The Wireless Way, with Chris Whitaker

Emerging Technologies & Personal Development, Round Table discussion with Greg Plum and Chris Whitaker

• Chris Whitaker • Season 6 • Episode 102

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Emerging Technologies & Personal Development | The Wireless Way Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of The Wireless Way! Today, host Chris Whitaker is joined by repeat guest Greg Plum for a casual round-table discussion on how emerging technologies are shaping personal development. Inspired by a LinkedIn suggestion, the duo dives into various ways AI, virtual reality, wearables, and mobile apps are impacting our daily lives—from fitness tracking and learning languages to mental health and professional growth. They also discuss the importance of human discipline in using these advanced tools responsibly. Tune in for an engaging conversation packed with real-world examples and practical advice on leveraging tech for personal growth. Don't forget to check the show notes for links to previous interviews and more resources!

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:22 Listener's Topic Suggestion
00:55 Technologist vs. Tech Enthusiast
02:16 Impact of AI on Personal Development
06:24 Using Technology for Health and Fitness
09:12 Gamification and Mental Sharpness
15:47 Privacy Concerns and Responsible Tech Use
23:47 The Human Element in Technology
24:19 The Role of AI in Personal Development
25:19 Survey Insights and Technology Evolution
28:14 The Importance of Human Connection
29:24 Practical Tips for Managing Technology Use
31:27 AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement
34:26 Emerging Technologies in Everyday Life
39:23 Final Thoughts and Reflections

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https://www.buzzsprout.com/1387000/episodes/9280558

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Chris:

Hey, welcome to a, another episode of the wireless way. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker. And this is something a little different. So something a little different. Bring back a repeat guest, a a friend I can say friend, right? Greg, that's right. Greg plum is with us today. And I'll definitely have in the show notes some links to some previous interviews that he and I have done, but today's a little different. I recently put out a post on LinkedIn asking my network going, hey, what ideas do you have for an episode? And Corey Mitchell out of Stockton, California asked, hey, how about discussing the impact of emerging technologies on personal development? So I called Greg up and we started kicking that thing around and man, there was a lot of meat on that bone. There's a lot we could talk about. No real agenda, just a round table discussion around, how Can we use technology? I think, Greg, it's fair to say you're a technologist, you're a futurist and all that. Yeah, we share in that self described titles, right? Is that fair? I

Greg:

would call myself more of an enthusiast, a tech enthusiast than I would a technologist. Anybody that knows me well, they're like, okay, yeah, he's not tech. I'm not super technical. It's more around the application of the technology and how to impact either personal or business initiatives.

Chris:

Okay, I can buy that. You're right. Yeah, I I don't consider myself an engineer by no means. I know a lot of engineers, but I can spell engineer like an office space. I talked to the customers and I talked to the engineers and I'm that middle guy, and yeah. What I do,

Greg:

Chris, is I produce engineers. My, my son he's a data scientist and my daughter is a chemical engineering student right now. But that's as close as I get.

Chris:

But that's pretty close. That's pretty, that's, that says a lot. So jumping in, first of all, we both are, yeah, we're students of emerging technologies. I think that's fair from your CompTIA days, my, my, my time at the TSDs and suppliers up, I've always been fascinated about where technology has taken us.

Greg:

Yeah,

Chris:

and the benefits of it. And I've always been on a journey of personal development. So when Corey asked about that, said, man, there's, that's a great topic. So Corey, thanks for challenging me with that one. And Greg, thanks for joining me on this conversation. Greg, we'll kick it off here. How emerging technologies like AI and virtual reality and wearables and mobile apps are shaping personal development? How are you using any of this emerging tech for your personal development?

Greg:

I am, Chris. And the funny thing is The reason I was so excited to talk to you about this is because it's truly changed my life without realizing it. It's one of those things that just like crept into my life and has changed my day to day. So much from our content as I I teach, I do, Camps and things like that. And then another company came in and said, Hey we're working on an AI curriculum. Would you be interested in teaching it? So of course I jumped on that. Why would I not write to be able to learn what I was able to do? It forced me to sit down and learn what was going on in the way of teaching AI. Technological advances that related to AI. And we've touched on it right back in the earlier days. CompTIA, emerging technology community. That's what we focus on two things on AI and IoT. This is going back. I don't know, Chris, maybe Four years ago, five years ago. I mean something like this. So it was early. It was pre chat gpt just put it in perspective.

Chris:

Sure. Okay

Greg:

I mean everybody's it's not now the definition pre. Oh, this is

Chris:

preach.

Greg:

That's right It's like there's pre covid and we actually came

Chris:

up with this material organically

Greg:

Yeah it's just one of those things where I don't know. It's changed where we're, it's everywhere around us. These technologies can impact everything if we allow them to. So when the government says, Hey, we want to put our employees through chat GPT generative AI training so they understand what the technology can do. And also the risks associated with it. That to me says it's, it's definitely a prevailing technology we need to pay attention to. So as a result, this, the latest and greatest what's going on in the space has really I haven't pivoted, but I've integrated that into what I'm doing from a teaching perspective. And it's been great for me. I've been able to not just teach it, but as I teach it and learn it. I use it and I use it all the time. I use chat GPT probably as much if not more than Google for search right now.

Chris:

And when you do that, how do you use the output? Is it more of a framework or is it just copy and paste?

Greg:

No. Oh God, no, it's definitely not copy and paste. That's a good question. So my take is this, the output that comes from your prompt, right? So the prompt is the question you're asking the bot. The answer to me is not your end game. That's your starting point, right? That's in lieu of a blank canvas. Here's where you're going to start. Now let's dig in and let's get more granular and start asking more specific questions. Chris, one of my clients I'm helping it was in a sustainability space. The challenge was to come up with a global go to market strategy for a sustainability software, us assess a platform. And that was it. That's basically, that's the direction. So we need to come up with which geo should we be focusing on, which industry should we be focusing on, which roles within a company, the size of the company. There are lots of questions and you can do all of that by Google search. There's no question, but you accelerate the results when you're using a tool like chat GPT, not unchecked. But again, it is your starting point. And we have to go back to check and validate. And you do that through human intervention, right? Pulling in an expert. Hey, here's what we're finding. Does this make sense? We've proven these tools, they hallucinate, right? They're only as good as the data that's fed into them.

Chris:

That's right. And you said earlier in our pre ship prep, you're saying, even technology requires human discipline. And I love that because there's a lot of talk. People are scared around AI. Now I'm going to bring you back to that, that personal development, that, that's our anchor here. Even personal development to pivot back to that. There's different types of that, there's health. There's a career development. There's relationship development. There's financial development. There's a lot, we say personal development. That kind of, that can encompass a lot of areas of our lives. We're also we're talking, I was sharing the example how even on my Apple watch how I became almost addicted to every morning waking up to see how many hours of sleep I got, how much of it was REM sleep, deep sleep how much, how often I wake up in the middle of the night. It became this obsession with the data. I'm a big believer. I think, a lot of our personal development is rooted on how much sleep you get. I'm not one of those guys. I love my sleep. And I meet someone occasionally that does four or five hours a night. I'm like, I don't know how you're not dead but everybody's different. Everybody's different. My body needs eight hours. I do my best work between seven, eight hours. But we were talking about that. It's The risk of becoming compulsive about the outputs of these data and let's talk about what kind of tools, do you use in your life or have you seen people used, in terms of technology in turn, as it relates to personal development.

Greg:

Yeah look, my phone, my iPhone is in my pocket all the time and it tells me all kinds of things about me that I didn't realize it was even being measured, for example, steps, you know how many steps you take if you use the health app.

Chris:

Right.

Greg:

And to me, Chris, you know what makes a technology really impactful is if You're no longer thinking, Oh, I'm using technology. It's just part of your life. And that to me is part of my life. You don't think about, Oh, let me go turn on this app. You don't have to, it's on. So you go and say, okay, what, looking back, what was my behavior? Was it good behavior that I want to reinforce? Or was it bad behavior that I need to modify? And steps has been a big part of it. If my wife and I, we've been traveling a bit and we actually just got back with friends. We were in Savannah and Savannah. I don't know if you've ever been, but you, I'm a Georgia guy. I love that is your neck of the wood. And it's a walking city, so it was fun at the end of the day. Oh, how'd we do in our steps? And it became part of the conversation. What's a good day for you

Chris:

in steps? A good day is 20, 000. Wow. Wow. If I get a 10, 000, I'm like balling. I think I'm good at it. So you're an overachiever,

Greg:

that's well, hold on. Hold on. Hold. That's, that is a good day if I'm out and I'm not at work. No, a typical day. Yeah. 10, 000. I definitely want to hit 10, 000. We hit a record. My wife and I, we were in Spain and we did 30, 000.

Chris:

We

Greg:

000,

Chris:

Roughly.

Greg:

15, I believe roughly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. That is something about Europe. Yeah. Europe's a walking country. Yeah, my wife and I went years ago and we were out to 10 miles a day just walking around the various, cause we're taking train everywhere. So you had to walk everywhere. And I don't think we did Uber once, but anyway. Okay. So we got, I got counting steps. That sounds like a good use of technology to ensure health.

Greg:

Yep.

Chris:

What else you seen? You feel like it's been your personal development journey?

Greg:

I haven't used this. But I will tell you what I have used some of the games, look, our brains, they all, as our brains age, they get less acute, I guess is the right, you start to, You have to actually work to keep nimble, right? Keep your brain like fully engaged. So there are tons of games out there and gamification is a big part of this, right? To get people to pay attention and not shy away from the technology. If it's gamified, people just get hooked, right? Where there's, you could talk about, talk about gamification. There's TikTok is certainly they've used, there's some form. I don't know the science behind it, but talk about addictive. That's what a lot of these apps are, but the whole idea of being able to take these technologies and these features that are available on our phone that are to help. Either our physical, I've got a great personal example in a second here, a PT example or mental, just to take the to stay what's the right word? You know what I'm saying? It's not being alert. Of course we're all alert, but it's just

Chris:

keep

Greg:

on right. Sharp. Exactly. There are all kinds of tools for that. Now I'm hearing on the radio. I think it's called better. Better help. I think it's called I've, it's a

Chris:

you listen to the radio

Greg:

I do listen to the radio. That's just on my drive in the morning. That's all. Okay, good. Another's messing with you. Better, better Help. It's a, it's an app, it's a wellness app, like a therapy app. Think about it. This is all in our pockets now and the beauty is now, this help is no longer. Just available to certain people, certain, social classes. It is now democratized, so everybody can access it to some degree. So that to me is pretty exciting and powerful, just with the advent of the latest way these services are being delivered.

Chris:

Yeah, and I'm still hung up on your comment that you made just casually, but I think it's just so important is, Even tech requires human discipline. Going back to we were talking about early death scrolling. I know it's embarrassing to say. I thought a lot of folks, a lot of people are victim to this, when you got some downtime, if you're on a train, you're in a lobby, maybe before you go to bed, maybe when you first wake up, whatever. But whether it be TikTok or Instagram or Snapchat or any of these platforms, they're so entertaining. Sometimes it's just mindless, dumb, numb, cat videos or epic fails or whatever. And that's it's funny. One of the reels, it was like a commercial for this app called micro learning. And it said, Hey, instead of stop scrolling. learnings, learn about art, learn about, poetry, or cinema, or, different technologies. And so that's one thing I'm thinking about going back into personal development. It's hey, can I use this thing that's so addictive to actually make myself better? In fact, I guess that's one of the conspiracies around TikTok is that, in China, TikTok is used for evolving and learning, whereas in America, it's used for just Mindless dumb cat videos, but don't not to upset my cat listeners, Owner listeners cats are great. But I got two yeah, I got two dogs and then so yeah animals are animals, but I love them. Yeah. So trying to take these potential bad behaviors that can come from emerging technologies to make them positive. Yeah. What's your thoughts on that?

Greg:

The whole part of discipline. It really, I see people that get sucked in that vortex, their mobile phone vortex, I've got friends and it just drives me crazy. And I can see doing it myself. I can't, I just read something like people check their phones. So I. think it was 144 times a day. It was something I just heard. Regardless what the exact number is, it's obscene and it's disruptive. So the thing, the point I think is important is we need to self check. We need the discipline. The device is never going to, instill the discipline that we need to keep that in check. We need to do it ourselves. At the risk of getting in that vortex and getting, shutting out what's around us. We need, everybody at the end of the year, you all say I'm going to be more present. There's nothing that's going to take you away from presence than your little four inch screen. And it could do it in a heartbeat and you lose literally, I've looked down, Chris, I've done it before. I've lost a half hour and what in, what did I just do for a half hour? Yeah. That's it. That's I have one. I do want to share because I think it's it helped. I don't want to say change my life, but it was pretty impactful. I've gone to a few years back. I did something hiking and it did something. My lower back. I've been to all kinds. I've had MRIs and x rays and PT and chiropractic, all that stuff. And it's fine. I can live with it, but I still feel it. My insurance company had this thing called sword health. I don't know if you've heard of it, sword, just like that, swashbuckling sword. What they do is they send you a tablet. It looks like a little iPad. And it has a personalized, if you walk through a whole, survey, it has a personalized plan that you walk through and they assign a therapist to you. So it's a very personal experience. The challenge is it's only going to be good if you do it, right? That's where the human discipline comes in. The device itself, the program isn't going to do it. You still have that human factor that you need to consider. But what was amazing to me, it almost looks like if you would have seen the technology for pros, if they're batting or they're golfing and you see how it like turns them into stick figures and looks at their motions and tweaks all their emotions. It was just like that without anything special, just the cat, just the tablet, you'd set it up and you'd have to have your whole body in insight and it would give you these exercises to do. Take me about 20 minutes, whatever. Be done. Boom. It takes my results, sends them all to the therapist. Therapists would say, Hey, great job. They got to keep you motivated, right? That's the biggest challenge in that keeping the human the patient motivated because they're not together. But pretty fascinating, right? You can do all that in the comfort of your home. It was free. That's phenomenal.

Chris:

It was part of your insurance. So it's part

Greg:

of my insurance, right? It wasn't an incremental cost, right? Exactly.

Chris:

There's another takeaway from what you just said that, we can add to the, what was the phrase even tech repression and discipline the output is only as good as you use the tool, having the tool of emerging technology isn't the game changer. It's using it. And avoiding being caught up in information overload. Yeah. Because sometimes you can, if you're OCD about it, that can be, you might miss the point, right? You might miss the learning opportunity. Then if you get over reliant on technology, that's another risk. And yeah, not to go down another rabbit hole, but privacy concerns. If you're using apps for professional and personal development. You got to be concerned about is any of this data could be used against you or could be is a data mining, the whole six cybersecurity concern there and that they're collecting information about you that could be used for potential hack in the future. I don't know, just something to think about privacy concerns. Every time I pick up my phone and of course, my phone and Alexa, Alexa and Siri. It's so funny. I saw a joke recently Hey Siri, put away all the Christmas decorations and Siri replies. Ask Alexa. Obviously, it's a silly joke there. But anyway there's some truth there, I imagine.

Greg:

Think about it, Chris. Whatever you put out there, whatever you're doing in ChatGPT, goes out to the public cloud. So it's critically important not to put any confidential, sensitive person identifying information, none of that when you're using these tools, because that could really jeopardize the security of that information.

Chris:

But I have some wonder though, isn't it already too late? Our social media accounts, our LinkedIn accounts our online banking, there's a lot of data out there already. Are you saying that, I'm just, challenging that. I'm like, I feel like. It's too late. If you're using on, if you have an online presence today I guess you're making it easier on them by putting it all in one place. If you go to chat gb t or some other ai platform, you're just making it easier. But because I got a YouTube channel. I got this podcast. I, I feel like I'm out there, baby. I'm out there. is there is there even such a thing as privacy anymore online?

Greg:

Have you tried

Chris:

asking chat, GPT who Chris Whitaker is. I have, of course I have. I'm an arrogant, sane person, you're not arrogant, you're inquisitive and curious. No. I'm humbly what's that? I'm a humble narcissist as someone always tells me. Cause let's I, it's I got a podcast called The wireless way with Chris Whitaker. Does that make me vain? I don't know.

Greg:

I

Chris:

am the whole man. It's just what

Greg:

that's your lot in life. That's what you that's the value bringing people. It's entertaining. It's okay. I wouldn't call that ego. It's that's your value bring to the market. So there's nothing wrong with that.

Chris:

No. Thank you.

Greg:

By the

Chris:

way, there's a famous author with another, like a number one bestselling book named Chris Whitaker out right now. Just so if you go and go Chris Whitaker, I do not write books. podcast. And there's also a famous Canadian hockey player named Chris Whitaker. I don't play hockey. So just let's just get that out of the way right now. If

Greg:

it's fun, because you know what, with me with my name, it was growing up with the last name of plum was not fun. Is he definitely ridiculed. There's all kinds of nicknames I've had through the years. Most of them are repeatable, some not. But in business, it's great, because there are very few of us. There are a couple. There are a couple, but not many that are actually out promoting themselves online anyway. So it's all right, Chris, it's all right to put yourself out there. If you don't tell the world what you do, who is, who's going to tell? That's right. That's right. Nothing wrong with that. But the whole you had asked another thing, which I really got me thinking What impact can this have on us? On, on our basically our ability to think freely, right? To, then, to stop exercising that muscle and stop being as gosh, I don't know. Let me give you my example. I've got a Intellectually

Chris:

lazy, maybe?

Greg:

Yeah yeah. Look, you saw WALL E at the end of the movie? Do you remember that they were all No, that's not They couldn't even walk. Yes. Yeah, didn't have to. They just float around, right? Because they didn't have everything was done for them was all at their fingertips. Look, I human nature is to be to let's just say not let's not say lazy. Let's say take the path of least resistance. Yeah, what's that? Efficient way to get something done. We're if exactly ways I use constantly, or any of the Google maps, I am notorious for having a horrible sense of direction and I hate that about me. I hate it. It is what it is. I may as well own it. My wife says if you own it, then you're not trying to fix it. She's right. Basically I, I. That is, I know that is an issue I've had always. This has been like nothing short of a miracle in my life. It's changed. I'm, I know where I'm going all the time. No, I don't, I know which way, I don't know where I'm going to, but I know which direction to point my car. It's just fascinating and how efficient a tool like that can be. But the downside of it is, It has made me complacent. If I said it didn't, I'd be lying. I rely on it, right? It's a technology that I, because of that technology, I now put it on. If I'm heading just across town, because it will tell me if there's a more efficient way to go, if there's an accident, it will also tell me if there are traffic lights the cameras, traffic cameras that are light which you pretty much know where they are anyway, it'll also tell me if there's a. Police officer up the road that I need to know about for whatever reason. Not that you're speeding or anything. Not that I'm speeding. But, so I've really become dependent on this tool. And if you took that away from me, I, it would take a serious retooling of the way I get from point A to point B.

Chris:

Wow. That'd be a really interesting survey to send out. I love doing surveys and, asking people, what list all the different. AI tool are the emerging technologies are web based tools that you use every day. It's probably a lot more than you realize. So when Corey first brought this up to me, there's a great question looking at my gears, turning, thinking,'cause as a a tech enthusiast, I do like that word much better than yeah. Technologist. a technologist. I'm definitely a tech enthusiast. Uhhuh I got to think about all the things I use, and you talked about the discipline and, if you think about emerging technology as a resource, It's another tool. If you think of the toolbox, there was a time that a hand saw was how you cut wood. Then someone came up with a circular saw and a table saw. Didn't mean you were lazy if you used them, it just meant it got the job done faster. But you still had to use the tool correctly. And I think with a lot of these sayings, choosing the right tool is important. And how do you choose the right tool? Fortunately, for most of the emerging technology, there's plenty of, Reddit boards or, review boards, crowdsourcing of information. That's a good way of Yeah. Of picking tools. And don't be afraid to, trial and error, if it's not working for you, you're not getting the information you need. Choose another tool, and set the

Greg:

boundaries. The important part there, which you alluded to is once you have the tool, the tool in and of itself by itself is not doing anything. It's in conjunction with the human element. That's what makes all the difference. So there comes with that, there comes responsibility to know how to use this, these tools, in a manner that's not gonna put either yourself or your company at risk. And that's where the whole thing comes in. You're right. There are very few secrets out there. There are very few secrets. However, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm going to jeopardize my job, my company my department, my role, what I'm doing by putting something that could be sensitive information. If it's at all sensitive, just don't do it. That's not what these tools are for. So there, like I said, there, there comes responsibility with all of this capability that we're given.

Chris:

So we talked about counting steps, about sleep monitoring chat GPT to help with coming up with content ways we talked about ways, all the benefits of that. I have a few ideas, but do you have any other ideas or suggestions of an emerging tech? That is, Helping us be better people. How about language? I have a bible app. Does that count? Absolutely counts man. Yeah your daily devotions and the verse of the day or week yet I was thinking about languages like babble and there's a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, my son was as a He loves traveling and he's currently Trying to learn Italian and French, and he is always you. He is got his like, 10 minutes a day where he is trying to learn a new phrase and whatnot. And then what that from a personal development, I applaud him for that. I wish I had the time and the, even the desire to go learn other languages, that's one things I'd like to do, but I discipline.

Greg:

But the discipline to do that he's discipline. That's,

Chris:

that's what I'm lacking is the discipline you,

Greg:

and that is the human element. And it is just people are a, people are afraid. They're afraid of technology. It's change and it's changed at a wicked pace, right? Faster than ever before. Look, chat, GPT was released in November of 2022. It's only two years old for God's sakes.

Chris:

Crazy. It's

Greg:

crazy. Talk about

Chris:

before the work we used to have to do.

Greg:

I know. I know. We still have just as much work to do. It's just different work that we're

Chris:

doing. And you're right. Cause I look at, I use as a framework for me when I. I take the output and it just saved me time. I think I, I like to believe I would have gotten there eventually. It would have just taken me 30 minutes to an hour and the benefit of going back into personal development every now and then it brings up something I totally didn't even think about, Mike. Oh my God. I didn't even think about that factor of that topic that I put in there. So it's not inherently evil or bad. Again, it's just what you do with the output. And like you said earlier, you got to audit it, don't just take it for face value. There's a lot of examples we know where it could be wrong because it is only working off data that's floating around the World Wide Web, and just because it's on the World Wide Web doesn't make it right.

Greg:

No. Oh, yeah. Everything on the Internet is true, right? We know that.

Chris:

George Washington said, yeah. Man, so wrapping up, Are we wrapping up already? God, there's so much more we could talk about. Maybe

Greg:

that's another, let's

Chris:

do it. Bring it on, man. What have we left out, Greg? What helped me out here? What have we not talked about?

Greg:

You know what I think would be a fast, you were talking about a survey. I think a fascinating survey would be to ask if you were only given one app that you could have on your phone, which one would it be? I think that would be pretty telling because. I struggle with that one because I use so much. It's become such. I use that one. Can I use that? Absolutely. Of course. I'll use that. But I'll figure out, let's see what the survey says. I think that's a, I think that's, think about it. Look, Chris, the technology is available today. That wasn't available 10, 15 years ago is we're using that right now, right? We're communicating from techno. That's not true. This, I was using Webex in oh one, 2001, but it didn't, it wasn't as easy to use as this. That's for sure. wasn't as collaborative. The quality wasn't the same. It's really hard to figure out to isolate that to one thing. It's like picking your favorite child. How do you do that?

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you're listening, I'd like to encourage you to, to very, be very put some thought into how, what tool you're using and take inventory. And you try something new. Like for me, Another example, another real world example as a podcaster, I use a tool called Descript, love it, largely because I can take this whole conversation, dump it into Descript. And of course, it's going to show me and highlight all the filler words, all the times that both of us said and, and okay, boy, that is so enlightening to me, because I see it. By the way, I've known my whole life. That was the thing for me, and stuttering and get too excited. That's just who I am. And I, that's just how I communicate. I get excited. I talk loud at, repeat myself, whatever, but to see that illustrated on a screen and highlighted boy, really, I go through phases of being, controlling it better than other times, but but that's really cool and, of course, summarizing, I'm going to take this 30, 40 minute conversation and get a. One paragraph summary or three to five sentence summary. What we just talked about, how hard would that have been for me to do manually? Yeah, sure. I could have done it, but I might've missed something too. Even now, on zoom and teams and a lot of these only collaboration tools, AI is built into them now. Yeah. You can have it summarized. Your conversations and list next steps. How beneficial is that? How much time is that safe? If it's correct again, that's the disclaimer. There's always a little asterisk, double check the notes here. They might've been might be inaccurate.

Greg:

And it can also monitor sentiment. That to me is that is where it's next level, right? It's looking at engagement. It's looking at eyes, how eyes are tracking, what you're doing with your head, if you're looking away, if you're leaning forward, if you're leaning back, it looks at all of that and interprets that and translates that into a number that shows percent engagement. That's fanatic. That's to me, that's phenomenal,

Chris:

powerful,

Greg:

super powerful. That's

Chris:

some ways. We're talking about technology. We're talking about emerging technologies. But, I think it's worth mentioning, how can we keep that human connection as a part of this conversation? Because it's so easy. We've mentioned a few times becoming over reliant on the technology or the platforms. And even, I'm jokingly say with my family and sometimes we're all sitting in the family room and we're all on our phone room, but we're all looking at this phone and finally one of us to say, guys, let's put these things down and talk. How was your day? It's so easy to disregard the human element, isn't

Greg:

it? How many times do you walk down the street and two people walking side by side and they're both looking down at their phone and they bump into the pole? It's crazy. It's just, it's yeah. We don't know

Chris:

what's wrong, but we keep doing it. Why is it? It

Greg:

is addictive. I don't know. It's that immediate gratification. You hear a ding. It is it's going to take wild horses to keep you from that phone to see what that ding was. It's, and I don't know why that is. It's just, that's what motivates us. And it's that immediate, that kind of immediate. Gratification. That's the right word. But feedback, I don't know.

Chris:

That dopamine hit. That's what they call it. That dopamine hit, cause you're, if you want to stay in the know, what's going on with the friend group or the family chat or the news or the weather. There's some kind of chemical reaction in our brain when we get that. Another little tip I heard that I'm trying to do better about, when you're having dinner with a friend or colleague or a business, colleague putting your phone on the table. You think you're doing a good thing by putting it on the table and putting it face down, but putting it on the table still means to that person that phone is a part of the, is a part of the environment. Put it in your pocket, put it, leave it in the glove box, don't put it on the table. Even if it's just you to put in the pocket of your jacket and yeah, if you bring your bag pocket, there's always that risk. It can fall out or somebody can steal it or whatever but yeah, just. Don't even put it on the table because it's so tempting. It's going to vibrate or you're going to just go, I haven't looked at it. Let me see what's going on. So you're there's that a human element piece could be at risk if just by having it visible. I thought that was, that's a,

Greg:

that's a good point. And. Even putting it face down, you're right, would be a help because how often you're having a conversation, it lights up, you can't help, but look at that thing and see what you can't help. And it takes you out of the moment there. So I love the idea of not even having on the table. I'm going to try that. Try it. Yeah. I might have, I might break out in hives or something.

Chris:

I get it right. Every now and then I realize I didn't talk on it. Yeah. So I'm trying my best. That's yeah, that's my one thing this week. I love it. Is it too late to make a resolution? Cause I

Greg:

didn't make a resolution. I don't usually do, I

Chris:

believe you can make a resolution any day of the year. And you make a personal, go back to personal development. Don't wait till New Year's Eve or, yeah, any day you wake up, you can make that decision of doing something. In fact, I think one way to summarize this conversation around personal development, emerging tech. is a lot of tools out there. You need discipline. You need to be analytical, you need to, trust, but verify there's a lot of options out there from, health speaking learning languages time management. That's something I haven't looked into. I keep seeing these advertisements for AI that can build your calendar for you. Gosh, people like us that are super busy. I'm like, how does that even work? I don't even, that seems crazy. I don't know if I'm willing to give over my calendar to somebody I bought, but that might be worth looking into if it helps me time management.

Greg:

You said something, Chris, that, that struck a chord with me. And I think it's a good rule of thumb. And I didn't make this up. I heard this along the way and I use it in most of the classes that I'm talking to because it, it seems to resonate. These tools could be used. Let's say AI in this case could be any of the tool, but in the case of chat GPT, use it. If as an, as a tool to help get you where you're going to go, even if you didn't have that. So if you're going to ask questions that you have no idea what the results should be, you can't validate it. You have no business using the tool for that purpose, because that's, it's irresponsible. The responsible uses. If I had unlimited resources, unlimited time, unlimited dollars to to get to the solution that I'm asking for. Okay. Then it's okay to use that tool because I know what I'm gunning for. If I had a little time, I know I could get there, but I don't have the reason. I don't have the time or the money to get there, but I'm going to use this tool to help get me there quicker. That is when it's okay. But the results you could still validate or pull in the right human resources to validate it for you. That's when these tools should be used. So it's not going to be, you're not used to run until black box. It spits out something. If that's what you're doing. It's an irresponsible use of the tool and you're going to get yourself into some trouble. So use it as that aid, right? To something and help you all. It's think of, look, all these cooking shows that the cooking shows are an obsession in our house right now. Having a sous chef, right? The chef absolutely could do that all by themselves. There's no question, but having the sous chef makes them more efficient. That's the same thing. Think of these tools. Think of chat GPT as your sous chef to help get you there quicker and more efficient.

Chris:

It's not the end game. It's the beginning. I like how you said that too. And absolutely with the home builder and he always preached use the right tool for the right purpose. Don't take the back of a screwdriver to hammer a nail in because you can't get the hammer. I've seen this tool for what the right, for the right purpose. I think that's a good takeaway too for this whole conversation, huh?

Greg:

Absolutely. And it starts with the tool isn't the tool for the tool's sake. It's what do you want to accomplish? And the old example, I'm sure your dad's used this or you've said this. People don't buy a drill. They don't care about the drill. They were buying a hole. They want a hole. And how do you get the hole? You get the hole by buying the drill with the drill bit. The thing is, what is it you're trying to accomplish? And then let's back into it. What tools are at my disposal to be able to accomplish it these days, an inordinate amount of tools are available. So it's just really trying to, to your point, Chris, there's so many things, where do you even start? You get that analysis paralysis and then nothing gets done.

Chris:

It's like walking into home Depot. If you have a project and you're not a do it yourself kind of guy and you walk into a Depot, it's overwhelming. It's I don't even know where to begin. Please, someone with an orange apron, walk up so I can ask you a question. We're not finding an orange

Greg:

apron these days.

Chris:

That's right. Then they're like, oh, we have an app, if you go to the app and you just type in what you're looking for, it tells you exactly what aisle and bin it's in. Isn't that

Greg:

crazy? Yeah.

Chris:

That's sufficiency. That's time. That saved me some time. And yeah, we talked about a lot of different ways that I think emerging tech, obviously, even, weight loss. You can type in these different apps, what you've had for lunch and tell us how many calories and it helps you track your caloric intake. I know I got like you that runs, how many miles do you run it? You still big running?

Greg:

No, I just, no, I gave that up a little bit. I go to the gym often, that's. Keeps me going. But no, I don't run as much, but I will

Chris:

track your workouts on any apps. You just do the old fashioned way. You just go work until you're tired and sweaty.

Greg:

It's just old fashioned. I don't use any of those apps intentionally because that's my disconnect time. That's my mental physical health time to, to do that. But I have to tell you I have a friend that actually has gotten a glucose monitor, right? doesn't medically doesn't need to, but has access to this. And it's a little patch, that you put on your arm and has the app just to check and see, okay, my sugar is spiking based on this. I eat this is, I don't need that level of detail about my intake and what it does to my body, but the fact is it's there. If we need that type of feedback is at our fingertips.

Chris:

Yeah, no, my wife went through that. She was pre diabetic. And didn't understand the effects of, eating carbs and, she even learned that by wearing that, like when you go to a restaurant, Italian restaurant, they sit the bread down, don't eat the bread first, eat your salad and then the bread that literally changes how the bread, the carbs are broken down in your body and impacts your sugar spike. She did learn a lot, even not only the food, but like stress, how stress could impact. Sugar spikes in your body and it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, so she worked for a month or so and it helped her educate herself on her diet and her lifestyle to control and now she's not prediabetic anymore. So again, talk about emergent technology and professional or personal development. Good story there. So I think we've identified there's a lot of ways. The technology can benefit us as a lot of ways it can, maybe not so much.

Greg:

Oh man. And we are just scratching the surface on both ends of that spectrum. We're scratching the surface. Think about the medical advances that are coming. You, they're just going to be, I just saw a story recently where I think it was on 60 minutes or one of those news stories where AI has been used to identify these proteins. That would have taken like an impossible amount of time given the resources we have, we never would have done it in the foreseeable future of humankind. They were able to do this in, I don't know very quickly. The idea there is by identifying the protein, now you can identify it's the counterbalance, the solution or the, sorry, the cure for these. different diseases that are augmented or enabled by these proteins. Oh, yeah. Fascinating to me. So you just look, and I'm so not a medical guy, as you could tell by my last stammering, I'm not a medical guy by any stretch, but to see what's coming from the technology today, and we're just on the, on the cusp of it, it just, it's a fascinating time.

Chris:

Every tool man's created, it can be used for the good, be used for the bad. But it's up to us, how we use them. A funny story, even recently, I was just popped in my head on how juxtaposed to what you talked about with medical advancements. I was for Christmas, I got a bar of soap, one of those manly bar of soaps. It smells like leather and tobacco or whatever. And you pop the soap and you wash your hands. I didn't have a soap dish and I'm like, I put this cool bar of soap on my sink. And of course it gets sticky and it's like sticks, it's messy. And I was like, I need a soap dish. I go to Amazon, type in soap dish. And there was like some prop going click here to see what this looks like in your room, or whatever. So I clicked, I'm like, Oh, this is cool. So I clicked it and it literally had the soap and I pointed the camera at my sink and it put the soap dish right where I would sit it. And I'm like, Oh my God. I've heard about this technology. I know it's not new. I just never used it, like rooms to go. You there's other vendors that you can see what this couch looks like in your living room and it puts it there and you can move it around. It's pretty fascinating. Cause it does. What a way to help, cause we're all visual learners and to get that emotion in there. When I saw that soap dish and how cool it looked, I'm like, yep. Bye. And it came, of course, came to know the next day. You probably could say you probably had it

Greg:

by dinnertime. What's fascinating to me though, is they thought they're going to really need to see how this soap dish looks in their environment because it's just that to me doesn't take it. That's not a stretch to be able to picture that, but it works.

Chris:

The fact that, yeah. The fact that some developer had to create the code for me to get a. Augmented reality or whatever, virtual reality. I'm not sure which one of the, I probably should know, but it was a pretty cool experience and I'm sure there's other applications that makes a lot more sense than me and getting the soap dish, but it true story. I bought the soap dish and now I don't have a little sticky spot where the soap sits. How long I'll be using a bar of soap. I don't know. I still prefer the pump, but it made the sale. I love it. That is yeah. Yeah. That that 5 soap dish. They got me. Anything else you think of from personal development and the impacts of emerging technology on it? There's a, you're right. I feel that's the whole idea. We're working to solve world peace today. I just wanted to have a conversation of some examples, some pros and cons. And is it good or bad? And

Greg:

I think the moral of the story is having an open mind and a willingness to adopt these technologies. Because they're going to make you, oh we were at a CompTIA event, and somebody had said, I don't know if you remember this or not, said I think you were there when we were talking about AI and it was AI, this was pre Chat GPT people, they said AI is not coming for, people are afraid, but it's look, AI is not coming for your job. Okay. But people who know how to use AI very well, maybe. So why not be that person who knows how to use this tool? Don't be the carpenter with the handsaw, right? That, that, that day has passed. So you want to make sure you're staying relevant. And then the other one, I always love. Is you're good at your job, AI is going to make you better. If you're not so good as your job, it's going to make you irrelevant, which I think is a, another one for voting. So we need to just make sure it's out there. Don't fear it. Don't put your head in the sand. There's no reason to, and it's all out there. And there are tons of free resources for you to go out and learn what these are about and how they can help you in your day to day. That's right,

Chris:

man. I know they're saying there's an app for that. Almost every problem in life you have, there's probably an app for that. And so there's probably anything in your life you're trying to develop, a financial job. security, health, weight loss learning a new language professional development in your career. There's probably an app for that. So yeah I hope you're listening, challenging to take inventory. Where in your life could you leverage emergent technology to make your life a little better? And by the way, when we get better, don't we make life better for those around us too? Sometimes we forget about that. I think if we're developing ourselves. I think that a rising tide rises all boats probably not a bad thing. So any, anything, any, okay, now we can wrap up. Can we wrap up now? Now we've,

Greg:

yes, we've beat a dead horse at this point.

Chris:

Yeah, like you said, any one component of this conversation, we could have gone down a rabbit hole on but I think it was just a, it's a, it was a fun conversation to just to think about. By the way, the other elephant in the room for me, there, there are, people probably listening today, they've not known a time where these things were not available. Their whole life. If you're, I don't know, early twenties, whatever. You've always had the internet, you've always had a tablet. There's always been some kind of, automation or something. Even more so I guess when would you say like the last 10 years, the smartphones have been around for what, 12, 13 0

Greg:

7 is when? 2007 is when the first iPhone came out.

Chris:

Okay alright not a short time, but not a long time, I don't know, it depends,

Greg:

I guess time is relative. No, but the funny thing is, I don't it's not a terrible, it wasn't that long ago, my, my daughter was born in 03, we didn't have iPhones then, but it's so funny because I have a hard time remembering my life before my daughter and before my iPhone.

Chris:

Although once in a while, I was talking to one of my kids recently about, using Waze that there was a time I had a Rand McNally map book and I had to go look up the address and you're driving, you're almost wrecking because you're trying to not miss your turn. If you didn't, if you were proactive enough to actually write down the steps on a piece of paper, love turn on first street, go 2. 5 miles. Yeah. Talk about efficiency and effectiveness, man. Waze. It's spoiled us. We have no idea what it's like to look up, on, on a grid system and a map to find out where you're going. And it's so funny.

Greg:

Yeah, I think if he, if I was to take your survey, I think I might have to say, I might even take Waze over zoom. They're, they'd be a toss up, but I think I can get by without video conferencing. I don't know that I could get by without Waze anymore.

Chris:

I think you're right. I have to really think about that one. Because I yeah, I could easily in fact every now and then by the way is another pro tip I learned for somebody every now and then I just take a vacation from social media. I just leave them off my phone. I don't leave the accounts. I just take the app off my phone. So I have no choice now. It's not on my phone. I can't watch it or keep it. So I keep it on my cheat is I keep it on my iPad. So I go to bed at night. That's when I check in with Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, etc. Transcribed That's like

Greg:

going to a camp to lose weight and you have Twinkies in your backpack, Chris.

Chris:

It's a little

Greg:

bit like

Chris:

cheating,

Greg:

but that's okay.

Chris:

It's just, yeah, it's moderation is the better word. I like moderation. Just take it off your phone if you're finding yourself wasting too much time. Just take a break from it. And you'll find, yeah, the first day or two is hard, but after a while you, it's like this, like you've been liberated. You're like, wow, I'm actually looking at people more. I'm doing, I'm more productive in other areas of my life. But anyway, guys, you're right. We keep, we could keep just going on and on this. It's

Greg:

so how I go, I'm sorry. One more. When you're on vacation or wherever and you can't help but want to capture this, right? You want to take pictures, you take picture after picture, and you come back with hundreds of pictures.

Chris:

Yes.

Greg:

And not taking the time to actually just take it in and just absorb it. What's there in front of you. I'm guilty of that. And the only time that I really do take it in is when my phone dies, right? My phone's dead. I've run out of juice. I no sense in taking, you can't take it out to take a picture. So now I'm always stuck with my mind. And the beauty is that simplicity and taking that extra. piece out of the equation. It's just something that makes you, forces you to be present. And it's just, it's it's nice to do that, but it shouldn't depend upon my battery dying.

Chris:

It goes back to discipline. Like you said, this human discipline, we control a lot more in our lives than we want to give her, we want to acknowledge, but Oh, man, I yeah, just for the sake of eventually have to wrap this up. We both got other calls to do today, but thank you for your time. Last thoughts. This is really the last thought, Greg. Any last thoughts on this topic?

Greg:

Just be open, right? It's coming. Just be open to the advances and figure out what is going to be help, help you and make you better, more efficient safer, more healthy because the tools are at our disposal and be careful not to get sucked into vortex tech for the sake of tech, but we want to do it for the sake of good whatever that good means to you.

Chris:

Now that's a great last verse to end on. Take inventory. Ask yourself what goals you're trying to accomplish in life. And there is a productive, good tool out there for it. Cory, thanks so much for posing that question. How does emerging technology impact personal development? I hope we gave you some food for thought. I look forward to hearing back from you. I'll be in touch. And there you go, folks. Another episode of the Wireless Way. If you like what you heard, please share with your friends and go check out the wirelessway. net. There is a contact us button up in the upper right. Love to hear from you. If you have any other suggestions or guests recommendations or requests, I'd like to get those from you and have a fantastic remainder of your day and happy new year. Here we are in January and look forward to seeing you and hear from you again on the wireless way. Thank you.