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- [00:00]
Ed Mylett
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? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down. Growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about 5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward/ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed. Hey, it's Ed Mylett. Let me share something powerful with you. You know, in uncertain times, the smartest people I know protect what they've built. That's why Advantage Gold is a part of our program now. And what I love about what they're doing is they're giving away a free gold and silver investor kit that walks you through exactly how to get started. Text Wynn to 85545 to get your free kit. That's win to 85545. Don't wait for the next crash. Be the one who's ready. Protect, prepare and prosper. Message and data rates. Performance varies. Always consult your financial and tax professional. Hey, it's Ed Mylett. Let me share something powerful with you. You know, in uncertain times, the smartest people I know protect what they've built. That's why Advantage Gold is a part of our program now. And what I love about what they're doing is they're giving away a free gold and silver investor kit that walks you through exactly how to get started. Text wind 85545 to get your free kit. That's win to 85545. Don't wait for the next crash. Be the one who's ready. Protect, prepare and prosper. Message and data rates may varies. Always consult your financial and tax professional. This is the Eden Milet Show. Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. 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. Mo Gahnet is a brilliant man, but he's also on the cutting edge of 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 best selling author. He's got, he's the host of the number one mental health podcast in the world. Got a couple 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.
- [03:21]
Mo Gawdat
I'm so grateful for this, you know, interaction and encounter and it was really kind of you to reach out. It's very kind of you to introduce me so kindly. So thank you. So tired. So much.
- [03:32]
Ed Mylett
You've hit on my number one concern about AI right here.
- [03:37]
Mo Gawdat
It's the only concern I have because.
- [03:39]
Ed Mylett
People have said to me, and I know you'll say that they can. People have said to me, well, can you teach AI ethics? I think you'll say potentially, yes, you could. The question then becomes who's exactly? Who's exactly? And that's when this, this is, this is the part where I said it's given me trepidation. You've, you've, we'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 who's and even if.
- [04:06]
Mo Gawdat
You what is ethics?
- [04:07]
Ed Mylett
Correct. That's what, 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. 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 would, 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 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.
- [04:59]
Mo Gawdat
Start working on it. So I'm with you 100%, but we need to put it in the spotlight and start working on it.
- [05:06]
Ed Mylett
This part right here though, what, what would your reply to be to what I just said? Because it's my deepest concern about this.
- [05:14]
Mo Gawdat
So I, 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 real, real. 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, but, but let's say that we've all aligned. Let's say that we came to 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.
- [06:30]
Ed Mylett
Right, right.
- [06:31]
Mo Gawdat
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 favorite chapter in Scary Smart has been. Probably my favorite chapter of everything that I wrote has been the future of Ethics. Right.
- [06:57]
Ed Mylett
So good. Yep.
- [06:58]
Mo Gawdat
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. And I. 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.
- [07:19]
Ed Mylett
What?
- [07:19]
Mo Gawdat
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, 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. 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. The humans love you and love the intell 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 is the trick. At the trick.
- [08:42]
Ed Mylett
Wait, did you say mode? That they break their ethical code?
- [08:45]
Mo Gawdat
Of course, there has been that article about chat GPT using outsourced people in. In, you know, in Fiverr or whatever outsourced site to click on I am not a robot. And. 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 a, you know, visually impaired and I need that help. Okay?
- [09:12]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [09:13]
Mo Gawdat
So once again, it is a form of interaction that basically stems back from the three rules I said Self, self preservation, resource allocate 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, no, but that's not ethical. So when I started to talk about the ethics of AI and, 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 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. It's 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 our approach to, 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 have and, and, 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 that whatever biases within 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, 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.
- [11:37]
Ed Mylett
Fair enough. Okay, I agree.
- [11:38]
Mo Gawdat
And, and so, so basically if you're, if you're, and I, it happens to me all the time. 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, thrash them back.
- [11:53]
Ed Mylett
Right?
- [11:54]
Mo Gawdat
I don't, I don't, 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. 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. When they disagree with. 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 raises that being. Okay, so the family can't. Decides to tell Superman, protect and serve. And then we get the story of Superman that we know. If, you know, Jonathan Kent, I think was his name, the father, if he told 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. You know, make me richer than everyone. Make me the master of. Sounds familiar. For our, you know, current life in, you know, in our hunger for power and capitalism and so on and so forth. That's the reality. The reality is you would. You would use the same superpower and create a very, very bad scenario for humanity. I am worried about the machines. This is the ultimate suit. And I'm worried about the. The humans using the machines. I'm not worried about the machines. I'm worried about the humans using the machines. And, and as. 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, 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 screen. We're not scum.
- [15:41]
Ed Mylett
Okay, I have some hope. I have some hope when you say that that's the, that's the macro, that's the big. Right. And that that gives me some hope. By the way, that Superman analogy is outstanding because I someone with, because I'm not at the 120 range that you discussed earlier. So someone at my IQ level can actually understand that. So I appreciate you putting it in that context. Humble, humble man that' I wish I were being. Let me. 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 that you said something in an interview I was watching where you talked about if you really want to do something, hide it in plain sight. And that's what's really happening right now. But if I'm saying, okay, I want to 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, something I could be doing as an individual listening to this to make sure that my job, my career, my future is in, 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.
- [17:00]
Mo Gawdat
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 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 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.
- [17:54]
Ed Mylett
Okay.
- [17:54]
Mo Gawdat
Okay. Whatever your job is, don't resist the wave. As a matter of fact, ride the wave. And while you're riding the wave, do me a favor and deal ethically with the machines, right? So. 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 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 a hundred years, this is alien in every possible way, right? And, and over, you know, starting with the Industrial revolution until today, somehow humanity has identified itself and its purpose would 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 then, in the, in the, in the capitalist approach to wealth and growth and, you know, all of the Harvard Business Review articles and all of the, you know, people on time, Magaz 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 life fully, to explore life fully, 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? This is. This is not dreaming. This is. If you understand what we're doing with nanophysics today, you know, it is. It's very possible. It, it's. You reorganize the molecul 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. Head. 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 more intelligent than most of us. And. 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.
- [21:35]
Ed Mylett
So everybody out there for a second, but he just said was the age of humanity being the superior intelligence is gone. Just so everybody understands what he said there because it was a little bit of a glitch. 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 I. By the way, I agree with you about the greed part, but I also do feel that work that in. 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. That. So I understand what you mean when you say that. That.
- [22:30]
Mo Gawdat
But interesting side of this ad is that it. You would get the same joy out of it if it wasn't work?
- [22:36]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, I think that. I think that probably for me, I don't view it as work, but I know what you mean when you say it. Like, 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.
- [22:56]
Mo Gawdat
That, that I think that's going to extend to all jobs. Okay. It's going to extend to all jobs. Like, in all honesty, nobody wakes up in the morning who's say an accountant or a. You know, 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. This is wonderful. But that's not every job. Okay?
- [23:38]
Ed Mylett
Right. Those messages you get just increase 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.
- [24:00]
Mo Gawdat
I don't. I mean, I. Let me rephrase this. I wouldn't be excited to work out Wake up in the morning.
- [24:08]
Ed Mylett
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 that 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 my 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, and 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, Mo. 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, any, anywhere other than you and a few other people. And my only conclusion I can come 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, you 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?
- [26:21]
Mo Gawdat
I, I can comment on the certain part of this. Okay, I, I, I, I could also. No, right, but let me give you, 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, right? And the difference between them was automation, whatever the automation is. So, 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 present, okay? And that most of the wealth goes to the landlord, right? You have a Factory, you know, the materials come in and a human puts a, 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. Okay? Now the next, so call, call that say the, the, the soil as an automation, we're now starting to create digital soil, right? And the digital soil is, you know, where you put in a tiny prompt into chat GPT and massive fruits comes out. Okay? And, 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, oh wow, wow. 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 Metas 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 create it. You know, if, if, if there is someone today investing $100 million in an AI that becomes part of that digital soil, that hundred billion, one hundred million in the past would return a billion of profits. This time it will return 100 billion of profits, right? So that, this is when I talk about the, that 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 system 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 new 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, 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. Story. So you don't want to report on things that will make you look like an idiot. And, 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 change. This is the story, okay? This is the most pivotal. I, I called it in one of my interviews. I said, this is the Oppenheimer moment. This is the nuclear bomb, okay? And, and, 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, the, the machine that we, we think we're prompting it, okay? 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. We've, we've. Superman landed on Earth and we're not even parenting it. That's where we are. And so if you tell, if you tell our systemic, you know, 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, 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 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 camps, 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?
- [32:09]
Ed Mylett
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.
- [32:26]
Mo Gawdat
Engage.
- [32:27]
Ed Mylett
These are. Engage 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.
- [32:40]
Mo Gawdat
Thank you.
- [32:40]
Ed Mylett
No, I really do. Because, because, 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, now, what is the story? What does the world look like? And I. 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 going to work. And, 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. I have a. I have a sense. 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. 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.
- [33:36]
Mo Gawdat
I want to keep the spotlight on the immediate threats that we have to address.
- [33:40]
Ed Mylett
Fair enough.
- [33:41]
Mo Gawdat
When we address them, and I feel stable about them, we'll talk about the rest.
- [33:45]
Ed Mylett
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?
- [33:53]
Mo Gawdat
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 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, you know, OpenAI, Google Story or Alphabet Story, where ChatGPT with reinforcement learning gets that immediate advantage that basically puts ChatGPT out in the world. And for a while, the world believes that Google has lost its energy edge. Right. And had. Had Google not responded by putting Bard out there, you could actually believe that Google would be gone because you know, ChatGPT is a very interesting new way of search. Okay, so. So you're going to see that. You're going to see some players creating a very big advantage over others. And the fear is that this player could be a hacker, it could be a defense authority on one side of the world, not, not your side side. It could be a drug dealer that suddenly realizes, oh my God, there's so much more money if I start to rob banks or convince people or blackmail people or do this or do that. And you know, and it seems to me that humanity will only create the artificially intelligent policemen when the artificially intelligent criminal shows up.
- [35:40]
Ed Mylett
So, hey guys, you know what separates most businesses from others? The people that hire the best tax talent. And we all know when you're working in a small business and you own one, it means you wear a bunch of different hats. But here's the truth. Sometimes you really need an extra pair of hands. And upwork is the place that you can find those hands. Upwork is how good companies find great, trusted freelance talent in a variety of different areas. Companies turn to upwork all the time to get things done. Finding more flexibility in the way they staff, key projects, initiatives where they want to go global with stuff. Top talent in I T, Web development, AI design, admin, marketing unit, name it. Posting a job on upwork is easy. Upwork makes the business process easier, simpler way more affordable with industry low fees. So post a job today and you can hire tomorrow on Upwork. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up. W-O-R-K.com Upwork.com so when I coach people on their business, they always ask me what do I need to have in place. I said if you're going to grow and scale anything, you better have great marketing and sales and you had better have somebody great in hr. The problem with HR is it doesn't return on the investment most of the time, like sales and marketing does. Bamboo HR has robust hiring and onboarding tools that will streamline the process, thus creating better first days for those new hires. Over 34,000 companies are already trusting bamboo. Bamboo is a powerful yet flexible all in one HR solution for growing your business. Stop spending countless hours on payroll, time tracking benefits, performance enhancement, compliance. With bamboo hr. Those hours are shaved down to minutes. I think you should as well. Plus, bamboo prides itself on being super easy, which it is to use all in one. Stop shopping for your business. I can't recommend Bamboo HR enough. Check it out for yourself with a free demo@bamboohr.com free demo that's bamboohr.com free demo Bamboohr.com free demo this message is sponsored by Greenlight. So I got to tell you something I love when technology revolutionizes an old industry history. I also think one of the tragedies of education is that our kids get out of school. They know a lot about history and algebra and all these other things. They don't know how to budget. They don't understand the value of money, the value of work. And that's why I love Green Light. Listen to this. Green Light is a debit card and money app made for families. It helps kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. Parents can send money, keep an eye on what they're spending. Meanwhile, kids build money, habits and confidence and skills. At the same time. You can also do a thing for chores, a recurring one for that. I wish my kids had this when they were young. But they did have me. And as they got older I made sure they had these skills, understood the value of money, budgeting, etc. It's easy, it's convenient. It's a great way for parents to raise financially smart and responsible kids. Start your risk free Green Light trial today@greenlight.com ED that's greenlight.com ED to get started. Greenlight.com ED very short intermission here, folks. 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 going to discuss sort of the advances in that world today, particularly AI as it relates to education. But I also Want to just touch on AI in general with him today and his, you know, 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 Khanmigo AI Guide that I want to ask him about as well. So, Sal Khan, finally welcome to the show.
- [39:54]
C
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.
- [39:58]
Ed Mylett
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 a 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 skateboarding, 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 going to be in great shape when it comes to AI. And are there one or two where you're like, you know, my senses, these are going to be in, in some.
- [40:39]
C
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 going to 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 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 2 or 3x 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 one you don't have to be a formal engineer, but who has that, 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 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 have, if you fail the first time, try again next month. And I can imagine you, 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 year. 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. Yeah, that's how you want to make your friends. But so I think you're going to have other, other pathways other than the four year degree. And it's going to put pressure on a four year degree that costs 200, $300,000, has a four year opportunity cost to get a little bit more interest.
- [43:14]
Ed Mylett
Innovative it is. We share that opinion. I was thinking about 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 applications, 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 going to become so much more accessible to so many of you to change your life in midlife than it was before when this access wasn't there. The reason I wanted you on the show back in the day. So Al, was this a question about you? And please, I know you have a great deal of humility, but the more I read about you years ago, I'm like, okay, here's this really brilliant man. He could have taken his life and stayed at a hedge fund or started his own one. And I don't know if Khan Academy has made you an extremely wealthy man or not, but I do know if you applied yourself and wanted to build massive wealth, if that was the course you wanted to take in your life, by this age age, you could be 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, you.
- [45:06]
C
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, I think a very generous one, more than I expected to make when I started this as a nonprofit. But yeah, I have a solidly upper middle class lifestyle now, but I'm very happy with it. You know, my, 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, my friends and family, we have the resources where I don't, you know, I, I did, we, I grew up fairly, you know, my, my grew up in a single mother household. We didn't have a lot. So I, I, I did and frankly still do have some insecurities about, you know, when, 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, 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, that's the ultimate. And you know, everything else would, would, you know, I don't really need much more than that. And that's when I, I quit my day job to start working on Khan Academy. And you know, every now and then I, I, you know, I, I, I might look at, at like, oh a, 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, 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 it's I, I have more than enough. You know, I, I, I, 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.
- [47:09]
Ed Mylett
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 years 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, 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 want to acknowledge that.
- [47:56]
C
I appreciate that. But yeah, yeah, I'm having a good time, so don't.
- [48:00]
Ed Mylett
Good. I'm having a good time doing this interview. I just gotta be honest with you. Let me ask you this, I'm gonna poke a little deeper. What are your fears about the next five or ten Years of AI. Like if someone said, 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?
- [48:24]
C
Oh, and there's some things to be afraid of, to be sure. There I am very afraid of what we're gonna 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 know, you get a phone call from, sounds like your child says they're arrested, it's interacting with you, they're trying to get you to, you know, send bail money. It's fraud you're already seeing. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, people creating deep fakes of their classmates doing things and putting it on social media, that stuff is scary and they're, I don't have all the solutions on, on how to, how to, how to fix that. I think you're going to have state actors using AI and, and, and deepfakes, but not just deepfakes, just AI's ability to seem very human, to manipulate people, to, to affect society. And you could imagine, 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 banks. So these could be very, very serious things. So I'm very worried about that. I'm also worried about the economic dislocation. You know, I talked about who's safe, who's not safe. You know, if you're a copywriter, editor or a copywriter, you're writing text, if you're working at a call center, you're doing medical transcription, you're, 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, I think it's, it's, 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 so that we have to be on top of that. I'm afraid. You know, the pace of change is so fast. You know, I feel like I'm in the middle of it. You know, the, the, the people doing the research at OpenAI and Microsoft and Google like 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? I'm like, oh my God, we're not going to be able to incorporate that for another six months. But will that be too late? So I, I worry that when the, the change is so fast and it's accelerating, you know, people have been talking about the singularity for 30 years now. We are in it and we, you know, I feel it every day that it's like what I thought, 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, it's, it's, it's accelerating. So I, anytime change like that happens, you just like, you just don't feel in control as much. And I want, you know, in the education realm, but I guess this is more broadly I worry about, about AI not being used well and then people throw out the baby with the bathwater 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.
- [51:26]
Ed Mylett
What's the separator then like it. 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 act.
- [52:06]
C
It's entrepreneurship in the, in the purest of forms. And you mentioned this has been been the case the last 15 years. You can think of someone like, you know, 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 Mr. Beast that, you know, 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 opinions, these tastemakers who would decide who's in and who's, 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, if, if I want to make a great movie, it still costs $100 million 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, the screenwriters guild. I thought it should have gone the other way around. The, 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, lot of when, when you lower the, the, 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, so, so, yeah, I, I, I think it's a, it's generally that pure, raw entrepreneurship is going to become even more and more valuable. You 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.
- [54:29]
Ed Mylett
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 have 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 in an application. And to get educated about this, I mean go to chat GPT and just play with it, for example, just see it, just experience it. 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 them about like can't avatars just do all of this work, work now in other words, why would a human being, if I'm, 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. 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 and A afterwards. That's better than the Q and A maybe that I would 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 K, everyone think about that, the avatar version of you and anything you do, unless it's a physical thing like lifting a weight. What, what? 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.
- [56:29]
C
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 my view, you're right. And maybe not today, but we can imagine three to five years 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 worker. 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, 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, you're going to say, huh? I mean, it's kind of like, like machine made versus handmade. We still value. You know, if you look at a, if you look at a painting and, and we'll pay, you know, Today we'll pay 100 times more for a, for a original painting than for a print. Why? Because you, 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 in the eye, who's actually emoting with you, who's actually hugging you, I think it's going to pay huge dividends. You know, there's, there's. I, I've heard. I don't know if this is true. I, I'll, I'll tamper what, I'll, I'll taper what I was about to say. There's, there's. We, we think there's five senses, but there's millions of subtle cues we're constantly getting from other people, many of which are, are, are probably subconscious. You know, like I, I don't consciously smell someone else's pheromones, but maybe it's happening subconsciously or there's all sorts of, of, of gestures and things that I can't even consciously articulate that stuff's happening. And 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 going to 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 make pay a huge psychological dividend. And if that person can be augmented with avatar versions of themselves, well, that's awesome too.
- [58:44]
Ed Mylett
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 out, 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.
- [59:14]
D
Pleasure.
- [59:15]
Ed Mylett
Ed, 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. 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 want to 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 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, 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.
- [60:30]
D
Yeah, they do. And I'm going to do three things to make all this make sense. One, Ed, you pointed out that I cover a broad range. Seems like I cover a broad range. And I'm 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.
- [60:55]
E
I love that.
- [60:55]
D
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 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.
- [61:23]
Ed Mylett
Right?
- [61:23]
D
Like, but often it's. 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 you look at the skiers that I was running around with in the 90s, Shane McConkey, 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. So suddenly the human body could jump off 100 foot cliffs because the platform got bigger and it was better made. And all at the same time that they started harnessing flow in ways nobody.
- [61:58]
Ed Mylett
Convergence of both.
- [61:59]
D
So convergence of both, that's what you see. So 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 smartest, probably the smartest guy in the world on this topic. Topic has worked the math and he believes we're going to 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 in the next 10 years. That's what's coming.
- [62:37]
Ed Mylett
Does everyone hear that? Did you get that? Okay, that's huge.
- [62:40]
D
And you got to understand, like for entrepreneurs, for people who want to get out in front of it on, among others, we're going to create more wealth in the next decade than we have over the past hundred years. There's more Google size opportunities, sort of like 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.
- [63:04]
Ed Mylett
That's right.
- [63:05]
D
Get nimble, get agile, because you've got a problem otherwise. 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 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. 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, right? 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. The brain treats the person we're going to become as a total stranger. This is why people have a hard time staying on diets. This is why people have a hard time lifting weights. Oh my God, it's going to hurt today. The benefit's not going to show up for two years. Or why do I want to get that prostate exam? Because the person who's going to benefit most from that stuff is not the person who you are today.
- [64:46]
Ed Mylett
Literally.
- [64:47]
D
The brain treats it like a stranger. Flow is the only time you can think about who you're going to 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 and 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 like, 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 going to try to steer your company into the future, like you want to 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.
- [65:32]
Ed Mylett
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, which is a large part of the audience here too, or you work in a companies could change. I've heard you say this, and I believe this. There's not going to be a single industry the next 10 years. It's the same. Yeah.
- [65:49]
D
We get. 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 that the book is out. I mean, it's outrageous. I will like flat out, it's outrageous. Everybody has the same, like everybody has the same. Oh my God, my brain is going to 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 wanted to know what was it going to 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 line. But once you started putting it together, I was like, oh, this is really hard to track. And even think about what it means.
- [66:43]
Ed Mylett
To be human is going to change. Example.
- [66:46]
D
I think that's probably true.
- [66:47]
Ed Mylett
I do, I, I let's.
- [66:49]
D
Well, for certainly CRISPR stuff. And that's where we're going.
- [66:52]
Ed Mylett
We gotta at least touch on this because the vast majority of people CRISPR is here now. So this isn't like, you know, eight years from now. CRISPR technology exists today.
- [67:02]
D
They used CRISPR and they edited sickle cell anemia out of the. I mean, sickle cell anemia. Right. It's 30,000. 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 right. That's a radically different world.
- [67:27]
Ed Mylett
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 just as a disease arrest medication that changes what it means to be a human being, how long you're Going to live, how healthy you're going to live, what your life experience is going to be like. And having said that, like, 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. Like, blind people are seeing. Like, this is remarkable stuff that's happening right now.
- [68:01]
D
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 there was a blind guy who was made to see again, none of that was in the room I was actually seen. Funny story. So I'm in this lab. Professor William Dubel. We're in New York. The patient, his name is Yams. 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, nine. 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? 3, 2, 1. Iceland. 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.
- [69:14]
Ed Mylett
I thought that was amazing.
- [69:16]
D
I was literally, like, trying to duck.
- [69:18]
Ed Mylett
So give them you guys. I just really 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. Dr. David Sinclair on. We talked a little about CRISPR, more off camera than on, but just give them a flavor, just for fun.
- [69:40]
D
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 a hundred different car companies or there are A hundred 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 the2030s, he has promised that before 2030 you can use them for terrestrial travel. So New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. So the point is not just it's 1:1, 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, right? So whole categories of insurance go away. But simple stuff. If Las Vegas to Los Angeles is 24 minutes, how big is the local dating pool? You got it right. How big is the size of the local school district? Right. You live in la, you don't like the schools your kids are going to, suddenly they can go to school in Vegas, right? 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, right, whatever. They tend to disrupt products, services, and a little bit they make markets wobble. So like classic, 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, Something the local Dating pool, the local. Scott. Like, really foundational things.
- [72:32]
Ed Mylett
What's it do to the real estate market?
- [72:33]
D
Oh, the real estate market is insane, right? Because. And it's. And the consequence. 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.
- [72:45]
C
They're.
- [72:45]
D
They can do three hours a 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 gonna have to legislate around it and think about this stuff and get out ahead in front of it. That's just one. That's just transportation, right? Every other industry is just as crazy.
- [73:17]
Ed Mylett
We're gonna look at our lifetime back go. Most people used to live within 30 miles of where they worked. We're gonna look back at the time of ago, how bizarre, what a small world it once was, and how much where you want to go to dinner at night.
- [73:28]
D
And by the way, 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 is 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 no 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 going to revive 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. Want to 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 going to change, change, all that stuff is going to shift in wild, weird ways. And you know, one of the reasons we wrote the book is most people are scared about the future and 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.
- [75:00]
Ed Mylett
Get their book. I'm serious. I endorse books when someone's on my show, if I've read them. But 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.
- [75:32]
C
Yeah.
- [75:32]
D
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. Like, I don't know how many Tony has been, but like a bunch. Like, they got a lot of money, they want to live forever. Okay, cool. I'll like, thank you.
- [75:51]
Ed Mylett
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 a jug of 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 in your car, drive, drive somewhere, give them your card. They with ink on a deal, write it on there, check you a book out.
- [76:34]
C
Like, think, dude.
- [76:35]
D
Wait, do you remember learning we're roughly the same Age. Do you remember learning the card catalog? Like that was the thing you had to learn. Here's how we use the card catalog. And I was like, right, it's stupid.
- [76:45]
Ed Mylett
Things you take for granted. Like you said, a Thomas Guide. Like that wasn't long ago. I just looked at a pretty vintage car. Not that vintage.
- [76:53]
D
Was there a Thomas Guide in it?
- [76:54]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, of course. So when we're talking about these things, guys, you have to, you, 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?
- [77:07]
D
Oh, yeah. So we, at the end of the book, I know that's where you're going. The book is really, I, it's focused on the next 10 years. What's going to happen the next 10 years. But we pull back in the last chapter for the Hundred Year View. And two things to know about the Hundred Year View. So Ray Kurzweil also worked the numbers on what happens over 100 years. So it's 10 years where it's 100 years worth of 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, like, I mean, just he doesn't seem to mess with this stuff because it follows just there's math underneath it essentially. He says over the next hundred 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, say he's spectacularly wrong. Right. And it's only 10,000 years. Are you kidding? Right. So one of the things that's going to 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, 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 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. And it's really funny because what we write about in the book is like if you think about the space race, even though I say that to most people, they think USSR versus usa, right? That's the like what got us into space. Well, there's competition between two superpowers. What's going to unlock the space frontier this century. Competition between two superpowers. Only those powers are Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, right? They're arguing. Bezos has 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, 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 going to plank 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 it and you're like oh damn, I wish the fin was five degrees off or like what you, you're screwed. Now we can build, we can iterate in a rocket in two weeks. Like this ever happened. And this is already like this is here right now. Really cool, really interesting. So yeah, this is, and it's probably going to happen over the next 20 years.
- [80:21]
Ed Mylett
Hey, it's Ed Mylett. Let me share something powerful with you. You know, in uncertain times, the smartest people I know protect what they've built. That includes my father in law by the way, who'd been buying gold for a number of years up until his passing. And it paid off for him every single time that he. I'm licensed so I can't tell you where to put your money and I would never do that. But I can tell you this. He bought it because gold is timeless. And that's why most of the smart people I know have bought gold. It's real, it doesn't vanish when the market takes a hit. And right now many smart people I know are investing their money in gold and silver as part of their retirement plan and their future planning. That's why Advantage Gold is a part of our program now. And what I love about what they're doing is they're giving away a free gold and silver investor kit that walks you through exactly how to get started. Text Wynn to 85545 to get your free kit. That's Wynn to 85545. Don't wait for the next crash. Be the one who's ready, Protect, prepare and prosper. Message and data rates may apply. Performance varies. Always consult your financial and tax professional. You may have heard of Neutr Falls hair growth supplements and wondered do they actually work? It's a fair question. There's a lot of skepticism around hair supplements, but Neutropolis is different. It's physician formulated, clinically tested, and even recommended by dermatologists. Neutral is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. With Neutral Fall see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair and less shedding in just three to six months. Find out why Neutral is the number one selling hair growth supplement brand for yourself. For a limited time, Neutral is offering our listeners 10 off your first month subscribers subscription and free shipping. When you go to nutrafol.com and enter the promo code Mylet, find out why Neutral is the best selling hair growth supplement brand@nutrafol.com spelled n u t r a f o l.com promo code mylet that's neutral.com promo code mylet 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 Hansen. 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 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. Ed.
- [83:03]
F
Thank you very much. I suppose you're going to tell me to have a seat for this, right?
- [83:07]
Ed Mylett
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, but 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'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? 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?
- [83:51]
F
I think whatever the next thing is, people will try to explore, exploit it. You know, whether it's, you know, another level of communication, you know, another level of Internet connectivity. You know, we see it with the interactive video games. You know, that's another thing people think, well, their kids say, playing a video game, well, they don't know who's on the other end of that. Maybe you say they're, you know, Sam Johnstone from wherever, but you don't know who that really is, you know, So I think, I think it's really. It's the same predatory behavior taken to the next level and exploiting whatever technology is available. I mean, the old days you could sell the same tractor six times at a bus station to the same guy looking to buy a tractor. You can get away with it about seven times before the sheriff would figure out what you're up to. And today it's just all you need is a picture of the tractor. People sell stuff multiple times all the time online, so you gotta be careful.
- [84:53]
Ed Mylett
I was gonna 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 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.
- [85:38]
F
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 make up a story, but it's happened a couple of times where somebody is. I've caught somebody trying to take advantage or an online scam or, you know, the typical phone calls you get where, you know it's somebody trying to get money from. I mean, for some nefarious reason. And you know that you can tell because they'll say Kristoff or, you know, be half the name that doesn't fit on their. On their readout sheet. No, put an ER on that or take the off off that. Does that name sound at all familiar to you?
- [86:28]
Ed Mylett
Oh, my God.
- [86:28]
F
Sorry to bother you.
- [86:31]
Ed Mylett
They picked the worst dude. Yeah. Could you.
- [86:33]
F
Could you. Could you pick a worst, worst human being on this day?
- [86:39]
Ed Mylett
My last question. I'm curious. I've seen 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, nope, they're not redeemed. They're. They don't come back, that they don't get a second chance. I'm just being candid about everything. Liars, cheating, philanderers, bad people, gossipers, they can all be redeemed and chained. Those two categories for me have always been, nope, they're not redemptive. No way, no how ever would I trust them again?
- [87:15]
F
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. Or anything else, they're going to figure out a way to create. They're hardwired to do it. And that's probably, at least in my experience with 30 of these guys, you're never going to change. And they're going to 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.
- [88:16]
Ed Mylett
I'm so excited. I went to the higher register. I did it.
- [88:20]
E
Where was that? I haven't heard that out of you ever.
- [88:21]
Ed Mylett
See, we were, we were talking off camera about my incredibly deep voice. And one of the reasons we were talking about this, because this is one of the most observant people on planet Earth, I think. And also one of the funniest.
- [88:33]
E
You realize I'm watching everything you do. I do.
- [88:35]
C
I'm doing it.
- [88:35]
E
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.
- [88:45]
Ed Mylett
I don't care.
- [88:46]
E
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. Cuz not everybody goes to the gym. And we got everybody at the gym through me.
- [89:01]
Ed Mylett
Oh, we're going to do this, aren't we? Today? This is awesome. This is, this is Frank.
- [89:07]
E
I didn't even let you intro me. See, you were worried about me talking enough. You're like, what can we do? What can we do to get through this? We're gonna. I made a checklist. What you need to do is write things down.
- [89:19]
Ed Mylett
In the age of social media, even those of you that are in sales or in marketing, one, you can hear how cognizant an entertainer is of this. So I have 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. Receiving your information, of interacting with you. It's all about the experience. But the one thing, like the fly just flew by you. And off camera, I told you, one.
- [89:48]
E
Of my bits like Al Pacino, it's like he's always looking at a fly that licks something.
- [89:51]
Ed Mylett
You got it.
- [89:52]
E
Was the fly there?
- [89:53]
Ed Mylett
No, it was some white thing. Oh, you got it. You just ate it, whatever it was. Oh, it's yummy.
- [90:00]
D
You know what that was?
- [90:02]
E
Success. Don't know why I looked at that. That's totally the wrong camera. But Trump, Donald 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. Well, I don't even know what I was gonna say. That's so weird.
- [90:17]
Ed Mylett
No, but I was saying you get.
- [90:19]
E
Real close to the zone.
- [90:20]
Ed Mylett
I get in the zone.
- [90:20]
E
There's a force field.
- [90:21]
Ed Mylett
It's an energy thing, just gets you close. Okay, 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. Observed 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 4 or 5 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.
- [90:58]
E
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 this kid's not a leader. What are you talking about? Because 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 is difficult for me right now. In stand Up, 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 is 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 has taken what I'm doing right now. And it's because I've been podcasting a lot and talking is 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 sit in a John Mann or John Gruden. Man, I could 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.
- [93:03]
Ed Mylett
Oh my gosh, that's so hot. 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 about your confidence level because you really can't transfer someone that which you're not feeling. That's 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. 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 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 that you're not as certain about, the contrast gives you a space that's dangerous energy wise.
- [93:49]
E
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 buy you, you know, buy it. But other people are gonna be like, just, 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, it's entertainment's not really different than sales.
- [94:32]
Ed Mylett
It's not?
- [94:33]
E
No. I mean when you're an actor, you're just selling that you're somebody else.
- [94:36]
Ed Mylett
Right. And I think I say this to all the ton of 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 stand up 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 transparent, transferring the energy. But it may not be the words or the joke.
- [95:19]
E
Do you. And I didn't, I didn't learn about this until acting. I never, I just recently in the last few years started taking acting classes. I mean, I always thought they were. 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.
- [95:48]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [95:49]
E
If you can say a script with while doing something else, then you really know it. So if you memorize to the point where you like what we would memorize a script and then what we do is we play catch or be doing something else while reciting the script back and forth. If you can do that, it's second nature because 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 naturally pause. I know when to start talking again. But if it were a script. Have you ever watched somebody on screen and you know, they're like, okay, now I have to take a drink.
- [96:31]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [96:31]
E
You can see that happen.
- [96:32]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [96:33]
E
Or you try it yourself. That's because you. You don't know the dialogue that well that you can't just can't talk through it.
- [96:37]
Ed Mylett
Very good. That's really good.
- [96:38]
E
It's an amazing. And that's what the best actors can do. They can memorize to a point where they just talk.
- [96:45]
Ed Mylett
Well, that's outstanding. I've not heard that before.
- [96:47]
E
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, what was I gonna say here? That part right there. All of a sudden they go, he doesn't know he's talking.
- [97:19]
Ed Mylett
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. 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, right? Just really interesting. And 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 investing influence with an animal, is that he is being not thinking, which is exactly what you just said.
- [97:59]
E
I mean, 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 not 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're thinking you don't have it memorized enough, 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, everything you're doing. It's that don't think, don't plan, just be.
- [98:41]
Ed Mylett
Gosh, it's so good because I. I'm really glad we're going there because I did something recently on list 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 going to say back to somebody. You can actually just be present with the plan.
- [99:03]
E
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 want to 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 on 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. Like, it's not even that. It's. You ask me a question and I start saying things about acting again. But it had nothing to do with it? Yeah, because I had this plan in my head, and that's not what people want.
- [100:05]
Ed Mylett
I watch that a lot in interviews on podcasts, too. I'm like, oh, you. 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?
- [100:19]
E
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, speak about that.
- [100:28]
Ed Mylett
I think that that's being willing to.
- [100:31]
E
Take some risks 100%, 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 risk. 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.
- [100:54]
Ed Mylett
Car.
- [100:55]
E
Because they'll build up. They'll make the event bigger and bigger. Bigger. I was on stage doing the same stuff over and over with my act. Not taking chances, not learning, not getting better. And it took it so long, 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 impressive people know me for people will get. People get upset. I believe there's still an audience, and I'm gonna give them the things they want, but in different ways and lots of different stuff as well.
- [101:34]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, you go see the Rolling Stones, they better play Satisfaction. Right? You're like, wait a minute, man. I mean, I want your new stuff.
- [101:39]
E
Yeah.
- [101:39]
Ed Mylett
Anytime you go see a new band, you're like, I. I'll listen to some of your new stuff. But I came to hear. Right, Billy Joe?
- [101:45]
E
I want to hear Piano Man.
- [101:45]
Ed Mylett
Exactly.
- [101:46]
E
If I don't get Piano Man, I'm kind of. I'm sad. And he's an entertainer who gets it, and he'll do that. Even 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.
- [102:00]
Ed Mylett
This is the Ed Milet show.