How Jake Wysocki Stops Leaders from Jumping to Solutions (And Losing Momentum)

HSB Jake Wysocki

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale Business Podcast. My name is Hector Santhe Esteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. Jake Kawasaki, and, uh, he's the founder of Intention Craft. And, uh, we're gonna talk about scaling and, and scaling your, your, not only your wisdom and your, your insights, but I think also your impact along with it as well.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:00:22] So, Jake, uh, thanks for hanging out today.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:00:25] Yeah. Thanks for having me, Hector. Excited to be here, man.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:00:28] Catch us up on the, um. You know the key stops along the way in your career, and then let us know a little bit about what you're doing with your clients now.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:00:36] All right, awesome. So I'll do a, a few kind of, uh, skipping across the pond beats, and if you want to go deeper, just let me know. But, um, I always like to start with, I have an engineering degree, mechanical engineering, because that kind of helps you understand what my mindset is, generally speaking, processes, systems, things like that.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:00:52] And I actually took a left turn out of school, went to sales. I always like dropping this in 'cause it's a little bit of a brag. My wife and I quit our jobs and we traveled for a [00:01:00] year after that in 2015 we came back, I came back to the same corporate job I was doing sales with or same company and did uh, basically ran a software team that we were spinning up in our company.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:01:11] We're a hardware, we were, I don't work for 'em anymore. We were a hardware based company getting into the software world. And then that's where I got in touch with the design team inside of our company. And that's where I also learned design thinking and that this is really where my current story intersects with my past.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:01:26] And I dunno if you're familiar with design thinking, but I'll share anyway just in case for anyone listening. Uh, design thinking is you take a capital D designer, like someone who has a design degree and does design work for a living like all day. They have a certain mindset and toolkit. It's often then exported to people who are not capital D designers like me, who's an engineer by, by training at least, and, uh, often in non-designer situations.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:01:50] So the quintessential place where, well, let me, let me fill in the blank. Then I became part of the design thinking team at, at the company I used to work for and was training people how to [00:02:00] do design thinking as well as actually using those skills in facilitation for, uh, leadership teams and product teams and things like this.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:02:08] And so anyway, to to, to fill that blank back in, some of the people we were teaching to do this would be like the HR teams, for example. Definitely not capital D designers and not doing capital D like product work. They're designing experiences for people or like onboarding and things like that. So we're helping them use the human centered mindset.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:02:25] This will probably come in later. That's like the mindset piece that I, I like to highlight the most with design thinking. And then of course, the quintessential design thinking toolkit is, you know, structured exercises with sticky notes. Doesn't have to be, but that's kind of the, uh, uh, you know, the quintessential one that everybody always thinks of.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:02:42] So anyway, using all of those skills that I learned at the company I was working for, which by the way, I loved, um, and just decided I wanted to try my own thing, I ended up jumping ship from, from my company and starting my own business. And there's a few paths along the way, but really the most important one for this [00:03:00] conversation is now I'm helping coaches and consultants build and deliver world class group experiences.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:03:06] Primarily those design thinking skills, helping put a, a focus on the people on the other end of.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:03:13] Yeah. Talk to me about design thinking a little bit more. 'cause it's a, uh, you mentioned it a little bit, but I'd love for you to share some ways that other parts of the business might be able to incorporate it. You mentioned hr, um, how, how is an HR gonna incorporate this stuff and like what are some of the, the cool things you've seen result of integrating this sort of thinking?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:03:36] Yeah, so the high level, um, to oversimplify and sometimes I, I'm very aware that you can have a hammer, so everything looks like a nail, right? But I do think design thinking comes in handy and basically anything you're doing. Because anything you're doing probably touches people at some point, whether it's immediately or shortly thereafter.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:03:55] So for example, if you work for a big company and you're in hr, obviously that's [00:04:00] human resources, but that will also impact your clients. There's all these, uh, your, your company's clients and the other people of the company. Even if you're not directly like helping them with a, like a, um, a coach, sorry, not a coach, a manager with like HR stuff.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:04:15] There's people everywhere. So that's why I love this human centered approach. So no matter what you're doing out there, you're interacting with humans at some point. And the main piece here that I like to focus on is we always think we know what those humans need. And design thinking. And me, Jake, say, no, you don't.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:04:31] And I've seen this. This is what immediately came to mind is I seen this time and time again. Let's take a quintessential design example. Uh, product development. I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had, and I've same conversations with entrepreneurs these days where they say, I already know my client.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:04:47] I know in our, in our, uh, language these days, our ICP, if you will, I know it, I know I've been working this, this, uh, industry for so long. I don't need to go talk to them. But every time they go and actually talk to them. They [00:05:00] learn something new and they're blown away, like, wow, I completely misunderstood what my clients were.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:05:05] So one example, one of my clients, uh, he, this sort of a meta example, he had his clients do research in his group coaching program. He had one who was, uh, like 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. Been doing this for years, and he reported back. He said, yeah. He didn't wanna go do that, but he did. He came back and he reported it was like gold was coming out of their mouths, is I believe the quote that he used to describe my client's client's experience, getting research.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:05:33] And so it happens at every level. Doesn't matter how long you've been doing this, there's always room to learn more about your, your clients, the people you're working with and what you're trying to do for them.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:05:44] What about for a leader who, a lot of our business, you know, a lot of the listeners that have tuned in here, they, they go through this freelancer stage, they go through this solopreneur stage, and then all of a sudden they are the [00:06:00] hr, they are the sales team, they are the, they. The fulfillment team and, and then they're one stage past that, right?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:06:08] There's like this, this 1.5 stage where now maybe they've got some help. Maybe they got some systems, a contract or some automation, but they're definitely not, they're not like a corporation. They don't have those sort of, you know, established layers of, of people in leadership. And they're also not quite a freelancer or solopreneur where they have their hands on everything or they're able to.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:06:32] To, you know, to impact everything themselves through their own effort. And so there's a sort of in-between phase. I would imagine that this sort of thinking could really help someone to move from those phases or, or to be able to go, uh, as you know, businesses scale. The things that didn't work from them in the previous stage now might work for them.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:06:53] Or excuse me, the things that worked for them in the previous stage might not work for them in this next stage. Uh, it seems like that sort [00:07:00] of. Strategy work or that sort of planning could really help people who are going through those sort of evolutions.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:07:07] Completely. Here's a phrase that comes to mind, and I forgot where I heard this exactly, but life is a series of problems to solve. And if you think about it, that's pretty much true. And, and the way that was shared, by the way, is it's easy to get frustrated when problems come at us. 'cause now we have to solve them.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:07:23] But then. If you think about it, well, this is just life. You have problems all the time. And the connection here to design thinking is another framework here, and this is, this is why it applies to everything or could apply to basically everything is that the frameworks are almost, um, uh, shoot, there's a word.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:07:41] Hold on. First principles, they're like first principles where they're really kind of fundamental building blocks that you can apply to everything and you can make them more specific and bespoke to different, um, industries. But one of my favorites is called the double diamond, and this is quintessential design thinking framework.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:07:58] And if you [00:08:00] imagine a double diamond, two next to each other with the points touching, one on the left, one on the right. You fill in or what you would write in each of these on the left, you write in problems in the right, you'd write in solutions, and most people jump to solutions before they even understand the problem.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:08:14] So this is number one that I like to teach about, like design thinking basics is make sure you understand what problem you're trying to solve. And so. And I can fill out a little bit more of the, the double diamond for you in a second. But for that leader who's growing, you're gonna have new problems to solve than you did before.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:08:30] And so you need to understand first before you try to solve them, what problem am I actually trying to solve? What's the biggest problem? Um, to reference the one thing, which is a great book. Like what is the one problem that I'm trying to solve right now that is the most impactful or will make the biggest difference in my business?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:08:45] And we have a lot of other things than just the one, but having clarity on the one will then make it easier to know what are the biggest things I need to do. To actually continue to grow and scale my business, what problems I need to solve, like is sales. Like, just super simple example. [00:09:00] If you're like, well, I'm having trouble paying for a va 'cause I need, I need a new assistant or something like that because now my, my email inbox is coming at me and all these problems I need, I need some help, I need some support.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:09:10] Maybe a VA is what you wanna go to next, but you can't pay for it. So maybe your problem is actually you need more sales, or maybe it's you need more incoming, or maybe it's you need something else. And so the process, the other piece of this double diamond is their diamonds, because the first part of the diamond is, um, divergent.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:09:26] It's basically representing like, collect information, consider a bunch of things, ga uh, talk to clients, talk to your staff, and then you narrow down, you converge. So it's divergent, and then convergent onto that. Problem, and then you do it again with solutions. Now it's obviously way more complicated. In reality, it's not a linear process.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:09:44] It's a little more cyclical and messy, but conceptually it works every time, and I love that mindset. So does.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:09:54] Yeah, I mean, I think what's really helpful for business leaders to really take away is [00:10:00] that, um.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:10:05] How, how you think about things is, is, is likely not the ideal or the optimal way to, to think about it. Right? Like that's, that's really what I've been learning in business. And it was a, it was a very. It was very interesting coming from like the world of sports where it's sort of clear and evident, oh, this person's taller than me.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:10:27] This person is stronger than me. They have bigger muscles or thighs, like what you, it's like you could, it's self-evident how they are able to perform better. But then you, you get into business and all of a sudden you realize that someone is, is simply performing better. Maybe they're working harder, but if we take that out of it, you know, and, and all things, everything else is equal.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:10:48] All they're doing is they're just thinking about things differently. They have a different perspective or, or eventually it's not only them that has a different perspective, it's that they're able to get that team, to have that perspective and they're able to [00:11:00] multiply that perspective. And so these sort of.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:11:04] Uh, strategies or ways of, of sort of, I, you might be, have a better idea of 'em, but like planning or, or thinking about your business. Uh, being strategic in these ways can sort of help you to provide a, a different perspective or a different lens over things that you may not see. Just going through it on the day-to-day sort of basis.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:11:20] Totally. So, um, to expand on that a little bit, one of the things I love about the, the tool set side. So we talked about the mindset quite a bit, the tool set side, like structured exercises and, um, we were just on a call earlier today talking about constraints and. The, you, you and I hector for those listening, like, what the hell is this guy talking about?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:11:40] Well, I like to go on tangent so I won't go on too many. Lemme get back on track. The, the, the tool set that I love with these structured exercises is that constraints, and that is my idea of a structured exercise. You're basically building almost a game, if you will. You're building a flow for someone to go down that, that leaves constraints for them to, but butt up against.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:11:59] And that [00:12:00] forces them to think differently, often more creatively or in a different way than their default is thinking. And often what it's doing too is it's externalizing your thinking. So this is where group dynamics come into play. So if you have a team and you're trying to align everybody on a team, they need to know what you're thinking.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:12:15] And so these exercises are really great to help pull things out so that you can understand them better and your team can understand them better as well at the same time. And then that allows for more creative problem solving, um, or just more, uh, um, effective solution finding, if you will.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:12:31] Go back to this double diamond, close that loop for people. 'cause you, you open it. And I was like, my brain was like, oh, this is so great and so you gotta close it for me so my brain can, can, uh, you know, stop bugging me. You, you talked about, um, you know, that sort of their, their, their com. Well, you finished it because I think you set it up really well.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:12:48] But what do we do next? How do we sort of complete that exercise?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:12:51] Yeah, so that's basically a representation of the design thinking process in, in super simple form. So you start with the problem, you fit, [00:13:00] you i'll, I'll just kind of walk through, I'll put it together for you and tell me if you have other follow ups. So you start with. A vague sense of the problem or generally what's going on, and you say, well, what is the problem?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:13:10] There's exercises that can actually help pull this out, like a problem analysis. What are the causes? What are the effects? You understand it better. That could be part of your divergent. Um, uh, step or rather, usually a series of steps talking to people, et cetera, gathering all this data, and then you're saying, okay, what are the biggest problems?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:13:26] And those are usually, um, like the ranking type exercises or you're, you're prioritizing, you're narrowing down your, your condensing into themes, if you will, and you're understanding your problem better to say, this is the one I wanna, that's middle, where two.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:13:44] The solution phase. And that's where usually this is a lot more messy I find, than the problem finding phase. 'cause you often have to try multiple things before you get there. And so you say, what? What do we think we wanna do about this problem that we've now identified and decided as a [00:14:00] team, as the one that we wanna solve?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:14:02] What things can we do about this? Let's list them out, let's discuss them, prioritize them. Again, great exercise to help you do this. And then you go and decide on, once you're converging in, you try it and then you probably need to repeat again with some feedback. So I, so that's basically it. And then you, it's basically just a, it's, there's no end point necessarily because things will be constantly changing if we're talking business specifically, even if you have a perfectly optimized system.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:14:29] You're, you're hitting all your metrics. Something always happens. You can't just keep doing that. You always have to be changing and evolving and then so you basically start the pro the process over again. Does that make sense?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:14:40] Yeah, totally. I mean, I would imagine that after, after people. And individuals are in business for a while. They, they, they experience exactly what you said, that what, what was working? Stops working. And so they've gotta sort of recycle this process. And I think that. Times where I've been the most successful and [00:15:00] the people who I've seen be most successful are the ones who can sort of get through that iterative process as quickly as as possible, right?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:15:06] Or as you know, quicker than others. And it's that sort of iteration, renewal, moving through it. Um, as opposed to a lot of people get stuck, um, in one of those, or they just keep what I, my, my challenge has been just keeping doing the same thing and trying to, to bludgeon it to success. Um, and. Instead of going back and saying, Hey, what are the other solutions that are here?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:15:29] Let's try that and, uh, you know, move forward that way.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:15:33] Yeah, there's a few of the phrases we use in this world. A lot Bias towards action is one people might have heard before, but, so I dunno if it came from design or design thinking explicitly, but it certainly fits in thematically, like trying things. And not, I have a tendency, again, back to my engineer hat, I have a tendency to try to overthink things over.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:15:52] Optimize. So I have to catch myself doing this too, and let's just go try that thing. Let's see if it works. Um, there's a great book, uh, called [00:16:00] Tiny Experiments that if you haven't read it, that's also a great one. But it, it kind of outlines like, how can you learn quickly, because that's kind of the whole, that's the thing that I haven't really talked about either.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:16:09] People talk about failure, right? If something didn't work, if you try a solution, it doesn't work. Like I'll have to go fire that person 'cause they were terrible, or, oh, I still have this problem, it didn't go away. Or, you know, whatever. That doesn't mean it's a failure. It may not have worked, but I think failure usually means like.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:16:25] I did it wrong per se. And I would ask people to change your approach to that and say, what did I learn from that? And now what am I gonna do about it? Because that's really all that matters. The past is in the past. The only question you have to answer is, what am I doing next with what I've learned from trying this thing?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:16:41] And I think that can unlock something for a lot of people because I think so many people are. So, again, I struggle with this too in, in various ways, but like, I don't wanna fail. I don't wanna feel like I messed up. I don't wanna be rejected. Go and try it, see if it works, and then eventually you'll find something that works better and you can double down on that and expand.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:16:58] So that's my [00:17:00] general approach is this iterative approach to continually improving yourself or your business or your team or whatever.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:17:07] Yeah, I think this, um, you know, tiny experiments thing is something that, uh, you know, on an individual level, people can, can run. And then, you know, treating your business, uh, I've had the habit, or actually I made the mistake, especially going from a solopreneur to a, you know, actually having a business was running it like it was, uh, running it like I was still a solopreneur.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:17:30] Instead of going, oh, you know. Businesses for, for, you know, as long as this sort of capitalism has ruled, they sort of run it in quarters or 90 days and you, you could, there are probably disadvantages to that system as well. Uh, and also looking at it in these little shorter sprints or these shorter time constraints, I think is something that can really help people.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:17:52] Create urgency or energy or even just to put a, a container around something so they can look up and go, Hey, that didn't work. Let's stop [00:18:00] doing that and let's, let's adjust and try some.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:18:02] Well, yeah, that container is huge because, I mean, it's, it's notorious at this point, but pro like project management is like, uh, you take like a big construction project. It's never on time. It's never on time. I, if it is, that's a, a very vast outlier and usually. The biggest problem I think with these are the scale and the scope is so big, so of course it's gonna be wrong.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:18:25] Of course it's gonna be late. And so anytime you have a big project, how can you do this smaller? How can you take one step and then evaluate how can you, um, scope it down and do like an MVP, like a minimum viable product type approach, which is. Very common in like software, but you can apply that to other places too.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:18:44] But again, it's like how can I, I don't know if this works all the time, but I find more often than not if I think, what am I trying to learn? That's an easier way to, what am I trying to do? If that makes sense. So for example, if you're trying to learn how to make more leads for [00:19:00] your business or something like that, or, or rather if you're trying to get more leads for your business, instead of asking, how do I get more leads?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:19:06] How can I learn what works to get more leads? What can I test next? What? And then that leads you down a different path of turning it into more of a, because here's like where the structure comes in. So much of the time I find myself just trying things, which sometimes works, sometimes don't. And then if it works, I may not have a way to actually learn that cement it, and then build it on it and, and improve upon it.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:19:30] It's just, oh, that worked, but I don't really know why, because I wasn't paying attention, if that makes sense. So if you can approach it with, what am I trying to learn, you can set up something to capture that learning, test it, and continue improving. I find that would be a really effective way to, uh, to build those experiments.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:19:46] Jake, when we get back from break, I wanna ask about some of the, you know, how you've been able to, to translate the, the. Sort of engineering systems, um, you know, that background into [00:20:00] your business, and then also, you know how you're, you're implementing it with some of your clients. Uh, and so we're gonna get into that, uh, right after this quick break.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:20:08] How are you doing, my man?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:20:09] Doing good. How, how, how am I, how the, you tell me How am I doing?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:20:15] I mean, ev everybody is, that's always a, a tough question, right? 'cause everybody's like, it's their own journey for, for everybody. Um. This is all great. It's relevant for me. Um, I always, my, my answer to that is always people remember stories over example. Um, and so just I get into lecture and teaching mode.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:20:40] That's my, that is my nature is my bullet points. Um, and, and so I always just say, you know, and because people are listening while they're exercising or driving or whatever, doing the dishes. They'll like anchor it with every bullet or every point with the story and that's how I am. You know, the more [00:21:00] that you can do that, the, like, just no matter what, the better the experience will be for the listeners.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:21:05] I'll keep that in mind, man. Thanks.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:21:07] Uh, is there anything else that you wanna make sure I tee you up for over this last little section?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:21:16] So here, this will be a story, and it's something I have on my mind a lot. It's the intersection of AI and helping people like humans connect better. So I've been experimenting with ways to do that for like groups of people, things like that.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:21:31] I'm gonna lead in with that 'cause that's a, a cool, I I wanted to touch on that a little bit, but, um, it just, it didn't seem the right place here, so this, that'll be perfect. Um, I'll do a quick ad read and then we'll hop back in. Hey y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media and we are a podcast and media production company.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:21:47] Well, we like to think of ourselves as the chief fractional media officer of your company because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a passion, a, a product, a mission, a message, some sort of service you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able [00:22:00] to do it well.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:22:00] If that's the case, we can help Go to amplify media.com. That's A-M-P-L-A-F-Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back to Jake. Jake, one of my personal fascinations is, uh. Ai, you know, both because I feel like it's an existential moment and how lucky we are to sort of come around during this moment.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:22:24] Even if it is the beginning of Skynet, I'm like, you know how, how silly I would be to be there and then, you know, to be up in the sky and the clouds later on, be like, you could have played around with it and tried it, like you could have stopped it, but you, you know, you just. You didn't, you ignored it. So, so I look at it as not maybe it's a necessary evil.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:22:42] And the other side of it, which I'll, I'll flavor the conversation with a little bit is I've seen, and once again, it's one of these podcast statistics, so who knows. But, um, it, there, there have been studies presented in the, you know, on online of, of people losing their cognitive [00:23:00] abilities after, you know, that they're, they're going, like experiencing cognitive decline after using ai.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:23:05] And so it's this really interesting, you know, sort of, uh, dichotomy really, right? Because, and also as a business owner, if you're not utilizing and leveraging it, it's also probably very likely that you are getting left behind in some sort of capacity. So, how have you been approaching AI and, and given all that, you know, what sort of things have you, um, you know, found to be helpful?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:23:30] This is a great question that I've been thinking. I have all the same feelings. Uh, is it Skynet? Um, am I getting dumber? Uh, and you know. I feel like this is what they talk about. The same thing happened when radio came out, but this feels different, but is it different? I don't know. So I don't know how to weigh in on that aspect, but I will tell you, I've been very, uh, resistant to AI until, I don't know, five months ago at this point, something, or, you know, springtime this year.[00:24:00]

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:24:00] And I don't know what clicked for me. It just felt like, I need to try this. It's here. It's not going away. Instead of resisting it because it felt like cheating or it felt like. I don't know. It's like the buzzy thing. Is this real? I, I don't know. I can't articulate why, but when I tried it, it started like unlocking all these things for me.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:24:15] And again, that kicked in with my like technology brain. I'm like, why my, my like engineering technology process driven brain. Throughout my entire career, I have helped. Do things like this. Like way back, my first job was, um, a childcare company and I was a receptionist for a period of time in Gainesville, Florida.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:24:33] And we were counting the tills, like where the money's kept, like, uh, manually calculators. I'm like, what are you guys doing? And I was in high school. I'm like, can we use Excel? So like eventually I got them convinced of that. So anyway, this is just an extrapolation off of that. And so it was surprising to me that it took so long. And so fast forward today. So I help people build world class group coaching experiences, and that has to do with bringing people together. And it feels [00:25:00] like AI is poised to replace a lot of what we do. Like can it be a coach right now? Not quite, but like there's some interesting applications that gets.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:25:10] Somewhere along that trajectory, right? I, I don't know where it ends, but my question for myself became, how, how could this enhance the human element of what we're doing rather than replace it? And I'll tell you a little bit of, uh, how my wife and I run our marriage. We do what we call our stay of the union, um, like to basically workshops.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:25:29] So state of the Union play on, you know, the whatever the presidency stadium, which maybe is a, a tricky thing these days. That's not why it's just a fun name and. It's basically a workshop where we can zoom out and look big picture. So you can do things like this in your businesses too. Those of you listening or your marriages, I recommend it, by the way.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:25:46] And one of the main exercises we do is called the Wheel of Life. Now we call it pillars, but it's most commonly known as the Wheel of Life, which is you take your life into different aspects. Like, um, you have your marriage, you have your, your kids and your family. [00:26:00] Perhaps if you have kids, you have friends, you have health, you have wealth, you have your work, and you, you talk about those and. Individually. So you start individually and you rank them. And then you come together and you talk about where you're different, where the big concerning points are what's going really well. And eventually it leads to kind of the same thing we were talking about before the break. What do we wanna do next?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:26:23] What thing do we wanna try next? What experiment do we wanna try? What thing do we wanna try to improve? Whatever it may be, right? And this has been going great and they work well, and I thought, how could I make this better? Because one of my favorite things to do with AI is help me understand myself better.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:26:39] I started to form this hypothesis of the main problem getting in the way of most communication that I see, especially with group programs, is people don't understand themself, what they want, what they value, what their needs are, whatever the, whatever the question you have for them. It could be as simple as what do you wanna do, uh, next for, uh, it could be as simple as what do you wanna do for lunch?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:26:58] Most people don't even know themself. [00:27:00] That's why those conversations are so hard and frustrating so much of the time. And so I thought to myself, how can I inject AI into this process as a proxy for starting to explore more of the professional side? And effectively what I did, I used Claude to build a, uh, like a conversation partner that would act as an advisor, a challenger, and, um, therapist is too strong, but just helping you like poke deeper on some of the responses you're getting.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:27:25] So basically up a few things. I won't go through the whole process, but it's basically how things going in general will. Pull that, pull that through to the specific questions, and then it'll ask you for each of the pillars, rank it, and then explain why. And then I have some advisors built in, experts in each of those areas.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:27:41] So for parenting, I love Dr. Becky. I have a Dr. Becky profile. What might she, uh, like what are the things that she cares about that she would help coach somebody on? And like, what are her opinions on things? And then use that to inject some questions and follow up. And then one of my favorite things that I found that I didn't expect is it helped.[00:28:00]

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:28:00] Obviously it helped me think through it because we're we're practicing it before just doing it live, so that's like a, just a, a benefit by itself. It's kind of like, Hey, drink this pill to prevent a hangover with like an a gallon of water. Well, maybe it's the gallon of water, not the pill that's actually helping you with your hangover.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:28:15] It's kind of the same thing here, just the practice of talking about it first. Helps you, but what I found really useful is it gave me really concise, um, and accurate ways to describe what I thought so I could take it to my wife and we could just get to the point really quick and then dive deep on what we wanna do about it or di dive deep into bigger questions.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:28:34] So anyway, to, to summarize what I loved about this was, it was fun. It actually helped us communicate better. 'cause it helped us, uh, think first and then find a, a concise way to communicate to each other. And it actually helped us get the work done faster in a deeper way than we we were before. At least in the live portion.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:28:55] Yes, you have to spend some time outside, but that made that live portion. And this for anybody having a [00:29:00] business. Anytime you have a meeting, find a way to make that meeting actually worthwhile and maximize the benefit of being live. So if, if that like. Everybody probably knows that meeting could have been an email.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:29:11] Please don't do those kinds of meetings. Instead, turn it to what actually is useful for having us here that we actually need to talk about. And so anyway, I'm kind of throwing a lot of things out there, but um, it was great and now I have all these other ideas and how can we actually enhance human, um, communication by primarily, at least for now, helping us think deeper for ourself.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:29:31] That's kind of like the, the bottom line for me is like the first step for me. So anyway.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:29:36] Yeah. Well, I think the, the big difference in how I see, uh. People not using it correctly. But if I what? There is a difference and that is that if you can use it to have. To ask you questions and to allow you to, to think more as opposed to it telling you what to think or giving you what to write, right?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:29:58] If you can be utilizing, like you said, in some sort of [00:30:00] strategic, uh, advisory capacity or, you know, to ask you, not just tell you how to like, what to do as a parent, but like to ask you questions and figure out what's important and who's important. All those sort of things are really helpful, uh, as opposed to just write me an email that, you know, says I wanna fire you or something.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:30:17] Um.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:30:17] Yes, I, I was talking to somebody about this the other day too. And I have this opinion that I've been forming more and more lately that you should not be asking AI for opinions. There might be some ways you can get some useful opinions, but I find every time when I say, okay, well what about this? And it says, oh, you're right.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:30:35] That's a great idea. And then I go, oh, what about this? A completely opposite idea. Oh, you know what, on second thought, you're right. That's a great idea. And I'm sure there's some ways to design around that, at least to a certain degree. But AI is not actually intelligent. It mocks intelligence. Or it is a mock up of intelligence or a mockery of intelligence too, I suppose.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:30:54] All the above. But that's really hard to keep in mind because it feels like it understands me and it [00:31:00] knows, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. It's just filling in the blanks on whatever. It's basically a super advanced auto complete, right? So.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:31:08] You, you could probably say this about anything, but South Park has a, a great episode on that. And, uh, that's exactly it. Or the, you know, uh, I think it's Eric's dad is talking. Into the AI about business ideas. And he's just like, honey, it's just one more thing, one more tweak. And then she finally figures it out and she, you know, tells it like some terrible idea.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:31:27] And Chad GPT says exactly what he said. She's like, he's like, that's a great idea. And she's like, we're so screwed, you know? Um, Jake, I've got two questions for you, uh, left. The first is if people wanna get more involved, uh, with what you have going on, follow up with you, um, go deeper. In your world, where's the best place for people to go?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:31:44] Yeah, best place you can go is course dot intention craft.com. That'll take you to my crash course. And I'm trying to dump all of my, my principles, my beliefs, my teachings into that. So like the things we were talking about today, you'll get more of those and deeper and, um. So course [00:32:00] intention craft.com is the best way.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:32:01] And then if you wanna get in touch with me directly, you can just reply to any of those and it'll come straight to me. I'd love to hear from you.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Host [00:32:07] Amazing. And we'll link all that up in the show notes as always. Uh, Jake, last question is, in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:32:14] Hmm. Okay, so this may not be the secret, but this is certainly a piece of it and one of my favorite drums to beat is fun. It doesn't matter, so. So this is almost going back to. Like why are you trying to scale or why you're trying to do anything. But for me, life is about having fun. It's not only about having fun, but that's a huge part of it.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:32:36] And if we're having fun, we're doing more work, so to, or doing better work rather. And so if you specifically are asking about scaling, if you can find a way to make that fun, because I think it's the default. Is stress. When you're scaling, it's probably stress. There's new problems to solve. There's more problems to solve.

HSB Ep.112 - Jake Wysocki - Guest [00:32:54] I don't know what I'm doing. I'm having to grow as a person, and that's difficult and stressful. So think about how [00:33:00] can we make this fun? How can we make it more human?