Rich People Use AI Differently - Here's How

0:00Hey, Ryan here. Before we dive into the show, let me ask you something real quick. Are you a seven or eight figure founder who's tired of carrying the whole business on your back? If so, then you're exactly who we built Get Scalable Live for. This is the only room where real business owners just like you come together to share what's working now when it comes to strategy, scale, and exits. There's no fluff. It's just results. And it's happening November 18th through the 20th in San Diego. And yes, Roland and I will both be there. You can grab your ticket now at GetScalableLive.com and don't forget to use code LUNCH to save 25%.

0:37Again, GetScaleableLive.com, code LUNCH. All right, let's get you into today's episode. But I find that across the board, the people that are getting the most out of it are the people who are interacting with it versus the people who are just looking for a one-shot answer. And there was another video recently from a Stanford professor that teaches AI to groups, primarily people who don't have any experience with it, And he said that 40%, that, what is it? Something along the lines of the people who are using it like a smarter Google are only 40 % effective using it. Whereas the people who are having an interactive conversation with it are in the high 70s, low 80s in terms of effectiveness using it.

1:30What the effectiveness measure for using it is, I don't know. But I thought those were both interesting.

1:41What if the way that you use AI says more about your future than your resume? Sam Altman recently said that younger people use ChatGPT like an operating system and older folks use it like Google. Today, we're going to break down what that means, why it matters, how rich people versus poor people use it, how successful people who are using it successfully versus those who don't, don't, and how shifting your mindset could 10x your productivity, your learning, and your business. Whether you're Gen Z or Gen X, this episode is going to change the way that you work with it forever. How do you like that for an intro, Ryan?

2:16Wow. Yeah. Serious question. Did AI write that for you? I mean, AI and I interacted to collaborate to create it, which is basically... You and our good pal, Mr. ChatGPD? Yes. In this case, it was Mr. ChatGPT. Although I'd say the one that I'm using the most these days is Anthropics Cloud. But how about yourself? Yeah, I mean, I love this topic. It's something that I've been talking with our own team about. And it's something that I've been talking with my wife about. And so, yeah, I think getting into how we're using it and how I see different groups using it is really, really, really important because it has become the thing that I am using basically all day, every day.

3:06And I'm seeing that with certain groups and I'm not seeing it with other groups. And I think that it is incredibly instructive. Yeah. So this kind of came about as the result of an interview that Sam Altman, the CEO, founder of OpenAI, which is ChatGPT's parent company, had with Sequoia Capital AI. And I thought it was interesting. He said basically young people use ChatGPT as an operating system and sometimes as an operating system for life. Older people use it like a smarter Google. And I think that's probably, it's interesting. He does it by age, but I find that across the board, the people that are getting the most out of it are the people who are interacting with it versus the people who are just looking for a one shot answer.

3:58And there was another video recently from a Stanford professor that teaches AI to groups, primarily people who don't have any experience with it. And he said that 40%, that, what is it? Something along the lines of the people who are using it like a smarter Google are only 40 % effective using it, whereas the people who are having an interactive conversation with it are in the high 70s, low 80s in terms of effectiveness using it. What the effectiveness measure for using it is, I don't know. But I thought those were both interesting. Yeah. I mean, and what it reminded me of, And I've got to give credit where credit is due.

4:44I was actually playing golf with a buddy of mine, David Perel, who has a great podcast, How I Write. Smart guy. Very insightful. And we were talking about how different people use it. And he was talking about how different people on his team use it. Because I was like, I just see it. It's different. Different people use it in different ways. And what he said, and I just thought it was, I thought it nailed it. He said, to me, it comes down. It's not age. It's executive function. People with a high executive function are really good at leveraging AI and people with a low executive function kind of just treat it exactly like you said, like it's Google.

5:20And so what I mean by executive function is executive function is just your ability to kind of step in and just get things done. Like when we think about executive leaders at a company. What do we just call it decision making, you think? Yeah, I mean, I think it's decision making. Yeah, decision making is an aspect of executive function. It has to deal with like setting the overarching strategy, you know, understanding where to do your research, understanding the right questions to ask, but not merely asking the questions. If you think about an executive leader at a company versus an entry level employee, most of your entry level employees basically sit around waiting to be told what to do.

5:57And when they don't know what they're supposed to do, at best, they'll just kind of ask some questions. And so that is the way that most people utilize AI because most people, let's be honest, have fairly low executive function. And I also think the distinction in age group is if there's one thing that life does to people, it beats out our executive function. Like when we're kids, we actually have a quite high executive function. Like most kids are like, I'm going to go do this. You know, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to make up this game. They're very highly imaginative and they just do stuff and the life beats out all of our executive function.

6:32So yeah, I think younger people perhaps use it in that way because they have a naturally higher executive function. But this is why I think executive leaders, entrepreneurs have taken to AI more than a lot of our teams have. And I think that that's really dangerous for the team members. I think it is too. Let me give a couple of stats too, a couple of data points before we get into it. 60 % of Gen Z use ChatGPT regularly. that's according to morning consult among 18 to 24 year olds nearly 40 percent it you 40 percent use it more than once a day over 50 percent of college students report using ai to complete or enhance assignments older users gen xers which is funny to me that gen xers are now moving into the older category yeah that's i take that personally and boomers use ai less frequently typically as an alternative to search like, um, YouTube and Google or for summaries, explanations and some, and, uh, simplification for copy editing, which I thought was interesting, uh, idea clarification and email writing.

7:40And I know that, um, I've, I've seen, uh, even our kids use it for like writing mother's day cards, which don't do that. Um, my, my daughter, true story. She'd kill me if she knew I was telling this, but she didn't listen. My, my, my daughter literally used ChadGPT to script out how she was going to break up with her boyfriend. Oh, nice. That's awesome. Okay. Last data points. Only 15 to 20%. Good thing that our kids don't ever listen to us, including our podcast. Data points for the last few. Only 15 to 20 % of baby boomers report weekly AI use, according to Pew Research. And Gen X shows greater adoption, but mostly for single query use cases.

8:24So I thought that was really interesting. And what generally they were saying is, and I've enhanced some of this, but that younger users have a co-creator or collaborative mindset. Older users think of it as information retrieval, as their mental model. The younger users are expecting multi-step interaction and older users are expecting one and done, which is very Google-like. The younger users are experimenting with plugins, APIs, and other enhancements that kind of connect to and with different AI chat platforms, whereas older users just use the default interface. They don't go outside the four walls of it.

9:12And then younger users see ChatGPT as part of a workflow, which I think is really, really a good thing to think about, whereas older users see it as just a smarter Google. So I'd love to talk about that, talk about what we think about it from an age group kind of standpoint. And I'd love to kind of wrap up with maybe helping whoever is listening, whether you're Gen Z using this all the time, even as you listen to this or watch this podcast to do more research and get data points all the way to if you haven't even started yet, because I think there's a lot to be gotten from it. I want to start with what you were talking about in the workforce and with employees and such, or do you want to do the age thing?

9:59What's your pleasure? to me it just yeah it really does i i think it has less to do with with age i mean love you mean it roland you ain't young right yep you're just not i'm on the uh cusp year for gen x to baby boomer so right and i'm on the cusp of like millennial to gen x but but gen x like so neither of us are what we would what that these surveys would consider to be uh to be young but But we do both have high executive function. And I also think a lot of this is, you know, how to rich people use it versus, frankly, this sounds harsh, how to poor people use it. Because most wealthier people are going to have higher executive function and wealthier people have access to it, which is.

10:45Well, yeah, there is that as well. But gosh, even the free version, man, the free version is pretty great. So I don't I don't know that I necessarily take that. I think that there are people who are used to and are comfortable with essentially having an employee. And they're comfortable having somebody there to help them do stuff. And they don't see it as being necessarily weird, right? And so that's how I know anytime I'm starting anything in any AI tool, it's always just, you know, hey, I need you to act like this, basically. I mean, that is the essentially let's get some role distinction in there.

11:26But I basically say the same kind of thing that I would say if I was going out to my team. Hey, I need somebody who's good at this. Like what I used to do, you know, back in the day when we had 70, 80 people all under one roof, I'd walk out of my office if I needed something done. And I'd say, hey, who is good at X, Y and Z? Who's good at this? Somebody would hopefully raise their hand and be like, great, come here. Like, let's go work on this thing together. like now I do I follow the exact same workflow I'm just now doing it with AI which oh yeah just happens to be good at absolutely everything because there's plenty of available 24 7 which is the best 24 7 exactly so I mean I'll give you an example I was um we're dealing with an issue on the scalable side where um Pete will we'll have prospects that the sales team will uh have the sales call and they'll be like yep I'm in I know this is something that I need I need to talk to a business partner, I need to do whatever.

12:21And it's, you know, they're going to schedule another meeting. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough times. And typically, when those sales close, it's a day, two, three business days later. Well, what we've seen lately is that has stretched out to a week, two weeks later. And a lot of this is just concerns about the economy, cash flow issues, like all that. Well, I was talking to our head of sales. I was like, well, what are some of the reasons that people say that they're delaying? And so I found out those reasons. And on my way in to the office, I'm able to talk to JIGPT like it's an employee saying, hey, I need somebody who's a killer rock star, A-list sales expert who also is an amazing A-list copywriter.

13:09We need to knock out some follow-up emails to reach out to these folks, explain the situation. And between the time when I left my house and I arrived at the office talking, using my voice in my car, we'd scripted out an email series that is going to go out in minutes. Like while we're recording this podcast, it will go out. That's not like, I mean, I used to, I mean, what that used to look like in the past was I would have that idea and I would call Richard, you know, and be like, Hey man, what do you think about this and he might try to bring in a copywriter and maybe we'd get it written that same day.

13:46Usually it'd be a couple of days. Like, but I think that the issue is, is that that's the way that wealthier people think I need to get some help with this. Who's somebody who's really, really good at this. And I think wealthy people naturally seek out people who are smarter, better, faster at the things that they are. They seek out good counsel. And I think a lot of folks who aren't, they just don't even think to do it. They're just like, ah, I guess that's not for me. I think it goes to delegation and a prioritization of high value time versus lower value time. One of my favorite stories that my wife told me was that it just blew her mind when we moved in together.

14:35She saw the smoke alarm was going off. And while I will admit that I have ripped smoke alarms from the ceiling and smashed them in the backyard. The, cause the daggone beep. I told her, I said, I said, yeah, let's definitely call somebody, you know, call the electrician and, and get them to take care of that. And she was like, when I told her that she didn't tell me this, by the way, she was like, oh, I guess he doesn't know how to do that. Like, I mean, I know how to climb up a ladder and disconnect cables, but that's not the best use of my time. And so I told her, I said, I said, no, I said later we had the conversation and I said, no, I said, anytime you need something, if the sink is leaking, if the, you know, if it's not like a moron can't change out a battery, say, say again, this moron can't change out a battery.

15:24Right. Right. Right. I'm just like, yeah, we, you know, that that's a such low value use of my time and I'm really busy. I'm not going to do that unless I like, it's a personal hobby of mine that I love changing batteries and fix some smoke alarms, or, um, she's about to climb up and rip it off. And I don't want her to, you know, to, to do that. Cause I don't want her to get hurt. But, um, that's, that's to me an interesting perspective is, is that, that, that executive function. And here's, here's a cool thing to improve executive function, uh, which, because I also have a chat GPT open, I went to Claude because then I can get a different perspective.

16:03But I asked it, I said, how can you improve your executive function? And it basically said, set tiny achievable goals, even five minute improvements count, use timers, alarms, and reminders, literally create visual schedules and to-do lists, place important items in visible locations, use apps designed for executive function support, which I would argue is chat GPT, minimize distractions, create dedicated zones for specific activities, break large tasks into smaller ones, use time blocking, huge, huge thing. If you don't know time blocking, look that up to schedule your day. Try the Pomodoro technique, which I actually heard about for the first time from you.

16:42Build buffer time in between activities. I do not do a good job of building buffer time because the activities are so scheduled out. Write everything down, use checklists for routines, keep a notebook or phone handy for capturing thoughts, do weekly and daily planning sessions, work backwards from deadlines, use if-then planning, and then create an accountability system with an accountability partner. All those things, according to Claude, will help you improve your executive function. To me, it's just don't put off a decision. I remember there was a time management strategy of putting a red dot on any paper that you picked up that you then put down without taking final action on it because you were gonna look at it later.

17:27And then going back at the end of the week and look at how many red dots and your uptime downtime, just in thinking about like reading to get ready to do that thing and then deciding you weren't and then putting it down and then picking it back up later and reading it again, wasted just, you know, like call it five minutes between each thing. So if you had 50 of those things during the week, you lost 250 minutes. That's, you know, what, six hours? You know, I don't, I don't know the new math, but, uh, four hours, but, um, like that's taking the time to figure out how to be better at making decisions.

18:01And then thinking always you're saying, uh, it's automated if I don't have to do it myself, even if it's another human. Um, I think those two things that decision making and delegation would be critical. And if you start doing that, make the decision to use the AI, make decision to get input and collaborate and then delegate from yourself as the sole person that gets things done or thinks about things to this second brain that's now available to all of us. I think those two things would be super helpful. I'd love to get any thoughts you have on how that works. I had a realization while you were talking about that, that also, I think describes and helps explain the difference between how, you know, again, I'd say wealthy people versus less wealthy people are using this.

18:52Wealthy people, by and large, value their time more than poor people do. Yeah, they just do. I mean, it is a time is worth more than money kind of thing. And so they just develop that habit. Yeah, I mean, and it's exactly what you said, but because that habit is so ingrained, they have no problem delegating. And so delegation is seen as something that like, yeah, obviously I'm going to delegate, but I've seen for a lot of people, and this goes to my, you know, members of my family and people who I love. They're, I mean, wonderful, amazing, salt of the earth people, but they really do see, oh, why on earth would I delegate anything that I can do myself?

19:31That is not the thinking, frankly, that's going to generate long-term wealth. It just isn't. I mean, there's no leverage in that kind of thought or idea. A constant time arbitrage, time value arbitrage, right? So you're going to, if you can say my time, let's just say that you don't have a value on your time. You don't build by the hour or something like that. And this is great. Were you, no, it was me, Richard and Matt Swan were standing at the airport in Austin recently when they were trying desperately to hawk seats off because they had overbought them by five feet. They were oversold. Right.

20:10And they started by offering a$200 credit. They didn't say what it was. It turned out later, they should have just said it was a$200 visa card all along because they would have gotten a lot more takers sooner. But anyway, they started out with$200, no takers,$400. $200, one guy goes up, does it. They still have four more seats. $600, no takers,$800. Now this is to wait about three hours for a later flight, which is actually the flight you took. So I think they got one taker at 800 and then gradually went up to 1 ,000 and 1 ,200. And eventually a family of three people went up and took the 1200.

20:59So they got$3 ,600 for the three hours that the three of them were going to wait. So, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good use of their time. You know, I think that's about 400 bucks an hour each. And, um, and that was to me a great study of what is my time worth? Well, you know, what is my time waiting worth? What's funny is that the, um, the lady that was pitching this over the speaker said when it got to 1200, And it took a minute still for people to come up because she hadn't still told him that it was a visa thing. She said, well, I know for one thing, nobody here's time is worth more than$1 ,200 an hour.

21:38And that's the thinking. And Richard and Matt and I looked at each other and go, you know. And but that's the thinking of some, you know, of someone who hasn't placed a value on their time or even thought that it might be possible that their time could be worth more than that. So like, if you have no idea what your time is worth, obviously there was in that room, some calculus that was going on in everybody's head as to what the hassle factor was worth. I was thinking, what's my time worth? And there's probably no number that they're going to come up with. That's going to make it worth it for me.

22:13And, and I think that if you don't have that time value, you can't do the arbitrage. You can't say my time's worth a hundred bucks an hour to get somebody to change the light bulb is 20 bucks an hour and it's going to take them two hours. So when I get them to do that, that two hours times$20 is$40 versus my hundred. I made$60 because I can be doing something better. And while you might not actually at that moment in time during that, you know, 40 minute period or just two hour period, excuse me, that it takes them to do that, earn that$100, you have placed a value on your time. And it starts you thinking about this arbitrage that I think is absolutely critical to being successful.

22:55Well, that's exactly it, right? Because this is just, it's silly because what you're talking about is let's do the math. Let's do the arbitrage. Let's run the numbers. Okay. My time is worth X. Somebody else's time is worth Y, which is less than X. Therefore I should have them do that. right? And we're always running this calculus. And if you're a business owner, the first time you make that first hire, and it's an entry level person, and maybe you're paying a minimum wage, but it still is just terrifying. You know, you get this like part-time person, you're paying them a couple grand a month.

23:24They're checking the mail for you. And you're like, I don't, maybe I just would rather have the couple thousand bucks. And then you see like what you're able to do with the extra time. And eventually you're trying like hell, like you're paying tens of thousands of dollars to get someone else to find you someone who you can pay a half a million bucks to, right? Like that's where it gets up to so that you can have them take off more of your time. Like, so that's where I think for business owners, we get used to making that calculation. And so we develop the habit that gets ingrained in us. And that's why, again, then it becomes very easy to delegate and outsource.

24:03But because that habit is not ingrained, because quote unquote normal people don't do that calculus ever, and they do the opposite, they ingrain the opposite. Which means when the denominator's zero, when it's free, this thing that you can outsource and you can delegate your time to, so let's say your time is worth a dollar, it is still worth having ChadGPT do it because it costs you zero. if you're using the free account to have them do it. And everybody's time is worth more than a dollar. And yet they still don't use it, not because they don't know how, because it's the easiest thing in the world to learn.

24:41They don't use it because they don't think to use it because they haven't developed the practice and the habit of running the calculation of just saying, what is my time worth? And that's the thing I think is really, really sad. I wish more people did that. And I've got to do this with my own wife. My wife is like, ah, I can just do that. Like she will still right now go to the grocery store instead of ordering shipped and, or, you know, Instacart. And I'm like, and she hates it. It'd be one thing if she just loved making trips to the grocery store and selecting her own produce. But she doesn't.

25:14She hates because she's like, ah, it's, it's, it's too expensive. And I'm like, I'm woman. What do you, but like, that's, that's kind of the, that, that, that, that's there. And we'll, you know, I'll talk about it and she'll be like, yeah, yeah, right. I'll, you know, I'll do shifts. I'll do Instacart. But I do think that there's just a lot of people where that is ingrained in their mentality. And if that's who you are, if that's where you are, if you got those people in your life, yeah, you're going to struggle. You're probably not going to, you know, take over and you're not going to implement a lot of AI.

25:46That's funny. I love it. I love it. So what do you think as far as how people could use it better? Like, so let's say that they are using it as a Google. How could the older people who are not using, who are using it like a smart Google, what could they do differently to get more out of it, in your opinion? I think the simplest shift that everybody could make is think about it from a role first perspective. So not a I want to ask this question to the Google machine, but who do I wish I had here just to do this thing for me? Right. What expert do I wish was here along my side by my side that I could have a conversation with?

26:33So if you're out there and you're thinking about taking a, you know, going on an Alaskan cruise, don't you know, you'd go into the Google machine and you type in best Alaskan cruise. Don't do that. Who would you rather talk to? You'd rather talk to an experienced travel expert who had been to Alaska thousands of times. Well, guess what? ChadGBT has. AI has. So you could say, hey, I need you to act as like a super experienced, you know, travel expert, you know, guru, especially, you know, in senior travel when it, you know, for Alaska. And let's talk about what it looks like to plan the perfect cruise and have a conversation with an expert.

27:15So think about it as a role, as freaky as it may sound, think about it way more like a person and less like the Google machine. Yeah. What do you think? I like. Say that again? What do you think? Oh, yeah, I agree with you. I pretty much always assign a role and tell AI who I want it to be. What's the persona that I want it to step into for the interaction that we're about to have? I also like using it as an expert consultant. So I will start by saying, I'm thinking about taking a cruise to Alaska. what I've already assigned the role. I'm thinking about taking a cruise to Alaska. What questions would you like me to answer so that you could create the ultimate adventure trip?