← The Difference Maker Revolution Podcast
The Difference Maker Revolution Podcast
You Can't Stop This Rocket... But There's Still A Seat For You...
00:28:25
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:00]
A
The world is evolving. You can either choose right to jump on the train. It's not actually a train, right, because it's a rocket ship. And here's why. It's a rocket ship. It's moving so fast that what used to take one year is now taking one month. What used to take 10 years is now happening in one year. So you don't have a lot of time to actually jump on this rocket ship because once it's gone, it's gone.
- [00:24]
B
Hey, difference makers, welcome back to the Difference Maker Revolution podcast. And today we have Ronan and Janine and and of course, Jono. I think this is the first podcast I've done with Janine in a long, long time. So, Janine, it's good to be back together on a podcast.
- [00:38]
C
Oh, yes, it is good to be back together.
- [00:40]
B
So we have a fascinating topic today because this is going to sound weird coming from a training company, but training is dead. Long live AI Beer. What's he talking about?
- [00:48]
A
Well, it's really interesting you should say that, Jonathan, because we can't name other companies, right? But just even this. Well, there's two things I've seen in the last four weeks alone. So the first one was that meme that was going around, all around the holiday, you know, know that photography is dead and it was the, you know, the gravestone and it had. When photography started and 2025 is the end and AI is killing photography, right? That was the first one. When I saw it, I just laughed, you know. And then the second thing then is, is all the breakout of a company who we won't mention who they are, right, on this podcast because it's not fair to them. And photographers kicking off about, you know, they, they using AI now to offer headshots directly to consumers and businesses, right? And when you see that, right, and you hear all the complaints and all that about it and the giving out, is that for me, the photographer's photographer, right? And we just, people hear us saying this photographer's photographer all the time was the photographer who's so caught up in that it's all about their photo and the quality of their photo, right? That they think that AI is not coming for their business if that's their value proposition. That's really interesting, you know, because we use it. I use an analogy and I have for years in teaching that, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure that when the car was invented, you know, that people, the people who were involved in that industry, I. E. The people who looked after the horses, the People who changed their shoes, you know, all of those probably said, ah, that, that'll never catch on, you know, But I'm sure it was very defensive initially and they were going, no, no, no, no, this is bad and everything else. Rather than looking at it as it's an opportunity. Right. It's an absolute opportunity. So I think it's, it's fascinating. But it's also sad that many, many photographer, photographers don't even realize how AI can be their friend and how AI can help them transition to what we believe is the only way in the medium term to long term that photographers can not only survive but thrive.
- [03:06]
B
I think it's important distinction as well. I mean all of our clientele pretty much right now are photographers. Right. But we don't technically teach how to run a successful photography business. Right. Photography is just one small part of the entire difference maker client experience. So, you know, while I think people don't fully appreciate that when it comes to things like AI, like it's not about the photo, like I'm not saying the photo is unimportant, the end result does matter, but it's not the most important thing. It's not where the clients see the most value. Right? Right. And you know, if you continue to focus on the photo, like just being blunt, like no amount of protests, you are not going to stop AI. Like some of the things I have been doing with AI outside of the photographic industry, if we call it that, has been insane. I have done things with little skills that large billion dollar companies took three years to do in three weeks over the last three weeks, like the things I am doing, I'm not going to reveal them, have been nuts. And I'm just going to say, you are not going to stop AI and there will be a point in time when I can create a better quality photograph than photographers for clients. So I think trying to like bury your head in the sand or complain or like try and protest, you are not going to stop this. Like the train, it's gone, it's gone. Like this is unstoppable. And the beauty though is you can still use and you know, Steve has said this for years before AI, that we're not in the business of photography, we're in the business of people. And you can still use your love of taking photos and photography to, you know, have a successful business, but it's not a photography business. Right. It's a difference maker business. We've spoken about this before, we're really in the wellness industry, but we aren't Going to end that track, you know, this transition, if you want to not only survive but thrive, you got to start thinking about making this transition because, like, I know, like, it's really like we see firsthand with photographers. Like, they love the image competitions and the awards and, you know, it's their passion. They like creating art, which is fantastic. And it's okay to love creating art. It's okay to find great joy in winning awards and entering competitions. That's totally fine. But you can't use that to build a successful business. And Janine, I think you had a story recently about the music industry, which again, is a creative industry. So I think this would really fascinate people to hear this story.
- [05:54]
C
Yeah, it's funny because as you were talking, I was like, oh, I gotta tell that story. I hope Jonathan remembers. But no, it's fascinating to me. So I was listening to a podcast about the shift and. And what AI is. I can't remember the exact topic, but regardless what they ended up talking about. And I went and looked on Spotify and there are three in particular. There's three artists in quotes, musical artists, singers that are on streaming now. Number one hits in music across genres. And everything was done by AI. It was written by AI, it was sung by AI. And the. The instruments, all the music production was done by AI. So it was. There's no human. I mean, this is not even Milli Vanilli, where it was someone else lip syncing the song that was a human singing, but it just wasn't them. This was. Everything was done by AI. Number one on the charts, right? And so the parallel to me is like, as soon as I heard this and I went and I actually, I took the song and I shared it with three friends and I'm like, what do you think about this new song? And they all loved it. And no one had any idea it was AI, right? And that's the thing. And so the parallel to me is amazing because. And I think it's a really good story because I think sometimes it's hard in your own industry to see. We're like, oh, no. Like, I'm a photographer, I'm an artist, and nothing can replace that. Well, I'm sure that musicians probably saw the same thing, right? How can anybody replace songwriting, instrument playing like our whole lives? The greatest. The ones that made it to the top were the amazing guitarists, the amazing singers, the amazing songwriters, the songwriters of a generation, you know, and those types of things. Um, and when in reality they were really all in, you know, it's entertainment. And so now, like musical artists, they've had to be. They've been having to shift for a while because the business of music has changed drastically from record sales. You know, it's no longer record sales anymore. And it's. You know, and that's why you see so many of the artists touring, because it's the entertainment. Right now. They're making their money a different way. And. And so it's the same thing for us. So if it can happen in music and AI can completely produce, write, sing, all of it a song, it can happen to photography, too. But now that's not saying, like, Taylor Swift's gonna go by the wayside. You know, they just. But she knows where her money is made, and it's in entertainment, and it's in the live performances and it's in the stories that she sells. And. And like, even her business has shifted, and you can see it. And. And that's the people at the. Like, the people who understand it within each industry will understand the shift and figure out how to thrive. Those who hold on to this is the way it's always been. They're the ones that are going to struggle. And to me, it's just. It's funny running. We've had this conversation so many times, and some of the stories, I feel like we beat over and over again. But you kind of have to. You know, it's like the Blockbuster Video, you know, they forgot what business they were actually in and they let it go because they wouldn't on board.
- [08:58]
A
They could have bought Netflix for, I think it was $50 million or something at the time. Like, Netflix literally said, you want to buy US blockbuster, $50 million. And they said, no. We all know how that ended up. But there's an important thing in what you're saying there, Janine, because I understand it. I understand this fear of change. And when you have attached your ego to something and that's that threat, Right. The natural response as a human is to, you know, it goes back. It's built into us. You know, do we fight or do we flee? You know, because the bushes. The bushes are shaken. And it could be a line that could eat me, or it could be nothing. It could be just a little rodent, you know, so. And that's trained into us from when we were. When we lived in caves and, you know, we scavenged for food. Yeah, yeah. Fight or flight. And that's just a natural reaction. So it's okay to feel that way. Okay. But then you've got to rationalize how you're feeling and turn your feelings into a strategic assessment as to what the future holds for you based on what you currently do. And unfortunately, and we've been talking about this for so long, like for years and years and years and years and years, and that, you know, the industry has just built it up, that it's all about the photography. And I understand why it is. I've studied the evolvement of photography. You know, when, you know, when the first photograph was taken, I never pronounced his name right, but Nisi in France, like, you had to be a scientist to create a photograph, you know, and then gradually over the years, as it evolved, the need to be a scientist went down and down and down and down. And then it became about being the artist and. Yeah, and the transition from being a scientist to an artist, right, where it became not just about the science of photography, but the science and art of photography, right? It's been like that for so long that we don't realize that the science and the art, right, is going to become less and less and less and less important. Just like you've just explained in the music, right? So we've got to figure out, well, what. What is photography truly about? And if you can answer this question, you're on the right track. How does the work you co create with your client make your client feel today, tomorrow and forever? If you can answer that question, right, you can answer that question. You're starting the journey to understand what we truly do and what it's truly about.
- [11:51]
B
The thing is, as well, like, there's always evolution in everything. Like, like you were mentioning the transition from horses to cars, right? And just your role transitions, you know, becomes different. You know, I guess having that mindset of. And you talk about, you know, being willing to cannibalize yourself is critical. And I'm sure around me you have some stories on that, but, like, even the big companies now are cannibalizing themselves because they know they have to to survive. So cannibalizing means, like eating themselves. Like they're. They're giving away what they currently make money with to reinvent themselves so that they can thrive in the future, right? So I think not having a fear of that, like, well, you're always gonna have a fear, but pushing through that fear. Like, even for us, like, we're gonna talk about the accelerator, AI virtual coach we've built that is out in the world now. You know, we're having to reinvent ourselves because training and knowledge is basically going to be freely available in the future.
- [12:55]
A
So can I just go back a step, Jonathan, from what you just talked about? Because I think it's really, really important and I'd love to say I invented the idea of cannibalizing yourself. I didn't. It was Steve Jobs mantra. He always said, we're in Apple, you know, you've got to cannibalize yourself before your competition cannibalizes you, right? So everything that they did and every strategic decision they made was around that. Because an example from our own industry of somebody who didn't do that is Kodak. And everyone knows the Kodak story, right? So we don't need to revisit it here. But even today, right, here's a fact that maybe a lot of people don't know that Google actually invented AI, right? And Google had a lot of AI systems already in place that they had developed and decided it not to release them into the world, right, because it would cannibalize them and only fast tracked the rollout of AI in everything they do after ChatGPT came to fruition, right? And then they realized, okay, we've no choice now, we have to do it. But they could have done it before ChatGPT did, right? And now they're in complete transition. They're in complete transition to the AI reality for their business, right? Because they can see that if they don't, if they don't, ChatGPT was going to take their advertising business based on what we've been teaching Janine for the six weeks prior to the holidays, about how you position your business for AI recommendation, right? Because people are now interacting within the different AI models and asking the AI model, I have this problem, what's the likely solution? So there's, there's no, you know, the world is evolving. You can either choose, right, to jump on the train. It's not actually a train, right? Because it's a rocket ship. And here's why it's a rocket ship. It's moving so fast that what used to take one year is now taking one month. What used to take 10 years is now happening in one year. So you don't have a lot of time to actually jump on this rocket ship because once it's gone, it's gone. So, you know, just, it's. I'm so excited because what am I? I'm 57 years of age this year and I have never been so excited about something in my whole career because it is such an opportunity for those who jump on it.
- [15:22]
C
It's incredible. I'm excited too you know, and it's funny because I was gonna finish, like, your transition, like, photography went from science to art, and now it's actually going back to tech, you know, and there's art within the tech and it. And it's been that way for a while, ever since, really, Photoshop and a lot of the techniques we've had to edit images has come about. But it is exciting. It is very exciting. There's so much opportunity to be had for those who are willing to embrace the change as opposed to fighting the change.
- [15:56]
A
So, Janine, just to talk about that embrace, because we've actually an example, right, of that. I think you should explain your Nano Banana story.
- [16:04]
C
Oh, yes. The one with my client. Yeah, okay. Because this was me. Right.
- [16:07]
A
But linked into this, Janine, is the reaction and the question that came from even one of our members who's becoming a difference maker. Right. But the photography, photography mindset just clicked back in for just a little moment.
- [16:22]
C
It did and it did for me. Right. So this past Christmas season, I had a client whose son couldn't attend the photographic experience. She has four teenagers. One couldn't come, and we won't go into the reasons why, but he could not come. And so while when she arrived with the other three kids and we were photographing, she thought she would be okay. And she wasn't. Like, we got halfway through and she's like, this is. I can't do this. Like, I can't send out my Christmas cards. Everyone's gonna wonder where he is. This is just. This is not complete for my family. And so we sat down and we were talking for a little bit and we, we were trying to brainstorm ideas. Like, I was thinking back to the old ways. Like, we've composited families before. You know, I've had. We. We haven't been able to get everybody in the studio at the same time, and we've had someone come in at a different time, photograph them in the same lighting situation, and then do a composite. Um, lots of larger families do this all the time, right? And we, We've seen that before, but he could not come in. And that was going to be very obvious. This boy was not coming. So I gave her. She. So her first question to me was, well, can't you do this with AI? I've seen so many things on AI where people just take photos and they modify photos. And if I gave you a photo of my son, can't you just AI him into the family photo? Right? And so my first reaction was like, I can't do that. I'm not doing that. He wasn't here for the experience, you know, and, and, and so my initial reaction was of, this isn't real, this isn't. He wasn't here. I'm happy to composite him in, but if we use AI then it's not going to be your family. And, and this and this and that. And so I stopped myself in the middle of arguing with myself and I was like, you know what? I need to make my client happy. And, and I, like, I saw her distress and she was distressed as a mother about this, very distressed. So I, I told her, I'm like, all right, get. And here is how I need you to photograph your son. And I was hoping I could do it like Photoshop wise. I was hoping I could still composite it, you know. And so I gave her like, I need you to photograph him underneath an overhang, outside, it'll be the closest. And I gave her, like, where to have the light coming from. Like, I did this whole thing, like, still thinking like a photographer, right? I need full length. I need him standing like this. And we're going to tuck him in on the side to your family portrait. And so two days later, she sends me a photo, not having paid attention to any of those instructions. It was not full length. For a full length family photo, he was cut off at the knees. It was inside with incandescent lighting. I mean, it was awful, Awful. And I'm looking at this, I'm like, there is nothing I can do with this. Like, this is horrible. But I was like, you know what I'm saying? Gonna take off my photographer hat, put on my difference maker hat, and how can I make this happen? So I took Nano Banana, went into Gemini, used Nano Banana, and I put in the family portrait. I took, I took the photo that she sent me and I asked it to, you know, I did the whole, you know, a big long prompt on the lighting and what to do and how to make this happen. And, and the image, it came back with un freaking believable. It fixed the lighting, it added legs, it gave him sneakers, it put him at the right height, according to the family, close enough that she, you know, she's like, it's not exact, but I'm good with it. And it was unbelievable. Like on a Christmas card sent to her family. No one's going to know that boy wasn't here. And when she came to pick up her Christmas cards and her little album, she cried. She legit cried. She gave me a big hug and she told Me, I saved her Christmas.
- [19:58]
A
What's the price of that, Janine?
- [19:59]
C
For your client, that's priceless. I gave her back her peace, you know, I gave her back her happiness for Christmas. She thought it was gone. She thought this was gonna be a Christmas that was just gone. We gave that back to her because we used a tool. We had it at our disposal.
- [20:15]
A
And Janine, was that feeling for her real?
- [20:18]
C
It was real. It was a real feeling. It was a real fear, it was a real sadness. And then it was real joy and real excitement.
- [20:25]
A
So when you hear this thing, that AI is not real, right? It's not a real photograph. Right? So therefore it's not real, and therefore clients won't see the value in it. Right? You've just said you created something that wasn't real, that made your client feel right from a position of despair to a position of joy, a feeling of joy. The client didn't care that it wasn't real, that her son wasn't there.
- [20:53]
C
No, she didn't. She cared about what we were able to create in the end, and she cared that she didn't have to explain to 75 people on her Christmas card list why her son wasn't in the Christmas photo. Um, and she, you know, and there's a couple of other things, too, which I don't want to. I don't feel comfortable revealing on a podcast, but there's a couple of other things that also go into that feeling. And it was very real for her. And if you would have received that hug, you would have known how real it was. And the tears. And so my position completely changed. And I even told my team, I'm like, you know what? If we need to use these tools to create happiness for a client, we're doing it. Why not? That's what we're doing in business to do, you know, and this is me, right? Like, I mean, we use. We use magical artwork all the time. Floating books in the air and having magic coming out of their wands. You know, I mean, that's all happening in post production. You know, we. We allow them to use their imagination and tell them what it's going to be afterwards. But, I mean, come on, this isn't anything different. It's just a different tool. And so the experience that the clients are having is real. The end emotion that they have when they receive their artwork, it's real. When they are looking at their portraits displayed in their home and they smile and they feel the warmth and the kids feel seen and loved, those are all real. Emotions, all real emotions. So, you know, it's just interesting to me, the real versus not real. It'd be like the same thing of telling someone who's painting, well, it's not a real photograph because you painted it. You know, I mean, are we going to tell painters that their artwork isn't real because it's not a photograph. It's just. It's interesting to me, the whole real versus not real. What's real is the emotions created well.
- [22:34]
B
And the value of what it represents that's real to the client. You know, it's all about creating something so valuable to a client that it represents something incredibly valuable to a client. And that's what we're really doing.
- [22:49]
A
So can we go back to the cannibalizing thing? Because I know we could talk for hours and hours and hours, and I know we can't talk for hours and hours and hours. So can we go back to the cannibalizing thing? And you know how we are currently cannibalizing what we've been doing for many years because. Well, there's a couple of reasons why. But let's just. Jonathan, can you just explain what we're doing first? And then I want to explain some of the reasons why.
- [23:13]
B
Oh, gosh, am I going to steal, like, your thunder knife? I say this word. I don't know.
- [23:18]
C
Ronan does like his thunder, Jono, so be careful.
- [23:22]
B
I know. So for me, and I think the team realized this, like, training is dead. Like, people don't want to sit down and spend hours listening to us talk about. I was going to say talk crap. It's not crap. You know, share our expertise. Let's positively reframe it. As Steve would teach us, people don't want to sit down, watch, you know, hours of videos of us sharing our expertise, telling you what you should be doing, and then you having to remember all that, write it down, and then actually not figure out how to do it, but then to do it right, you just want it done right. You want it done and you want it done now. So because of AI, we have been able to build what we have called accelerator AI, which is our new AI Virtual coach. And it is. This is the key part. It is programmed with the knowledge of Steve, Janine, Ronan and Jonathan. And we are all experts in different areas of the client experience with different expertises and different topics along the way. And the purpose of it is that not only do you have access to it 24 7, but you can just get it to do stuff with you now. Right? Because Nobody wants an actual drill to make a hole in the wall. They want a hole in their wall. Right. So we have been working very hard and only because of AI and the developments in AI have we been able to bring this to our inner circle members. So I'm not sure how far you wanted me to go around but you take it over and fill in the blanks.
- [24:56]
A
Yes, so that's exactly right, Jonathan. And you know, we've seen this coming for some time and when we made our strategic shift earlier in 2025 and realized this and started down this path and we were already well familiar with AI, we're already, our development team, our tech development team and all that were already using AI in what they were doing and all that. And you know, just even seeing the development and the speed at which it's advancing week by week, you know, is, is, is just amazing. But I want to get back to this because I think it's really, really important so we realize that we need to cannibalize ourselves. If you said, Jonathan, but really the real reason for doing this, the real reason for doing this, and I'm going to quote a good friend of mine in the industry, right, and he said to me, Ronan, I know what you believe and I know what you stand for, but nobody, nobody has ever been able to scale coaching and helping of photographers to make to go on the journey they need to go on. Nobody many have tried to do it at scale and can't do it. AI and accelerator AI by difference maker Revolution now makes that possible. So what does that mean? Well, it means that there's light at the end of the tunnel for our industry. That's the fact. Because 99% of our industry default operating system is photographer. Photographer for us that's Ms. Dos and we all know what happened Ms. Dos. Right?
- [26:26]
B
So what's Ms. Dos?
- [26:29]
A
It's a. Janine will explain it better than me.
- [26:35]
C
Oh Jonathan, you're such a baby.
- [26:37]
A
Young to remember. So Ms. DOS was one of the first operating systems, Jonathan M on computers and at the time it was ingenious and it was at the time. But, but, but the point I'm making is, is that you know, for photographer photographers, this is your Ms. DOS moment because you are Ms. DOS and your opportunity is now to transform your outlook, use your skills, your very important skills, right? To make a difference to people. And we can now help you 247 at scale to make that transition. And I promise you, right, at scale doesn't mean that there's going to be more competition. This is going to create an abundance of opportunity for you as a difference maker photographer. And in fact, the whole rollout of AI in the general world we believe is actually going to create more demand for what difference maker photographers do. So the choice is yours and it's really, really simple. And we're not going to force anybody to make any choice because it's your business, it's your choice. All you can do is listen to us, evaluate it and make up your mind. But if you're clever and you want to know more, what should people do? Jonathan?
- [27:49]
B
Well, I mean AI is going to make the choice for you. You can go on universal basic income or you can build a thriving business. So all you have to do is click the link below and apply for the Inner Circle. Because Inner Circle members have access to our amazing accelerator, AI Virtual Coach kcb. We cannot wait to see you inside. And because of the nature of how this works, we are only onboarding a certain number of photographers who want to become difference makers every month. So first come, first serve, get your application in. See you soon.
- [28:20]
C
Bye everyone.
- [28:21]
A
Bye for now.