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The Bad Mom Podcast is where raw parenting stories meet real solutions for raising resilient kids in todayās anxious, digital world. Hosted by humanitarian and Just Like My Child Foundation founder, Vivian Glyck, each episode blends unfiltered conversations, expert insights, and lived experiences to help parents swap guilt for gritāand discover how imperfect parenting can still support and encourage strong, thriving humans.
BMP E05 Mike Koenigs
Vivian: The Bad Mom Podcast, parenting the Anxious Generation. I'm your host Vivian Glick, and today's episode is deeply personal. My guest is not only an innovator, entrepreneur, and futurist, he's also my husband Mike Koenigs. Together we've raised our son, Zach, who's 22, and who likes so many young people today has face down the dark side of the digital world screens.
Addiction, isolation, anxiety, depression. Today, we'll share some of that journey, but more importantly, we'll look ahead because Mike doesn't just see the threat of technology. He sees the potential, especially in Gen Z, a generation that's being shaped by ai. But also has the power to shape it.
We're diving into how AI might just be the most powerful tool today's teens and young adults can learn to wield, to build purpose, create income, and stay relevant in a world that's moving at the speed of code.
Speaker 2:
Vivian Hey, there. It is so exciting to be here in your studio. Today I'm, uh, operating in a remote studio. The Bad Mom podcast comes to the Mike Keating studio, so I am I. Really excited that we're having this opportunity to sit down because you are such a wizard around technology and ai, and you and I have had the unique experience of raising our son who really inspired this podcast
Mike now.
Which son exactly is that again?
Vivian: Well, we only have one. All right. Alright. The cat is a female and she drives this crazy all day. Um, but yeah, you've sort of seen me going through this. Uh, transformation of taking everything that I've learned and that we've learned over the past 10 years of raising a kid in this anxious generation and turning it into something useful.
And I think that there are so many parents out there who are really wondering what the next step is for their kid. Not only with what they're going through trying to grow up, but where are their careers? What's happening with ai? Cetera. But before we get started delving into that, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your own personal experience raising a kid in this anxious generation.
So for you, what was the hardest part and what has been the hardest part of watching Zach, our son, who's now 22, navigate this digital anxious world?
Mike Hmm. Well, um, I think the biggest one is um, you know, we clearly see [00:03:00] addictive behavior. So it was like, gimme that phone, gimme that phone, gimme that phone.
Can I have the iPad? And the sense that he's missing out on family experiences, stuff that's intimate for you and me, and it's like, look outside. Um, that certainly was one of them. And also, um, being able to predict or see. The future for him, which is because he missed out. We all, we often had a rule in the house, which is, we're creators, not consumers.
Well, that, that's a rule for you and me, not necessarily for our kid. So I always wanted to instill creativity and spend most of your time creating something useful. And less time consuming, and I felt violated. I felt like my rules were being broken at a core level. And I think part of what makes us tick and us work is we're, we're creators.
We love to create together. I love that part of our relationship we're creating right now. And to not have the [00:04:00] power to control the character of your own child, that's really the answer to the question.
Vivian Yeah, that is, that was the hardest thing. Mm-hmm. For you to watch and just let somebody evolve into who they're meant to be.
Mm-hmm. Is a really, really difficult, and I think that's a big lesson for parents right there, because we do project so much and. If, if we're lucky, we get a kid who's super responsive to what our projections are, but in the long run, that tends to, you know, kick back on us because your kid grows up and then, you know, wants to do exactly the opposite of everything they were taught to do.
Mike: Well, that's what you get, right? That's what you get. It's our punishment. What, where, you know, what part, what, what kind of hellscape did we create for someone else that we're getting the bug treatment here on the planet? And it's not the bug. I'm not complaining, but you know what I mean. Yeah.
Vivian Um, so if you could go back to like our earliest parenting moments with the knowledge you have now, is there something that you would do differently?
Mike I would've had, uh, I would've said no faster. Um, had hard set rules and, um, much more difficult consequences for not keeping your word, um, not following through and following up. And I think like, I don't think we did anything wrong. You know, we kind of got what we got. Um, and that doesn't fault Zach for anything.
It's just like I, and could I have listened better? I, I don't know, like, I don't feel like we failed anywhere. It, it was more of. Yeah, I, I think I should have made it harder for him That's it. Boundaries. Yeah.
Vivian Yeah. I think boundaries are such a key thing, uh, that I've [00:06:00] learned over the last couple of years.
And how important they are. And one thing that I've learned, I. Learning all of what I needed to do to take care of myself. Mm-hmm. Is that boundaries save lives. Mm-hmm. Boundaries, save lives and fences
Mike make for good neighbors.
Vivian That's right. Yeah. Uhhuh so super important in parenting and even when you, before you get to the part of saving lives, boundaries really delineate and create character.
Mike Mm-hmm.
Vivian And, and, and I think that this is definitely an overindulged world. There's just too much access. Things are too cheap, and boundaries are really difficult to keep. Mm-hmm. Um, so I really love that. And how do you think technology and social media contributed are contributing to the crisis we see with young people?
Mike Okay, well, all you gotta do is look around everywhere [00:07:00] and.
I think like, think about every time you walk into a restaurant or a hotel or anywhere where there are young people working and they're not paying attention to what's going on, they're, they're, they're inside their phones. Living inside a world that we know is a dangerous place, that is an echo chamber.
Completely fabricated and manipulated for the purposes of selling something and stealing your attention. Okay, so in a way, I think their soul stealing menas at the end of the day. And we have given ourselves freely to effectively a drug that.
You remember in the book Brave New World, Soma, it was the drug everyone took, which I think it's kind of like an antidepressant. It's a feel good all the time. [00:08:00] Um, and this is the closest thing to that. It's a, it's. It truly is a drug, and I think it's a dangerous drug where we don't really, I think we now are understanding the effects of it, the social implications, the cost to our children, and the addictive nature, and, you know, how do you control it?
What do you, this is, this is the pain every parent has to navigate if you have a conscience.
Vivian: Yeah, I, I, I think about that. Time, just like last week where we went mm-hmm. Into this little local restaurant and there was a family, mother, father, and two boys and one boy had an iPhone and one boy had an iPad and they did not look up once.
Mm-hmm. In the 75 minutes that we were sitting there and they were just hunched over. Mm-hmm. Looking down. We all know that's so bad for your back, so [00:09:00] bad for your spine. Mm-hmm. But that's the minor port part of it. And then you put it on, we took a picture of it and you put it on a picture next to a guy on fentanyl in the street.
Yeah. Like the same exact pose. Total 90 degree angle.
Mike: Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. The hunched over. Yeah.
Vivian Just addiction. Mm-hmm. Like I can't get out of it. Yeah. So that is super powerful. And I was actually having conversation today with a young person and they said, we need, uh, we need legislation, we need laws. We don't feel good about this either.
Yeah. We don't feel good about where it takes us and where our brains go, but. Let's talk about a little bit of hope. Mm-hmm. Because I think a lot of what you do in terms of helping entrepreneurs to leverage technology and leverage AI and your whole background has been committed to this sort of melding [00:10:00] between technology and entrepreneurship and.
I've been on you and I know a lot of people have talked to you about how can we engage the newly emerging generation that's going into the workforce. Um, you've said AI could actually save this generation if they learn how to use it. What do you mean by that?
Mike: Well, I'm a firm believer that entrepreneurship is an international language of peace and prosperity.
And the more people that speak it worldwide. We'll trade with one another. We will get along business has a habit of getting people to collaborate and work together and treat each other with fairness, dignity, or respect. Or someone will shop somewhere else. And I think AI is the ultimate capability, amplifier.
You don't have to be great at something, but it'll make you amazing. And um, I'll also say that just like [00:11:00] social media. A phone can make a really smart, engaged, entrepreneurial person who's communicative a hundred times more effective and efficient. And you can run a business from a mobile phone and it can also make a stupid person a hundred times stupider AI can make you a thousand times stupider really fast.
So, back to what's the the solution here? I love the idea that they inspire a young person and help them dream. And invent something. They can make something up and they can make it real in a matter of minutes. And then have a pathway. It's like, I don't even know how to market this thing. Well, you ask ai, how do I market this thing?
How would I sell it? How can I attract an audience? How can I build customers? How can I build repeat customers? How can I, how can I, how can I, so AI is a who that can make all of your hows true and possible. Without waiting for time, without any relevance to your education, to your [00:12:00] ability to speak, uh, a specific language.
and I think helping children and young people live into their imaginations, that is so glorious. Um, yeah, it'll be craters.
Vivian I love that. Oh, you're getting all choked up. Yeah.
Mike:
Vivian: um, so what are some of the ways that Gen Z can start using AI today to create value? Most importantly, get hired or start their own businesses. Mm-hmm. Even if there's struggling in school or feel really lost.
Mike: Yeah. So I have a little story. Um, I didn't even tell you about this today.
I coached a 34-year-old man who recently his business blew up. He was in the energy business and not through any particular fault of his own. And, um, we're doing this consult. Normally it's with founders who have existing businesses, but he had made this appointment and his business blew up and he kept the appointment.[00:13:00]
And I took that as an opportunity to help him reinvent himself. And I just said, here's what I know to be true. Whatever your unique ability is, your special capability, which you can ask, ChatGPT help me figure out what my unique ability is, what my superpower is, and help me come up with some ideas that will use my unique abilities to make a living or to help people, right?
So you can use this as this coach. And the short answer to the question is, whatever your special capability or unique ability is, add AI and you're gonna be fine. And there's no business that doesn't need AI right now.
Vivian: What, but what about careers? Like, is there, and you know, I wanna ask you this specifically. Mm-hmm. Because you've got this great AI accelerator online program mm-hmm.
That I think I've, I've had one of my team members go through mm-hmm. And it's. Completely transform what she knows and how we can get things done. And I wouldn't even be able to be launching this podcast without her having just learned enormous chops from mm-hmm. This course. And do you think that something like that being specific about going through AI training Yeah.
So that you can help as a young person, that you can be an apprentice, you can help other, like what is. What are specific careers? Yeah. That someone who like goes through your AI accelerator course mm-hmm. Maybe is a younger person can learn and how can they apply it?
Mike: Yeah. So I thought, I, I think about this all the time 'cause I get, I asked and yesterday, for example, I was coaching, um.
A friend who has a business and he had his team show up [00:15:00] and I fire hosed him right away. And they were like, oh, but, but what should I do in what order and which AI should I use? So the first answer is, it'd be just like saying, Hey, what's a computer good for? My answer is, you can use computers for everything.
There's nothing a computer isn't useful for. So, I think the first opportunity is for young people to be apprentices in virtually every business and help be the decoder ring between this new technology. Your business and ai, just like it wasn't long ago. If you learned how to use a computer, you could go into a business and be a consultant, advisor to the secretary, the CEO, the engineers, and wherever you got the biggest impact with the least amount of lift.
Vivian: But where can. A kid learned this, right? Because they know mm-hmm. Go to school, go to [00:16:00] university, go to a trade school and come out with a certificate. Yeah. Now the thing about AI is that it's changing all the time. Mm-hmm. Right? But if you can go into a business with a set of tools that you have in your back.
Pocket and you know how to learn. Yeah. What's changing. Mm-hmm. And you can say, I can help you generate video, I can help you AI your voice so you don't have to, you can create more content. I can help you automate your systems and you know how to do it because you know everybody wants it done for you.
Mike: Yeah.
Vivian: And I just think this generation is the The core
Mike: Yeah.
Vivian: Of that movement to do that. How do they learn it? Yeah. How would you advise a parent? Mm-hmm. Who's trying to help a kid figure out a career to. Help them go in that direction. So they're not just sitting there tooling around with AI all day, but they're learning how to use it mm-hmm.
In order to help create a career. And rather than hitting the market at [00:17:00] $15 an hour, they're hitting it at $50 an hour. Yeah.
Mike: Yep. So, um, the way I learn AI is I watch YouTube videos and I, I track. About 10 different AI experts on YouTube and my method of learning. So I'm going to tell you how I learn how to learn and this is what I do now.
The shortcut is get an AI mentor who can inspire you and show you how to think an AI and communicate with it and shortcut that process. Alright, but back to the, the YouTube strategy. So my method is. Um, anytime I have a problem, I'm like, oh man, I really want to know how to blank. So for example, right now for you, you want to create as much content as possible.
And like that logo behind you right now, that one right there, um, was a [00:18:00] design of a neon sign from an Etsy designer, and I was just like, let's just make a background. So I stuck it into chat, GPTI said. Remove some of the dimensional information and let's make a background and boom, we had it and now it's behind you.
So I had to learn how to do that. I didn't know that chat, GPT could be a graphic designer, so I watched a YouTube video on it, and instead of having to watch the YouTube video at one and a half times speed, now I feed the video into Che GPT and say, teach me how to do this by. Taking the transcript from this video and make it relevant to me.
So I taught AI how to teach me in the fastest way. I know how to learn. I can comprehend and learn 20 hours worth of content in 20 minutes. So, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but, uh, but I,
Vivian: I just, I just wanna be able to give parents. And young [00:19:00] adults and students, A couple of tools Sure. That they can use.
And it sort of sounds like what you're saying is turn off the YouTube that like, I don't know what they watch leads you through video game. Yeah. The entertainment game video or you know, you're watching reel after reel after reel. Get a little bit of discipline, find some mentors. Mm-hmm. Do you have any people you recommend watching?
Mike: Um, there's a guy named Matt Wolf that I like watching. It's a guy I know. Um, it's W-O-L-F-E and he's kinda stays on top of all the latest tools and he'll talk about six or seven or eight brand new tools and he'll show a little use case of them. Um. And, and I look, the psychology behind this is the most important thing of all, which is, first of all, you have to be interested enough and motivated enough and inspired enough to want to do something.
Like AI isn't gonna fix that. And I think that's the struggle I have is I think once you open the Pandora's box and know that expanding your capabilities and learning how to learn and asking great questions. Can solve anything now. Right? Right. And that part I can't fix for someone. But when you ha talk to AI and you tell it what you want and you say, teach me how to learn about this, I want to do X, it will really figure it out for you and with you in a way that you understand.
And then you have a secondary question. So it's a conversation. It's treating it like a team member. I think that's the best way to learn it is get download chat, GPT on your phone, push the microphone button and talk to it and imagine out loud or talk to it about anything you want to do or learn. Or maybe your goal is, I just want to know how I can make money online or help people.
[00:21:00] Here's what I like to do. Here's what fascinates me and. Having a, a conversation, you know, three back and forth, three times, you'll have a really good solution. And I think that what I see people struggle with is they, they realize they don't think big enough and expansively enough. They have a conversation like that because we're so used to living in a world with not enough money, not enough time, not enough capabilities, not enough education.
And those boundaries don't exist any longer.
Vivian: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think for the young person who is curious and innovative and motivated, motivated, um, you know, it's a, it's an incredible world. Yeah.
Mike: And if you aren't motivated and you aren't creative, I think a, a mentor showing you the pathway of releasing these b mental boundaries.[00:22:00]
Is the first path. And as I, as I listen to myself right now, I can't help but think, man, I could make a little mini course for young people and parents on how to have a boundary boundaryless mindset that AI amplifies even further.
Vivian: Yes, you could. Yeah, that is a great idea. And then you could set the boundary to shut off all the tech and go outside.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, make something, make something useful, and make something useful that will help you and help other people and create value enough that you get paid for it.
Vivian: Yeah, and I think that has so much to do with the despair and the depression. Mm-hmm. Is that. That so many kids just are endlessly consuming.
And they're not contributing. Yeah. And so their self-esteem just goes down. They're eating and eating and eating stuff and not making it. And not producing it. And so this is kind of the balance here. Makes [00:23:00] something Create something. Yeah. And so instead of
Mike: be succumbing yourself to the addiction and that is the, that is really hard.
Yeah. And I, I think I. Back to like, I, I don't have social media on most of my devices any longer, but I have YouTube and you know, I'm a, you know, I digest it and I, and I get a lot of my stuff from Reddit. I've set up a whole bunch of news feeds. You are a little Reddit addict. Yeah, yeah. But it's where I get massive amounts of knowledge really, really fast.
I've built filters. So that is the other part of this in the AI world. I know the complaint I hear is, I'm so overwhelmed. How do you keep up with it? It's like, well, you don't have to keep up with the noise, just like in the rest of the world. It's knowing what to filter and um, how to use something for a specific use case.
So.
Vivian: I think that is your gift to the world is being [00:24:00] able to filter all of that and spew it out in a way that we can follow. Um, so just to wrap this up, um, if you could say one thing to a 16-year-old right now who feels anxious alone and unsure of the future, what would it be?
Mike: Mm-hmm. Hmm.
I really think everyone has a special gift.
You know, something really useful to give and share and, um, the way to discover that is by saying yes. In answering the question, what would I love, um, that is not escapist and you gain joy and pleasure by being useful. And, and the way to be useful is to show up and, and say, how can I help? Mm-hmm. And I think you have to have a job first to find out what you, just as much, what you don't like and what you're not good at.
Not take anything personal. Um, and that's the hardest thing to get past is the sense that you're rejected because something's wrong with you and, and there's nothing wrong with you. It's just you gotta get past this hump and then there's gonna be a new hump and a different hump. But you get used to the humps and you learn to love the humps and know that, um, I think there's a lot of collective grief.
In the world right now that we are all experiencing on a unified basis, um, of feeling lost or alone or useless or, um, like, oh my God, there won't be a future for me. But what I believe to be true is things are okay right now. You're alive somehow, you're being cared for. Living in that present moment and realizing, having the faith that the next moment will be better when you use that rule set.
And, um, I think get a mentor.
Vivian: Mm-hmm.
Mike: Get a mentor.
Vivian: Yeah. That's, uh, that's so important. And one of the things that Zach actually said to me today when I was talking to him about all of this was. Learn to love. You know, we get so caught up and I think. His generation is so caught up in, you need to look a certain way, you need to act a certain way.
You need to know the right social cues and, and you're supposed to know when has
Mike: not. That not been the case though. I think it's just
Vivian: so amplified. Okay. Right, because you're getting a zillion impressions of it instead of like just in the school yard, you know? Mm-hmm. Or they're the cool kids or. You know, they're the, uh, the jocks are, it's completely magnified.
Mm-hmm. And so I think learning to love and to know that everyone feels, everyone feels like an outcast. Even when you're in the, in crowd, you feel like an outcast. And I think that is in, in. In conjunction with getting a mentor who might know a little bit better. Mm-hmm. It's, you're not alone.
Mike: Yeah. And, and having the courage to ask for a mentor.
Will you mentor me? Man, that's beautiful. I, I didn't, I, I did not have the, the. Capacity to ask for that or feel I was worthy of it, I think, when I was younger, even though I was surrounded with him. So I, I, I agree. I think this, like, to think [00:28:00] that it's a generational problem, it's not, and you are right. It is amplified for sure.
I think that's very, uh, a very nuanced observation. It's good. Yeah.
Vivian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanna thank you so much. Mm-hmm. You're such a brilliant futurist. Mm-hmm. And. Uh, optimist about technology and what it can do and what it can bring. And I know that you have, you and I have both struggled in parenting and we've shared the joys of it as well.
Mm-hmm. And I just think that this generation. Needs mentors like you more than ever. And they also have more tools and power and more potential than any generation before them. And that's what I want parents to take away. Yeah. Is we see the darkness, but there's also so much light, so let's just keep helping them rise.
Mike: Thank you. That was very kind. I appreciate it. I love you very much.
Vivian: I love you
Mike: too. Alright, well let's say goodbye. See you.