Episode 106 - Joseph Newberry

Erik Martinez: I recently did an audit on how I use time in my own business, and what I found was a little uncomfortable. More than half my day is spent on things that do not move the needle. So I got curious and wondered if there's a way that AI could help me solve that problem. To discuss this topic, I'm joined today by Joseph Newberry, founder of ExecClone.com.

Erik Martinez: Joe, welcome to the show.

Joseph Newberry: Hey Erik. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, man. I'm excited to talk about this. I'm always excited to talk about anything AI. So, this should be kind of a fun conversation, but before we dive in, man, can you, just give us a [00:01:00] brief overview of who you are and why you're doing this?

Joseph Newberry: Yeah, give you a rundown of where I've been and kind of what landed here. 'Cause this is not where I thought I would land. Started business a long time ago in tech and telecommunications back in the days of like singular wireless and AT&T and kind of the early days of tech.

Joseph Newberry: And then, when I saw that margins were getting sucked outta that industry, I transitioned into finance. Did mortgages and commercial loans and, ran a couple of real estate brokerages. So, my background is tech and finance, with a specialty in leadership and sales. It's probably been about three to five years ago, I started to see this change happening in the world moving towards AI and on the very front end of the bell curve of the acceptance, early adopter, Then started to really see very clearly that this was the internet of the nineties. I was too young to recognize what the opportunity was in the nineties of what the internet was gonna become, but I recognize that's what AI was. So I decided that I wanted to get into that space somehow. Started using it heavily myself. A heavy chat, GPT user and then [00:02:00] started to teach myself about it. I've taken some free classes online. I took a IBM machine learning, class that, got me a certificate and understanding how AI works.

Joseph Newberry: And then open claw, came out. Claude Bot, you know, whichever term people are using nowadays. I know it's only been out like a month, right? Or two months. When that hit the marketplace, I was already building AI clones inside of chat GPT, using, projects and then direct injection. Basically looking at personality traits and, and psychological traits of people and loading that into Chat GPT and doing that myself. Had my own AI clone that was, helping me day to day. So when Open Claw came out, I thought, wow, here's a huge opportunity, to build something that no one's really building and help people use AI in a way that's never really been used before.

Joseph Newberry: To help leverage what makes them special. Their own unique, skills and talents.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, that's pretty cool, man. You know,I follow a lot of people in the AI space and there is this concept out there that's really starting to take hold of using AI as a thought partner or, a co collaborator in [00:03:00] decision making. And, what you're talking about is some of that.

Erik Martinez: But there seemed to be widely varying opinions on how to go about doing this. Before we get deep into that, can you tell me a little bit about why a business owner or leader would need a digital clone in the first place?

Erik Martinez: What are the key use cases where this makes sense?

Joseph Newberry: That's a great question. And,as executives and business owners or solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, you don't even realize how much work you're actually doing. If you had that time back, could you reinvest that time into the things that really matter? It's the simple things like scheduling your appointments. It's scanning your email, every few minutes, eight hours a day, ten hours a day, just looking for the important stuff to respond to. It's the, Hey, can I do this or, Hey, should I call this person back where it's your team coming to you and asking for input on things that do matter. They have to get done, they have to get addressed. But, it doesn't necessarily have to be the highest caliber of what you have to offer in your [00:04:00] experience and wisdom level to have those things addressed. But because you're the boss, because you're the executive, the solopreneur, entrepreneur, whatever that looks like, it has to be you. It's really came to fruition in my thought process in this last year, in my last role. I was, vice president of sales for a smaller company that about 10 million a year in volume looking to make the jump to next. And I saw to do that we were gonna have to overhaul so much and change so much in their systems and processes that it was gonna be at least 12 months 12 hour days, six days a week is what it was gonna take me personally, investment to, help turn the corner. So, then I really started to isolate my time. I used the app from the iOS web store to start tracking my activities and my behaviors and how long each thing I was doing was taking. And what I found was, 40% of my time didn'tmatter. In that, if my staff could have had the skills at that point to make those decisions on their own, it'd been different. But I was rebuilding something so they didn't. So, within chat GPT I built my own clone and I would literally, go in and talk to my [00:05:00] clone about what my day was gonna look like and the things I had to handle. And it would generate systems and processes for me. I'd review it and then hand it out to people on printed paper and say, Hey, this is what I need you to do today so I can offload some of my own time and let my team handle what I knew they were capable of handling. But to get where we were going, I needed to speed it up. And I needed to get it off my plate. So that's where the idea for Exec Clone came from was what if I could just not have to do that at all? not even from a perspective of printing it out and what that took to just to get there.

Joseph Newberry: Just that investment alone was an hour a day. But if I could offload that. That's where the whole premise of what I've built came from because I needed that time to invest in strategic decisions and infrastructure. Otherwise, it was gonna be 16 or 20 hours a day for 12 months. So, I've built Exec Clone to be, your Chief of staff. My clients and I, how we use Exec Clone is I debrief every morning on what needs to happen for the day, what are the important strategic decisions that I'm focused on, and what is my exec clone gonna handle for me that day and the things that I can [00:06:00] easily offload. And instead of an hour working with chatGPT to figure out and hand out pieces of paper, it's a 10 to 15 minute review. Just like I'm sitting there with my own personal assistant. That's me.

Erik Martinez: That's almost scary though, right? Look in the mirror and there's this AI robot staring you in the face. just kidding.

Joseph Newberry: I mean, it is eerie sometimes though, for real. when you're talking to yourself, some of the responses I'll even get back, it'll call me on my stuff. Like, Hey, let's move this to tomorrow. J three, that's his name.

Joseph Newberry: He'll say, Hey, you've already moved this three times. Is this really important or are you just putting this off? Because that's how I would talk to my team. So it's saying that to me.

Erik Martinez: Right, you're using it to push back on you. You know , having been a business owner for many, many years, you're exactly right. I think the hardest part for me is just wearing the multiple hats.

Joseph Newberry: Right.

Erik Martinez: The multiple responsibilities. One moment you're chief sales officer.

Erik Martinez: Next moment you are a human resources person. The next moment you're working on accounting and finance. Not to mention all the myriad of [00:07:00] things that come up along the way, with your team, with your clients, all those things. So I think this is really helpful. You know, if you were to say, Hey, if you got nothing else out of this, this is the one thing that this changed for me or my clients, what would it be?

Joseph Newberry: So, speaking a hundred percent, truly, honestly and candidly. Everyone has this huge task list. When we're talking about the roles that we're talking about. It's this list that's ongoing forever. But the challenge is those fires and those emergencies and those things that seem like they're so important in those times and spaces when they're happening. They take away from the top two or three things from each day that need to be handled with 100% attention and focus and strategically. And that's the reason that you're in that seat, is to handle those two or three things with the best of what you have to offer. And that's where all those little things take away from. So that compounds over time and inefficiency. And what I found was in tracking my time and behaviors [00:08:00] down to the minute. What I found was is that over a 30 day period, I was only effectively hitting the top three most important things every single day about 40% of the time. That meant that 60% of the time, the reason I was in the role didn't, even make sense to have me there.

Joseph Newberry: What I found was is if I could actually handle those three things each day with a hundred percent of my attention and focus. It meant that we were going in the direction we were supposed to be going, and we were doing it at high clip efficiently and profitably. But it also meant that it started to put those fires out organically, over time. It started to eliminate the emergencies, and, and those things. But, to make that transition from all that to just the two top three things every day was really, really difficult until I had the data in front of me. And once I had the data in front of me and saw it, I said, oh my God, I've gotta figure this out because I don't have time in this role to do the things that might normally take a company, 18 or 24 months transition. To, train new employees, to hire new employees, to determine who needed to go and who didn't. To restructure [00:09:00] the entire sales pipeline to bring in AI in the first place to build a whole new CRM. These are all things that were on my plate. 12 months is not a lot of time to figure that out. So, what I found was, is that If I could figure out how to do those three things every day, it was gonna be, transformational.

Joseph Newberry: And what I found was it took me about 60 days to turn a corner once I had the data. And once I turned the corner, our performance blew through the roof. We doubled our sales for the entire year, in one week sales period, in July. Basically, a three week ramp up leading up to a one week sales period where we made some transformations and transitions. We doubled our sales. Doubled millions of dollars of sales for the entire year. We did in one week. And it was all because of that transition that, recognizing that, figuring out how. Then from there, that's where Exec Clone really started to be born was how can I help other executives leverage that? Because, what I love about what we've done is that there's a reason that you're a business owner, Erik. There's a reason that I'm a business owner. There's a reason that people are in the roles that they're in. It's their special, unique skills [00:10:00] that put them there. If you're a high performing individual, it's your uniqueness that's the reason you're in your seat. That uniqueness. If you can leverage that and put it in the places that create the most impact, that's really the only reason you're there. But, if you, can't have that, it affects so much else, not just your work, but your home life. That's where this all came to be, and that's what I found being out in the marketplace talking to people about this product, is that it's the same problem everywhere.

Erik Martinez: I totally agree with that. I mean, I feel like I live that almost every single day.

Erik Martinez: I do a fair amount of time tracking, and I just did a big analysis of my time and it's a very similar pattern to what you said. I'm in a complete rebuild of what I'm trying to do right now.When you start talking about, the sales stuff, CRM, lead, pipelines, all those things, right?

Erik Martinez: I've got all of that, plus all the other things.

Joseph Newberry: Yeah

Erik Martinez: And yeah, some days it's just like, boom, it's overwhelming. So, being able to have a tool or somebody, you know, one of the things that I [00:11:00] say a lot is, we don't always have access to our mentors. You know, even if you have that really good accountability partner or coach, whoever that person or persons are, right?

Erik Martinez: They're not always available. They may make time for you whenever you need, but in the moment when you're sitting down in front of your desk, your computer and you're trying to go, man, there's 50 things on my plate. Which one or two of these is the most important?

Erik Martinez: They're not always there.

Erik Martinez: We all have those moments where we're like, you know, I know some people who are extremely confident and they're really, really good about picking one thing and going for it. But the vast majority of us, I say, you know, we're reasonably confident. But there's come those moments where you're sitting there, there's like 10 things in your face, and they all feel like they're on fire.

Erik Martinez: I think the other thing I heard you say is using this tool has allowed you to get out of the urgent box and back into the important box. The interesting part about that is if you're living in the [00:12:00] important box, everything becomes easier. When you're living in the urgent box all the time, nothing's easy.

Joseph Newberry: You're a Hundred percent right.

Erik Martinez: I think that's really, an interesting thing. I think, no tool's perfect. What are some of the surprises you've seen? Like, Hey, it's helped me do these things, but I get weirded out when it does this.

Joseph Newberry: So,I've done very intentional job of leveraging on social platforms. LinkedIn specifically my real personality. Sometimes people will try to project, who they want to be or who they're trying to be, and that's okay as long as they're, really working towards that.

Joseph Newberry: I'm very much in touch with who I am and what I figured out late in my adult years is that the things that have, scared people about me. My passion and my intensity and my drive and my, candidness. The things that have scared people where in my past, maybe people have thought, that insecurity around them and what that is for me, has alienated me some, but I've figured out is those are the things [00:13:00] that have made me truly successful is when I'm so true to myself. And what I stand for and who I am, that that's where my success comes from.

Joseph Newberry: My AI is that. It's almost a little bit scary. If you were to look at my activity on LinkedIn, you can't tell what's me and what's J three. And that's a little bit scary. I mean word for word it, it's difficult and, sometimes I'll read a post from, a few months ago, whether it was my J two iteration through chat GPT or J three through what I built with Exec Clone. And I'll read something and I'll have to actually like look back to see was, did I say that or was that my AI clone? Because, there are times I'll go look back and find that it absolutely was me. And then there are times I'll look back and see that it was J two or J three and like, holy cow, that's exactly what I would've said. I thought that was me. But yeah, it was me. It was just my cognition injected into an AI box. And that's the part that, has been at times a little bit scary. But at the same time, I believe the majority of the time, that's also been the opportunity.

Erik Martinez: I think that's fascinating that you're sitting here [00:14:00] talking about, Hey, I built a digital clone. I'm using it as a thought partner, a collaborator, an advisor, a counterpoint to my thinking. I think one of the things that concerns me, Joe, is, when I hear people tell me, Hey, I've got my AI trained. It knows me so well and it's doing everything, and I'm sitting here going.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, but if you train it so well to be like you, where does it start picking up your flaws and accelerating those. And how do you protect against that?

Erik Martinez: What are those guardrails that help make sure that hey, it's okay it's a lot like Joe, but it also has this so that when Joe's going down a path that doesn't make sense or it starts going a path that you can stop that process from happening.

Joseph Newberry: It's great that you bring that up because it's partially what I love about AI is there's no emotional clouding. So, every morning when I get up, one of the first things I do, I throw some cold [00:15:00] water on my face and I look in the mirror. And when I look in the mirror, there are 20 values that I'm trying to live up to as a man each day. I have a memorized, they're deep in my heart. It's what I want to be remembered for when I die. That I was these 20 things. And every day at the end of the day, when I go to bed, I brush my teeth and I'm looking in the mirror and I account to myself, how well did I do in those 20 areas?

Joseph Newberry: Here's what happens in life, is our emotions cause human drift. There's the term in AI world called drift, right?

Joseph Newberry: But I think emotional drift is way worse than AI drift. You know, there are days that I can look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, wow, I was only the best of myself in eight of those 20. And it's because of emotional clouding. I got pulled this direction. I got angry or upset. Or I let my childhood Joe, come up inside of a decision that should have been an adult Joe decision, right? AI doesn't do that. When you've defined, what I've built with the True Mirror profile inside AI, inside Exec Clone is that it's my 20 values, and those are the guardrails. Those are the rules for which I'm supposed to live by. You know, a high level of integrity, a high level of loyalty, you know, to be [00:16:00] empathetic, compassionate, loving.

Joseph Newberry: These are things that when I'm debriefing with myself. It's easy to either let yourself off or beat yourself up. But when you've got guardrails built into your AI that remove emotion 100%. It's defined in how you expect yourself to think.

Joseph Newberry: And then you're communicating with your AI. It doesn't get clouded by the same things that cloud us. So, those guardrails in the 20 values that I've built in are really the things that matter the most about my AI. Because if I'll respond to my AI about a situation or a direction that I'm looking to go, it'll straight up say, I'm not sure that this perfectly aligns with the person you're trying to be. People say, yeah, my AI knows me. It knows you within the amount of memory that you're allowed for it to know you and the context that it pulls up from conversations. And unless people are using, projects within chat GPT. Their AI doesn't really know them. It only knows the most recent conversations, if that, and it knows where you are today. But it doesn't know where you were a year ago. And it doesn't know where you want to be 10 years from now. That said, I only wanna work with high [00:17:00] functioning individuals. That are good people that are trying to do good things, within their business and the people that they work with. And my Exec Clone is built around that. I want people to be held accountable to the best of themselves. To make them achieve what they want to achieve, to help everybody around them achieve what they want to achieve. I think that's unique to Exec Clone. I'm not just building something to, be a daily confidant. I don't want something to tell me what I want to hear. I want something that tells me what I need to hear. Sometimes what we need to hear is not what we want to hear.

Erik Martinez: What I find fascinating about what you just said is one of the concerns that we hear a lot about AI is that it's not human enough. You're turning what that little piece into a strength of your system.

Joseph Newberry: That's the idea.

Erik Martinez: It's, removing the cloudy, emotional, psychological, physiological responses we have from our decision making and maybe shining in a light that's a little more objective and pure.

Erik Martinez: It doesn't mean it's perfect, right?

Erik Martinez: I didn't hear you anywhere [00:18:00] say it's perfect, but what you're saying is, Hey, it's just removing some of the barriers that we naturally come with. We're not perfect. We're gonna have those days where we don't hit our list of values. And that's okay, right?

Erik Martinez: That's part of the human experience. But you have this tool that can give you objective feedback about where you sit on that particular thing. I find that really fascinating because I think we hear so much about how AI isn't human, but here's a place where that actually is a very, very significant strength.

Joseph Newberry: Absolutely

Erik Martinez: I think one of questions and you've started to answer this with your 20 values. I was going to go down a path of, how do you build this thing? And it sounds like from what you've just said you've baked in your personal values as part of the training process and teaching it what's important to you and how you think.

Erik Martinez: What does that process look like? I mean, overall how long does it take? What does somebody need to be thinking about if they were to do this? Because, there's [00:19:00] going to be some people who listen to this and go, Hey, Joe's tool sounds awesome for me.

Erik Martinez: And there's gonna be a group of people who are gonna be like, yeah, I can build that in chat GPT, or Claude or whatever.

Joseph Newberry: Right.

Erik Martinez: So for either of those people, they still have to think about some things,

Joseph Newberry: Absolutely

Erik Martinez: Personal values is kind of one of those key ingredients, but can you just describe briefly what this process looks like?

Joseph Newberry: Sure.I won't go too far down the road of how we've done it with Exec Clone. 'cause that is an IP piece of it. What makes it amazing. But what I will say is that, I don't think that in today's world, most people, whether they choose to do this on purpose consciously or subconsciously, I don't know. But people aren't self-aware enough of, where they're going and how they're gonna get there and what it's gonna take to get there.

Joseph Newberry: And, If you're trying to build this within chat, GPT or Claude or whatever you're doing. I think you start without the AI. You start with being very, very self-aware and looking yourself in the mirror and, you know, who do I want to be? Who am I trying to be?

Joseph Newberry: What do I need to be? where are the gaps? And being really [00:20:00] honest with yourself in an evaluation on yourself. And I'm sitting down and writing out what that needs to look like. What you need from your AI. To hold yourself accountable to be that. And making that super clear. We've got in the True Mirror operating system, the True Mirror profile is what we've built. That onboards a customer. That asks them over 150 personality questions. It's based on disc profiling. Enneagram, there's all these different psychological facets that are built into it. But from the most simplistic space. It's sitting down and saying, okay, this is what I stand for. This is where in my life I need help to be accountable to. These are the things that matter to me, not just today and not just yesterday, but they're also gonna matter for the next two years, or five years, or 10 years. So, I had a business mentor. His name is Gary Wilbers. He owns Ascend Business Strategies.He is my business mentor who, had a really difficult conversation with me when I was very young. Hot shot, cocky salesperson, who was really good at sales. But I didn't know what I didn't know.

Joseph Newberry: I just was naturally able to talk to people but I also was [00:21:00] pigheaded, ego filled tons of pride. And, when I thought I was about to get a big raise, he sat me down and said I was about to get fired. And had a very forward conversation about what success truly looked like. Not just from what the sales numbers were. And I was mad as hell, but he was right. And what came from that is being very self-aware, and facing the mirror in a way that I can be honest with myself. And I think that's where AI leverage really can come from. Whether it's business or personal professional the bottom line is if you're sitting down with a therapist, a counselor, or your business mentor, it doesn't matter who it is. There are very few situations in life where you can open your full heart, your full head, and let someone in a hundred percent. But if you know what you stand for and who you're trying to be, and you're self-aware of what that looks like, and you're critical of the things that you want. Or are trying to achieve and you inject those things into your AI, and then you really can open your head and your heart to your AI without any kind of shame, embarrassment, or what that would look like potentially to a mentor or a counselor or therapist. All of a [00:22:00] sudden, what people say about AI is that it's not human. That's exactly what you want. Your AI's not gonna make fun of you, right? It will call you on your stuff, which is exactly what you want. And if it knows exactly who you're trying to be and achieve. Then it does it in the exact right way. And I think that's where the big win in this comes from. You're being honest with yourself and your own clone is holding you accountable to what that is.

Erik Martinez: You know, I'm listening here to you talk, and I think you've got the most human approach to AI that I've recently heard. And I think it's amazing.

Joseph Newberry: Thank you.

Erik Martinez: But I think there's gonna be some concern. And, I think one of the concerns is, I'm trusting this thing to keep my secrets.

Joseph Newberry: Absolutely.

Erik Martinez: Right? Because if I'm gonna be that real,

Joseph Newberry: Yep.

Erik Martinez: with this tool. How do I know that the tool is gonna take care of all that stuff? Because, there's probably some really personal sensitive information in that conversation or conversations.How do you ensure, that [00:23:00] really important.

Erik Martinez: I'm gonna use air quotes here, "juicy" details about the individual that's training Exec Clone, in this case. How do they feel reassured that this isn't gonna get out?

Joseph Newberry: That's a great question. So, me personally, in building Exec Clones, it's a matter of, how deep does my client want to get with their Exec Clone. Is, one of the first questions I ask. And then also, as it relates to Claude bot being the backbone framework with, the true mirror operating system being the metalware, that is the cognition injection that I'm talking about. I know what my competitors are doing and you could go and you could get a cloud bot set up and you could get some virtual agents and it has your business details and all that. Most of those cloud max servers, they're in China. Those data centers are in a space that's unsafe for your data. I don't do that. The protection of data and how we manage that. It's local. Whether they're willing to spend more or less determines how much depth they want to get into their Exec Clone, and whether it's a, a Mac or a MAC Mini that's running on location with end-to-end communication encryption and data [00:24:00] encryption on the device. Or whether they're comfortable with that data being in the cloud, running, you know, in a remote space, that is stateside. That's a client decision that's discussed upfront. But you're right because that true mirror profile that's done at the very beginning, you're being very personal with a lot of details. And you know, I've made it very, very intentional in the way that we've set them up, is that I don't have access to that data for that client. It's in a secure database. The data's encrypted end to end, and I don't see it. But that said, I think that it's being very, very careful in who you choose to do business with as it relates to what you're building for this to be safe. Right now it's not super safe out there. The research that I've done on my competitors and how they're setting up their cloud setups, to run virtual agents with business information is a little bit terrifying to be honest. It's been very important to me from the business that I run, that I wanna make sure that people's information is safe. not even, I can have access to the most in-depth questions that they're answering about who they are and injecting the right information. And, there are different levels [00:25:00] of allowance of information that I have access to based on the profile that they take. To help assist them in using their Claude bot set up with Exec Clone built on it the right way.

Erik Martinez: One of the things that you're doing a little bit differently than everybody else, as opposed to building in the cloud, is you're actually building this thing on a hardware device that's shipped out to the customer.

Erik Martinez: Is that correct?

Joseph Newberry: It's a private, secure database specific to that customer that then is built into scripting that loads the True mirror operating system onto the device. And then the device is shipped out. When they plug it in, they've got instructions on, how to access it when their device lands on their doorstep. The Mac Minis that we ship out run headless. So,

Joseph Newberry: As soon as it arrives and it's turned on and connected to the internet, they have access.

Erik Martinez: That's pretty cool, man. And I think that's one of the things that's probably making it a little more secure, right? Because the data lives on that device.

Joseph Newberry: Yeah,the information is encrypted there on the Mac.

Erik Martinez: It's fantastic that you have thought through that.

Erik Martinez: Who in your mind is not a fit for this product? Who's ready yet for this [00:26:00] product?

Joseph Newberry: This product is built for high functioning individuals, whether it be business or personal, that you're wanting more outta yourself. You want more outta yourself, and you want more for yourself and the people that matter to you.

Joseph Newberry: I don't necessarily just mean family, but I also mean, your team, people around you, the people that interact with every single day. High functioning individuals, for the most part can be self-aware to a degree. And recognizing that, accountability is a good thing. One of my mentors told me there's a reason Michael Jordan had a shooting coach. There was a reason why Tiger Woods had a driving coach. To help the best of the best get better. Real accountability, a real look in the mirror, not just for me, but the people that matter to me. That's the type of person that this is built for. The high functioning individual, business owner, philanthropic, family minded, whatever it is that they're high functioning at. They need a shooting coach. They need a driving coach. They need someone that's in the driver's seat right next to them that is as good as they are in 40% of their activities. And also being willing to call them on their blind spots and [00:27:00] call them on the areas where they need to pay attention. And that's what Exec Clone does. It helps shift those 40% of decisions, thoughts, and activities out of your time. Still oversee them, but shift that time back to you to where now you've got that chunk of time back really trench in to where that time matters, where you can have the biggest impact. So again, anybody high functioning.

Erik Martinez: You know, you said a couple really important things there, and one of them I wanna lock in on is that the best of the best in the world have teams of people who help them get better.

Joseph Newberry: Yes.

Erik Martinez: It's very rare today if you look at a professional athlete and they don't have that support system behind them to make them more successful.

Erik Martinez: If you're a solopreneur or you're a small business owner, this could be part of your team, is kind of what you're saying. AndI think that's a really powerful position to take. Joe, before we, move to close, I got two more questions for you.

Joseph Newberry: Sure.

Erik Martinez: One is,What do I do in the next 30 days to [00:28:00] start this process? Whether that's with Exec Clone, or I decide I'm gonna go try to build this on. chat GPT. What are the things that you suggest an individual do in the next 30 days?

Joseph Newberry: I think it starts with a piece of paper, honestly. And the first step is what are the three things where I'm struggling. Where I need help. I'm talking about just in general, what are the three things that if I could address this right now, if I could change this thing. Maybe it is a KPI at work, or maybe it's I'm not focused on my relationship with my mom, whatever it is. What are those three things that I could fix today? And then once you're honest with yourself about what those three things are. How can I apply AI to help me address this today? Whether it's Exec Clone, or whether it's something else doesn't matter. AI removes your emotion and your blind spots, and when AI does that and you do it with the things that are that important it always comes through. Having it help analyze with you is where AI is extremely strong. If you're just honest with it about those three critical things. The things that [00:29:00] come to fruition from those conversations about how they can be addressed things that we don't always inherently consider or think of. Probably one of my favorite things about what AI does, is that it removes our blind spots. For me to get my AI to ping me and say, Hey, you avoid emails from this person. It takes you seven days longer to respond to this person on average than anybody else that's in your inbox. Why is that? Things like that, it's like, well, I knew I delayed, but I didn't know it took me seven days longer to respond to that person specifically.

Erik Martinez: Well, there's a reason. those are things that we don't pay attention to. But when we start to pay attention to those things and then uncover what those reasons are, wow, AI is amazing at those blind spots. The second thing I would do is, don't be afraid to expect AI to hold you accountable for who you're trying to be and where you're trying to go. People don't like accountability in general. But that said, if you let AI help hold you Accountable, it's very, very good at that. It's easy to get defensive when we get feedback. You know, I've tried as I've gotten older over the years for a very long time to be, open to any kind of feedback. Even if somehow some way it makes me feel [00:30:00] some certain way about it. It doesn't matter. I need to hear it, and hear it constructively. And that's difficult when it's a person. But when it's your AI, it's a whole different place. 'Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I still feel it. But I think that's the inner critic always talking, right? Yeah, AI just called me on my bs. And I'm mad about that. I'm probably more mad about the fact that I know it was bs.

Joseph Newberry: Right.

Erik Martinez: Joe, this has been absolutely amazing.

Erik Martinez: Is there any last piece of advice you'd like to give to the listening audience? And if not, what's the best way to get ahold of you?

Joseph Newberry: We're, in the nineties of what AI is right now for what the internet was in the nineties. There's so much opportunity in the AI space. If you're resistant, if you're the kind of person that's listening to this podcast and you're saying, eh, I don't know about this AI thing, I think I could leverage this, or, I'm not ready for that. You gotta get that outta your head right now. You gotta get on board. You gotta figure out how to leverage where we're at, because can you imagine anybody today saying, I'm just not really bought into this [00:31:00] internet thing. You'd look crazy. Don't be crazy about AI because guess what? It is the future. It is happening now. It's revolutionizing what's happening in business. It's here, it's real. You gotta just embrace it.

Joseph Newberry: And then, you know, to get ahold of me, my email's jnewberry@execclone.com. You can go to execclone.com or you can find me on LinkedIn, under Joe Newberry. I'm pretty easy to track down and all my dms, I do answer directly.

Erik Martinez: Joe, that was so awesome. we'll make sure all of that stuff is in the show notes.

Erik Martinez: I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Joseph Newberry: Dude, thanks for having me.

Erik Martinez: Joe said something that stuck with me. The reason you're in that seat of responsibility is to handle the two or three things each day that drive your business forward, and you can use AI to protect the time you need to do the strategic thinking that helps your organization grow. Are you ready to use AI to help you?

Erik Martinez: Well, that's it for this episode of the Digital Velocity Podcast. Thanks for tuning in and have a fantastic day.

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