How to Build a Career AI Can't Replace | Ep 10. Laurie Wang

My guest today spent over a decade teaching professionals how to bring complex tools and new tech into the way they actually work. And when her clients started asking her about AI, she followed them. Today, she's the founder of Modern Skill AI, a keynote speaker, and a YouTube creator with over 200,000 subscribers. and she built all of it around one idea. Creating a career where nobody can replace you.

Lori Wang, welcome to Women Lead AI. I'm so excited to have you here, Lori. And I would love to know um how you started your why did you decide to start your own company? uh you previously worked at uh Google Meta uh but you decided to go on your own. So um tell me how um how was what was your thinking uh when it comes to that.

First of all really great to be here. Thank you for the invite Victoria. I always wanted to look out for the next challenge and for me at the time when I felt like at Google and meta I built a great you know baseline of knowledge and I learned so much from people around me but I felt like at certain points and I think some of the guys who um some of the women who are listening to this podcast they might resonate with this point is that you might feel like at one point you're living beyond the story that you told yourself and you feel like you're ready for that next chapter next challenge. >> And at that point, I felt that the program that I was building at Google, helping small businesses, helping um individuals to upskill themselves in terms of what they're working on and build their brand online and marketing their businesses. All that was amazing.

And I saw the program coming to a specific direction that perhaps it needs um another new leadership to take it forward. And for me at that point it was a very natural process of shifting from that into this new I call it my next era that I was stepping into. >> And I was always itching to start something on my own. I looked around at all of my friends who maybe have jumped to entrepreneurship um others who have jumped to freelancing. And I was just curious on what that might be like.

And I started to embrace this philosophy of doing more of an experimentation in my own life >> rather than um I suppose just accepting the status quo. And at this point I thought why not take that leap into the unknown and experiment for the next 6 months and see how I feel. Um and I really enjoyed it. I started to do a lot more talks and trainings on the side while I was working and I started to build up a bit of a network as well which is really important as you jump into a new business. So after 6 months I felt like it was the right time and I took that leap fully um really never looked back because now I feel like I get to wake up every day being really excited that I get to help and um love up the businesses and you know the careers of someone who's looking for the help that I can provide.

So I think a lot of entrepreneurs they go into this really with that big heart is that they want to help people and provide value. So >> 100% I I love this story and I think jumping into entrepreneurship is such a brave decision that it takes uh it takes a lot of guts. So um I will definitely cheer you on. Um >> thank you. Um when it comes to the customers that you now work with, what would you say are the biggest challenges that they come to you and uh would like you to help them with?

>> Yeah. So I would say first of all is thinking how does AI even fit into their business >> or fit into what they're doing their workflow at work. So the kind of uh audiences I speak to really split between two groups. One of them are essentially current professionals who are working as knowledge workers in what they do and you know their companies asking them to use more AI and they have this overall directive coming down from the top but they're not really sure how and how could they use it in the right way that is not infringing on what they can do already and their current experiences but at the same time they feel that if they don't catch up then they're being left behind. This fear is very real.

On the other end, there is the group of founders and solar entrepreneurs who are looking to scale their businesses. But one of the biggest bottlenecks with scaling their businesses is essentially hiring and hiring the right people. >> Now, with AI, if you're able to plug that into your business in the right way, you essentially can save costs by actually employing some AI workers to do the more mundane admin and repetitive tasks. And then you then free up the people that you actually do hire who can do the more strategic higher level thinking. Uh things that can really move your company forward and scale much more quicker and for you as a founder to step away from the everyday admin and to really take that forward and taking the more strategic visionary role.

>> So those two groups uh I think they struggle with similar but not the same things. Um so on the knowledge worker side one of the biggest things is to understand they don't need to be overwhelmed by the amount of AI tools are out there which one do I go for which one do I not go for and if this is the one that my company has given me how do I make the most of that capabilities of this AI tool with the variety AI tools I've been given and most importantly how do I use it safely right because within the context of how to share information the right way is the guardrails built in place so the AI agent or the AI tool that you're using doesn't go crazy essentially off the guard and then on the other side with um the founders and entrepreneurs is understanding how do I again use it in a safe way where I'm not sending my sensitive customer data and other things that's within my business that needs to be safeguarded and how do I make sure that's protected at the same time also how do I make sure that it's actually increasing productivity of my business and also of my existing employees rather than taking away of that. So understanding workflows, understanding having a minimal viable set of tools that you can use that's really effective in driving your your goals forward and actually measuring how much productivities is actually saving in my business and in my career. M this is so interesting and I think the challenge that even I experience is the fact that it feels like the education now has to be continuous because the tools get updated at such rate that it's really hard to keep up. uh but the the companies have to have some kind of continuous training otherwise uh they won't get the best out of out of people um while they're using these tools.

What what do you think about that? >> The continuous training. >> Yeah. And and how do you do it as well? >> Yeah.

Um, so one thing that I always believed in my life and that's helped me in my career and I want to share this whoever's listening to this podcast as well is the habit of embracing continuous learning and being good at learning to learn is probably one of the most essential skills that will make your career and your business you know irreplaceable I guess in this case also future proof no matter what happens and with AI and the rate that it's going right now there's obviously a lot of fears there's a lot of uncertainty and I don't really know because I'm not a futurist in terms of what may or may not happen and we don't know this but the one thing that I believe will always put you ahead of the game is being curious and then be able to be okay with failing and breaking things and this applies to anything right but especially in this age that we're in now where you really have the capacity and the permission to go ahead and just embrace that failure but learning from it um And again as employees work in the company even if let's say your company is not currently pushing AI or pushing that continuous learning or having existing modules or training programs in place what you could do in your own time is staying curious and go home and open either chatbt cloud or any of these kind of AI >> LM tools that we currently have out there at the moment and just give it a go. So find some of the most basic things that you want to maybe try to plan or to help it assist you with and then see what comes out because that first initial just starting is probably the biggest hurdle that anyone can go through and we're still at very much the beginning of it all right now. Um there's this amazing infographic which I share with you Victoria afterwards that you can maybe share with the audience. >> Yeah. essentially looking at how many percentage of the global 7 billion population is actually even paying for an AI tool.

So that's 0 I believe 0.3% of the overall population currently paying for an AI tool on a monthly subscription to use it. >> So the majority of the world actually are still learning this and still really thinking about how this fit into their lives. So by you being curious about it and wanting to start trying it outside of work, even currently at work, you don't have that support system. That puts you ahead of so many professionals right now.

Um, that's such an insane statistic and I think when you are in that AI bubble where all of the people that you interact with are, you know, obsessed with cloth or some other tool, you really forget that a lot of people don't have that um level of knowledge and they're not familiar with it. Um what um I would love you to uh tell me is when you do trainings uh for the companies how what are some of the biggest challenges that they have when it comes to uh adopting these tools? Is it is a part of it also a mindset a mindset shift that they have to experience where a lot of people have that fear that I will adopt this tool and then it's going to replace me and I'll be laid off. Um so how do you how do you approach that? Uh you have a degree in psychology so I imagine that that comes in handy as well.

>> Absolutely. So that part you touched on Victoria is so important and the mindset shift is a big part of adopting anything internally with regards to transformation for any companies but AI now especially is that point where I think that safe of mind needs to come down from the leadership teams. Uh so some of the teams that I work with I think they have some fantastic leaders in place where they understand there's this underlying fear. So they're addressing this with their team's front in the sense that we understand what you guys are concerned about. But what we want to tell you is that this current implementation internally is not to remove your jobs but actually to help you become more productive so you can do the things that you're really good at and then outsourcing the mundane admin things that could take away your the time of your day.

So that's a big thing that it has to really come down from the leadership team to communicate that very clearly internally. Um, and having very honest conversations with your current team members about what they're struggling with. Are there any processes that they feel that they could be automated that could take away from their current workload? Um, the other thing is really thinking about understanding how do you actually become an AI champion in your company. And I want to really touch on this because this is one of the biggest opportunities in anyone's career at the moment.

One of the biggest challenges that I hear from companies are that they would love to have more people internally embracing this particular role just because these are the individuals currently in HR, in legal, in uh sales and marketing who know their roles really really well. >> They're right. >> Exactly. they can think about how do you actually now automate a lot of things that potentially are repetitive um uh think about some of the processes that can be streamlined and then leveraging AI to do that they're stepping up internally and those are the individuals that will eventually get promoted they will get visibility within the leadership teams and they will actually have a much more accelerated career path because of it so if you can think about right now are there anything that's currently in your role that potentially could be streamlined or made into a more productive workflow using AI >> and then share that in your next team meeting. That could put you so much more ahead in terms of your current career.

M I feel like there's a big disconnect though between those people that want uh to want to automate a parts of the role or they feel like oh this is a solution that I would uh really uh love to bring into my company especially in large companies where adopting the tools is not just you know using a CEO's credit card to um to put on a new subscription where you have to go through internal processes is um to to bring something into the company and how how do those champions uh do that in in those large organizations? M so I would say for these individuals first of all amazing having that proactiveness in terms of even thinking about in the first place but also like I said earlier in the sense that when the companies is giving you a specific set of tools that's internally approved and they've been they have actually built in the safeguards around it use that space to start testing what you're currently using your workflow >> so start to implement some of the things that you want to uh perhaps automate or streamline line and then really record the before and after of the results that you generated by, you know, literally something that you can showcase on the benefits that you brought into the team. Let's say I we shaved off maybe a whole entire workday because it's one particular process that's been taking up so many hours of our workday and sharing that with the leadership teams to make it very clear to them. It's a bit like back in the day when I remember I used to work in social media and marketing and for a very long time social media was something that either corporate executives or companies which is hard to believe now thinking this isn't for them this is a bit of a waste of time >> and for you as a social media marketer to go into that meeting to showcase the stakeholders of how much benefit this has brought in it really takes a bit of creative thinking. So how do I track for example this piece of content has brought into results of making this many sales potentially bringing this many leads and sometimes you can definitely showcase the measure results of those and when you can do that it makes a much more stronger case on whether or not you can bring this internally into your team as well.

And what do you think are those KPIs that the companies should focus on when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of adopting a X Y and Z tool in the company? Really it just comes down to the time and the productivity saved because ultimately uh what companies really want right is the idea that by implementing this new transformation is actually helping our teams and helping our people to become more productive and this is the key metric that's being measured by so many studies right now. So Deote actually just recently came out with a very recent study on um how much has AI actually even helped individual team members within specific companies. >> Um and that I think things like that is really interesting because it may or may not always be tangible in the sense that um sometimes the measurements could be incorrect or or a bit misleading but what it is is actually telling you overall trend of what this could be going. Um, and what we're seeing definitely improvements, but at the same time, there's also this really interesting study that's talked about how workers generally shouldn't use more than let's say four or five tools at once because it actually takes away um their productivity because they now have a I suppose a choice fatigue of which one to go for and how do I use it in the right way.

Um, and I think that's the key thing to remember is that rather than just constantly using AI tools is is this actually the right tool for what I need and also how do I make sure I use it in the most productive way. >> And do you think small companies, startups have uh leverage here because now they're able to do much more with uh way fewer people and also they can iterate quickly and adopt these tools quickly. So would you say this is uh you know one of the best times to uh to actually run a startup? >> Absolutely. In terms of startups, I think there's no better time and I always, you know, say to a lot of my friends that uh I feel like we're living in one of the most exciting times in history, but at the same time also uncertain, right?

Um and as a startup, the amount of resources that you have access your fingertips now is incredible >> and things that I would even say for me to be unimaginable even 5 10 years ago. So I think as a startup the amount of uh technologies that you can start to even build something that from a minimum viable product all the way to a shippable product is really fast and that timeline shrinking every single day. Um at the same time I do think there is also the concerns of making sure that you are putting guard rails around whatever tool that you're currently implementing within your startup. And we all hear the fearful stories of, you know, how overnight this AI agent deleted, you know, essentially half the database of a specific startup that's actually running really well. I'm not going to name names here, but um unfortunately that startup had to go bust overnight.

And it's just things like those kind of warning signs of think about if you are implementing these processes and AI agents and workflows within your startup just making sure that you have the right safeguards in place to essentially protect yourself from those scenarios. M and that's something that I struggle with because the biggest benefit of AI tools is that you can integrate it into everything into your Gmail calendar and then you can you let's say uh we're talking about cloud then you can use one tool for almost everything. Um and when you have it connected to your drive and to your documents you get you know real value out of it because it has the right context. But then comes the question of is it safe? Is it secure and what are those potential risks?

So how do you balance the the two? First of all, I always say only give access to the tools that this particular task only needs right now. So uh you don't have to give access of every single thing that you're working on right now plugging into claw whichever uh language model you're using. And the secondly is to think about um are there specific instructions I can give to the AI let's say in this case it's an AI agent that you're working on working with and are there specific instructions I can give the AI agents to make sure that it doesn't [clears throat] do those things beyond my human input. So for example, very simple example here.

Let's say you want to draft emails uh and just only draft emails to inbox to your inbox at the moment where there are new emails coming in and you don't want to go in there writing the same thing back to every single customer support request. So what you could do is then instruct a specific set of skills where you can give it to let's say in this case Claude or it could be gems for Gemini. There are all different kinds of uh names for these things but really for each specific tool. You can give a very specific set of instructions say only follow this step by step but also I do not want you to send emails of any kind externally. >> So only after I reviewed it where I can then send the email.

>> So then you put that safeguard in place where it's only drafting these things for you and there's still a layer of human input that's put in there. >> Um so I think those two elements are really important. So first of all, control what you give access to and then sometimes you can even remove the access if you don't need it anymore to make sure that there's really not that potential of things going wrong on that side. And the other one is also thinking about are there specific instructions I'm giving my AI tools to make sure that they are not going beyond what I'm uncomfortable with. And we all have different comfort zones.

So >> yeah. No, of course. And you know we are talking about startups and you have started your own company. I would love to know what kind of lessons have you learned from through that process. Um and when you compare yourself as a leader uh back when you started the company and now what are some of the key takeaways um that you have when it comes to running your own company?

I think really it comes down to these four sets of things that if I had to look back these four things have completely shaped the way that of the person I become and also of the entrepreneur that I was able to step into. >> So first of all is to have your perspectives and knowing [clears throat] what you stand for and what your point of view really is in the industry that you're in. M >> so this could be let's say you have a very contrarian view to what everyone else is saying in the industry or maybe you have a very specific set of ways that you do things that's different from other people and there's a reason why you started the business that you're doing in the first place for example for me um my perspective is that I always love to make complex things simple >> and that's been very much central throughout even before I became an entrepreneur and I only realized this now looking back that when I was at Google for example I wanted to make digital skills from this jargon laden ways of it was back then where people just throwing massive big technical terms around into something that's actually really easy to understand and small business owners and individuals can learn from our courses and realize actually I can do this. I can use Google Adwords. I can go on YouTube and start a channel.

I can um learn, you know, how to use Google SEO to actually get myself ranked when people are searching for my company. So, making complex things simple is what I'm known for and what I stand out and that's my perspective that's only unique to myself. So, think about what your perspective is and I think that really helps in shaping your business in that way. Um, the other one is inputs. So I truly believe that our brain and our life is made of the input that we feed our minds daily.

So for example, I don't like to doom scroll through social media. Even though I do have to build a personal brand on there, I'm very intentional about the type of content that I listen to, that I watch, um the news that are coming into my feed because I think all of this influences your thoughts for the day. And we are what we think, right? And every single moment, you know, we're dealing with so many different negative you positive thoughts coming our way. And unfortunately for majority of us, and I myself included, I remember this back in the day, about 90% of my thoughts are either worries or negativity.

>> And um as someone that has studied positive psychology, I realized how important it is to curate that input. Uh so be very intentional about the type of people that you follow. >> Be very intentional about the books that you read, the things that you're consuming every single day. And then the third thing is um really skills. So building the skills uh and really think about what kind of skills do I currently have and what kind of skills do I need to continue building on my business even further.

So every year I like to write sit sit down on January and I write down a list of things that I want to work on for this year and they don't have to be very specific like you know very smart driven goals which I know some people love but for myself it's more a set of skills that I feel like either are currently lacking or things that I want to improve on because I feel that we can always improve on who we were yesterday >> and for me like thinking about the skills that I want to work on and really incorporate in my own journey and also for my own business is so important. So this year, um, one of my biggest biggest things I want to work on is thinking about speaking a tech talk. Um, so I've been researching and also reaching out different organizers. So fingers crossed later on this year, I could share some good news on that. But, um, there's just always different things.

So, I feel like choosing that discomfort and stepping beyond my comfort zone in my business by doing these three different things really clearly every single day has really helped me to build that business that I'm proud of to continue building tomorrow. So, >> that's uh that's absolutely incredible. And you know, when we're talking about uh making complex things simple, this is something that you have been doing on your YouTube channel. So, how how has your personal brand influenced the company that you're building? It's um it's actually a really interesting time to be in that space right now just because we're seeing so many creatorled businesses being launched and the reason for that is for the first time ever um since obviously I started a YouTube channel and also seeing other creators doing it is that you now have built distribution in terms of what you're going to sell as a service or a product and we've seen all kinds of creators do this right up from the massive ones like Mr.

all the way down to the microcreators who are creating very niche communities of what they're known for and you know they potentially can sell services and products in the back of that. So for me um on that journey it was really interesting. I wasn't intentionally trying to become a creator-led business, but in the process of building essentially just sharing videos of myself, documenting what I'm learning, what I'm loving at the moment, uh content that I'm consuming, and then sharing that with others. In that process, I feel that I've built um essentially a little network of community of people that wants to learn more from me, which is amazing. And I realized that YouTube is probably one of the most biggest ways that you can create that global audience that you can share your knowledge and your insights with.

And for me as a you know training development company founder, I've been doing that traditionally very much in person. So I would stand in front of a stage or in a company team's training room or virtually on Zoom and that would be a set amount of audience let's say 1 to 500 or 1 to 20 in a small workshop. But what I realized the power of it is that with YouTube now I can reach potentially millions >> and anyone anywhere in the world can learn from me. And that itself to me is very empowering in the sense that um and I feel that people really they build trust in you first >> rather than actually um you as just a creator. So I feel like a lot of creators in my opinion um you don't have to think about that monetization or building a business on the back of what you do straight away.

I feel that sometimes that's a bit rushed and I actually feel that one the biggest benefit from building that audience and eventually also connecting with what you do professionally is the trust that you build with them >> and someone who's watched my videos for a year plus probably will have no issue buying into one of my webinars or potentially one of my in-person trainings because they know me by that point and they've seen me for hours and hours during that first year together. So I think that itself is really more important than anything else is that you're really leveraging uh social media as a way to build that trust in who you are as a brand as a personal brand and then from that really anything else on the back of it into your professional roles into your next opportunity into your business that becomes a very natural migration. M and you know you have amounted 200,000 subscribers which is an insane amount and insane success cuz you could film a stadium with that amount of people. [laughter] And how what do you think are some of the key ingredients of that success? Is it the way you um structure your uh your titles, your thumbnails or uh the focus that you have on on breaking complex things and making them simple?

Uh what what do you think is the biggest thing that the audience um follows you for and and finds the biggest value in? >> You touched on a really good point there and we're going to definitely touch on that packaging side. So uh there are really three things that I believe has helped a lot in this process and now looking back it all made sense. By the time I was really kind of just testing things. >> So the three things that really worked out well is the three Ps.

So the first P is packaging which is exactly what we talk about now. Um, the way that you're thinking about is this video clickable for my audience when they're scrolling through YouTube, uh, is really important just because if you think about it, YouTube is probably one of the last places where people are choosing the content they want to consume versus being fed in the feed like Tik Tok or Instagram. Uh so what they're doing here is that you have to be thinking about intentionally am I packaging the video in the right way for my audiences who want to actually click and watch. So think about the thumbnail very clearly um thinking about the title and these two things are probably I would say I'm being a bit um dramatic here but it does make about 60% of the success of the video. Now the second part after that is can you actually deliver on the promise of your packaging right so what you don't want to do is overpromise and then when people click into it they feel almost bit um cheated right in the sense that I'm not getting the content that I was clicking on to watch.

So you want to make sure that's really aligned there. So that's why the first I would say 30 seconds to a minute is so important to deliver on that promise. M >> so whatever you said in the title in the thumbnail in that 30 seconds to a minute you want to make it very clear in that first uh segment that this is the video that you're going to watch and this is the video that will be right for you. So the second part is perspective again and I think having very unique perspective of your micro niche that you're operating in because now you know there's so many channels on personal finance so many channels on AI which is the space I'm in in uh in self-development, professional development or gaming or lifestyle, beauty, whichever. But the key thing is that you want to have your own unique point of view that you can share that's known for your style of delivery as well because we all have different delivery styles in front of the camera and that's absolutely fine because it's just who you are as a person and just you know obviously not to be like very um traditional way of saying it which is being who you are but at the same time is really be very clear about the views that you're defending on and why you think it's important for the audience to understand.

And then lastly is profile. So what is the profile of the people that you're speaking to? And in this case, do you know what the demographic is like? Do you do you know what they look like if they're in front of you? >> And sometime I feel like it's so helpful to even just picture that person in front of me as I'm designing this video and the content within it thinking what would that person think and would this resonate with that person?

And most times to be honest with a lot of professionals listening to this if you're looking to build a personal brand on YouTube is really creating for the person that you were maybe 5 years ago or 10 years ago. And I think it's funny now, but I I do used to think about the young Lori maybe from 10 years ago. What would she find useful in the videos I'm creating? >> And am I touching on the topic that she'll be passionate about? And most likely that's the tribe of people that you're speaking to anyway.

>> Yeah. And you know, a lot of people that want to start those creatorled businesses, one of the biggest fears they have is being in front of the camera. And I really uh can emphasize with it because when I first started doing content online, as soon as that red light came on, there was that just blank state, right? There was nothing in my brain that I could share. So uh what are some of the ways that uh you you have overcome that and uh any tips and tricks that you can share?

>> So I want to start with saying that I'm the biggest biggest introvert there is out there. So I definitely resonate with that [laughter] and it's not the easiest thing to overcome. I think for me one of the biggest shift as well was thinking that now instead of speaking to real human faces which I do traditionally in front of a stage or in a workshop you get to see their reactions. The hardest transformative thing from that into a camera is now staring at that red light that you're talking about and into this lens which has no reaction. Right?

So for me sometimes thinking am I even landing the point in the right way? like is this going to be of course there's been feedback >> communication on camera but you don't really know right so sometimes I just have to really think about that person I'm speaking to which is the young Lori or maybe the person that I'm creating this video for and I imagine their face behind that lens and I would look into their eyes beyond the lens there and I feel that made it a lot more personal for me when I'm speaking to someone I can imagine >> and rather than staring into a very cold black lens that you're staring into. Right? >> So, that's one thing that really helped me. And two was that >> I think I started getting a lot of emails in my inbox.

>> And that was the moment that it really clicked for me from my viewers. >> And the emails I'm getting sometimes it almost brings a little tear to my eye because they're saying, you know, Lori, this last video you did, it completely changed the way I think about this. or Lori, I've been watching your YouTube channel for the last 5 months and it's really changed my career for the better because I started to do these things that you recommended in this particular video and when I hear those or I see those responses in my inbox, it makes me feel that this channel is a lot more bigger than who I am. >> It's not about me. >> It's actually about turning this perspective onto my audience and thinking that I'm here to help people.

I'm here to serve them with what I know and I can definitely work beyond my own fears of in front of the camera because that is such a small thing compared to what they're benefiting from that. And that moment when I felt like wow like I I really feel fulfilled doing this. I enjoy doing this. I think that mindset shift changed everything for me. >> Yeah.

I think with social media, what is incredible is the fact, for example, I was um looking uh at the community that I have in school. Um I could see on the map where people are from and you know, I zoomed in and there was this island in the middle of the ocean. I didn't even know that it exists, but there was someone there that, you know, signed up to the community. And it was seeing that it just makes it really real that you know that those are real people and they're getting that benefit. So how um how do you approach when when you get the idea for a topic?

What are how does your production process looks like from the idea to having that video published and ready? Um, and also what what AI tools do you use now uh to to get that video out there? >> Yeah. So, I would say I personally don't like using AI tools to generate any content. Um, and that's just a personal preference.

I know there are lots of creators out there who probably do different things to me and I think that's absolutely fine because we all have our different workflows and our different comfort [snorts] level with how our content process is being produced. So, one thing I do use AI a lot for is trend spotting and also tracking on what's working well in my space because I find that these are the things I find hard to keep on track of, be on top of because of all the other things I'm doing in my current business and everything else I'm working on. Um, but it could really help me to think about especially the newest releases in terms of tools and uh things that might be useful for my audience I can share. And secondly is also understanding if that video or that particular title is working well for someone in my niche or someone even outside of my niche, how do I then adapt that into was a very similar um thinking but not using the same content in my own way. So for example, it could be someone let's say uh who's in the beauty niche niche and then they created this video that had a really wellperforming title structure.

I can then reuse that title structure to think about how do I apply that to how I would teach someone AI or teach someone uh my professional growth and development topics and make that very attractive for them to want to click on it and learn from it. Um so I started to shift the mindset of rather than just getting as many audiences as possible now to am I speaking to the right audience who's in that right stage of life that's perfect for me in my community. I think that shift is so different now because we're at this stage where you can either build a massive audience um and a huge audience that know of you but maybe they just know you because they've seen one or two v uh videos of yours that's gone viral that's done really well. >> Or you can have a very uh micro niche community of individuals that are just loyal fans of what you do and you know they want to come to all your events. They want to see you in person.

They want to learn what you're learning. They want to, you know, hear you speak. So, these are the individuals that you want to have as part of your community. And I think that's much more important than having a massive audience. And that's definitely shifted um in my own journey anyway of being where I am now as a creator.

And I'm a lot more intentional of building that type of audience that's right for me. >> Yeah. what what you're saying really rings true because uh you know it's it's when you think about uh let's say any luxury product Hermes bags actually the audience and the consumers that they have is really small but the profit that they can bring is similar to uh primary selling over year you know the backs that they have so actually you can have much smaller amount of customers but be able for that to have um an incredible result. Um, and I think with social media, you know, one of the metrics that that the the platforms really focus on is the amount of views, uh, the the watch time and all of those things when actually, like you say, when you think about who is in that audience and are there the people that potentially might be my customers down the line, um, that that probably is one of the uh one of the biggest things that you know um that you look for um as you're starting and if you were now talk to that Lori that started the channel back in I think December 2020 what are some of the things that you would say to her as she was starting doing her first video on YouTube stop focusing on the outcome goal and focus on the process goal. So let me explain what that means and that is when you first start and I definitely suffer from this myself is that you tend to think about your metrics as how many views how many subscribers am I getting is this channel even worth my time and you tend to focus a lot on the external outcomes of what's happening right and initially that first I would say even a year from 6 months to a year again someone can prove me wrong out there but generally speaking 6 months to a year you won't be seeing as much progress as you like to initially because traction with anything as I learned in life is that it starts off slow.

It's like that little u merry goround that you used to play with as a kid in the playground. Initially, you're pushing that margo around to like with your friends, but it's really hard and you're like pushing really really hard, but it's so so like tough to push against. And then as you're speeding up slowly and slowly and slowly, it gets easier and easier. And I feel like being a creator in this space is so much more like that, especially on YouTube where it's really about that consistency of you putting the effort >> week in week out, showing up for your audiences, and that eventually compounds and start to really move a lot more faster on that very goaround wheel. >> Um, so for me, I think really focusing on instead on the process goal, which is can I get my video out every single week?

if not what is the cadence that I can actually cater for given my current lifestyle. >> So I've now decided to embrace every two weeks and that's just much more realistic for myself. But at the same time I have this process goal where as long as I get a video out every two weeks to my audiences on a topic that I'm passionate about that I want to speak to and it makes me brings me joy to make this video and to share my insights and knowledge that's good enough for me. That's the process done ticked because then that process goal is really what eventually actually drives the outcome and what you'll find is that in six months or a year of doing that regularly you will see that result of the outcome coming through and even if it doesn't I always feel that by regularly publishing content or going out there speaking on stages or representing your personal brand in the right way on social media somehow that always end up becoming net positive in in your own career or in your own future >> because you never know who's watching, who's seeing your written content, who is being at your talks and then amazing opportunities would just happen because of that is that serendipity effect. >> Yeah.

No. Uh 100%. And when it comes to your YouTube channel, how did the growth of it come? Uh obviously you said that you know it starts really really slow and did you find that there was one video that took off or was it more you know with each video um getting uh and attracting more and more of that audience? So interestingly uh I myself have very much similar experience to a lot of creators I talk to about this is that all of us we have this um bank of backlog of videos and when you look back at it really I would say 90% of them are just very average performers and you would get maybe again now at this size of the channel maybe from 5,000 10,000 plus which is generally a very average performing video compared to the average views of your channel but then there are those 10% that really are the ones that are the viral outliers which happens with every single person's channel and that's how the viral outliers are the one bringing the audience into your sphere >> but having said that I also feel very strongly about those 90% the only reason is because those 90% are essentially the building blocks of what the viral outlier audiences will find out more about you right because once they watch that one video which is on their home feed That was the viral outlier.

They now want to find out who is this Lori? I want to know more about her. What other videos is she making? Now, if the rest of your bank videos are consistent and they represent what you've been talking about in those 10%. Then really that's what makes the audience want to come back for more.

So the newcomers into your channel now becomes return viewers and the return viewers would then eventually become loyal viewers. So having that I guess in a way funnel effect of how your videos work is really important. >> And for me I think that's something I realized later on without being intentional about it. It just because I was so focused on the process that I wasn't really driven by the outcome as much >> because I realized if I just doing what I can do every single week or every two weeks then I think I'm satisfied with my performance on this particular >> part of my business or my brand. And I wasn't too much focused on it has to be a specific number by a specific time.

And I think that really helped me to be in that consistent mindset and then just continue doing what I'm doing. >> Yeah, it's uh it's about things that you can control, right? You can control the input of putting those videos out. How do they perform at the end of the day? You you can never know.

Um and you know we've spoken about the the distribution aspect of it and that as a creator once you get that audience you are able to get that distribution and when you think we are now in the era where almost anyone can launch a new app a new product because they can v code it with AI. So would you say having that personal brand uh and having as well that distribution channel is the main way that the entrepreneurs can differentiate themselves and also make sure that they're setting themselves up for either for success. I think it's really important for entrepreneurs in that aspect who are building their own businesses now to share the behind the scenes of how they're building this particular product or this particular service that they're they're serving out to their audiences. And the reason for this is because people love stories and there are all kinds of tools out there for every single thing that I would need or you would need as a professional or starter founder. But the one thing that will always pull me in to choose one over the other are stories of why this person built that product and the process that he or she went through to even build it in the first place and am I invested in that process because have I been seeing this journey from start to finish.

If I was as a viewer or as someone who follows them, then for me that end product becomes so much more closer to me than all the other competitors out there. And I think that is really where the benefit of becoming a personal brand behind your product really helps. So rather than just you know showing all the amazing things that's happening in your startup all the awards and accolades and the milestones the raised funding also share the challenges the low days the really bad you know meetings that you had that didn't get the funding >> so of course >> because people buy into those stories they want to see your challenges and your human side >> as much as everything else is going well and I think really that's what's going to separate I would say my prediction wise in the next 5 to 10 years of the really successful uccessful startups who have a very successful founder personal brand behind it versus those who just have the brand itself. >> Yeah. And you know I've uh shared with you the story of u my dad who um started doing 3D printing and he was able to use cloth to make his own designs.

How does that story make you think about uh people who are perhaps in their 40s, 50s and the opportunity that opens up for them for people who are not technical to actually have access to these tools uh that make them proficient uh and make it possible for them do something that was just not without within their reach before. I first of all love your that story. It just brings so much joy to my heart because um it's something that I wish more people would do to start just testing. >> And I think the one thing I would say is give yourself permission to just start. So, I went to an event last night actually and there was a 60-year-old lady in the audience and she was at a woman in AI event with me and she was essentially just asking the panelists, how do I get started because I'm 60 now and I feel that the technology is going so much faster than I can keep up >> and I've got other responsibilities like you know helping my family out, looking after grandchildren and all these things and >> I was just so amazed.

First of all, the fact that she took the initiative to come to an event like this and wanted to learn >> and second thing is that we told her to really give yourself the permission to start >> because you can start with the most simple task to start getting comfortable with using AI in the first place. And one of the biggest unlocks for my own parents who are now in their 70s is they used AI to essentially plan their first trip to Europe. >> Oh yeah. And you know back in the day before AI for them to think about the different moving pieces of hotels, airfares and booking different train tickets and then think about are there specific locations where maybe it's not so great for their aging body to walk like for hours up a hill for example. >> Yeah.

>> So having all that consideration and limitation taken to place AI was able to generate an itinerary for them you know within >> Yeah. 5 minutes which they were so amazed by because you know at their level of understanding this is incredible at the time it saved them as well. So just starting with simple things like that where you're dipping your toes into this space but also realizing that we're in a very different space now in AI even compared to 6 months ago or a year ago where now it's less about the prompting but it's more about the conversation and giving the context that you need into AI and AI generally speaking across all the models now they're fairly good at understanding what you want to do >> and they can give you a much better response now versus what it was even a year ago. So I think now the barrier has never been lower for individuals in this older demographic and I can only see it grow even more easier over time as they're making the products even more accessible to everybody. So the key thing is give yourself the permission to get started and start playing around with it and don't be afraid to break things.

>> No, I I think that's such a good advice and you know I I from what you're saying it feels like a lot of it comes to your mindset. uh it comes down to how you think about AI and whether you think this is a tool that is going to help me achieve so much or this is a tool that you know will destroy my career and how how do you think we can change that mindset because there is such a big difference between for example um Asia and Europe where a lot of conversation in Europe is about how do we control AI, how do we safeguard it, which is an important conversation but in Asia a lot of the conversation is how do we adopt it as as quickly as we can what can we automate and that feeling that this is greatest technology that uh the world has ever seen um so how how do you change that narrative honestly I think I'm at a space at the moment where like many people in my industry We are on one side as you can tell from my enthusiasm and my passion about it is that we're on one side really excited about the advances and the changes that it can bring >> to you know either people who are in the workforce uh companies are leveraging this and just in general how much it can change the way that we work forever and the way that we understand the world but at the same time you know I'm also a parent to a six-year-old >> and she's grown up into this world that I don't know what the future is like for her and there is that aspect in the back of my mind as I'm reading about obviously some of the recent developments on what are some of the things that we can do to safeguard and think about how do we actually develop within you know having the responsibility of developing responsibility in this space >> and how do we actually even leverage that that kind of control >> across the world globally right because that is probably one of the biggest issues facing um governments around the world at the moment is understanding you know how to actually even implement this in the first place. So that part I don't know u be very honest with you and it's something that I personally do worry about as well and it is uncertain. So I'm just currently at this crossroads at the moment where I feel I can really leverage everything that I learned and understood about this space to educate as many people as I can and then they will have the choice and they can choose their response based on what is best for them and what is comfortable for them because each one one of us we have the different level of comfortness of how much we want to involve AI into our lives into our work but the most powerful thing is that we have the power to choose at this very moment and that is really up to each individual person. Um so that's really where I am at.

>> Yeah. And you you talk a lot about um building irreplaceable career. I think that there there was a headline somewhere that I've seen and how do you build that kind of career when you could argue that AI is good at almost everything. It can draft a great email. it can um create a great ad or even hundreds of them.

Um how how do you how do you build that uh career that uh incorporates AI into your everyday tasks but also doesn't mean that the output that you do is the same as everyone else's and becomes diluted and bland. This is probably one of the most passionate things I talk about and thank you so much for raising it, Victoria. For me, I think for professionals to stay irreplaceable in this current age that we're in, really AI is only part of the equation. >> And one thing I love um that AI can do for me is also the other side of things that AI can't do, which is essentially judgment, >> the taste and experience I built in my own personal journey so far. And it's the same for every single person listening to this podcast in the sense that you at current stages in your career in your life the live experience that you have these are the things that AI can never take away from you >> and that is the human potential part that I care so deeply about because I believe that this is the unique thing that we're bringing to the table.

So nowadays the first draft the first version of anything is pretty much free. It's out there. You can type a few prompts into AI and it'll give it to you. >> But your point of view is not for sale, right? Because that is uniquely who you are.

And I met so many amazing like creatives or uh knowledge workers, professionals, uh founders who understand this and they really leverages the max in the sense that they develop their own point of view, they develop their own tastes and they bring all that into the actual responses that AI give them. And that response now has all those things incorporated into it that no one else can replace or no one else can do the same exact version because that is the thing that only you can bring to the table. And the other thing is one thing I'm noticing more and more is the value of human relationships now more than ever. >> Um I've been to so many events recently. I can't tell you the amount of time people have told me how much it's nice to have that in real life experience with someone.

uh and I think this is only going to grow even more so into the future. So really understanding that and then leveraging this to build your network now >> build a very powerful deep network of individuals that you trust that you love working with collaborating with that maybe could be your mentor you could mentee somebody and having that strong network that will be there for you doesn't matter what happens with the future of this industry or where AI could go because I think the power of human relationships and the human connection will come back even more so than ever to help you in the future as you're moving careers, as you're building new businesses, um as we're building this very nonlinear future that we're in, right? I've I started this podcast because of the stat that adoption of AI amongst women is 25% lower than men. and were your psychology background and also um the the amount of people that you have trained how do you think about that statistics statistic and why is it uh why is it the case it's really interesting because I looked into this as well similar to you but Victoria and I wanted to find out why and the only thing I could find that is more researchbased is from this lean-in research they done recently in March March and they surveyed about a thousand uh US professionals. >> So what they found was that typically speaking uh women use AI less than men in the workplace mainly because they're being afraid of being judged for using AI and for the company to realize that they're using AI to create their work.

And what they found is also interestingly that companies judge women more harshly for using AI to produce their quality of work versus men. And so I think there's this fear of being seen as incompetent of having using AI to create something that you could do professionally on your own. And that maybe could not be the issue of the women using AI at at work, but it could be the fact that maybe it should be the company stepping in to support them to actually use AI more often. >> Um, and being encouraging for them to leverage that in their everyday workflow. One thing I would say as recommendation that could help potentially is that if you're currently in a professional role and you feel like you're in that situation, if you have figured out, let's say, how to generate something you would do at work that used to take you 3 hours and now it takes you 10 minutes, showcase that next time in your team meeting, >> sit down, literally run through your whole entire process with your team.

And that is what's going to bring you visibility in this current space that we're in now. So rather than just hiding it and thinking that I don't want people to realize I'm using AI for this, show them how it's actually increase your productivity and then everyone else can use your process in the result of that and you yourself step into that AI champions role that I talked about earlier that can really help you advance in your career as well. >> And would you say that when uh when you're doing those trainings uh do women approach uh AI tools differently than men? I think they're definitely more cautious when it comes to the results that it produces and I think that just very natural in our instinct like for me um initially my story with coming to the AI space was that I heard about it initially when it was coming out in very early stages and I was cautious my myself and I wasn't sure that this could be something that I could trust my professional work with and what I did was I went to a seminar which was done uh by this lovely woman trainer who was talking about AI and she showcased some incredible case studies on how you can use it in your everyday work and at that point I'm thinking she's probably really technical she's probably been doing this for years and maybe worked in coding and software development and then when I talked to her after the event she told me she used to work in legal >> and she transitioned from what she used to do to what she does now and that just brought a very light bulb moment to me in the sense that we don't have to be technical >> to use this tool and my caution of thinking that I'm not technical enough to use AI because it sounds so jargonfilled language of everything that it sounds scary um it's not really true. So for me it was that change of realization >> that made me feel empowered to start using it more and I understand why because at this point moment the reason why I do what I do is because I want to send that message to other women out there as well.

You don't have to be technical to use AI. It's actually now more easier than ever to jump into an AI tool that is made in a very friendly user interface that doesn't look scary that you can essentially just have a conversation with to understand how to use this. And actually, one of the best ways to learn AI is also get AI to show you how to do something. >> Yeah. And then that's such a huge mindset shift with all of my clients and all of the teams I trained is that you know your workflow best, but you can also ask AI based on what you currently are struggling with to help you show it the way, >> right?

And that's one of the biggest unlocks that we've seen in workshops that we we run in the sense that eventually becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of them be able to teach themselves to do more and more things over time as they get more comfortable. Yeah, I think uh that's uh such a good advice and such a uh such a great approach. And you know if someone is listening to this podcast uh in their car and they've never really used maybe they have um uh they have heard about chat GBT or Claude um and they've tried you know prompted uh but they've never actually sat down and uh thought about okay what kind of agents I can deploy to my work what uh kind of things I can automate What would be that first step once they come back home and get in front of their laptop or mobile phone? >> So, there's two things I recommend actually. Start really simple and there are a couple tools that I believe anyone can just install right now.

And this is not actually even uh chatbt, right? Any of these specific tools that we we mentioned earlier. These are just tools to help you get your thinking out [clears throat] into a digital surface. So, the first one I recommend is Whisper Flow. I absolutely love it and I think there's a lot of context that's lost when you're typing it out into a specific AI prompt or instructions because you know you get lazy right and you're thinking oh there's this but it's okay I think I can just include whatever I need >> but when you speak it out using whisper flow which is for those who don't know what this is is essentially voiceto text tool that's super accurate that compared to any tools I used previously where it would have all these typos and things I didn't want to include in there whatever whatever I say out loud into whisper flow, it could be a jumbled just brainstorming thoughts and whisper flow put into a very nicely structured paragraph >> that would go into any AI tool that I'm using.

So that really helped me especially um as I'm managing young kids. I might not always have access to a keyboard, but I can use whisper flow to put down a lot of the thoughts I have during the day or in between meetings and then have that being put into my essentially second brain into AI and then have that used later on for a specific prompt. Really helpful there. Second one is I love this tool called granola >> and we all have countless meetings during the day. So I think for anyone who's listening, you don't really need to have a very complex agent to do all these things, the one I'm talking about.

So with Granola, you could actually just record your meeting notes behind the scenes with no AI bot jump into this into any calls, which I hate, by the way. And by the way, I'm not paid by these two tools to talk about them. So this is purely because I personally use them. And then they can jump into the calls. uh they can then record the calls and essentially in the background when you're done with the call there is essentially the whole context saved into granola which can then feed into any of the language models that you're currently using >> and then that let's say cla or chatbt can take that call's transcript and essentially draft the follow-up emails for you >> to uh draft out the to-do points to actually follow up on the call into your task manager and all these things that used to take maybe another hour and half an hour for you to do after these things can now actually be automated.

So you can start with these small tiny steps to get comfortable with using them before you start thinking about the overall bigger picture of how do I actually create AI workflows that work for me synchronizely. But in this case starting small, starting simple is usually what can get someone started very easily. >> Yeah. And once you see those small results and that moment when someone is like, "Oh, this made my life so much easier." It just kind of accelerates their uh their will to uh try new tools and see how uh they can go forward and get you know get more task automated.

>> Absolutely. Then you start thinking what else can I do like there's so many things in my life that can do that now. [laughter] >> Is there anything that you um you feel like we we haven't touched on that you really wanted to? Um, I suppose I want to touch on this really interesting concept right now of rather than choosing a specific AI tool, it's actually much more better to be AI agnostic. >> Um, so let me explain what that means.

So your AI agents, they can really run anywhere from any tool nowadays. >> But what's most important is that you have the ownership of your business brain and your context. So, one thing I recommend everyone do is to just sit down for a day where you literally could use Whisper Flow or Super Whisper. There are lots of different tools where you can use this and dictate everything that you know about yourself, about your journey, about your life, about your background if you're a founder, about your business and the kind of customers that you serve. really kind of just brain dump all of that into um let's say notion or Google doc and just have that documented into as essentially your context doc where you can store all that and then that means that at any point you want to let's say use an AI agent from claude or you want to eventually switch to codeex or go into any other platform you have a central database of all your foundational contacts saved and you're now AI tool agnostic which is much more powerful because you know for example I love cloud now for the time being but who knows maybe in 6 months time a newer better model might come out from chat GBT or from Gemini and it will constantly shift like that and this is the race that we're in with any AI tool at the moment but what you want to do is and you yourself have been protected from be able to really be flexible and use anything that really is the best fit for you at the moment.

Yeah, I um I really resonate with this because I moved over from Chhat BT to claude >> and you know if you use any tool for a period of four, five, 6 months, you get to the point where you feel like it knows you, it knows how you like doing things and shifting over is is really hard. Uh so that advice is is really good and with the pace with how the tools get updated and with how things accelerate uh being able to switch to something else especially if you are in a smaller company uh is yeah I think is so important. >> Absolutely. And [clears throat] I also want to say get in the habit of building skills from your own personal experiences. So these are skills that you know essentially a set of instructions that you can give to claude or could be gems that you giving to Gemini and ChachiBT.

There's also equivalent of that. Build these skill documents that you also have ownership of in your own database. So in a way you can take those skills into any platform in the future because these are documentations of how you do something the way that you do it which is something that no one else can replace right and get into habit of documenting them becoming almost like a standardized process >> that you can then take with you as your own unique way of doing your work. So that's really important too. Yeah, I I've used skills and I really uh I really like how it just once you set it up properly, the benefits that you get every time you want to write something or do something, it's yeah, it's just immense.

Um because the tool will do it the way you like it to be done. Um so yeah, that's that's very good advice. So um I I feel like I could talk to you for hours. Um, so what? Let's do a fast round if that's okay.

What is one tool that you would keep if you had to delete all of the other one? >> Claw the whole time. [laughter] >> Claw all the way. >> Um, yeah, I I would agree with that. So [laughter] I choose the same one.

[gasps] Um, what is um what is something that you feel like is overhyped in AI space right now? I think one of the biggest things I hate seeing is people saying AI agents that run your entire business in your sleep. Uh because if you ever run AI agents before, then you probably understand that it's anything back but automatic in the sense that you have to really think about checking the the input, checking the outputs, and make sure everything does run smoothly over time. So, it's definitely not one of those things where you turn on and just forget about it. Yeah, you really have to integrate it into your actual processes and systems which takes a much longer time than [laughter] a lot of people say.

And um the final question when it comes to uh YouTube, what is um an advice that you hear from a lot of people that's not actually true? I think that word being consistent is being thrown around a lot and rather than just thinking about being consistent in publishing your videos, if you don't change the way that you approach your process, your systems of how you're publishing them, and most importantly, your packaging, >> then being consistent, it just won't let you get seen on the platform. So, what you want to do is always think about with every single new video, how much more can I improve what I'm doing now, even just by 1%. Because, as we know from Atomic Habits, that 1% each time, it transforms to 37% improvement in a year. >> And can you imagine that on a specific channel's growth over time as well?

>> Um, I I love that advice and Atomic Habits is one of my um favorite books. So [laughter] um yeah um for the audience if they wanted to learn more about uh your company uh if they wanted to get in touch with you um what would you say is is the best way to contact you? >> So they can find me at modernskll.ai as the website and also they can find me on YouTube at loriexwang and on Instagram at i amori wang. Okay, thank you so much for this conversation.

Um, yeah, I really enjoyed it. [laughter] >> Lori delivered a true masterclass on being a creator, running your own business, and entrepreneurship. Lauria has been absolutely incredible in breaking down complex concepts and making them easy to understand and I learned so much from this conversation. So go follow her on her YouTube channel and please follow this podcast and rate us on whatever platform you're watching it on.