Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / The Future of AI and Fractional Work: The Rise of the Portfolio Career with Jon Younger

Transcript

The Future of AI and Fractional Work: The Rise of the Portfolio Career with Jon Younger · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:03
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs, I'm
• 0:05
  your host, the founder and CEO of Mylance.
• 0:08
  Today I'm joined by John. John has a wealth of knowledge
• 0:12
  and experience in freelance independent consulting, the
• 0:15
  future of work, best selling author, multiple exited founder,
• 0:19
  got his own business going on with AI agents, PhD from the
• 0:23
  University of Toronto. I know I could go on.
• 0:26
  I'm not. I feel like that's validating
• 0:28
  you enough, but what would, what would you say?
• 0:30
  Like what would be the rest of that introduction that's
• 0:32
  relevant for the audience today? Grateful husband of 53 years,
• 0:37
  grandfather of four, amazing kids, a great uncle of 32.
• 0:45
  Gosh I mean the rest of it. Bradley is all family.
• 0:48
  Yeah, amazing, amazing. So let's talk about for a second
• 0:53
  the last. Let's just say since COVID, it's
• 0:56
  the last five years and the fractional freelance interim
• 1:02
  workforce has exploded. Yep, I know you're well written
• 1:06
  and versed on this topic. How does this continue to evolve
• 1:11
  over the next even just 5-10 years?
• 1:13
  Like what if you had to guess? What are your thoughts?
• 1:16
  You know, the half life of capabilities getting shorter and
• 1:19
  shorter. And as the half life of
• 1:21
  capability gets shorter and shorter, as the requirements for
• 1:25
  deep skill become more and more existential for organizations,
• 1:31
  there's going to be more and more of a of a way of thinking
• 1:34
  about people. That's less like my time at
• 1:36
  Exxon and more like the time that Twitter and Microsoft and
• 1:41
  other high tech companies where people are coming and going much
• 1:44
  more often. And as people come and go much
• 1:47
  more often because the skill requirements change, you know,
• 1:50
  two things will happen. 1 is that that compensation will
• 1:54
  improve because you're not betting on the long dead quite
• 1:57
  as much and you're asking for more.
• 1:59
  And the second thing, Bradley, that I think is going to happen
• 2:01
  is, is that more and more people will find new ways of putting
• 2:06
  work together. You know, I mean, fractional and
• 2:09
  interim or two halves of the same coin.
• 2:12
  You know, how many other categories could you fit into
• 2:15
  that that description, like advisor, like contractor, like
• 2:19
  teacher? I mean, all of those things are
• 2:21
  going to happen. So I think we're going to see
• 2:24
  more and more, not instability, but more and more movement and
• 2:30
  organizations that are built to support that movement as opposed
• 2:34
  to being built to support a sedentary more more stable
• 2:40
  quality. I'm glad you brought up
• 2:42
  stability or instability, right? Because that's really the number
• 2:47
  one challenge that I consistently want to experience
• 2:50
  myself but hear about, right? And especially maybe as projects
• 2:54
  get shorter because there's more narrow expertise.
• 2:57
  So you say, OK, I'm going to make some good money because my
• 3:00
  expertise is incredibly valuable, but then the project
• 3:03
  only lasts a month or two months or three months, whatever it is.
• 3:06
  And so how do I create stability in my work life going from
• 3:11
  product to product to project, maybe advisor, maybe contractor,
• 3:14
  maybe intro, right? Like there's all of these pieces
• 3:18
  of contribution to a company. How do I pull together in a
• 3:21
  sustainable life that feels secure or feels comfortable?
• 3:25
  It's. Such a wonderful question, and
• 3:27
  it is the question of the ages. I think the answer has two or
• 3:31
  three elements. I was chatting with a cousin of
• 3:34
  mine, a younger cousin of mine who's thinking about getting a
• 3:37
  master's industrial and organizational psychology.
• 3:41
  She said, what did I think? And I said, you know, the
• 3:44
  problem with industrial and organizational psychology is a
• 3:47
  category as it was created after World War 2, doesn't exist here.
• 3:51
  It's not real any longer. You've got a different question
• 3:55
  to ask, which is where are things going to be in five years
• 3:58
  and what do you want to be doing about those things?
• 4:00
  What part of the world do you want to play in and how do you
• 4:04
  want to play and what skills and what tools do you need to do so
• 4:07
  effectively? But part of the, I think part of
• 4:11
  the solution is to not get lost in old characterizations, old
• 4:15
  areas, old ways of thinking about the future and instead a
• 4:21
  look at the future. 2nd, ask yourself, in how many different
• 4:25
  ways do you want to participate in that?
• 4:27
  Having a pretty rounded view of the stuff that I find
• 4:29
  interesting makes it a lot easier to see opportunities that
• 4:34
  I wouldn't see if I was only playing in one space.
• 4:39
  The part of that is, is really seeing the whole field and, and
• 4:42
  making, making sure that you've sent a message to the to the
• 4:46
  economy, to the universe that you're interested in the whole
• 4:48
  field. And then Bradley, I think you
• 4:51
  mentioned something super important and that is you got to
• 4:56
  ask yourself, what do you really need to be good at?
• 4:59
  I mean, just what is it that not that defines you, but represents
• 5:04
  a combination of what you like doing and do well and becomes,
• 5:09
  if I may, your personal unit of competitive advantage.
• 5:14
  Folks need that. So wide portfolio, but really
• 5:19
  clearview of what you're doing when you're at your best and
• 5:22
  trying to find more of those. Yeah.
• 5:24
  And I love the what you're doing when you're at your best because
• 5:27
  so many people are. I can do all these different
• 5:30
  things. And it's true.
• 5:32
  I'm not saying they're, they're lying, but it's not really the
• 5:36
  best way to build out this portfolio and sustainable
• 5:38
  business, right? Because then it's kind of this
• 5:40
  ad hoc whack a mole of all do a little bit of this for that
• 5:43
  person, a little bit of this for that person.
• 5:45
  And I don't have a niche, I don't have an expertise.
• 5:48
  I'm not developing and deepening my expertise.
• 5:51
  That's right. A lot of the time, right?
• 5:52
  I'm just kind of like, oh, I can help with a lot of different
• 5:55
  things. And and it's this, you know, I
• 5:57
  understand the challenge of I don't want to, I don't want to
• 6:00
  narrow my focus because then I'm eliminating all these
• 6:02
  opportunities when actually it's almost the opposite.
• 6:06
  Kind of is you don't have to do it alone.
• 6:08
  If you read LinkedIn these days. And I, I have about 13 or 14,000
• 6:14
  people that are interested enough in what I'm doing to
• 6:16
  follow me. And I follow a bunch of people
• 6:19
  as well. And so if I think about what I
• 6:21
  get in my feed on a daily basis, what that says to me is that
• 6:26
  people believe that they can count on one another to get help
• 6:30
  in finding opportunities. That doesn't mean the
• 6:32
  opportunities are are presented to them on a silver platter, but
• 6:36
  it does mean that you're more likely to be successful because
• 6:41
  other people are inviting you into their hunting parties for
• 6:45
  work. So I think that if we sort of
• 6:48
  start with this, Siri, Adam, we're creating.
• 6:50
  The first thing is spread out. Second is know what you're
• 6:54
  really good at. 3rd is make friends.
• 6:58
  You can't do this stuff alone, and to the extent that you can
• 7:02
  make friends and ask those friends, on the one hand for
• 7:05
  feedback and ways to improve you, and on the other hand for
• 7:08
  help in finding opportunities to work together with them, not for
• 7:12
  you, but with them, you're a whole lot more likely to be
• 7:15
  successful. Yeah, I mean relationships,
• 7:18
  right? Being able to be referral
• 7:19
  partners. And it goes back to what I just
• 7:21
  shared. Because if I'm, if I get to know
• 7:24
  you, John, and I know what you're specifically amazing at,
• 7:28
  it's pretty easy to refer people to you, right?
• 7:31
  Meet my friend John, he does this great.
• 7:33
  If I say meet my friend John, he's a really smart guy that can
• 7:36
  help you in lots of different ways.
• 7:38
  Not so good. Not so good.
• 7:40
  You're like, what do I do with that?
• 7:41
  Like that is useless and you're. Raising a very important point,
• 7:45
  which is from the customer's perspective, the need has never
• 7:49
  been more unclearly defined, but perfectly required.
• 7:56
  So it, what I mean by that, and I didn't say that very well, is
• 7:59
  it's some version of I'll know it when I see it.
• 8:02
  And so one of the things that drives my friends in freelancing
• 8:06
  crazy Gig AI was so impressive in 2019.
• 8:12
  Rich Wilson was very excited to explain that he had used AI to
• 8:17
  help clients identify their project proposals.
• 8:21
  Because they were all over the place.
• 8:23
  They were a mess. We didn't know how much we
• 8:25
  wanted. We didn't know when it would
• 8:27
  start. We didn't know how it would end.
• 8:28
  Give us give us a whole bunch of people to look at, but we can't
• 8:31
  exactly define what they're going to be doing.
• 8:33
  And of course we can't tell you how much they'd be making.
• 8:36
  Well, not very helpful. And so part of what needs to
• 8:40
  happen now as we think about clients is recognizing that on
• 8:44
  the one hand, they're going to be sloppy and on the other hand,
• 8:49
  they're going to be looking for that perfect match.
• 8:54
  If you are not willing to operate in a sloppy world, do
• 8:59
  not be an independent. It just doesn't make sense.
• 9:03
  You're just going to drive yourself crazy.
• 9:06
  One of my most interested questions for fractionals for
• 9:11
  consultants is the concept of selling time for money, right?
• 9:15
  Because at the end of the day, that's what it is.
• 9:18
  I like more of the selling output, selling value, selling
• 9:21
  expertise for money. It's the value based pricing.
• 9:24
  At the end of the day though, it's your brain is what you're
• 9:27
  selling. Your brain, your time, your
• 9:29
  expertise over time. How can consultants think about
• 9:35
  shifting that so that there's a greater than the 1:00 to 1:00?
• 9:39
  Because obviously when you're selling a product or you're
• 9:42
  selling some sort of software, right, one to many scales
• 9:45
  incredibly well. OK.
• 9:46
  How do consultants think about amplifying their, let's just say
• 9:50
  revenue really given the constraints?
• 9:54
  If you take a look at expert networks, expert Networks are
• 9:58
  having both a good time and a bad time right now.
• 10:02
  Part of the problem is they're not competing with Gemini.
• 10:05
  They're competing with Claude, they're competing with ChatGPT,
• 10:08
  They're competing with all kinds of folks, but they're not
• 10:13
  really. That's that's the thing.
• 10:17
  If, if somebody goes to Perplexity or goes to Gemini or
• 10:20
  goes to Claude and says give me a list of the top 20 freelance
• 10:26
  platforms in Germany, they'll give you a list of 20.
• 10:31
  Actually, they'll probably give you a list of 10.
• 10:33
  And then they'll say there's more if you'd like to see more,
• 10:35
  right? If you were to call me and pay
• 10:38
  me $500.00 an hour because that's what I charge on these
• 10:42
  expert networks, and say give me a list of the 10 or 20 most
• 10:47
  important platforms in Germany. I would say be more specific
• 10:54
  about in what areas. Be more specific about what
• 10:58
  regions in Germany. Be specific about whether you're
• 11:02
  including Austria in Germany. Be specific about who you want
• 11:08
  to identify to contact in those platforms, be specific about
• 11:13
  their reputation, be etcetera, etcetera.
• 11:15
  In other words, you can get a superficial level of stuff from
• 11:21
  ChatGPT. If I now take that to the
• 11:24
  fractional or interim, you used to be able to get a lot of
• 11:28
  knowledge from those guys. Your point about, you know, I
• 11:32
  feel bad to sort of charge them for telling them what I already
• 11:35
  know. You can't sell knowledge
• 11:38
  anymore, but you can sell wisdom, you can sell insight,
• 11:43
  you can sell a deep understanding of something.
• 11:47
  All that, if you think about expert networks is going to do,
• 11:51
  is going to confuse its market. And the job of people like Onyx
• 11:55
  One or GLG or those kinds of guys is to help the world
• 11:59
  understand that the difference between an expert network and
• 12:05
  and a search by ChatGPT is the difference between knowledge and
• 12:11
  wisdom. Now come back to the fractional.
• 12:15
  Come back to the interim. You're in the business of
• 12:18
  selling insight. You're in the business of
• 12:20
  teaching people to know how to do something that they don't
• 12:24
  know how to do themselves and to do it extraordinarily well.
• 12:27
  That's what you're paid for. You know, at at the end of the
• 12:31
  day, I spent nine months many years ago helping with the
• 12:35
  merger of Texaco Canada and Exxon in Canada.
• 12:40
  And, and I was, I don't know, like $7500 a day.
• 12:43
  I'm just crazy. And at the end of it, I asked
• 12:46
  the chairman and the president, did I earn my money?
• 12:49
  He said absolutely. And I'll tell you the story, if
• 12:52
  I may, May I take a minute to tell you the story?
• 12:54
  He. Said.
• 12:55
  Absolutely. And I said, what was it?
• 12:57
  And he said at the very beginning of this, you had a
• 13:00
  conversation with the two boards brought together and and you
• 13:04
  gave us a warning. You said we have a choice about
• 13:08
  whether to describe this as a merger or a compassionate
• 13:12
  acquisition. We define it as a merger.
• 13:15
  Expectations are very high and we could look bad if we defined
• 13:20
  it as a compassionate acquisition.
• 13:22
  Expectations are lower and we can look like heroes by doing
• 13:26
  exactly the same things. It's just we called it something
• 13:30
  else. We created the wrong
• 13:31
  expectations, he said. That was worth millions of
• 13:35
  dollars to us in practical terms because it avoided a lot of
• 13:39
  problems that needed to be avoided.
• 13:42
  I thought I was delivering value every day for nine months.
• 13:47
  You understand the distinction, those guys said.
• 13:49
  Now we we had you at a low. I'm really glad you told that
• 13:52
  story, right? Because it is that practical
• 13:54
  example and I tell this to people all the time and this is
• 13:57
  literally the example of it because I didn't have one
• 13:59
  before. But if you add millions of
• 14:01
  dollars of value and it takes 5 minutes, I don't care, right?
• 14:07
  I don't care. It doesn't matter.
• 14:08
  You don't get paid for 5 minutes.
• 14:09
  You get paid for millions of dollars in value.
• 14:11
  Now, you don't capture the entire value of that.
• 14:14
  You get a percentage of it, right?
• 14:15
  That's how it works. But I don't care how long it
• 14:18
  takes you. And I love that.
• 14:20
  You know, the other thing is you do have to remember that even if
• 14:23
  you did a great job on day one, it only lasts a day, right?
• 14:30
  So even though at the end of the day, you know, the chairman
• 14:33
  goes, yeah, that was what I liked, what what I've got to do
• 14:38
  if I want to last the nine months is keep finding ways to
• 14:42
  deliver that value again and again and again.
• 14:44
  And you know, the hardest thing to do is to decide whether you
• 14:48
  want to lead or follow. You know, as a as a coach,
• 14:52
  you're in the business of following whatever the client
• 14:56
  wants. It's kind of easy because it's a
• 14:59
  lot easier to be smart in response as a fractional, as an
• 15:04
  interim. Increasingly, I think one of the
• 15:06
  challenges and for freelancers generally, you got to be
• 15:10
  thinking ahead. You got to be thinking, what is
• 15:13
  it this person is going to be worried about needing from me
• 15:15
  over the next three to six months?
• 15:17
  How do I begin to factor that into my thinking?
• 15:22
  Going back to sustainability for a second, sure, you've been in
• 15:26
  the space for a long time. You've seen tons of people go
• 15:28
  through this. If you had to pick the number
• 15:31
  one method to consistently acquire clients, make your
• 15:36
  business sustainable over time, what would you say?
• 15:40
  You know, I'll tell you what I used to think and I'll tell you
• 15:43
  what I think now in the old days, and I am a representative
• 15:49
  of the old days. I started consulting in as an
• 15:53
  external consultant in 1980. Long time.
• 16:00
  Before the fractional movement, just slightly.
• 16:03
  Just while the dinosaurs walked the earth.
• 16:06
  And the way we used to call it then was you wrote an article,
• 16:10
  gave a speech and sat by the phone.
• 16:14
  That's the way in which we used to get work.
• 16:17
  And there was always enough work for for good consultants that
• 16:22
  were invited to, to be sort of the folks that you you worked
• 16:27
  with if you didn't want to work with Mackenzie and you didn't
• 16:29
  want to work with BCG, et cetera, et cetera.
• 16:32
  Now it's a little different if if you were to say as you did,
• 16:37
  what's the single most important thing you can do?
• 16:41
  What I would say to you is make a list of the people that you
• 16:44
  want to stay in touch with daily, weekly, monthly,
• 16:48
  quarterly and annually and be disciplined about it.
• 16:52
  And every time you have that call, start with doing something
• 16:58
  for them because you got to give to receive and then say, what do
• 17:02
  you see out there? Is there anything that you see
• 17:06
  that I could be that I can help you with?
• 17:08
  That would be interesting. So I think that it's a very easy
• 17:12
  thing which people who put themselves out get more than
• 17:17
  people who wait, you know? Simple.
• 17:21
  There you go. I, I think the other thing that
• 17:23
  you got to do is what you and other really smart people are
• 17:27
  doing. So it's, it's you, it's Connor
• 17:29
  Heaney. There's a wonderful bunch of
• 17:32
  folks and you are one of them that is putting knowledge out
• 17:36
  there, is putting names out there, is putting experiences
• 17:39
  out there. If I were a young freelancer, I
• 17:43
  would try to get on every podcast.
• 17:45
  I'd try to get on every webinar. I would do whatever I could do
• 17:51
  to just get my name out there. I'd go to lots of conferences,
• 17:55
  but but here the conferences, don't go to a conference unless
• 17:58
  you're going to do something at the conference.
• 18:00
  Go to the conference to just have coffee and visit with
• 18:02
  people is not as interesting because you don't have anything
• 18:05
  to say. Create content, share your
• 18:08
  experiences. I basically chop up my LinkedIn
• 18:11
  post and I put them on Twitter X and I got a random DM yesterday
• 18:16
  inviting me on to a founder podcast and it's like, look, you
• 18:20
  produce content, good things happen.
• 18:22
  I mean, there's lots of other good things that have happened,
• 18:24
  but it's just a super simple example.
• 18:25
  It's like, OK, I validated myself enough with content,
• 18:28
  Boom, I get invited to be on a podcast and that's slightly more
• 18:31
  distribution for me and the company.
• 18:33
  Now here's the next step. We have an interesting dilemma.
• 18:36
  Those of us that write stuff and, and that is that we like to
• 18:41
  write, but we're not so great at distribution.
• 18:43
  We kind of want that to be magic.
• 18:45
  Right now I'm looking actually, I'll, I'll say this publicly for
• 18:48
  anybody that's listening. I'm looking for a Substack coach
• 18:51
  because I am capable of knowing how to get on Substack.
• 18:55
  I know how to write, I just don't know how to get get on it.
• 18:58
  Same thing for LinkedIn for publishing.
• 19:01
  So you know, part of this is you've got to also think about,
• 19:04
  as you just pointed out, you're not only in the production of
• 19:07
  knowledge business, you're also in the distribution of knowledge
• 19:11
  business. My older son, I have two
• 19:14
  wonderful sons and my older son was for a while a, an analyst
• 19:20
  for one of the big banks and he was very popular, the analyst
• 19:24
  for one of the big banks. He had a team of two or three
• 19:26
  people, a really smart young NBA kind of folks, and then one of
• 19:30
  them once asked, well, you know, what's your the goal of this
• 19:34
  weekly report And he goes to be read.
• 19:43
  It's kind of that simple in the sense.
• 19:46
  So part of what we're talking about for folks that are
• 19:48
  listening in is there are a lot of ways to get yourself out
• 19:52
  there. There are a lot of listening
• 19:54
  posts to create. There are a lot of friends that
• 19:57
  you can engage, but what it takes is waking up deciding
• 20:03
  that's your job. Yeah, you're in, you're in sales
• 20:07
  whether you like it or not, right.
• 20:08
  As a business owner, you're in sales.
• 20:11
  So I mean, you got to do marketing and you got to do
• 20:13
  sales. It's.
• 20:15
  Exactly right. It's exactly right.
• 20:17
  So the company that you're running now is in the AI space.
• 20:21
  You said you're building AI agents, small, medium sized
• 20:24
  companies. These these terms get thrown
• 20:27
  around a lot, right? AI, machine learning, AI agents,
• 20:30
  Loms, the whole thing. Talk to me like I'm a 10 year
• 20:32
  old. Sure.
• 20:34
  What do you guys? Know how actually perfect.
• 20:37
  Yeah. What is it?
• 20:38
  The version for not just a 10 year old but anybody else is, is
• 20:42
  that the world is full of crappy jobs.
• 20:47
  They have to be done, but they could be done differently.
• 20:51
  And when we talk about the bottom rung of the ladder and
• 20:56
  the fear that we're losing entry level jobs, you know, a lot of
• 21:00
  those entry level jobs aren't particularly good entry level
• 21:04
  jobs. They just happen to be the jobs
• 21:06
  that need to be done and the entry level people are the
• 21:08
  cheapest to do it. That doesn't make them
• 21:11
  effective. It just gives them that what we
• 21:14
  know is that talent is a is a precious commodity and the idea
• 21:21
  of saying let's keep these crappy jobs because they give
• 21:26
  people a place to start. Let's find better places for
• 21:29
  people to start. I wrote an article a couple 3
• 21:32
  weeks ago and I, I was just interested in this stuff and one
• 21:34
  of the things that I found was 40% of the kids graduating
• 21:38
  college are working on an idea for a startup. 40% of the kids
• 21:43
  graduating from college have had one or more internship. 60% of
• 21:48
  the kids have had one or more jobs.
• 21:51
  So why would we want to take these precious, wonderful,
• 21:54
  thoughtful, creative, talented people and give them crappy jobs
• 21:59
  to start and say be grateful for that?
• 22:03
  That doesn't make any sense of the world.
• 22:05
  So Bradley, the first thing that when we think about the work
• 22:08
  that we're doing, we believe that there there is tremendous
• 22:12
  interest and our early clients tell us that there's tremendous
• 22:17
  interest in automating highly repetitive, highly routine, low
• 22:23
  strategic value work, crappy jobs as we now call it.
• 22:27
  We are very excited to bring a combination of the technology,
• 22:31
  the AI agents and the change management knowledge and
• 22:36
  expertise to implement effectively within the
• 22:39
  organization. And we're doing that through a
• 22:42
  combination of of education. We're talking about something
• 22:45
  that we call the AI jump start where in a week people actually
• 22:49
  get practical experience, build their own agent and, and, and
• 22:52
  then really have a sense for the change management challenge.
• 22:56
  We're working with organizations in Brazil and the US and
• 22:59
  internationally, though we're pretty young to really bring
• 23:04
  that AI agents use cases to specific companies where they're
• 23:09
  excited about it, where they see the benefits of doing it.
• 23:13
  We're training people to help us to do that as well.
• 23:17
  So we're pretty excited. The bottom line for me, if I may
• 23:20
  talk about what I find interesting personally in all of
• 23:23
  it, is that, you know, at the age of 25, I found myself in a
• 23:29
  job at Exxon Corporation, a great company to start at that
• 23:33
  time, certainly. And they gave me the chance to
• 23:36
  turn a PhD in social organizational psychology and a
• 23:39
  little bit of education into work as an internal consultant.
• 23:45
  And over 10 years, we built a wonderful team that actually
• 23:49
  made wonderful changes in the organization.
• 23:52
  Exxon was hungry, it was open, and we did some really cool
• 23:55
  stuff. I went from a real interest in
• 23:58
  organization to a real interest in talent.
• 24:02
  And, and then around 20/13/2014, I got hooked by the freelance
• 24:06
  economy and freelance revolution, all that stuff.
• 24:09
  And I spent 10 or 11 years writing about it, working in it,
• 24:11
  etcetera. And now I think I found sort of
• 24:14
  the third leg. So if the first leg of an
• 24:16
  organization's capability is its internal talent and a second leg
• 24:22
  is the external talent available to it through freelancing,
• 24:26
  through fractional, through interims, The third leg is the
• 24:31
  digital Co worker, is the AI agent that's encouraging,
• 24:36
  supporting, augmenting the capability of people.
• 24:40
  If you sort of take what Moderna and Microsoft and some other
• 24:43
  organizations are saying, they really do see this as a
• 24:47
  workforce transformation, not just a tech transformation.
• 24:52
  How could I not want to be part of that?
• 24:54
  Yeah, yeah. Wow, it's so cool.
• 24:56
  So let's apply this for the businesses of one, right, the
• 25:00
  fractional independent consultants.
• 25:02
  So the tangible examples of where these AI agents can let's
• 25:07
  just because I think maybe even businesses of one have the most
• 25:10
  to be gained from this potentially.
• 25:11
  Totally. Right.
• 25:13
  So like how do they get time back?
• 25:15
  How do they augment themselves? Like what are some examples how
• 25:17
  they can really use it? Folks who who are listening to
• 25:20
  this or watching this, please read an article.
• 25:23
  I'm going to talk about it, but I'm an old man and I don't
• 25:26
  remember all the stuff I write. So read an article from a year
• 25:29
  or two ago called CE OS talk about how AI is changing
• 25:35
  consulting. So read that.
• 25:37
  It's in Forbes, you can get it for free, etcetera, etcetera.
• 25:40
  I've been trying to create something, a new sub stack.
• 25:43
  I'm not very good at it, but I'm trying to create.
• 25:45
  I don't know how to work it, but I've been writing articles for
• 25:48
  it. Bradley, I have no idea how to
• 25:51
  take those articles and how to send them to the people that
• 25:53
  need to read it. That's kind of basic, right?
• 26:00
  Maybe technically like, you know.
• 26:01
  More elementary than that, like now.
• 26:04
  Like technically adding the articles into the sub stack or
• 26:07
  how to like grow the sub stack? Like do you have a list of?
• 26:09
  Emails, no, it's technical. It's I have no idea how to do
• 26:13
  it. But what AI allows me to do if I
• 26:15
  were to spend 10 minutes is it allows me to automate that
• 26:18
  process. So a click, click and it's sent
• 26:22
  to 13 or 14,000 people. That's one, one thing.
• 26:27
  Second is the worst thing. The worst thing that freelancers
• 26:33
  can do, the thing that they're worst at is actually billing
• 26:37
  clients. Your smile speaks volumes.
• 26:42
  So get the AI to send it out on time.
• 26:46
  Not only that, get the AI to write back 30 days later and say
• 26:49
  you still haven't paid me two ways.
• 26:52
  Now we've, we've now talked about marketing, now talked
• 26:55
  about not only marketing, but also getting paid. 3rd is AI is
• 27:01
  a powerful means of doing the research that used to take you a
• 27:05
  million years for it. That last article that you
• 27:09
  wrote, turn it into a newsletter.
• 27:12
  That newsletter that you just wrote, turn it into a podcast.
• 27:16
  The podcast you just wrote, turn it into a webinar.
• 27:19
  It gives you extraordinary capability.
• 27:22
  So is the business of 1A real one?
• 27:25
  Absolutely, absolutely. And it's not only a real one in
• 27:29
  freelancing and independent work, it's a real one in all
• 27:32
  kinds of of areas. So absolutely.
• 27:35
  I think, I think for folks that are willing to give AIA little
• 27:40
  bit of their time, the impact on their personal productivity and
• 27:45
  performance will be extraordinary.
• 27:47
  Yeah. So I mean, let's make this
• 27:49
  tangible, right? Because you're an expert.
• 27:52
  I have been playing around with my AI automations and using
• 27:56
  whether it's Zapier, which is like an kind of an old version
• 27:59
  of AI, but it is automating workflows for me, more new.
• 28:03
  I've been using N8 N to build more complicated workflows, but
• 28:08
  I'm spending a lot of time learning and building these
• 28:12
  things. Like it's not, it's not a 5
• 28:14
  minute thing. I mean, it's taking me an hour.
• 28:15
  So and, and, and there's, you know, I'm actually using AI to
• 28:19
  help me learn how to use the, you know, build the agent,
• 28:22
  right. But if I'm, if I'm a fractional
• 28:25
  and I just am not really able to create that much time.
• 28:29
  I mean, how do I like what you just talked about automating
• 28:32
  invoicing, which means somewhere I need to put in the project, I
• 28:35
  need to put in the client, the end date, the billing date, the
• 28:38
  e-mail it goes to and the draft copy.
• 28:40
  I need to have the agent look at all these things.
• 28:42
  It's certainly doable, but building that is no simple task.
• 28:46
  So like, how do you recommend people go about automating these
• 28:51
  these things over time in a practical way?
• 28:54
  You know, I, I think there's two parts to it and three parts to
• 28:57
  it. 1 is steal with attribution. I was thinking about my my other
• 29:04
  son because I wanted to give equal billing to both sons as I
• 29:06
  talked about them. So my my younger son, I think
• 29:11
  had developed a really wonderful set of formulas for his
• 29:16
  calculator when he was in high school.
• 29:18
  And I said, is that a business? He said, Nah, I'm just giving it
• 29:23
  away. There's an awful lot of stuff to
• 29:26
  be given away. It's just so we go back to the
• 29:28
  community notion. We go back to the relationships,
• 29:31
  we go back to helping one another.
• 29:33
  Second is, you know, join a platform.
• 29:35
  I mean, there are lots of platforms that are open source
• 29:38
  that don't require a large investment of part of your
• 29:41
  funds. Work with other people around
• 29:44
  that. Third is is going to get easier.
• 29:47
  We just know it's going to get easier.
• 29:50
  And the 4th is, you know, don't be silly, Mr. or Miss spend a
• 29:57
  couple of bucks to make your life, you know, easier.
• 30:00
  So I think all of those things are real.
• 30:02
  But what's what is truly at issue here, Bradley and, and,
• 30:06
  and, and I think it's a big deal is that people are now starting
• 30:10
  to imagine freelancing as a business and, and not as a, a
• 30:13
  lifestyle and, and as a lifestyle.
• 30:18
  Well, we may do this and we may do that.
• 30:20
  And I maybe if I have time, I'll do that.
• 30:22
  But I really, you know, for me, being a freelancer is being a
• 30:25
  nomad living in Bali is more emblematic of being a freelancer
• 30:29
  than having a regular business. I think.
• 30:31
  I think the future is going to be handed to people who take
• 30:35
  this more seriously and do all of the things in a disciplined
• 30:39
  way that they need to do to to be in a situation like yours.
• 30:42
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I think, and
• 30:44
  you said it like spend the money or spend the energy, spend the
• 30:48
  resources. For me so far, the resources are
• 30:52
  time and energy to go learn myself, right?
• 30:55
  I'm not paying someone to build these in part because I want to
• 30:57
  learn how to build them, not because I don't think it's worth
• 30:59
  the money, right. If you don't think you have the
• 31:02
  expertise or the time or whatever it is, then I mean, I
• 31:05
  know it's what your business does.
• 31:06
  Now go pay someone and say, hey, I need this agent to go do all
• 31:08
  these things. It's just not that expensive.
• 31:11
  Right, exactly right. It's doable.
• 31:14
  And the other thing is, you know, just I, I think part of it
• 31:16
  is when we see LinkedIn, it's really interesting.
• 31:20
  When we see LinkedIn, we see two different personas.
• 31:23
  At least I'm sure there's more than two, but at least 21 is the
• 31:26
  persona of I'm living. I I'm living my life to the full
• 31:33
  and freelancing is a part of that lifestyle.
• 31:36
  They're talking about where they are, they're talking about what
• 31:38
  they're doing. They're talking about the joys
• 31:41
  of their life. They're sharing their innermost
• 31:44
  pains. Then you got a whole second
• 31:46
  category of people that are saying LinkedIn is a business
• 31:49
  organization. I want to know who I can connect
• 31:53
  with in order to achieve XY and Z.
• 31:56
  There's room for both, but it's important to know kind of in
• 32:00
  which way you tilt when you're using these resources.
• 32:04
  That's not to be critical of anybody who thinks it's a
• 32:07
  lifestyle choice. God bless.
• 32:09
  It's my lifestyle choice as well.
• 32:11
  But to paraphrase Switzerland, it's a it's a steel fist covered
• 32:17
  by a velvet glove. We must be both if we're going
• 32:21
  to be freelancing. Successes.
• 32:23
  Wow, such good knowledge there. I'll also add around the, the
• 32:26
  sharing or stealing with attribution, if you will, is
• 32:29
  that in N8 N, which is basically like Zapier on steroids for
• 32:33
  people that don't know what it is, They have an entire library
• 32:37
  they call Temple, but they're, they're not just templates.
• 32:40
  I mean, they are fully built out workflows that other people have
• 32:42
  built that they're, you know, open source and are sharing.
• 32:45
  So going in there to search, you know, even invoicing, I bet you
• 32:49
  there is one. I haven't looked, but you know,
• 32:51
  client invoicing workflow. I, I guarantee there is one,
• 32:54
  right? So it's like, look, you know,
• 32:57
  you're right there. There's people, so many people,
• 32:59
  thousands of people in this community now that are excited
• 33:02
  about, about it, contributing to it and just helping each other
• 33:05
  out, right. And it's as it's just the
• 33:10
  beginning. I mean, this is absolutely in
• 33:12
  its infant stages. I believe in these.
• 33:15
  I think you're right. And I and I think that that in
• 33:18
  the final analysis, you know, whether it's fractional or it's
• 33:22
  or it's, or it's interim or it's freelancer, it's advisor, it's
• 33:26
  this or it's that. I think we're learning that the
• 33:30
  freelancing isn't the whole business model that, that what
• 33:36
  we're dealing with, if I may put it, are a range of ways in which
• 33:42
  we contribute, a range of ways in which we can earn money, a
• 33:47
  range of ways in which we can build reputation.
• 33:50
  And, and we need to operate against more of that range.
• 33:56
  I think so. I, I, I, I wish, I, I wish I
• 34:00
  knew the secrets of the future, but I I think that that may be
• 34:05
  at least one part of it, yeah. Well, I like we kind of started
• 34:09
  the podcast talking about what is the life you want to build?
• 34:13
  And and you kind of said it like designing it, putting it out
• 34:16
  there into the universe of like this is what the kind of roles I
• 34:19
  want projects, I want clients, I want area of expertise.
• 34:22
  I'm deep in building out literally writing it down in my
• 34:26
  perfect world in either 12 months, three years, five years,
• 34:29
  whatever it is. Otherwise, what are you even
• 34:32
  building towards? You have no idea.
• 34:34
  Yes, I like that. And I, I would add one other
• 34:37
  piece and that is Dave, Dave Ulrich, who was a partner of
• 34:41
  mine and a wonderful consultant, a wonderful author, a wonderful
• 34:44
  educator, talks about the importance of what he calls the
• 34:49
  so that and the so that is why am I doing this right?
• 34:55
  What, what, what is the larger purpose of the goal that I'm
• 34:58
  pursuing? People really ought to know that
• 35:02
  mine has changed several times over the course of my life, and
• 35:07
  I suspect others have the same kind of experience.
• 35:09
  And I hope that every year or two, whatever period makes sense
• 35:12
  for people, they sit down and they say, now that I have some
• 35:17
  sense of where I'm headed and what I want to do about that,
• 35:22
  why am I headed there? What is it about that that makes
• 35:26
  it makes it so compelling for me?
• 35:28
  Have I really thought through what it is that motivates me to
• 35:32
  move in that direction versus others?
• 35:34
  I think Socrates is an unexamined life dilemma is a
• 35:39
  very real one for independent professionals.
• 35:43
  John, we get to wrap up here in a minute, but I'm if people want
• 35:46
  to find you, whether it's, you know, read the stuff you've
• 35:49
  written, maybe work with you on the AI side, whatever it is,
• 35:51
  where's the best place for them to find you?
• 35:53
  John at Mensch dot work. That's your e-mail.
• 35:59
  Yes, Jon at mensch.org. And we will link that.
• 36:04
  Or find me on LinkedIn, John Younger, PhD and and and I'll
• 36:08
  respond. OK, amazing.
• 36:11
  Well, John, thank you so much for being here today and sharing
• 36:14
  all your wisdom and insights with us.
• 36:16
  Means a lot. Really enjoyed the conversation.
• 36:18
  Know it'll be a big value add.