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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So welcome to the show.
Could you give us a top level view of what it is that you do right now and your journey so
far?
Yeah, journey so far and what I'm doing right now.
First of all, thank you for inviting me onto the show.
I'm grateful to be here and talk about all things presentation and my journey.
You know, it's kind of where I originally started completely differently than where I'm in
now.
I spent my entire career doting in learning and development in corporate and almost
Seven years ago, I found myself in this organic mode of starting a business without the
intention behind it.
It was a gift I didn't know I wanted, but it was not something that I set out to do.
was a, you know, it was a decision organically made because offers started to come in and
I was full-time taking my masters.
And so I went from working in corporate to
being a full-time student to getting taps on the shoulders to do some gigs and of course I
said yes and it evolved into a business and the essentially the work that I'm doing or the
work that I'm focused on primarily is this holistic view of presentation skills and public
speaking and helping people to find their voices and to elevate their level of confidence
and all of that is under this umbrella
or this notion of presentation skills, public speaking, but it really is about revealing
the leader that's already within each of us.
And so looking at that very holistically and helping people to embrace the opportunity to
be in the spotlight, to own their space, whether it's formal or informal, these skills
kind of...
transfer into every conversation that we have as a human to human.
How confidently people show up when they're going to interviews and that sort of thing.
So that's kind of the main focus and it falls under training which is in group settings.
There's a few different ways that I offer that.
We have a signature program and we also have a membership group for people that want that
ongoing learning and support.
There's also coaching and consulting.
In some cases, I work with leaders behind the curtain.
They may not necessarily want to be in a group setting.
They want that one-on-one support and that could be for anything from I'm preparing for a
town hall with my global organization, I need you to help me with this five minute
presentation or you know there is also the consulting or the guide on the side if you will
if people want.
you know, to kind of work on their content on their own and they want a voice to kind of
bounce ideas off of.
So that might be building their first online course or, you know, preparing for their
keynote or their TEDx talk or those sorts of things.
And the other pillar of the business is done-for-use services.
And so those done-for-use services are, you know, from creating slides as a presentation
mode.
to full-on certification courses and e-learning libraries.
And so it runs a broad spectrum.
You know, kind of the focus usually falls into those training, consulting or done-for-you
services.
So it's a very long answer to maybe just summing it up with those three buckets.
Yeah, definitely.
mean, firstly, it sounds like a very interesting journey.
So I love to dig a bit deeper on that.
But also that service delivery of essentially improving your communication skills, because
as you said, right, in any setting, and you're communicating, there's always skills you
can learn to really improve it.
And so we can dig into that for sure a little bit later, but zooming in on your journey to
begin with.
So you mentioned that, you you went into into work, then were a student, and then got the
offers and actually then started the business.
So
how did you find that shift from, I guess, going from a student into the business world,
then what was that shift like for you in relation to like mindset and just your experience
around that?
Because it's quite a big jump, right?
Most people, they'll be a student then a corporate and then go into business.
But for you, it was a little bit of a different order there.
So what did you find and what was your experience there?
Yeah, great question.
I think when I consider the roles that I've had, one clarification, I've always been a
student, I'm a perpetual student, so I have 20 different certificates and diplomas and
Master of Education and it was during my Master's study where I ended up kind of in that
middle ground.
you
the reason that I ended up there is the organization that I was working for was a large
global organization and I was working with the global leadership team.
The federal government had a quota cut and for anybody in Canada, the fisheries and you
know, there have been some dramatic bottom of the bucket falling out.
Unfortunately, organizations have no choice but to...
pivot and adapt and unfortunately my entire department was shut down.
So it wasn't by choice that I left corporate.
It was more of a, you know, I've been a student my entire life and I found myself in this
position of what do I want to do next?
And it was, I think a, I didn't anticipate the mindset reset that was in store for me.
You know, going from
this punch to the gut, how can this possibly happen?
I'm a really hard worker, I'm a high performer, I'm valued, I've always felt valued at my
organizations, I've been headhunted and recruited multiple times.
And so that one day pity party was necessary to kind of hit that reset.
But coming back into it with this optimistic view of I get to choose now.
I get to choose where my energy is, where my focus is, and I chose to go full on into my
masters because I was picking away at it for years.
And that first full-time semester, rather than being part-time and working in corporate
simultaneously, I then had the opportunity to fully immerse in the student experience, and
I absolutely love that.
However, three weeks, know, two to three weeks into that first full-time semester, I
started to get taps on the shoulder from people who said, hey, I heard you weren't
working.
Do you want to work on this project or do you want to take this gig on?
And I was very, very grateful and said yes to all of those things with the caveat that if
it can wait until my semester is wrapping up, then I can fully immerse in this.
And I was in an interesting...
dichotomy of when I really looked at what I said yes to in order to produce the level of
quality that I wanted to attach my name to, I knew that I was going to need some help.
So I incorporated, I hired and we as a team set out to deliver and it's been referrals and
word of mouth since then.
So the mindset I think, you know back to your point of
when people embark on journeys like this, I think that, you know, looking at what is
possible and thinking about challenges as opportunities is really, I think, a game changer
in this entrepreneurial lane because if we show up with any other sort of mindset, I think
we're setting ourselves up for inevitable failure and I don't subscribe to that
philosophy.
Yeah, definitely.
And I love what you said there about, you you went through that rough period, right,
getting laid off and everything, and that created the transformation within you.
And it seems to be a common theme, right, with a lot of the entrepreneurs I've spoken to
is something that happened negative in some way, shape or form, and that created a spark
of transformation within them to then pursue something different, right?
A different environment, a different lifestyle, you know, a different bit of work,
whatever.
And then from there, they grew into this entrepreneur now that's super successful like
yourself.
And so it's so interesting to see that as a common trait of some of these really
successful people, you know, from these conversations that I'm having.
And then the other thing as well is, you know, just yesterday I was, I was talking to a
guest that was on the podcast, which should be released very soon.
And what they had said was when they built their business, they had a really strong
network because they had made a name for themselves.
They had that network there and that really supported them on those, in those early stages
of entrepreneurship.
And it sounds like you had a similar, a similar thing there because you know, you are high
performing.
did.
very good work and you had that good network there.
So there's opportunities when they found you, but you could take them on to really get
things moving in the right direction.
Because a lot of the entrepreneurs that I know of, know, slightly younger, like, you know,
my age and that type of thing is they get into business and they have no network.
They have no real expertise.
They're just trying to make a bit of money here and there.
And it's such a grind to get the gears moving and even sign like the first client or the
first bit of work.
But obviously when you have a network there to support you,
then you can make that pivot and into it, you know, a little bit more seamlessly, I guess,
overall.
And it's something I'm trying to really learn, you know, what's the traits of the people
that start their businesses, you know, what creates their success, let's say, you know,
relatively quickly.
And one of the common things from these conversations, again, is they have some type of,
firstly, expertise in that field, and then also the network as well to support them to get
the gears moving quicker than they would normally.
So again, it's very interesting that there's some similarities there as well.
So I guess moving...
along that journey itself and starting to hire because of course hiring for any solo
entrepreneurs is such a big decision to make for starters and also very challenging.
So in the hiring process, what were you looking for and how did you create the team that
you have today?
And were there any hiring mistakes that you made that you can kind of relay some lessons
on as well?
Yeah, I think the stories that I've heard are that people wait too long to hire.
They try to do all the things themselves and I fully appreciate that, you know, it costs
to hire and when people delay though, I think that they are inevitably hurting their
ability to generate revenue faster.
So,
You know, when I looked at who I needed to help me, I needed problem solvers.
I didn't necessarily need people who came with a full on resume of ticking all of the
boxes for skills.
People can learn skills.
I mean, this is the world that I live in is learning and development and people can adapt
and learn.
new tools, new technologies, new processes, new ways of operating, all of that can be
learned skills and behaviors.
What I think is paramount is when hiring, hiring people who are willing to do the work.
And that might mean, you know, doing things that they don't fully feel prepared or
comfortable doing, but they will figure it out.
So problem solving is
absolutely number one.
I do not ask people to hang their brain on the door when they come to work with me.
I want them to do the thing that they think is in the best interest of the client of
ShiftED in general.
Knowing our brand, knowing the level of excellence that we work at and to do the work and
ask for permission later.
Mm.
you know, when work needs to be done, I do not want to be a micromanager.
I think people are intelligent and if they are hardworking then they will figure out what
the best course of action is and if it is, you know, not the best way to do it or in
retrospect we reflect and think well maybe we could do it differently the next time.
you know, that's my preference rather than, you know, having people wait for permission,
you know, to do the work that they do.
So I think problem solving, being proactive, being able to, you know, work and learn out
loud is definitely my philosophy.
And I think if people are looking at growing their business, you know, we have to pull in.
help in order to do that.
Now what I will also say is hiring employees is different than hiring contractors and
subcontractors and my initial sort of journey was I want to build a large team of
employees.
That might work for some organizations.
For me, I got to the point where I had five.
employees working for me full-time and it started to create a different mindset for me in
running the company and took my energy in different places that I didn't really want it to
go.
So I've since started to kind of ramp up more on the subcontracting which we've done since
day one but that creates a different collaboration.
you know, when it comes to working on certain projects.
So I think the growth of the business is something that's, it's a very individual decision
for people and whether they decide to hire part-time employees, full-time employees,
contractors and subcontractors or maybe a mix of all of that, it's a matter of kind of
listening to how do you want to operate as a business owner and not necessarily
subscribing to the vision that
industry has or that perhaps other people that are, you know, offering advice or kind of
telling you, you have to do this or and if it doesn't feel right, I think it's important
for us to listen to our gut and listen to what is right for us and there is no one size
fits all.
Yeah, I think you made a great point there about, you know, hiring contractors as well.
You contractors, what I found with working with them is that they do have that
entrepreneurial spirit as well, where, as you said, right, they're problem solvers and
they will figure it out.
Like that's their philosophy with things as well.
And so they make, you know, when you have a smaller team, like they're really good to have
in because they will figure out the answers to the problems.
But you mentioned about some mindset shifts that you started to go into when you did have
a team of five.
Like what were some of those?
the shifts you experience.
It'd be interesting to understand that.
Yeah, I think for me, I love what I do.
I feel like I've won the lottery in some respects.
I get to do work that gives me such great joy in working with the clients that I do and
seeing the results that they're achieving.
That's what I want to focus on.
That's the stuff that I want to do more of.
And in hiring, you know, and I...
was in management prior to starting the business and managing people is, it is time
consuming and it does take, you know, a certain, not only amount of time, but a amount of
mind share and, you know, kind of juggling all of that with serving clients and offering
workshops and doing the coaching.
the energy that I was putting forward in managing people and not that it was difficult.
I don't want to say that it was something that was hard.
It was more the time that was involved in it and I just at this stage in my life and in my
career, I want to do more things that bring me joy.
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
It's the allocation of resources, Is, well, you wanna work on these, but when you do have
team members, they do require other bits of work, which, again, you're gonna reach that
capacity.
So I think that's a great way to start the business as well.
Like, I know from my business, initially when we started, again, we had a lot of contracts
that were helping us and work through certain things.
And then some of those contractors then actually became employees because I understood how
they worked and that they operate in that problem solving way, right?
So was a really nice transition there.
But I do completely agree when it comes down to building that team.
So I guess moving into the technicals of what you do and the service delivery and
everything.
When we're talking about communication, just on a broad range or broad topic, what are
some of the common pitfalls people might go down when it comes down to maybe presenting or
public speaking?
there some common problems you always see among a lot of different people?
Yeah, it's so interesting because no matter what level of responsibility, tenure, social
background, know, all things being equal, there are some common threads where, you know,
and I see this time and time and time again with the people that come into our ecosystems,
particularly with
you know, leveling up their confidence or their public speaking is they put an enormous
amount of pressure on themselves to be perfect.
This inconceivable notion of perfection, it just doesn't exist.
And the inner dialogue that happens for people when they put that pressure that they have
to be perfect, they have to be 100 % polished.
they cannot make a mistake.
They have to know the answer for everything.
So when their audience asks them a question, they put this pressure on themselves that
they have to know the answer.
And the reality is perfect doesn't exist.
Nobody knows everything and your audience doesn't expect that.
So letting go of some of that expectation on ourselves.
allows people to show up in a different way.
And this is the work that we do behind the curtain with people is helping them to really
understand why that anxiety or why that expectation kind of comes up for them.
And once we understand there are you know...
psychological elements to it, there are sociological elements to it, there's human
behavior, there's body language, there's psycho, you know, all of these different
elements, you know, and once we analyze and peel back what is actually happening for
people, then we can start to implement these practical tactical things that they can do to
mitigate the barriers that are getting in front of them.
But the barriers are...
you know, fairly consistent regardless of their level of success or how far they've
climbed up the ladder or how successful they've built their business.
These are common themes that I see right across the board.
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because it reminds me of a quote, which is, you
don't have business problems, you have personal problems showing in your business.
And it's where, you know, as you just said, right, so a lot of the times people are trying
to make it policy, trying to do this, they're setting themselves up with such high
expectations on how they're going to deliver this thing.
But that's rooted deeply in who you are as a person.
And you've got to figure out, why, why, why am I feeling this way?
Why am I feeling this anxiety around speaking to these people and doing this presentation?
what does that look like and figuring that side of it out.
So it's interesting you mentioned that because I mean, I definitely went through that when
I started this podcast, funny enough.
I remember I was on the train on the way to London because I recorded the first couple in
person and I was on the train.
was thinking, why am I doing this?
Why am I going down to interview people?
I'm not ready for this.
I'm not good at speaking.
I'm not good at communicating.
And I was there, I had list of questions trying to honestly just rehearse every single
word of this question.
And ultimately,
what happened in the first couple of interviews is you could really tell that I was just
trying way too hard.
It wasn't a natural conversation.
was there.
It was almost like I was reading a script for, you know, question, answer, question,
answer.
And it wasn't what I wanted at the end of it, right?
I wanted it to be more kind of light, more conversational.
But it wasn't until I started to firstly do more reps, I think as well, you know, with any
speaking gigs or anything, the more you do it, the more you will get comfortable with it
and understand the game a little bit more.
But it wasn't till like the fifth or sixth maybe episode where I start to relax a bit more
It's like this is just a conversation.
So it's interesting how that inner dialogue can shift and change once you do have More
confidence in it and confidence of course comes from you just doing more of the thing
itself as well Yeah
that you say, you know, when you have a little bit more experience, you run the reps, you
go through the routine.
That is often what recreates that inner dialogue or that anxiety for people, you know,
when there is that element of newness.
And we saw this at the beginning of the pandemic.
I've been in online learning for more than 20 years.
So when we set up the business pre-pandemic, we were already online delivering online
programs.
when a lot of people thought that it was impossible to do that effectively.
And when the pandemic hit and everybody had to kind of figure out this online presentation
game, meetings, know, all of that, turning the zoom camera on, even finding, you know, how
do I download, like all of those things that happened in the beginning, that level of
newness really rocked the foundation for a lot of people that were happily, you know, kind
of...
being viewed as a leader in their space.
And that discomfort that came with that, that anxiety of I don't know how to navigate this
new world, it really shook the confidence for a lot of people.
So running the reps and you know learning out loud and bringing your audience behind the
curtain is a philosophy that I've always lived with.
If there is an element of newness, bring your audience in on that journey with you.
Explain to them.
And it helps to deflate the anxiety somewhat that if you're telling your audience this is
new, like this podcasting thing is new for me.
I've been on one podcast prior to this.
So because of that there is, you know, leading up to this recording today, you know, a
little bit of anxiety of am I going to get it right and I'm okay if I...
make a mistake or if I, you know, kind of don't do what I was anticipating I was planning
on doing, answering the questions the way that I was hoping to, I'm okay with that.
And to your point, I would prefer that this is more organic and conversational as well
because that's really what audiences want.
They don't want reading from a script.
Hmm.
Yeah.
On that note, it would be good to pick your brain a little bit about presentations because
it's so easy.
And I remember the first few presentations or seminars that I've done.
Again, it was scripts, know, presentation, reading off, and that was all it was.
How do you make things like presentations or seminars more engaging for the audience from
a communication point of view, or even just how you structure those presentations?
Are there any frameworks that you work through yourself when, you know, helping clients
with this side of it?
and what information do you have in that area.
Yeah, there's a framework that I have incorporated when I'm working one-on-one and I use
this framework for whether we're building content for other people.
It's essentially a thorough analysis of, you know, what's the experience going to be like.
So there's a lot of different layers to it but, you know, when people are kind of planning
that out, it's a matter of looking at all of the different moving parts.
And I think this is where a lot of people kind of either do it ineffectively and put that
enormous pressure on themselves to kind of stick with the script is they have these
beautiful ideas about how they want to share knowledge or share information with, you
know, who potentially might be in their audience.
And so they spend this incredible amount of energy and time crafting beautifully written
statements, paragraphs, stories, know, anecdotes, all of those different things that they
are envisioning, kind of sharing with them, with their audience.
And they kind of work in a vacuum.
They put guardrails on it and they might get the ideas written and then in practice or
preparation they're simply reading their notes over and over and over and over again,
feeling like I have to stick to the script because I've spent so much time on it.
And the reality is our audience wants to have a conversation.
And so if we can move past that as part of our preparation that we don't have to memorize
everything.
We don't have to, you know, stick to the predetermined verbiage going into those
conversations that we are looking for a two-way communication.
And look, I appreciate there are...
expectations with certain types of presenting, you know, doing a TEDx talk or a TED talk,
there's a very specific methodology that they wish for you to keep to, which is lower on
audience engagement.
I get that.
But for the most part, when we're talking about presentations and public speaking, it's
always about having a conversation with the audience and not looking at it as this one way
dump of ideas, you know, onto our audience that
providing the space for them to feel like they are part of the conversation, even if it is
asynchronous, even if it is in the format that doesn't lend itself to high audience
engagement.
I if you're presenting to an audience of a thousand people, you can't have an individual
conversation with every one of them, but you can build it in a manner that they feel heard
and you're inviting them to engage in perhaps different ways like...
show of hands like you know technology enables you to do real-time word clouds and polls
and there's just so many different opportunities to engage people that you know
considering I got to stick to the script it just creates unnecessary anxiety and it's and
it's not an optimal experience for for people.
going through that planning looking at how do I go from ideation and scripting to having
that
really engaging.
There's a process kind of that I work through and take people through those multiple
layers of the audience, the objective, the methodologies, the timing, your rehearsal and
practicing techniques and it's a journey of getting people you know kind of doing the
thing before the day of so that when they when they walk into those presentations they are
fully fully prepared for the experience.
Yeah, I love that theme of engaging with the audience because again, it's so easy to not
do that as you said and just throw information at them.
I think there was a Ted talk actually I was watching a few months back and it's from the
same guy that did the death by PowerPoint Ted talk.
So it's the same guy but he's talking about storytelling and it was so interesting because
even though there was no obvious engagement from the audience in terms of show hands or
things like that, what he was talking about were the principles of
of storytelling and adding that into your presentation to create emotional engagement from
the audience.
And he was given these examples.
It was really interesting where he was able to really increase the serotonin within the
audience.
And you're watching this service, you're part of the audience as well.
And you're really feeling it.
And it's like changing their states of emotion through different types of storytelling as
well.
if you can't do that, if you can't engage them, obviously, with polls or show of hands or
anything like that.
you can on an emotional level still create that response within them to get them involved
and get them listening as well.
So it's interesting that you said that, because I think that ties on quite nicely to that
side of it as well.
Yeah, and you're also inspiring me to think about the psychology behind that when you're
thinking about the methodology or the way that you're engaging with your audience, whether
it's through storytelling, the emotional aspect of it, the body language that we can
incorporate into there as well.
And when we think about the psychology of the engagement,
bringing your audience in on that immersive experience might be really compelling
storytelling, but there's also this opportunity to trigger mirror neurons with people.
So this gets into the neuroscience of presenting and when we think about body language or
vocal inflections and all of these other elements that are part of that experience for
your audience.
it could be something as ingrained in this, how we are hardwired as human beings to react
in certain ways.
I'll give you an example.
When we think about triggering mirror neurons, the energy that we put out there in our
presentations is going to inspire that same reflection back on our audience.
So if we're taking them on that storytelling journey and it's emotional and it's visceral
and it's...
it's engaging all of their senses and it connects with them on that psychological level.
That's a really compelling way of engaging the audience and without having the physical
response of show of hands or polling or anything like that, but they are still fully
engaged because we've triggered something in their deep core of...
of their brain and how we are hardwired.
So it's fascinating the science behind it.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And the really cool thing with that is, you know, they remember it as well.
They remember the presentation.
They remember the information.
You know, there's so many times I've watched a seminar and I was like, I don't even
remember what that seminar was about.
But then there's, for example, that Ted talk, right?
I remember that Ted talk because it was so good the way he presented it.
again, you know, a positive of creating that engaged audience is that, they're going to
remember the information that you've given them.
So that's a huge, huge win for yourself.
I guess shifting gears a little bit.
I always love to talk about how technology and AI could be shaping different industries.
So how are you using those technologies now?
And how do you foresee it maybe changing your industry over the coming, you know, five, 10
years as well.
Hmm, this is a fascinating conversation.
I had mentioned around the, you know, when I set up the business that it was strategically
online because I'd been living in online learning for a couple of decades.
when, you know, and I think being able to forecast or be ahead of the game is...
mean it's critical for business but it's critical for anybody in their career to
understand when you are positioned as a leader in your space and I help people understand
how they can position themselves as a leader in their space.
They are a no-brainer choice when they're either building a business or going for an
interview or however they're engaging with that particular audience.
So again under the umbrella of presentation skills it all falls under that.
So being a leader in your space, being able to
walk into a room and have that level of confidence, it doesn't mean we always stay there.
So I provided an example, people who were full on confident leaders in their space had the
foundation pulled out from under them when the pandemic hit.
They went from being what they felt was a really confident leader to trying to navigate
this new world.
And that is always something I think we have to be prepared for, that nothing is...
permanent.
There is this dynamic way of navigating through our businesses and our careers and being
able to identify or getting ahead of the curve on how technology is impacting us.
We know AI is embedded in everything that we do and I think we're living under a rock if
we don't see that.
That, you know, staying at the crest of that wave is critical.
and understanding how it can impact the pros and the cons, how it can impact the worlds
that we live in, the careers that we're in or the professions and knowing the risks and
the benefits, being able to capitalize on that knowledge and embed the efficiencies into
the work that we do.
I'm seeing it as you're free in many cases.
assistant and we all have this this team of assistants now with artificial intelligence.
What I what I am I think what I am seeing though is people are leveraging this technology,
this artificial intelligence in ways that it is damaging to them as a leader and I'll
explain that when when I think about
public speaking, presentation skills, communication skills in general, people are
leveraging, ChatGPT for example, please write an email response to this.
And they feed the dragon with their, here's the email that I'm trying to respond to.
And ChatGPT does a pretty effective job of creating that communication and that email
response and people are...
looking at that and saying, wow, that's pretty good.
And they'll copy and paste it and send it as their message.
And that layer that is now becoming, know, robotic for people is that we are losing the
ability to present ourselves as leaders in our space by having our own voice.
And public speaking, presentation skills, having that level of confidence, I'm predicting
is...
going to be harder and harder for people to live with that layer because they're now
hiding behind these tools.
And I think public speaking and communication is a human to human experience.
And if we start injecting too many layers in between that, I'm anticipating that the level
of confidence that people have in...
walking into a room where there are other physical human beings in that same space and
having to have a conversation that they are damaging their ability to effectively
communicate because there is no layer when you're human to human, there is no layer of AI
in between it.
Yeah.
You're doing less overall communicating, right?
When you're using these tools and it's, it's such an interesting one because especially in
the marketing world and, you know, zooming into cold email, for example, and some type of
outbound tactics is everyone's emails have started to sound the exact same.
And it's very interesting to see that across the board.
And the issue you have as a company, if your messaging sounds the same as everyone else's
is no one's going to differentiate you in the marketplace.
Like you're not gonna stand out.
And a few weeks ago we had a guest and we talking about how in a world of automation and
AI, really the USP and the way you're gonna grab people's attention is by sounding
authentic, right?
Having soul, let's say in your messaging and your communication.
So it's interesting that you have that same prediction as well is ultimately you do need
to still communicate.
You can't just completely outsource it to AI, for example.
Now that being said,
as AI is progressing and it's getting exponentially better.
I there was an AI I was testing out recently called Fixer.
And what that is, it's like an executive assistant that sits in your mailbox, categorize
your emails.
And when you get an email that needs a reply, it will draft a reply.
And what it does is that it takes all the replies that you've ever sent to figure out the
wording that you would typically use.
And to be fair, with like 80 % accuracy, it's really good overall, which is quite
interesting to see.
But in the same note, it's a case of,
you still need to communicate, otherwise you're gonna lose a skill, right?
And you need to keep using it, and if you don't, it's gonna go.
So it's interesting, we're aligned on that side of it there.
How do you foresee it from the, I guess the service delivery and business strategy that
you have right now, how do you see that strategy maybe shifting a little bit when it comes
down to the presentations or the service delivery just overall of what it is that you do?
Are there any changes or shifts that you're doing right now, or are you leaving it the
same to see how things go, and then you can maybe make some changes later on?
Yeah, we've been leveraging AI for years, long before CHAT GPT came into the equation.
The efficiencies that artificial intelligence is able to provide offers us, as I said
earlier, the opportunity to right-size our team so that we don't need as many employees,
we don't need as many subcontractors in order to produce
even more quality of, higher quality of work or even more as a quantity of output.
Leveraging AI is, you know, I think there's, there's, there is a beautiful efficiency that
is associated with it.
Where we have to be mindful of is, is it, is it, is it doing the right things for us?
So in, in some cases we
We leverage AI.
I mean, there's a number of different platforms that we've used over the years to help
people with their confidence, getting practice, getting real-time feedback on their
performance.
Artificial intelligence is informed by humans and the human knowledge that feeds those is
biased.
We all have biases.
We all have blind spots.
And those are built into those systems.
They are trained based on
the opinions and the course corrections that humans are putting into those.
And so I'll give you an example.
One of the things that I have seen embedded into some of these tools and artificial
intelligence apps, when it comes to practicing and rehearsing and seeing the artificial
intelligence provide a report of your performance is in some cases problematic because it
is
not looking at the performance through a lens of diversity and inclusion.
It is not necessarily looking at it through the lens of what is important from a human
behavior and a relationship building perspective and focusing on things like filler words.
We all have filler words.
We all have these ums and ahs and likes and ways of speaking, these mannerisms that we
have that focusing on things like that.
is in my view focusing on things that don't really matter and I'm happy to if somebody
wants to reach out to me and have that conversation there is plenty of research and a body
of growing research on why focusing on things like that simply don't
Yeah, definitely.
And what you said there about like performance reviews, for example, is it lacks the
empathy, right?
When there's a human to human connection, a conversation, you can have empathy in the
conversation, right?
Because the conversation go anywhere, you can really understand the person you're speaking
to and all these different things.
And if it is replaced by AI, like how does that work?
Now, with this whole theme, playing devil's advocate is an interesting one because I spoke
to someone a few weeks ago about this, but.
for like my generation and even maybe the generation below me, yeah, maybe we won't be
able to connect with AI on an empathetic level, let's say.
However, there is gonna eventually be a generation where they will be able to do that
because they've grown up with it, it's what they know.
And so it's gonna be interesting to see if that happens in our lifetimes, let's say,
because AI relatively new overall, I guess you could say, so it's still a long way to go
to get to that point.
But it's gonna be interesting to see how that transformational transition does actually
play out in the workforce because then,
At the same time, you're going to have a generation who maybe can't connect to AI, a
generation that can in the same workforce.
Like how, how is that going to work and what business challenges are they going to have
then?
I think it'll be an interesting period of everyone's lives, right?
When you're seeing that unfold, but, you know, I definitely agree with you on the AI side
of things.
So, one of the final questions we always ask to guests on the show is if you can go back
to your 18 year old self and you can only take three things with you, whether it's,
business knowledge, some mindset knowledge, some philosophical knowledge, whatever it.
It could be anything.
What would those three things be and why would it be those things?
I don't know if I'll have three but let me just ramble off what's coming up for me.
I've had a lot of light bulbs go off in my head over the years and I think if I only
acknowledge one of the biggest pivotal moments after I actually started the business and
that was and I we talked about mindset this mindset of
I know my place.
My 18 year old self knew her place.
There was a very specific socioeconomic background that I came from.
It was a low socioeconomic background and the lane that I was put in was the lane that I
felt I was supposed to be in and that I was destined to stay in that lane for my entire
life.
And that
that 18 year old, if I could go back and tell her to erase the phrase, I know my place
from your vocabulary, that change in mindset when I finally had that aha moment, when I
really, really think about what tethered me to that identity, it was keeping me playing
small, you know?
It was keeping me from
really exploring the possibilities.
And I have always had, even when I was younger than 18, I have always had this fire that
something bigger was out there waiting for me.
But that mindset of, know your place, stop thinking that way, you are not meant to be in a
different world.
That's a world that belongs to other people.
If I could go back and
and help my younger self see that at an earlier age than what I did, that would have been
an absolute game changer for me.
And I think it's really important to acknowledge that all of that lack of self-confidence
in those early days is the vast majority of the experience of our global population,
right?
75 % of the global population has this fear of...
again this holistic view of presentation, public speaking, confidence, whatever label we
want to slap onto it, 75 % of the global population, no matter age, gender identity,
culture, geography, none of it matters.
75 % of the global population has this fear.
And so I understood as a young professional that this was just the way people navigated.
Yeah.
you don't speak up, you don't listen to your gut and say what you feel is the right thing
to say.
And if you know when I think about how I navigated through my relationships, my
friendships, my professional career, not challenging decisions made by authority, despite
the fact that in my gut I knew I had the solution to the problem, I knew my stuff and I
didn't have
the voice to accompany it.
And when I started having those light bulb moments, they, mean, things were firing in all
directions.
And when I started ShiftED and people were reaching out for guidance on gaining confidence
to present themselves and all of these different spaces that we show up, it helped me to
understand that, you know, the experiences that I had and being able to figure out what
works and what doesn't and realizing that there's no playbook for this.
There's no playbook and I had to figure out all of this stuff out on my own and being able
to now take those lessons that I've learned.
Can I go back and tell them to my 18 year old self?
No, I wish I could go back to my five year old self and start telling you know that really
shy terrified anxious little girl.
Yeah.
at minimum, I get to pay it forward with the clients that I work with.
And seeing the transformations that they're experiencing in their careers, in their
businesses, magnetizing opportunities, so they're not out there making cold calls, the
opportunities continue to come to them.
Those are the things that I find the greatest joy and value in, is I can't turn back the
clock on my own journey.
but I can certainly make a difference in the lives of other people.
Amazing.
I love that message.
I think that's a great way to end this episode.
where can people find you if they're interested in your services or just want to learn a
little bit more about you?
Thank you Akhil, thank you for inviting me to the conversation today.
If people want to find out more, I think the best place would be to find me on LinkedIn.
It is the professional space that I prefer to live in or absolutely welcome to check out
our website, shiftedacademy.ca.
And I look forward to hearing from your listeners and I appreciate the opportunity to
share today.
Thank you.