Latest / The Resting Stitch Face Podcast / Stop Doing Robot Work: How AI Gives You Your Time Back with Andrea Johnson

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Stop Doing Robot Work: How AI Gives You Your Time Back with Andrea Johnson · The Resting Stitch Face Podcast

• Sarah Harding: Hello and welcome back for another episode of the Resting Stitch Face Podcast. I'm your co-host, Dr. Sarah Harding, along with Erin Sheffield: Dr. Erin Sheffield, welcome back. Sarah Harding: Welcome. Erin Sheffield: Today we are joined by Andrea Johnson. We are so excited to talk to Andrea. Andrea sounds like she's lived nine lives. She's a Sarah Harding: Regular cat. Erin Sheffield: founder of multiple six-figure businesses. She owns a couple IV clinics. I know she does some real estate with Airbnbs. Is that right? She's a mom. She's an AI expert. She's doing all the things. So Andrea, can you give us a little more info on who you are and what you do? Andrea Johnson: yeah. So I have done lots of things, like you said. My background most of my career was in financial technology and the payments and payroll space, which led me into a lot of other cool businesses because a lot of that is really meeting with business owners, learning about their business, and then figuring out how to help them. With their payments technology, which makes you really observe the way all different types of businesses run. You know, it's everything from mechanics to doctor's offices, they all take credit cards. So you look at a lot of different business models, which eventually led me down the road to opening IV clinics. I felt like it was a great business model that could help people and also cutting edge, make an impact on a community. So I went that route. And then I sold my financial technology company and during all of that decided I would launch an Airbnb. So it's kind of a Sarah Harding: And where are Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Sarah Harding: you located? Andrea Johnson: I live in Virginia on the east coast, so in between Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. Erin Sheffield: So I want Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: to hear more about AI. What are Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Erin Sheffield: you doing with AI? How are you helping people with that? What do we need to know? Andrea Johnson: So I think what am I not doing with AI would be easier to describe. But I I mean, Erin Sheffield: Okay, yes, that's great. Okay. Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: most of my daily life is centered around some sort of tool that I'm using with AI. all of my daily recaps, all of my planning for multiple businesses. It really started in my payments company. I had built our websites and all of our tools. It was just me and the other founder. And we scaled our business from zero to seven figures in under 18 months as like the only two humans running the back end of it. We Sarah Harding: Wow. Andrea Johnson: had we had a 1099 sales team, but we were we were IT, we were customer support, we were doing our demos, we were answering every client call, like the two of us answering the phones. So I knew that we had to like start building some things that happened alone. and as I learned more about AI, I really I felt like there was so much that it couldn't do. I was like, it can't do that, it can't do that, it can't do that. And then I would ask the questions and I'm like, it can do that. Like it can totally take this off of our plate and like moving things, like deployment, right? We would get an email. I would send that email to someone else. I would get a confirmation number. I would confirm. I would send it to a client. Right. There was a lot of the logistical movement. That got built into a web flow in an afternoon that was like, I never touched it again. Like, I mean, I had to fix it every once in a while, but you're talking about six hours a day of work that was like gone. I redid all of our like internal learning. I taught. Our AI to read all of our support emails every day and add everything that it learned into a wiki so that our sales team could answer their own questions from you know what was coming in, and it just refined itself and grew on its own. So those things led me to like, we're just underestimating what all this can do. And my biggest problem around all of that was that people are trying to automate the stuff that is human. And I feel like if we could automate all the stuff that is unhuman, like we don't want to do this crap. Like who wants to like mess with a spreadsheet all day? Send this email, send this thing, answer this, right? Like if we could get all of that off of our backs, then we get to go back to doing the human stuff, which is what we really felt at the payments company is like where our people need us is on demos with clients. Like let's talk to the clients we're trying to help. Or let's talk to the sales reps who need our support instead of like, I can't because I have to do all of this billing and I need to send out all of this equipment today. If you can get that off of you, then you can spend more time talking to people instead of typing, you know, spreadsheets and emails. Erin Sheffield: I love that so much. I think a Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: lot of people just assume AI is coming to take all of our jobs, but there are some jobs that will never be taken and some jobs that maybe we don't want to be doing. So if we can maximize our time, that's amazing. I feel kind of like the old lady though. Like when we were kids and computers were kind of newish, you know, everyone's starting to get one in their home. And you got like the middle-aged women that are, I'm just they don't know. I couldn't possibly send an email. And I'm kind of feeling like that with AI now. It's really overwhelming. And I do use AI at home and in my business frequently, but I don't really understand the capabilities. Like I don't even know what is what it can do. I don't know what I should be giving it to do. I don't really know how I could maximize it taking any task. I don't even know what task it can do. And I don't know how to learn about it. There's so many different systems. There's so many. So where does someone like me get started where maybe we kind of know what ChatGPT is, but we aren't using it for anything really that helpful? Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, so I don't want to do like total shameless self-promo, but I have a twenty-seven dollar Erin Sheffield: No, please. Andrea Johnson: guide on my website that is literally made for that exact scenario. Like I have no clue where to start. I don't know what to assign to it. I don't know what it can actually do. it's twenty-seven dollars, it's on my website. But truly Erin Sheffield: Where's the website? I'm ready, I'm going. Andrea Johnson: sorry, huh, Andrea's next move dot com. Erin Sheffield: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Andrea Johnson: And wanna like put myself in a box, you know? So whatever comes next. Andrea is next to Erin Sheffield: I love that. Andrea Johnson: dot com. but honestly, the biggest thing you can do, I think, I think that because we have all these tools, like we have Chat GPT, we have Claude, there's you know, all these different like apps that you get into, and most of those are built for like the visual experience of it. I was really lucky to be introduced. very early in my AI journey to working it through a terminal and more of like a code base, which I just think I don't always understand all of the technicalities of every single coding thing, right? Like I'm not a developer. I wasn't a coder when I started this, but you learn so fast from working on that side of the world, right? It feels like two different worlds. And I think starting as simple as like getting it in a terminal, right? You go on your computer and you go, if you're on an Apple computer, like search your apps and type in terminal. It's something that most people have never opened on their computer. Sarah Harding: Fair. Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: open it up, and then you're gonna go to the Anthropic site and get the code to pull the like pull Claude into your terminal. And then just talk to it. Like start, I would start with an interview, right? Like spend the next hour interviewing me on who I am, how I work, what my business is, and how I can learn how to leverage AI as an expert. And it's going to go through like a whole interview process and log all of that. And then you're gonna be able to ask it things like, you know, I'm a a surgeon. And like, why in the world would AI be helpful to me? Like, what can I possibly do with this that would make my life easier? And it's gonna start listing things. It's gonna give it back to you. Right? Like, I give it things like I need a website that's going to function like this to manage XYZ thing that I'm doing. Look at this website, read all the code base, tell me how I would build this same type of tool. And in 10 minutes, it'll tell you how. And anything that it says that I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, I just respond and I say, talk to me like a kindergartner. I have no clue what you're explaining. You need to walk me through it step by step. And then you learn from doing it. Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: A lot more than you learn from like a that's why I haven't watched Sarah Harding: Researching it on your own. Andrea Johnson: a course, even, you know, like I what am I gonna teach you in a course? It's all so specific to you and your business. So I'm doing like one on one calls with people where I'm helping them to figure out the same thing and Walking through this, but taking some online course is not gonna teach you how to apply it to you in your life. Because I use it for my home life and my kids and four emails, two sports schedules, three businesses, like and an Airbnb. It manages that entire project. So Erin Sheffield: Well. Andrea Johnson: you have to do it one thing at a time. Sarah Harding: So here's a good question for you. Like with the Airbnb, how does that help you to manage it? Booking, pricing, like Andrea Johnson: So I would show you, but so right now we are pre-launch. We haven't totally finished construction. So I bought a property at four bedrooms and we're converting it to eight bedrooms, like luxury Erin Sheffield: wow. Andrea Johnson: Airbnb on a ski resort. And it takes every email that my contractor sends, every email that the property management company sends, every email that my assistant sends that references that at all. And it sorts all of the information, any links, any data, any photos, any timelines, puts it all on a project management website that all of them can see. So, like there's timelines, all of the links to like we need to fill out, you still need to complete like this, any permits that we need. This is still listed. Here's the Google Drive folder of the updated calendar, updated photos of construction. Here's the list of things they furnishings you still need to buy. You know, and then I'll say like, hey, here's the renderings of what I want the rooms to look like. Go find me the best price furniture and put it in the spreadsheet. And then I just go check and add it to a cart. Erin Sheffield: Wow. See, that's it's very inspiring but is intimidating Sarah Harding: It is. Erin Sheffield: 'cause we're definitely the type like, I wanna take the course. What do you mean? I've gotta figure out myself. Sarah Harding: I'm just too anal retentive to hand over control. Hmm. Andrea Johnson: There's also but that's what's so great about it is like I don't do super great with assistance because I'm like I want things a very certain way and I kind of when I need something, it's like unless I'm gonna have an assistant who's just gonna answer every single time I call and like now switch gears and like now do this thing, now do this thing. That's why AI is so great, 'cause it's like you have to train it like an employee. It takes time, but it's an employee that's not gonna quit. And when you're like, stop what you're doing, I changed my mind. I now want to do these twelve other projects right now. Right. It's not mad. It's like, okay, great. Like let's we'll set that down. We'll come back to that later and we'll now we'll launch these other things for you. You know, so you get the control and you get like the assistant without I don't know, human feelings of how it's helping you or what it thinks you should be doing. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: Which brings me back to I feel like a lot of my friends are kind of shocked how I talk to my AI. We have kind of a love-hate relationship and I call my AI a lot and I will call it a dum-dum. And some of my friends are like, I can't believe you talk to it that way. And I'm like, It's not a person and it needs to get it right. And so then am I a bad person? How do you talk to your AI? I was kind of feeling better because Chr Chris Winfield, who is a big AI expert, says he's mean to his AI all the time. So that made me feel a little vindicated. But what's the best way to respond to your AI to get the results that you want? Andrea Johnson: So I don't it's not it's not emotional, right? So you're not I don't think you're gonna hurt its feelings. But I do think that Erin Sheffield: Right, that's what I think. Andrea Johnson: I think very direct feedback is what gives it clarity. Like I will say things like, Don't screw this up again. You know, like you're this is a waste of time, and we've redone this four times. So you need to triple check your work and get it right this time. I say I'd say I'm like, you know, twenty five percent sharper than I would be with an employee who I was asking Erin Sheffield: Right. Andrea Johnson: to complete that task. Right. But like Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: I kinda find it pointless, like, love you there. But I kind of find it pointless to like say like you're being stupid. Like, I'm not it's it's not changing anything, right? Like Sarah Harding: Right. And it doesn't make me feel better. Andrea Johnson: Right. So it feels Erin Sheffield: Well, I what my calling it stupid is what you're saying is like, don't screw this up. I'll be like, That Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: is not what I said. I said to do this, you said the complete Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: opposite. So stop being dumb. That's not what we asked for. Where did you pull that from? So Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. Where did you pull that from is the best thing that you said though. Like I think the part that people who are newer to AI miss in the you're screwing this up, you're messing this up, you're this, you're that, like, is why are you messing it up? Right? Because Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: it is a computer, it is a system. Find out why it keeps getting it wrong. So anytime that mine like is continuing to give me something wrong, like I'm like. Give me exactly why you're answering this way. Like where are you pulling this data from? There's a file somewhere, right? Especially if you've built your folders correctly, if you've built a brain, that stuff is super important too. Like however you're some people use Notion or they use Google Drive. I use Obsidian for all of my, you know, like I'm sure you've seen the things where it has like the the brain looking thing. All the files that link together. That's obsidian. Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: And if you've built things right there, things still get stale. Right? So every once in a while, mine will say, like, you have an eight-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. And I'm like, I have a nine-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. Where did you get that? Sarah Harding: I see. Andrea Johnson: Right? Because you found something really old from like when we first started, and that's in your memory somewhere. And we need to go get it. And whatever else is in that file, I want to know about it. Like bring me that whole folder and let's clean that up because you've got something stale that you're referencing. So I think that's that's the work with AI is you have to like clean it up and make sure it knows what you're talking about and keep your files up to date. And I mean, a lot of that stuff you can program too, like jobs that run that clean out the old stuff and clean out the new stuff, like building agents that can do that work. But that's like You know, levels up. Erin Sheffield: So when people talk about building an agent, can you describe that as if we know nothing? What does that mean? Andrea Johnson: Yeah. so I think different people use it really loosely. It's probably one of my biggest pet peeves on the internet. Like there's lots of ways to automate work with AI, right? Like you can have I mean your emails can be automated to send next week in an automation from Outlook or from G Gmail, right? Like Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: this is not that's not AI. but I do think that. There's things like cowork inside of Claude and Chat GPT and OpenAI, they have their like own ways to create like tasks. That kind of feels like you're just setting up an automation. Like you need to do this thing every single day. Even things like parse all my emails, read all my emails, give me a recap, that's things that you can set up with an automation. I don't think that that's technically building an agent. what I use for my like agent builds is called Hermes. And that is like it's literally spawning its own agent. So I think when you really get to the point that you have like an agent force, it's can it talk to itself? Right? Like can it do something with another agent that it can resolve and then fix things and like solve problems for itself? And do things without you prompting it at all. Like I get a lot of things from my Hermes team that is, it's totally coming to me, right? Like mine are all they communicate with me in Slack. So that allows me to not even be sitting at my desk and it's, hey, what about this thing? Did you do this? Did you follow up on this? They add things to my to-do list. They check my to-do list at the end of the day so that they know what's been completed. They check my sent mail to see did I follow up on the ma you know, emails. Like I think that work becomes more than just setting up automation. Sarah Harding: Makes sense. Kind of. Erin Sheffield: My brain is like spinning. Sarah Harding: I know. Erin Sheffield: Wow. See, I'm still Andrea Johnson: It can do so much more. I mean, I'm still, there's still stuff that it does that I'm like, I don't I don't comprehend like what's happening right now. And my boyfriend's way better at all of it than I am. so I I get a lot of that advice and like how those things work from from him as well. And I think when I originally started this journey. He was like, you could do that with AI. you could do that with AI. And I was always like, No, like, no, I can't do this with AI. And now it's constant where I'm like, Why are you doing anybody that I talk to who owns a business will say something to me that I'm like, You're doing what? Why would you do that? Like set it up one time and you'll never do that again. Why would you do that? What a waste of time. Erin Sheffield: 'Cause it's more mental energy to figure out how to fill it out than to do it a hundred times yourself. You think. You think. Andrea Johnson: But yes, because you haven't started. It's like Erin Sheffield: Right. Andrea Johnson: if once you start, you realize that and I it is a catch twenty two, in fairness. Like I've laughed before that I make videos and post them on Instagram about how much time you can save with AI. And I am twelve hours into a full on war with AI. And I'm like, so much time that I've saved today. Arguing trying to fix this system, right? So, I mean, there's definitely work on the front end of training it and getting it set up. But I think if you think about it like a a workforce, right? Like if you could hire a team that would cost you two weeks of training them, of really training them, of a team of people who would handle tons of admin work and all of the nonsense that you don't want to mess with and kind of like wake you up in the morning, hand you things on a silver platter. Wouldn't you take the two weeks to train those people who are now gonna work for you? They'll never quit. You might have to retrain them or teach them something new, but they're literally never gonna quit. And they would cost you probably one one hundredth of what it would cost you to have a team. Erin Sheffield: Yeah, that's so true. I mean, I think about whenever I hire a new staff member, they have to go do epic training for like a whole week. And you're like, I'd rather just have them in my clinic, but it's worth it to have them trained and to kind of know how to use a computer before they come. So but it's painful Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. Erin Sheffield: sometimes. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: They do a week of training on Epic. Erin Sheffield: I don't remember how long it seems like it. Right. It's it's probably a big Sarah Harding: When most of it's like not pertinent. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sarah Harding: Yes, but Erin Sheffield: waste, but yeah. so what's some low hanging fruit? Is there something that you see commonly that maybe almost everyone is missing that would be easy we could implement today in I AI in our lives? Andrea Johnson: I think the mom stuff, like your personal life stuff, is probably the quickest and easiest. And then you get a chance to kind of feel it out before you, you know, go full bore on your business. I got both moms? I know you are, Aaron. Erin Sheffield: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. So how many kids do y'all have? Sarah Harding: I have two Erin Sheffield: I have three. Andrea Johnson: Okay. ages, sports, like what's what's like lifestyle stuff look like? I'll give you some easy wins. Sarah Harding: So I've got two boys, four and seven, and they're both currently in soccer and in school. Andrea Johnson: Okay. What do you do Erin Sheffield: I Andrea Johnson: now to manage all of the calendars? Sarah Harding: Me on my Google calendar. Andrea Johnson: Okay. Sarah Harding: Do we miss things sometimes? Andrea Johnson: How about you, Harry? Sarah Harding: Yep. Erin Sheffield: I have ten year old twins and a eight year old. and they kinda dabble in all sorts of things, dance and theater and sports and music. And we have a skylight calendar that I've never got logged into, so it's working really well. Sarah Harding: Yes. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, so I mean I'm also type A, like before AI I bought like three new planners every year and use them and then got a new one and then bought a new system. Like I'm like ADHD type A, right? So like I will Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: redo it and redo it until the perfection is actually total chaos. so I also Sarah Harding: I usually give up right before then and I'm like, it wasn't none of it was worth it. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, I have a Skylight calendar too, and we use that too, but my AI does all of it now. So everything ends Erin Sheffield: Okay, that's what I need. Andrea Johnson: up on Skylight. So I have four calendars. Yeah, I have four calendars, four, you know, separate email addresses, two kids, one in varsity field hockey, one in soccer, and then you know, personal businesses, all those things. So I think the easiest way to start, I still I still say you should go learn in the terminal, but the easiest, easiest, low hanging fruit would be get a pro subscription of Claude. I think it's twenty bucks a month. Start a project. Yes. Sarah Harding: Do you like cloud better than Chat GPT? And why? Is it political or is it because you actually like the information that's given? Andrea Johnson: at this point I would say both. Originally I just like Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: the the way the tool worked better. I think now it's a little I like the the company. Yeah. Sarah Harding: Okay. That just bolstered your decision? Okay. Erin Sheffield: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: you know, it's like there's lots of of women involved at Claude too. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Well and I asked Erin Sheffield: Mm. Sarah Harding: that question not in not to like incite any sort of whatever feelings, but just because I really want all of the information on why people make decisions as opposed to because I don't want somebody that's just like, well, because they did this and it's like this emotional decision. I'm like, Well, that's not really helpful for me. I need to just I need the I need the tool. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, no, no, that's great. Yeah. No, I I use the tool because of what the tool can do. Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: I do so my Claude knows that I leverage chat GPT for things. So it actually will say sometimes, like you can go use open AI for this. I will copy and paste my whole conversation into a chat GPT session and then I will copy and paste for them to talk to each other back and forth. Mostly when it's a visual thing. like I just redid my website and I was trying to get like this like have like this brain with like flower blooms that come out of it, which is like a vision in my head that I was trying to make it like the brain bloom flowers and Claude was just not having it. And it was like go ask OpenAI. So visual stuff. It then OpenAI did it. It gave me a zip file. I gave the zip file back to Claude. Claude put it on the website. So Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: things like that, I think, go back to Chat GPT. It to me is still way better on anything visual. I think there's some other options that people use for visuals out there. I keep most of my stuff pretty simple with mostly using Claude. So if you get on Claude, you can make a project. I would connect all of your emails and calendars. So if you have like personal and work, I would get those all connected just to start with. I would run an interview. I anything that you do, I would always start with an interview because I think you're never going to explain as much as telling it, ask me a minimum of 30 questions and then let's go through this and make sure it's right because it's gonna trigger things that you now answer these questions is better than you just trying to brain dump what you will really want. But then I would gather all of your calendars, like every sheet of paper that they give you at open house, at the daycare, the email that they sent from wherever, you know, the soccer thing, the day thing, Sarah Harding: The seventy five emails that they sent. Yes. Andrea Johnson: the promo thing. I mean, I was just saying I'm like, why do we have 12 apps? Like there's a bus app and a sports app and a school app and a So I just download whatever they put in all of those things and spit it into AI and say, add it all to my calendar. I get a game schedule, I spit it to my AI, make sure it's all on my calendar, warn me of any conflicts. So that to me feels like an easy step one. Like give all of that like operational, how do I get this out of my head? And what am I gonna miss? And can I be there? And can we make it to that game? And did we plan that vacation? like a family time management project and then kick all of that in there and you know any parent overlap any time that a parent needs to be here or a doctor's appointment, all of that stuff. And then you could Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: ask it like, hey, what does the week ahead look like? You know, warn me of any conflicts, tell me what our plan should be. If you want to print it to a PDF or share it with a spouse or a babysitter, it'll give you start giving you frameworks. And then you just iterate on it. Like, what do you want to see more of? How could you make it better? I also like to ask things like, how could I make this 10 times better? What should I be asking you that I'm not thinking of? Like what could be better about this project? Sarah Harding: One of the things that I saw recently was about AI and using it in a different way. So just a perspective shift, where you instead of saying, How do I accomplish this task? instead saying, here's the thing that I created and it failed. Why did it fail? Even though you haven't created it yet. But then it sets it up to think about it from the standpoint of looking for reasons why it would have failed, as opposed to because I think a lot of times the feedback that we get is yeah, that's a great idea. You could do that. And here's the steps. But it doesn't, it doesn't can take into consideration failure. And so if you're having it look at it retrospectively before you actually even do it, then it then it finds all the pain points. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. And you can say like play devil's advocate. And you can say things like don't sugarcoat. Sarah Harding: Do you mean I need more than more of that than just what my husband gives me? I don't need two of those. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, like yeah, I think you I think what people miss is like you're training this or someone else is training it. Like it's not a person. So it but like people have personalities, right? So you're like training it to the way my boyfriend's AI speaks to him and the way that mine speaks to me are totally different. Like even the language that they use, like the filler words and terms that his uses versus what mine uses and how it explains things, it's totally different. And we started building them around the same time. His is we're using like similar jobs in the background, similar software is like right. But you're training this to work with you. So how do you want it to talk to you? Like I think AI was a you know, trained mostly like it it's also a product that people want you to keep using and humans want to be right. Right? Like they didn't put this thing out there to tell you like, wow, you're stupid. That's a dumb idea. That's gonna suck. Right. Like if they did that, then people would be like, I don't like this thing. I'm not talking to it anymore. It's rude. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: It's mean or it hurt my feelings. Like, Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: you know, like they built it to agree with you for the most part. And Like you have to program that out of it, which is also why I like it in the terminal better. I think it I don't know, I I feel like it has it's more like just like the the raw data Sarah Harding: Individualized, yeah. Andrea Johnson: and less of the like fluffiness of the chat GPT world. Erin Sheffield: So this is probably a really stupid question, but there have been times like I know you can if you do the training you have to make sure it remembers, right? And there are times where I thought I was adding to a bank of stories or thoughts or notes or whatever. And then when I try to pull back on it, it's like, I can't pull that back up. I can only kind of remember. And that's like devastating when you thought good, I've brain dumped all this stuff, I don't have to worry about Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: it and it's lost. Or I've had times where I accidentally sign out of, say, Chat GPT or Claude, and next thing I try to get back on and the whole thing we're just working on is completely gone. So how do you make sure it's remembering those things that it needs to always perennially remember versus just those casual conversations that can go away? Cause I've haven't figured that out consistently yet. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, you know, I think about posting about this all the time and then I feel like it feels like such Erin Sheffield: It's a dumb question. Andrea Johnson: I like I feel like it's such basic like her knowledge Sarah Harding: We found your audience. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: now that I'm like no it Erin Sheffield: You can run all of your ideas by us. We are your target audience. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Yes. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, I I love this so much because i I when I have this idea pop up in like my thread of ideas, I'm like, That's so old. Like that's nobody no. So but Erin Sheffield: Old lady, remember computer, old lady, email lady. That's the vibe. Andrea Johnson: First of all, back to the same thing I said in the beginning, like stop using these apps. Like if you really want to use AI, stop using the apps. If you're not gonna do that and you're gonna stay in old lady AI world, as you so kindly called it, if you're gonna use the apps, you need to build projects. And your projects need to have files, right? Like you are you are hiring an employee and tossing them a shirt and saying, You know, happ happy first day at work, and then they work for a day and you're coming back and then they leave, and three weeks later they come back and you're like, Hey, so do you know everything about my business? Right? Like that it doesn't work. Like they need a binder, they need folders, they need training documents. Like you have to train this AI on what you need it to know about you, and there it's not gonna remember three weeks later. something that you taught it that it doesn't have documentation on. So think about that, like like an employee. Like it needs documentation. So Couple of ways. I would have if you build it in projects, you can have it help you build your files. Right? You could start a project that says, make me an AI expert. Like I need to build my AI brain. Teach me how to do this. Help me build my files. I would highly suggest that you build your files that are movable and transferable, right? So not so I have mine in Obsidian, which I resisted. At first. I really thought that it would be better in like Google Drive or like something I was familiar with. Obsidian looks kind of cody, it's a little intimidating. And I I was like, I don't know about this. This looks really complicated. But I don't touch it. I don't really go in there. My AI builds to it. It's like my AI's notebook. But if I need to reference something, it is just it's just folders and like text documents that are like collapsible inside of This vault. That also allows you to like break it off from just text files on your computer. So when I started, I was just doing like.md files, which are markdown files inside of a folder that was on my computer, and my AI just accessed those folders. I think you get a little more like from the security side of it. if you do it in In Obsidian folder where you're like, hey, you have Sarah Harding: Interesting. Andrea Johnson: access to this full vault. Stay over here. This is your vault. You can work in here all you want. Then you can start like really layering things on. And let's say, like, open AI gets way better than clogged. You just get rid of clogged and say, like, hey, open AI, here's my vault. Let's go to work. And like, it's gonna have. Sarah Harding: Okay. And when you're saying that from a security standpoint, you're not giving it full access to everything on your computer. You just have this vault for it. And so you can add to that and it can reference that as opposed to pulling from wherever it feels like it on your computer. Is that why? Andrea Johnson: Right. Well, I mean you can ask different it you can give it different access to where you wanna give it access to, right? It's gonna ask you what Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: you're giving it access to, but you can start with your Vault folder and build in there and then give access to other points if you need to. Sarah Harding: Okay. Erin Sheffield: I know my brain is still spinning. I don't even know what I don't know. Sarah Harding: It's really funny and it's really sad because I was like a computer nerd growing up, right? Like I had a computer when I was in kindergarten and I was born in nineteen eighty four. So we're talking nineteen eighty nine and I was doing all kinds of stuff. We had prodigy. I knew how to get on the internet before I was in, you know, Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Sarah Harding: middle school and when like we didn't have the internet, right? Like and and I it's just so funny because I know that my brain functions well in that space and I just haven't allowed it the time to do it. Like with all of the AI stuff. And it's very disappointing to me because I know that I love technology and I love doing all this stuff, but I just haven't explored that world. And so this is very exciting for me because I'm like I could do this. Because it just seems untan it seems untenable Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Sarah Harding: to me. Like I like I just can't, it's just too much, you know? And so it's like, but I don't want to get into that slippery slope of being an old lady of AI or a old computer lady. Because it is a slippery slope. You're like, ooh, cause and my concerns are security. Like, do I really want to give it access to my email? You know, because then you read the articles about the runaway agents and doing their own things and all this stuff, and you're like, And what I mean, honestly, like what do I have that you're really gonna want? You know? So don't I don't know. Andrea Johnson: I mean, that's how I felt about like Alexa and Siri, but my boyfriend's in cybersecurity. So he totally agrees with any of my like, it's totally fine, it's all fine stuff. but I think there's a lot of parameters built in that if you are paying attention to what you're saying yes to, then you know, like you're building around that. I I also think that they've they've built a lot of tools around this that allows you to Scope it to where you wanna be scoped to. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Can you can you dive into that a little bit? What do you mean when you're What you're saying yes to. What does that mean? Like can you give an example? Andrea Johnson: It's gonna ask you for permissions for everything that you're doing. So, I mean, I will give mind control of my screen at some points, right? Because I need it to run things, but that's like yes for this session. Like, yes, you can go pull Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: this thing, but like, no, you can't just go pull this whenever you want, right? Sarah Harding: Right. Andrea Johnson: So, like, but there's other things where, like, hey, can I have access to this folder because I'm working inside of this folder right now? And I know that like, yeah, this folder has all my STR documents and it and all the folders and all the like webhooks and coding. Yeah, you can have that folder anytime you want. Like, yes, always. Right. Sarah Harding: Okay. Andrea Johnson: So if you're like reading what it's doing, you can also ask it, like, what does this mean? Why do you need access to that? Do you retain access forever? Like should be giving you some of those answers so you're learning as you go too. Sarah Harding: Okay. Erin Sheffield: So there is, and Sarah was alluding to this, there is a little bit of a stigma or a fear and hesitancy around AI. some of it I think is environmental things, some of it's mental health or like societal impact. What are your thoughts on someone who's really using AI? Are you kind of worried about those things? Do you think the benefits outweigh? What what do you tell the people that are like completely anti AI? Andrea Johnson: So I don't because they don't really talk to me about it. I have a cousin who's like super anti-AI. We she just doesn't talk to me about it at all. Because I'm using it all the time. So I don't think anybody comes to me and says, like, what are your thoughts on this? So thanks for the question. But one, they've pretty well proven cat GPT on fa on Instagram. She just did like a whole deep dive on the environmental side like what they're saying about the data centers and she did like a massive data analysis program that I thought was really cool that is addressing directly the question about you know consumption and proved out that like even what we're doing with AI in a day is less than like what your or others I don't know how much TV you watch, right? But like a couple episodes on Netflix every night. So I Erin Sheffield: wow. Andrea Johnson: don't know, like I don't really watch TV. So I traded you. Like I used the AI instead of watching Netflix there. I think we're Sarah Harding: Yeah. What do you mean when you say that? Do you mean just like the environmental impact of doing those shows? 'Cause I think then they then th it becomes a bigger Andrea Johnson: Yeah, like that. Sarah Harding: argument. Well, they're providing jobs, they're doing all this stuff and like the data centers aren't necessarily doing that because it's all all data. You know, I d I don't know. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, I mean, it also like the water thing, right? But they're they're also proving out that yeah, there's all kinds of other things. Like if the amount of beef we eat is using way more water than what we're using on these AI projects. So like when are we cutting back on how much beef we're eating? Like, are we working Sarah Harding: Never Andrea Johnson: on that? Are we doing that? You know, so I think I think there's a lot of things that are that come up in these like Controversial times, but also like how many people were fired up when the car was first invented and were like, this Sarah Harding: Mm. Andrea Johnson: is so bad. Like, this is gonna be so dangerous. We need Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: to stick to our horse and carriages. Like, what are Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: we doing? We can't have these cars. We need to stick to horse and buggies. Like, yeah, the world is moving, it's evolving. And I think we either learn and evolve with it or like we're not stopping it from evolving. So do I know Sarah Harding: Right. Andrea Johnson: that it's not. a not great. No, I don't, but you know, I also still eat meat and I know Erin Sheffield: Yeah, I see people who are so anti and they shame you. Like, how dare you participate in this social media trend of making yourself look like you were in the eighties, you horrible person, because you just used up a million gallons of water or something. So there is a lot of kind of sh fearmongering. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. Like I I feel like there's just no don't throw stones when you live in a glasshouse. Like I there's lots of different things that we could be doing. Like if we want to get into like how are we protecting the environment, like all of us could be making different choices. So I don't know. I drive an electric vehicle. So I use AI. I traded out. Like I don't know. Like which It's all these different things that Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: we could all do better at for the environment. I don't I think that it's gonna take jobs for people who are not willing to learn like how this world fits in. I also think it's gonna make some jobs totally irreplaceable, you know, like your blue collar, like we've got a lot of trades that need people right now. We're talking about not having work, like we've got an entire generation that's aging out of trades that they're trying Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: to settle. There's lots of jobs available for people who want to work. If you just want to sit and program bots, there's also lots of jobs to do that. Like Sarah Harding: Yeah. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: pick a side. Erin Sheffield: Yeah. I Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: mean AI is creating some different style jobs, which is something that I really like. I have a friend Carrie who's in our coaching group who does a lot of coaching on AI as well. And she's talked about like I didn't want to be replaced by AI. So I learned everything I could and now I'm the expert and now I have a job teaching people AI is kind of the vibe, you know, like rather than play the victim that I'm letting them steal my job, learn about it, become the one who knows that is irreplaceable because you're the only one that knows how to to implement. So I think that's really a smart way of thinking about it. Andrea Johnson: Yeah, and I think like I was saying in the beginning, like use it as a tool. I don't love the the side of AI that I don't love is the stealing our art, stealing our creativity, like not using your actual brain. Like there's a lot of stuff about how like AI is gonna make us dumber. Yeah, like if you're lazy and dumb, I don't know. Like, did did YouTube make us dumber? Like, no, you can either use it to go learn Really great stuff. Or you can like look up fart videos for twelve hours. Like well, I mean, what are you using? Sarah Harding: it's almost like you've been in my house lately. Andrea Johnson: I am a nine year old, right? Like, what are you using the time for? So yeah, you can make Chat GPT your emotional support animal. That is your choice. That would be kind of stupid. Like it's a computer. Like you can talk things out with it, but this should not be your therapist. Or you can use the tool for like doing something really great and advancing things. I mean, my daughter uses it to quiz herself for Tests. Like that's pretty good use Erin Sheffield: wow. Andrea Johnson: of it. Like uploading Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: stuff and saying like run a quiz. So I think there's different use cases. I mean, you can give anyone a tool and they could use that tool for good or for bad. Sarah Harding: Fair. I like that. I think that's fairly Erin Sheffield: Definitely. Sarah Harding: fair. Erin Sheffield: What do you think about social media and AI taking over? Are you really good at telling AI script? Andrea Johnson: I am so frustrated by the blend of social media and AI. Like I just I feel like everything that I try to put out with social media that talks about AI is like conflicting with people who want to use AI for social media. I already had a Erin Sheffield: sure. Andrea Johnson: hard time with social media before I decided I was gonna try to build a personal brand. I was like not on Instagram because I didn't like it. Now I'm like tried to build this personal brand. And it just seems like what people want to learn about AI is how to automate their voice onto the internet. And I'm like, wait a second, like that you Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: you can't do that because you're a person and that's a computer. So Sarah Harding: Yeah, but even on Riverside lately, they just launched the AI twin on Riverside, which is our recording platform. And so Erin Sheffield: No, I didn't know that. Yeah. Sarah Harding: you can you can set it up so that you have if you didn't like your intro or if you if your hook wasn't hitting right or whatever it is, you can have your AI twin and it will do it. And and I was like, no. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. I don't I don't love that side of it. And like don't get me wrong, Sarah Harding: Mm. Andrea Johnson: they I've definitely like I don't love recording. I'm talking and videos Sarah Harding: Right. Andrea Johnson: are not my favorite. Like there is definitely a part of me that's like, wait a second, hold on. So I could like record these videos of myself and then Sarah Harding: Mm. Andrea Johnson: forevermore, I don't have to do that anymore. I'll just give it a script and it'll be me. That's the only side of this that I think is not great. Like I don't Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: think we should take away human work. I think we should take away robotic computer work Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: and allow the humans to do the human things. Even the things that are hard. Like do the hard human things. Yeah, like push yourself through that. Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Especially the things that are hard. Yeah. Right. Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: Don't just create a robot of yourself. And I I think they're gonna get harder and harder to decipher. Right. The scary side of this world is the you know, could somebody FaceTime you and look just like your kid? Like Sarah Harding: Yes. Andrea Johnson: that's the scary side of this world that Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: I think, you know, we're going down where, you know Sarah Harding: 'Cause they've already started that with the voice mimicking. So Andrea Johnson: With voice phone calls, I saw one where a girl was saying that it was like her mom crying on the phone. They had like copied her mom's voice or something. Like that's that stuff is super scary. But again, Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: I think it's the same thing as like if I hand you a shovel, you could use that shovel to dig a garden and, you know, like plant something beautiful and grow food or whatever. Or you could use that shovel to bash someone in the head. Like, you Sarah Harding: Right. Andrea Johnson: know, like What do you choose to do with the tool? We're not gonna control the entire world and what they choose to do. And the tool is already out there. It's already running. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: So we're not like we're not putting it back in the camp. Erin Sheffield: Yeah, I think sometimes I mean, boycotts can work sometimes and you have to stick to your morals, but sometimes it's it's there either way. So maybe take full advantage and make your life better. And we talk a lot about that on this podcast, you know, there's so many things pulling at you in your time and to live an intentional life. And this sounds like it could be an amazing tool to help people do that more. I think offloading those boring calculating tasks instead of the creative side. But yeah, I think when we offload the creative and the intellectual side and the personal side, that's when we lose something. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. And losing the human side of who you are. I think there's a lot that we can do that we can use this to our advantage. And I think there's if you don't learn it, then you also don't know the scary parts of it that you should understand to protect yourself, right? Like you would be able you're asking, like, can I spot an AI script? I can probably better than others could because I'm working with it, because I understand it. So I think you've gotta you know, know both sides of it to be able to know what's happening and how it's evolving too. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: Well, and that's something I've learned and we've talked about that on this podcast too. I've had times where it lies to you. It will just blatantly lie. And there are stories out there about people doing research, academic research, medical studies, et cetera, and they are citing fake articles that AI made up, you know, things like that. So you do have to have a little bit of oversight because it will say things sometimes that just thinks you want to hear doesn't want to let you down. Have you run into that as well? Andrea Johnson: I think that's again like what you're using and how you're training it. Like it that's that's the difference in a Google search or you know, searching through an encyclopedia with cited work, right? Like you could also go find a Reddit feed that said something if you just believe what Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: you read on the Reddit feed, like that's that's your choice, right? So I just Erin Sheffield: Exactly. Andrea Johnson: think sometimes people are saying this stuff and it's like, yeah, well, like you have to use your brain too. You can't just get it It's no different than searching the internet. If you're using it like a Google search, then it's responding to you. This is not just fact. It's just using it like a chat. Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: I do think once you've programmed it and you've set parameters and you've, you know, framed things out, it can be more trusted. But I think you also have to say things like, never make assumptions, never guess at things. Don't give me what you think I want to hear. Like this, this can't ever happen. And when you find those things, hey, how did this happen? And where is your backup? Let me see where you pulled this from. Never do that again. Find your notes, find your log inside of your.md file, inside of the about you, right? Like never ever give me information that you cannot cite a clear documented source. And this source that you pulled from off the internet is a garbage source. Like put this in a garbage list, you can't use that source. Cause maybe it pulled it from Reddit, right? Like you don't know when it's saying it's lying, it it got it from somewhere, right? Somebody Erin Sheffield: Right. Andrea Johnson: else programmed that that that was the truth in the, you Erin Sheffield: Right. Andrea Johnson: know, wild web. Like, but it's getting that information. Right. It's like cute, you know, Erin Sheffield: Right. Well, it can only be as good as its sources. Yeah. Well and I think Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: in our shared experiences, AI is now this. shared experience of everyone that's training it. So it thinks that it's giving you factual information, you're gonna have to decide what your parameters are on what you accept. Erin Sheffield: I mean, I am glad that you can train it. I've had some things where it's gotten better, thankfully. For example, I could ask it something like, How many calories are in 1.763 ounces of homemade orange juice or something? And it will be like, it's thirty-seven calories. And here's a recipe for making orange Julius's and orange cinnamon rolls. And I'll be like, That is not what I asked you. Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: I don't need all that extra stuff. It's always trying to give like a little more to keep me on the app. Sarah Harding: Right. Yeah. Erin Sheffield: And I'll be like, Stop. Stop making assumptions. Stop giving me extra Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, but that's Erin Sheffield: stuff. And so when I call it out on it, I'm like grateful that I've been able to like get it to stop doing stuff like that. But you do have to tell it what you want it to do. Andrea Johnson: I think that's like the funner chat GPT function of it. Like it's not as much of a tool. If you I'm Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: telling you you would have a different world. If you move into more of the the code side of it, I think you would see that you're using it more as a tool and you're pulling from files. So you have a folder and this folder is, you know, a diet folder. Right. Or a health and wellness folder. And like, here's your parameters for working in this folder. These are the things that I need you to work on when we're in here. Now I'm tossing a question at you. Like you're working off of this set of rules and it's not chatting with you. Or do you want it to be chatty? Hey, like when we're conversing, I want you to be conversational. I want this to feel like a real conversation. Or do not ever ask me a follow-up question. Answer my question and move on. Like that's Erin Sheffield: Right. Andrea Johnson: it. I'll ask you if I have another question. Erin Sheffield: Yeah, that's helpful. Sarah Harding: Yeah. This has been incredible. I feel like I've learned so much and like motivated to to go out and do the things too, which is, you know. Hard for me. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. I've I've got ready. I posted on my stories a few times and I've had like a few people in the franchise space that I'm in say, like, hey, you should like teach us how to do this. And I at one point said, like, what if I run like a $200 course where I just get like 10 people, eight of us, I don't know, and six of us, whatever it is, for 200 bucks, we get on and we spend like a few hours, a couple hours, and like Show me your screen, or here's the prompt. Copy Sarah Harding: Mm. Andrea Johnson: and paste this. Now where are you at? Where are you at? And like just like a base 101 setup, because I feel like that's where people get stuck. And everybody, Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: I mean, the five or six people recently that I've been like, just share your screen. Let me show you. Right. And we go through it. Like within a couple of days, they're like, my gosh, I feel like you gave me like the keys to the kingdom. Like this is insane. Like I'm building websites, I'm building a new CRM. I'm I'm like, I know, like once you've unlocked it, you're off to the races. Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: Well, I'll sign up. That sounds very helpful. Sarah Harding: I know. Erin Sheffield: So where can we find you if we want to sign up for this or anything else you're working on? Because you're such a wonderful resource and I know you're happy to share so much of it. Where do we connect with you more? Sarah Harding: Yeah. And you make it relatable. I think that's the biggest thing because so often in this space there's these like you know, and I'm Andrea Johnson: Yeah. Sarah Harding: like, you already lost me. shoot, you know. And and so then you just give up. Erin Sheffield: Of course you know what to do. You're a total tech bro type of thing. Yeah. I that's not me. Yeah. Sarah Harding: Right. Yeah. Andrea Johnson: Exactly. And they're using language, but I'm like, I'm like, never mind, never mind. And and what I was saying in the beginning, like before we kicked off, like if it starts feeling like a distraction or a hobby, like I'm like, I have work to do. You know, and Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: you guys have both said that, like it's it's for lack of time. Like you're already doing all of this other stuff. I don't have time to like pause to rebuild all of this stuff over here. So Unless it's like streamlined and I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something and moving it forward, I'm like, never mind. This is a waste of my time and I need to get back to work. I've got too much to do to be like tinkering and trying to learn code. so Erin Sheffield: Exactly. Andrea Johnson: I I totally agree. And I would love to help anybody who wants the advice. I'm on Instagram at Andrea's Next Move. My website is www.andrea's next move.com. Sarah Harding: Shah. Andrea Johnson: you can find me in both of those places. I've got a wait list for like a community that I want to build that is, you know, entrepreneurs, women, people, you know, growing things who want to talk about tech AI operations. So I have a wait list for that. I've got my guide on there, and then I have like some consulting offers and a call booking link. But I I'll post something on my stories again about maybe launching some sort of a like small group. I just feel like it would be really fun too. Like I've Sarah Harding: Yeah. Erin Sheffield: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: I have so much fun with this. I'd like to try the Sarah Harding: Yeah. Andrea Johnson: like just small group too. Sarah Harding: Yeah, it's fun with like collective Erin Sheffield: Definitely. Sarah Harding: wisdom and collective experiences to build it. I think that'd be really awesome. Erin Sheffield: And realizing you're not the only dumb one that doesn't know how to save things to the memory and train your AI. So Andrea Johnson: I feel like I learned like in a week. I feel like it went from I don't know what you're talking about. Like what? Sarah Harding: Zero to hero, yeah. Andrea Johnson: And then in like a week, it was like a light turned on and I was like, my God, this is nowhere near as complicated as I thought it was. And like, watch Sarah Harding: Mm-hmm. Andrea Johnson: this and I could do this and we can, you know. So I like I genuinely really want to help. Some people just like flip the light switch on. Erin Sheffield: I love that. Cause I'm I'm feeling inspired and also still a little lost. So definitely we will be coming to Andrea's next move to be getting all the help and guidance and I'm sure it will more than pay for itself and the investment with all the time and money we will save. So so valuable. Sarah Harding: Yes. Mm-hmm. No kidding. Erin Sheffield: Thank you so much for your time today, Andrea. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Sarah Harding: Yes, we've loved it. Yes. Andrea Johnson: Thank you so much for inviting me. This was so much fun. I really enjoyed it too. Erin Sheffield: Thank you. Sarah Harding: and as always, like, share, and follow, and we'll drop all of Andrew's information in the show notes. And we'll see you next time.