Ex Forbes Executive Shares Secrets of Turning B2B Companies Into Media Empires | James Colistra

We did all kinds of things from having ice cream stands to, you know, a tequila bar and things like that. Probably the most difficult thing if you're a company like that is like how do you stand out? How to come from the world of Forbes, which the content was more top of funnel. It all comes down to trust and obviously the legacy media companies built that trust and developed it over years. That I always think about is this 95,5 rule in B2B content. So it's all about the authentic, authentic connections. Right? Be very careful that you're not constantly flooding them with product benefits and information and things change their perception of you in a way that's not necessarily salesy or related to the product. Media publishers in general are struggling to get the eyeballs. You don't want something to come across as oh, this is an ad like they're trying to sell me. AI is changing everything in terms of the way people are creating. Oh my God, this is going to replace me. It's going to take my job away. 95% of all decisions, even in the B2B side involve emotion.

Hey guys, welcome to the second episode.

Of the B2B Show. I'm your host Oogie and I'm running Content Monk, a content marketing agency and B2B Vault, a media company for B2B marketers like yourself. Today's guest is the founder of a wonder fish agency and X marketing executive and Forbes. And the episode that you are about to listen is probably going to be one of the best episodes you ever listen to. Because from the mind of an ex marketing executive at Forbes, I extracted secret insights and knowledge on what can B2B companies, modern B2B companies, learn from 100 year old legacy media businesses on longevity, fighting the trends and other stuff. And we also uncovered a lot of different things about turning the modern B2B day companies into media companies for getting more audience, more trust and hence more customers. And James walked me through the editing process at Forbes on how their team creates amazing stories that sell. So buckle up because this is going to be one great episode. Let's get started.

Since you're like very fascinated with Martech right now, how do you look at this entire commoditization aspect of Martech software right now? Like for example, like interactive product demo software was I think a few months back, a year back, but now you have like 30, 40 of them.

Yeah, I mean that's what I'm noticing. I think that's probably the most difficult thing for if you're a company like that. Is like, how do you stand out? Because there are, there are so many companies out there. Like I first heard about User Flow for example, and I actually heard about them on a podcast and then, and then I went to Google it and I noticed that's one of the smart things people can do if you're, you know, I guess it's a lower funnel tactic where you're googling something and I'll say they'll buy the keyword for whoever you're googling. And that's what this company Product Flows did. They said, hey, we're better, you know, we're better than User Flow or whatever, try us. And they show the comparison page and all that. So I'm learning about, you know, those lower funnel tactics because I come from, which we'll talk about. I come from the world of Forbes which the content was more top of funnel. But yeah, it's like how do you stand out? How do you differentiate yourself? Because there's so many tools and that's what's insane right now. And I think with AI and the fact that it's becoming easier, easier to build tools like these, you're going to see even more coming up.

Definitely. We recently built one product for the first time. We hired, I mean we are a content agency, right? But recently we hired a guy who is basically head of development and AI, right? That's like the title, official title we gave him. And you can create great products so fast right now. Like we created the entire chat with knowledge base with researching new content pieces in like three weeks with all admin dashboards, user profiles, registration flows, GP mail campaigns, like everything. And I was really, really mind blown. But yeah, I mean we are going to talk about the differentiation a little bit later. Tell me, tell me something like you're coming from your job background is like pretty impressive. And my entire team, we were really like fascinating while doing the research yesterday. And I'm also so proud of us for completing this entire research in like this short, short period from yesterday. But yeah, it was a really funny journey. Anyway, tell me, you're coming from the world of legacy media companies, right? And these are the companies that exist for like 50, 80, 100 plus years and compared to today in the modern, let's say B2B companies, like they have a pretty short span. Most of them, like I don't know, 80, 90% of them don't exist in a year, two years. And especially with that kind of an AI thing replacing everything so fast. And a lot of me too, products coming in so Tell me, like what can modern day B2B software companies learn from the legacy media companies? What are those lessons that we can all learn on like longevity, staying in the market, business and the other stuff?

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest takeaway is it all, it all comes down to trust. And obviously the legacy media companies built that trust and developed it over, over years like you said. I know. I particularly in particular worked at Forbes, which started in 1917. And the, the founder, he was originally a reporter BC Forbes. He used to actually hang out in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria, Astoria Hotel. You know, you'd just be eating, eating his lunch or whatever and he would, he would hear what all the other stockbrokers were talking about, all the people in the finance financial world. And then he started Forbes. And interestingly a lot of people don't realize this. Forbes was the one, I think the first business magazine or business publication to really do these in depth, long form stories about the, you know, the Rockefeller types, these people that were really moving and shaking and the doers he called them. But he built up his following as a reporter and then was able to build up Forbes. And, and it just, it takes time and, and so from the perspective of, you know, you're a newer company, you're a B2B SaaS software company or whatever, you don't always have the luxury of time to build up that trust. So I think there's, there has to be other ways that you can do, you can, you can, you can build the trust. And I think that's, that's always, that's always the challenge obviously. Social proof, creating success stories, case studies, whatever you want to. Events are another, like I could talk about events all day. That was a big, a big one of our big plays. Research, leveraging research and data and, and things of that nature to really showcase the value that your company is, is, is bringing. But not only, not only about your company, but creating the, the type of content that adds value to them that isn't necessarily about your company, which, which I can get into later as well. But yeah, that's kind of the way that, that I would look at it.

Basically all comes down to.

In the.

Market and having original data. Original research is an original content that basically propels that and helps you build that, that trust.

Exactly.

How would you approach trust building right now in 2025 and 26 or whatever?

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I think it's like at any given time only 5% of your potential buyers are actively in the market to buy and then the other 95% aren't. So the a way to build trust. I mean, I think sometimes right now there's so much, so much noise and spam and especially, I mean in the old, in the olden days, I should say, like when I, when I was starting out and you know, email was becoming a thing and as far as using it in B2B marketing, like people didn't necessarily send emails to random people if you didn't have their email address, you know, just, it wasn't the norm. And nowadays like it's just becoming, your inbox is becoming flooded and you're, you know, you're seeing, you're seeing messaging and outreach everywhere. And I don't think there's anything wrong with, with outreach if done the right way as long as it is, you know, especially with these, you know, that's the difficult part though, with all these AI tools now is to make sure that you're doing it the right way and it's, it's authentic. So it's all about the authentic connections, right? So I guess what I'm trying to say is if, if the majority of the people out there, that 95% aren't even in the market to buy, I mean, right away you have to be very careful that you're not constantly flooding them with product benefits and information and things of that and it's just going to turn them off. So the way that I look at it is building up trust by, you know, just being a valued, a provider of value of information that's either inspirational, educational, does Something to kind of change their perception of you in a way that's not necessarily salesy or related to the product, but it's, it's like, oh, that's interesting. I like what they, I like what they're talking about there, you know what I mean? So that to me is a way to build trust. Because if you're on the other end of the spectrum and you're constantly just spamming, talking only about your product, shoving it down people's throat, they're, they're gonna start to question like people, their, their trust meters like, or they're sort of like scammy me or whatever you want to call it. They, they don't necessarily like that kind of thing is what I've noticed.

Makes sense. Yeah, tell me, you mentioned events and I would say there is right now public opinion goes towards that events are basically the future of marketing. Like no matter how paradoxically that sounds.

Right?

Because like again with all of this AI, like we have note takers, you know, automated emails, everything like, and getting to do's really down deep to the human, to human interactions and connections is really something that is going to take off very recently. So what's your approach about events? So first tell me, do you think for the companies is more effective to host events or to go to events and build partnerships there? How would you approach. Let's say that you're in a B2B company right now. Let's say that's the question. If you're in the B2B company right now with a decent amount of budget. Right. So nothing extravaganza or nothing small, but at least in the month of budget, how would you leverage events for B2B? B2B growth? Give me your, your juiciest takes on this.

Yeah, I mean, I think it all depends. It's not a one size fits all answer there because it depends on your overall strategy. Right? If you're building a community, if you have an audience, I mean audience dev, Audience development is one of the hardest components of event marketing is getting the people in the seats and getting the people to attend. And so that's why, you know, when we were at, for, when I was at Forbes, we kind of, that was one of the things that we did for the clients. Even if it was a custom event that we would, we, we hosted events at our property in New York City called Forbes on fifth. But we could, we could, we could do custom events anywhere. Right. But then we also had these temple events that we did throughout the year that were tied to different editorial franchise. Editorial franchises like Forbes 30 under 30 is, is one big example that was kind of our flagship sort of like super bowl event. And I think that what it comes down to is your resources, your, your audience dev strategy. Like I said, it's, it's great way to jump right into event marketing by, you know, basically. And I don't want to say just like doing. You never just want to do like a logo slap and just say like, you know, presented by whatever the brand and the merge is going to show up or whatever. I think there has to be a really natural integration at the event. And that's where, you know that the experiential activations come in and really try to come up with something that adds a lot of value and is, is interesting. And you know, we did all, we had all, all kinds of things from, you know, having ice cream stands to, you know, obviously you can have a tequila bar and things like that. But there's, there was some really cool activations that we did that tied to that specific brand. But I remember when I, when I started at Forbes, so I actually started in 2014. I remember that, that, that was the first year that they were starting or actually planning to launch the under 30 summit. And we launched it in Philadelphia first, the first year. But I, I was lucky because I, I came to Forbes and my first week, you know, any job, you don't have a ton of stuff to do other than just like onboarding and everything. And my boss at the time said, hey, Randall Lane, the chief content officer and a couple people from the events team, we're going out to do a site visit in Philadelphia. And I actually got to tag along with them because, you know, everyone else was just super busy at the time doing, doing their work and stuff. But I was able to see how an event is built from the ground up. And I walked around to all the different sites, like, to be able to go to see like an open air. It was called Piazza at Schmitz in Philadelphia is where we did the music festival the first year. And to be like Randall Lane was just a genius because he could just walk around, like see a space and kind of like think about like what it, what he's going to turn it into. Like almost like a paint, like canvas, like a painter taking canvas and figuring out how he's gonna turn into a work of art. But I think that was a sort of an educational process for me and I dove right in. But then, from then on I was able to be the liaison because I was so involved for that franchise. And we built, we built it up and we allowed so many brands like the McAllen was a huge brand that sponsored all of our under 30 events for many years. And then we moved it to Boston and Detroit and Tel Aviv and Africa. So yeah, the temple events, if you can get involved in those, you have an active audience already there. And that's really what you're doing as a, as a partner, as an advertiser. The marketer is tapping into that existing audience versus and maybe you're doing both, where you're tapping to existing audiences and then you're building up your own events, bringing your own audiences to your spaces as well.

Makes sense. So basically, so far, what we can conclude is like having original content and having an audience like that. These are the two key, let's say, pillars. Any serious company that wants to grow. Now, let's talk about that audience for a second. So what would you say? What would be your approach for turning software companies into media companies? Because that's how you get the most audience and earn the. Earn the most shot.

Yeah, I think it's really finding a lane. And you know, you, if you're going to be sort of a media company, you're not gonna, you're not gonna be, you know, New York Times or Forbes or whatever where you're just writing about everything. And even Forbes, we, we had swim lanes for each editorial, I guess, subject. So you had different subject matter experts. I think. What. Yeah, I think it's building because you're not, you're not going to be able to hire this huge editorial staff either. It just takes, you know, enormous amounts of resources. So what is, what is the, like the, what is the niche or the topic that you can own? And you're not, you're not writing about, you're not a product marketing team. You're not writing about the features and benefits of your product because that's not what people want to read about. As I said, 95% of people aren't ready to buy. So if you're not ready to buy something, you're not going to want to sit there and read about it. So it's really creating content that's adding value and utility into people's lives. And it could be inspirational, it could be educational. I think GONG does a really great example with GONG Labs because they're using data and they're studying, they're using the data about sales reps across the board and they're able to glean insights into kind of like the best ways to pitch and things like that. So it's providing or creating a bunch of content that adds value in and for, in Gong's case, like, it's not necessarily about the product, but it's just adding insights and adding value to people's lives and helping them solve their daily problems. Really.

Tell me this, like, before anyone should, you know, start or invest a lot of resources into many different, like, you know, editorials, content pillars, types of content, you know, even smaller content campaigns, like I would say, everyone starts, everything starts with launching one kind of a content pillar that you want to create and testing on that, you know, repurposing that one, and so on and so on. When talking about these content pillars, like, can we colorate them to specific editorial publications that you had inside forbes, such as 30 under 30, Forbes, shook top advisors, you know, that, that, that kind of stuff. Like how would you approach that? A single, single content editorial, content pillar, pillar launch process operations behind that in, in smaller teams.

So I think that, so you mentioned Shook. I mean, in the case with Shook, we actually partnered with a guy named R.J. shook who, you know, he used to be a financial advisor for, for many years. And then he created something called the Winner Circle, which it was basically insights and ranking. Like he was actually created his own sort of ranking system about financial advisors that did qualitative and quantitative research. So even Forbes, who has been pillar really in the, I guess, business and finance world for over 100 years, we didn't really have a successful practice when it came to the world of financial advisors. It's just like it's a whole world in and of itself. And so that's why we chose at the time to partner with RJ Shook and his company Shook to develop the Shook Top Advisor. So, so it's basically rankings, you know, starts with the, the top advisor in general. And then we ended up launching other lists underneath that. Top women, top top Gen X advisors, and a number of different subsets of the list. So I think that's one of the things that you could think about is partnering with, you know, a third party. For example, if you're trying to do something that's more quantitative or even qualitative, where you're examining, you know, a subset of the market, or in our case, it was financial advisors. You don't have to do it all all on your own. Forbes had the, had the pipes and the distribution power, but our editorial team was, was busy doing. You know, everyone had their own assignments, right? Everyone's busy. And so you as a, as a B2B company you might not have, you probably likely don't have an editorial team. So there's ways to kind of partner with existing organizations that, whether it's a researcher organization or maybe you're even partnering with another media brand to help fuel your content, I think that's a smart way to go about it.

Okay, so so far, like, we know how to launch something, we know what things to create right? Now tell me this, like the final piece of the jigsaw, how the best writers and editors in Forbes approach the actual writing and editing of great stories. Like, how do they find them, how do they edit them? Because like in every piece of content, from my experience, it's like 20, 30% of the time it's writing and other 70%, it's actually research and editing, you know, and all the, all the other stuff.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I mean, the honest truth is the process for the Forbes staff writers is actually, it's very intensive. It's much different than if you're a Forbes contributor. So a lot of people don't realize. So you have, you know, I think I don't know what the number is now, but at the time it was like close to 2,000 Forbes contributors who, they aren't paid staffers. It's people like you or I who are subject matter experts. And that I really launching that in the middle of 2000s really allowed Forbes to just scale and create a tremendous amount of content. I mean, now there are so many different algorithm changes to Google and to Facebook and you know, media publishers in general are struggling to get the eyeballs. But for the longest time, Forbes was crushing it just with the sheer amount of content because of all of these contributors. But I'll, I'll just get into the. So, so, so again, the contributors aren't necessarily, they're vetted to a certain extent, but they're, they're not edited the same way. It's kind of just like they're submitting their content and then for the most part it just, it's published as is. Whereas if you're a staff writer, there's, there's fact checkers. Every article has to be, you know, extremely fact checked and double verified and researched and things of that nature because a lot of that content from the staff writers also gets printed. And it's a different world when something gets printed, right. It's like, you can't really change that. So yeah, it's a, it's a whole different ball game. But we at Forbes had a CMS content management system was called Birdie. So that was the back end where even the contributors had access to that. At an early point, it actually used AI to help provide insights. And I'm sure since I left a years ago, a year ago, it's probably developed even further as far as like providing further in deeper insights into headline optimization. Just different things that, that it'll tell the writer of, of things to think about as they're editing or writing. So it does use AI, which is kind of neat on the, on the back end on the cms. And Birdie's actually named after the founder, BC Forbes. His nickname was Birdie. So. But yeah, again, just extremely diligent on the staff side as far as editing and fact checking and things like that.

How would Randall Lane approach writing stories?

Well, Randall, he actually doesn't write a lot of stories now because he's the chief content officer. He has, you know, he might. He writes the, the, the column here. It's a column in the front of the magazine. And from time to time he does, I think, still write some stories. But I mean, I think he approaches it the same way any of the editors really do is. I mean, it starts with asking a lot of questions and asking the right questions and doing the research. Like any journalist, it's really about digging and trying to uncover what you. What. What most people don't know about that subject. Right. What hasn't been said, what is like the. What is a bold take or a different area that people aren't thinking about. And that's really what Forbes was all about, is the people uncovering the people behind business. And people have a lot of different intricacies and quirks and sometimes you can't get them to share what, what you really want. And so you have to have a way of like, getting that out of people. And that's why it is journalism, just like anything is a relationship business. And you know, if you, if you're a trusted journalist and you're respected, you know, you're able to get someone like, you know, an Elon Musk or Donald Trump or whoever to kind of like give you information that other people don't have access to. Really, you know, it comes about, it comes on access. But the other thing I should mention is I talked about, you know, being about people. And journalism is a people business. PR is a people business. You're pitching to people. But one of the things I think Forbes realized, I think it was right before I got. So I started in 2014. I don't know exactly what year they did this, but they doubled down on every, making sure every cover has a face on the COVID of the, of the magazine. Because again, business is all about people. And really the philosophy was that people have the power to really change the world, you know, through their own ingenuity. And that's really what Forbes was about. As I mentioned, BC Forbes early on when he, when he launched Forbes was doing these in depth business profiles about people. So that's really what it, what it comes down to really for, for me is like just being about people essentially.

Yep, yep, yep. Let's talk, let's talk about stories for B2B Company. Right? So I, I, I would say there is a majority of the stories in a storytelling way that we marketeers usually like think about them. When we say like storytelling, they're great for marketing, they're great, you know, for improving awareness, getting engagement on socials or whatever. But most of them might lack when it comes to the actual buying process, when it comes to, when it comes to sales. So tell me like how, what's your approach on creating a story behind the brand that boats like, you know, positions you top of mind into your market, positions you in the top consideration set and also when it's time to close a deal, you know, helps close a deal. How would you approach storytelling for B2B?

Yeah, I mean I think it's a really, it's a balance, right, because you don't want it, you don't want something to come across as oh, this is an ad like they're trying to sell me. But at the end of the day, I mean that's what any brand is trying to do. So it's like when do you find the right time to bring in to integrate, you know, the product and the features of a brand? It really depends on any particular brand. And there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different ways from a B2B standpoint. I think really for me it was about, well one, I think thought leadership was key, right? Where you're, you're sort of integrating in insights and quotes from the brand's executives and top top leaders, but finding the right way to kind of talk about the, the product. I mean for every one of the things that we, all we always offered was for, for any type of custom content. I mean we always did have ads on the page. So that's a way to really, you know, drive traffic to, to that, that brand's site if someone is in the market because you know, there is at least, at least 5% of people are ready to buy and you know, they do want to read more about your product. So you can potentially, you know, if you're doing content with a Forbes or you know, on your blog or wherever, LinkedIn, social, whatever, wherever it might be, you can find ways to kind of have call to actions. Whether it's at, you know, at the end of the article or an ad on the side of the page where you're, you know, you're driving traffic because at, at some point you do want to drive them to your site to kind of like create a conversion. You don't want it, you don't want it to be like overtly upfront and too salesy in the beginning because people will just turn it off. So that I think it's just a fine balance to like finding the best way to kind of bring in that call to action and just not, not shoving it down people's throats, if that makes sense.

Makes sense. What would you say, James? What's the future of marketing?

Yeah, this is something I think about a lot is it's kind of where things are going in marketing. Obviously AI is changing everything in terms of the way people are creating. I feel like it's right now it's at a point where it's completely amplifying human creativity. And I think a lot of people were fearful, especially in the early days to 2023, 2024, oh my God, this is going to replace me. It's going to take my job away. I think that the way that I'm using it is it's really like speeding up the process of getting to that aha moment of creative ideas. It's helping refine ideas, it's helping analyze all the data and put it into the right formats. And so for me it's really speeding up, amplifying human creativity. But one of the things that I often think about is how fast technology is changing and how many new tools are propping up. But at the same time, the principles of human psychology are still the same as they were 100 years ago. Right. People still want stories, they still love people. We're emotional. Humans are emotional animals really. And I think there was a study years ago, I think it might have been like a Harvard research study that said 95 of all decisions, even in the B2B side involve emotion. And so you have to tap into someone's emotional side because when they make a decision. I've been studying the decision making process, particularly in B2B and it's really interesting how every decision is really made the same way in some regards. I mean, sometimes, you know, there's a small percentage of which is just like completely rational, logical. And you know, we need this and we're just going to go with it. But for most decisions, the rational side of the brain and the, in the. So, so, so like the rational and the logical side actually comes together with the emotional side of the brain. And there, it's kind of like creating this. I think there was a guy that calls it fusion points, like a sales trainer. I saw this. And so it's creating that connection really. So getting back to your question, I mean, marketing is going to continue to change from a technology standpoint, but it's never going to change the way that people are connecting to people emotionally and inspiring them, making them laugh. All the human things are really going to stay the same, at least in my point of view.

How do you invoke those emotions for something that's really boring, such as B2B software?

Well, I think a number of companies out there actually are doing a pretty good job at this. I saw one example was Regal. I think it's called Regal AI. It's like a, you know, there's a hundred, there's hundreds of these chat bot or customer service agents that are using AI. So they're actually, they're doing phone AI, CS agents, and they're become, they're, they're sounding more and more human, right? And they're actually becoming more and more useful. At the end of the day, I think there is a little bit of a pushback and people still want to talk to humans, but I think there's, there's a place for, for these, for these technologies and especially as they get better and better. But one of the, I saw they, they did this really cool creative activation Regal did where they actually, they turned dogs voices into different. You could call a number and, and actually talk to that particular breed. So I'm a big dog person, so you can see like, oh, I want to talk to a golden retriever. Here's the number. And they could go and have a conversation with this dog. They also did another thing where they did like, you could be the next voice of AI and so like you, you call this number and you kind of like, it was really tongue in cheek and funny. It was like asking you questions and it was like, all right, repeat back to me. And then you had to repeat it back. It was like, oh, you're going to be the next voice of AI. So they're doing all these, all these fun activations and I think that's what I love to see is like bringing fun and excitement into the world of B2B. It doesn't have to be boring and dry. There's been a number of other companies. I know, I know, I know. I mentioned Gong earlier. Gong is another one that early on said it doesn't have to be completely dry and boring. So I'm trying to learn about. I don't know if you have any, any B2B examples, but I'm trying to learn of like, other ones that are doing, doing it right and not just being stodgy and boring.

Most of them are like boring when in reality they should be bold, creative, playful. Yeah. I don't know for you, but I actually really like this webinar. It was Exit five. Yeah. The other day. I, I think that's actually a very good example. Like, you know.

Yeah.

Competition style show, something like that on a trendy topic.

Yeah. That was how I, I met you for the first time or saw you for the first time. You did a great job. And I actually need to, I need to jump into that workflow that you shared. But yeah, that was really cool and, and you brought a lot of energy into that. That was fun.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Tell me, James, what. What's what's your best book on marketing or, or business or something like that?

Well, I think we're all kind of, we're all kind of disciples of Dave Gerhardt. So his, his book Founder Marketing is a really good one. Enjoyed that book. My. The latest book that I just read was Courageous Marketing by Udi Letter Gore. Did you read that one? It's. That's really good about just being, just being courageous and not being boring and coming up with ways to kind of look bigger than you are. They, they did it like a Gong did a Super bowl commercial. But what they, they actually just did it regionally instead of like buying, you know, they couldn't afford obviously like a Super bowl as, like, as an early stage company. And then they created, they took that ad and they kind of shared it with people online. So there's ways like that where another example, you do a billboard and then take a photo of it so like it makes you look like you're bigger than you are. Like, there's all these tips and tricks that he gives in strategic ways to kind of do B2B marketing. Another book that I read, and this isn't even a new book. Rand Fishkin, the founder of SparkToro. He wrote a book called Lawson Founder and that was like just from the perspective of a founder. I was like, wow, that's like a really good book from, you know, if you're a SaaS company and you're trying to figure out how to be a founder, how to get VC money and things like that. So those are the, the three books that I would, I would suggest. But also I, I mentioned Randall Lane. He wrote a book called the Zeros. It's about, it's like My Misadventures and the Days where Wall Street Went Crazy or whatever. So a lot of people don't realize this but prior to coming to or actually he, Randolene started at forbes in the 90s and then left and he started two publications. One was called POV and then he started one called Trader Monthly and that Trader Monthly, so it was all about the stock brokers and traders. He actually launched 30 under 30 there but then with a, with a financial collapse and I think 2009 it shut down and then he ended up coming back to Forbes. But that's a really cool book that kind of like chronicles his journey like prior to coming to Forbes. So recommend that one.

I have two more very quick questions and then we are wrapping up. If I remember correctly, you have two girls and as you call yourself, you are the cheer dad, right? Yes, I have one four year old son. So tell me from one father to another, what's the best lesson you can give me on parenthood?

It. Wow, this. That's a, that's a good question. You know, I think it's obviously, I mean it's common sense but just like be present. I think, I think that the pandemic was really the, the best thing for me as a parent because you know, I've been working from home since, since 2020 and you know I was able to actually go to so many different events. Like it's still like use those opportunities like if you're picking them up from school to actually have conversations and, and you know, just stay connected. But I was able to like coach T Ball. But as a parent, like my wife and I, one of the things we always try to do is like have dinner together at night and after dinner we, we just sat up like if it's nice outside, just sit outside and have everyone put their phones down. Right. Like that's the killer is like everyone's always on their phones. Like my Girls are now 10 and 13 and because it just goes, you know, it's cliche but like it just Goes by so fast. So always try to make time to kind of like have dinner at night and to like sit outside, talk, connect and all that sort of thing. I'm really lucky too because we have a lot of family nearby. Actually next door is my brother and sister in law and they have kids and stuff too. So family is very important for sure.

Nice one, nice one, nice one. Yeah. And the last question that I have for you, how do you win at the game called life? What is that winning for you?

Well, right now, honestly I feel like I wouldn't win without Chat GPT because it's really amplifying, amplifying my life. But at the same time you have to make sure you're not losing out on the critical thinking and things that you know, you don't want to kind of like go into this autopilot where you're constantly just going to ChatGPT. How do I do this? Like, it's, it's become like my replacement for like calling my dad if I need to fix something. Like I just, it'll tell me how to do pretty much anything. Or like if I'm having an issue with like my website is on Squarespace, I'll literally go to ChatGPT. Why can't I fix this? And sometimes, most of the time it gives me the right answers. Other times I still have to YouTube it or whatever, but for me it's, I still, I feel like even with all this amplification through technology of, you know, human creativity and ingenuity and things, I think you have to make sure that you're being really intentional about maintaining your own thought processes and your own critical thinking because you're not like, we don't want to completely over rely on these tools because then we're going to lose out on kind of the inherent, create critical thinking, creative problem solving skills that we as humans have really helped us stand out. Because I was thinking about this, I was, I was making my bed the other day and I was like, you have, you have to be intentional and, and maybe have, maybe have moments throughout the day. Maybe it's when you're making your bed or when you're, when you're brushing your teeth where you're just like still thinking on your own and not like, you know, going through different, coming up with your own ideas and going for a walk or taking a, taking a shower or whatever it is. Like still, still think we don't want to like leave up, leave all the thinking to, to the AI because that's not what it's for, for me, the humans do the thinking. We put the input into the AI and it helps us analyze it. It's like a kaleidoscope. It takes all this input and turns it into something else. But we still have to be the ones doing the thinking. So that's kind of the way I approach things. Yep, yep, yep.

Definitely. Actually, I, I would agree with you. I, I was also recently, like, I'm very scared of AI, right? Not in terms of, you know, the popular talk like they're going to, you know, take over the world or that kind of stuff. No, I'm actually scared that with like extensive use of artificial intelligence, we as a people might become dumber or, you know, less capable to do certain things. Stuff, Right, Yeah. For example, like, I don't know, but very, very stupid example. I caught myself yesterday, I think, you know, one co worker, he sent me a three minute long voice message on Slack and I was like, hell, no way I'm going to listen to three minutes, right? I mean, three minutes, like that's eternity. And I was like, okay, copy, copy transcript from slack. Go to ChatGPT and like, give me the summary of this.

Right?

That's a very stupid example. Right. But there are many, many, many, many other stuff. You know, it even, you know, comes to the, you know, moment where, for example, I have two sentences and I go to ChatGPT and say, you know, make this better. Right? Make these two, two sentences, like more powerful than how I wrote that. Right. I mean.

Right.

We might end up losing, you know, the ability to do, to do specific things.

Yeah.

Another, another fear that I have is that many people in real life will start talking the way how AI writes that. Yeah, that's, that's also something that I'm very, very, very fearful. Careful about, James. This was a hell of an episode. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you very much for being here today.

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. It was, it was awesome. I look forward to hearing your other shows too. Thank you.

You're amazing. You're amazing, man. Thank you very much.

Okay, guys, that's a wrap. What an amazing episode that was. Before you go, just let me ask.

You a very quick question.

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