Dr. Noah St John explains why leaders aren't actually using AI: the caveman brain triggers a fight-flight-freeze response to fast-moving technology. Most treat AI like a typewriter, storing it unused. Taming this ancient instinct, not fighting it, unlocks real adoption and breakthrough results.
You have a 200,000-year-old caveman fighting the fastest technology ever built. And who do you think is winning that battle? All right? The caveman in the brain is winning. So, when I talk to CEOs, business owners, founders, VPs of sales, the number one problem they're telling me is not that AI is freaking everybody out. It's that they're not actually using the tools that they've been given. They're not implementing. They're not adopting. They're just sort of putting it over there and they're using it as a glorified typewriter. And that is not using it at all, really, certainly not to its potential. So, the caveman in the brain, very simply, is that ancient brain that tells you to fight, flight, or freeze. This could come out of the bushes and eat you. Okay. Well, we don't have saber-toothed tigers anymore, but we have this faster— the fastest technology, which feels like a saber-toothed tiger. So, to answer your question about when I'm engaging with clients, when I'm coaching people, and when I'm speaking, when I'm doing keynote speeches, whether it's to leadership summits, or team meetings, or sales kickoffs. It's all about showing people, number one, when you're fighting the caveman brain, you're not going to win. So, we don't want to fight it. We want to tame it. And that's why I call it Tame the Caveman in the Brain. We're going to tame the caveman. And that way, rather than trying to fight that ancient brain, we're going to use it and use the fastest technology. And that's how you're going to get really breakthrough results.
