150: Creativity Is The Ultimate Business Advantage (Do This To Get Started) | MaryLou Kayser

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time is the one resource we cannot get back you can alwaysgo out and make more money again life is too short there's

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that cliche the days are long the years are short and boythe older you get the

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more real that becomes is there anything else you want totouch on before we wrap up I guess I would end

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with in a world that's accelerating towards Ai andautomation what sets us apart isn't speed or scale it's

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creativity welcome to the learn itall podcast the show fortoday's leaders who want to get ahead and stay ahead because

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we believe great leaders aren't born or made we're always inthe making I'm your host Damon lby two-time best-selling

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author and CEO of learn it a live learning platform that hashelped upskill over 2 million people over the

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past three decades on this episode of learn it all podcastI'm joined by Mary luu hazer who has spent the last 30

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years as a coach speaker and thought leader around the powerof creativity

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coming up Mary Lou will be sharing her thoughts on whycreativity is not just for artists how to build up your

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creativity through daily practices how to practically stepout of your comfort zone and the play your position

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framework that helps you improve your life you believe thatcreativity can be the ultimate competitive Advantage

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especially in today's digital age but what do you say topeople who think they don't have a creative bone in their

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body oh that is such a common response and I'll I'll askquestions I'll get

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curious they say well why why do you think that I want toknow where did that come from and over the years I've

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discovered that a lot of it came from school there this ideathat because they

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couldn't draw or they weren't good at art class or in in ain an English class

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where there was creative writing elevant you know they werecomparing themselves

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and so I'll dig a little deeper and say okay well what doyou like to do in your free time and so many people have

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hobbies whether it's knitting or cooking or working in thegarage and I'll say you're creative and they're like oh I

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never really thought about it that way so this this ideathat creativity is the

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ultimate advantage in a highly Digital World especially withartificial

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intelligence coming along and being able to generate thingsso fast having

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something that is uniquely through you your vision and itdoesn't matter if

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you're following a recipe or if you're sewing and you'reusing a pattern there's still that that sense of

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engaging with an idea through your hands through your voicepeople who sing right

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or perform um and even with even with digital tools we canbe creative in ways

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that sometimes I I think people forget that that iscreativity and why

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do you believe creativity is such a critical tool these days

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because it's what makes us human in in a world that feelssometimes

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like the human is being taken away from us because ofmachines um because of uh how how

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digital everything has become and certainly because ofartificial intelligence holding on to what makes us

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uniquely human is essential to remember that you always havea choice about what

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you make how you respond to something that you see um lastDecember I was at the Museum

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of Modern Art in New York City and museums are places thatcelebrate human

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creativity throughout the centuries and there's such athat's what people sometimes affiliate with creativity like

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well I'm not an artist yes but are you a parent you arebeing creative as a

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parent you've got to come up with Solutions creativity isabout problem solving it's about finding a solution

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sometimes on your feet it's about improvisation if you're ona phone call in a business meeting and somebody

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throws a question out of left field your ability to thinkcreatively on the spot

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is going to probably either advance or you know sideline the

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conversation we have to learn to trust that our brains aredesigned to solve

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problems to see the world through our own unique experience

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and that matters that's valuable where there's a lot ofcookie cutter stuff um

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where there's a lot of sameness there's a lot of what I callthe franchise you know mentality where

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anywhere I go in America if I walk into a Starbucks it'sgoing to look like a Starbucks and that's part of their

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Creative Edge they don't want every Starbucks to lookdifferent that's not part of their brand my point is if we

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all become the same because we give up our

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individual creativity the spark that we bring to the worldthrough everything

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from how we dress to the stories that we

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tell uh all of it I put under that umbrella of creativity II'm totally

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with you on that now question I got is you talk aboutlearning to trust

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ourselves more when it comes to uh being creative whatadvice do you have for individuals who need to increase that

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trust something I do I'll just use myself as as an example Ipractice what

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I call my holy hour every morning and what that entails iswhen I first get up

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I go downstairs I heat the kettle of water I make my cup oftea I write in my

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journal with a pen on a blank sheet of paper for 20 minutesand I just whatever

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is on my mind it could be I had a very Vivid dream and I'mrecording it it

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could be me wrestling with a question around my business itcould be me

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recalling what I did the day before or what I'm excitedabout coming up could be anything at all but it's it's just

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the act of writing for 20 minutes and then I'll do 20minutes of some kind of

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movement it could be yoga might be just dancing around mykitchen I put my headphones on and put on my playlist it

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could be walking on the treadmill it could be walkingoutside when the weather's good and I can get out and then the other 20 minutesis

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for getting my head right I might read a section of a book Imight listen to a

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podcast I make recordings of visions that I have for my mywork you know some

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people call it a manifestation what I'm working towardsbecoming and I'll listen

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to that and I get up early enough where I can give myselfthat hour and why

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that's so important is because it does reinforce the trustin myself because

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I'm checking in with myself first I'm not jumping on myphone and answering

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notifications I'm not turning on the news and letting theoutside world you

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know interfere and and steal some of that trust because nowI've been impacted

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by a weather forecast or something that a politician isdoing or a natural

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disaster in the world I mean that protecting that sacredtime first

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thing in the morning allows me to get through my day at ahigher level of

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trust in myself than if I don't do it and I've been insituations where maybe I'm traveling and

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it's harder to do that holy hour right I try but it it and Ido notice a

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difference because other things are coming at me and theytake energy away

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from me saying okay I've got this um I think trustingourselves is one of the

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most important things to put time into and it's also one ofthe hardest because

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it people say well of course do I it's not even a questionwe ask ourselves is

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it you know when was the last time you sat down and said youknow Damon do you

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trust yourself on this I mean it's it's getting intopractice of saying I have to trust myself as a younger leader I

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thought I had all the answers I thought a lot of times thatI that I wasn't know it all and one of the things that I've got better at Imean I wrote a book

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about it the learn it all is I've become more humble andcurious and open to

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asking people questions um and maybe assuming that I'm notalways

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right yeah I think that comes with with maturity and withexperience the I

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compare when I think about who I was in my 20s for examplewhen I first went into uh public education and I was

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teaching and the the level of of trust in myself now to

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be able to say I don't know what I'm doing I don't have allthe

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answers I'm not always right is much greater now than it wasin my 20s when I

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felt like I had a lot to prove and I didn't want to lookfoolish

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in front of my students or my colleagues and that can get usinto

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trouble because if we just keep barreling

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ahead in answering to well I have to be right I can't Ican't look like I don't

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know what I'm doing or that I'm you know out of alignmentcan actually end up backfiring worse and if you just stopped

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and said you know what guys I don't know I got to get backto you on this I am

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absolutely stumped and sometimes I've learned with anaudience if for anybody who's listening or watching who speaks

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to audiences I've seen speakers get tripped up on this

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when either the audience isn't responding to them or theysaid something that they realized oops I

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shouldn't have said that and rather than stopping and sayingoh gosh that was I

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just put my foot in my mouth didn't I and that makeseverybody relax and say yes you did and we still love you right

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you're because you're being real right which comes back tothe whole human thing when we're able

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to um trust ourselves enough to say oh yeah I just screwedup people are going

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to respond so much more genuinely to us than if we try tomake it seem like

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wellow you know you you caus this you know what and I workI've worked with people like that where they wanted to

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blame everybody else for their own inadequacies instead ofsaying oh man I

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really screwed up didn't I and everybody goes yeah you didand we still love you and I see more and more these days

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that's who people want to work for th those are the peoplepeople want to follow um genuine real people I I had a

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wonderful guest on named Gary Ridge the CEO of uh the formerCEO of WD40 and he

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said the most powerful sentence he ever learned was I don'tknow and uh his new

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book is called uh any dumbass can do it I me it's amazingright you know and it's just like just be be authentic be

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yourself people want to see you with your guard down thanalways trying to have like you have all the answers and

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everything I think it's so important how did you and I'veheard you talk about this a lot where you've always been able

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to get yourself out of your comfort zone you know you yousay you you'll go right to the edge uh and me and other people

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it took a while to get there uh what advice do you have forindividuals who are maybe stuck too often in their

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comfort zone you just got to do it I mean and that's thequick answer is when you recognize that something is making

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you uncomfortable or you're feeling that tension between youwant to take a leap

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versus Retreat back to what you've always known I say takethe leap now as

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long as it's moral and ethical and safe right you don't I'mnot talking about literally jumping off of a cliff here

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right I want to make that very clear putting all your or orputting your entire Savings in an investment that

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maybe could go wrong correct correct cor um I I would saycalculated risks and I

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can say that now because I didn't always calculate the riskI was taking and I

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have I have uh you know battle scars from that um however

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the the question you're asking is you know for somebodywho's listening or watching and thinking I just can't ever

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seem to do anything that is outside my comfort zone

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um you might just start with something small um this maysound kind of strange

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but one thing you can do is instead of going to the grocerystore you always go to go to the same grocery store but in

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the next town over you know just take yourself out of yourusual

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routine or go to a different grocery store altogether if youshop at I mean I

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used to shop at Fred Meyer in outside of Portland Oregon allthe time if you shop at frm go to Trader Joe's instead right

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if you're always going to the big box stores like BJs orCostco go to a small

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local grocery store it anything to change up your

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routine just a little bit where you're not going to see thesame faces you're not going to see your favorite checkout

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person you're not going to maybe run into your neighbor umanother interesting and it will probably sound

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very different but trust me on this it really really works

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is get some notebook paper or a blank journal and for thenext 30

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days spend 10 minutes writing with your non-dominant handsome kind of

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simple affirmation to yourself like um you deserve that newFerrari or

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whatever it is right like something that you want somethingpositive and write it 10 times with your non-dominant hand and

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then stop and then the next day go back and you can writethe same Mantra or you can C up with another one do that for 30

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days what that's going to do for your brain it is going toopen your brain up

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in ways you will be amazed you will look back and just thatact alone might give

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you enough courage and impetus to try something that you'vebeen dancing

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around the edge a little bit cuz most people who arewatching this and are and or

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listening they have something in mind that they're wantingto try or do and

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they haven't yet and so if you're not quite ready and we'renever are that's another fallacy you're never ready when

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everybody says are you ready I'm like don't even say that noI'm not you're never ready there is there is no such

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thing as being 100% ready ask any professional athleteOlympian athlete

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anybody who speaks for a living and gets on stage you arenever ready to go out there and you do it

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anyway yeah I love it I mean it it it it's goes back to kindof like what Richard sure Richard Branson said you

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know screw it let's do it yep sometimes it's just saying yes

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and then and then having to figure it out you know becauseonce you've committed to it and you're not going to back out you're just goingto find a way

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to get it done and like I heard you say as long as it's notgoing to put you in

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danger or it you know it's immoral or whatever just sayingyes committing to it and pushing yourself out of the

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comfort zone hey at least give yourself a pack on the B paton the back for trying right a lot a lot of us don't I I

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think that's wonderful advice and I'm going to try theleft-handed thing you know I'm I'm a right-hander and I'm really interested tosee see how that

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works um the thing is is is sticking with it um rememberingto to add it into your day but I was I remember when I was

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first exposed to that strategy and you're going to laugh athow bad it

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looks but it's not that's not the point it's not it's notwhat your writing looks like it's that you're doing it and

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I my advice is don't don't pick a long sentence because picksomething short

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like you know five or six words like you you know you areamazing you know

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something short and just oh 10 once you're done with 10you're done um I'm

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just curious Damon and all the time all the people you'veinterviewed over the the years and the um the different

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stories you've had are there certain categories of thingsthat you've noticed

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people dance around going for but hold themselves back Iwould say a lot of the

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individuals that I've interviewed who are super successfulone of the main things the

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traits that they say they have is their ability to get outof their comfort zone you know and try things and then when

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they reflect back on you know some of the things they wishthey would have done differently is they would have learned how to do thatsooner I guess is

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is what I'd say you know that there's some regrets they hadwhether it was an acquisition they didn't make or a girl

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they wanted to ask whoever whatever it is right two of thethings that I've seen is they learn to get comfortable with failure and alsoMary L kind of

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like you mentioned earlier they don't have the victimmentality you know that they they take they take accountability

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and ownership when um things things don't go right so let'stalk about

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something that uh that a lot of people are stilluncomfortable with that is you know super critical these days and it's

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Ai and AI literacy I uh was doing some of my research on youand I like your metaphor around how you talk about how

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AI is like fire so let's unpack that one a little bit oh mygosh yeah AI

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um it's here it's burning and it is fire is is a powerfulmetaphor especially

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with what's happened recently in this country um and I'msensitive to that oh

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yeah and it's also reality um fire is actually if you've

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ever spent any time around forests or know people who liketo spend time in

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Forest it is Nature's Way of actually growing the forestit's Nature's Way of

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clearing out what is no longer necessary to bring in thatnew growth

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and I do see AI as this thing that it's

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here it is Raising questions it is causing people you wantto talk about uncomfortable it is causing a lot of

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discomfort and a lot of fear uh there's a lot ofmisinformation and misperceptions about

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Ai and hence why I have you know stepped

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forward and said let me help you become more AI literate youknow my background is as an educator and I worked with

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literature and writing in the classroom with students tohelp them become better critical thinkers better writers better

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readers better humans right that's always the goal ofEducation

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um and because it's burning it's it

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feels like it's burning out of control right now there'sthat natural response

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of we either have to put this fire out completely and stopit before it destroys

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everything which I think you and I would agree is amisperception it's not going to destroy everything but at the same

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time we do need to learn how to work with it and if you'renot careful what

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happens with fire you get burned or something that seemssmall at first Rage

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is suddenly out of control and it's bigger than you realizedand um

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so again as a as an educator somebody who loves guidingpeople

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through that transformation whether it's around what thethemes are in The

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or it's okay you have theseAI tools you have

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these AI programs what do you what can we do with this it'sall fundamentally it's the

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same principle it's getting out of your comfort zone beingwilling to

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try and if you find the right people to work with that willhelp you you will

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probably not get burned and you'll probably begin to see howoh wow this is

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incredible I can now use this for myself and again the firemetaphor what

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do we use fire for we use it to cook right to nourish ourbodies we use it

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for heat we use it for light these are good things you've

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written six or seven books you know you're a writer youwrite poetry there are a lot of professionals out there

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especially writers who are super resistant because to AIbecause they look at it like it's going to water down

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my voice is it cheating what do you say to them especiallysince uh talking off camera

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you got a new book coming out and and you leverage a ey forit so let's talk a little bit about that I was one of those

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writers when chat ch first hit the scene in November of

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2022 I my immediate response was oh no you know uh oh we wewill no longer be

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needed because I I saw immediately I was like oh my goshlook what this can do

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but then because of my venturous spirit I thought all rightlet's take a step back here let's you know hold the phone

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right um and I started I started experimenting and I thoughtall right

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this it's this is not as uh threatening as I initially myinitial response was

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to it I would again say to people especially writers

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is um again going back to trust yourself you have a uniquevoice you have a

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unique way of putting words together to express ideas andthat way will'll become even

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more Val given the amount the sheer volume of

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garbage that people are generating with AI who are notwriters and don't

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understand that you can't have your sentences have the sameRhythm over and

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over again and that there's certain phrases that are clearindicators that somebody just put a prompt in Lifted it

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and put it out there um so again it comes down to

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uh stepping into one of the names of my books is the far andlit unknown you've

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got to be willing to step into that far and lit unknown andgive it a try and if it's through a course where it feels a

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little bit safer and there's some guard rails around itthat's great do it that if you just want to pull up the tool

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yourself I mean they're all out there Claude Gemini co-pilotchat

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GPT um and do a comparison you know take

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something that you wrote 5 years ago or 10 years ago or evenlast year right on

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your own just you in the keyboard or you in your journal andthen come up with a prompt

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that if you take yourself back into school where yourteacher gave you assignments and said okay we want you to

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write a compare and contrast essay about you know the themesin The Great Gatsby

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or whatever um come up with a prompt that would

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generate a piece that's like what you wrote all on your ownand then compare

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the two it's fascinating it's I've done that a few times I'mand what chat PT

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comes out that's my favorite tool by the way I know I talkabout that a lot I like chat GPT the best and I have I've

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had philosophical conversations with people who preferothers and that's fine it's it's really it doesn't matter what

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you choose what really matters is get in there mess aroundwith it um you it is

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not human all it can respond to is what you tell it and itis it is all about

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predicting patterns and it is all about what already existsand that's where the

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creativity and the human creativity comes back in bringingthis full circle is right now and I don't AI cannot

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invent on its own it requires you as a human to guide it andand so

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um is it cheating I thought that too it's not

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when you know how to use it right is it cheating if you giveit a prompt and then lift the whole thing and then paste

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it and say I wrote this yes I think that's that's not firstof all why would

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you do that you don't why would you want your name onsomething like that you want your name on what you did did but

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if you learn how to use it as a strategic thought partneryou learn how to tell it how to work with your ideas

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with your content that's the power trusting it fully on itsown just throwing something

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in there and then sending it out to the world that may saveyou time but it's going to be awful and as we go on and on

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and on it's easy to go on LinkedIn and Instagram andimmediately see an

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inauthentic post where somebody has just got emojis and thesame sent in structure all the time and I think

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you'll agree with this it's not necessarily in some cases uha timesaver

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and a shortcut right because you got to actually use yourthought process to to

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work alongside of it you do so in writing this this bookthat I that I've

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I've currently written and I'm working with a human editorum because I believe

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in that um um and but as I was working with chat

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GPT on clarifying ideas and and helping me I have a tendencyto write really

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long sentences and so what it's good for is telling it Ineed this sentence not

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to be so long and it's a timesaver could I do that on my ownof course I could

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but in for argument sake what what the process uh of workingwith chat GPT to

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write my book which is all my words it's all my ideas Ididn't tell it to write

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the book for me I used it as my assistant my uhbrainstorming partner

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when I got stuck um I know something that you're a bigadvocate for Damon is

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um when you were on my podcast you talked about this is makeyour AI your 11th team member if you have 10 people

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on your team and let me tell you I'm a solopreneur I don'thave a team I have a

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podcast editor and producer who I Outsource I Outsource myeditor I've worked with her for years on my own book

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projects and clients when I was um helping clients writebooks what the AI has allowed me to do

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is I have been able to build a team that I can go to becauseI figured

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out how to prompt it and I get feedback now here's the keyand you just said it

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I have to look at that feedback and put it through mycritical thinking lens I

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don't just take it at face value I have to ask myself isthis accurate is this true do I really want to follow this

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advice but that's again the power of the human and theMachine um a quick story

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my nephew is a sophomore in college he um uh he knows hisaunt is a former

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English teacher and can help with essays and so when he umwas home for the the

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the winter break um he was applying for an internship and hehad to write an essay so he called me up and he said hey

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can you help me do that I I really um appre you know reallyvalue you so he

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came over here and this was our process he had the questionsthat he

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needed to answer in the essay so I turned on my phone voicememo app and

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and I interviewed him and we recorded it and he told me hisanswers to the questions in his words then I took that

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file I sent it to my AI transcription service within twominutes I had the

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transcript back he and I sat down at the computer and lookedat it in a Google doc I copied it pasted it into a Google

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doc I uh we looked at it and said okay you know is this thisis the content you

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want to say and we made some adjustments and then I said allright now what are we going to do he said we're going to

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put it into chat GPT I said yes we are so we took that rawdraft that was his

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asked the chat to please make this flow do not change the

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content do not change the voice do not CH none of that boomdone I said do you

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want to read it or do you want me to read it to you so youcan hear it he says I want you to read it to me so I can hear it when I read itto him the

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his face he could not believe it his parents could notbelieve but it was him

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it was his voice it was his stories it was his words thechat didn't write it all it did was clean it up that's not

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cheating what if somebody struggles with knowing the righttypes of questions to ask it that's yes well that's where

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someone like myself someone like people you've interviewedon your show uh Damon

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come into play you find find the people who can teach youwe're we're out here you know I I

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was telling you in the pre- chat I am so excited aboutteaching people how to use

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these tools it's not it's not about

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the it's not about the glitz and Glam about I see these onYouTube ads all the

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time is that push button publishing where you just give it asentence and it writes a book for you and you know five

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minutes or whatever it's not that it's you amplifying yourGenius your Edge

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your magic and shaving enormous amounts of

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time off the process and also being able to see things youdidn't consider that

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was something that came out of that with my nephew is therewere a couple of things that when he heard it back he he

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said wow I said that and I saides you did let's go back heyou know look at the

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transcript it can mirror back to you the way you think butyou have to learn how to talk

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to it properly um and there it it it isn't just what mostpeople think it is

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like please help me write a better email and Mary L that'swhere I give you a little push back is how you refer to it

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as a tool to me Excel is a tool I I think that we need tohave the Mind

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shift that AI chat GPT or CLA or whatever is is again whatyou were

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saying it's a thought partner you know it it it's it sitsnext next to you so

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it's not like a hammer and a nail where you just going tothe Hammer is going to hammer it in right you know it's like it

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it can't really you know think for itself it h you have toprovide it the the context and the information and keep

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working through it if you want to get uh the end resultsthat you need thank you for calling me out on that because I'm

33:25

I'm working on changing my vocabulary because the way it isit has been presented is it's a tool and what you

33:35

and I and other people are beginning to do is Elevate itsstatus now again it is

33:41

not a human I've had those conversations with people whoLaugh In fact I tell a

33:46

story in my book about uh a couple of of people in one of myMastermind groups we

33:52

were talking about using AI uh for writing and there werethree of us

33:57

talking about it one of one of them is a programmer he'sbeen he builds um

34:03

bespoke you know uh it programs for companies and has beenin that world for

34:08

a long time and then my other friend and I we're more of thecreative my friend is a French teacher and I'm a writer and

34:15

creative and all this stuff and the the French teacher and Iare really excited about these you know like he likes

34:23

Claude I like Chachi PT our other friend said he startslaughing he goes

34:28

he's like guys you realize that it's not a human it doesn'thave emotions

34:35

and like well yes it does you know so again you can start tobegin thinking of

34:41

it as a real person and have to remind yourself it's notit's not but I have to

34:47

say everything I look at now and I got this from a mutualfriend that that you and I have that we've both interviewed

34:53

Jeff Woods is I look at everything like not anymore like howcan I do this better how can I do this better

34:59

leveraging Ai and and think about things that way bothpersonally and professionally um now one of the things

35:06

we've also talked about offline which I think is reallyimportant is personal agency when it comes to not just AI but

35:13

all these tools in general so what are your thoughts on thathow much time do we have this is if

35:20

I get on a soap box this is the Soap Box I get on I am ahuge huge proponent of

35:27

you must always protect your personal agency your

35:32

ability to choose we are living in a time when

35:38

personal agency is being in some cases overtly taken awayfrom us but more

35:46

covertly it's a slow build it's a slow burn part of my bookis exploring my own

35:52

experience where I woke up one day and asked myself thisquestion question I

35:58

said Mary Lou when did you stop noticing what you weregiving

36:05

away that brings tears to my eyes because I look back overthe last I've

36:10

been in the online space you know I jumped in again I'm afast action taker

36:16

I saw what it could do I wanted to learn I messed around Imade a lot of

36:21

mistakes um but I'm a dreamer and I'm a Believer and I sawthe potential and I

36:27

saw what it was able to do and when I look back over thelast 17

36:33

years have I had a great life in many ways absolutely have Igiven away a lot

36:38

of my time to something that gave me nothing back absolutelythat's the personal

36:44

agency each person owes it to themselves to fairly regularlycheck in and say how

36:52

much in control of my time and my day and my life am I

36:58

really how much am I responding to the notifications on myphone the the whole

37:06

Pavlov's dog of the modern world where stuff is coming at usall the time to

37:13

the point where I hear people the battlecry now is I'mexhausted I'm overwhelmed I don't know what to do I

37:20

work so hard I have no time for this that or the other thingand that's to me

37:25

that's the signal that okay time to take a hard stop andcheck in with yourself and say what what are you giving away

37:35

and what do you need to take back and that's personal agencyif you're comfortable with

37:40

sharing when you ask yourself that question what what is anexample of something that you gave away my

37:49

marriage yeah um I tell the story about that in the book

37:56

and um in your new book or your no the new book okay thebook that's coming out

38:02

um that's one of the stories I tell um I also gave away

38:09

um time with my children that I can't ever get back now

38:15

I I was fully present well I nobody's fully present I washighly present for

38:21

my children when I had them because uh after my divorce uhyou know their dad and I

38:28

shared time we we co-parent really well but we were livingin separate houses

38:33

and I didn't have my kids all the time and I also um my mydaughter would come

38:41

in and I'd be on my computer and she say mom get off thecomputer honey I'll be

38:47

right there I just got to finish this thing yeah what whatwas I finishing

38:52

what what was I doing I don't have any memory of that and sothere's a lot of little stories

38:58

about big things and little things um that you know againtime is the one

39:07

resource we cannot get back you can always go out and makemore money you can always go out and make more money

39:14

you cannot get you cannot get your children's childhood backyou cannot get

39:21

a relationship back um and I'm not saying that some relationships don't

39:28

need to end okay not saying that at all I'm saying that thatwas one of my big

39:34

wakeup calls thank you so much for being vulnerable enoughto to share it and

39:39

I'll give you an example and I try to do my really my bestto be present but I got to tell you the other day my

39:45

three-year-old said Daddy put your phone away I'm talking toyou that really puts things in perspective as well right yeah

39:53

um well you and I met as we switch gears a little bit hereyou got an awesome podcast called uh play your position

40:01

what does that mean to you play your position it meansshowing up fully who

40:07

you are wherever you are and literally playing full outdon't leave anything

40:14

behind it's again life is too short there's that cliche thedays are long

40:19

the years are short and boy the older you get the more realthat becomes and

40:27

um I'm also a huge sports fan uh college football wouldprobably be my favorite

40:32

uh you and I were talking about that is we're both sportsfans I mean I know you love baseball I love baseball too and we're in springtraining right near

40:38

right now and player position I think does come from thesporting world and when you watch a team that is clicking

40:47

each person on that team is playing his or her position in away that allows the

40:52

the unit to accomplish a goal and kind of on a macro level Ifeel we each have

40:59

a responsibility to play our positions so that we are movingthe world forward

41:05

in a positive direction knowing that there's forces that wecan't control and

41:10

there's things that are going to happen that really suck andif you can again

41:15

coming back to personal agency and creativity and all thethings that I love and believe in recognize

41:22

that not everything is going to work out and sometimesyou're going to drop the ball sometimes you're going to strike

41:29

out in the bottom of the ninth with three men on and twoouts and you only needed to drive one guy home to win

41:36

right I mean it's what was that show I don't know if youremember growing up um the

41:42

wild Wide World of Sports where it was like you know theagony of defeat it was

41:48

like the extremes and I feel like you know when again whenyou can own your life and say

41:53

I'm I am who I am and it's okay that I can't do everythingthat I don't know

42:00

everything that I can't play every position but I can playmy position really well and that is worth

42:07

something um and so at the foundation of my show that'sthat's what people are

42:14

talking about even though the questions have to do withanswering the call to leadership and how did you get to do

42:20

what you're doing now and tell me a story about a time whenyou did fumble the ball and you didn't win the game you

42:26

know all that stuff stuff you've been doing your podcast forover 11 years now

42:31

uh before everybody has podcast these days yes right so howwould you say that

42:38

over the 11 years that hosting your podcast leading yourpodcast has helped you mature or grow

42:46

personally or professionally that this life is not about meI'm just passing through that there are people who are so

42:55

much farther ahead in life not I'm not talking about age

43:01

I'm talking about just knowledge wisdom which is okay by theway I just

43:07

want it's okay for that for our listeners out there to to tosee and understand that it absolutely is that

43:15

humility and being able to receive the the wisdom fromothers

43:22

has has humbled me has helped me uh really get serious aboutmy personal

43:31

growth T making a commitment to that not just giving it air

43:36

play but truly diving in and studying the great thinkersover the

43:45

Millennia it's helped me uh improve I I've prided myselfmost of my life as

43:51

being a good listener but being a podcaster I've definitelyimproved my

43:56

listening skills skills my ability to improvise anotherskill that I've had

44:01

for many many years uh because when you are standing infront of a room of of 30

44:07

students who are looking at you and expecting something youlearn to

44:14

improvise really fast that your agenda sometimes needs toget thrown out the window and that's happened on my

44:20

show where especially early on when I followed more of aformula I had a set

44:26

of questions I realized you

44:31

know when you and I were talking Damon I remember there werethings that you would say and I thought wow I got to go

44:38

there and instead of being locked into well

44:43

this is my agenda so what I hear you saying is it made you abetter listener I couldn't agree more with that you know

44:50

both personally and professionally and it is out of yourcomfort zone I actually get I actually was pretty

44:56

nervous before coming on I even told you right because Imean you're a pro at this so uh gets

45:02

you out of your comfort zone makes you a better listener youget to learn people's stories of what they've done and like you said sever ofthem are are

45:09

ahead and it also kind of leads you into our final you knowthing I wanted to

45:14

talk about a little bit is really think about what you wantto get out of life and and what your legacy is and I know you do a lot of workon that let's talk

45:21

a little bit about how you really Define what Legacy shouldlook like

45:28

yeah that no big questions here oh

45:33

man oh Legacy well I those two amazing

45:39

humans that I you know brought into this world and was sofortunate enough to be a part

45:48

of their life and seeing how they are functioning in theworld and bringing

45:53

goodness to the world is I I I can't imagine a greaterLegacy um

46:02

again on a meta level I would say I would want people to toin remembering

46:07

me um that she was she was willing to take the risks

46:15

she was willing to try the thing she cared

46:21

deeply about people and um Wanted to make this world

46:28

just a little bit better thanks for sharing that becauseit's something that you brought up before uh we came on the

46:34

air was you know one of your goals one of all our goals isto help people really think about you know what do we

46:40

want to get out of this life and as somebody who's over 50myself you know

46:45

you start thinking about that more and looking at yourfamily and I look at the people I hav't learned and and and the

46:51

work we do for our our customers and you know I I hope thatone of

46:57

my things I leave as a legacy is that contribute to buildingbetter leaders

47:03

for the future because we need that I think You' agree withthat 100% we do leaders who do all the things

47:10

we've talked about today you know exhibit

47:16

authenticity creativity the ability to improvise the abilityto listen to care

47:22

to say I don't know I don't have all the answers aners butwe can figure this out together

47:29

let's do that is there anything else you want to touch onbefore we wrap up I guess I would end with you do matter no

47:35

matter what you're doing right now no matter where you'reheaded that who you are right now is

47:42

important to at least one other person besides

47:48

yourself and life can get life can feel difficult andthere's

47:55

always always a different way of looking at it

48:01

what you're doing here Damon on the learn it podcast andwith your your company and with the people that you

48:06

work with is exactly what the world needs more of is juststep into

48:14

your your greatness just a little bit more whatever thatlooks like for you

48:20

and trust that it's going to make a difference thank youMary Lou we did

48:26

talk about a lot today uh we talked about uh creativity thatit doesn't have

48:32

to be natural it could be a learned skill uh and it also canbe a big

48:37

advantage in this digital age if you leverage it and you getbetter at it uh I love how you dove into AI especially

48:43

since our first conversation and we talked about AI literacyand and how the right way to go about using Ai and and

48:50

the wrong way really the importance of learning how to getout of your comfort zone and when you should get out of your

48:56

your comfort zone and maybe when you should look before youjump into things as well and then of course you know what

49:02

you learned over the years in your podcast and and so manyvulnerable wonderful things you shared that was

49:08

huge for our audience you got a new book coming out maybeAugust maybe October we talked about that a little bit and where

49:15

else can our audience connect with you at so my Hub onlineis my website which

49:20

is Mary ler.com M a r y l o u k a y s r.com

49:27

and you'll be able to there's links to the show the podcastyou can learn more about my books you can buy the books um

49:34

you can see what I'm up to uh I've got um just some excitingthings around um

49:41

how we can have more personal agency in a digital worldwhere it can sometimes

49:48

feel like you're not controlling your choices so thank youfor that Damon oh

49:53

thank you and so listeners and those of you watching onYouTube what I'd like you to do is think about somebody or a

50:01

bunch of people who could get value out of this conversationwhether it's somebody who's just being resistant to

50:07

Ai and they want nothing to do with it send that to themwhether it's somebody who's frustrated and and thinks that you

50:15

I'm not a creative person you know I just know how to dothings a certain way send this episode to them and if you

50:21

know somebody out there who maybe is struggling to believein themsel um I think they can get a lot of value out of

50:27

this as well so those are your those are your taskslisteners out there and as

50:33

always until next time stay curious keep learning have agreat day thank you everybody we help companies sell better

50:40

okay that's that's why they engage us or they want to adddiscipline to their go to market or they actually want to win

50:47

in their Market by how

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