Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. My friend Bob Danna is back, fellow at the Global Curiosity Institute and author of the memoir My Curious Life. If my grandkids ask about me, tell them this. With more than five decades of leadership experience as a physicist, US Navy officer, consulting engineer, and senior executive and human capital management, Bob’s career is a true example of how curiosity fuels growth and reinvention. Bob, welcome back to the show.

Robert Danna: Thank you Trisha. I really appreciate the the, the Re-invite and I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

Trisha Stetzel: I am too. I’m really excited to hear about what you’re working on right now. Bob.

Robert Danna: Yeah, Trisha, there are some really exciting things going on as as everyone, uh, in your audience knows, uh, AI you know, you can’t you can’t read anything, tune into anything and not hear about AI. Um, so, yeah, I’m an old guy. I’m 70, 74, uh, but still very curious. So. And as I think the listeners may know from our last conversation, uh, I retired now about a year and a half ago. Uh, and so at this point, it’s all give back. Uh, you know, I’m not looking to, uh, to make money, make investments, do any of that stuff. That’s all behind me now. It’s the real question is, you know, where is the impact, uh, that an old person can make, uh, in actually doing something that is going to be beneficial to the next generations. So especially the Gen Z and Gen alphas. I think that’s that’s the place that I’m really trying to focus on these days. And so, uh, a couple of interesting things. Obviously, uh, Trisha, you mentioned the Global Curiosity Institute still very involved with that, uh, really pushing the envelope of, uh, of promoting the power of curiosity, uh, the fact that, you know, most people are not, uh, at this point, uh, in their lives, you know, once you’re probably past 14 or 15, uh, you know, a lot of that curiosity has been beaten out of you.

Robert Danna: Uh, and so, you know, at this point, it’s like, you know, it’d be good actually, to, uh, to maybe reinvigorate that, uh, that muscle that you now have lost. And I’ve actually lived that that and honed that muscle over my entire lifetime. Uh, so we’re still working on that. Uh, but what I’d like to kind of chat with you about is, is actually, uh, the whole possibility of of AI in all of its different dimensions. So I think I mentioned last time that I was working with, um, with Ray, uh, he’s working on what he’s calling the Young Professionals playbook. Um, and so that actually now has all 25 episodes, all 25 podcasts done. You can actually go to young professionals. Professionals playbook. All, all one word.com. Uh, and it’s free. Uh, you can go and, uh, especially as a Gen Z or Gen Alpha, uh, take, uh, uh, take a look at the podcasts. Uh, they’re all AI generated, including Bob. Danna is in there, uh, several times being interviewed. But it’s not me. It’s, uh, it’s it’s it’s an AI. Me. So it’s it’s really cool. Uh, so, uh, and so, you know, it’s I think there’s some real, real insights there, because what we did was we tried to, um, and, uh, Lacey lo, you can have on your program here.

Robert Danna: Uh, probably in October. Uh, she and I work with Ray to generate content, but also to try to pick subjects. So actually, curiosity is one of the podcasts. Uh, and there’s also one on on being a skeptic and managing up, uh, and you know how to. Yeah. So there’s all kinds of things that are practical for, uh, Gen Z as they’re now entering the workforce. Uh, and so one of the things we wanted to do is not just kind of, you know, do onboarding stuff, you know, the normal stuff. It’s like, you know, what did we learn, okay, over all these years that if I can, if I can, you know, give you that now that may really help, uh, in terms of, of your ability to, to grow in an organization. So, uh, so anyway, I’ll give you one, one snippet and then I’ll let you ask questions, but, uh, the actual, uh, structure is unique. Um, so the podcast is again 100%, um, uh, AI. So we wrote the content, uh, but then, uh, the actual host. You okay? Uh, would actually be, uh, an AI generated person, uh, from all over the world, all the all different accents. Uh, it’s all spoken in English, but but with heavy accents from from Southeast Asia or from Europe or whatever.

Robert Danna: Whatever. Uh, all, you know, very diverse, uh, group of hosts. Um, and so they’ll introduce the podcast, introduce the topic, uh, and then actually kind of bring on a guest. Me uh, but I’m going to be I’m going to be AI, too. Uh, so, uh, my voice etc. is all they got it for me. They got an old guy, uh, voice from Long Island. Uh, so so it actually doesn’t quite sound like me, but it’s close enough. Um, and then, uh, they regenerated a song because it’s like, okay. Oh thanks, Bob. Now we’re going to take a quick break and we’re going to go to a song on the on the subject. And he wrote with AI a song. And then, you know, they have callers who are calling in. Well, the callers are all AI generated. Uh, and then there’s a kind of a practical, uh, uh, kind of scenario based exercises at the end to kind of test your thinking. So it’s all 30 minutes. It’s all packed into 30 minute. Yeah. Just like this. Um, and so. But there’s 25 of them. I encourage you. It’s it’s been one of the really fun projects that we’ve done over the last year.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That is amazing that you’ve been able to create something like that and generate it all with AI. Um, all right. So young professionals with an S playbook. Com is where everyone can go and find that resource. It sounds really cool. I’m doing that as soon as we finish here. I’m just saying, because I want to hear. Bob.

Speaker4: I want to hear your voice. Bob.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah.

Speaker4: Bob sounds a lot better.

Robert Danna: Than the real Bob.

Trisha Stetzel: I love this. So really important that we’re giving this kind of information back to our younger generations. You and I talked about that in our last episode, how important it is for us to be sharing the knowledge and even the stories that we have and creating this legacy for our young professionals as well as our families. So, Bob, we were talking before we started recording today about how important it is to tell our stories, and you were telling me how this AI generated Bob, uh, now knows all of, uh, not all of it, but a lot of content where you’ve gone out and told your stories and you’ve talked about the things that you’re doing. How important is it that we tell our stories for our younger generations.

Robert Danna: I think it’s absolutely critical, Trisha. Absolutely critical. Because because at this point, you know, we we’ve spent a lifetime kind of, you know, bumps, bruises, kind of lessons learned. A little insight here and maybe a tiny bit of wisdom there. Um, and yeah, you can kind of sit down and and have a chat. Uh, but it’s, I think, going to be really, really important. Uh, because, you know, when we’re gone, the only thing that we really have that that we can leave, um, is our story. Uh, and so I think it’s critical to be able to capture that. And let me tell you what I’m doing, which is really going to be, I think, interesting to to the audience, uh, is, um, number one, I wrote the book, obviously, it’s a memoir. Okay. Uh, so it’s 270 pages of, of of me trying to kind of recollect the last 74 years and put into perspective, uh, everything, everything in the book tries to to effectively kind of disassemble and then reassemble. Bob. Danna. So it’s like, you know, you mentioned all these different parts of me, okay, the physicist and the engineer and the business person, etc. but what did I learn in all those different things? Um, and then, uh, be able to, to convey that. So that’s what the book does. Uh, but then I’ve also been doing, uh, some podcasts and obviously, uh, quite a number of radio shows and uh, and being a guest on other other podcasts and blogs and, and other things.

Robert Danna: Well, we took all of that, which was about 600 pages of stuff. Okay. And uploaded it, uh, into ChatGPT, which you hear all the time. Uh, and so, uh, kind of took that and then actually had to tell ChatGPT who I am, you know, what’s my personality? What’s my demeanor? Uh, what are the guardrails? What? You know, if I went into the internet and did a search. Okay, uh, how much would I be questioning what I’m seeing? You know, how much evidence, how many facts, how much do I need to look at before I would conclude? Okay, fine. I’m going to convey this to somebody else. You can actually tell ChatGPT all of that stuff. So now you got your story, okay. And actually you got your personality and attitude and kind of the essence of you, you know, put it all in a Cuisinart press, you know, mix, um, and where we are right now, which is really, really crazy. Um, I, I call the thing but Bob, um, uh, so, uh, and actually the joke around here and all of our friends who have been looking at this, uh, is, you know, if you ask Bob. Bob, you know, who are you? Okay. Uh, Bob, Bob would say, well, I’m Bob. Uh, yeah. So it’s like, I don’t know who this guy is. Okay. Uh, what we’re.

Speaker4: Calling we’re calling.

Robert Danna: Me now is meet Bob. Bob. Okay. So.

Speaker4: But Bob.

Robert Danna: Bob thinks he’s Bob. Okay. So, uh.

Speaker4: And so you.

Robert Danna: Can actually have a conversation with Bob. Bob. I mean, just you press a button. Okay. And you speak into your microphone, and then Bob. Bob speaks back. Okay. Um, with my voice. Because, uh, we actually, um, put my voice into, uh, 11 labs is the is the technology. Uh, and then you speak for a half an hour, upload that, and then it creates that whole library. And so even the words may not be there. It will then have created an actual conversation, and it’s real time. It’s like one second. So you ask a question and one second back. But then Bob, Bob asks you a continuing question. So you actually have a conversation. Uh, and so it’s, it’s it’s so, so the story. Okay. Is the important part. You got to start with your story. But now for all of the old people that are on your, on your on your, on right. Uh, I’ll tell you. You know, you can actually create an AI agent of yourself, uh, that will allow you to leave that legacy to your children, your grandchildren, your friends who can now continue to have conversations with you. You know, sooner or later, we’ll all be gone. Uh, but, uh, maybe not. Maybe there’ll be a, uh, you know, an AI agent that you, uh. PaTrisha. Yeah. Uh.

Trisha Stetzel: I know that sounds kind of scary, Bob. I’m not sure about it, but.

Robert Danna: I will tell you the thing I’m looking forward to, because we still. I’ve been working with this guy, Joe DiDonato, who’s putting it all together. And, uh, my objective is next year. Okay. You don’t have meet Bob on, uh, this, uh, this, this, this radio show for a conversation. But we will actually set up Bob so you can you can have a conversation with the AI agent in real time. Uh. Ask questions. Get answers. Have have have, you know, ask you questions, etc. and have a conversation with with a with a me AI agent. So I’ll stop there.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. All right mom. My mind is blown right now that I might be having a conversation with Bob. Bob, the next time we have an opportunity to get together. Tell me. Tell me this I know. Um, curiosity has always been an important part of everything that you’ve done. And particularly as you do your work with the with the Curiosity Institute. What what is it about this bot? And leaving a legacy and using the technology that you find is important and a reason for doing this work?

Robert Danna: Yeah. I think in a in a word, uh, it’s, um, It is the word legacy. I think that’s that is that is the whole thing. It’s. Yeah, you know what? Because you can leave property. You can leave money, you know, you can leave leave stuff. Okay. I’m not a stuff kind of a guy. Okay. Uh, you know, I want to be able to leave something that actually has real value, uh, and not material value, but real value, uh, so that, uh, you know, my my, my, my grandkids, the four of them, uh, you know, between Lacey and I are, you know, between, I don’t know, five and 8 or 9. So. So, you know, they don’t understand anything when I tell them the story, or at least he tells, uh, tells the story. It’s like, you know, uh, you know, no, no, no, no, no, no understanding whatsoever. So by the time they really will understand the story, which is 25 years old, 30 years old, 35 years old, I mean, I’m going to be long gone. Um, so, you know, I want to be able to actually have something that that is meaningful. Okay. And I think all of us want to do that is meaningful and actually might even in future generations, have some kind of impact. Um, and so that’s kind of that story that and the technology will allow us to do that. Uh, and so it’s that.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. So, Bob, it’s no secret that you’re 70 for this, because I’m pretty sure you said it before I did. Um, what if people who are listening are. They don’t know anything about technology. They don’t know how to leave their story behind. They’re they think to themselves, I’m never going to create a bot to create this kind of legacy that Bob is leaving behind. What would you say to them?

Robert Danna: Well, you can you can do several things. Um, uh, number one, even if you’re sitting sitting there in your living room, uh, you know, everybody’s got smartphones these days. Um, so there’s a there’s a microphone, there’s a recorder there and just say, hey, 15 minutes a day. I’m going to just sit down and press the record button, uh, and uh, and just, you know, tell a story of, of, uh, you know, growing up in the 1960s or, you know, what I learned on my first job or, I don’t know, whatever. Okay. Uh, and do that, you know, once a day for the next, I don’t know, like 3 or 4 weeks, maybe. Think about it. Okay? 15 minutes a day. Times that you actually have captured an enormous amount in all of these files. Um, and so, uh, those can be transcribed. Those can be, you know, but but I’ll tell you what else. It can be done. You know, you could actually take those and then have someone or yourself or maybe get one of your kids or, or whatever to, to to be a little bit useful to you. Uh, and so, you know, maybe take them and get it to a point where they can put it into a story that’s a written story could turn into just some legacy that you want to be able to pass on to future generations.

Robert Danna: But that’s what I started with. Now, whatever it was been two, two and a half years ago, and then it evolved into, you know, chapters into a book into whatever. And that’s where we are right now. So I would say, you know, don’t don’t say, well, I’m going to leave next Thursday open and I’m going to spend next Thursday capturing, you know, my story. No, you do do 15, 20 minutes a day. That’s all you need to do. But then you’re going to have all of these files. And you know, if you don’t know how to do it, somebody can explain it to you in about 15 seconds. Um, and so start there. Okay. But then get it into something that is valuable. And then, you know, you may find that you go say, okay, fine, I’m going to find somewhere where I can upload this and, and now actually do something. So maybe 5% or 10% of your audience that gets to that point, but 95 or 90% of your audience certainly can have a kind of a recorded, uh, you know, recorded narrative of their story. That in itself would be incredibly valuable, uh, to, uh, their kids and grandkids and great grandkids.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So, Bob, uh, you and I spoke before we started, uh, the show today about leaving that legacy. Leaving that story is so important. Why did you start down this path in the first place? Why is this leaving a legacy of Bob so important to you?

Robert Danna: Yeah, I think that it’s not so much just Bob. Okay. Um, I think the key was, um, when I started thinking about, you know, uh, all of the things that I had learned. And then I think, Trisha, you and I chatted that, you know, probably now, maybe five years ago, maybe a little bit longer. I started to, um, to do volunteer coaching and especially mentoring of Gen Z’s. Okay. So I did a lot of mentoring of Gen Z’s. So not really coaching per se, but really kind of helping them think through, you know, some initial career choices and then where they are in their initial activities on their first job and maybe looking at the first promotion and whatever. So there’s a bunch of them. And actually the conversations were really useful and the feedback was, hey, this actually helped. So I think that’s really kind of capturing Bob, per se, but it’s really being able to capture, you know, those little, little highlights, those insights. You know, that little, you know, tiny bit of wisdom so that they don’t have to go and kind of reinvent it and go through all the problems and then, you know, go down all all the dead ends, uh, you know, which I did and you probably did. Well, maybe we can solve or, you know, a little bit, you know, a little bit better, better choices.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So for those of you who are listening today and thinking, gosh, you know, somebody in your life, uh, had a story to tell and that story was never captured. I want you to think about that moment now and decide to go tell your story. I think that’s such great advice, Bob, to do it in small chunks, and then you have a whole book. If you wanted to go write a book or a memoir, or you could do a video library or an audio library that you could leave behind with all of your stories, not just your stories, but your knowledge. And like you said, all of the times that you maybe fell down and skinned your knees and open up that store on your elbow for the fourth time, doing the doing the hard thing. Yeah, we’ve all been there, but we don’t. We, uh, don’t capture those stories. And particularly Early a generation that didn’t grow up with recorders and computers and things that were accessible in our homes. I mean, I’m not 74 yet, Bob, but we didn’t have a computer when I was growing up, so there wasn’t necessarily a way to capture stories as we were. Right. Uh, as we were coming up. And I think that’s so important that we capture those stories. Okay, Bob, uh, talk to me about what’s next. So I know you guys are still working on this bot Bob project, and that’s something that you’re going to continue to work on. You’ve finished up the Young Professionals playbook. It’s out there and ready to be used. What’s next?

Robert Danna: Yeah. What’s next is actually I’m working. In fact, um, Lacey and I are going to go and meet with a company that’s actually in town here. Everybody comes to Las Vegas, right, for the conferences and the like. So we have a big conference here called HR tech. Uh, that that’s just starting, um, today. So a company we’ve been working with is called baryons. Baryons AI um and so they produce, uh, AI agents. Um, and so what what we are doing is, uh, kind of helping them think through, um, what kind of AI agents that are mentors. Okay. They’re designed to be mentors. Now. They’re not designed to be Bob mentor. Okay. They’re they’re they’re generic mentors. Um, but the beauty is that, you know, once you start to, to engage with, uh, with, with, with, with, with what they call my baryons, uh, so it’s a phone call, you make a phone call, and when when, uh, when my baryons answers the phone, uh, my baryons goes, oh, hi, Bob. Okay. It knows my phone number. Okay. Uh, you know, how are you doing today? How the last time we had a chat last. Last week or yesterday or this morning. You know, you you said that you wanted to to to explore, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, uh, one of the things that that we’re doing is trying to work with them to kind of understand for they to understand what what we’re thinking about in terms of the power of, uh, a, an AI agent that’s designed to be a mentor for, again, especially Gen Zs and alphas and millennials. Uh, and so how do you how do you construct that? Uh, and then what kind of things are you trying to have as objectives for that interaction? Uh, you know, is it coaching or is it in fact mentoring or some combination thereof? So, so, uh, I think that’s the next big thing.

Robert Danna: Uh, so we’ve been working with them now for probably the last, oh, I don’t know, 2 or 3 months or so, um, as kind of informal advisors. But today it’ll be the first day that we’re going to have a, uh, a physical face to face. Uh, you know, we’ve obviously been on multiple zoom calls and, uh, you know, yeah, Google Meet and whatever. Uh, but now we’re actually going to sit down with them and have a chat with them since they’re at the conference. And, and we live in town, so we’re going to go over and meet with them so that I think the baryons is the next big, big exciting thing is getting to have this available effectively to everybody. So, you know, you’re not paying big bucks to get a mentor or whatever. Uh, you actually it’s a small, small, you know, subscription fee. And now suddenly you have this intelligent agent that knows you and can kind of build on all the conversations that you’re going to have to guide you through, um, your, your decision making and your thinking. So it’s it’s crazy interesting stuff these days. I will tell you, I am so excited about what’s going on with AI. You know, everybody’s you know, they’re they’re oh, the world’s burning down. Ai is coming to kill us or whatever. No no.

Trisha Stetzel: No no no it’s not. It’s not so. So let’s tackle that. Uh, Bob. So for those who are listening in today and thinking, oh my gosh, my job or my work or my profession is going to go away because it’s going to be replaced by AI or some bot. Where does the intersection of human and AI come together, and what does that look like in the future, do you think?

Robert Danna: Yeah, Trisha, I think I think AI will take over the mundane. Okay. It’s it’s actually going to, you know, the drudgery of work. We all know the drudgery of work, right? I mean, it goes on every single one of our lives. Okay, so AI is going to take away the drudgery, uh, of of our jobs. Okay. And in fact, be a tool if you think about it, as a tool. And now what it’s going to do is free you to be able to contribute the human part. Okay. Your brain. Okay. The real thinking part there. The reasoning part. Okay. What is it? You know, kind of the logical part of your brain that that, that have been is not being used too much because you’re doing all this drudgery stuff. Okay.

Trisha Stetzel: Right.

Robert Danna: So, you know, I think if everybody’s kind of thinking about so, so if, in fact, I can get rid of all this drudgery stuff, where’s the real value that I can add in terms of, you know, advising or consulting or kind of helping my client actually leverage all of this stuff that now the AI is doing, but only I, the AI can’t give, you know, kind of the wisdom. Okay. It hasn’t lived. Okay. Um, uh, but you have. Okay. Uh, and so I think, you know, where are all of those lessons learned and all of the really, really all of that, um, kind of insights and wisdom? And how do you now, uh, be able to, to really provide that to your customers, your clients, your your colleagues, etc. I think it’s going to it’s going to be incredible in terms of the the opportunity that AI is going to and it’s going to get rid of the drudgery, which is is the thing that all of us hate anyway. So now it’s work with it. It’s like like, okay. Don’t resist. Okay. Figure out how to actually move forward and kind of bring that, uh, to the forefront and, and, and effectively say, okay, fine, okay. This is what I’m going to be able to do. This is what the machine is going to be able to do, and we’re going to do it together.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So as you were talking through that, I’m thinking AI is actually going to elevate us to use more brain power beyond right, what the bot can do. So we’re going to start, um, engaging more parts of our brain and doing more thinking and analyzing and computing up here versus just changing trash can liners. Right. Uh, and doing the, the mundane things like time management or whatever it is that I do over here with my sticky notes and all of the things that I could use automation and AI for. Right. Um.

Robert Danna: Ai, AI agent as your assistant doing all of that stuff. And now the real thing is, you know, all the value that Trisha brings to the brings to the table is going to be more like, you know, 80% rather than 20% of what you’re doing now.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. Okay, Bob, our time went by so darn fast. I know this happens all the time. What is one last thought around AI humans interacting with AI, leaving a legacy? What is one final thought that you would like to leave with the audience today?

Robert Danna: Uh, I think if everybody in the audience can think about, um, you know, what is the possible, um, you know, it isn’t. Oh, no. You know, I’m going to have to fight this or I’m going to have to resist it, or I have to. The real question is what is the possible. And each each person is going to have a different. What is the answer to that? What is the possible. But once you kind of zero in on that I’d say, you know be curious. And it actually actually just. Yeah. Oh, my. Um, but, uh, do some investigation. Yeah. Isn’t like, it isn’t like you can’t, can’t investigate. And then, like I said, I would definitely, definitely recommend to everyone to think about their story, think about capturing their story. Think about 15 minutes a day. I’m a big 15 minutes a day kind of a guy. I do a lot of things, but in 15 minute chunks. Uh, so I don’t wait until, you know. Oh, I’ve got a programed in two and a half weeks from now I’m going to spend, you know, Thursday the blah, blah, blah to to, uh, to do. No, I never do that. It’s like I’m going to do something today and then something tomorrow and something. But but by the time I get to that Thursday, two and a half weeks from now. Uh, the thing is, is, is actually got a life of its own at that point. So, uh, I’d say do that. Okay. And start capturing your story. Uh, even if you’re even if you’re younger, even if you’re, you know, in your 30s, you know, you still have you live 30 years. Okay. Uh, you know, it’s still good to do that. And if you’re doing it in ten, 15, 20 minute chunks, uh, you can just have all of these files sitting on your, on your smart device or on your computer, and you’re going to be really happy in a year.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Or in ten years when you can’t remember what you did ten years before, right?

Robert Danna: Yeah. That would be less for me. Uh, so it’s good. Maybe it’s probably 20 or 30 years for you. It’s probably, you know, next year for me, so.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, my goodness, this has been awesome. Bob, I’m so glad that you came back and, uh, spent this time with me today. Really focused on this space that’s so important to all of us. What’s the best way for people to connect with you if they want to learn more or just have a conversation. Bob.

Robert Danna: Sure. Uh, a couple of ways. Number one, you can go to my website. So my curious life dot net. My curious life net. Then you’ll see actually a bunch of the, um, the radio shows and podcasts, uh, that I was guests on, including Trisha’s the last one. Uh, so you can go to that or, uh, just, uh, connect with me on LinkedIn. That’s always a great place. So, uh, Bob. Danna. Two n’s. D a n n a, uh, so, Bob Danna on, uh, on LinkedIn. And if you put Bob down in my curious life or something like that, then there’s kind of, I think only one of me anyway, on, on, on LinkedIn that you’ll find. But anyway, you can connect me with me on LinkedIn. Um, uh, or um, I am I am now on Substack. Uh, so I actually I’m contributing quite a bit on Substack and then I’ve got a Facebook site. I mean, so there’s other, other places that you can find me, but, uh, Bob, Danna. And again, Bob, Danna, my curious life usually, usually kind of gets, uh, gets, gets to me pretty quickly. Uh, but definitely website, LinkedIn. And I, um, as you can imagine, uh, I am very open to conversation and sharing. And because I got, I actually have I don’t work so.

Trisha Stetzel: So well and I, I appreciate that you want to get out there and have conversations and tell stories. It’s so important. I that’s really what we’ve been focused on today. So I hope that I get the real Bob Danna next time. Not the Bob Bob Bob Bob.

Robert Danna: I absolutely that’s my goal in life now is actually to turn this over to Bob.

Speaker5: Bob turn it over to Bob. Bob.

Trisha Stetzel: Bob, thank you so much for being with me today. It has been my pleasure to host you. Two.

Robert Danna: Oh, Trisha, thank you so much.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. All right. Team Bob Deanna, fellow at Global Curiosity Institute and author of the memoir My Curious Life. If my grandkids ask about me, tell them this. Bob, thank you again. It’s been my pleasure. That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Bob today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran, or a Houston business leader. Ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is RJ Grimshow, founder of ABLE Leadership and the AI CEO, a recognized authority on entrepreneurship. We’re going to talk more about that in a little bit. And business growth. Rj spent a decade as CEO of Unify Equipment Finance, where he scaled the company from 14 million to 250 million by focusing on execution, team development and long term value. Now, through his leadership programs and AI expertise, he mentors Towards executives that think like owners, and to leverage artificial intelligence responsibly to scale what matters. With a financial AI certification and years of hands on leadership success, RJ brings a clear voice and practical strategies to the future of leadership. Rj, welcome to the show.

RJ Grimshow: Wow, thank you for that introduction. Uh, I better compliment my bio writer, which is ChatGPT in regards to that. And uh, makes me sound, uh, you know, I’ve been blessed enough to be surrounded by amazing people, uh, in every team I’ve worked with, which is driven all the success that I’ve been able to be blessed with. Um, and it doesn’t stop. I mean, we’re in a time right now that a lot of business owners are facing either excitement, uh, in terms of what the future looks like or uncertainty. So, um, I feel it’s a good time for, you know, people like what you do and the people you surround yourself with. And what we’re trying to do here at Able Leadership, it’s much needed, um, for the for the society that we all, we all live in.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So you want to give me a little bit of background on RJ? Who are you as a human being? And then let’s jump into able leadership.

RJ Grimshow: Sure. I was fortunate enough to be born into, um, somewhat entitled into a family of entrepreneurs. My dad owned his own company. My grandparents on both sides of the family. My grandfather owned a soda distributorship in Massachusetts. My grandmother on the other side had many florist stores. My uncle was an optician. He owned three locations, and this was back in the 70s and 80s before you saw, you know, mass consolidation. So he was a leader in that. And I started my first company at 23. Uh, crazy enough, my dad actually bankrolled myself and my brother into a bar restaurant, which, looking back. Oh, wow. Dad, I don’t know what you were thinking putting a 23 year old in a bar. But the good news I was married because I was actually in the military, in the Air Force, which was the best thing that ever happened to me. Uh, because the Air Force, you know, really taught me discipline, teamwork, how to serve your country, why we serve our country. And it really laid a foundation for me to enter into or entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship. See, I’m already confusing the two. Trisha. Um, and then by the age of 30, I fell into corporate America by accident. Unfortunately, my dad died at 61 from a massive heart attack. I turned 30, I already had two boys at the time. I started young, and I had a hard decision to make. Either. Do I want to go into a safety net of corporate America with benefits and things of that nature, or do I want to continue on this entrepreneurial path that we’ve been successful doing? And I made the decision, uh, to go into corporate America, and that’s where I found the term entrepreneurship.

RJ Grimshow: Uh, I started an individual contributor and 15 years later worked my way up again, being surrounded by a lot of great people. Lucky at the right time, at the right place, and also being extremely proactive. So many. Um, I don’t want to sound, um. We all control our destiny. We all control our careers. It doesn’t matter if you’re in corporate America or working for yourself. And so many people forget that, that we are in control of our future and where we want to go might not be a straight line, but I knew I wanted to get to become a CEO. I from the day that, you know, high school, I would tell people, what are you going to do? I’m going to be a CEO. I don’t know what, I don’t know where, I don’t know what kind of organization, but I know that I want to, uh, and it wasn’t about the title, it was more about leadership. And, uh, in regards to that, today is a somewhat of a special day for my family. Um, over the last three weeks, both my sons, uh, Tyler, who’s 31, and Trent, who’s 26, both have accepted an assistant coaching positions at the college level, the collegiate level.

RJ Grimshow: Both of them played college hockey. But it’s crazy to think within three weeks of both of them being offered full time assistant coaching positions at the college level one in Minot, North Dakota, and the other one in Middlebury, Vermont. So leadership has always been part of, you know, our core. Beliefs and standards. And it doesn’t come down to title. It’s just the way that you interact with other people. And it starts with your interpersonal in terms of leading yourself. So sorry for the long winded answer on who is RJ, but kind of gives you a backstop. And then my other passion is just business. I love the art of business. I love the science of business. I love just just taking the macro view of a business. The E-myth is a fabulous book that every entrepreneur should have to read of working on your business, not in your business, because we’re all guilty of that. At, and I just love taking a step back and working with business owners to understand and try and see around the corner before they can. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong. But that’s the fun of it. And the art of it is making that educated decision of what the future might look like. And that’s right. Now is a critical time. Um, a lot of those decisions.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So, RJ, I you didn’t talk specifically or use the word mindset, but I heard you say, uh, being in the right place at the right time. And your boys, um, Tyler and Trent taking on those leadership responsibilities, just something about them. And I think the energy and the mindset that you put out there is so important. So that’s my perspective. What’s your perspective on the energy and the mindset that we carry around with us, and how it correlates to good or bad leadership?

RJ Grimshow: Yeah. I um, everything is around energy. You know, I’m a big Pete Carroll fan. Uh, who’s now the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. And and Pete is a high energy. And when I used to coach youth hockey back in 20, I’m going to date myself here. I think it was 2010. Maybe his book came out, uh, compete. Uh, and I had my coaching staff at that read. It wasn’t even corporate America. It was a coaching staff. We’re coaching 15 year olds. But my point being, energy, it all starts with energy around leadership. And energy isn’t about being the loudest or the rah rah, but it’s the energy and the passion that you bring to the task at hand in terms of who you’re leading or what you’re leading. And more importantly, focus on the people within the team and the organization. Relationships are everything now, um, and I learned the hard way. I was at times transactional over my career. I’m not going to you have to be self-aware in order to improve. Um, but the world that we live in now, today, The meaningful, fruitful relationships that will give you more than the transaction is when you form that relationship with. I don’t even want to say like minded people because the world that we live in today, you have to understand everyone’s point of view and then make a conscious decision if it fits into what you’re trying to build within the ecosystem of your business, if that makes sense.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate that. So from the mindset has to be straight. You have always known what it is that you wanted to do. You’ve taken unify equipment finance from 14 million to 250 million. Besides having the right energy and mindset, what are the other key leadership decisions and practices that really made that transformation possible?

RJ Grimshow: The true growth really came when we built out our management team. Um, and what I mean by that is we grew from 13 to 30 6 to 70, and at that 70 plateau range is really where we made some great investments in bringing in key individuals into the organization and allowing them to do leverage their superpower within the discipline and the organization. So what I mean by that is, in our world, you have, you know, operations. So a real strong CEO that’s really focused on processes and understanding processes and the ins and the outs. A credit portfolio manager that understands their their role, customer service, the key thing, and this is a great segue though into that is the term entrepreneurship. I started learning and teaching around that topic back in 2010, 2011. And there’s characteristics that you can look for in individuals when you’re hiring them or bringing them into your organization, that when you identify these individuals, you know that they’re going to have discretionary effort because they are wired a certain way. And most entrepreneurs are very resourceful. They’re life learners. They love learning new things, which means that they’re going to stretch themselves. They’re very resourceful, so they can figure out influence things without, uh, the capital per se, and or the direct line of hierarchy of leadership in the organization.

RJ Grimshow: But they can influence people. And as soon as we had those that those team members in place, as well as the culture of idea sharing, the whole idea of entrepreneurship is 75% of your front line workers. Your employees have ideas and best practices to make your company better. However, as business owners and leaders, we don’t provide the proper vehicle for them to share those ideas and be rewarded for sharing those ideas. So when you’re able to formulate that and it starts at the top in terms of your communication as a leadership team that we want ideas. It fosters everyone feeling they own a piece of the organization and the processes and their voices are being heard, which today is so critical for people. People just want to be heard. They want to feel valued. They want to feel they’re part of something bigger than just showing up and going through the motions. And people you can attract higher caliber talent, people. And guess what? It’s not about pay. Pay is important, but it’s more about feeling part of a community and part of a team that their personal beliefs are aligned with the company’s beliefs. And that’s critical for any entrepreneur.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so if you guys didn’t catch it, we’re talking about intra preneurs, which are these growth minded leaders inside of a bigger business, right. Yesterday when you and I had a conversation, I was very interested in that. You want to dig around in that just a little bit further, RJ? Sure.

RJ Grimshow: Yeah. So an entrepreneur is a individual that works in the confines of an organization but has the mindset of the entrepreneur. I did not know what that was, but I went into corporate America as a 30 year old, just thinking the same way that I did the last ten years of owning a business. Also, then taking the discipline from the military, from the Air Force before that, and just thought that was the normal, just the normal way of behaving in terms of corporate America. You figure out ways how to do things, and that’s the way I was brought up. So I was blessed, fortunate enough. And it starts as an individual contributor in sales. And that’s what I was in. So rookie of the year, top salesperson, top salesperson. And then all of a sudden you can it leads into management. Unfortunately corporate America that’s the normal path sometimes is they take we take high achievers and we put them into leadership roles. But I knew at that time that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a manager, a leader, a coach. I’ve you know, I grew up again in that family and I saw that. So it was just naturally in me. But then I found I read a book by Tom Peters who’s a brilliant, brilliant gentleman who wrote a lot of books in the 80s and 90s around leadership.

RJ Grimshow: And that was when I was introduced to the term entrepreneurship. And when entrepreneurs can self-identify as an entrepreneur, you see their confidence level go up tremendously, and they understand what they’re doing and the value that they’re bringing the organization. So they lean into it. And that’s what I did. And the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur, I like to expand on right now, if you’re listening to this, uh, or watching on YouTube and you’re debating on going into business on your own, but you’re in corporate America right now and you don’t want to give up the safety net of corporate America, and probably is a wise choice right now in the economy we work in and the world. Go find the job that is similar to what you want to start in your business and be paid to learn how to run that type of organization. I’ve had people push back and say, isn’t that stealing from the business owner when you when you are going there just to learn and then maybe go start your own. Know what I said was go add value. Learn we’re not stealing anything if it’s proprietary. No, we don’t take that. But learn the behaviors and learn what the day in the life of. Before you have to write a check, okay. To start that business, to ensure that you like it.

RJ Grimshow: And guess what? You might like the company end up staying there and becoming an entrepreneur there without writing the check, and have amazing success. Because entrepreneurs will have success in their roles. And their compensation, of course, will be in correlation to that success because they’re bringing higher value to the organization, which at the end of the day is all around revenue. It’s about bottom line revenue. Um, so that that’s why entrepreneurship, we look at organizations and we we identify team members as really functional, which is 80% of everyone that shows up within an organization, 20% are vital. Your intrapreneurs are your vital you. You don’t want all vital employees, because that means that no one’s focused on the day to day of running the business, the functional, because they’re just as important. But you want the vital who are always looking and striving and looking at everything within the organization. They understand the inputs and outputs, and they naturally do this on their own. A leader isn’t telling them, hey, go learn this, go learn that. And I have a story to exemplify this or example of this at Unifi. I had a young program manager that identified as an entrepreneur multiple degrees sports Athletics. He he had it all. I mean, just well rounded but more importantly, energy that we talk about before he had a lot of energy, passion, energy of becoming a better version of himself.

RJ Grimshow: He came to me and said, hey, RJ, I believe that we need an online portal for our clients to make payments. At that time, this was 2014 and we’re just really taking off, and my focus was on other areas. And I said to him, I said, well, Tyler, I believe I’m not sure I haven’t done enough research. We don’t have anything in the budget allocated for that this year. It was right right around August time frame. I said, but if you want to take and run with this and keep, you know, you still have to know what you still have to deliver on your objectives, your other objectives. But if you want to take this in your spare time and push this along, I’m all for it. I’m a huge proponent of this, and this was really before we started the whole what I call the EOS entrepreneur operating system within Unifi. So this was early on, one of our first use cases, PaTrisha, within four months. And I think our cost, the capital outlay was maybe $3,000. He had an online portal built out leveraging our IT department, leveraging an outside service provider. And now Unifi process is close to a quarter million dollars a month of monthly payments for our customers.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow.

RJ Grimshow: You just had to allow them the opportunity to say, I’m focused up here working out. Not that I’m more important, but I’m I’m trying to do direction and things of that nature, and you’re tactical. And if you can drive this forward without the resources you’re going to influence and things of that nature, then let’s do it. And he was successful doing it. Now here’s the downside of an entrepreneur. If there’s one negative. If you can’t fulfill the entrepreneur’s curiosity of what’s next for them in the organization, unfortunately they’ll leave. And Tyler ended up leaving. I could not fulfill that. But I’m okay with that because at at that time, um, he wanted more. He also was an attorney by trade.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay.

RJ Grimshow: So he wanted to follow that. And that’s what he does now. He practices law.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s amazing. So for those of you who are listening, who are on the edge, because I know there are a lot of you about wanting to open your own business and get away from corporate. There are actually ways to embrace that entrepreneurial spirit that you have inside of the position that you hold today, which is intrapreneurship. If you’re in the right space, if you’re in the right space, and you can also help others be in that entrepreneur mindset if you’re still in, um, bigger businesses, right? Or you can help them.

RJ Grimshow: I love to expand on this, too, Trisha. Uh, yeah. Let’s go. Now, there’s a lot of people, and I know this is a business focused podcast, but in the same respect, you you have a lot of high achievers, and maybe they’ve been downsized recently. Maybe they’ve been, you know, maybe they’re just not happy. And they had enough. And they said, I can’t take this anymore. You know, there’s really this is just our opinion. There’s a couple of things that you could be doing as you go enter into the job market. Or if you’ve been frustrated by trying to be in the job market. Take some time today or when you’re listening to this, learn around the topic of entrepreneurship. You can Google it. There’s all kinds of papers, YouTube videos, things of that nature. And it’s about mindset. Add that to your resume that you have you’ve identified. Now if you’re not, if you don’t identify as an entrepreneur in terms of the characteristics, don’t list yourself as an entrepreneur mindset. But you’d be surprised if you added that to your resume. Okay, your likelihood of an interview will go up tremendously. However, you’re going to have to talk around that topic and give examples of that when you identify during your during your interview. The second thing. And I and and you, you mentioned this earlier, is AI. Focus on learning how to prompt how to drive the LMS. And you can reach out to me at RJ, at RJ Grimshow Comm. I can send you an ebook that shows you how to prompt and then add that to your resume.

RJ Grimshow: And there’s several free classes on LinkedIn, on several other, you know, YouTube things of that nature, and start learning around how to leverage AI. Just subtly learn how to prompt learn the differences between ChatGPT Claude Gemini just from a high level. Again, you’re going to take your resume and it’s going to go up a notch because you are leaning into what the future looks like and understanding it. I gave this advice to a young girl that just graduated college. I said, what are you doing with are you dabbling with AI? She goes, oh no, I, I’m not doing anything with it, which is normal. People are busy with their life. I said, and she was looking for a marketing job. I said, hey, I would I would press you tomorrow as a Sunday, on Monday to take a couple hours. And this is youRJob now because you don’t have a job. This is youRJob. You’re going to study AI for a couple hours. I can send you some videos and then do exactly what I said to do. List it on your entrepreneurship. Because she was an entrepreneur. Two weeks later she had a job, full time job, marketing department, dream job. Just subtle changes. Now, I don’t know if it was that or not, but in the same respect, it makes me feel good. And and at the end of the day, she’s fully gainfully employed and and is extremely happy. So my point being, you have to think a little bit different in the world that we live in today.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I do want to tackle and go a little bit deeper in the AI space. But first let’s talk about able leadership. So RJ, what is it that you deliver under able leadership.

RJ Grimshow: So able is a framework that we leverage enable stands for analyze, build, leverage execute. And it’s a continuous circle. So if you’ve heard of EOS. Gino Wickman traction everything’s a there’s a lot of frameworks out there. And I would recommend that any entrepreneur have some type of framework. When you’re running your organization, which is your it’s really your operating system. I mentioned entrepreneur operating system either earlier EOS, which is not the Apple EOS. That’s why I do not use that, of course, because it’s trademarked things of that nature, but it’s an operating system that leverages able. And when I say able, again, if there’s an idea, we’re going to analyze the idea or if it’s an issue, we’re going to analyze it, and then we’re going to make a decision to build around that, to fix it, we’re going to leverage the process and then we’re going to execute. And that’s a continuous life cycle of every process within any organization. And it’s a mindset that plays into your abling the team members to do theiRJob, to make the ecosystem and the culture within the organization high achieving. And if you’re always analyzing from an able mindset perspective, it just naturally happens. It’s a muscle that you work that just naturally happens over time because intrapreneurship is just not an initiative. It’s an operating system and mindset, one for the individual in the company and two for the company overall. And now you layer on AI as a resource with a model to do deep research and expedite and speed things up for individuals. And you’re an entrepreneur. Game over. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a magic, powerful combination of human element because at the end of the day, AI is as good as the human that is driving it. Simple as that.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. All right. So then let’s dive into the AI CEO. I mentioned it a little bit earlier and you just started talking about you didn’t say the intersection between humans and AI, but there is right where the two come together. So let’s talk a little bit more about the AI CEO and what that looks like from a responsible use of AI.

RJ Grimshow: Yeah. Great question. And you know, you mentioned earlier, you know, AI expert or guru I’m far from that. I my buddies, you know, tease me all the time. I said no, I said the reason why I went in, really why I started leaning into AI is because I know as a business leader, you do not have the time to drink out of a fire hose and the information just gets faster and faster and faster. So if I could go and learn. Learned. Not as a data scientist, but learn from a business operations perspective and take that knowledge and then share it with my clients. Okay, that’s my goal is to be your ears and vetting opportunities and having cutting through the noise to say no, this is where we want to go. Or have you thought about this or have you thought about that? Because where companies are getting in trouble right now with AI, when I say in trouble, it’s not delivering. What they expected is from a foundation perspective. If you are a poorly run business before, AI is not going to fix you. If anything, it’s probably going to hurt you because you’re hoping that it’s going to do things that it can’t do. And if you’re a well run business before with solid mission, vision, values, operating system, everything that goes into a strong business, those are the organizations who are already using AI. They’ve been using AI, and you can use it in different capacities, either from automation to content to ideation to, um, you know, reviewing of data to manual, you know, just manual, um, tasks that you’re doing in your organization. Those companies are using it because they had the foundation built.

Speaker4: Mhm. Mhm.

RJ Grimshow: And to take a step back I talk a lot around strategy. And and there’s really we’re great planners. I’m guilty of it. I can plan like there’s no tomorrow. I mean I can, I can list and cross off and do everything. That’s not strategy. Strategy when you’re having a true strategic conversation as a team or an individual, if you’re strategically thinking you’re going, you will feel if you’re doing it right, nervous anxiety. Because now you’re talking about the future of Blue Ocean and trying to lay out a strategy of using tools that you might not know about today, but you know they’re going to be delivered in the future. So what I how I coach and consult our clients is everything starts with the foundation and we’re going to go backwards before we go forward. And it’s going to be uncomfortable because there’s going to be a lot of questions asked, a lot of evaluations, and really getting to the crutch of what you do and how you do it. But as soon as you I have a buddy that he he wrote a book, Burn the ships. You know, he burnt his down and built it back up. And so many entrepreneurs do do that. I’m not saying burn it down. Let’s take what you have and enhance it now by layering, taking the foundation and now layering on where we can leverage AI. Is it automation? Is it data? Where can we leverage it and then provide you the right tools? Either self-built because a lot of these tools can be built now very inexpensively with some some knowledge and education? Or do we just, you know, um, bolt on to Salesforce and Copilot, Microsoft Copilot and the big manufacturers are already delivering AI to us already.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, there’s a big difference between planning and strategy. I’m so glad that you brought that up. I know it was something we talked about yesterday and didn’t tackle here, so thank you for circling us back to that. So as we finish up our conversation today, my last ask is if you could leave the listeners today with one piece of advice on how to adopt that entrepreneurial mindset in their own careers or their businesses. What would it be?

RJ Grimshow: Be proud of who you are. You. You’re most likely the person in the organization asking why a lot of questions. You’re that you’re that doer that just is going to roll up your sleeves and get things done. But also you have that secret power of strategic processing, too, because you understand the ins and outs of every process. So first self-identify and then just start listening to videos around entrepreneurship. A lot of it’s ideation and new products that I focus more on the ideation around how we improve our current business. Then we focus on ideation and new products. Like I gave you example before earlier of Tyler. Maybe that wasn’t a product, but it really was an investment towards a product per se. So there’s two. And if you identify as an entrepreneur. Leverage that and be confident of who you are and lean into it and be proud of it and tell people and educate other individuals. Because if we can get entrepreneurs that are self-identifying, we’re only going to make corporate America or America or businesses better. Okay. And I’m all about the small person. No disrespect. If you work for a big company. Been there, done that. I’m now about to I want to help the SMEs and the my definition of SMEs is a company with 20 or less employees. You know, if they’re in the community, they’re they’re making meaningful strides of helping the community. They probably look at a bank at a local community bank. They’re active. Those are the organizations that I love helping. And I guarantee Trisha, probably you’re the same exact way. You know, and again, I’m not knocking big companies. They serve a purpose. But this country was built on businesses like my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother. And we need to bring those back and provide them the proper tools to be successful.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. This has been such a great conversation, RJ. I appreciate your time so much. Would you please give your contact information for those who want to learn more, oRJust reach out and have a connection with you?

RJ Grimshow: Sure. We have all kinds of resources at the AI, AI, the AI, CEO, AI. We have an ebook. We have a prompting guide. We have some agents that we’ve developed on there. You can start at least looking at at them from around custom agents. Uh, and my contact information is on that website. I’m on YouTube talking about entrepreneurship. You can just Google RJ Grimshow and you’ll, you know, a lot of stuff will pop up in regards to that. Or you can just reach out to me, RJ at the AI, CEO, AI. Um, I respond to all my emails, uh, try and get back to everyone within a day. Um, I have also exercises if you want to see if you would identify as an entrepreneur. I actually have a assessment that I can send you as well, that you can take, and it gives you, um, feedback in regards to your traits and characteristics around that.

Trisha Stetzel: Very nice. It’s fantastic. All right you guys, it’s RJ Grimshow g r I’m s h a w. As always, I will put all of the links that RJ talked about in the show notes. So you guys can just point and click if you happen to be sitting at your computer. If you’re in your car, please wait until you get home to point and click. And again, RJ, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

RJ Grimshow: Thanks, Trisha for having me. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to to have this conversation.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with RJ today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.