Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / She exited in 18 months, then walked away to find stillness

Transcript

She exited in 18 months, then walked away to find stillness · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
If stillness is the source of your best decisions, why is your
0:03
calendar built like it's trying to kill it?
0:05
Be honest. When was the last time your
0:07
biggest breakthrough happened in a meeting?
0:09
Not a brainstorm, not a Sprint, not a slack war.
0:12
I'm talking about the idea that actually changed your trajectory
0:15
the higher you finally understood the product pivot
0:18
that suddenly made sense. It probably happened in the car,
0:21
or on a walk, or on a random Thursday where you ditched work
0:24
and went snowboarding. And yet your calendar looks like
0:27
a competitive sport. Back to backs, 50 minute blocks,
0:30
quick syncs, fast follows, rapid alignment, alignment with what?
0:35
Most founders are not blocked by strategy.
0:37
They're blocked by noise. And now we're adding AI to the
0:40
noise. So here's the deep question.
0:42
If stillness is the source of your best decisions, why is your
0:45
calendar built like it's trying to kill it?
0:48
Welcome to AI for founders. I'm Ryan Estes.
0:50
Today you're going to learn how a builder thinks after an exit,
0:53
why exploration is not procrastination, and what AI
0:56
native actually means. If you're serious about product
0:59
Health and Human behavior, and you want leverage without
1:02
turning your life into tab, this is for you.
1:05
My guest is Alyssa Edom from Inkfish Studio.
1:08
She built AI agents in healthcare specifically to
1:10
support clinicians and to solve staffing bottlenecks, then
1:14
exited after about a year and a half and did the things most
1:17
founders refused to do. She stopped, traveled solo, got
1:21
present, let her attention tell her what to build next.
1:24
And the big take away for your company is this.
1:27
Don't use AI because it's powerful.
1:29
Use it because it's intentional. If the system is broken, AI does
1:32
not fix it. It makes makes it break faster.
1:35
Also, AI native is not a chat bot.
1:37
Chat interfaces should die. AI native is picking the exact
1:41
moments in the workflow where prediction, pattern matching,
1:44
and reasoning actually change what's possible, surfacing what
1:48
matters before the user even knows to ask.
1:50
Instead of building another chat box, build a product that
1:53
watches the process, detects the bottleneck, predicts the next
1:57
step, and removes the need for five apps and 30 tabs.
2:00
Less typing, more outcomes. Go subscribe to the newsletter
2:04
at AI for founders.co. It's for founders building in
2:07
the mess, not founders collecting prompts like trading
2:09
cards. If you want ideas that ship in
2:12
frameworks that punch back, you'll like it.
2:14
That's the newsletter at AI for founders.co.
2:17
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2:54
All right, we're rolling. Alyssa, thank you so much for
2:56
joining me. Thank you for having me.
2:57
Yeah, we're back at the AI Clubhouse.
2:59
I think this might be the 4th or 5th podcast I've done here and
3:02
it's just the best environment. Is it not?
3:04
It's awesome. Yeah, we're in the Star Trek
3:07
chairs, so it's got this kind of cool, acoustic, kind of kind of
3:11
absorbent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:14
There's some sound absorption. It's kind of like when you're
3:16
outside, it's freshly snowed. Yeah, exactly.
3:20
It's, it's like you can tell like there was a lot of thought
3:22
that went into like 60s and 70s furniture wouldn't like we want
3:25
to create a, a, a space where people can have conversation and
3:29
it's kind of, but it's muted. It's more, it's more private.
3:32
Yeah. It's like the perfect podcast
3:33
Check. Well, I think we just used to
3:35
think more about design period, but.
3:39
That had a little more fun. Yeah, yeah.
3:41
How quirky. The Scandinavians took over and
3:45
now it's everything's minimal. What about oversuffed?
3:48
No, it's over. Just make it 3 times as big.
3:53
Well, maybe we're all three times as big as well.
3:55
Maybe, yeah. So I'm really excited to talk to
3:58
you. We met through Hampton.
4:00
So usually I find out all about somebody business at their work
4:03
first and then hang. But we can with the opposite
4:06
Loud. Yeah, you know what I mean?
4:07
Like we did. We did Fire and Ice together.
4:11
We did Sonic Cult. Yeah, we did.
4:13
You forgot about that. With Eric, yeah, his place, what
4:18
is it? Muscle Mountain.
4:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing.
4:21
That was that was super fun. So like, you can get to know
4:23
somebody a little bit when you're sweating on them, I
4:25
suppose. Yeah, and also like standing
4:27
outside in 30° in your bathing suit.
4:30
Exactly. He's like, come on, man.
4:31
Getting the cold plunge. I'm like, no, man, I don't want
4:33
to do that. Do it.
4:35
You know, Eric? So you're like, all right, I'm
4:37
going to earn this steak fine. Let's do it.
4:40
Let's do it amazing. So, but that's just to say that
4:43
I guess I know you personally 1st and then I'm really excited
4:46
to talk to you about your work because you always have amazing
4:49
projects and stuff you're working on.
4:51
Thank you. So let's dive right in.
4:53
Give us a little introduction to kind of maybe projects or work
4:57
or how you're approaching work these days.
4:59
Oh, how am I approaching works these days?
5:01
I would say that I have been in what I would call my exploratory
5:07
phase of life for the last, call it seven months.
5:11
So I'm for a while I was just kind of trying a bunch of
5:15
different things and I was like, yeah, this seems interesting.
5:19
This seems interesting. I started diving more into
5:22
trading and I was like, cool, I'm going to spend a few months
5:25
trading. Let me see how much this is
5:27
captivating my attention. Got really into content for a
5:30
while, worked on a couple of different projects.
5:35
And over the last, say three or four months of that exploration,
5:39
I've just kind of slowly seen what has naturally fallen off
5:42
for my attention. So one of my goals right now
5:45
when I'm approaching work is what is not feeling like work
5:50
and what is driving a lot of passion in me.
5:52
And so I'm doing a little bit of consulting.
5:55
I'm working on some side projects that I'm really excited
5:57
about that I hope to be able to turn into a business.
6:00
And this is all post exit from a health tech AI company that I
6:06
was running. Yeah.
6:08
So that that was the event seven months ago that sets you on this
6:11
like self discovery journey. Yeah, exactly.
6:13
Cool, let's talk about the XA little bit.
6:15
Yeah. So we were building basically AI
6:18
agents, some of the, I guess first AI agents within the
6:23
healthcare space. We were using them to help staff
6:26
clinicians, mostly nurses and other types of support, clinical
6:31
support roles and kind of found a strategic investor who was
6:38
willing to find technology. I spent a few months working
6:42
with them kind of off boarding and that was great.
6:46
It was a really fun and interesting experience to run
6:50
that business and I'm really glad and learned a lot.
6:53
And it also happened really, really fast.
6:55
So. Incredible.
6:56
How long were you working on the project?
6:59
Like a year and a half, yeah. Beginning to end year and a
7:03
half. Incredible.
7:05
Are you comfortable sharing any details about the exit ballpark?
7:10
No rhyming. I don't think so.
7:12
I don't think so. But thank you for trying, of
7:16
course. I appreciate you got it right.
7:18
Yeah, well, Alyssa showed up. She had diamond grills and like
7:20
a big wrapper chain so it must have been unbelievable.
7:23
Rolled up in the Royce. Cool, Yeah.
7:27
You know, and, you know, exits are amazing and but it also
7:30
can't be kind of a little destabilizing because obviously
7:33
put so much into a project and then there's like an end like,
7:37
well, what's next? Yeah, you know, so it does.
7:40
It is a little destabilized. Did you feel that way?
7:42
Yeah, I think so. I think, I think I'm also really
7:46
grateful the one that I was surrounded by people who had
7:53
been through exits before. So as I kind of was able to
7:55
through Hampton core group kind of talk about that pretty
7:59
immediately. And so I had that kind of
8:01
feedback from people who had been through that process
8:03
already. I think it's also a decision
8:06
that like I'm a deeply self reflective person.
8:08
So I'd already, you know, kind of done the internal math on
8:12
like this is the right move. And even though it's maybe not
8:17
exactly the path and like the vision that I thought it might
8:20
play out at when I started it, I was grateful for the journey and
8:24
what and kind of how it all ended up and unfolding.
8:28
And I was ready for it. And destabilizing in the sense
8:32
of like, there's more of this kind of abyss that you then are
8:35
looking out at of now. What do I do?
8:37
Yeah. And that that abysses.
8:40
It's being on a tiny sailboat in a big ocean.
8:44
The best advice I get is it's like, you know, take time off.
8:47
Take time off. Don't dive right into a new
8:49
project. How much time did you take off?
8:52
So I took like I, I travelled for about a month, little under
8:58
a month, three weeks in Italy by myself.
9:01
It's great. Cool.
9:02
Yeah, that was awesome. I still was doing some work as
9:08
part of like the transitionary period through the acquisition,
9:11
so wasn't immediately taking that break.
9:16
And then the some of the ideas that I'd had already were kind
9:21
of percolating in my brain for a couple years.
9:23
And so spent a little time before going on my trip to
9:26
really think about that, those problems, and then took a solid,
9:32
yeah, three weeks off 3. Weeks.
9:33
So good. Good.
9:35
Three weeks you took. Off yeah, hard work out here.
9:39
That tracks, I think. I think stillness is like a
9:43
must. Yeah.
9:44
You know, so you work on it. If you become accustomed to to
9:47
stillness, I could tell you, you got, you got deep, you know.
9:51
So it's like, yeah, three weeks is that's good.
9:53
It's ample. Yeah, good work is fun, right?
9:56
I work is fun if you're doing it right.
9:58
And I think I took lessons from that where I've realized how
10:03
much importance stillness and space have for the creative
10:07
process. And so like even coming back
10:10
from that, like I was still a really slow ramp up to working.
10:15
And I also still try and carry those like mantras.
10:18
And so if I'm like killing myself over working for three
10:22
days straight, I'm like, OK, you need, you need some time off,
10:26
you need, you need a break and you need to give yourself this
10:29
space to think. And I think that's a really
10:32
underrated thing that when you're running businesses, you
10:35
don't want to do that. And it feels like a high cost.
10:39
But for me at least, personally, like I need that reset time in
10:42
order for my brain to like let these ideas sit with inside of
10:46
myself. I totally agree.
10:47
It seems like if for no other reason, it's like just the kind
10:51
of brain fog when you're like overdoing it.
10:53
You know, people talk about burnout, but I never feel like
10:57
it's burnout, largely because it's so fun doing big projects
11:00
and like the whole thing can be absolutely excruciating at
11:03
times, but it's fun, you know, so I don't ever get burned out.
11:07
I could, I could absolutely push the gas to the floor all the
11:11
time. But the problem is that just the
11:13
quality of tension, all, you know, that's at least where I'm
11:17
rationalizing this. What you got to have that space
11:20
in there so that, you know, there's kind of invigorate,
11:23
there's room for something to pop in?
11:25
Because it's like the. The kind of novelty and
11:28
serendipity of like new ideas needs to be nurtured.
11:31
Yeah, I know. Like I'm doing some consulting
11:33
work right now and let's see, last week Thursday I went
11:36
snowboarding for the first time this year.
11:37
RIP winter 2026 in Denver. It's.
11:41
Unbelievably bad. It's so bad, but as I was
11:46
driving up I was doing a lot of self reflecting.
11:48
You know you have an hour and a half of time to sit with your
11:51
thoughts. It must have been a weekday.
11:53
It was yeah, yeah, yeah. Otherwise it would have been
11:55
three hours. It was Thursday.
11:58
So I took a weekday off because I try and avoid going up on the
12:00
weekends and was chatting with my client as I was pulling into
12:06
the parking lot because I had sent him a sub Stack article I
12:08
wrote. And he was like, I'm really
12:10
enjoying this. And I added on a bunch of
12:15
thoughts. And some of those thoughts were
12:17
around how much space is important.
12:18
And I said startup exec is probably not thinking about how
12:21
additive sitting in a parking lot on a Thursday morning and
12:26
trying to go snowboarding is. But half of these thoughts I
12:28
just told you I wouldn't have had had I not been driving up
12:32
here because I came up with them on the way up here.
12:33
A. 100% at some point, you're just never not work, you know
12:37
what I mean? And that's why I'm like the
12:41
contemplative stuff, you know, whether it's you know, or
12:44
meditation or things like that, because then your attention
12:47
isn't necessarily to, to clear your mind, but rather have a
12:50
place to invite and to, to enter and invite to lead.
12:55
Yeah, well, it's interesting because I was, I've been reading
12:58
or listening to Scarcity Brain and it's about the scarcity loop
13:03
mostly. And the author kind of runs
13:06
through a bunch of different scenarios in which the scarcity
13:11
loop is at play in humans. And what they've actually found
13:15
from like a behavioral and cognitive perspective is that
13:20
our exploration is where our creative, like, exploration is
13:24
like one of the places in which creativity thrives the most.
13:26
And that is distinctly tied to how we evolved as animals
13:30
because exploration was about taking in new information and
13:33
connecting pathways and learning new data.
13:36
And that new data meant survival.
13:38
And so by moving and exploring, they've actually found an
13:41
exploration gene. Really, yes, that some people
13:46
are more predispositioned to this gene that makes them more
13:49
willing to explore, more willing to take higher risks.
13:53
And it basically just creates this driving us to connect more
13:59
dots because that's how we used to move through the world.
14:02
Yeah. So there's like an emotional
14:04
incentive to to start and then incentive at the end is caloric
14:10
probably it's best. Yeah, I would say there's a
14:12
primal incentives to start, maybe even more than an
14:15
emotional one. Yeah, it seems like exploration
14:17
has two types, though. Like if you're walking into a
14:20
valley, there's the folks that want to go to the top of the
14:23
mountain and then the people that want to go to Which one are
14:26
you? I'm that's going to depend on
14:33
the day. Honestly, probably defaults is
14:37
is more water. I I resonate more, connect more
14:39
with water. So I kind of want to follow the
14:41
path of the river. Agreed.
14:43
I'm definitely a river guy. Yeah, You know, we talk about El
14:46
Dorado Canyon. I go down there, go go fishing.
14:48
I see all those people climbing up there.
14:49
I'm like for what? I feel like you climb a mountain
14:52
once you've done it, you know, right?
14:54
So I know it's supposed up there.
14:55
It's it's a rock. It's a dusty rock.
15:01
You you you've done 1/14 or you've you've done them all?
15:05
Exactly. Yeah, I'm more of like AI would
15:08
say more than the explorer, more of a wand.
15:12
Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely. A wanderer, I'm going to find a
15:15
little spot that's like preserved and untouched and has
15:17
like some kind of cool mushrooms in there and like so Biome you
15:21
you find that and call out all the time, but there's like pots.
15:24
You know where? It's like it's everywhere.
15:26
You just, it's like small, like low and you have to move slowly,
15:30
you know, And it'll be some like stump that's like 200 years old.
15:34
It's all decrepit and has all this weird Biome I just love
15:38
that much. Yeah, you have to have some
15:39
awareness and some presence to notice it.
15:42
Yeah. Yeah.
15:43
Presence was a big theme of my fall, of your, my fall, my Italy
15:47
travels. Yeah.
15:48
Cool presence. Amazing.
15:52
Yeah, I was just talking to this guy about these explorers.
15:56
Like Shackleton is probably the most famous guy with the South
15:59
Pole. And he, he's kind of famous that
16:02
he got 97 miles from like the true South Pole and like looked
16:06
at his food, looked at his men. And we're like, so he took a lot
16:09
of stuff for that. And they're like, you could have
16:11
been the guy. And then the guy that followed
16:13
him was like to beat Shackleton, he'd ride to the same point and
16:16
was like, we're going to make it.
16:17
And so they pushed through and they they all close to death,
16:21
you know. So I'm like those kind of
16:22
explorers, they, they have if there's explorer gene, it's
16:26
that's not the one you want. No.
16:28
Well, not to that extent. You want that survival gene to
16:30
balance you out a little bit. That rational gene to be like, I
16:35
don't know, it just seems like a lot of snow and ice.
16:37
It's probably the same. Not today, not today.
16:42
I only have 6 biscuits left, you know.
16:44
What are we going to do over there?
16:47
Cool. OK.
16:48
So I want to come back to to the your company that you left,
16:52
which is kind of a healthcare AI platform or or technology and it
16:57
was specifically for staffing. Yes.
17:00
Mayor, it seems like gold. Do you know Katie she's with
17:05
jobstream. I don't she's she's in Hampton,
17:08
OK, she's wonderful. She's sponsored the podcast and
17:12
for my Denver newsletter. We do a lot of like her job
17:15
posting. So basically she, she, it's kind
17:18
of all these exclusive postings, but it's like literally like
17:22
just nurses positions all day long.
17:25
Like they're just, it's such a dire situation they're in that
17:31
like they're, there's so much need right now, you know?
17:34
Yeah. And I think people don't, we
17:36
don't look at staffing as a supply chain issue because it
17:38
feels weird to like think of humans as a piece of a supply
17:42
chain. Inventory.
17:43
Yeah, as inventory, but it really is like partly a massive
17:47
supply chain and logistics problem.
17:50
And I think the most surprising thing I learned from working in
17:54
it is just also how seasonal that employment is.
17:58
So like a lot of travel nursing and stuff comes from surges that
18:03
happen on a seasonal cadence, which was really intriguing.
18:06
Yeah, yeah. That's interesting.
18:08
Yeah, I was talking to another guy.
18:09
He's a cheap nurse. I think he's got, he manages 120
18:12
nurses at like an IC or an unit for children and he's like,
18:17
dude, we can't hire anybody. I'm like dude that's seems like
18:20
the worst job I've ever heard of in my wife.
18:23
Yeah, well, the burnout is real for nurses too.
18:25
Yeah, absolutely. Because it's, you know, and then
18:27
you're with with kids, which is just like heart wrenching.
18:30
But then you have the other patients, which are their family
18:33
that are that, you know, I just, it's a hot job market, so to
18:37
speak. Yeah.
18:40
It is. It is a hot job market.
18:42
Any takeaways from like AI, health tech, any opportunities
18:46
that you are really excited about?
18:48
Within AI and healthcare or just AI in general?
18:51
A and healthcare specifically because, you know, I interviewed
18:54
a bunch of people that are doing a lot of really cool things and
18:57
there's so many different facets and so many big roadblocks in
19:01
the industry itself. Like any words of caution as far
19:06
as developing products in in kind of that arena?
19:09
Well, I would say that rarely are problems unique to 1
19:13
industry. And I think the biggest take
19:17
away I could say when looking at implementing AI is being
19:22
intentional about what you're using it for and why you're
19:26
using it. And I think that's where a lot
19:28
of people are missing the mark maybe right now where it's like
19:32
there's an external pressure to use AI because it's there and
19:35
it's powerful to fix existing systems.
19:40
Most of the time the existing systems already broken.
19:42
So if you just try and plug in another tool to fix a broken
19:45
system, you're not actually fixing anything.
19:47
You're just maybe making that system work a little bit faster
19:50
and break a little bit faster. And so with anything, when
19:55
you're plugging in, I think thinking about what is what
19:58
actually needs to evolve in the entire ecosystem around the
20:02
problem I'm trying to solve and is there anything I can also do
20:05
to try and solve that? Or at least being aware of the
20:08
risks of that entire ecosystem around the problem space that
20:11
you're trying to solve. Totally.
20:13
And there seems like there's, you know, maybe the last six
20:16
months kind of saw a lot of AI wrappers going around existing
20:19
products. It seems that it's kind of like
20:21
that, you know, it's like there's like a shiny button,
20:26
yeah, you know, versus like kind of an AI native product.
20:31
So how would you define like an AI product?
20:40
I think, I think it's a little bit of a hard distinction.
20:46
I would say, I mean some of my backgrounds and designs.
20:49
So if you're coming and asking the designer and me, I would say
20:52
it is not building a chat bot and.
20:57
Chat interface must die. Yeah.
21:01
And I think it is about intelligently selecting the the
21:06
pieces in the in the software life cycle where it makes sense
21:09
to interject AI because it does truly make certain things a lot
21:16
more technically feasible and a lot faster than what we've
21:19
historically been able to do. And so it's ability to reason on
21:23
very abstract, seemingly abstract concepts, like to a
21:26
human is not abstract, but to a data table is very abstract if
21:31
it's not an exact match. And I think surfacing things and
21:36
being more predictive in clever ways is is really where I would
21:41
like to see more AI native solutions.
21:44
I totally agree the predictive aspect is is to me what gets me
21:47
most excited when it sees what I wanted and delivers it for me
21:51
first. Yes, maybe even before I know I
21:54
want it. That's you know, which doesn't
21:57
take AI probably barely takes I. It's like, what time is it,
22:00
4:00? I'll be reaching for a beer here
22:01
in a second. You know, I want that robot to
22:03
just, like, get to maybe like, did you want this?
22:06
You know me so well. Yeah.
22:07
Every day at 4:00. You know, and there's
22:10
interesting kind of steps and tools.
22:13
There's there's one I was playing with called Lemon.
22:15
Hey Lemon AI, have you seen that one?
22:17
I haven't. Kind of like a it's basically
22:20
taking like whisper flow, but it's it works on top of your
22:24
your browser and your machine. So you can you could whisper
22:29
flow if you're just like dictating to it, hit enter.
22:31
So missing the chat function, which is helpful.
22:35
This would be like, you could say, like, do research on a list
22:40
of before my interview, put it into a Google Doc and e-mail it
22:46
to me. Yeah.
22:47
And it just goes like, that's incredible.
22:50
It's pretty cool. Yeah, does it work?
22:52
Got it. That's the statement of the
22:55
century when it comes to AI admit.
22:58
It kind of works and you have to wait for it and then you have to
23:01
double check it and make sure. And then you're right, it was
23:04
close, but I actually have, you know, 17 e-mail addresses and
23:08
you picked the wrong 1, you know what I mean?
23:09
So there's like there's things around it, but basically it's
23:12
trying to kind of eliminate so much, you know, tab toggling,
23:18
so. You.
23:19
Have to open up three things. You can just tell it and give a
23:22
task and like it. It kind of works.
23:25
Yeah, I imagine if you got it all fully integrated and stuff.
23:28
But it was also just a massive RAM suck, you know?
23:31
So I had to like uninstall it, restart, because it was like,
23:34
dude, this is slowing that everything down.
23:36
Yeah, you know, so that was the disappoint.
23:39
That's a bummer. You know, but you know, the
23:41
predictive nature of the tools themselves.
23:44
Like I'm really looking for people who are doing that well.
23:47
And we've loved recommendations that people are listening and
23:49
they're like tip of their tongue.
23:50
They've got something because it's hard to get right because
23:54
if it gets it wrong, you hate it, you know, But it once we're
23:58
at a position where it's anticipating things and
24:01
particularly, you know, having a conversation around health
24:03
because they're we're entering this era of like diagnosis for
24:07
one, where there's so much, you know, biofeedback that is
24:12
available to to us now from like an or ring or like a Apple Watch
24:17
interviewed another guy Canary, who's got a really cool tool
24:20
that actually listens to your voice and it can sense like
24:23
mental health things and, you know, Alzheimer's and do
24:26
diagnosis for Parkinson's from like your voice.
24:29
So I feel like there's only to be more and more biofeedback
24:33
that we're going to be able to have to incorporate in these
24:35
tools that can then do predictive analysis of
24:37
everything from like, you know what, you walk into the room and
24:42
it's like it switches the channel from whatever my son's
24:44
watching to the Nuggets game because it knows who's boss.
24:47
You know what I mean? Right.
24:48
Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of
24:50
really interesting things coming out in the health space just
24:52
from like an ownership, like a patient ownership perspective,
24:58
which is really intriguing to me versus I think historically a
25:01
lot of patient records have been owned by facilities and now
25:04
we're kind of moving away and moving more to towards like a
25:07
democratization of patients owning more of their outcomes.
25:11
But I think I'm excited to see how patients can collaborate
25:15
more with their care providers using data that's not
25:20
historically been available. Super cool.
25:23
And then so you know, you have the diagnosis aspect that's
25:27
really it's coming right now and then you have like the custom
25:32
therapy treatments that's coming right behind it.
25:34
So then it's going to be able to take that data.
25:37
Actually, you need to supplement your diet with this and also
25:40
make this pharmaceutical here. So you're getting this very
25:44
personalized touch, you know, ultimately giving you better
25:47
caregiving, what, 13 minutes to spend with your General
25:51
Healthcare practitioner. Maybe a little bit more about
25:54
your mode. Yeah, actually, I know.
25:56
A founder who is building. AI that.
26:02
Is basically supposed to help replicate the care that I'm
26:07
probably butchering this description, but she's she's a
26:11
former Olympian and the the app is called Revel and it's
26:16
primarily focused around basically creating like a
26:18
digital twin so you can get extremely high performance like
26:25
athlete level care around the clock.
26:27
So it kind of understands who you are and will replicate a
26:30
care team of personal trainers and things like that.
26:35
Cool. Is it like?
26:36
A a video or is it a robot or I believe it's.
26:40
Like an just an app, an AI app. I think they might have a talk
26:44
feature. I haven't I haven't spoken with
26:47
her since their their relaunch. But yeah, I mean.
26:51
It's a super. Intriguing concept and I know
26:56
they were working more towards getting like some video things
27:00
in play. I'm not quite sure where there's
27:02
they stand currently. Cool.
27:04
Yeah, the. The I'm trying to be less lazy
27:08
using some of these tools, Yeah, you know.
27:10
Because. Ultimately, the nice thing about
27:12
having an OR ring or something is it's just going to do it
27:14
naturally. That's what I want, yeah.
27:16
Like don't make. Me do it then but now?
27:18
I'm doing it, you know, particularly with the cow, and
27:22
I'm having a lot of fun with that.
27:23
I haven't used that one. It's pretty cool, you know?
27:25
And I I had it and I was like just like any kind of calorie
27:28
tracking it like I'm just OK personally if I'm.
27:31
Really. Counting my macros and I'm
27:34
really being honest with it. It it just, it fills me with
27:36
self loathing. Yeah.
27:38
You really ate 5 peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches last night.
27:41
You did do that, so you better put it in the app, you know, I
27:44
mean. I mean, that's it.
27:46
Is it bad? Is it like one of the better
27:48
apps that you've used? Yeah, it's pretty good.
27:50
And I think honestly. Because it seems like it's
27:53
changed maybe 150 calories off the meals because I'm like,
27:56
that's not, it's got to be 6. I'm like, I like this app.
28:02
That's awesome. But but it's.
28:04
Cool. And so it's basically takes like
28:06
what My Fitness Pal was doing, but you could just take a
28:08
picture of it and it's so much easier.
28:10
It's easier and. It's cheaper, I think it's like
28:12
50 bucks a year where like My Fitness Pal was what, 30 bucks a
28:15
month and you still have to calculate to put in the
28:19
ingredients and it's just kind of like a drag.
28:22
So this is easy and easy to get it custom to.
28:24
And so I've been pretty disciplined about it and it's
28:26
got a, a groups feature. And actually, I was thinking of
28:28
actually publishing that in the newsletter and seeing if other
28:30
people are using, if they want to join a group.
28:33
And maybe I'll do that because then you could kind of like, see
28:36
other people's meals. I'm doing with my buddy Vince
28:38
right now. And he's also very lazy with the
28:40
app. But it's cool when you see it,
28:41
like, oh, man, that flaxseed cereal with strawberries looks
28:45
amazing. Yeah.
28:46
You know, Yeah, the stuff about. Like the the hard thing about a
28:51
lot of those apps is like just maintaining the habit of trying
28:55
to input everything. And like I, I was, I've used one
28:59
that's for Women's Health specifically, like mental
29:01
health. So it's called prickly pear.
29:04
And it basically tracks kind of emotional sentiment using voice
29:09
as well over time and like daily journals and helps hold you to
29:13
specific tasks. And it's so it's kind of
29:16
passively measuring cognition over time, using your daily
29:24
entries and your tone of voice to understand maybe your current
29:29
mental state that's not as obvious, which is really
29:31
interesting. So it's like a spoken journal.
29:34
Cool. Yeah.
29:35
Does it give you prompts? And does like ask you?
29:37
Yeah, it gives like I. Feel like shit?
29:39
Yeah, it gives you a few prompts.
29:40
And then at the end of the at the end of the day or at the end
29:44
of the prompt structure, you get kind of like a little, hey,
29:47
here's where we're measuring you today and it reads your voice.
29:50
Inflection. Yeah, Incredible.
29:52
Yeah, I. Love that.
29:53
Yeah, you can't type. Can only voice.
29:56
I love that. This kind of like actually kind
30:00
of ties into like my, my personal vision right now.
30:03
Oh yeah. What's your personal vision?
30:05
So I like to have like. A gigantic goal because then all
30:09
a million tasks to get to that goal, just you just need to get
30:12
a million of them done, you know?
30:14
So my, my vision is to write and perform a solo acoustic Blues
30:22
album. Beautiful Beach of a deserted
30:25
high album. I love that.
30:28
Yeah, and it's. A monumental task because
30:31
obviously all my business interests, all my family
30:34
interests, everything has to be so secure and buttoned up that I
30:37
can just bounce. Plus I will have to have written
30:39
all those songs, practice all those, so I could just sit up
30:42
and do it. But also the voice, you know,
30:45
that's a big part. That's probably the last final
30:47
tough component because in order to make the kind of, you know,
30:51
Dusty Blues album I want, your voice has to have like, it has
30:55
to call. It has to have kind of like a
30:58
melancholic sorrow, but it has to have like, joy.
31:02
There has to be a quality of the voice that's hard to, like,
31:05
actually get to place. Emotionally Immense, yes.
31:09
You know, yeah, I mean, I mean, writing music in and of self is
31:12
hard enough, right? Let alone this state to perform
31:15
it. And like, I think a lot of
31:16
people who don't write don't realize that when you're
31:17
recording it, you're performing it.
31:19
And not just like performing it by physically doing it, but like
31:22
you have to like really reach a piece of yourself that isn't
31:27
always accessible. Totally.
31:29
It definitely isn't. You're a singer, Yes.
31:31
Cool. What kind of music?
31:33
Oh God. I haven't really been writing
31:35
the last few years. I was a bit busy, but a little
31:41
bit, a little bit. Mostly I just kind of do a lot
31:45
of covered songs and then I write here and there when the
31:48
passion strikes me. Mostly just acoustic stuff.
31:50
I don't know if I have a style. I would like to get more into
31:53
production. I had grand plans to do that
31:56
during COVID and it I made it 30% of the way there.
32:00
Nice HR player. Yeah, my, my.
32:03
First instrument was drums though, and I do think that's my
32:05
most natural. Instrument is.
32:09
Percussion favorite drummer. Oh.
32:13
Anderson Paw. Oh good.
32:15
Choice. He's so.
32:16
Good. Yeah.
32:17
He's so good. Yeah.
32:19
I love that guy, man. He's so impressive.
32:21
He's so fun. Yeah.
32:23
Talk about a voice. Yeah, just.
32:25
Talent. Just talk about talent.
32:28
Amazing. Yeah, for the Dre Super Bowl,
32:31
that was my favorite thing. To see him up there playing
32:33
drums, it was great. Yeah, love that.
32:36
Cool, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.
32:40
I just music kind of came back really strong for me because you
32:42
know, I'd been a former life but making records, tour and stuff
32:46
like that. And then they just put it away,
32:48
you know, and my son was asking me about music.
32:50
I played rap metals one for a new metal was like my bands.
32:57
Fun. He was like, Dad, what were.
32:59
Your what were your inspiration? I was like, well, I was like
33:03
Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine.
33:07
Yeah. Public.
33:09
Enemy got it, you know, so that was the vibe.
33:12
It was the vibe at the time. It the full genre got really
33:15
bastardized by some bad actors not that like.
33:18
The biscuit is. Horrible, but like they just
33:20
like make the whole thing a clown, you know?
33:22
It's like I like the roots and like, I like serious music that
33:25
was doing that anyway. Anyway, so I was talking about
33:28
my these kind of influences and I was like the influences on the
33:33
band. I was like the stuff that I
33:34
really like is like the old Dusty Delta blue stuff, you
33:38
know, Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt and all
33:42
these finger style players. Like that's, that's the, the
33:44
style that I play guitar. And he's like, what's that?
33:46
And I felt like terrible father. I was like, oh, you don't even
33:50
know this stuff, man. I was like, OK, and he's great
33:52
kid. He loves like 40s music and trap
33:55
and like everything. But like he's really has a good
33:57
ear is open to it. So we started going through all
33:59
that stuff. So I started pulling the guitars
34:01
out. That's kind of where this like
34:03
idea, this kind of vision crystallizes because I could
34:06
feel it. I could be on the beach, I could
34:08
smell it. I could feel the guitar texture
34:12
in my hand in, you know, this aspect of quality of my voice,
34:17
which, you know, usually I sound like this is like horrible, you
34:20
know, So it's like something I would have to have been like
34:23
drinking lemon tea, like all these things.
34:25
So when I hear people that are using the voices like a
34:28
diagnosis tool or like just like as a, a vector of examination,
34:33
it's very interesting because I think there's Oh yeah, for sure.
34:37
And it's. Been, I think kind of hard to do
34:39
that, but I, I don't think it's just even voice.
34:43
It's, it's inflection plus content, right, Yeah.
34:47
And. That.
34:51
I think has historically been more difficult maybe.
34:57
Maybe also the data processing? Is just faster, Yeah, I don't
35:02
know. It could be where I'm going with
35:03
like, what do they? Call that when you study
35:05
someone's handwriting. Yeah, I was.
35:08
Fascinated with? That, yeah, you know, it's it.
35:11
It might. Be the new handwriting?
35:13
No, because who writes with their?
35:14
Hands and then but then the problem.
35:16
Is you have deep fakes and that's true duplicating voices.
35:20
So is it a fingerprint anymore? That sounds like something I
35:24
would. Do if I was really pissed off I
35:26
wouldn't want the app to know so I'd use a deep fake to do my
35:29
journal entry so it wouldn't the real emotional state so you
35:32
could hide from your. AI.
35:34
Is that the next? I don't want AI judgement.
35:37
Like dude, you were on such a good streak man, I can hear it
35:39
in your voice. The next frontier?
35:41
Of AI. How do you hide from your AI
35:44
exactly? But there is something to that
35:47
too, man. It's like when you realize that
35:49
like your medical records are free for examinations from the
35:52
insurance companies and everything you say to your
35:54
doctor gets disclosed. It's like I have this weird
35:56
relationship where I'm not being 100% truthful of my doctor
36:00
because I don't know, affect my premiums, I mean.
36:05
Honestly, I kind of already. Feel that way as a woman, so
36:07
that's fine. Exactly.
36:10
Talk to me at. My interview with the doctor.
36:12
How do you feel? Great.
36:13
Super. Fantastic.
36:15
I feel awesome. I need some really big
36:18
painkillers When you, when I'm talking about that, do I?
36:20
I'm not a pig. I'm not.
36:21
But I am a pig. Just kidding.
36:25
I'm not a painkiller guy. I would love to go back to what
36:28
you were talking about in Italy, where this idea of presence was
36:31
coming up. Like what did you mean by that?
36:38
Well, how deep do you want to go?
36:40
All the way down, great. I'm not crying.
36:46
Great, great. So I think are you how, how
36:52
aware of you? Are you of consciousness,
36:54
subconsciousness, unconsciousness depend.
36:58
Yeah, OK, OK, great. Yeah, so.
37:05
TLDR you. Know there's like kind of this,
37:07
these three modalities of operating where we operate at a
37:10
conscious level. That's me you talking, having
37:11
this conversation. Now you're picking up my words
37:14
exactly as how I'm stating them. And some third party observer is
37:18
able to make some sort of understanding of our context in
37:22
our relationship or our conversation.
37:25
And then there's like kind of the unconscious level where
37:27
that's actually coming up in terms of how you and I are both
37:30
experiencing this conversation differently, even though we're
37:33
having the same conversation at the same moment in time.
37:36
And then there's the like unconscious level, which is like
37:39
much more of your like deep seated primal drivers, maybe
37:45
some childhood things in there, kind of all the things in life
37:48
that you don't have as much awareness of and how it's
37:53
impacting how you show up as you move through the world.
37:55
That'd be like if you had a. Cousin named Ryan that you hated
37:59
kind of enter this conversation subconsciously with like a
38:02
certain chip on your shoulder. Like I don't like Ryan's.
38:05
Ryan's are horrible, yeah. Yeah, but we don't know, right?
38:09
I probably don't realize it, but.
38:11
Maybe. And so I think for me, I look at
38:15
the world in terms of how much we operate at a very conscious
38:19
level and we don't often pay attention to the the lower
38:24
levels. And one of my goals is to try
38:29
and understand probably really within the last like 5 years,
38:32
like where am I operating or when am I moving into those
38:37
subconscious and unconscious spaces and how are those
38:39
impacting the ways in which I'm showing up?
38:42
Interesting. How do you do that?
38:46
You spend a lot of time by yourself.
38:47
I thought you were going to say weed.
38:49
Well, that could work too. I guess you might need something
38:54
stronger than that, but. Yeah.
38:57
Exactly. So I think there's that aspect
38:59
of of presence. So it's kind of giving myself
39:02
the space and time to really look at.
39:08
How I've been moving through the.
39:09
World and trying to connect to the dots for myself and to
39:13
events that I know have happened in my past.
39:16
I think the other form of presence that I've been maybe
39:19
was like even more present in Italy is how much we are
39:26
distracted in. Our day-to-day.
39:29
Lives. There's a lot of noise, there's
39:31
a lot of data, there's a lot of information.
39:33
Probably now more so than ever, AI is only expanding that
39:38
exponentially, and I think it's really, really easy to get
39:43
distracted and be thinking about things that are maybe not
39:47
actually all that important. But still hold a lot of.
39:52
Space in our minds. And so presence for me was about
39:57
how can I move through this trip with very limited expectations?
40:01
Cool. How can I move through this trip
40:03
by paying attention to the small things?
40:05
Am I taking photographs of the way that a light is shining
40:10
through a glass that's sitting on my table for breakfast and
40:14
thinking about how interesting and unique that tiny moment is
40:20
for the light to perfectly hit in this exact way to create this
40:22
really interesting pattern? Am I noticing it and how I see
40:27
other people showing up culturally?
40:30
So what are the differences in terms of how this completely
40:35
different environment from where I live are interacting with one
40:38
another? What are the differences in how
40:41
they embrace community and move through their their daily lives?
40:44
And what are the tiny details? How many times do they say hello
40:47
or stop to have a conversation that we just don't really often
40:51
make the space for? That sounds amazing, yeah.
40:54
That sounds amazing. It's exactly the way I like to
40:57
travel. You know, some folks listen back
40:59
to that explore conversation. So folks go to Italy, be like,
41:03
well, we have to see the Coliseum, We have to see the
41:06
Lube. We have to go over here, we have
41:08
to go there and they're checking all these boxes off.
41:10
To me, that's a disaster. Yeah, I, I.
41:12
Planned my trains. I planned my flights and my
41:16
trains and my hotels. That was it.
41:18
And just winged it. Cool.
41:20
Yeah, Presents. So you've.
41:22
Got the subconscious, which you're kind of working through
41:24
by kind of through a smaller lens and just being very
41:28
observant. What's happening right now?
41:30
Yep, the other point of consciousness would be like this
41:33
kind of like talking consciousness.
41:35
What was the other one? Unconscious.
41:37
Unconscious. There's subconscious and the.
41:39
Unconscious. They're very close, but they're
41:41
different. Explain it.
41:43
So. Subconscious, you might have
41:44
some awareness that there's like.
41:49
Something else under the surface.
41:50
So you just like it's. It's generally related to level
41:54
of awareness of. Whatever that factor.
41:59
Is that's influencing you in that moment so you might know it
42:02
because. Like a week ago something, yeah,
42:05
somebody told you that you're like not really recover.
42:07
It's kind of bumped right on the surface, yeah.
42:10
Or or. You know, I'm I haven't eaten
42:13
today and you're sitting here and talking to me on this
42:15
podcast for an hour and I'm kind of mad at you because I'm really
42:19
hungry. I didn't eat today either.
42:22
Damn it, realized that driving over here, I was like, no.
42:26
And so it's like. Things that are driving us, but
42:30
maybe we just have a slight bit more of awareness is is how I
42:33
most easily describe it. I also think like self discovery
42:38
drives a lot more into the subconscious.
42:39
So you may not realize in the moment that it's impacting you,
42:42
but can you reflect back and be able to connect and pull the
42:45
dots? OK.
42:46
So it's kind of like accessible emotional debris that's kind of
42:50
like there that you can work through by like honouring it in
42:54
some capacity. That's my.
42:55
That's my definition of it, anyways.
42:57
I love it. OK.
42:57
And unconscious. Yeah.
42:59
Unconscious is like, really things that deeply, deeply drive
43:05
us that we really do not have a good sense of control over the
43:09
what or the why. And a lot of those unconscious
43:14
levels, some of them are just like our animalistic tendencies
43:18
of how we respond and move through the world.
43:21
I think there's a book, I think it's called Sapiens that's
43:26
really interesting. And there's some other
43:29
biological books that kind of like tack on to that, that
43:32
question how much free will we actually have as humans?
43:36
And a lot of that is the unconscious act of survival.
43:40
And then I think there's also the the brain is really, really
43:43
powerful at suppressing things, and what we suppress we might
43:51
not have awareness of, but it still is probably driving us in
43:54
some way, shape or form. Is there utility in kind of?
43:58
Exploring that, I don't know. You're like, I don't know.
44:05
I don't know, maybe. Is my.
44:08
You know, conscious mind just rationalizing stuff that's all
44:11
unconscious. That's kind of the the risk,
44:13
right? Yeah, yeah.
44:14
And how? Much time and space are you
44:15
spending doing that because it doesn't always serve you.
44:17
Yeah, yeah, it's. Therapy might be a good
44:20
modality. Go talk about.
44:22
That it's like, what? The reason I'm feeling this way
44:25
is 1234. But if even if you don't have
44:28
those four things, yeah, you still might.
44:30
Feel that same? Way, because that's just what's
44:32
happening Yeah, exactly. And and how?
44:34
Patterned is that too like is it just because I think it's the
44:37
reason it's complex is because there's constantly all these
44:40
different factors that are changing our environments.
44:45
And So what might bother me today may not bother me
44:49
tomorrow, but that could be because I'm more sensitive in
44:54
this 24 hour span to 1 explicit driver than another one.
44:58
And maybe it's not necessarily a pattern or maybe it is a pattern
45:02
and maybe it's actually right around this time of month like
45:05
or it could even be a time of year.
45:07
I think grief is like a really strong indicator of this.
45:12
Like you'll see people who have suffered a loss and like, when
45:14
that kind of anniversary comes up, you know, they're more
45:17
despondent, they're maybe a little bit more Moody because
45:19
this specific significant, significant event happened
45:22
during that period of time, which is triggering.
45:25
Your subconscious, your unconscious and your conscious,
45:28
Yeah, but if you. Like grief in a nutshell.
45:30
But if the same thing. Happened any other week of the
45:34
year, it might not bother you as much, yeah.
45:38
There's like another kind of like more.
45:41
Element there's probably. A consciousness to Tibetan
45:45
movies called Taria. Are you familiar with this?
45:47
I'm not. Please tell.
45:48
Me more. It's pretty interesting.
45:49
It's just kind. Of like observer consciousness.
45:52
So there's an aspect of your regular consciousness.
45:55
Obviously you can observe yourself having that experience
45:58
subconscious, you can observe yourself being subversive on
46:01
that unconscious. There's also the observer
46:07
element there, and I think that's witnessed by, you know,
46:10
like when you're in deep sleep and you're not dreaming, you're
46:14
basically just like out, you know, but if.
46:17
You. Have a flight in the morning
46:19
somehow and your alarm doesn't go off, you're going to wake up
46:22
right on time. Yeah, there's something else.
46:24
Operate on a higher observable, but that's also there.
46:28
Interesting. Potentially.
46:29
Fascinating, I know. I love that one.
46:31
I need to. Dig into that it's.
46:32
Great. There's a great book.
46:34
That to bed your book of yoga dreams.
46:38
Something like that. OK, shoot.
46:40
On I'm murdering it. I'll find it, but it's really
46:42
good. Although it really freaked me
46:44
out because Rick Manos that wrote it, brilliant guy.
46:49
He was saying that like I see the the fun chapters about lucid
46:54
dreaming. So like giving techniques?
46:57
Of like how? The Tibetans do it to drop into
46:58
sleep with intention and maintain consciousness.
47:02
Like, you know, what do you like do?
47:05
You can go fly. You can go.
47:08
Happens. You can do whatever he's.
47:09
Like no, when I enter into lucid dreaming, I go meditate and I
47:13
was like, Oh my God, it never ends.
47:18
Meditating during sleep just didn't melt to me.
47:22
I put the book down for six months.
47:23
Have you read Why Do We? Sleep.
47:25
I think it's why do we sleep? It's the it's more like science
47:29
behind what happens when we sleep and why it's important for
47:34
us. It's literally like basically,
47:37
you know, you know how every time something is wrong with a
47:42
piece of technology and you can't figure out what's wrong
47:44
with it and the first plug it back in?
47:47
Yeah. Have you?
47:47
Unplugged it and. Plugged it back in.
47:49
Yeah, that's why we sleep. I know, but like, have you?
47:51
Unplugged it and plugged it. Back in all the time you.
47:55
Need it to recharge. Your brain like literally you
47:57
need it to recharge I know and reconnect pathways.
48:01
It seems weird that gets burnt out.
48:04
But unless everything's weird, which it kind of is, but I mean,
48:06
I think it is, I'll be laying. Down I'm like.
48:08
It's so strange that everybody's just like sleeping all the time.
48:13
I mean, at least we're not all sleeping.
48:14
At the exact same time only clusters.
48:17
Of. Us.
48:17
Exactly. I'll get up early and make
48:19
pancakes. Fascinating.
48:23
OK, I want to make sure we talk a little bit more about your
48:26
work. Because we've gone on.
48:29
Complete tangents. Tangents.
48:31
But that's the fun part I. Think about doing these in
48:33
person, you know, because this it makes the the conversation
48:36
more playful. So you said your background is
48:39
in design. Yes, and but you're obviously
48:42
computer engineer as well. Well.
48:45
Maybe we're all AI. We're all.
48:48
Computer. Engineers now, yeah, yeah, but.
48:51
It is kind of UI kind of your your main focus.
48:53
So my the. Program that I went through is
48:56
actually an interdisciplinary design program, so it's called
49:00
DAP based on the University of Cincinnati.
49:03
We studied, I, I was specifically in the mouthful of
49:08
program called Graphic Communication Design.
49:10
I believe they have just renamed it to Communication Design now,
49:14
but you study traditional print design, interaction and motion
49:19
design so as well as user centered design principles.
49:24
So kind of I would call it more of a mindset program and then
49:28
your outputs vary. So I think it was really
49:30
interesting for me and it really shaped my career in a way that I
49:34
probably always was this way, but that connected the dots for
49:38
me in terms of, OK, there's a way of thinking and there's a
49:40
way of approaching problems. And then there is the
49:43
deliverables that I'm creating through that.
49:45
And so because I was working across all of these very
49:47
different mediums where traditional programs would
49:49
probably have you really dive into 1 medium, my program did
49:55
not force me to do that. And so it kind of carried this
49:59
across this like mindset of like being able to take this style of
50:03
thinking and apply it abstraction, which was really
50:08
interesting. I also have a minor in
50:11
psychology and what I call 3/5 of an IT minor because I didn't
50:15
want to finish it. It's too boring.
50:19
Yeah, well, I just didn't. Want to be in 18 credit hours
50:22
and honestly? I also like.
50:23
Realized through taking like programming classes that I did
50:26
not learn code that way and sitting in a classroom for me
50:30
was not useful. Yeah, it's not going to work.
50:32
No, you have to have a. Problem you're solving and that
50:35
the code is just the way to get to this exactly, which is like.
50:37
Where my connecting of dots over the last like year has really
50:41
taken off. I think I've spent a lot of my
50:43
career designing front ends and UIS and that helped me more
50:49
deeply understand front end. And now connecting the dots on
50:53
the back end has been my journey over the last So good.
50:57
Well, now that Figma anthropic connections, so you can
51:01
basically just like design everything in Figma, Claude code
51:06
will know what you're trying to do, build the back end and then
51:09
you can go back and forth designing within Figma or
51:12
whatever design. Can I tell you a secret?
51:14
What's that? I haven't really used figma in
51:16
like almost a year. How does that feel?
51:19
Honestly great. Yeah, it's super great.
51:21
I know it's. With the AI augmented tools,
51:26
it's like it's a maze because you could just.
51:28
I mean, my favorite is like design this like Joni.
51:31
I've would design it and use storytelling in the UI that like
51:35
gets it so close. But like literally there's not
51:38
to say that I'm like, you know, a little specific about it, but
51:40
it's like I want that 7 pixels to the left, but I'm too lazy to
51:45
actually make that prompt and try and figure, you know what I
51:47
mean? Yeah.
51:48
I. I'll be.
51:49
Honest, I don't love. Like designing in any of the
51:54
prototyping tools and it's less because of a capability and just
51:56
more of like a what I fundamentally believe creativity
52:00
needs. And I think my biggest
52:04
superpower as a designer has not always been working in digital
52:08
tools. So like my program honed in on
52:12
still manual processes even when.
52:16
Adobe. Creative Suite was in full
52:18
blown. So like I had to hand paint
52:20
paint chips, hundreds of them I had to create.
52:25
Entire color. Gradients, even though I could
52:26
have opened up Photoshop and done the exact same thing, there
52:30
is just a different level of connection that happens when you
52:35
are doing things physically. And so when I feel most stuck
52:38
and when I'm starting new things, I almost always do it by
52:42
hand. Cool.
52:43
Yeah. And I still do that.
52:45
Nice. And when that over?
52:46
Time. That kind of discipline just
52:48
builds intuition. Yeah, exactly.
52:50
It's like. The reason why I.
52:51
Do this is like reasons. Don't ask me again.
52:54
Yeah, well, and and. I mean, any digital tool there
52:58
are constraints and so whether that constraint is and
53:03
distractions, I would say, I would call it constraints and
53:05
distractions. It's it's hard for a tool that
53:10
that that's that powerful to keep you focused on.
53:16
Just making. A mess, yeah.
53:18
Which I think is super necessary.
53:20
Totally or what you know the. Great, Bob Ross called.
53:23
Happy accidents. Yeah, exactly you.
53:25
Know because then that's when novelty and.
53:27
Serendipity enters and you're like, wow, actually that is
53:30
exactly what that needed. Yeah, yeah.
53:32
And I find that sometimes with AI and some of these tools are
53:35
like, oh, that's interesting, I didn't think about that.
53:37
But to get to that like final, final thing or when I'm feeling
53:42
most stuck and I can't figure out why I'm stuck, it's almost
53:45
always I need to step away from the devices and put it in your.
53:50
Yeah, cool. I know you've got a bunch of
53:54
projects, but I know you're also doing consulting work.
53:56
Where are some where? What's a good place for people
53:58
to connect with you online? Oh great.
54:01
You can follow me on LinkedIn. I have a new Instagram.
54:06
It's got 4 posts on it. We're working on that.
54:10
What are you doing with the new? Instagram I haven't fully
54:13
decided. Yet fitness influencing.
54:15
I thought about that briefly at. One point in my life.
54:17
But no, I don't think so. You pretty shredded.
54:20
Thank you. Yeah, what do?
54:21
You do to stay fit. When I'm at my best.
54:26
I'm lifting like 4 days, four to five days a week.
54:29
I really want to get back into swimming for cardio because I
54:32
hate running. It's also like terrible for your
54:34
body, but and me in particular cannot handle the high impact
54:43
right now. It's more philosophical musings,
54:47
I would say on Instagram. Yeah.
54:49
Why'd you choose that Channel? I don't have a tik.
54:55
T.O.K. Why not?
54:58
I don't want one I see. All your sports highlights.
55:01
I've cared less about those and. Less about this, yeah, I, I
55:06
don't know. I honestly, I wasn't on social
55:08
media for 3 1/2 years really at all.
55:13
So like the last 6-7 months is like that was one of my new
55:16
things where I exploration. I'm going to try being on social
55:20
media. Cool.
55:23
It's still here, but I'm not. Sure.
55:26
What that looks like, yeah. I keep a pretty strict.
55:28
Diet, you know, I, I do a lot of posting these days on social, so
55:32
that makes it puts it in a nice container where it's like I'm
55:35
there to post and check engagement stuff, but like I
55:37
don't want to get lost and now I'm just play.
55:41
Like, you know. Clash.
55:45
Yeah. You know, Yeah.
55:48
I also have a sub stack that I've been writing on recently.
55:51
It's called waste bin thoughts. Waste bin thoughts?
55:53
Yeah. Yeah.
55:55
OK, I'm going to put links. To all this in the show notes,
55:57
so you guys can definitely connect with Alyssa and of
55:59
course you have all of your projects, but you are doing
56:02
consulting work. What's what's like your favorite
56:04
kind of client and your favorite kind of projects you like to
56:07
contribute to? I mean, I think I approach
56:11
projects like I approach most of the decisions in my life, which
56:15
is, is this going to be challenging in some new way and
56:19
what can I learn from it? So that's kind of how I'm
56:23
choosing what to work on right now.
56:25
And also I think the other added thing is balancing that between
56:31
what do I want to take on and what is the cost of taking these
56:34
things on and the benefit. And so I'm actually like doing
56:39
like more business operations work right now, which is
56:44
interesting and sales stuff. So I've been itchy scratching
56:47
that muscle a little bit more than I ever have.
56:50
That's been really fun. I'm doing some like workflow
56:55
optimization stuff and then I am spending a good amount of my
57:00
time building new product. Amazing any.
57:03
Red flag projects you definitely do not want to work on.
57:07
I would say probably just like where I'm at right now, strictly
57:13
like design gigs. Where I'm just doing like UI.
57:18
Work is like fairly low on my list, mostly from like a a
57:22
bandwidth perspective. I'm really good at giving design
57:27
critiques, but tear downs, yeah. Yeah.
57:32
I don't know. I just don't want to be
57:34
designing like detailed workflows right now.
57:36
I'm more interested in like systems thinking and
57:40
architectural problems and that kind of stuff.
57:42
I love it. Before we get out of here, what
57:44
are your three favorite lifts? My three favorite lifts.
57:47
Yeah, let's see. Definitely got to throw in the
57:52
squat Squat classic back. Squat.
57:55
Yeah, Classic. Squat.
58:00
I like some kettlebell stuff. I know that's like, I've been
58:05
into calisthenics lately, so that's really where I've been
58:08
feeding my itch. Cool.
58:09
And that's like. That's like the body weight
58:12
type. Yeah, it's mostly body weight.
58:14
Focused on flexibility, mobility stuff.
58:17
Cool. And then deadlifts.
58:20
I'm pretty generic I guess. I do very traditional
58:23
weightlifting. Yeah, moly lifting.
58:26
I've been doing cycling. Lately, that's kicking my butt.
58:28
Yeah. Yeah, I can't.
58:30
I can't do that. That or running.
58:32
I'm with you. It's like the cardio.
58:33
I'm trying to convince myself Yoga's cardio.
58:36
It is it. It depends on how hard.
58:39
You go. You know, it's it's really all
58:41
it is. Jump roping's fun.
58:42
Have you tried that? Yeah, I do.
58:43
I like jump. Roping.
58:44
I like jump. Roping too, yeah, you know.
58:48
Yeah, double unders, triple unders, time to time you got to
58:53
make sure you have the proper shoes because that could that
58:55
could hurt. Yeah, I got a stress.
58:57
Fracture from that a few years ago.
58:58
Oh, where My tibia? Oh yeah, like on the shin.
59:03
Yeah, Oh my God. From jump Rope I that's what I
59:07
would. Attribute it to yes.
59:08
Yeah. Was it from the?
59:10
The rope hitting your shin? Or was it just from like all the
59:13
repetitive motion? I think the repetitive motion.
59:14
And wearing bad shoes. OK, yeah.
59:17
He's like. My God, he must be really
59:19
whipping that. Damn.
59:20
Amazing. Alyssa, thank you so much.
59:23
Thank you. This is fun.
59:24
Yeah. Appreciate it.
59:26
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