so much opportunity. And if we look at this, this technology adoption curve, are you familiar with that? Yeah. So if Google it, if you're listening, and you don't know what that is, but there's the innovators and the early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and then the laggards. And I think a lot of marketers are saying, like, oh, rip your life, because AI is taking over whatever. You know, there's all of this clickbaity stuff that makes us feel shame, and there is no shame in my AI game. I think there's space for everyone here and you still have a chance to be part of the early majority. Even if it feels like it's super inundated, like the AI space, there's still space for you. Just don't wait any longer because I don't want you to be a laggard.

[Chris]

By the way, the way that you said laggard the first time, that was amazing. It sounded like you were, like, spitting an insult at somebody in the 19th century. In the 19th century, you're like, laggard.

[Anna]

She's a thespian.

[Molly Mahoney]

It's such an onomatopoeic word. Right? Like, it really is.

[Anna]

No way.

[Chris]

It's perfect. We don't use words like that a lot like you miscreants.

[Anna]

I know.

[Molly Mahoney]

I do.

[Anna]

Like a pirate.

[Molly Mahoney]

Fun.

[Anna]

Okay, well, we're gonna put some links in our chat notes. If you're listening out there, you're welcome For Molly Mahoney. This has been great. Come back to Vegas. I could even get Chris here if we just said, let's all get on stage and do some fun. Something fun with robots. Or, you know, a fake cruise. Come on down.

[Molly Mahoney]

We could do a pretend desert adventure. I don't know. I mean, I lived and worked in Vegas for many years, so. Not many years. Six months. Six months.

[Anna]

But I loved it there. I didn't even bring up. Those are stories that you can share for another day. But I was impressed with what I heard in the Wayback Machine. I'll tell you offline, Chris, if you really want to, you know, have some bonus material, feel free to link anybody to any of your awesomeness. Molly.

[Molly Mahoney]

Yeah, I mean, so we have a free. I put together a really amazing free gift for everybody here, too, to figure out their ideal client. So you can go to Molly Live AI Boston, which is the link that I'm going to just check and make sure that is right. Molly Live AI Boston. And it'll take you to this glorious tool that helps you to figure out who your ideal client is. And we don't just focus on pain points. We focus on things like tickle points, too. So it's really a unique way of looking at your ideal client. So make sure you go grab that.

[Chris]

Molly, thank you so much. This has been so much fun.

[Anna]

This has been so fun. And people in Boston, she did say tickle. So get ready to have more fun and as always, like and subscribe. Thanks for the free gifts and for the laughs. You're amazing.

[Molly Mahoney]

Thanks, guys. So good.

[Chris]

Thanks so much.

[Anna]

We'll see you soon, Molly.

[Molly Mahoney]

Bye. Bye.

[Anna]

Thank you for joining us on Building AI Boston. Stay tuned for more enlightening episodes that put you at the forefront of the conversations shaping our future.