Next-Generation Online Performance Training for Happier, Healthier and More Productive Humans

Alex Kichin demos Fuel, a performance platform that uses role-play, expert coaching, and AI agents to turn training into real behavior change. The platform has about 100 trainers available and 22 AI agents live now, with plans for every instructor to have one by year-end. Customers report confidence gains after minutes of focused practice.
Questions this video answers
About 100 total trainers in the platform, with ~45 live now (Alex said "right around 45, I think. 46.")
About 22–23 AI agents are live now; Alex said all instructors will have AI agents live by the end of the year.
Foreign.
Welcome back everybody. This is the moment everybody has been waiting for because Alex Kichin, he's the co founder and CEO of Fuel. He's going to talk about the next generation online performance training for happier, healthier and more effective sales organizations. Thank you for joining us, Alex. I know this has been a very busy day and we are honored that you're joining.
Thank you so much. Yes, and I'm honored to be here. I'm always honored to be in front of your audience. Thank you for this. And here's the best part, everybody. Gerhardt is part of the experience today. So Gerhard, you are on this seat with me as we go down this road. So I'm just going to dive right into it. Gerhard. Right, let's just dive right into it. All right, so first, can everyone type in chat? Is that something that's available? Can they give responses and type in chat? Is that open for everyone or is that just for us?
People can type in chat.
Okay, Say hi everyone. Let's say, let's, let's make sure you're here and you're part of this because what you saw on screen, that really cool statement that said for happier, healthier, more productive humans. Oh, Brian is here. I can actually see people logging right into our special experience. Do we want Brian on screen or off screen?
Gerhardt, on screen? Off screen.
Okay, cool. It's a big, it's a big part. Okay, well he's on mute though. You're good, Brian.
Whatever you prefer. Either way.
All right, all right.
Very good, vip. Thank you for joining us.
Okay, so what we're talking about here, if you saw what that said. Happier, healthier, more productive humans. When you're more productive, you are happier and healthier. That's just part of the science of being more productive. It just happens naturally. Okay. And you know, we, we know now that performance is what we're all after today. Let me just, for anyone that hasn't heard me be on the stage and talk to this audience before. Let me just share with you something that just quickly qualifies how we humans have stopped valuing information the way we used to value it. Just going to give you a case in point. It's very simple. Go to Google and put in a search. And what Google does. You guys remember the company called Google, right? Give me some thumbs up if you remember right? So go to Google and you put in a search and what you get in Google is the answer to your search, not the information we used to get information collect a 10 million different options. They say hey, we've organized these 10 million options from most relevant to least relevant. Go get them, Sherlock Holmes. You got this. Go find what you're looking for. And now they're like, forget it, let's give you the answer. And so you'd say, okay, so the answer first, but obviously the information is right after that. No, not really. Google doesn't even care about the information after that. Now they try to sell you stuff. So there's sponsors right after that. So it's answer, sponsor, and at the bottom, information. So if you've questioned for any reason at all, if we value information the same way, we don't. So if it's not information value, what do we value? We value the ability to apply that information, to apply that knowledge. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about here. Okay? Everything else out there, every single thing that has ever existed to this point would tell you how to do it, even show you how to do it, tell you how to apply it, show you how to apply it. But all that did was reaffirm knowledge. I really now, I now really understand how to do it. But it didn't confirm that you could do it. Fuel helps you actually apply it and master it to the point that you can teach it. If you're asking what is the difference of everything that existed before, that is the difference. Everything has been information and information on how to apply these things. But no one has given you a chance to actually apply and practice. And so let's do that. And, and, and why does this work, by the way? Why is this? Why is it we're focusing on this? Okay, here's why we're focusing on this. You're going to see this in action today. Most people still focus on this, okay. When humanity now has to focus on this. Because it's not about what you know, it's about what you can do with what you know. So, Gerhard, can we play around with this a little bit? Can I invite you to have a conversation and us explain what's going on and you will participate. You did this just recently and you were blown away that you actually posted about this. And I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and maybe do the same experience here? So Fuel is a performance platform where you pay for change, not platform fees. It's very important to understand. Pay for change, not platform fees. It's what you want. You don't want to pay for platform. You want people to change. You want to change yourself. Okay, how do we apply that? I'm Going to show you all these different ways in just a second. At every event that ever existed, there's these amazing people that go to these events and talk brilliance at people. And at the end of the event, what people are left with is inspiration. What they're missing is activation. Or at least they were two weeks ago. We solved that problem. Now you get inspiration and activation together. Now, Todd was not at this event, but Rene Godefroid did speak at this event. Incredible human being. And so, Gerhardt, I am going to make sure. I can hear you. Let me make sure we have this. And stop.
Dropped down a little bit, but it's okay.
I'll. I'll speak up. Is this better?
A little more?
A little. A little louder than this?
Yeah, that's good.
Okay, hold on a second. Let me make sure you're not still catching my AirPods. No, you're not. Okay, good. Okay. All right. So, Gearhard, you were not here. Renee was. I'm going to start the conversation and then you jump in. Okay. This is an experience where you take all of this brilliance that Renee shared with people on stage and now bring it back to your teams. Bring it back to yourself. And now apply the knowledge instead of just try to remember your notes. I wrote this down. What the heck does this mean? I don't know. Now you will know. Now you'll be able to ask. So here we go.
Hi, Alex. How can I help you today?
Hey, Renee. I was at your event and I was just blown away by the things you shared. But. But my friend Gerhard was not. And he' curious about why I'm so excited about some of the things you shared. Can I have him engage with you and ask some questions?
Absolutely. I'd be honored to engage with Gerhardt. Please feel free to have him join the conversation and ask any questions he has. I'm here to share and inspire. What would Gerhard like to know?
I would like to know what was your core message that you shared with the 1500 people that attended the Sales Mastery event in Dallas?
Gerhardt, My core message at that Sales Mastery event was all about resilience. The power to bounce back stronger no matter what life throws at you. I shared my journey from growing up in a tiny village in Haiti with no running water or electricity to coming to America with just five dollars and a dream. The key takeaway is that no condition is permanent. And with unshakable resilience, you can turn challenges into opportunities and create a positive high performing life and workplace. I reminded everyone that it's not where you Start. But where you're going, that matters. Does that resonate with you so far?
Absolutely. I was wondering, how did you invest the $5?
Great question, Gerhard. When I first arrived in America with just $5, I didn't waste a single cent. I went to Goodwill and the Dollar store and bought two towels and some dishwashing soap. I started washing cars in a parking lot, offering my service to people passing by. At first, I got a lot of no's, but I knew behind every no there was a yes waiting. That small investment was my first step toward building a better life. It wasn't about the money. It was about taking action with what I had and showing up with excellence every time. That's resilience in action. Would you like me to share more about how I kept moving forward?
Well, I was wondering, did you have any mentors or family members that were role models for you, that taught you resilience?
Yes, Gerhard, I did have mentors who shaped my resilience, even if they weren't formal mentors in the way you might think. One of the most important figures was a great grandma in my village named Grandma Stefan. She was bedridden, but cared deeply for me when others didn't. When I was teased and struggling, she would comfort me and remind me that my mom was coming back and that I had to hold on. Another powerful influence was an old lady named Tatida in Port au Prince. She saw a future in me that I couldn't see myself and told me to never give up, that resilience would carry me through. These people taught me that resilience is about hope, faith, and fighting the good fight, even when the odds seem against you. Their belief in me became a foundation I built on. Does that kind of mentorship resonate with your experience?
Absolutely. You probably speak French, so I want you to tell me what was one sentence you got from your mentor in French that never left your memory, that you always applied in difficult situations?
Yes, Gerhardt, I do speak French. And one sentence from my mentor that has stayed with me through every challenge is ne jamais abandone, which means never give up. That simple phrase became my mantra, especially when life was.
I think that was an incredible, incredible experience. Now, everyone stop for just a second. How powerful would that be to bring that kind of experience back to a team where you have two, three, four people that maybe went out to a conference and came back lit up with all this inspiration? And then of course, just like the forgetting curve kicks in and all of a sudden you just forget all that. And some of the words written on that piece of paper are no longer as meaningful as they were and they carry less weight now. It is always here to access in chat or in, in in voice. And Gerhard didn't do this but Gerhardt could actually ask how he could apply this with his team. Could Renee help him build out a formula. But he could do that here, he could do that in chat. Doesn't need him to speak that. When you have questions, use it like OpenAI. Right with, with people that come in here and are replacing OpenAI. Because if we have time, I'll show you the difference in the answers because this is all built on expertise. OpenAI is connected to everything and so you get better quality answers more consistently here. If we have time we'll show that example. But Gerhardt could have asked him for, for more and really dug in there and now taking his knowledge and applying it somewhere. Remember it's not about knowing it, it's about using it. What can you do with it? And so based on that let's go to another part and I want to ask if there's somebody in the audience at all that, that we could promote to, to join us here in the panel that would like to do a sales role play. Because here's the thing. Remember we said pay for change. Pay for change, not platform fees. How do you create change? Mastery, the foundation of mastery is built on practice. You cannot master anything. You cannot do anything better just from knowing it. Nothing can be done better just from knowing it. You have to use it and apply it. If any of you want to see your people grow and reach new goals, blow past their goals. It's no longer about teaching them. They have been over taught. Okay? They don't have the confidence to apply themselves. It's a plague. This is the way to unplug that and give them the confidence to actually apply it. How do I know this works every time? I'm going to tell you how I know this works every time because I'm going to run a scenario by you right now and you all are going to answer. I know for sure if I, I look like a mentalist, but I'm not. I'm going to write down all of your answers right here and, and on this piece of paper because this is the answer you're all going to give. You're all about to play and then we're going to do this. We're going to promote someone. So please give hard if someone can find someone to promote so we can play this game together. So you're all about to do a tournament, okay? This is a golfing tournament. And everyone has a partner but you. You're the only one without a partner. And so you're looking around, you're seeing a lot of people walking around that look like they can play. And you have to make a decision of who's going to be your partner. There happens to be a few people walking around with strange things written on their shirts. One says, I practice this, my golf swing, 100 times a year. The other one says, I practice my golf swing 100 times a month. Another one is walking around, says, I practice my golf swing 100 times a day. You have to choose one. They're the only ones without partners. You got to choose one of them. Who are you going to choose? This is me doing my mental. I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. A hundred times a day. Of course that's who you're going to choose. You're going to choose them every time. Why? Because you know they can do it. You know, without a shadow of a doubt they possess the power to do what this guy does. And Gearhard, Let me know when we have someone and I'll stop sharing this, okay? We all want people to have the power to do this now.
They do.
Volunteers. Role play your sales scenario for your business. Silverstone, Great Britain. Coming down the straight, fifth gear, sixth gear, seventh gear, into eighth, flat out through turn one, flat out through turn two. Bringing the car to the left hand side. He does the entire track, just so you know. He does the entire track perfectly. Why? Because he needs to. Because when he steps on the. On that track, it's. Besides being life or death, it's. You have to play at the high stakes and be prepared for it. So he's run that track a thousand times. The day before he actually got in the car. So let's learn from that. Let's actually learn from that. Anyone want to do or just want to see me do it?
You go ahead and do it. I can jump in.
It's up to you, Brian. You want to do it? You're good? Okay. All right. No problem. All right, we're good. So I'm going to do a scenario. Okay.
Hi, Alex. How can I help you today?
Hey, Tom, I'd like to do a role play with you. I'm a salesperson for a technology company that sells performance improvement and the ability to go past your goals as an enterprise. And I'd like you to act as my customer. And my customer is a CEO of Typically organizations with hundreds or thousands of people there. And I like you to to role play with me. Where? I want to set an appointment with you to go ahead and learn more about fuel and why this could be good for you and your business. Can we do a role play right now?
Absolutely. Alex, let's set the stage. I'm the CEO of a large enterprise with thousands of employees. You're reaching out to set an appointment to discuss how your technology can improve our performance and help us exceed our goals. Go ahead and start the call or message as you would with me, and I'll respond as the CEO. Ready when you are.
Hey Tom, thanks so much for taking my call. The reason I'm calling is because our mutual friend Gerhard told me that you have been having some challenges with morale and performance and you're looking for ways to change that, to change the direction of where that's going. And before we dive into any further, just want to make sure that that's still true.
Alex, I appreciate the direct approach. Yes, morale and performance have been areas of concern, especially with the scale of our operations. But before we go further, I need to understand what makes you confident that your solution can actually move the needle for a company of our size and complexity. What results have you delivered in similar situations?
Oh, what, what a great question. Well, it's all about our philosophy and our approach. How, how, how we make this happen. Everything else that's existed before has taken your people and has given them more information and asked them to figure out how to apply it themselves. Lots of information, lots of different influences coming to them from all different places. And at this point in where we are in 2025, we may have a staff that's completely over trained and underconfident. And so fuel unlocks confidence. Instead of just teaching people what they should be doing, it gives them a chance to apply it in a safe place with an expert every single. You know what they say? Time they say, they say perfect practice makes perfect. But that's not true. Perfect practice makes perfect, meaning if you practice something wrong, you're just going to get better at doing it wrong. But when you have an expert available to practice with you and able to give you feedback, you are then able to build the confidence and when the time comes, you apply it. So I'll give you a philosophy that we're built on. Michael Jordan in his last game, last game, warmed up for two hours before the game. Why would the best player in the history of basketball need to warm up? Because he wanted to be able to perform that is the foundation that fuels built on. I can share more details and some success stories with you, but I want to make sure that that first resonates with you. Tom.
Alex, I like the philosophy behind fuel. Focusing on confidence through expert guided practice is a solid approach. But as a CEO, I need to see tangible business impact. Can you share a specific example or case where FUEL helped a large organization improve performance metrics or morale in a measurable way? Also, what kind of commitment or.
Very good.
Yes. Sorry Tom, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I understand what you're, what you were, where you were headed. Okay, I'll pause here because I don't want to keep, keep going through this. Now he is designed. I want everybody to understand this isn't content dumped into a platform. Every single one of the systems that we built is built on expertise and is designed to accomplish a specific task. When I told Tom to engage in a role play, he is designed to help me improve my communication skills, my money maker, my voice. That's what he's going to help me do. And so anyone in any organization that earns a living from using their voice can now sharpen that. Why does this make sense? Because the industry that has proven performance over the last hundred years has never failed in any country, in, in any language has never failed. We are just applying what's worked for over a hundred years. What is that industry? The professional sporting industry. You can go anywhere in the world and discover high quality performers on any field, court, pitch, you name it. How did they do it? How do they magically avoid the Pareto principle? How come they don't say 20% of my team does 80% of the work? What have they figured out? Well, businesses have felt that they figured something out, which is why we call ourselves teams instead of groups. But we've forgotten the most important part of what they have figured out. It is application of the knowledge that's most important, not the having of it. You can also find the exact same evidence of great performance that only gets better over time. In the military, they have also figured out that it's not what you know, it's how you can apply what you know. How creative you can be. Your intuition, your ability to, to, to predict things, your ability to feel your way through the process is something that AI will not replace. This is why you have to sharpen and practice your ability to apply things. Because how you apply it will be your unique way. But now you can practice with every single expert that, that that is available. Okay. On every single Topic. I'm going to do one last demo for you and then we'll go from there and, and we'll put something in chat for. For you all.
Hi, Alex, can I help you today?
Angie, how can you help me today?
I can help you with a range of topics related to brain health and mental performance. Whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression, addiction recovery or concussion recovery, I can offer practical. Hi, Alex, how can I help you today?
Hey, Ali, how can you help me today?
Hi.
I'm here to support you with meditation and mindfulness in a way that feels gentle and practical. I can guide you through calming your mind and nervous system, managing worry or anxiety, reconnecting with your heart.
Allie, can you recommend some lessons that can help me with that?
Let me find some lessons to help calm your mind.
Well, be patient.
Thanks for your patience. One lesson I teach is called Calm the Mind Meditation, where I guide you to ground your energy and soften the noise within through a gentle meditation. Would you like me to share more about this lesson or suggest others?
Yeah, if you could share the link to that lesson, that'd be great.
I don't have the ability to share direct links, but you can look for the lesson titled Calm the Mind.
Yes, you do. Ally, can you share some meditation, meditation lessons with me, please?
Sure. I'm finding some meditation lessons for you now.
Well, here we go. We hit. We hit one little hurdle that we couldn't get over. But what she does is she will post them right in here and you will have access. So just why I wanted to give that quick little demo, there is. Every single person here is. Is an expert at something and everything they talk about is their expertise. We don't, we can't ask them just anything. Their expertise is what they know. And when you ask about anything else, you will hear what they're actually an expert in.
Hi, Alex. Hi, Alex. How can I help you today?
Can you give me your best cryptocurrency investment strategy, please?
That's outside what I focus on and would rather not guess. I specialize in team building, leadership and performance strategies.
And, and so everything here is to sharpen what you know. You can learn it, apply it, and learn it to the point, and apply it to the point that you can actually teach it. Now, that is how we look at everyone in FUEL as masters in training, because that is what it takes.
How many trainers do you have now?
So we have a total of almost 100 altogether live inside the platform, right around 45, I think. 46.
And how many have AI agents to reinforce the learning.
Right now about 22 or 23 and we'll have all of them by the end of the year live.
Wow.
100% of every instructor will be able.
To teach one customer success story quick. And then we need.
Yeah, yeah. So I, I'll do a quick one. One was one of our favorites. We actually posted about it. A one, one manager took his team and in an eight, eight minutes of lessons, those were, those were Jim's one minute. You know, make every minute count. Those one minute lessons. The whole series we have with Jim CathCart, they watched eight minutes and then came up with over 80 ideas on how they're going to break through their goals by the end of the year. That, I mean, that person emailed us going, I've never ever in my life imagined that they would even get that excited to do that. And that, that those eight minutes didn't say you have to do that. It just inspired them. Because that's a topic we've been talking about is how do we come up with ideas? And so they were able to do that. I'll tell you one more. And I actually just shared this with Brian right before this call. We have a guy named Chris in the mortgage industry who said he had a person after the, after an event jump on and, and do a role play with one of the sales professionals inside the platform. And he said he can't spent less than 10 minutes. He says, I've never felt this good about practicing. And I, I, I am, I am so excited to use this now with a live person. And Chris tells me this is someone that would be shaking to role play in a room, would not engage, would complete 10 or 9 or 10 years of experience in this and could not do it in front of her audience. Which is hard. Right? It's like that, that's, that's, that's terrible that you, what do you say to yourself when you get out of there? Like, oh my gosh. And so that confidence just drops to the floor. And we need to build confidence. That and Gerhard on top of that, we don't want to replace any humans with AI. We actually want to use this to bring people then closer together. Oh, Alex, everyone says that. Here's how when you practice enough with the AI and your team is practicing together, the system identifies the practice and says, it's time for you to practice together. Humans. We'll be there to support you both. But now you've practiced enough with me, time to go do it in the real world. Let's see how you do together. And so this is all about application and all about bringing you together. Your team does not need more knowledge. They need the confidence to apply the knowledge you've already given them. Okay, so, Gerhard, anything else I can. I can answer here or put into chat. And how. I don't know.
What I like to say is people are saying, amazing. I love the challenging approach. Ben says critical thinking is huge. It's inspiration, inspiration to watch this. I think you're onto something because you are going to revolutionize the way people learn and prepare for the future. And I recommend that everybody log on to MyFuel IE and look at some of the sessions. One of my favorites is Todd Duncan. He's probably the most inspirational motivational speaker. And you mentioned Chin Cathcard. There's Brian Biro, who is amazing. And Ali Sweeney helped me personally. Look at her sessions. I have not tested Alice Sweeney's AI agent, but I will do that. So congratulations on your success. And I also want to thank Brian Hale for joining us last minute. Great to see you. Thank you, Alex.
Thank you so much.
This session is recorded. And this session will also play on Fuel IO as soon as we send you the file.
Right. Yeah, we'll. We'll re repurpose it.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
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