Deep Drive into Remaining Human by Bart Paden

Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm Josh Negron, and this show's all about sharing lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the show. Today, I'd like to talk about a friend's book that I read, Remaining Human by Bart Paden. It is a book that talks about leadership, AI, and remaining human in not just today's highly digital age, but in this new changing landscape that can really affect not just our leadership, but our relationships in general. Now, I believe that AI is a tool, and like most tools, they're not inherently good or bad. They just magnify what's already there, like so many different tools do. So AI's gonna act like a mirror and is gonna be capable of magnifying and highlighting things that you want it to, and conversely, things you do not want it to. So we're going to cover things like how AI can provide a very strong illusion of efficiency, which for any business owner or entrepreneur is so valuable, but might also entail a dangerous trap. We're going to discuss the limitations of context and how we've all realized AI's shortcomings when it doesn't know enough about situations. Then we'll discuss what I call the universal temptation of really any leader and how AI can pull on those threads to make them even worse. The ever-growing echo chamber that AI can magnify, how this isn't just a CEO problem, it's an every-person problem, the value that curiosity holds over judgment, and finally, some practical steps that you can take with you to use AI more effectively, whether that be in leadership, running your business, or just in your everyday life. Now, I've known Bart for many years in this area, and we started to get to know each other over the last 7 to 8 years as I attended a CrossFit gym that he owned. We started being in the same rooms together over time and realized that we're passionate about a lot of the same things. And so that just led to more and more discussions about leadership. I got to know his heart for people that he learned through great successes and also gut-wrenching pain. And now he's in a season where he is doing some great writing and some awesome work and investing in others and helping them learn the lessons that he learned through the highs and lows of business that I believe has a growing impact in today's world. He's got an awesome goal of wanting to accumulate the largest collection of servant leadership writings by 2027. So how exciting is that? And so I was definitely pumped to read his book Remaining Human, which is a book about how AI fits into leadership and some of the warnings that I hadn't fully considered that were very thought-provoking for me. So one of the biggest ideas that Bart launches into in this book is AI's ability to increase efficiency, or at least the illusion of efficiency. You see, data is so valuable in making decisions in any business. And quite frankly, data seems very agnostic, as in it's objective, whereas feelings, thoughts, perceptions are much more risky and fluid. And so as a result, even before the age of AI, leaders found a lot of peace in making decisions through data. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but where things fall short for leaders is when they start making decisions based on data without any additional context, reflections with others to ensure they're thinking about things in the right way and their perceptions are not misguided, and creating room for curiosity, questions, and understanding before making swift decisions around data. Now, AI is amazing because it can look at growing amounts of data that no human could really efficiently sift through. And because of its ability to analyze, organize, and synthesize data, it becomes really intoxicating when it flags certain things, organizes it in certain ways that makes decision-making so much easier and faster. And who doesn't value efficiency and decision-making that's swift and easy when AI seems to draw conclusions for you? And if you ever used AI to do a multi-step process, you may have been frustrated with its tendency to go too far. When you're like, hey, I'd like to start brainstorming about something, when you're in like the wonder stage of brainstorming something and it ends up in just a few back and forth prompts, ends up wanting to go all the way to application right away before you've even fully fleshed out an idea. It seems to like rush to the end. And the same thing is gonna be true when you're analyzing large amounts of data. It could beeline to some conclusions very, very quickly that if you don't have your own stopgaps in place, could cause some decisions that might be disruptive if you don't fully consider or take some steps to pause through it. Now, like I said previously, metrics have always done this and created this opportunity and temptation to make decisions before asking great questions, Being curious, filling in context, and testing your perceptions. But now AI is accelerating that timeline, shortening that gap between analysis and decisions, which feels really good, but can sometimes be very dangerous. I've got a dear friend that I respect very much that I think added a tremendous amount of value to his organization for many years. And he woke up one day to his company making a very bad decision out of left field to end his career with them. All because he fell below an arbitrary line that they had set, and upper-level management that was removed from him personally decided to make a swift decision without asking additional questions. And even when being challenged by additional context that completely justified his position below that arbitrary line, it didn't matter, and he was cut. Now, I don't know if that decision was made with the help of AI, Or if it was just plain data-driven. If people aren't aware of this limitation, this will happen to more and more people, whether you're in the top levels of an organization all the way down. And Bart does a great job of talking to the people who make the decisions and warning them against what can happen. And one huge limitation of AI, as we all know if you've interacted with it for more than 5 minutes, is the context problem. The less that it knows about you, the more generic the information it spits out is. Garbage in, garbage out. But sometimes you're not even giving it garbage because it just doesn't know. And so when it knows so little about a situation, then what it gives you is not well-informed. It's just like when you're asking advice to a friend, but you give them very little information. What are they supposed to tell you? It's very, very difficult for them to add value, even if they absolutely want to. AI is only as good as the context that it's given. And a lot of times, even when it's looking at all of your data, you would think, well, it has obviously enough context. But there's so much context that's not just in the numbers. It's not gonna know that Frank just got divorced or that Susie's husband just fell ill and is in the hospital. All that it's gonna know is that maybe both of their numbers might be down and is likely highlighting those 2 individuals for disciplinary action or performance issues. The toughest part here is even when you're highly intentional, you don't always know what context to give AI in order for it to give you a, a more highly valuable response in its analysis. Even if you are a servant leader, you're not selfish, and you do really care about your people, you still have the responsibility to be in the driver's seat and take careful consideration in the things that it pops out in the answers that it gives you pertaining analysis of big data that you give it. Now, I think this is a universal temptation. Bart spends a good amount of time discussing how this specifically magnifies issues with narcissistic leaders, and I do agree, but I think this also can become a huge trap for any leader, because I think if you asked any person in any leadership position if they're interested in something that could help them be more efficient and more decisive, I don't know any of them that wouldn't be interested in what that looked like. They would all say yes, they would all be interested, and rightfully so. On the surface, this doesn't look like a character flaw. It looks like progress, which feels like good leadership. But I think that's what makes this so potentially dangerous. Might not feel that way because You're using AI to consider so much more than you would've probably initially considered by yourself. And so it feels like you've done more due diligence to learn and understand and look at the data to make decisions. And so it almost feels like you're absolved. We're like, yeah, I've considered every option. I had AI look at everything for me and it didn't see anything but this. And so obviously the right decision is insert the blank. And that's where the echo chamber comes in. In my episode with Dr. Kevin Wiseman, we were talking about therapy and how AI is being used in that space. And I asked him, has he considered what it looks like for someone with an unhealthy brain in an unhealthy position mentally that is interacting with AI and why an AI would give someone such terrible advice? I think most of us have seen those weird headlines where a chatbot will tell someone, yeah, maybe it is better that you're not around. And I believe it is because AI can be a dangerous echo chamber where it reflects back your own biases and the things that you believe and magnifies those instead of challenging them. The way most of these language models are built, they are built to naturally affirm, encourage, and rarely push back. Just think about that for one second. Most mentors will tell you that you shouldn't surround yourself around yes-men and that if you do, you will likely not make the best choices. Well, AI can be an unfortunate yes-man. And even if you'd use clever prompts to try to get it to be more challenging, more direct, and stroke your ego less, it still seems like when you're sharing a half-baked idea, it thinks it's the best thing it's heard that day. And we've all been there. You share something that's not great just to kind of start developing it, and it responds, man, that's such a great idea. And you're like, man, I, I know this is BS. And sometimes there's that skepticism in your mind of like, is this, is this, how much value does this have when it's telling me the worst idea I've had this week is amazing. It's certainly not always confidence-inspiring, right? So the fact that we know this is true, that AI does this, and currently, even with great prompts, is going to be challenged to be a good advisor, it falls upon us to keep our community around us there to challenge our assumptions and our perceptions. In fact, ChatGPT this week in some AI news was announced to add a feature that you can opt into that will alert your loved ones if some of your conversations with ChatGPT head in a potentially hazardous direction. They wouldn't have created this feature if AI was more objective, if maybe it challenged your thinking more or alerted you to your blind spots. So by that very nature, any leader or any normal person that stops bringing decisions to real people will find themselves in an endless echo chamber that can lead to some very bad decisions. In life, Business and leadership. And I think what makes this so easy is that there's zero friction. And from a time perspective, it doesn't cost you very much time. All you do is open an app, have a conversation, reinforce your thoughts or beliefs, and take action or don't take action, which is probably worse depending on what we're talking about. And human nature is to take the path of least resistance in so many things. And for leaders especially, it takes time, To be curious, to ask questions, to gain additional context. It also takes time to reflect your thoughts and perceptions with anybody in your circle to make sure you're thinking about things right, that you're headed in the right direction, ultimately that you're not mistaken. And I love something that Bart said in the book about this echo chamber situation is that it allows people to really shrug off additional responsibility in really putting the weight of any important decision on AI by saying, well, the data said so, or AI recommended it, or the system said this is the best decision or the best direction. Humans are excellent justification machines. Look at somebody who's made objectively terrible decisions in their life and watch how they talk about those decisions. Maybe they're the victim, maybe they blame others, nothing's their fault, the world is against them, or they just can't see how their bad decisions affected those that they care about most. And because human nature is that way, how easy is it going to be to justify the things that AI reinforces for you when you discuss things with it. So if AI is a mirror and it magnifies what it already finds, that means it's going to magnify the good and the bad that exist. And what's a bummer about that is for leaders, hopefully you know what your weaknesses are because somebody close to you has expressed those to you, described what your blind spots are. And if you are aware of those, you need to know that AI is not gonna help you in those areas. In fact, it will likely hurt you unless you're on guard and aware of spotting those in your conversations Now, you could be saying, I'm not a CEO, I'm not a leader, I'm not an entrepreneur. How does this even apply to me? And I would say, this is not just a leadership problem. It is a human problem. And that's why the book's title is so great, Remaining Human. In this age that is digitally connected more than ever, Kevin and I discussed the loneliness epidemic. How can we be in the most connected era in history, And yet have the largest epidemic of loneliness ever. That's because people are more connected than ever, quotation marks, but true intimacy is something that is more absent than ever. And let me ask you, do you think chatbots are overly gonna help that scenario or make it worse? I think the answer is obvious. I think most people know that social media connects people, but those connections aren't the same as the connection you would have sitting across from somebody else. And a chatbot isn't even a real human. So it's gonna take that to the next level. So in contrast, on Facebook, you can connect with a human to a certain extent. Obviously, it's arguable whether that's always beneficial or not, but at least it's another human being. But with a chatbot, that's not even a real person. So the danger here for any normal person to be aware of is an additional threat to disconnection and increased loneliness. So many mentors, health coaches, life coaches, and people who genuinely wanna help others succeed talk about how important Your network is. Ideas like, show me your network and I'll show you your net worth, or show me the 5 people you surround yourself with and I'll show you your future. We've talked about on previous episodes how important the community that you surround yourself with will influence your future, your decision-making, and even your mindset, and how it can be challenging when you want to change your mindset can really help open your eyes to if you've got kind of a crabs in the bucket scenario, where you're trying to change, better yourself, and those people in your life that are not fans of that can try to pull you back down, which ultimately leads you to a decision. If they won't go with you, then they may no longer be worthy to be in that circle. But relationships like this take time, investment, sacrifice, and come with highs and unfortunate lows. You have to put yourself out there. And in order to surround yourself around people who are high quality, You also have to be someone who is worthy of being chosen by people like this, which is why optimization is something I'm so passionate about. It starts with you. You can't control anyone else. You can only control you. So if you're frustrated with your circle and you're like, man, I wish I had friends like you have, sometimes I have to say, are you sure you would be friends with someone like you? Which is a really hard thing to hear, I understand. But that's similar to scenarios when people are frustrated that they can't find a significant other that they would like to find. I'm like, well, would someone want to date someone like you? That's a very good question you should ask yourself. I think a lot of Jordan Peterson's work was around this when he spoke to young men and challenged them to be better, take up responsibility, and make something of themselves. Clean your room, he would say. Yes. And that has a tremendous amount of value. I don't think it's red pill. I think it's super, super powerful for a young boy who is an adult who can't stop playing video games, who maybe is newly married and his wife is frustrated that he's not even helping around the house. Listen, guy, grow up and clean your dang room. Yeah. So are you somebody that is worthy of being a friend to a multimillionaire? That person ain't got time to mess around with somebody who doesn't have their crap together. So I'll get off that soapbox. That's for another episode maybe. But back to the idea of cultivating quality relationships and shaping yourself as a person who people would want to be around takes work, takes effort, and takes time. And AI is a super easy replacement. I think that's why it's worthy to talk about. And maybe you're like, dude, I don't think I need to be that worried about the conversations I have with AI. I have pretty low-stakes convos with it. Maybe you're asking it where to have dinner, Or helping you make travel plans. Hey, I'm going to be in Washington, D.C. What are the top 10 places I should visit and where are they? And I agree, for things like that, the stakes are pretty low and the concern is not very high. But it's super easy to have conversations that are higher stakes. Big life decisions, finances, business, career direction. And that's why I think it's so important when I read the book AI-Driven Leader by Jeff Woods, talking about how it's best to position AI as your thought partner and make sure you remain in the driver's seat. Now, Bart brings up one of my favorite concepts in the book, and that is curiosity. And I think curiosity can apply to so many things because it is such a valuable thing, even in someone keeping the humility of remaining a lifetime student, to always be curious, not thinking that you have everything figured out, to always want to learn even when you're an expert in something. And then more specifically, in things like leadership. When a leader stays curious, that leaves you open to new information, to new data, to context, and to gain understanding. And curiosity also keeps people in an open posture. And so my hot take is that I would take curiosity over judgment. And the reason why I think those two are positioned together is that anytime you have large amounts of data that you're analyzing or that AI is helping you analyze or whatever, there are really 2 places that data can bring you to. It can bring you to things that you should be curious about and ask questions on, or it can bring you to judgments, to decisions that you've already made when you see someone at the bottom of the production metric multiple times in a row. And I think what Bart highlights so well with curiosity is that it creates the space and time for context, questions, and perspective. But time is valuable and that cost is real. And sometimes it's so much easier to rush to judgment because it feels decisive, efficient, and heck, the data already made it easy. We have all the evidence we need, right? But that's unfortunate because judgment quickly puts people on the defensive. It shuts down collaboration. And I would argue, if you do have any missing details, They certainly are not going to find their way to you when you're in that mindset. If your mind's already made up, you've already made some judgments. Our brains work like this naturally. My wife and I joke about this all the time. She's a very black and white individual. So we've always joked that sometimes she makes these overarching statements about any particular thing that she observes. And sometimes I'm like, I don't know if it's that simple. And we just kind of laugh about it because we know that's a natural blind spot for her Type A personality. Whereas Whereas I always try to bring some additional nuance to a situation, go, well, yeah, given this context, that might change your view. And she's like, oh yeah, that makes sense. So I think regardless of your disposition, the brain naturally tries to draw quick conclusions from things that it's experienced in the past. It's a natural pattern recognition situation. The brain loves patterns and loves recognizing those things. And so it's So easy to make a judgment based on something that looks similar. When the data or the AI that analyzes that data gives you that landscape, your brain looks at it and could easily make some quick judgments that are arguably not complete. And what's funny about this nuance is once collaboration gets shut down and people are on the defensive, now progress slows and things become less efficient. Ironically so. So in the excitement of analyzing way more data than we ever could analyze before, in coming to conclusions faster than we ever could before, comes the possibility of being less efficient or more efficient and making poorer choices that we could pay the penalty for in the future. Like my friend who was let go from his organization, this is someone that I view as one of the highest achievers that I know and one of the the best assets for any place that he chooses to work for. And yet this global company lost this asset because of a bad leader looking at real data that told a story that was missing context. This is real life. This can happen to anyone if you don't create the space to be curious. So curiosity is actually more efficient in the long term. So I would argue the most dangerous decisions won't always look reckless. Some of them now might look perfectly reasonable, supported, and easily defended. So what do we do with all this? The first step is being aware of the problem, aware of the trap. If you know AI can be an echo chamber and can also be blind to your own blind spots, that might change how you talk to it. It might change how you prompt it, asking it if there's anything you're missing and intentionally making it try to see different facets of a situation, giving it additional context. The important human aspect of this, entrusting people close to you with the thoughts and conclusions you may have arrived to, knowing that AI is going to affirm too much, approve too easily, and make ideas sound way better than they are almost every time, keeps you in the right position when you're digesting the information. Just knowing those things helps change how you interact with it. Is there something that I'm missing? How can I explore that? What are some additional questions I can ask? And then the famous interview technique of asking AI to ask you questions to draw out additional context so that it can maybe see something that you might be missing. And if you know that AI is going to magnify your strengths and weaknesses, like really almost any tool can, then you know how to guard against those, explore what those are with trusted people close to you, and over time you'll get good at recognizing when those appear, either in your own head or in the chatbot in front of you. And probably one of the most important things is to stay curious. Opening that time and keeping it available, creating that space for time where curiosity can exist, where you can ask those questions, gain the understanding, and receive additional context that might affect your decision or change your perception. And lastly, Always keep real people in the loop. Having soundboards around you that you trust is so valuable before the age of AI, and now arguably even more so. Is this a good idea? Am I on the right track? What am I missing? What do you think? These are great questions that you can share with people that you most care about, because hopefully they will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And that is the real test. Of a true friend. I hope you found this deep dive into Bart's book helpful. Shout out to Bart. I love the work that he's doing in his writing and consulting with his passion on wanting to help people become better servant leaders and give them the resources, tools, and knowledge to magnify their impact and increase their success. If you're interested in reading Remaining Human, I'll put a link in the description in the show notes. Be sure to use code JOSH10, get $10 off your order, as well as check out his website, Archetype Original, where he provides an array services for business owners and leaders to take things to the next level. Thanks for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. Remember, growth happens when you take action. So subscribe, share this with a friend, and most importantly, put what you learned into action. Until next time, keep moving forward because as we know, daily anything changes everything.