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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
All AI is, is it's a bunch of information hooked up to a really fast computer. And so if you can get all this great knowledge quickly, accurately, and timely, who wouldn't love that?
Caleb:Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast, where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life. So buckle up and listen closely to up your average.
Doug:Welcome bobsledders, figure skater, judges, halftime show aficionados. Welcome to the fastest thirty minutes on YouTube and podcast land, Up Your Average, where it's our mission to help you lean into the greatness of your one precious life. So wherever you are today, if you're watching on YouTube or driving down the country road, we hope you're good. I'm coming to you today live from Carmel, Indiana, Gimbal World headquarters. A couple of weeks ago, we released a cash flow episode.
Doug:Cash flow, think of cash flow just as where's your money going? Where's it being spent? And I wanted to expand on that today with you guys a little bit. Then I wanted to expand on it in a way that we also brought in some thinking on AI. Specifically, I thought we'd go back in time to my senior year of high school, 1994.
Doug:1994 was a great year. The Muncie Central Bearcats were number one in the state in basketball until Ben Davis knocked us off. But the Today Show, that was a big deal back then. People watched, and maybe they still do. I'm just out of touch.
Doug:But the Today Show was a big deal, and if you want to search up a clip that's just great, I think it's timeless, I love it, is just Google search like Today Show, the Internet, something like that. You're going to see this episode where they're talking about what is the internet? And it's so good. What is the internet? What is that A with the little ring around it?
Doug:The at symbol. They're trying to figure out, what does that even mean? Do you write to the Internet like you send a postcard or a letter in the mail? One guy says, It will even replace Yellow Pages. Does anyone even know what Yellow Pages was under age 30?
Doug:And so I love to take a look at that clip from the Today Show, and I wish we could have put it on the podcast, but there's probably some license thing that I don't know about. So if you get a chance, just search it up. I have great empathy for the nineteen ninety four explanation of the internet on the Today Show because what we're going to dive into a bit today will be similar. Someday, if anyone ever looks at this episode and they're looking through it and they see us talking about AI and will it take my job and all that stuff, it'll be easy to point back and make fun of us right now, because we only know what we know. I'd encourage you, have a little grace for yourself in your life, and you only know what you know.
Doug:So yesterday, the stock market sold off. There were more sellers than buyers, and that's the reason it sold off. If you go onto Yahoo Finance or your favorite whatever news site, they're always going to have some kind of reason why the market sold off, and it's going to be something geopolitical. It's going to be something about this company doing this thing or this world leader doing that thing. But at the end of the day, it's always there's either more sellers than buyers or when it's going up, there's more buyers than sellers.
Doug:That is it. And so as I popped on Yahoo Finance yesterday, it said the market sold off big time because of threats to AI. And so I thought, I'm going to have a little fun. I love to use ChatGPT. I even recently have been paying for the upgraded version just to experiment and learn.
Doug:I think it's like $20 a month. I don't plan on doing that forever, but it's been a good investment for me just to learn. So I simply typed in, Is AI going to take my job? Okay? So if you're watching this on YouTube, you see that, Is AI going to take my job?
Doug:And this was the reply it gave me back. It says, Short answer, no. But it says, Not if you adapt. And then it says, Yes, if you don't. I thought, Okay, that's pretty interesting.
Doug:It goes on to say AI is very good at data processing, drafting first versions, summarizing information, pattern recognitions, automating routine workflows. And it goes on to say AI is very bad at building trust, reading the room, guiding emotional decisions, negotiating complex human dynamics, or leading under uncertainties. And so AI will probably improve on all those things it's very bad at, and it will probably improve at a faster pace than I can even imagine. But AI, it's here to stay, and automation is something that's been happening for a long time. If you're watching this, you'll see a picture of a shiny machine called Unimate.
Doug:Unimate was invented by George Duval in 1954 and commercialized with Joseph Engelberger, and he was known as the father of robots. So here it is, Unimate. If you're driving along, just remember that name and maybe you could do an AI search on what is Unimate. See, in 1961 Unimate was installed at a General Motors plant. I believe it was in New Jersey.
Doug:It handled hot die cast metal parts. It stacked and welded heavy components. It performed repetitive, high risk tasks, stuff like that. And so that's really what's going on today is automation. Automation is happening faster, and automation is happening in different areas outside of what we ever dreamt it could do.
Doug:But just remember, all AI is, is it's a bunch of information hooked up to a really fast computer. So if you can get all this great knowledge quickly, accurately, and timely, Who wouldn't love that? And so I'm not afraid of AI taking my job. As a matter of fact, if it takes some of my job, I think that's great because it's not ever going to take my career. It's not ever going to take my purpose for existence.
Doug:It might help me sharpen what I do, how I think, and how I look at the world. So it's going to take some of my little tasks, or some of my big tasks even, and it's going to make them better. It's going to allow me to be a better financial advisor. And so I'm looking forward to the future and what it has ahead and what's in store for you. And so the smarter question, instead of, Is AI going to take my job?
Doug:The smarter question might be, How do I use AI so that I can help create value? And in helping create value, it's going to allow me to model scenarios very quickly. It's going to help me analyze money strategies. Probably most importantly, it's going to help me improve communication and make things a little more clear, take out some of my biases, and help me think a little deeper on how I might think and put myself in your shoes. So when you combine your judgment and experience with the speed of AI, I think you get a winner.
Doug:Keith, he had a clip for us here, and he and I didn't talk much about it, but I'm going to go ahead and play it for you because he wanted you to hear this. I'm just going to play it here.
Recording:User. Hey, Grock. My spouse keeps repeating things every fifteen minutes lately. I'm worried, but don't wanna alarm the kids yet. What do I do?
Recording:Grock. First, note when it happens. Look for patterns. Then casually ask if they've noticed it too. Book a quiet doctor's visit.
Recording:Mention the repeats. Ask for a memory check. Takes no time. That's it. We can tackle it together before anyone else knows.
Doug:What the audio was is it was a robot talking to a robot, and the robot was saying, Hey, my spouse, I'm not able to communicate with them like I did. Or maybe there's some memory loss happening. What could I do about it? How could I help us in this situation so that we're able to talk about what's going on or what my spouse needs, what type of care I should be giving them. So if you're going through some type of memory loss with your spouse or someone closer to you, or someone needs help with care, Grock or ChatGPT or Perplexity could be a great resource where you just start asking questions about what's going on in your personal household.
Doug:So we'll try and pull that audio up for you so that you can listen to it and you can hear what Grok can do or AI can do for you. Now, when it comes to financial details and AI, right now, in February 2026, I would encourage you not to plug a few things into AI. It is great, but it's not secure. So back in 1994, I don't know that anyone could have ever dreamt that all of your investment statements, your bank accounts, everything would be on the internet. Whereas today, we could see where someday in the near future the security will probably be so good that you can use AI and financial details together.
Doug:But as of today, I want to encourage you guys to be very cautious when it comes to plugging stuff into AI. I picked some of these things up from Money Magazine, and it's just some things that you never want to plug into AI, like your bank account information, account numbers, sensitive information, your investment accounts, your social security numbers, any passwords or logins to financial accounts, transaction details. Could download a spending report, and if you were to put that into the internet without scrubbing it, or I'm sorry, into AI without scrubbing it, you might have an account number for maybe something you did at the Toyota dealership where you went in for an oil change and it has your Toyota account number. And so you want to be very cautious. And my advice to you is just don't plug any of that stuff in.
Doug:You don't want to plug in your account balances. You don't want to plug in paychecks or exact wage information, tax information, tax documents. And you might be looking at this and you might be saying one of two things. You might be saying, Well, yeah, Doug, duh. I would never plug any of this stuff in.
Doug:But I will tell you, as you start using AI, it becomes real easy just to become familiar and trust it. So if you're using it and you're enjoying AI and it's something that's been helping you, I just want to encourage you to keep boundaries. These are a few guidelines to have some boundaries on. You might be on the complete opposite end and say, Hey, I trust it 100 with everything. I know how to turn off parameters inside ChatGPT so that it's more private.
Doug:Even so, guys, I would just encourage you to just heed to this advice, and for now, don't put this stuff in. There will be days and the days ahead where you will be able to do this kind of stuff. We use a third party investment tool called Orion. There's a few others out there. AdvizOn's another good one.
Doug:There are some really great investment tools that investment advisors use where they are incorporating AI into their financial planning tools, but for just general public stuff with chat, GPT, Grok, Perplexity, I just want to encourage you, don't get too detailed on the financial stuff. Okay. And so as we step in and say, All right, well, with AI, what could I be doing to help myself? And I started to think, What could you be doing with AI and your cash flow? This is under the keeping it real section, and the keeping it real section is this.
Doug:Look, people panic when the stock market drops 20%, and I get that. It is brutal when it does. When the stock market drops 20%, that's officially a bear market. But almost nobody panics when their cash flow leaks out 10% year by year, because it happens slowly. Mistakes like that, they can cost more than market volatility at times.
Doug:Paying attention to, How is my cash flow looking? And where is it coming from? Where is it going out? This is a reminder to check-in with a few things, and the biggest one is lifestyle creep. Maybe you guys have experienced lifestyle creep.
Doug:In my opinion, it's the biggest one because we all want to move up in life. You're chasing the dream, but lifestyle creep can become permanent. So for me, as an example, I used to drive just pieces of Well, not complete pieces of junk cars, but older, well used cars, and they got me to where I needed to go and all that stuff. But when you experience heated seats, you're probably not going back. It's February, it's cold.
Doug:Next time you look at a car after you've had heated seats, it's going to be on the permanent necessities or you're going to want to have heated seats. So these little lifestyle creeps can become permanent, and as income goes up, expenses go up. It could be new house, a car, maybe it's school, could be travel upgrades the way that your family does vacations. It could be subscriptions, like a $20 a month ChatGeeBT subscription. It could be convenience spending.
Doug:I'm guilty of that one. It's just sometimes easier to go out to lunch. And so none of these things are necessarily bad in themselves, but the problem is when the temporary upgrades become permanent fixed cost. So if you've experienced lifestyle creep, I want to encourage you with this, and we're going to get into it a little bit with our takeaways. Instead of lifestyle creep, what I want to encourage you to do is uncreep, and so maybe you back it up, and we're going to talk about that one in a minute.
Doug:Another one we see from time to time is confusing net worth with liquidity, and this one surprises people because if you have a strong net worth, you have large retirement accounts, or maybe your home is paid off, you have a ton of equity, maybe your investments are looking really good, And so on paper, things look great, but your cash flow is being stressed. Maybe you don't have the cash to pay the credit card at the end of the month, or you're making do, you're not getting ahead. Those are the types of things that we start to see with net worth and confusing that with liquidity. In retirement, where this starts to happen is you go your whole life where you're used to having a paycheck and all of a sudden you need your net worth to provide you with an income stream. You need that liquidity from your net worth.
Doug:Those are some of the things that we can talk through with you if you have specific questions. But it's a great discussion to have with your financial advisor. You could ask chat GPT, Hey, help me understand the difference between net worth and liquidity. But these are the discussions that you could have with your financial advisor to help you start to be able to live off your investments. The third mistake that we see from time to time when it comes to cash flow is delaying hard decisions.
Doug:It's not necessarily like you're overspending, it's just avoidance and keeping track and looking at things. It could be as simple as, When was the last time you reviewed your insurance? Or tax filing inefficiencies. It could be not addressing an aging parent. I think that's the video that Keith wanted to share with us, was how do you address an aging parent?
Doug:How do you start planning for them? Those are great things to bring AI into it. Start asking really good questions. Not restructuring debt. If you've had some debt and you're paying high interest rates, maybe there's a way to restructure the debt.
Doug:The challenge with this is when you have some of these avoidances, is every year that you have more and more avoidances, you're delaying the benefit of compound interest where you could have saved some money and put that money to work in different places. Lastly, just spending that doesn't match your values. We see this one from time to time, not too regularly with Gimbal clients because, man, they just got some awesome values in the way they're living their lives. It's pretty cool and inspiring, but this is a personal one, and many families will spend heavily on convenience. I think that's one of the struggles of living in a city or living in a place where you're trying to keep up with the Joneses, but what we like to see is we like to see folks spending money on experiences, spending money on their health, and overspending on the conveniences doesn't really stack up with what they're really about.
Doug:So what can you do about it? What can you do about it? You might go back and re listen to the first cash flow episode that we did a few weeks ago, and this is going to be a little bit of a continuance of it. But what you can do is you can download your expenses into an Excel or a Google Sheet. Just download the last ninety days of your credit card, of your bank statements, of your spouse's credit card, and just look and see where the money's going.
Doug:If you are on your bank's website or on your credit card's website, they might have tools inside that allow you to dial in, ask questions, and you can find out where you were spending the majority of your money when you went out to eat, What restaurant captures your dollars the most? I can tell you for me, it's Chipotle. I spend more money at Chipotle than any other restaurant, and let me tell you, it's just too easy because I've got the app and I get excited about getting a free burrito after I spend, I don't know how much, probably a lot. But that was my number one, guys, and so which one's your number one? Where are you spending money that you probably just don't know how much you're spending?
Doug:And the only way to see it is to download the expenses and get real with it and look at it. I want to challenge you to identify one expense to cut. This is the unfreep. Okay? If you've had creep, lifestyle creep, where you've been upping your game, upping your expenses slowly over time, I want to encourage you just to creep out of it and identify one expense to cut.
Doug:And with that one expense, what I'd love to see you do is talk that one expense over with your adviser and say, hey, this is the area that I spend X amount a week or a month, and I would like to reverse that. Can you help me redirect that money? Maybe you redirect that money into a savings account at your bank. Maybe you redirect that money into an individual investment account where that $100 a month is being invested into the stock market or something like that. When possible, it's best to automate things.
Doug:How many of you do bill pay where stuff just gets zapped out of your account? Your water bill, your insurance, your cell phone bill. These are the things that in 1994 nobody could have really dreamt of, is automating your finances, but you've automated your bills. Why not automate some investing and automate some savings? And your advisor can help you do that.
Doug:And then lastly, it's just critically important to share big wins, to share a high five about, Hey, I took a look at my expenses or at our family's expenses and personalize it, and I know that I could save money if I only went to Chipotle a couple times a month, and so I discovered that this amount I could put to work and I could automate it and redirect some of that into some savings and investings, or I can redirect that towards our family, maybe having a dinner together. So sharing those discoveries, sharing your wins with your spouse and your kids, it's a big deal because anytime you can be clear with communication, honest with communication surrounding money, it just takes some of the awkwardness or guilt of overspending. It it takes some of that power away. And then it shows your your spouse and your kids that, hey. They they can do things differently too.
Doug:So, anyway, really appreciate you guys spending some quality time with us, and I hope that your rest of the day is amazing. Until next time. See you.