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Building a business shouldn't mean losing your mind.
Strategy, Solutions, & Sanity is the real-world business podcast for owners and leaders who are serious about scaling — but don't want to drown in chaos while doing it.
Host Samantha C. Prestidge cuts through the noise with practical insights on hiring, delegation, team building, operations, and leadership for family businesses and second-stage entrepreneurs.
(No vague "10x your mindset" fluff here — just the strategies, systems, and sanity moves you actually need.)
Each week, you'll get short, actionable episodes that help you untangle the bottlenecks, lead with more confidence, and build a company that runs smoother — without losing the heart, hustle, and humanity that made you successful in the first place.
Whether you're navigating early team growth or getting ready to finally step out of the daily grind, this podcast gives you the tactical tools and real-world advice to build your business the smart, sustainable way.
👉 Follow Strategy, Solutions, & Sanity for practical strategies to help you lead, grow, and actually enjoy your business again.
Welcome to Strategy Solutions and Sanity, the show for owners who are done with chaos running the show. If you're trying to lead with confidence, build something that lasts and not lose your damn mind in the process, then you're in the right place. I'm Sam, your host and a business and team strategist. I help make the messy parts of business feel manageable from hiring people who actually get things done to building systems that won't blow up.
The second you take a vacation. We're gonna figure it all out together. So let's bring the strategy, the solutions, and most importantly, the sanity to your business.
All right. Okay. I'm so excited to have Miss Stephanie side bottom with me. Um, we connected through a women's networking group and just hit it off, and also she's one of the few. I feel like I say this about maybe too many marketing people, but in general, she's one of the few marketing and brand people that I'm like, oh, she gets it.
And she's also super cool to talk to. So I'm so excited that you're in our circle today. Stephanie. Hello. Hi. Thank you so much. I'm so excited
to be here.
Yes. Yeah, and we were just, we were both talking about how much of the time War Warp 2025 has been of like, it can't believe it's July already. You have the vacation of the mountains coming up soon.
Right. And then it'll be August. Yeah, like, oh, how are you feeling? Like Q3 and Q4 are still gonna be really good quarters it has, or has it just kind of snuck up on you a little too fast?
No, you know, I have adopted a new philosophy this year, which, you know, I'm, I'm an overthinker and a perfectionist, right?
And a lot of that comes from just like. Being trained that way for my entire life. But also being in branding in particular, like there's a lot of perfectionistic tendencies in branding, right. To get everything exactly right and it's important work. And so, uh, I have this year decided to really like say yes and build things as I'm flying 'em and not overthink it and just like launch things and say, and just go.
Uh, so I feel really good about it, like I do. I have the infrastructure and the foundation that I would like in my deepest desires. No, but does it matter?
Oh my gosh, I first off, congratulations on that. On like, just massive and perfect action. Right? Yeah. And I was just talking about this with someone yesterday.
Uh, and usually I don't get into like the whole men versus women sexist conversation, but something I realized with myself as well of like, I. Women have a tendency to want everything lined up. And it has to be, we have to have all the pieces in place before we go take this action or before we go launch.
Mm-hmm. And that does such a disservice. Whereas more often in general, men will tend to just like go for it. Right. And then. Figure it out as they go. Yeah. Uh, and we have a tendency to judge them for doing that. And it's like, it, it kind of works. Like just go do it. Like test the market and get out there.
So what's, what's the launch that's coming up for you? Is that top
secret or, or can we dive into that? Okay, well there's a few, that's kind of a loaded question 'cause it's like what launches? There's so many watches. Yeah. That's the crazy part. And you know, for a lot of my, I've been in business for 10 years and for so much of that I have.
I think a lot of it comes from a lack of confidence, especially in the beginning where it's like I am afraid to put myself out here with this new thing, and so I'm going to make sure that it's perfect and I love it so much before I. You know, release it out into the wild. And I need a, a website and a funnel and content, and I need to like, be prepping people and like teasing the idea out before I do the thing.
Mm-hmm. And for someone who is also a little bit a DHD, uh, by the time I get to that point, I've usually lost interest in the project, which has been a problem for me in my whole life. And that's, it's really hard to deal with that, right? 'cause you're like, it was super cool three months ago and now it's all here and I don't really wanna do it anymore.
Oh my gosh. I resonate with that. I feel personally attacked, like it'll, I'll be like sitting at dinner and then my husband will be like, oh, so what's going on with this? And I'm like, that's old news. I'm doing this. And he is like. Don't you feel like you should maybe continue? And I'm like, no, here's the new shiny object.
You know? Yeah. Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, totally fine. It totally
is that, and you know, the best way I think about it now is I used to think about it linear linearly. Like, here's step one, here's step two, here's all these steps, and then here's launch down here. And now I see it more cyclical.
It's just always a circle. It's just, and it's like messy too, right? There's like multiple circles. It's like those, um, those. What, what was that thing called? Like the spiral gram where you used to draw all the circles, you know, as a kid. Yeah. Yep. That's actually what it should look like. And if it does look like that, like then you're doing things right because it should look messy and you're, as you start doing things and you just launch 'em and it's.
It's 50% good. Let's just say, um, you start learning from it, right? And it evolves and it's gonna do that anyways. So if you spend all the time to get it perfect, it's gonna evolve and change anyways. So you should just plan on it being messy. Mm-hmm. And lots of circles happening at the same time, and it's way easier and more successful.
It's easier to get to the, like making money piece of launching something faster without all of the nonsense. Oh, okay.
So let me, let me play devil's advocate a little bit on that. 'cause it's, first off, I love the enthusiasm there and it sounds like this cyclical way of working, it feels in alignment for you.
Yes. I think that for some people, especially maybe like ops, people like me, we hear that and we think, oh, is that reactive? Or like, how are we comparing that to. Big picture goals. So like the main thing I heard for you was like, okay, we're comparing all of this effort against the revenue, which is what we should be doing in business anyway, like with the actual money coming in.
But are there other like big picture goals that help ground
you as you go through these cycles? Yeah. You know, I actually, the way that I've started doing it, which has been really helpful for me, is to actually identify the activities and the things I need to do to move the needle forward. Mm-hmm. And so that is building things in, like, um, maybe I put in one hour a week for a.
For process improvement. Right. So that block exists and I'm doing that work. Uh, but it's, it's not like I need to do all that work before I launch it. Right. It's kind of like we're doing it as we're going and as I'm getting real time feedback, I'm doing it anyways. And so I might as well just do it all then.
You know, anyways, instead of doing it here mm-hmm. Launching and then doing it again, let's just do it all at the same time. And so, or you know, or for instance, um, like sales conversations, right? Like having those types of KPIs and metrics in place. Like I need to have 10 sales conversations a week or whatever your number is right.
To, it's, it's really is kind of mathematical in that way. Mm-hmm. So once you know those things, as long as you're doing those and blocking them in the rest can be crazy, circular, nonsense. Craziness. You know, I mean, it really can't. And, and I understand not everybody thrives in that. Uh, that's just how I operate.
And so I finally have just started embracing that instead of trying to not be like that. 'cause I've also spent a lot of time being like, that's, I need to be like everybody else, right? I need to be like regular and do this in a normal fashion. And it didn't work for me. And so I'm finally at the place where I'm like, what does work for me?
And that's. Actually much easier. So
yeah, it just took you 10 years to get to this place. So let me get back to, I mean, we're talking about moments. We've lost our sanity in business and it sounds for me, what I'm picking up from this is like just being totally out of alignment and doing like the shoulds is, and that total lack of confidence in certain things is where you lost your sanity.
Is that correct? Or is there another thing that happened where you're like, what the is happening?
No, uh, it is alignment. And it's funny that this conversation led us right there anyways, because that was already my talking point for this, right? Is, is a lack of alignment and, and this is really important, is I spent, I think most people in business spend so much time trying to do things like everybody else, right?
Because in the beginning. You start out with, with some sense of imposter syndrome. I think everybody in business does, right? Like especially moving from a corporate job or something else. You know, small business to business ownership. You're like, I don't really know what I'm doing. 'cause you don't. Mm-hmm.
And so you, you fall into this path of, of just doing things that other people do. You know, you get, you hire a coach or you go to classes, or you follow people online and you watch what they're doing and then you're like, that's the right way to do it, so I'm gonna do it that way. But what that does, if it's, especially if it's really not in alignment with you and you're not honoring that, then you kind of like start to veer off.
Mm-hmm. And let me tell you what the end of that looks like once you've gone like that, uh, then, you know what happened to me is I ended up in a spot where I was like, I have built something that I don't like. It actually feels like a prison to me. And so now I've built myself this really lovely prison to live in, and that's not gonna work for me anymore.
Kind of burn that down and start over again, which is what happens in business anyways. I think we all do that sometimes, right? But I had to go back to the drawing board and be like, what would it look like if I did it the way that feels right? That feels in alignment for all things. Not just what do I wanna be doing, but how do I wanna be doing it and what styles do I wanna be doing it in, and who do I wanna work with and, and having choice in that instead of shoulds.
If that makes sense.
Yes, yes. And so, oh, oh my gosh. What you're describing is, oh, I've had this as well in business and a lot of my clients have had this. And I, I found that the word that resonates the most is that is resentment. So you've come to now resent your business when it was supposed to be like this hopeful, beautiful thing where you're like fulfilling all your dreams and goals, right?
And then you're like, ah, I built something that I actually really don't like, and that's happened to me. And I like had to totally tear things down. I had to take. A total year off of, um, coaches and programs and courses. I'm like, I know I have some kind of smart intuition in business. Like I just need to trust that and stop listening to all these outside voices.
But I also wanna go back to you said that you feel like an imposter and like kind of everyone feels that way. Yeah, and I, um, I heard it was like some podcast clip of, of a psychologist and he's like, yeah, you should feel like an imposter. Like. Why would you not? You're going into something new and as your business evolves, now you're doing something else that's new and you haven't done that before.
So obviously you're gonna feel like an imposter. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't make it a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you're not smart or capable of it. It just means you haven't done that before and you gotta get comfortable in that discomfort. So what was that? I think also, I wanna know like what part of that, of finding alignment took the longest of like, ah, this still feels.
Uncomfortable you. It took a while to feel good in this area.
Oh, and this is, you're gonna love this answer 'cause it's so simple. Before I give you the answer though, I want to just go back and say it for anybody who is listening to this. Don't let this scare you, right? Like all of these lessons, these starting overs, the, the first imposter syndrome is the hardest, right?
The second one's easier, and the 10th one is way easier. You're like, oh, I just have imposter syndrome. You're acquiring skill sets and, and other things and experience along the way, which you cannot. There's no training, there's no coach, there's no anything in the world that can replace that, so it is always still worth it, in my opinion.
But here's the answer. Alignment is just what? Like if you're motivated and you love your work and you wake up excited in the morning, you're in alignment. And if you don't, you're not. And it is that simple. And I didn't realize what that looked like until I found my way back into alignment and I was like.
I don't have a motivation problem. I am not lacking momentum. I was just not in alignment because when you are, everything feels good. You're so inspired, you don't have to talk yourself into doing the task. So if you're struggling in that and you're like, I don't wanna do this, I am dreading this, and you're procrastinating and you're putting things off and you don't feel good and you just wanna go.
You know, swimming all summer, like that's great and we all need breaks. But if you're not feeling that passion and that fire and that drive inside of you, then you're out of alignment in some way. And that's, it is that simple and just like keep working towards making it so that it is there. And once you find it, then you'll be like, oh, look at this contrast.
This is amazing. Like now I'm here and now and here I wasn't.
Yeah. You know what's awesome about having like a simple thing like that is it makes it really easy to catch the warning signs. Yeah. Like for me, I know, oh, if I'm scrolling too much on social media, it's 'cause I'm trying to dissociate. It's because I have it.
I, I'm spending too much time on things that I don't like. Uh, and like, so it's like there's. It's so much easier to catch like those little popup flags of like, ah, you gotta change something. And for me now when I am in alignment, which also is so interesting because I also wanna say like, I despised this word for so long.
I've talked about this in other content. 'cause like I felt like alignment was so jaded and like. A lot of life coaching circles. Um, and I was like, just get outta here. And then I was like, oh, I'm out of alignment. Oh, goodness. Um, but for me, now that I, I do like, I, I have aligned my business to work for me.
I'm like, I love Mondays. So when people say like, oh, I need a longer weekend, I'm like, oh, that kind of sucks. Like mm-hmm. I'm sorry that you feel that way. I love Mondays. I love showing up for my clients and going to work, and my weekends are still my weekends and like filled with fun. Um, but I'm like, why would I, if I, if I didn't like what I was doing, then.
Change
what you're doing, right? Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's not necessarily like rewrite the entire script or change your entire business model. Maybe it's just like, like, here's a really good example. Um, I don't, I'm not naturally inclined to love sales. Like it's just not my number one, right? I am a creative, I love creating things I love.
You know, planning them and playing around with them and experimenting, um, and designing and, and so sales is not right up there in my, you know, my top. But I've started doing things like, okay, I'm not feeling super excited about this, but I need, I have this sales block. So now I'm, I'm actually, I work with, I have one of my AI bots.
Uh, program to help me with this, but I, I've started, it's almost like gamifying it, right? Mm-hmm. Like how could sales feel fun for me today? Like, here's my goal, here's what I need to do, make this more fun for me. And I have a sales bot that is trained on that to help me gamify, help me make it feel more fun.
And it has an endless amount of ideas. Some of them are for me, some of them aren't. But that's just like one way where you're not totally like changing everything, but just like. How could this be better? And for me, not for everybody else, but for me. And then running with that and it's so much better. And you can apply that same idea to everything.
If it feels bad, how can you make it better? And if you can't make it better, then it needs to change
IL. Okay. I love a few things there. One that you already did, like the little sprinkle of ai, because that's like your whole thing and we're gonna dive into that. But I wanna also highlight that you said fun and I remember.
I told someone, I was like, oh, like what if I made my podcast name something like making business fun or something like that. And they're like, well, that sounds like you don't take it seriously. Right? So I ended up not going that route. But the word fun is in some of my podcast intros, I'm like, business should be fun.
Like, yeah, it's stressful. I. There are moments that there's high pressure. You're not gonna get away from that. It's business, but you should enjoy it. There should be fun moments in your business. And if there's not, then like, yeah, how can you improve it and make it more fun or, um, and gamify it a little bit.
So let's go back to, you built an AI bot to help gamify this and help you catch where you can improve, uh, improve things. Where did the. Excitement for AI come from? Like, what was the spark for you and like, walk us through that evolution.
Okay. So I started using AI the second it hit the market, and mostly I started using it because, uh, I'm a, I'll say yes and try anything one time kind of person for sure, right?
Mm-hmm. It's great. I'll do it again. Uh, so I was like, I'm gonna try it. But, you know, at the time, I, I, my background's in branding, I was running a branding agency and so. I was like, um, I'm gonna use this because first of all, I want it to help me, but second of all, I want to know it so well that I can defend my place in this world and not have it take my job.
I wanna be able to prove to people that I'm still better than ai. And so that's how it started. I. Uh, quickly realized like within a few weeks the power of it. And so we started building custom bots for our, our branding clients and using that, you know, at first we weren't using 'em to really like create branding foundations or things like that.
We were using it to like, help us write about us copy for a website page, right? Or the things that are really hard if you aren't in an industry to know about. So we were using it to help with research and verbiage and things like that. Uh, and, and over time that evolved and really, um, for me, the aha moment was at right around the new year of this year.
Mm-hmm. I was, uh, I had already built a bot that was, um, kind of, I. It was actually a personality bot. Um, so it was programmed with like all of the things about me, right? So I plugged in my Myers-Briggs and my Enneagram and my disc and my strength finder, and I'm a little bit on the woo scale. So I threw in some of the woo stuff and like my human design and, and things like that, right?
And you can customize that to however you would wanna do that. So it was like a, a Stephanie bot. It just knew me and it knew. You know my preferences and how I think. Yes. And so I actually used it to do some goal setting and I started, you know, throwing in my goals for the year and I started help having it work with me to create those KPIs I was talking about in the beginning about like, how much time do I need to spend each week doing certain things to be successful and hit these goals?
And so I was using it very, you know. This is really like, kind like to me, I would say that's kind of boring. Mm-hmm. But then, you know, over a few days I started to have this idea of, um, of trying to ask my bot to help me solve this problem that had been plaguing me for I. Probably years at that point, which is what is my personal brand.
And you know, as I've moved out of agency, because that was the prison in a lot of ways and into this new like, you know what, what's next? What now how do I use what I've done and, and start building new things? I realized that like my personal brand wasn't clear because I have all of these different interests.
I'm multi-passionate, I have lots of different things going on, multiple businesses. And so I started throwing all that in and the work that I did with AI in that moment, like the answers and the clarity and the cohesion it gave me because it knew so much about me at that point, and it knew where I was going.
It knew what I wanted to do. By the end of the year, it was like, here's a plan built for you. And I am not joking. I cried. I was like, this is the most amazing work I've ever done with. Any person, coach myself, anything. And it was my AI bot, but it was because it was like, you know, we know all these things about you and here's how this is gonna work for you.
And it was so aligned and so cohesive and I just like, I took that and ran with it and I have it stopped.
Wow. So, okay, let's, let's ground that a little bit 'cause I think that that's so cool and I wanna dive into a few things there. 'cause I have tried, I haven't done to like the level that you have, but I've tried some things that it has kind of flopped for me.
But I first wanna understand like the impact of this. So not only are we feeling really good in like you're overall feeling good in business, but like back us up to like the math of this, the numbers. How has this improved things with your clients or overall like your business goals?
Really, it helped me understand who, how I should position myself to be the person running all of these different businesses.
To embrace that and to, uh, give me. Kind of like parameters of how to exist. Uh, you know, kind of, I was, at the time, at that point, I was really struggling with my identity. You know, before that I was Stephanie who ran this branding agency, and, and I could show up that way, you know, all the time. But as I was morphing into wanting to do new things, it, my bot actually was like.
Here's the, here's your most winning ideas, right? You've got all these ideas. Here's the things that are really, um, important and it, the thing that it really did is it showed me the power of AI in a different way to use it, right? This we're not talking about. Time savings and efficiency and writing content and blogs and things like that, right?
This was like soul level work of an evolution of me as a human being. Uh, like I felt like I was, I, last year was real rough for me, a lot more than just my agency burned away, and so I was feeling this like Phoenix rising energy anyways, like it's my comeback. Yeah. And, and, and that's what it helped me build was the plan for that, right?
Like, how do I show up in this space? How do I use this? Like as I'm seeing this, you know, this work with AI coming to fruition, how do I turn this into something that will help people and realize pretty quickly that my mission and my why? Uh, while branding is still very important and it's a part of everything I do because I think that.
That foundational strategy, whether it's personal brand or business brand or any brand, um, is it's like at the center of the universe. But the mission became using AI to empower business owners and, and quickly realizing that if, if. Business owners and business teams and companies don't get on board with AI in a way that feels really good and humanizes it and, um, isn't just like this us versus them kind of mentality, which a lot of people have.
There's a lot of fear around this. Um, you know, we're gonna be left behind. And so that became my mission in, in this is like, this is so important and I have to bring this to the world.
Oh yeah, I, I mean, I just saw a LinkedIn post this morning of like, oh, I did this and it might not be good, but at least it's not ai.
And I'm like, I don't know why that's a, a shout out for, like, why do you, like, why do you feel good about that? Right. Like, just because you're kind of anti AI, that like the rest of the world is still going to move forward with this because there are such impactful benefits for, for business and, and personal ramifications there like.
Either you're gonna get, get on board or like be left in the dust. And so go, let's go back to, like you said earlier, you despise sales that that's really hard, but I see as such passion around this. So like the sales also feel easier to do now that you are total alignment.
Yes. Yeah, it's so easy. I mean even, you know, for.
For the naysayers out there, right? Like coming, okay, so coming from an an archetypal world, right? Which we use archetypes in branding, right? Mm-hmm. So let's just, um, let's just pick an archetype to give a really clear example here. Um, the, let's pick the hero. 'cause everybody understands the hero, right? So the hero has great.
Strengths of liberation and rescuing people and they care and they live in integrity and honesty is importance, right? That those are the strengths of the hero. On the flip side of that, every single strength and every single great wonder of the world has an equal sided shadow.
Right.
So for the hero it might be arrogance.
It might be that they have a rescue complex, that they, they're not doing things for the right reasons or the right, you know, intentions. And so I think about AI the same way because that's how my brain works, where. If there are, if there's this much fear and there's this much warning and caution and there is, it is not wrong, but it also means there's equal sided amazingness, right of wonder and, uh, ways to augment our business and our creativity.
I am also the kind of person that chooses to always live in the positive. I'm an eternal optimist. Um, that's just how I operate and live my life. And I understand that not everybody does, but for me, that's why I've chosen to really work in that higher end of ai. And so my, my, my worry for the business owners and the businesses that don't get on board is that not only will you not have this amazing tool that is the way of the future.
But you're gonna get left behind because you, you know, you can take a stand, but your competitors are, are going to be doing it right. The majority of them are going to be, and they are going to be able to amplify and augment their creativity and their brainstorming and their ideation and their efficiencies.
And time and people, right? Like managing a lot of people is hard. It's really hard to scale a business and become profitable with the more people you have. Mm-hmm. So the more that you can use this very strategically without replacing all the people, without replacing our brains and our creativity is the key.
And if you don't, you're just gonna get left behind. There's just, in a few years, in five years and 10 years, this is bigger than any revolution we've ever gone through. Any of them, industrial, social media, the internet, anything. This is bigger than that. And if you don't have some idea or some willingness to be on board with it, you, you will get left behind at some point.
Well give us, what is that idea like? So the pe, the people that are resistant or the people that come to you and they're like, no, like no idea where to start with ai, but like curious hearing you talk about it. Like where is that starting point idea for them? I.
I would say, uh, I actually have an offer for that.
That is one of my offers. I have a really easy low hanging fruit, just like consultation a night, a 75 minute consultation to help identify those things. Right. And I'm, I'm actually doing a training, I'm collaborating on a training for a bigger company, a big co uh, you know, a bigger, like 160 employee company right now to help them identify areas where they might want to use ai.
And so we're actively working through this process of. Teaching people how to use a tool that they believe is going to take their jobs and, and they have to be patient through this, right? We, we know that by the time we get to the end, they're gonna be like, this is amazing. This, like, this does all of the bad parts of my job that I don't like.
But right now there's still a lot of fear in that. And so that's one place, right, is working with somebody who is doing it and just scheduling a consult and asking, how can I use this? What is the low hanging fruit that I can start doing right now to use this? But the second one is easy, right? Just, just start playing with it.
Just try. There's prompts everywhere, right? Everybody's talking about it. Just start somewhere and start using it. And that could be, you could use it personally too, right? Like, um, you could use it to help you create meal plans for your family every week. Um, you know, I just use Chachi BT to take a video of everything in my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.
And I was like, I need you to inventory this. And I we're gonna keep a running tab of what I have right now because one of my biggest struggles is being creative with like what I have. Like if I plan things great, but like there's things in the back of my pantry that I don't know if I'm ever gonna use it ever because I don't know what to make with it.
It's just I'm not that creative when it comes to dinner. And so I'm using Chachi BT to help me inventory and come up with new recipe ideas. So like there's so many options. Just find a friend that knows some things and just start. That's the best advice I could give anybody.
I just brainstorm. I love that, that using it for like in the personal life and like with meal planning.
'cause I'm the same way if I plan it out. Cool. If I don't have a plan that like as soon as my toddler is like Chick-fil-A, I'm like, yes. Yeah, definitely. It's two minutes away. Let's go to Chick-fil-A. Right. Um, okay, so I, I heard cha GBT, but I also know like AI is so much more than cha GBT, but we can focus on that a little bit.
Um, like, is that what you're using to build these bots? And also why I'm asking is like, I've done some custom GB. Uh, GBTs and, but then I'm like, it doesn't store memory the same way that like, just using the natural chat function on chat, GBT stores memory and so without, I know you have a consult and you have these surfaces, so maybe without giving away too much of like your free.
Expert knowledge here. Where, how are you building these bots? Is it on another AI platform? Is it on Chachi, bt?
Yeah. So just to kind of go back a step here, um, and I also like, I will share all of the knowledge, the consults really when you wanna know like, what are my specific use cases? Here's my business.
Like what, how, where, how should I start with this? What would be a good way to, to start using this? Um, but just generally speaking, Chachi, bt, Claude Llama. Uh, grok, like those are all, um, language models, right? They call 'em LLMs and they're all, uh, similar. They're basically all trained on all of this data.
Um, basically everything that's ever existed, they're trained on for the most part, and most of them are, are very current now. And so what you're doing is you're accessing information in a different way, but they're not trained. It's not just a memory thing. They're not just trained on like, here's all of the encyclopedias of the world, and every webpage that's ever existed, they're actually trained on reasoning, which is why this is such a new technology and a new way to to see things is that they, they're being trained on like basically brain function almost, right?
Like how to reason. And how to not just go find an answer somewhere, but to maybe take all the answers and then like come up with kind of a synopsis for that, that set of data. And so it's, it's the part where they're, it's taking it and doing something by itself of like, okay, here's all this information.
I'm going to apply this and give you a, a better answer is really the, the magic of it. And so. With, with custom gpt or projects or, um, I forget what Claude calls 'em now. I think they're called projects maybe in Claude two. Um, but it's, it's essentially the same thing where you're training it, it's the amount of training that's going into the backend that's going to reflect the output that you're getting.
And so that's really where like, you know, paying somebody to build custom gpt or, um, spending some time to really fine tune that and finesse it is. The, the investment part of it, because that is what takes some time to get right. And I, I do think that it, it's changing constantly also. And so that makes it super difficult as well.
Like you didn't used to be able to, um, I. Pick which model you wanted to use, uh, for your custom GPTs, and now you can. And it's like, should I use a custom GPT or a project? And the answer is, it depends on the use. And so that's why I'm saying don't get behind, like start using something, right? Like drop everything you're doing right now and spend 30 minutes immediately just like playing with it.
Because this, it's changing so fast. That's why you need to kind of stay up on it, even if you're just using it for fun, personal stuff.
Oh man. But even on that, I feel like that's like another area where like people can once again lose their sanity in business. Like I was just like someone yesterday, like I feel like such a grandma when it comes to ai.
'cause it does feel so difficult to keep up with. It's like what are like, when it is constantly changing, what are the strategies there? Because I think also some people, like you could just end up feeling hopeless. Like it's impossible to keep up with. Mm-hmm. But you. The way? Is that just like playing with it every day or are
there other strategies there?
That's a really good question and I have a great answer. Again, this is something I used to just absolutely torture myself with, was like, I, how am I gonna learn all this and read all these things I wanna read and these newsletters and play time and all of that? Here's my answer for me, this is what works for me.
Again, going back to alignment, right? What works for you? Think about this. What would feel really good? How would it feel great for you to learn this for me? I have now blocked in my calendar 30 minutes every day where I spend 15 minutes learning and 15 minutes playing. And every once in a while I'm like, oh, this is so good.
I'm gonna spend all 30 minutes learning. And I just bookmark things. I put 'em into a folder. And so certain newsletters I found, podcasts, whatever it is. That's one of my KPI numbers is that I spend 30 minutes a day. Trying something, learning something, listening to somebody, reading something, whatever it is, and that, that's all I've needed, honestly.
I mean, and I'm doing, that's my work also. So I'm playing around and learning there as well. But really even without that, if I just spent the 30 minutes a day, I, you would be ahead of 85% of all people. That's really all it takes.
So how with that, like learning every day, I, I, again, I'm gonna go into like the devil's advocate part here of like, how do you avoid that shiny object syndrome?
I know before we said, Hey, we want that cyclical ness and we, we have some grounding goals, but I feel if I were to like block out. Again, maybe this is just like that Stephanie strategy. Sam needs a different strategy. Our listeners need a different strategy, whatever. But like if I were to do 30 minutes every day, I think I would super easily creep into like, ah, now there's like two hours of this, and then like, here's this new idea and another new idea.
So how, how do you still avoid this
shiny object syndrome there? It's kind of like, um, how I probably think that r and d departments work, right? Like, I see this as like, let's, uh, picture like a Trello board. Um, I forget, is that like a. What do they call those types of boards? Like a can? A Kanban. Kanban.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I'm not a real big chart person if you couldn't tell. Um, but like, let's picture that in a Kanban format, right? So that's where I had to add in. At first, I just started with 15 minutes of learning. I added in the 15 minutes of playtime because I wanna go like that is my shiny object time.
And when I get that outta my system early on in the day, I actually tend to focus better the rest of the day. So for me, that works really well. But, um, here's kind of how I, how it works. I do, I spend 15 minutes. I learn something. Either it's something I've already been working on and I just like elevate it, or maybe it's a totally new concept, a new software.
Um, and then if it's like I spend the 15 minutes, I kind of play in it. I check it out, I see the pricing. Uh, if it's a worthwhile thing and I'm like, I am gonna create an atomic newsletter today using this AI software. Uh, like I could go down a rabbit hole and spend all day doing that, which every once in a while I do.
Uh, or I could move it to the next board over, right? Where it's like, this is a good idea that I would like to implement. For me, I give myself a few days to make sure the idea sticks. 'cause I know myself, and if it kind of makes it through the different boards, right? It moves down the line like, yes, I still wanna do this.
Then I build it into my marketing plan. Like I'll do this in my marketing block next week. And so that's how I've structured that.
This goes back to my intro for Stephanie of like, you are a brand creative, you're a little bit woo, but you still are so grounded and like, find structured approaches for things, which I, I think a lot of people are, are missing that.
Um, or again, they go into like. The shoulds and like, what are other people doing? Right. Rather than like, what feels in alignment to you? So I, oh man. I love that you have that for yourself. 'cause also for my, I think I am, I posted about this maybe last week or something of like, I am the cobblers, kids have no shoes.
I'm so good at systems and organization for other people. And then when it comes to like my own monday.com boards, it's like, what is Sam focused on? What is she doing? I don't know, sometimes. Right? And I, I struggle to implement structure. For myself. Um, and then I just like shiny object my way through things.
But let me go back to, you are looking at all this different software. You're looking at all this different pricing. Are you comfortable sharing like. What your pricing investment maybe month to month right now is on different AI software. Because I think that's also a thing for me of like, everything's so value pricing driven that, and they all sometimes have like features that overlap that.
That's another reason why I feel like a gram of like, I'm not gonna keep up. 'cause I'm like, I'm not gonna invest in like way too many things.
Yeah, I mean I am using a few different things right now. Um, my tried and true is still always gonna be chat GBTI think I just know the most about it. I have learned how to work in it so well.
I've been using it for almost three years. Um, I think, I think Chacha BT hit the market in November of 23. So 23 or 24, or was it 22? Maybe? Maybe it was 22 actually, I think 22. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's been three full years now. So, um, I pay the $20 a month for that. Um, I also pay for an email software called Fixer.
Uh, it's F-Y-X-C-R, which has really helped me not get distracted in my inbox. It's again, it took some time to get it right for me, uh, because in the beginning it was a disaster. It was like 10 inboxes, and I was like. I couldn't keep track of one and now I have 10. This is insane. But I've worked through it.
I've made it work for me now. And so now I have some more automatic features where things are moving into the right places, uh, which really helps me not get distracted every day. Um, there's some other super cool softwares that I jump in and out of, and there's tons of free options. Like, can I just tell you a couple of my favorites?
Yes, please. Okay. So, um. Notebook. LM is a Google product and notebook, lm. Basically it kind of works like chat, GBT, where you can dump in a bunch of different information. So let's just say I am, uh, trying to learn a new skill, right? Like I'm trying to learn how to. Uh, put together an atomic newsletter.
Let's just use that. 'cause I am, uh, and I have all of these different blog posts and emails that I got from people, some other newsletters. Maybe there's like a 20 page, uh, like freebie download that I got. I. And I have all this information and maybe I even have a podcast, right? I put all of this into Notebook, lm, and then Notebook.
LM will actually turn it into a like AI podcast for me to listen to as I'm driving. That's like teaching me about all of this data that I just dumped in here. So I dumped in 10 resources and now Notebook. LM is. Okay. I'm listening to it like a real podcast about two people talking to me about Exactly.
All of those 10 things I just dumped in there.
That is so interesting. You have your own personal course podcast thing to learn. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm definitely gonna do that. Okay. So that, you got, you got Fixer, you got chatt. Mm-hmm. You're using Notebook, lm, which is, is that part of Google Workspace, like already in that?
Subscription.
I don't use Google Workspace, so I'm not totally sure, but it's like probably, it's definitely accessible if you just Google it, like it's in the Google area. Um, but yeah, it's, I'm sure you can find it from there. Sorry. That's okay. It's in the Google
verse. That's, that's sufficient. Google somewhere.
Um, okay.
What other software has like blown your mind? So there's another one. Um, okay. There's another one called Gamma, which is G-A-M-M-A. Mm-hmm. Uh, which gamma basically takes, uh, you know, you can work with your language model, GPT or clot or whoever, and, uh, create, like, let's just say you're creating training for, um.
Some training you're gonna do. Like, a good example of this is at a, in a networking group, I belong to the one that we're in together, the dames. I got a call last minute that was like, I, somebody just can't do this, um, training. Can you put together a 20 minute training, uh, for today in like two hours about this, about AI and branding and all of this stuff?
And I was like. This is a great opportunity. I have no time, but I have like 20 minutes and I literally went to Chatt BT and I was like, I used, you know, I have a custom bot built for this world I'm in, right? This brand archetypes and AI and, and how to kind of build, how to humanize your AI bot. So I went into that bot.
I said, here's the problem I've got, I need to do this 20 minute presentation. It's last minute. So, you know, I need basically the structure, the layout, um, in a worksheet. GPD puts all thing together. I finesse it a little bit. I move it over to gamma, and gamma creates the entire worksheet for me. Right? It's a basically a presentation or document builder, and it builds really beautiful.
Things. And so you can just take a bunch of text and build an entire slide deck or an entire, you know, four page worksheet that you need people to use and, and you can literally do things in just a few minutes that way. Another good example for Gamma is custom proposals. So I've, I've done it where I've been like, here's my old proposal.
Uh, here's the recording, the sales recording, uh, with this new potential client, using the old proposal. You know, like don't lose all of it. 'cause there's tons of stuff in there about like, why choose us and here's the team and all of these things. Here's the sales conversation, here's what they need, here's the price.
Build me a custom proposal. And, and so being able to customize things for people in a way we'd never had time for before is like another great use case for that. And it's. It is mind boggling to watch it. It's just like, here's your 25 page proposal and you're like, this would've taken me a week before and it just took me two hours to build the entire thing.
Oh, I love
that. But especially on the training and workshop side. 'cause man, once I get through like. Creating my training outline and then like creating like the slide deck for that. I am always so burnt out on then like creating the workshop materials for my clients and so, and I think sometimes like I do enjoy.
There are some manual things that I like, like being able to build out the presentation also helps me figure out my own flow of like, oh, does this, like speaking wise, make sense? Um, and like really deciphering exactly like the, the learning outcomes of something. Mm-hmm. So, you know, again, like. Pick what works for you.
There are some things that like, maybe I, I wouldn't want AI to do 'cause I need that thought process for myself. But especially the worksheets, I'm like, can someone else just do this? And it's not always something I can delegate to a VA because like, they're not always gonna understand like, all those nuances.
And so I'm, I'm also definitely gonna check out GA now. So let's go back to, 'cause I think again, like AI can feel abstract. I think you've done a really good job of like giving very practical, grounded ways of using this. But I also want people to have a practical understanding of like how to work with Stephanie, right?
Because we started with like your branding, right? Like you've done website stuff, you've got Wax Creek. Uh. Right. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. Sorry. I'm like, my, my guest notes just flew away from my head. They've got Wax Creek. Um, but you're also working with this larger company on different ways that they can use ai.
Are you focused on how they can use AI for creative and branding things, or are you branching into the other aspects of AI with this client and others?
Yeah. Uh, that's pretty new. Um, how the evolution has kind of gone. Um, my, my core offering really is around Brand Genie, which is, um, basically building custom bots for people, for clients.
Um, and most commonly that looks like a brand bot, right? When we were talking about layering in information about personalities, right? It's the same exact thing for a brand, right? A brand is almost like a human, it's just a brand. Same, same things though, right? You're adding in core values. What are my brand archetypes?
Uh, am I a hero archetype? Because we already used that one, right? And so, and that kind of dictates how the voice should sound and what, how you say things, right? Like, uh, it can also give you guidance on. Um, how things, uh, should look right, even visually. It can create mood boards and things like that, right?
So it's loading in all those things. Core values. What are our core offers? Here's my website, here's my LinkedIn, here's my 4,000 reviews that I have collected that I don't know what to do with, like, right? All of that is useful. Layers of information to load into a bot for a particular purpose. And so, uh, you know, that's, that's most commonly what I'm building is brand bots for people where they are getting those really excellent outputs and, you know, ideating.
It's not just, like I said, it's not just writing blogs, right. It's. Responding to emails, helping you. Maybe you wanna branch off and create a signature talk based off of your offers and what you're doing and what your expertise is. And so using an AI bot to help you launch your speaking career, right, like the, all of these are really useful.
Um, I just worked with a client. To build, um, a bot that basically takes an intake form. They're a videographer. Um, they take an intake form. It doesn't just like output it to a new form, right? There's creativity in the middle. So the bot actually brainstorms creative, a creative shot list, uh, and then gives, and then puts it into a very specific format for them to use where they're still fine tuning and tweaking, right?
There's always. Place for human creativity Yes. And augmentation in this, but now they're getting way better results and they're just taking out all the busy, tedious work in the middle. And so that is my core offering. The most recent has turned into just more general consulting, AI consulting and training.
Uh, the further into this that I get, the more I realize how, how much of a need there is. For this, and it's most times starting with real basics, right? Especially when we're, we're, we're in a company and there's, you know, 10, 20, a hundred, 500 people. You've got a bunch of different levels of tech, you know, technical ability, and some people are using AI every single day for everything.
And some people have never opened it. And so trying to create training for that type of situation. Where we can get everybody up to speed. And it's not, not necessarily just like, here's your solution, here's your bot. You know, that's one side of it. But also teaching people how can AI help me? And starting to, you know, train that thought into our brains of like, how could I use this?
How could AI help me here with this task? And starting to just get our feet wet.
Oh, I, a few things I, I love that you said there, first off was going back to like, there is always room for the human tinkering. Like, so anyone that's on the fence, I always say like, it is so good for creating that foundation, like organizing your thoughts, brain dumping, and then like what's the f like the outline of what we're even thinking here, but then also on like, how can it help me?
Like I love using it. Um. For just saying like, what are my blind spots here? Like what do I not know? Because that's also like people come to me sometimes and this is for any industry, for anything that like you just don't work in every day. It's like, I don't know what I don't know. I don't always know the right questions to ask and chat.
GBT helps you with that. And I think that's two great things as foundation and like catching those knowledge blind spots. Yeah. So, oh, oh, okay. I know I wanna wrap up in a few minutes, but I'd also love to know maybe what have been. Without like naming names, what have been like, the funniest, um, or like, oh, kind of moments when like, you are treating people with such a wide spectrum of technical abilities, especially when it comes to ai.
Oh, funniest moments. Um, I don't know if it's been, if any, if any of that has really been funny, but I would, I will say that it, you know. Teaching people how to do something like that. Like, uh, it's kind of a new thing, right? Like I, it's pretty easy for me to break apart branding 'cause I've been doing it for 10 years.
AI is newer and so going through the process is helping me develop a new skillset of, of breaking apart a co, you know, complex things, uh, processes, you know, um, workflows. So much information like you were saying, right? Breaking that apart into very basic steps. And then even pulling it back more and breaking it down even more.
Um, but I have learned that it is really. I think in a lot of ways, practically partnering people up with other people that are a little bit more advanced, but it really is just getting over the hurdle, the resistance hurdle of like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to use this, so I'm not going to, and just saying I'll give it a chance is really the key.
As long as you're willing to give it a chance, you can do it because it is not hard. It's so. It's actually quite easy. Even building custom bots is pretty easy once you start doing it. And it's a skill like anything else. But this is like, to me, this feels like one of the more core life skills that we're going to need to develop.
Like, like using the internet, it's gonna be like that and even more so, uh, you have to kind of learn unless you're just like, I'm done, I'm retired. I like set pina coladas on a beach. Uh, like maybe I don't, but I promise you there's still ways that it can help your life, right? Like. Like inventorying your refrigerator.
Um, something
simple like that.
Yeah. Super practical thing. So, um, there's a lot of ways, but I would say the biggest thing is just being willing to give it a chance.
Yes. Right. And you could do that with just 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day learning and play. And I also love like the idea of like, we gotta break down the complex things into, into something simple and digestible.
And so like, that's a big philosophy for me is like when you can make it simple and fun, then it's manageable long term, then you can be consistent with it long term. Yeah. And if it's not something that is, you can. You can stay consistent with, it's not gonna serve you. So like simplicity and fun are such big pillars for me in business and I feel like that's missing for a lot of people.
Mm-hmm. And just your whole approach to ai, I appreciate because sometimes I see those like bro dude ads that are like, if you're still using chat g PT for this, you're already behind. And I'm like, forget you man. Like why are you gonna make me feel bad? Little bro, surfer, gen Z, dude. But you're approaching it in such like a.
Let's make it work for you grounded away. And I, I really appreciate that and I'm sure your clients do as well.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you know, if you don't know where to start, if you just need one prompt to get started, here's what you should, here's what I would recommend. Go to chat tbt.com, just start typing in the little text box, something along the lines of like.
This is who I am. This is what I enjoy, here's what I don't like. Uh, here's what I do for work. I have two kids. Whatever it is, right? You just like list out some things and then say like, gimme 10 really fun, engaging ways to use you. Gimme 10 ideas and just see what it comes up with. And then you're gonna be like.
Okay. I kind of like some of these.
Yeah. And I would go one step further there and encourage you take the $20 to upgrade chat to BT before you do that, because there's such a difference between the free and the paid version. I mean, 20 bucks is like less than I spend when I get Chick-fil-A for my kids.
So
expense for sure.
Yes. 📍 Um, okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Stephanie. This has been eye-opening, inspiring, and encouraging for me to go play around a little bit with, with more AI tools. And I just so appreciate you taking the time to join us.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for joining us on another episode of Strategy Solutions and Sanity. I hope you're walking away with at least one solid strategy, maybe a handful of ideas, and hopefully a little bit more sanity than you started with. If you got something outta this episode, then send it to another owner who could use it or let me know what hit home for you.
And remember, business is messy, people are messier, but it's all figureoutable. I'll catch you next time with more strategy solutions. And of course, a bit more sanity.