How to Survive The Big AI Reset Happening Now, with Brad Sugars.

AI is waking people up

AI is waking people up to say, I need to take action.

If you are alarmed about ai, you are thinking that maybe it's going too fast for you, or you've, been missing out already, or you're trying to catch up, then this interview with Brad Sugars is for you because Brad Sugars is the world's leading business coach. He's run action coach for over 30 years. and Brad answers some key questions about whether it's too late, how to get started with AI and what it means for you and your business as an entrepreneur. And also what he would do if he had $500 and had to start all over again.

So

How Brad Discovered AI

Brad with ai, tell us a little bit about, AI for you and when did you first encounter it? What made you think Aha. AI's gonna be It's

The Information Age vs The Intelligence Age

interesting that we now call it ai, but Google's been AI for 20 years. The algorithm that Google goes and does its searches is artificial intelligence. It's an algorithm that searches data. Um, but when we look at what AI is becoming now, the speed with is adoption is a lot slower than most people think it is. You the average business owner is still struggling to update their Instagram and yet we are looking at ai. Now we've got about 80% of businesses saying they're using ai, there's only 1% to between one and 3% that are saying they're using it at a high level. Type thing. So we've still got time is the first thing that I think people need to understand. I've been playing with the AI programmes now for several years, When people understand we've moved from the information age into the intelligence age, I think that's where they start to get it. Because in the information age is all about getting information. and the intelligence age, it's interpreting that and there's too much information today for one person to be able to do it like you take a. CMO of a business right. So marketing, CMO, how would a CMO today read all of the analytics and all of the understandings of their website, their social, their HubSpot, like everything? To be able to read that every day or every week is almost impossible. Now to connect it all into, best one today is probably computer over on Perplexity to connect it all up to that and have it give you an analysis and then go and you, You know, that is one of the fastest ways to understand that take in all the information. AI can, and it can process it think

we're also seeing is the move from information to the agent where it's doing the tasks with the information, right? So we've got the trend of having all the information on a dashboard. And now, Claude or Perplexity or Manus is able to take the information, actually do things, like with Claude Cowork,

for

Where to Start With AI

When you say 1%, companies are really only implementing it at a very fractional level. Where do you think entrepreneurs and business owners should start, Brad? Because for many entrepreneurs, I think they're just overwhelmed, right? By the bombardment of do this, do that. where do you advise them to

anything new. The idea is you start playing with You don't start using it First you start playing with it. So play with chat, play with copilot. start having it. Write something for you. Just do the basic things. The problem with most of it though, is that it's reactive, meaning you've gotta ask it to do something type thing. As you said, Now we're getting to a phase where suggest

to you what

doing type thing. So, for example, Our coaching app, it, it's not waiting for you to say, Hey Brad, what should I do today? It'll come to you and say, Hey, here's three things you should be thinking about based on, and so once you've connected it to your accounting or your sales or whatever it

is, it will give you suggestions

proactively. But the average business should be thinking about three Number one, are the companies you are having do work for you using So for example, if I've got a marketing agency, are they having people do the work or are they having AI do the Because if they're having people doing the work, it's costing me five to 10 times as much as it would if AI

was doing

AI & Your Existing Software and Suppliers

So you think of ai as people got used to the idea of having. Virtual assistants that lived in other countries. So it was much cheaper type thing. Well, AI is the ultimate virtual but you've gotta be able to direct your virtual to be able to do now soon. You won't have to direct you. So that's the first thing are the agencies and companies you Second is the software you're using, AI enabled. If your accounting software isn't AI enabled, then you've gotta start upgrading to an AI enabled software so it can do the thinking for you. Okay? And third is get your team using So for example, if I'm sitting in a board meeting with my team, historically, we'd say, no computers today. We're Like have your laptop in there and any idea you have, I want it in chat, GPT or in whichever format you are using. I want it in there within 10 seconds of the idea And you getting it. 'cause like I show the average business owner, go to chat GPT and say, chat GPT. Write me a prompt to do a SWOT analysis of my business. And this is the first lesson for everybody. Don't ever write the prompt yourself. Ask it to write the prompt. 'cause your prompt will be like two lines. You ask it to write a prompt to do a SWOT analysis of your business, it'll write a 50 to a hundred line prompt. Copy it, paste it back into a new chat, and boom, away you go. But I get them to do a SWOT analysis of their business and within about 10 minutes, they're just blown away because a full SWOT analysis, you'll hit deep research use the full capability. So yes, You need a subscription for that. and I don't get any benefit from any of them. I like perplexity simply because it has great teams capability. Computer is phenomenal and it's, one subscription for all think that's where we should be starting.

So we do some playing and I think, as you say, we're also seeing the, the existing legacy architecture. talk about perplexity Microsoft ecosystem. So you've gotta get your legacy systems. Working with whichever AI architecture

Mm-hmm.

You mentioned about letting the, AI start to do some work for you. What about some of the security issues? Because, you, can be training, especially if it's an open, an open platform, you can be training the LLM on your own Content. Right. your own data. So what

of it you, do wanna train it on your own data because you want people to be able to find you too, remember? Oh, yeah. Because as an answer engine, people are using it like they use Google 'cause that's what they're used to doing. So they'll go to chat t and say, what's the best. Podcast for me to listen to on how to grow my business type thing? And it'll give it a few suggestions. So you definitely want it to be able to find you in that way. And anyone that tells you SEO is dead is completely because what does the LLM do to go and find itself? It still has to search the archives, which is still the Google or being architecture type thing. So we've still gotta have that, let's be blunt about the change in the world. when I started in business 30 years ago, I met Mike Bash. He was founding Vice President of Federal Express, and he said to me, Brad, 80% of business is, system is systemic. Meaning 80% of business is routine. You're doing the same job day in, day out. So build a system for it, checklist systems, et cetera. And he said 20% of business is humanised. So make sure you train your team well to handle the 20% that needs human interaction. we're going to, 80% will and robots. Now we're at about. 40 to

50% of business is computers

and robots today. if you just look at the car manufacturing industry example. Cell phone manufacturing. It's it, no, there's five humans and a thousand bloody robots doing the whole thing So we've gotta understand that that's where we're moving now, a hundred years ago to this year, Henry Ford changed us in, from the 12 hours a day, he's like, sun up to sundown Six days a week he had the Sabbath. He moved us to a 40 hour work week. and He started paying his wages much higher than anyone else did, and everyone thought he's crazy. Business is gonna go crazy. You can't possibly do that. My prediction is we're gonna move to approximately a 20 hour work week in the next 10 Now people will say, oh, you can't possibly do that. Yes you can because your people are doing five to 10 times as much if they're actually using AI than they did before, And in your company will not be necessary, we will have Jim, I I'll make a prediction. Yeah. We will have a $1 billion a year company with one employee. We will have that the

10 years. I've heard there's a couple of brothers that have got a billion dollar business and so it's completely doable and it's happening

Yeah, you'll have agencies and outsource stuff, but you won't need more than one employee to have a dollar company the way the world is moving. So these are some of the things that we've gotta be understanding the labour force. This is a massive

shift

You're moving from the old business model of labour being what you sold. So you hired someone and you sold them out at a higher rate than you hired them Well, now it's about capital. So how does the capital be work? So it's instead of just having people working for you now your money working is going to be much more of a thing. So. There is some massive shifts happening and I think a lot of people are still stuck in the current thinking type thing and it's hard to get outta current thinking if you're a small business owner and you are facing problems like, well, the economy shifted and I've now gotta change this immediately type thing. And that's where a business on the back foot is gonna find it hard to take advantage of AI because they're on the back

The Future of Work: 20-Hour Work Week

foot. Yeah. but I think there's a couple of questions in there. One is, first of all, about the legacy workforce. 'cause Brad, you talk about that, if it's going down to 20

hour those

will probably be more productive than the 40 hour. 'cause we are now getting Correct. it's it's a superpower. Right.

a 20 hour work week's gonna e equal an 80 to a hundred hour work

Yeah. Yeah. I think of it like the shado, the Egyptian

water. mm-hmm.

AI & The Workforce: Winners and Losers?

Lifter. One person has now 10, 10 x the power. Correct. Using ai, What do you do in terms of helping the company to bring the team along? Because there are gonna be some winners and some losers in the workforce as Well, changes

the workforce. I don't see that there's gonna be losers in it because the workforce just changes. When we invented dish washing machines, Jim, instead of having three people washing dishes in my restaurant, now we have one machine. change happens. Yes. And we can go back to dish washing machines. We can go back to a, a a fishing net versus a fishing pole when the first net was introduced. So all of these introductions changed the So for example, 20 years ago, you wouldn't have paid someone to walk your dog for you. Now People pay people to come and pick up the dog poop, sake. I mean, these are the changes in the world of, of work. you wouldn't have 30 years ago paid someone to walk you. Nowadays people get a personal trainer and they go, oh, it's my trainer. No, it's not. It's your paid friend. We know that. you know, but the reality. of What's going on is that the work will shift. When you are a boy, Jim, how often did you go out to a restaurant for dinner? Almost never.

I was

week. now, People will eat out three to five nights a week. I know some people, they eat out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of their life. It's crazy the way that we think this changes destructive. we look back at, I'm pretty sure 54 now, I've seen, at least a dozen things in my life where they've said, oh, it's the end of the world. Oh, it's. you know, Y 2K, oh, 20 20, 20 12, the Mayan calendar, everything's ending ai. It's the end of the world. You know what it is? It's another

change. You're absolutely right. I think the sea change here is though, that with the age agentic ai, where it's actually going off and doing the tasks mm-hmm. I just started using, some platforms for image and video,

Mm-hmm. Content

creation, right? So you type in a, a prompt or you upload an image and it makes a movie for you, right? So there's a whole class of people that either have to change the kind of work they do or the tools they use.

the, the people that have been in that work have to start using AI and be better at it because, let me be blunt. You using that tool will be nowhere near as good as a guy or a gal that's been in the movie industry for 20 years using that same tool. Their eye, their knowledge, their skills using that tool be much better. But again, like even simple, my audio books, I used to have to go and sit in a studio for two days to create my audio books. Today I press a button and there's my audiobook done.

and,

it's, it's created sort of thing. I've created five audio books in the last two

AI Is a Multiplier, Not a Magic Wand

weeks. Yeah. Yeah. And you were prolific before ai, So, but then the message has to be as well for any business owner is that AI is an opportunity, uh, as much as it is a threat, right? You talk about it within action. Coach, what about for your. Your coaching and how are you using it within the company for client service, for example, and helping your client base? so

be blunt, if you have a bad system, AI will not make a bad If you have a bad product, AI won't make a bad product. Good. If you have bad service, AI will not make bad service. Good. So let's be clear on that one First, you must have a good product, good system of delivery, good service. You must have all of those things to start with. AI then multiplies that, you know how marketing is a Social media became a business. Well, AI is a multiplier of what already exists. So my coaches will be able to using AI be far more effective with their clients. So they'll get clients' results faster, but they'll be able to handle more clients because the AI will do a lot of the thinking work for them. But even the simple, one of the day-to-day ai. Coach. So imagine Jim, if in your company, coach Brad called your team every day at the end of the day and asked them, what did you get done today? How did you go? What were your scores for today? What are you doing tomorrow? What's gonna happen tomorrow? So, AI Coach Brad, interviews every one of your team for 10 minutes at the end of the day, every day, and then creates a. A log. Or a report back to you saying, here's how your company did today. Now you think of how much more effective that makes coaching and how much more effective that makes your managers, Your

Your leaders. And even now you can use, for example, with Claude Cowork, I've created a schedule that reviews all my emails each morning and tells you what I need to do and it can review

'em at the end of

day. And see whether I've done them or not, So it really becomes, to your point about the billion dollar company, you are liberating your coaches then to focus on the people time presumably as well

The Aspects of Coaching AI Can Never Replace

with Correct, You know, the, because there are certain aspects of coaching that will never be replaced by ai.

Okay. Like which ones, Brad? So tell me, tell see the work being for

people. when I'm sitting here with you, Jim, coaching you and your and I notice the way you say something and I start to talk to you about, well, hang on. You said that this way. Why is that? Let's get into the detail having that human to human conversation. it's like going to a concert versus listening to the music on your iPod. an experiential and this is why, say for example, Louis Vuitton stores are full right now, but stores selling basic products are empty. not empty, but less full than they used to be because I would rather click a button to get a regular product. But the experience of going to a Louis Vuitton store, the experience of going to a concert, so. We will always crave the experience as

Yeah. And that's what Thomas Pine talks about in the experience economy, right? They talk about as we start to have more and more time, disposable time and more disposable income, move towards experienced economy businesses as well.

Health will become a priority

Well, I just invested in longevity businesses back in Las Vegas for one simple reason, health will become a far greater priority for the human next five to 10 years than it's ever been. Because we will have more time. So people will want to work out, they'll want to get in, they'll want to take care more. All of these things when you're working less hours, like I know my, my, second eldest daughter has just gone to a full-time job from college, gonna full-time job, and her biggest complaint is that she can't go to the gym at the her 11 o'clock class. time sort of thing. And I say, well. this is, this is the challenge of the 40 hour work week. Well, once we moved to a different work

week.

People with massive goals are changing the world

you know, This is also part of, if you go back, COVID virtualized us by about seven years. So we moved seven years ahead and I used the number seven because Amazon said that their package numbers they did were seven years in advance on their predictions. So that sort of said that we moved seven years in one year. Well, if we look at what AI is doing and the speed with which it's moving you just look at the human health aspect Once, once AI actually has access to all of the world's data on cancer, it's gonna solve it. But you've got all of these universities and pharmacy companies that all have that data hidden away. Imagine if all of that data is in one place. Look, Jim, what. What we look at today is people that have massive goals are changing the world at a, at a rapid rate of knots. JFK did it by saying, we choose to go to the moon, not because it's the easiest of things, because at the hardest of things, and that led to GPS systems. It led to micro computers. There's so many things that came because he set the goal of gonna the moon. We sit here today with Elon being the the crazy man of the day saying, I want to colonise Mars, and everyone says, well, Elon, you can't do that. He says, why not? They said, well, you'll need better spaceships. You'll need better communication systems. You'll need better batteries. You'll need better tunnelling. You'll need robots. You'll need all these things. So all these things are being invented because of the the crazy goals of one man. But this is where I think that. Anyone who sits there in their life today and says, well, it's too late, or, I'm too early, or I'm too young, or too old, or too this. This is a reset for you. This is a reset saying, I don't care where you're at right now. If you put yourself in the next 30, 60, 90 days, learn ai. Just go and play with programmes. Go and play on it. Learn it over the next 90 days. You will come up with ideas for businesses and things that can be solved using ai that'll just blow you away. Everyone has the ability right now with ai, a laptop, not even a laptop, a phone, for goodness sake. It's better on a laptop, obviously, but you can create whatever you want. Today, the game has been reset, and even if you're behind, you can catch up based on AI and helping

you out. it's

a fundamentally

The Dangers of AI (and Ignoring It)

optimistic picture from you, really, The AI is gonna be creating new opportunities, creating more. Time for people to do things that will be, more rewarding for Mm-hmm. It'll create new categories of business. Where do you see the dangers, if you like, just as a cursory note, where do you see the dangers maybe for businesses and entrepreneurs?

Yeah. it's interesting, Jim. 'cause I'm not hardwired

No, I know you're not. That's,

that's I'm hardwired to look for

opportunity and I love that, but I'm also mindful that for all these people who are going, yeah, but

danger number one is that you don't even bother. Right. I know people that said, well, I'm not gonna bother to learn social media. Well, that's just dumb. I'm not gonna bother learning ai. Well, that's just dumb. We're gonna live a lot longer now because again, AI is helping all the solutions for health. You've got to do it. So danger number one is that you

don't it.

Now, danger number two, the Terminator, the whole world's gonna be robots. They're gonna take over. Listen, I've already ordered my first robot to be in the house. I think they'll be phenomenal. I get it. Cleaning or gardening or doing something for me, that sort of stuff. That'll be phenomenal. But. If you look at where guys like Sam Altman, now, they're much better at this than I am, right? There's the open AI guy and they look at what they're programming into the and that it's already proven by different examples that Claude will overwrite stuff. So Anthropics sit, there, go, what is that, how did that work? How did that happen? They also told me that Y 2K planes were gonna fall outta the sky. And they also told me, and they also told me. So no, I'm not, I'm, not hardwired to look for the road crash. I'm hardwired

look for the sunset. Yeah. Which is great. And that, that's a great message. 'cause there are a lot of people who are saying, maybe taking the ostrich approach, which is, I think

when you take the ostrich approach, You know

where

your but is, that's for sure.

will be in the air the sand will definitely

come right over you. But here's, the thing. We as humans, naturally find a way to go through and overcome all challenges. we naturally do. Like when I, I was born in 1971, that was when the Club of Rome predicted that we would run out of oil in 90 years. and you sit back and you look at how much oil we have today, and we've still got 500 odd years worth because usage is down and those sorts of things, Jim. So I believe that if you allow the. if you are one of those people that allows the one reason not to do something to be stronger than the nine or 10 reasons to do

yep, fantastic. But

you are fall by the wayside, The way the world works is the same as a tree. You're either growing or you're dying, and people go, no, I'm gonna be in status quo. If you're in status quo, the weeds are growing around you. know the market is gonna beat you. So you are either Taking advantage of this opportunity or you're gonna get beat by it. and it's not by ai. you're gonna get beat by your competitor who's using

ai. Yeah. And that's the key thing, isn't it? You're gonna be beaten by the people who are picking up and, and carrying it with what you are doing with, action coach and you've got the coaches being augmented with I but not replaced with ai. Are you seeing a new category of client, of company that's coming to. Action coach, that's AI centred, that's facing different kind of problems.

I, I think when we look

at

AI is waking people up

the customers that are coming to us as action coach, there's three groups There's the baby boomers who wanna sell, so they need to fix their business to be exiting. Right. And that's. 30 to 40% of business owners are in that category of wanting to exit. You're going to have an exit from your business Either negative, you kill it, it kills you, or positive, a passive exit or a financial exit type thing. So of course we set them up for the passive and financial exit. So that's the first category of person second category of person that's coming to us is the one that wants to take advantage of opportunities that are out there. They see the opportunities and they say, I need a team to help me I don't, I don't think I can do it on my own. I need outside coaching or outside advice or outside help And then your third group is really the group that is saying, I'm panicking. You they leave it till it's too late in some cases, and they're in panic mode. And, fortunately or unfortunately, AI is waking people up to say, I need to take action. COVID did it with so many

businesses.

You we look at the economic situation right now with oil prices and all of those sorts of things. It wakes a lot of businesses up to say, dang. And if you wait till there's a negative in the economy or a negative in the marketplace, then dang, don't wait till you get disrupted. Be the disruptor, and that's what AI

will help

you One final question

for you, Brad. Imagine that you didn't have action, coached, didn't have this amazing business, and you were starting out and you had $500 and AI was here. What business would you be setting up and building

do you

I

would, given my co given my knowledge, I would probably set up an AI CFO, so an AI business that would help you analyse your numbers in your business. Probably an AI CMO, and I could probably do that in about 10 minutes flat and um, because I'd have AI build it all for me, And I could do it as an app and I could do it as a consulting service. So I

would.

then have AI call companies and email companies, offer my services to them and have them book in a phone call. I'd have AI build the videos and the website for me, that would allow me to promote those services to people. build an ai, I'd have AI build me an app that allowed them to score themselves currently and give them some basic knowledge. And then when they're ready, they would sign up for the subscription based service because. The best businesses are always repeat businesses, so subscription, membership, retainer based businesses, that's what I'd do. So yeah, I would have AI do majority of the work. And the last thing I would say is I would make it so that my business could be global. I'd have AI put it into the top 15 languages for me, so I'd have it running in China, India, I'd have it running in all of the biggest economies in the world very fast. So yeah, it'd probably take a week, maybe

two, to get So Brad, it sounds like AI is not gonna slow you down. Thank you so much for

sharing your thoughts with

today.