The Thinking Advantage: Smarter Ways to Think Alongside AI with Ann Holm

Joe Lynch: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to the Logistics of Logistics. My name is Joe Lynch. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today’s topic is The Thinking Advantage: Smarter Ways to Think Alongside AI with my friend Ann Holm. How’s it going, Ann?

Ann Holm: Great. I am so glad to be back. It’s been a while

Joe Lynch: Yes, it has. I’ve interviewed Ann multiple times, and it’s always fun. I should also say Ann is my executive coach and become a friend over all [00:00:30] these years. So Ann, please introduce yourself and your company and where you’re calling from today.

Ann Holm: I’m Ann Holm, and my company is annholm.net. Uncover Your Potential is sort of its tagline. And I am in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and I have been an executive coach for over 20 years. Might be closing in on 23 or 24. And prior to that, I was a speech pathologist [00:01:00] working with brain injury and stroke.

And so I have a sort of a specialty in brain science and and communication.

Joe Lynch: Yep. And, Ann I know I’m not the only logistics and supply chain person you work with. It became your one of your areas of specialty. So of all the executive coaches out there, you’re probably one of the more knowledgeable ones of the challenges that we have in this business

Ann Holm: I would say I’ve worked with logistics [00:01:30] company for probably 15 years, and I’ve worked with a variety of them. And in fact my client load is overwhelmingly logistics companies. It’s a fascinating industry, and I look at the Wall Street Journal logistics page every day to see what I might learn

Joe Lynch: Yeah, we were just talking about C.H. Robinson buying RXO, and you were in Minnesota, not so far from C.H. Robinson

Ann Holm: so far from C.H. Robinson. Yeah, I did remember reading about that and thought about my logistics people, [00:02:00] and especially Joe and the logistics of logistics

Joe Lynch: Yeah, and I should also say, I’ve said this, we have, you’ve been on the podcast in the past, but not lately, so I can tell all my stories again. I met Ann many years ago, and I was at a logistics company, and I was struggling to figure out a number of things. Not just business, but also personal things, unfortunately.

I was getting separated at that time. My oldest was h- off to college. Just a very crazy time, and I remember Ann was a great coach ’cause I, [00:02:30] I didn’t want somebody who just told “Here’s how I got there,” how, “Here’s how I did it.” Y- she had a Myers-Briggs framework that she used, which is used quite a bit, and I know she uses some other assessment tools now.

And so I wanted it to be somewhat scientific, and also Ann’s background as a speech pathologist, she was a brain scientist. And I remember Ann was the one who pushed me into blogging, which I did not even know what it was at the time. And [00:03:00] then you came up with the name The Logistics of Logistics.

I tell people this all the time. You go, “You should start blogging. Just y- you’re always talking about trying to demystify logistics, and you should just call it The Logistics of Logistics.” And I remember I said, “Eh, yeah, that’s a good placeholder name.” And then I and and then I told my web guy, Matt Collins, “Oh yeah, w- this is a temporary domain.”

He goes, “Oh, I love that name. That’s perfect.” And I go, “No, it’s just temporary.” [00:03:30] Here we are 15 years later. It ain’t temporary anymore. But you were also the one when I don’t know, just before COVID, you said, “You wear too many hats. You’re consulting, you’re training, you’re doing marketing for people, you’re writing articles, and you have the podcast.

You should pick one.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s… I don’t wanna pick.” And then you said, “And you should pick the podcast.” And I remember I said eh, that’s the only thing I don’t make any money on.” So you said, “Figure it out.” And I and I have. [00:04:00] So thank you so much.

Ann Holm: Yeah. You had a special gift, I think. And I think that the gift of communication, the gift of curiosity because to be a really good podcaster, you have to be curious and really wanna know how other pieces of the logistics puzzle fit together. And so you were a really good candidate to continue this work, and I’m glad that you have done so many podcasts.

We just talked about [00:04:30] hundreds of them.

Joe Lynch: Yeah. Almo- almost e- I think almost 800. And and the one thing you, when I first started the podcast, you said … So one of the reasons I was talking to Ann is I s- sometimes I talk way too much. And I remember you saying, “When you have a PowerPoint in front of you, it seems like a tether keeps you from going on too many tangents.”

The podcast, I like to think, is the same thing ’cause I have a format that keeps me from going too far astray.

Ann Holm: Yeah, you’ve done a great job just getting it all lined [00:05:00] up and you’ve become the, an icon in the area. So

Joe Lynch: you so much. Thank you

Ann Holm: very honored to be here again

Joe Lynch: Yeah. So Ann tell us a little more about you. Where’d you grow up? Where’d you go to school? Some career highlights before you started annehome.net, and why did you start?

Ann Holm: Okay. I s- I grew up in the Detroit area. I’m a Motown girl. And I went to University of Michigan. My first degree was in psychology, speech, and hearing, and then I [00:05:30] got the master’s degree in speech pathology. And for many years 25 I was a speech pathologist. I worked quite a bit with brain injury and with stroke.

I learned the most about the brain and human behavior working with the brain-injured people because, you really have to pay attention very carefully about what’s actually going on and whether or not you’re helping their [00:06:00] recovery or hindering it by way of w- what you ask them to do.

And I f- I found that to be just very rewarding and excellent work, meeting people where they are and helping to bring them to another level of functioning and skill. What got me out of there, believe it or not, was the all the paperwork that suddenly took the industry over. I- it was no longer what I would consider [00:06:30] two human beings trying to figure it out.

Figure out how to become a better communicator, how to maximize memory, all of that, and it became more about documentation. So I thought eh, I think I wanna try something else.” And then I decided going into coaching and did my training in coaching, my certification in coaching, and then I added some tools to help me streamline s- a way [00:07:00] to understand people.

So basically, when I do an assessment, it’s my springboard to s- start the conversation. So I did that, and then I really started focusing on executive coaching, personal development, and then really focusing a lot on logistics as well, because this is an industry that is fast-moving.

Things are changing all the time, and yet you don’t want to lose that human and communication element, which is so critical, even though much of this is [00:07:30] becoming more mechanized and more AI and more this and more that. But the m- more than ever, we need to look at the human element of all of this as well.

Joe Lynch: Yeah, and and one of the things I tell people w- when they ask ’cause I’ve referred people to you and I’ve talked to people about you in the past, is prior to working with you, I would see oftentimes like, “Hey, here’s General Patton’s 10 leadership maxims.” And you look through those, and sometimes I would [00:08:00] look and go, “Oh, man.

I, I guess I’m not a leader ’cause I don’t feel like I… I’m not connecting. I’m not connecting with these,” right? And then when I started working with you, we s- y- I knew I was an ENFP, which is a a type, a personality type within the Myers-Briggs framework, and there’s others. What are there, t- 12 others?

Ann Holm: There’s 16.

Joe Lynch: And so you’re an E- ENFP, too, so we have that in common. But when I started working with [00:08:30] you, you said, “Hey, here’s your specific strengths. Here’s your specific weaknesses,” generally speaking, and they were pretty much cl- pretty close. And then you look at the other ENFPs, and you go, “Oh, th- so there’s another type of leadership, if you will,

Ann Holm: Yeah, another style

Joe Lynch: And George Patton wasn’t an ENFP, I can guarantee you that. And and so that is kind of the path that you go, [00:09:00] “Oh, I can win on this path.” And I g- s- think this all the time, and we are the tail end of the Baby Boomers. And I’m trying to disguise myself as a g- Gen X now, but

Ann Holm: It’s on the cusp.

Joe Lynch: And when we were growing up, it was like, “You should go to college and become blank because it’s a good career.”

But d- didn’t- no one ever said, “Oh, I think you’d enjoy being a doctor. I think this would be a strength,” or, “You should be an [00:09:30] engineer,” or, “You should be a writer.” It was, “This pays well.” If you’re raised by people who lived through the Depression and World War I as children, they wanted you to have security.

Ann Holm: True

Joe Lynch: and I think rather than… We c- we- we’re doing it more now, and I think my kids, they grew up more with the idea that, what are you good at and what would you enjoy doing and what can you make a good career for yourself? And so I worked in engineering for many years, and I worked in automotive, and I enjoyed [00:10:00] it.

But I felt like my type of my type of fun was limiting in the type of organizations I was in. And it, so it was really good that I came across you because you kinda nudged me into some areas, blogging first, and then a fellow blogger encouraged me to start a podcast, and this is where I belong.

I enjoy doing this, and I don’t find it to be work.

Ann Holm: Yeah, and that’s, you, you– what I noticed in you right away is your, not only your skill in [00:10:30] communication, but your joy in communication and the curiosity that you had within a particular industry and the players in the industry and what their perspectives were. Those were natural strengths for you.

Just to your point about when you go away to school and they tell you’re gonna be this, and this, I went to school thinking I was going to be a lawyer or what was the other one? It might’ve been lawyer and maybe, physical therapist or something. But whatever it was not a, it was not a, [00:11:00] a match to who I was as an individual or what I was able to contribute to the world of work.

And but y- th- it was pa- those were packaged careers back in the day, m- meaning that, you, a teacher, a, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever, you would go in with some sort of vision, which is not a bad thing, but you also will have to want to challenge the narrative of this is what I should be versus this is what my heart is drawn to and what I [00:11:30] really think I can contribute something significant to a, a particular space.

Joe Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. And we used to do some we had a program where we’d, I was doing some training and you were doing the coaching side of it, and that’s, I think probably when you started working with a lot of logistics companies,

Ann Holm: That’s right

Joe Lynch: do that program anymore, but at the time, I remember everybody who went through the coaching side, which is not necessarily anything to do with logistics, it’s helping them understand their sp- [00:12:00] specific strengths and weaknesses, was really valuable.

And as soon as… It’s one thing we you know, most of my life prior to working with you, it was, “Hey, here’s your areas for improvement. Joe, you need to do this, and this to improve.” And you look at those and go, “Oh, okay, that’s kind of a bummer.” And not that you don’t try and improve those, but you came at it from a perspective of, “Hey, here’s what you’re really good at, and [00:12:30] unless those things, the areas for improvement, are absolutely grinding you to a halt, don’t worry about them.”

Ann Holm: Yeah, ex-exactly

Joe Lynch: blue sky abundant vision

Ann Holm: And challenge your narrative about who you could be and not to set up limiting ideas in your head about what you can do. Of course you wanna have a–

Joe Lynch: If you can’t read or write, you have to figure that out.

Ann Holm: Also look at, realism and all that.

But truly I think there’s a lot to [00:13:00] be said to how could I best show up no matter what I’m being asked to do, whether it’s, my personal career or whatever, but how I, how do I show up in general? What are some ways that I can truly bring my best self? And that’s the most important thing about

Joe Lynch: Yes, and every Fortune 500 CEO now has an executive coach, and those guys are clearly knowledgeable of their industry, clearly knowledgeable of themselves and how to get to the top job. But they [00:13:30] still have coaches because we all need we need that perspective. And you look at people and with those assessments, you kinda get a fresh perspective on yourself, and it’s not one focused on “Yeah, you got a 68% on this.”

No it’s… No, it’s like, “Hey, I want you to lean it…” And you’ve said this to me b- before regarding teams. Say, “You’re really good at this. The next person you hire should be good at this ’cause you’re not good at that.”

Ann Holm: Yeah. Some of the best sports [00:14:00] coaches have staffs that account for their blind spots. So it’s very beneficial to know strengths and blind spots because you can then pair with somebody who can account for your blind spot and mitigate the effects of it. So but it takes some– I would say this: it would, it takes some reflection on it and also checking your ego at the door, because it’s really hard to hear sometimes that you’re really good at this, this is some area, this is a bit of a blind spot, and, [00:14:30] “Oh no, I’m real- no I don’t have that blind spot.”

It’s like somebody telling me… Is it what I used to tell my mom? “No I’m a, I’m good at details.” “No, you’re not.”

Joe Lynch: No, that’s, and that’s the same… I used to have on my resume, ’cause I worked in engineering and operations and consulting, that I was analytical and detail-oriented. And I, and then I remember as I started talking to you, I’ve mentioned it one time, and you go, “You’ve probably gotten pretty good at that because it’s the industry that you’re in, but it’s not something that [00:15:00] would naturally be something you care about.”

And if somebody was to ask me about s- am I good at details or anal- analyzing things, I’d say, “Yes, I can do that,” but I more kinda think strategically. I’m very good at ideation and coming up with new ideas, and that’s kinda where I belong. And if you drag me down to the details, I can do it.

It’s just as you’ve always pointed out, it’s takes more energy, where there’s somebody else who is just gifted [00:15:30] at… And I remember there was a guy, a young guy, who worked for me at a logistics company. He used Excel in a way that was, like, magical. But to g- but when he’d pick up the phone and talk to customers, I would just be, like, rolling my eyes, like, “Dude, I wish you would…”

And by the way, when he would talk, when we’d talk about football in the hallway, he’s all in. He’s animated. Then he picks up the phone, and he just becomes Mr. Boring again. I was like…

Ann Holm: Yeah. No it’s a bit of a process, but it, but [00:16:00] the outcome is really quite helpful, quite wonderful

Joe Lynch: Yeah. Highly recommend though. Talk to Ann. Again, I’ll make sure I put a link to your LinkedIn profile, link to your website. Any of the links you and your go-to-market team give me, we’ll put those in the show notes, and maybe I’ll put some of our previous episodes ’cause they’re all good. It’s been a few years though.

Today I wanna talk to you about AI. So we had a long talk before we hit the record button today about how to use AI. And of course, m- I don’t want anyone to get the [00:16:30] impression that, oh, we shouldn’t be using AI. We’re using AI. Nothing we say here is going to prevent anyone from using AI, but we don’t wanna lose our humanity.

We don’t want, we don’t wanna also over-rely on AI to the point where I no longer have my own benefit to the business or to my own life.

Ann Holm: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yeah

Joe Lynch: so the first topic I wanna talk to you about is, and you called it [00:17:00] the brain is built to struggle. Please elaborate.

Ann Holm: Yes. Yes. Another way to put it is how do we maximize brain engagement? The brain i- is designed to be engaged. It is designed to be engaged through struggle. Now, if you don’t like the word struggle, ’cause some people might find that to be, “I don’t wanna ever struggle,” but processing perhaps.

The brain is mil- is built to process. There was an [00:17:30] interesting study that was done recently, and what they used is a thing called functional MRI. And so people who are your listeners may have had a regular MRI, you know, they’re looking at your shoulder or whatever, but it’s a static MRI.

But there’s a thing called a functional MRI and a functional MRI measures the energy that is going to various areas in your brain when you’re thinking. So they [00:18:00] used three conditions. They were given a task in which the– nothing was assisted. So in other words, there was no Google, there was no ChatGPT, it was just you as a person doing a particular task.

The second condition is where that individual was able to Google things and do the task. And then the third was full on ChatGPT. So the results were actually quite striking because when the individual’s doing the task in the [00:18:30] functional MRI unassisted, in other words, they had no tools there were spikes in memory retrieval.

You could see the areas of the brain responsible with memory retrieval lighting up. Reasoning and critical analysis. There’s certain areas of the brain that have been identified as areas for reasoning and critical analysis and memory. So those were lighting up in the MRI. All right? So it meant the brain was working.

The second condition with [00:19:00] Google the brain was actively going between sort of search the results and then to that individual’s own thoughts. So it was get the information, bring it back, appraise the information, get the information, appraise the information. So I don’t know. I got a yep, I’m still here thing.

I don’t know why I thought I left. Anyway, I’m here. But anyway, so that second situation gave so- some degree or a, a significant degree of [00:19:30] energy. Then with the ChatGPT, those functional MRI scans showed basically flat. Basically not a lot of energy going into it. And

Joe Lynch: We’re letting the, the, we’re letting the AI do all the work

Ann Holm: Yeah. And what was really stunning about it, and what I think I’m gonna come back to as we discuss things further, is the individual who did no active processing was the least likely to [00:20:00] recall what they actually– the material they were working with and everything else like that, because there was no active processing

Joe Lynch: Yeah. I’ve seen this in myself and I ask AI, “Oh, do this, whatever.” And if I give it just a one sentence, “Please provide this,” it’ll provide it and you get 16 paragraphs of whatever. And y- it’s not… It was so easy, it doesn’t feel valuable to me, and I don’t feel any sort of ownership [00:20:30] over it.

So I look at it, and then sometimes I’ll email it to myself so I can look at it again. But it is, not only did I didn’t put anything into it th- there’s no effort, and I don’t know, maybe this is a little bit my brain playing a game with me where I say, “This isn’t that valuable ’cause I didn’t create any.”

This was, this is an external thing. And sometimes it’s probably good information, but it’s out of context ’cause I didn’t give it any context

Ann Holm: Correct. And again, I wanna [00:21:00] make the point a lot in our conversation, which is, I’m not gonna take AI and run it into the ground. It’s a valuable tool and all of that. But there is almost a, a polarity here where these two pieces have to fit together.

There’s the AI, the things you gain from AI and the things you gain from being human, those pieces working together, number one, and also reading the room and knowing which one you need to leverage

Joe Lynch: Right, and you said to me years [00:21:30] ago, and I took it to heart, said, “ENFPs like me and like you…” Y- you– I remember I had a time management book, and you said, “No ENFP has ever written a time management book because…” And you said, “And you’re– you might look at it, you might read it, you might try and make that part of what you do, but it’s always gonna be a struggle because it’s just not the way you work.”

And then you said something to me, which was, [00:22:00] “Don’t worry about time management. Worry about energy management.” And so right now, if I had to sit down and write out, let’s just say, a, a f- two proposals and I couldn’t use any any ChatGPT or Google Gemini or whatever you use that would be taxing on my brain.

And I wear a WHOOP, by the way. Join the freight WHOOP v- or it’s a big group of us who are in the freight business. But I can see the strain that I used, and it’s significant for those two [00:22:30] proposals. Now that’s good. I’m taxing my brain. That’s the– From a purely maintaining my life perspective, that’s good.

But what if I want to still get a lot done and I use AI? I can use AI and have very little energy ex- u- used, which is good. So I– maybe I do twice as many proposals in a day. But there’s, there again is some issues with that [00:23:00] in that, And this kind of brings us to our second point, which is it’s not just about output.

I don’t feel a sense of ownership of that. And then you said something about people using this for sales presentations and not really even able to defend the ideas in it. So AI created it, and it’s very slick, and you’re looking it over, but you go… Somebody says, “I disagree with what you said on [00:23:30] slide six.

I don’t even re- that’s nonsense.” And you go, “Oh, I don’t even know.”

Ann Holm: What is slide six?

Joe Lynch: Yeah. And the

Ann Holm: Yeah. Yeah. Co- competence isn’t just about your output. It is the notion of can you construct it again? Can you apply it to multiple circumstances? Can you defend it under scrutiny and objection

Joe Lynch: Yeah, we, overcoming objections [00:24:00] is a big part of sales. So anyone using AI for this, they… It’s not to say, I’m not, I don’t think either one of us saying don’t use AI, but just recognize that it can create ideas and wording that might not be your own. And if you don’t make it your own, then when you’re in a sales call and somebody objects to that, you go, “Oh, can I fight for that?

It’s really not mine.”

Ann Holm: And I’ll tell you, so I’ll give you an example. The co-author of the book that I [00:24:30] wrote her name is Jane, and she’s f- she’s

Joe Lynch: Wait, what was the book you wrote?

Ann Holm: “Educator Bandwidth: How to Reclaim Your Energy, Passion, and Time.” So it’s a brain book, but but I’ve done a lot of collaborating with this co-author, Jane Keese on other things.

And so there’ve been a couple of times, many times, ’cause she makes beautiful presentations, just gorgeous presentations. She’ll say, “Just use my presentation.” So she’ll give me the slide deck, and [00:25:00] it feels clunky because I haven’t processed it. Yeah, I… it isn’t thinking exactly the way I think. It isn’t anticipating questions that I might think I’m gonna have.

And so you use somebody else’s material, it’s even as, as it’s perfect, and honestly, this, some of her presentations are about as perfect as they can get. But if I haven’t in any way [00:25:30] contributed to how those roll out or gone through it a few times to see what those objections might be or see where those awkward moments are for me, because again, awkward mo- moments for me in a presentation are gonna be different than somebody else, then you’re missing the opportunity to be sharp in that moment

Joe Lynch: S- so I don’t think we’re saying don’t use AI, but I think we’re saying you gotta make it your own and don’t be over- overly [00:26:00] reliant on it and say, “Hey, make me a sales presentation about my company.” It’ll do that.

Ann Holm: It’ll do that. It’ll do– And it’ll be beautiful, and it’ll probably be nearly perfect, but it may not be… It might– It’s almost like this, Joe. This is the metaphor I would use. So let’s say you say ma- I’m gonna make this jacket, and we’re gonna s- we’re gonna put it on a supermodel, and she’s gonna sashay down the runway, and she looks great.

But then you take the jacket and you put it on yourself, it looks horrible. [00:26:30] It’s, doesn’t fit, it doesn’t, flatter. And so that which is perfect isn’t necessarily that which fits you.

Joe Lynch: I saw this years ago and I thought this was really funny. It wa- it was from GQ magazine, and somebody had taken s- you’ve got some really good-looking guy, and he’s wearing kind of a mismatched blazer and

Ann Holm: Yes.

Joe Lynch: funny pants, and he’s got a beret on. And then they showed a guy, just a regular guy on the street, and it and it was [00:27:00] kinda like, “What, is that guy mentally ill?

Is he homeless? What is going on over here?” Looks great on the GQ model. Looks, looks like y- you’re at best eccentric on

Ann Holm: Yeah. So I’m really talking– Basically what I’m talking about is that, GI the, the AI can give you something that is really quite good. Excellent, really. But the, there’s, there has to be some processing on your part to make it fit you

Joe Lynch: It’s, there’s gotta [00:27:30] be ownership of it. And i- it’s really hard to it’s really f- hard to overcome an objection that you don’t … Y- you look, and you’re looking at the slide and go, “Oh, I wouldn’t have said it that way perhaps.” So this is … You gotta make it your own if you’re gonna … and I think a lot of us are doing this.

And this brings us to the third point, which I think is an excellent one, and I think some of us are already working this way, but you called it the think sandwich. What is the think sandwich?

Ann Holm: think sandwich, this is, I think, one of the most simple and fundamental things a person can [00:28:00] do when they start to use AI for things especially that are important. So it’s called the, the, the think sandwich. So you start off with some idea of what you wanna say, what that framework might look like.

And in fact, it might be a commitment to spending the first couple of hours resisting the temptation to do anything with ChatGPT or Google and sketch out what you think you wanna say, what’s [00:28:30] important, et cetera. So that’s the first layer. That’s the first piece of bread. Then you use AI to fill things in, so that’s like your meat and your whatever.

And then you put the next layer on, which is think again. So it’s the idea of pre-thinking, laying it all out, populating it with the AI information, and then bringing it back up for another level of thinking. This is a way [00:29:00] to get the best of both worlds. You’re getting the information quickly. You’re getting curated information, often nearly perfect curated information, but then you are looking at it through the lens of what was I wanting to achieve?

I’ve talked before about read the room. What is it that I’m trying ach- trying to achieve here? What of this information that I’ve now gathered in AI is most relevant to that? And then, [00:29:30] putting the other piece of it. Think AI think.

Joe Lynch: Yeah, I like that. And sometimes what I’ll do is when I’m giving AI instructions on something I’ll write out a lot. And I can be pretty– I’ll write pretty fast, and sometimes it’ll be just redundant sentences. I don’t care. AI doesn’t care either. It happens fast because it can happen fast, ’cause I know that it will s- you know, provide maybe it’s an email that I wanted to send.

Now, that email might have taken me in the past, if I was really [00:30:00] concerned about getting just the right wording, that might have taken me an hour. Now I’m gonna get it done in 10 or 15 minutes, and I’m not gonna have used a lot of brainpower. Now that can be good because I can get more done. I have at the end I’m fresh late in the afternoon because I have not done a whole bunch of heavy lifting with the brain.

But I sometimes like to ask AI to, say, “Hey, I wanna write a s-” So I [00:30:30] was working on some genealogy stuff, and I said I wanted to write a story about a family member, and I said, “Please ask me the following questions.” And it did. It just started spitting out questions, and I had to answer all of them, and it forced…

For, for, first off, the context is real, right? So the, it understands more or less what I’m trying to accomplish. But it also it takes time. And so I think the more we do the [00:31:00] first part of the think the more ownership we can have of that because it’s something that we created with AI as opposed to something that is AI and I don’t feel a sense of ownership, ’cause why would I?

It took me one minute to create it.

Ann Holm: And it’s, a couple points I wanna make with that is that you are, again you’re reading the room. You’re saying, “I need both. I need both my brain and my human interaction, and I need [00:31:30] AI tools to, do some things.” And to ask ourselves, are we leveraging both of them?

Are we– What do we need to leverage now? So for instance, if you’re gonna write a bunch of emails that are fairly standard, you would leverage a lot of AI because it’s not gonna require that polish of your cognition. But if you are looking at a presentation or you’re look- this is something really big, you’re gonna wanna [00:32:00] really lean on things like the think sandwich so that when you come into that particular setting, you know the stuff.

Not only do you know it, but it fits who you are. Because, you hear nowadays where people will go that was AI.” ‘Cause you, ’cause it’s, it feels like it doesn’t fit, the suit doesn’t fit. It’s just a, it’s just a

Joe Lynch: And it’s an interesting thing. We talked also, and this is there’s some parts of our humanity that are, have slowly gone away. So when I [00:32:30] go to the gym, I wear my, my I don’t wear earbuds, I wear these Shokz, they… ear conduction. But I put earplugs in, and so I’m listening to a book or a podcast or music, whatever I’m listening to, and other people are doing the same.

So you don’t tend to talk to the people in the gym as much. But if you do, they gotta take their headphones off to hear you talk. So it used to be when I’d go to the gym, I knew everybody, and not so much the [00:33:00] same. And I’ve heard people I don’t go to Starbucks, but I heard somebody complaining about this.

It was actually an article, and they said they walked into a Starbucks and the person at the counter didn’t say hello. They just were standing there staring at them. And I thought, “This is somebody who maybe d- didn’t have to do that,” and they were used to fiddling with their phone ra- or scrolling rather than being a human.

And and it’s one of the things somebody said to [00:33:30] me about… They were at a party and they go, “Look at those kids all looking at their phones.” I said, “There’s always a ti- If you go to a party or something and you don’t know anyone, you’re at a conference and they’re… You’re in that awkward place where you’re not talking to anybody you know, it’s really easy to kinda pick up your phone and go, ‘I’ll pretend I’m, I’ll pretend I’m doing something very important,’ but I’m scrolling until something better comes along,”

Ann Holm: Well, and here’s the thing. You brought up the gym. If you stop going to the gym, you’re gonna lose those muscles.

Joe Lynch: I’ve lost him anyway, [00:34:00] Ann.

Ann Holm: You’re still, you’re fighting the good fight. Likewise, if you lose those muscles of thinking, the, the discernment. One of the things I had mentioned to you when we were coming up with podcast names, I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to call it ‘Are You Experienced?'”

Like the Jimi Hendrix

Because experience matters, and experience doesn’t happen unless you’ve actually actively processed something. Experience is an embodied thing. It’s not something that you can [00:34:30] pull off of a, the internet or a computer, right? So the important thing for people to do is to recognize that we’re in an era now where we’re in a vast splurge or onslaught of all things AI, all things y- your information coming at us, et cetera, et cetera.

So there is a w- there’s a heavy weight pulling us down into the world of AI. It’s almost like a vortex, right? Yeah. We have to [00:35:00] counter it with some of our human skill sets like cognition processing information. But even to your point, when you’re at the Starbucks, practice those human communication skills of just saying hello to somebody, ’cause that’s also a muscle that we’re starting to lose.

So we are in a w- th- there’s a big storm around AI, but we really need to make sure we get, keep this part sharp too, ’cause it’s gonna [00:35:30] matter

Joe Lynch: It’s interesting also in regards to dating and relationships. I’ve heard I’ve read mostly where women say men don’t approach them in public. And they used to. And and that is… It’s much easier to be swiping, right?

Ann Holm: Did you, have you seen the commercial with

Joe Lynch: There’s no pain.

Ann Holm: with the beer?

Joe Lynch: walking

Ann Holm: Yeah, he’s, so he’s sitting there with a guy at a bar, and [00:36:00] he’s getting ready to text somebody across the room, and Christopher Watkins moves this be- two beers over and says no. Go talk to her.” And so they it just, it’s those kinds of thing.

We, we don’t wanna lose that human element because it’s very much baked into our DNA.

Joe Lynch: Where

Ann Holm: that has to be fed and nurtured

Joe Lynch: Yeah. And one of the common themes on my podcast is we’re au- we automated that. [00:36:30] And so we automated what used to be somebody having to pull information from one system and data entry into another. And that’s good. And the- and so technology is better at that feeding into a system. Now, what technology’s not better at yet is making a phone call to a customer and saying, “Hey, just double-checking on something.

Just wanted to talk to you about this. Wanna make sure you’re completely happy.” Whatever those are the human- the place where [00:37:00] humanity fits best. And so I think these are muscles. We have to just keep those in mind. There’s another topic that I know I brought this up to you in the past.

There’s a guy named Cal Newport, and he wrote a book called Deep Work. And what he always talks about is we are, The world is rapidly moving towards technology, and there’s gonna be winners and losers in that. The people who can use AI really well [00:37:30] are gonna do better than people who don’t use it at all.

But he, his whole thing is also, we, as humans, need to disengage and do deep work. And he talked about all these scientists that have been in- or in inventors over time, especially in the past, when they’re, when the information that would come to them every day was a f- tiny fraction of what we get every day.

And so they would have long [00:38:00] moments of silence. And I go for a walk in the morning, and I kinda force myself not to listen to music, not to listen to a podcast. It’s, Or a book. It’s very tempting. I’d rather be filling my brains with more, but I don’t think that’s what my brain necessarily always needs.

It needs time to think and absorb what it’s already going on. But what we need to do in the space of AI is become more human and lean into what we’re best at

Ann Holm: Yeah, 100%. And I think to [00:38:30] that end when I’m coaching clients, that’s, some of the exercises we do is sharpening our awareness around how you can do that. Because, people who are listening here today might say, “Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

How do I do that?” ‘Cause it boils back down to fit. How do I accomplish that? I agree, you’re right. How do I make that work? And that’s where coaching comes in

Joe Lynch: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I’m a big fan. I’ve said it many times is there’s a lot of different kind of [00:39:00] coaches. So there’s somebody who says, “Hey, I built a great logistics company and I retired, and now I wanna help you do the same.” That’s a, that’s very

Ann Holm: Sharing experience. Yeah

Joe Lynch: And then there’s kind of the motivational like, “Hey, you can do it.”

And then, and I feel like the third kind is people who have assessment tools like you who say “I can help you understand yourself better.” And there is also a, I would say, a motivational speak piece of it. And I’ve said before I used you a lot as [00:39:30] an accountability partner, right? That I will do this before we talk next, or you would always say, “Text me when that’s done.”

Ann Holm: Oh my, I’ll tell you, I can dig up that picture of you wearing the Ohio State crown.

Joe Lynch: Yeah, exactly.

Ann Holm: of the, the vile disincentives.

Joe Lynch: The vile disincentive. Yes, exactly.

Ann Holm: Anyway

Joe Lynch: Yeah I’ll make sure I put a link to the Cal Newport book because it– his whole thing is as, as we move into [00:40:00] more automation, more AI there’s gonna become a limit where you go, “Oh yeah, I have a filter that prevents me from getting any AI sent to me.”

Or, we’re already seeing it on images. Soon you’re gonna get in your inbox, it’s gonna say, “This was 65% AI or 100% AI,” and you’re gonna go, “Okay, this is nonsense email. Oh, this one’s actually from at home.” And yeah, and none of this is against AI. I think we’re gonna use it, and I think we should use it.

It’s a fantastic [00:40:30] tool, but we have to lean into what we’re best at. And there’s an old saying from Megatrends book, and it’s high tech, high touch. The more we become high tech, the more we want high touch, and that’s high touch with humanity, high touch with the planet.

Ann Holm: Yeah. Yeah, you really, yeah. So

Joe Lynch: And anyway, enough of my blather. I’m gonna summarize what we talked about here today, and then I want your final thoughts on the topic. So I’m talking to my [00:41:00] friend Ann Holm, and today’s topic is The Thinking Advantage: Smarter Ways to Think Alongside AI. And we talked about four topics, really, maybe five.

So the first one is the brain is built to struggle. Yes, there’s times when you want to conserve a little bit of your energy, go ahead, use the AI. But recognize when when the brain doesn’t struggle you don’t grow, your brain doesn’t grow. And we’ve talked, we [00:41:30] talked offline about hearing aids.

When somebody loses their hearing and they don’t get a hearing aid, there’s a part of the brain that no longer does the work, and it leads to all sorts of bad stuff. If your brain’s not working, you’re not working. So just recognize that when you’re using AI, or even Google, there’s less, less cognitive load on the brain, which is just like saying, “I went to the gym and lifted five pounds on the bench press.” [00:42:00] We have– use it or lose it. And next thing we talked a little bit about is this whole idea of output. It’s really easy to output just tremendous amount of information and presentations and stories, emails using AI, but there’s no ownership, and there’s also, You’re not becoming more competent there.

You have to get your insights into there. So it’s not just about output. There has to be competence that you’re growing, and that you’re also– there’s some [00:42:30] ownership over this. I can say this, I’ve created stuff using AI that I felt no ownership over, ’cause it took me fifteen seconds to type in, “Please provide me with…”

Ann Holm: Yes. Yes

Joe Lynch: The last thing, and I think this is really valuable advice, is this think sandwich. So you– we’re gonna g- use AI, no one’s saying not to, but think ahead of time, that’s the first piece of bread. Give a lot of thought with… And maybe not even near a computer. Do it in your journal, then put it into AI, [00:43:00] and then let AI work its magic, and then afterwards, the other slice of bread is you thinking again.

So it’s think, use AI, then think again. This not only creates the right output, the right presentation, the right email, the right whatever you’re creating, but it’s also yours, and you feel ownership for it. And if it’s a presentation, you can say, “Yes, it’s my presentation.” And you don’t have to go, “Yeah, it’s, aI created it. I spent fifteen seconds telling AI to create [00:43:30] it, and so it’s mine.”

Ann Holm: You can almost tell sometimes

Joe Lynch: Oh yeah. And then last thing we talked about is this whole idea of be a human. There’s things that humans are really good at. These are the things we need to lean into. And and that’s also relates to what Cal Newport said.

I’ll make sure I put a link to the Cal Newport book in there because it, it’s just a couple years old, but he was already talking about AI and automation because there’s a place for us in this world still. [00:44:00] And and you wanna … y- you don’t wanna find yourself, … Somebody says, “Hey, I’m in the Excel spreadsheets all day long, and I have to do all the work.”

At some point you’re gonna say, “No, th- let AI do it, but let me tell it what to do. Let me make sure that I understand what’s happening.” It reminds me a little bit of when I was young, and we used to have to do the square roots by hand. We used to have to do all the math by hand. We couldn’t bring out a compu- And you remember what the teachers used to say, Ann?

“It’s not like you’re gonna be walking around with a calculator in your [00:44:30] pocket for the rest of your life.” And you’re like, “Wrong.”

Ann Holm: Wrong. Wrong. Yeah, y- and those are, those advancements, those are things that save time. But yet at the same time, if you don’t even fundamentally understand what you’re trying to get at, what you, what the output is fluffy compared to if you actually understand what went into getting it.

You don’t have to call every one of them to mind, but understand what it is

Joe Lynch: So Ann [00:45:00] put a big old bow on this one. Final thoughts on the topic

Ann Holm: Yeah. I love this topic. I love this topic because, my whole life it’s been about getting th- g- getting your– understanding yourself to uncover your potential and to maximize. The other thing is communication and how to effectively communicate something. So I love this topic because we’re really in a position now where everybody’s kinda getting knocked back on their heels.

Everybody’s thinking, “Is everything gonna go to [00:45:30] AI?” Or, “How much should I use AI?” Or, “Why is it that I use this but I didn’t feel like I really knew the information?” There’s good brain science behind why you feel that way, because you have to engage your brain. So I really loved your summary.

I really loved your summary about how you set the table to understand what an active brain looks like why it’s important, because it, it gives you… you’re in command of [00:46:00] that material. You can answer objections, you can answer questions if you’ve understood that material, and then understand how you can achieve it.

‘Cause a lot of times we understand yeah, it’d be better if I…” But you– but understanding the how-to of it, how do you actually get there is an important part of it too. And that’s what I love about coaching, ’cause I can help somebody get from that, that stage of here I am, I’ve got all this AI, but somehow I just don’t feel very confident.

How do I do this? How do I make it be [00:46:30] me?” And all of that. I just love coaching through that whole process of helping people understand who they are, how they can best get to a particular objective and account for the blind spots as they’re going along with it.

Along with the mega ideas of AI. AI is the biggest mega idea we’ve dealt with since the internet started. We didn’t think we were gonna get any bigger

Joe Lynch: No, I know. Anyway, I’ll make sure I put a link to your LinkedIn profile, a link to your website. Any links you and your go-to-market team give me, we’ll put those in the show notes. But [00:47:00] who’s your ideal customer?

Ann Holm: My ideal customer I think would be a logistics person. A logistics person and an emerging leader. Somebody who is, who is– has high potential, wants to become more self-aware so that they can bring their best self to the stage. Somebody who’s willing to challenge their nate- narrative on how they see themselves, overcome those barriers.

The ideal customer would be an emerging leader in the logistics field

Joe Lynch: I love it. [00:47:30] And I can tell you when I hired Ann, I was where I felt like I was in a place where I was very disoriented. And it’s almost like being, knowing what you’re supposed to be doing your whole life and then going, “Is this the right direction?” And th- there’s that old saying is, is the ladder even up against the right house, right?

So

Ann Holm: there’s no substitute for a feeling like there’s a good fit. In m- every area of life, there’s no substitute for that feeling of, “Oh, yeah.”

Joe Lynch: And I think also as [00:48:00] we go through our careers what was right five years ago and what seemed like, “Oh, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be going,” and then you get the next job and you go, “Wait, what am I doing? This isn’t the right fit for me. I’m wearing someone else’s clothes.”

Ann Holm: love working with people who are going through those kinds of transitions because it’s so disorienting, but a lot of times you can find the way by way of understanding yourself

Joe Lynch: Yep. And I will also say this. Our I just talked to our friend Nate Schuz about [00:48:30] this, is a lot of times when you start a business, you don’t wanna confide in somebody who might work w- for you and say, “Hey, I’m really struggling with this, and I’m r- really stru- I don’t think I’m gonna be ma- be able to make payroll.”

And they’re like, “Wait, what?” So I don’t think I’m a good leader.” And you’re like, “Why are you telling me? I work for you.” So I think there’s a lot of times when you wanna confide with so- in somebody, but not just confide, but also get the [00:49:00] tools to grow. Because I, I’m not a big… I’m not against it.

If you go to therapy, it’s sometimes now tell me about your childhood. Tell me about this trauma.” There’s th- there’s a time and a place for that. But I feel like most of us say, “I wanna move forward. I want… I got problems I wanna solve, not… I don’t wanna get into what went wrong in the past.

I wanna talk about what’s going right in the future.”

Ann Holm: Yeah. That’s where really coaching– w- e- even when [00:49:30] you discuss the field of coaching, there’s, there is the, the therapy and the counseling, which is a different skill set. It’s a d- different client load, and then there’s coaching, then there’s mentorship. So there’s lots of different roles that people in your life can play as far as moving you to a different place.

And so you’ve gotta define what that is. In my case, it’s coaching. I don’t do counseling. That’s a different, that’s a different field. Coaching is [00:50:00] all about you becoming more of an expert about who you are and how you can move yourself forward. And that’s– So it’s really all heavy on you knowing you better.

Joe Lynch: it. I love it. And thank you so much for taking the time

Ann Holm: Yeah, it was great. It was a great conversation.

Joe Lynch: It’s always my pleasure.

Ann Holm: Okay, bye-bye

Joe Lynch: And thank all of you for listening to the Logistics of Logistics. Until next time, onward and upward