For anyone listening to this, like how can they
train themselves to think more critically in
this era? Because it seems like, well, not even
seem like, but there is a lot of misinformation
that's happening. So since we're talking about
feelings, you know, you get this information,
you're so attached to this feeling of what this
information or misinformation would be, and then
it kind of clouds the thinking. So how does one
train themselves to become more critical? critical
thing, more of a critical thinker. Yeah, it comes
back to desire again. And I hate to say it, because
the hard fact is very few people desire this,
statistically speaking. And we know this. I mean,
we could we could look at our recent history.
And there are things that people like it's so
clearly false information. But by believing it
and accepting it, these people believe that good
things will come to them, so they don't care.
And I've had conversations with good friends
and family members about this, and essentially
it comes down to, look, I just don't care. I
don't care about this. I know that you talk about
human behavior. How does human behavior link
into that world of entrepreneurship and feast
and famine, and how that plays with people's
psyche? Sure, a couple different ways. One way
is understanding other individuals, not only
from a personal perspective, but also from a
business perspective. Business is about relationships.
When you have a relationship with your customers,
with your prospects, with the people that you
work with. So by understanding people better
in those areas, you could better, I guess, create
a business, create policies, whatever that solidify
those relationships. So if you know consumers
better, you could be better at marketing. Consumer
behavior is a big part of marketing your product
or service. So that's definitely one area. What's
your biggest, not yours, but what are people's
biggest misconception about AI? Well, I think
that it's incredibly dangerous and it's scary.
I think that's the biggest misconception. It
has the potential to be dangerous. I sort of
see it kind of like a knife, you know, you could,
you could heal with it in a surgeon's hand or
you could kill somebody with it. That's it has
the potential to be dangerous, but it's important.
Hey family. This is a Thriveware Journey. Look,
life's too short to just get by. And 2025 is
the year to persist. We're here to grow, build
and thrive. This podcast is all about powerful.
stories, real talk, and practical steps to help
you level up in every area of your life. Now,
if that sounds like something you need, don't
just watch. Be a part of the journey. Let us
know you're here. Do us a favor. If you're listening
on the podcast platform, download the episode.
And if you're watching on YouTube, you know what
to do. Hit that like button, subscribe, and turn
on those notifications so you never miss an episode.
And as we always say, Let's make thriving our
new normal. Welcome back to another episode of
The Thrive Oil Journey. Today we're diving deep
into the mind of Dr. Bunk Bennett, entrepreneur,
psychologist, AI innovator, and even a Comedy
creator from building a 20 million business to
mastering the science of success. Bo knows what
it takes to create a business that truly reflects
values and we'll explore psychology AI and how
critical thinking can shape your success. So
get ready for an insightful and entertainment
conversation that might. just way, change the
way you think about building business. And we're
talking about, you know, the title from zero
to 20 million, a psychology of success and business
growth. And again, I just want to say thank you
for being on the episode. How you doing? And
you want to go by Bo and not Dr. Bennett, right?
That's right. And thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Diving into what you know, and while we have
you here. I just want to go back a little bit
and I know that you have a strong or had a strong
drive for success from a young age, right? What
fueled that ambition? Well, it was mostly the
environment. in which I grew up. My parents were
both entrepreneurs. My brother had his own screen
printing business. My sister had her own real
estate business. So I really grew up in that
environment. I didn't know anything else. In
fact, it was kind of a running joke in our family.
I didn't understand at a young age why my friend's
parents wouldn't be there all day. Like the father
would go away in the morning and come back late
in the day. My parents and my whole family, everybody
worked from home. So, I didn't understand that
concept until I was a little bit older. But I
think that's, whether it be partly genetic or
environmental, it was just kind of ingrained
in me from a young age. Yeah. So, did you have
any financial struggles growing up? in that world?
Yes, and I'll explain that. We were probably
like a middle class family, upper middle class,
maybe, depending in the 70s and 80s, what that
actually meant. I mean, our house was generally
a little bit bigger and nicer than most of my
friends' houses. But my father had an interesting
career. He was an inventor, which means he got
paid when he sold an invention. So we would go
through these cycles, these times when we had
plenty of money and things were great and we'd
go on vacations. And then we would be in these
times of like drought where my parents would
constantly be fighting about money and like couldn't
get new clothes. And I mean, it was really tough
for these times. So I experienced what it was
like to have a lot of money and I also experienced
what it was like to struggle. And I definitely
liked having the more money better. Yeah, of
course. Yeah, that was the world of feast and
famine is what's playing in my mind. Yeah. And
you know, as entrepreneurs, that's a story that
I hear a lot. You know, one month you're doing
well, the next month is a struggle. It plays
with you. But as an entrepreneur that you we
just stick it out and do the best we can. Well,
I don't think that most people get to appreciate
that. I think most people are live in a pretty
stable environment and most kids grow up in a
fairly stable environment. I mean, sure, they
may have parents that lose jobs and times get
tough. But for the most part, it's you know,
they don't they don't experience that. So if
you don't experience like the wealth. or the
abundance, you don't know what you're missing,
really. So you don't develop that drive for it.
So I'm not saying that's 100 % of the time, but
that definitely has something to do with it.
I do notice that people who do have these kind
of cycles, they tend to be very motivated in
life. Yeah. And that kind of leads me into one
of your specialties, which is psychology. I know
that you You talk about human behavior. How does
human behavior link into that world of entrepreneurship
and feast and famine and how that plays with
people's psyche? Sure. A couple of different
ways. One way is understanding other individuals,
not only from a personal perspective, but also
from a business perspective. Business is about
relationships. when you have a relationship with
your customers, with your prospects, with the
people that you work with. So by understanding
people better in those areas, you could better,
I guess, create a business, create policies,
whatever that solidify those relationships. So
if you know consumers better, you could be better
at marketing. Consumer behavior is a big part
of marketing your product or service. So that's
definitely one area. The other area is sort of
what we already covered, and that's having the
mental stability to be an entrepreneur. To be
able to go through these cycles where things
are really great and then things aren't so great
to be able to accept a level of risk and Understand
that when things go bad, it's not the end of
the world And there are brighter times ahead
kind of it's kind of like a mental resilience
and the psychology plays an important part in
that aspect of it as well Yeah, many many episodes
or I'm gonna say many but some of the episodes
that we talked about of mental resilience. That
was just, that's something that really plays
a lot with entrepreneurs and how they approach,
you know, their business and how they sustain,
you know, who they continue to be to make sure
that businesses can use to grow. You talked about
common, like cognitive bias. What is that? And
then what's a common cognitive bias that trips
people up in their decision -making? So cognitive
bias is basically like a mental shortcut There
are shortcuts that we take in order to just make
it through the day to think better We have like
two basic kinds of reasoning We have like the
system one system to reasoning system one would
be like the really fast type of kind of quick
Instinctual if you want to call it that type
of reasoning and this is where we find a lot
of the cognitive biases because we kind of jump
to conclusions but We we need this in order to
get through the day because the system to processing
is much more deliberate It's when you stop and
kind of like sit down and carefully think about
every decision critically think about things
How it how like what happens if I go this way?
What will happen if I go the other way think
about like the sources where the information
is coming from so it's deliberate It's slow.
It's cognitively expensive meaning that it it
takes aware and terror on you. You can't do that
constantly because you just don't have the mental
energy or it burns more calories physically as
well. So in order to get through the day, we
have developed as humans to have this quick type
of thinking where we make these judgments based
on heuristics. They're sort of like good enough.
So for most of the time, it works extremely well,
but sometimes it doesn't. A good example might
be if you're If you're meeting someone for the
first time, we have these first impressions,
right? And most of the time that works well because
people generally, whoever they are, they're usually
representative of who they are the majority of
the time. But we know some people have really
bad days. Some people just aren't feeling well.
So if you meet somebody on one of those bad days,
then they may be really short. They just got
out of a meeting where they got fired or something
like that, and you form this impression of them.
then you could be completely wrong. That's not
who the person is. That's just who they were
in that moment. But most of the time, again,
that works. So it's a system, it's like a cognitive
system in place that does us good in the long
run, but not for every specific information.
So that's where cognitive biases come in. Cognitive
biases are kind of like these shortcuts that
work and they have a function. But when it comes
to like careful decision -making, then we need
to be aware of the biases and we need to kind
of activate that system to that slower, deliberate
thinking in order to make the best and the better
decisions. So you asked about in decision making,
like what is a cognitive bias? The most common
one is called the confirmation bias. And that's
when we tend to accept information. that works
well with our goals and our beliefs. And we reject
information or we're a lot more critical of information
that doesn't make us feel good, that hurts us
in some way. So this is big like in politics.
You know, if you hear something on the news that's
maybe really bad for the president and you don't
like the president, you automatically accept
it. You don't care about the source. It's just
like, yeah, sure, I believe that. Why not? But
if you really like the president and you hear
something bad, you're like, well, wait a minute.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't buy that.
And all of a sudden, you're very critical about
everything. So that's a perfect example of like
a cognitive bias. And by not accepting information
so easily, we find ourselves or we can put ourselves
in a better position by activating that level
two and thinking more critically. And in the
long run, we just make better and better decisions.
And of course, that's what brings us closer to
success. Do you think that, I hate to generalize
or even say most, but do you think that most
people stop at the good enough and don't move
into the critical thinking era? And if so, why
is that? It's tiring. It's a lot of energy. It's
a lot of effort. And people don't care. We have
this bias where we want to feel good about ourselves.
And again, information that doesn't make us feel
good about ourselves, we don't like it. So we
tend not to search that kind of information out.
So when we hear information that makes us feel
good, we accept it. And we say, that's good enough.
That's good enough for me. I heard it from this
one guy who just happened to tell me I watched
something on a YouTube channel. And this guy
in the YouTube channel said something that comports
with my beliefs. So that's enough proof for me.
Of course, we know from a critical thinking standpoint,
that's horrible. You don't get your information
from from YouTube. You need you need to like
you can get the information there. But then you
got to verify the sources from other sources
of information and make sure that what you heard
is actually true. But when we don't want it to
be false, we don't need that level of confirmation.
We don't seek out that level of confirmation.
In fact, we actively reject that level of confirmation,
which puts us in a bad position of accepting
a lot of false information. It's dangerous. Yes.
It can be dangerous. Then what would be the message
for people to really get past that space? It's
good enough. I'll go to YouTube, which of course
this is on and say, you know, I heard what he
said. I need to find some other sources. Like
there's an energy that has to be there for people
to say, let me go here and check this out. Let
me go ahead and check this out. And not just
this 10 second blip or blurb or whatever of this
information that I found that I might agree with,
but maybe be false. And the energy you're talking
about is desire. It's that simple. You have to
want to know. what's true. You have to be the
kind of person that says, I want to know what's
true. I want to accept more true things and reject
more false things. That's the kind of person
I am. You have to basically build your identity
around that. And that's where like identity politics
comes into play and becomes a problem as well.
If word if you know, a die -hard leftist or a
die -hard rightist, or if we're very religious
in one area, whatever. If we have like strong
ideological beliefs, that's when we get into
the most trouble because we want those beliefs
to be supported. We create our own identity based
on those beliefs. So somebody may say like, I
am, I am a Christian. That's who I am. I am a
liberal. That's who I am. Then If you find out
that your beliefs might be wrong, or problematic,
all of a sudden, your identity is being destroyed.
And that's incredibly painful and tough for so
many people. So my advice is lose the labels,
you know, get rid of the identity. Of course,
you could have any belief you want to like religious
or political, that doesn't matter. But be the
kind of person if somebody says, you know, who
are you? Bo describe yourself as a person. I
would say like, you know, I'm the kind of person
who likes to believe as many true things as possible
and reject as many false things. I'm a critical
thinker. That's my identity. That's what I embrace.
And now I could use that to freely evaluate any
claim that's thrown at me in the social, the
political or the religious or the business domains.
And it doesn't matter. I don't care about the
outcome. because I'm not connected to those outcomes
in any meaningful way. My only thing that I care
about is being a good critical thinker. When
I was listening to you, what I was hearing is
that people are so attached to who they think
they are or who they believe they are because
that's what their identity is to them. And if
they lose their identity, then who are they?
You know, but it's like you said it's important
to have a critical just have critical thinking
skills simply to really find what's Factual and
what's non -factual and the solution isn't to
lose your identity It's just to change your identity
to really think about the kind of person you
are and who you are as a person And basically
you give you give yourself an identity based
on you could you could base your identity on
values but more specific values instead of labels.
So for example, you wouldn't say, if you say
I'm conservative, that's a conservative is one
of my values. No, forget about that. That's a
label. There's a lot of baggage that comes along
with that. So don't say that. Say I really value
freedom. And then maybe even more specific. That's
OK. And also know that it's OK to change your
values. I think one of the big problems that
we get in when we're talking about, when we have
like moral debates or political debates, is people
think in black and white, which again is another
bias, the black and white thinking. People tend
to think in black and white like there's just
two sides of issues when that's not the case.
It's like, okay, I value my freedom, but I also
value safety. And we know like in the political
arena, those two are often at odds, right? Like
how safe do you want to be? Like how much privacy
do you want to have? Like which is probably the
freedom domain versus how safe do you want to
be? Like do you want the government spying on
you if it means it could save a million lives
a year? So there's like pros and cons and you
have to think about all these things in a like
a rational critical way. and understand that
they're not binary and you could value multiple
things at once. And based on who we are as a
person, who we are genetically and environmentally,
how we grew up, we may value things different.
So somebody, one of my good friends may value
freedom a little bit more than I do. I may value
safety a little bit more and that's okay. A lot
of times when we talk about, when we get down
to that, like the nitty gritty there, there's
no way of really quantifying who is right. You
know, it's more of just a feeling, just like
an attitude. And there's nothing wrong with that.
And we have to accept that and understand that.
Yeah, I was going to say, doesn't that come with
just how people feel because people are definitely
connected or attached to their feelings about
certain things, topics, areas? That gets into
a really interesting philosophical debate, because
ultimately everything comes down to a feeling.
And we don't have to get into that now, but if
you think about it, like, well, why this, you
know, why do I want this policy to be enacted?
If you keep on just digging down, it comes down
to, well, I just feel that this this is better
than that. So to make like perfectly rational
decisions is almost impossible. There's there's
an element of feeling of value of something subjective
in there. that we can't quite quantify, but we
can still, still make rational decisions, but
we have to understand that element exists and
we have to be able to explain it. Like why I
think my idea or my way is better than yours.
For anyone listening to this, like how, how can
they train themselves to think more critically
in this era? Cause it's, this seems like, well,
not even seem like, but there is a lot of misinformation
that's happening. So since we're talking about
feelings, you know, you get this information,
you're so attached to this feeling of what this
information or misinformation would be, and then
it kind of clouds the thinking. So how does one
train themselves to become more critical, more
of a critical thinker? Yeah, it comes back to
desire again. And I hate to say it because the
hard fact is very few people desire this, statistically
speaking. And we know this, I mean, we could
look at our recent history and there are things
that people, like it's so clearly false information,
but by believing it and accepting it, these people
believe that good things will come to them so
they don't care. And I've had conversations with
good friends and family members about this. And
essentially it comes down to look, I just don't
care. I don't care about this. This makes me
happy. You know, that's, that's all that I care
about. What, what needs to happen is, and usually
people do go experience this at one point or
another, they just have to recognize it. When
they accepted something uncritically, because
it made them feel good at the time, because they
thought they were going to get something in return
that was going to be good. And they realized.
They got the shaft, right? They realized that
they were sold a bag of goods that they didn't
get. They got conned. They got scammed. That's
when critical thinking, the desire for critical
thinking kicks in. And without that, it's really
not going to happen because there's just not
enough motivation for it. So people have to realize
that people have to, they've got to feel it like
viscerally. They got to feel like, I cannot believe
I fell for this. I cannot believe I went down
this path. I made these decisions. I voted in
a certain way. I did whatever because I believed
all this. And now look at where we are. Look
at what's happening to me because of it. And
it's moments like that, where people all of a
sudden start questioning their beliefs and become
critical thinkers. So that's what we need as
a society. serious moment for someone to wake
up to that critical thought process? Like, why,
why wouldn't it happen before? Because people
don't care. And that's it. If you don't have
a reason to accept critical thinking and start
thinking critically, then you know, why bother?
I think people like to just say that they're
critical thinkers. And I think it's like you
ask somebody if they have a sense of humor, of
course, I got a great sense of humor. Everybody
says that it's that that whole idea that everybody
thinks they're in there better than 50 % of all
the drivers, you know, that can't statistically
be true. But virtually, everybody says that the
same thing with critical thinking, virtually,
everybody thinks that they're a good critical
thinker. But the statistics are no half the population.
is below 50 % in terms of critical thinking abilities.
That's a statistical fact. There's no changing
that. And in order to move yourself up, I mean,
yes, there is some like inherent ability. Some
people are more logical thinkers than other,
like mathematicians and logicians and so forth.
But that's not what we're talking about. You
don't have to be like the top 1%. You just need
to make that conscious desire to improve your
critical thinking. And all it really takes, again,
is just to realize that you're not thinking clearly,
and you're using too much emotion, and you need
to stop, you need to take a step back, and you
need to engage that critical thinking. in these
important decisions in life. Not everything.
You're going to buy a cereal at the shopping
center, at the grocery store. You don't have
to make a spreadsheet of which you get Captain
Crunch or Count Chocula. You just pick one that
you like, right? That's definitely emotion right
there. Yeah. Yeah. Fruity Pebbles tastes better
than tricks. I love Fruity Pebbles. The whole
psychology of people in relationships and Is
there a way to like, you know, psychologically
trick people to like, let's say like this way,
is there a psychological trick that successful
entrepreneurs can use to stay ahead of, you know,
just stay ahead and not be so drawn in by the
emotions? Yes, there's, if you want to call them
psychological tricks, because that's just a word
I just came up with. And that's fine. That's
fine. That word actually does describe what I'm
talking about. And these are persuasion techniques.
If you've, you've heard of those before, like
how to persuade people, salespeople are trained
in some different persuasion techniques. Marketing
is filled with persuasion techniques and some
of them are More like gimmicky and they're just
like there's no real science behind them where
others have been proven and demonstrated time
and time again. Like the foot in the door technique
is one that immediately comes to mind when you
ask somebody for like a small favor. And they'll
do the favor for you and then you follow up with
a bigger favor, like a bigger request, and they're
far more likely to do it because they see themselves
now as the kind of person who will help you because
they helped you with something small. And then
they'll help you with something bigger. You know,
salespeople would use this technique, they do
it in marketing. But there's like a whole host
of these persuasion techniques that are really
good to know. Because persuasion is incredibly
important. And it's not just about like selling
people something. It's about basically getting
getting people. You can look at it two ways.
One is manipulation. Which could be I mean the
difference between persuasion manipulation. It's
kind of Like like there's a thin line there and
it's kind of subjective But the way I see it
is when you manipulate somebody you get somebody
to do something that you want them to do specifically
When you persuade somebody you get somebody to
do what what they should do for themselves And
if that benefits you, great. You get them to
make a better decision. So that's what I like
to think is more like ethical persuasion in psychology.
And this could relate to all areas of business
as well. If you know something's good for somebody.
If you have a product that so many people use
and they do incredibly well and it makes their
lives easier and makes them more successful,
then of course you want to share that with other
people. So you want to persuade people to get
over those bridges that are like holding them
back, you know, and you want to help them get
over that in order to buy your product or your
service or whatever. And that's where persuasion
techniques could come in handy. Good deal. Because
that's when you were saying, when you talked
about that, I was thinking about You know, a
lot of businesses are online now and they use
these funnels. And funnels are, you know, they
may give them a, you know, a free thing that
leads them to something else that's, you know,
either it's a free thing that goes to a small
price of something, but then it leads them into,
you know, whatever their grand thing is. And
I think, well, that's just how things are going
now. Do you see the value in the ethics in funnels?
Yes, I see both the value definitely the value
of doing that because to get somebody let's say
that you are a consultant or you're and you you're
doing a seminar that costs like three thousand
dollars for you know one day session and just
tell people hey my name is Bo and I charge three
thousand dollars for an eight -hour day, come
see me at the Marriott. That's not going to go
over too well. But if you say, hey, here's my
book that I wrote, go ahead. It's an ebook. Take
it for free. Read it. See if you like what I
say. And then, you know, if you do, I got this
online course you could take for 100 bucks. And
this gets into more detail and it tells more
about what you need to know. And then say, hey,
you like the course? Great. Well, now you could
if you if you got the money and you got the desire.
teaching over at the Marriott, you know, for
$3 ,000. So it kind of leads them down that path.
But it does so in a way where they know what
they're getting into. They're not coming in cold.
So that's where I see it as like an ethical way
of doing it. Again, if done correctly. If done
correctly. What's up Thrivo Journey listeners
and watchers? Look. If you're someone with big
dreams of entrepreneurship, but need a flexible
way to earn income while building your business,
let me tell you about the Oriens Group. Through
our partnership with Arise Virtual Solutions,
you can become a customer support professional,
aka CSP and start earning from home on your own
terms. Arise offers a streamlined certification
process, getting you trained and ready to work
with well -known brands all across America. You
can set your own hours to the clients you want
to work with and create a work -life balance
that fits your entrepreneurial goals. The best
part, you don't have to choose between your side
gig and your business dreams. Being a CSP with
the Oriens Group means you can bring in extra
income, while have the flexibility to focus on
growing your own venture, much like I did. Whether
you're looking to supplement your income or need
a bridge while building your empire, this is
the opportunity for you. You interested? If so,
head over to www .TheOrientsGroup .com to learn
more about becoming a CSP with the Orients Group.
Look here. Support your entrepreneurial journey
while supporting the Thravo Journey podcast at
the same time. All right, one more time, www
.theoreansgroup .com. All right, we're done with
the spot. Let's get back to the podcast. Yeah,
there's, you know, there's the good, you know,
funnels and I've seen some not so good funnels.
I just call them bad. They're just bad funnels.
So you just have to be aware of those and that's
where the critical thinking comes from. Because,
you know, in emotion, you may go down a funnel
and be like, Oh, this is good. This is good.
This is good. Then again, you get to the final,
then you're back to, I've been, you know, I've
been sold a bill of goods. And then, you know,
from that experience, you're probably more aware.
Yeah. And more critical and more critical. There's
one thing that I, that I am thinking of, like
when it comes to the funnels and that's, it's
kind of like watching a series, like a TV series
where there's always questions for each episode.
And then you're saying, okay, maybe they're not
going to get answered this episode. Maybe they'll
get answered in this season, right? And then
when the season comes, I know they're not answered
yet, but the end of the series, I'm going to
stick with it. And then the end of the series
comes and they don't get answered. You're like,
what did I just spend eight years watching? It's,
it's like that if with these funnels, sometimes
I see like a promise being made, like this is
what you're going to get out of it. This is what's
going to happen. Here's where all the things
and like, okay, the free thing didn't get me
that. Maybe the next one will. Okay, that didn't
get me. Maybe the next one. Well, there's always
that promise that you're going to get something
that you never end up getting. And then you eventually
paid the $3 ,000. And yeah, it's like, I've never
done this before. But I heard the story, you
probably know who Anthony Robbins is, correct?
Yeah. Yeah. So he he does these seminars, then
he charges like probably $3 ,000. I don't know
what they are. But they're really expensive,
like the live in person ones. And from what I
heard, from many people and read online as well,
is that there's a money back guarantee. If you
want your money back, if you feel like you didn't
get the value, they send you into this room,
like after the event, because that's what you
have to do. And then in the room comes Anthony
Robbins. And basically, you have to ask him for
your money back. And he's there to convince you
that, no, you don't want your money back. And
of course, you're so starstruck and embarrassed
that you don't ask for your money back, you don't
demand it. That's how they make their money.
Is that ethical? I don't think so. But, you know,
I like Anthony Robbins, so I'll give him a pass.
You said you like him, so you'll give him a pass?
No, I think the people that go in the room, that's
probably the same thing that they'll say. Yeah,
right. Yeah, exactly. You're a good guy. I'll
give him a pass for this. But I think you kind
of know what you're getting yourself into with
those type of things. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And
just to kind of do a little shift here, I have
a question here. Talking about AI, future of
technology, me personally, I use AI and I think
AI for information is good. They do services
with AI. Some of them I do voice things for and
things like that. And you run several websites
that use AI and it's a lot of stuff. A lot of
things going on with AI. What excites you or
doesn't excite you about AI right now? Virtually
everything excites me about AI right now. Watching
it develop, and I've been there from the beginning
of the commercialization of AI and signed up
for it and seeing how it's progressing. And what
you can do with it and how companies are using
it. And mostly all of these ideas that I have,
like how it could be used, how it can make people's
lives easier and better. It's just so darn exciting.
And it's, it's literally hard for me to sleep
at night because thinking about all the things
that I could be doing, it could be building.
It's just like, I just don't have enough time
in the day to do all this stuff. Even with AI
helping me and doing 90 % of the work. It's still
difficult, but it's really exciting. And I think
that I am an optimist by nature, I think. So
I do believe that it is going to make our lives
better in so many ways. And of course, there
is the downside as well, like misinformation,
deep fakes, and just AI being used for like hacking
and doing bad things. But I do believe that there
are far more good people in the world than there
are bad people. And for that reason, far more
good people are going to be in charge of powerful
AI than far more bad people will, or the more
bad people will. Therefore, you're going to have
like kind of like AI wars. I was about to say
a little war off. Yeah. Yeah. Where, where you
have, it's just kind of like we have now with
hackers. There are, there's like, you have your
community of, I don't want to use hackers. crackers,
I guess is the, um, for the back for people who
are bad hackers, right? Okay. Like crack. Okay.
I'm clear now. Yeah. Um, and okay. I'm sorry.
Go ahead. Yeah. So, so like them, you have, you
have like the bad AI and you have all the good
AI fighting the bad AI. And like right now the
good ethical hackers are, are essentially keeping
everything working properly and functioning because
of security and constantly building up security,
even though you constantly have like the bad
unethical hackers trying to get in there and
break things and steal things. So I think the
same thing we're going to be seeing with AI in
the future development. And I think that the
good is going to overcome the bad because that's
our human nature. Our human nature is to be more
good than bad. describing and talking about it,
the thing that came into my mind with AI, the
war, the possible war, whatever, was we have
the internet, right? And then you have the dark
web. So those two things definitely, you know,
that they're present, but you have the good things
fighting against the dark web and all that kind
of stuff that those shenanigans I call them.
Yeah. What's, what's your biggest Not yours,
but what are people's biggest misconception about
AF? Well, I think that it's incredibly dangerous
and it's scary. I think that's the biggest misconception.
It has the potential to be dangerous. I sort
of see it kind of like a knife, you know, you
could you could heal with it in a surgeon's hand,
or you could kill somebody with it. That's it
has the potential to be dangerous. But it's important.
And it's something that you shouldn't be afraid
of. It's something that you need to embrace.
I feel like there are so many people who will
be losing their jobs, their current jobs, because
of AI. And therefore, they're automatically going
to hate AI. And I think that's a problem. You
can't do that. Just like if you were running
a horse and buggy company, 1900, and the cars
were coming along, you can't be the guy who says,
don't pay attention to these cars. They're demonic.
They're going to destroy the world. You got to
be the guy who says, I want one of these cars
and part of my fleet. Let's bring one in. Let's
bring a couple and we'll slowly replace them
with the horse and buggies. That's the kind of
person you need to be. So you need to find out
how you can use AI to help you and to embrace
it and be on the top of the curve. We're going
to ride the wave. Don't be Don't be in the back
part of it when you get drowned by it. Right.
Right. And this is for, this question is for
people who are, you know, in business, they're
fighting the AI since we're talking about it
now. First of all, let's be, let's be honest.
Can I truly replicate human creativity or replace
human behavior or humans period? I guess that's.
I don't know how to answer that question because
it depends on how you judge it. I believe that
AI passes the Turing test. If you heard of that
from Alan Turing when he was interacting with
a computer to see if it passes as a human. And
it didn't back then, but it does now. OK. That's
new to me. Yeah, that's kind of an important
milestone. And I'm not exactly sure what actually
passed. Does the regular chat GPT pass these
days? When you can't tell the difference, if
you're talking to a real person, you're chatting
with a real person. And here's where we get into
philosophy and a little bit of psychology. But
I think this is an important concept and an interesting
one as well. It's that when you think about what
artificial intelligence is, it's basically just
non -biological intelligence. And what I mean
by that is how do we know what we know? Like
me and you, like how do we know these things?
We didn't, I didn't make up these words that
I'm speaking. This is words that other people
have said and taught me and I just put them in
order, like the order in order to make up my
own thoughts. And how about the thoughts that
I'm having? I'm constantly influenced by everything
I see in the world and TV. The comedy that I
wrote, you can look and you could see the influences
there from like The Office, one of my favorite
sitcoms, Dodgeball, the movie Dodgeball. You
could see a lot of the similar humor. I might
have written the specific jokes with the specific
circumstances, but all of that is really just
everything that I've learned in life that has
come together. I've taken all that information
and I've put it in my own order, if you will,
in order to become me, like the person I am.
So is AI really any different? I mean, AI takes
the cumulative knowledge of all the information
it has and it comes up with It could come up
with unique things. It writes songs. It writes
music, notes, jokes, everything that are completely
original. Isn't that creativity? And how is that
actually different from our creativity? I think
it's just a matter of degree. And there's also
a bias there, a human bias. We put humans on
this pedestal, especially if you have religious
beliefs. Like there's like some kind of like
divine status associated with humans and everything
else is something else. Like whether it be animals
or, you know, unfortunately some people think
other countries and other races or whatever have
like a different status because of whatever their
beliefs. But if you think about, you know, who
we are, and if, and if you do kind of like accept
more naturalistic type of view of who we are
and how we became who we are, you could easily
see how artificial intelligence is really in
that same boat, if you will, and how it's not
much different than we are. We've been around
for millions of years, or at least hundreds of
thousands of years. And AI has been around for
what? You know, maybe a decade in its earliest
form. And look at how far it's come. So where
is it going to be in a year? Where is it going
to be in 10 years? I mean, boom, mind blowing
to think where it is. It is because, I mean,
it was like he just came on the scene and then
where it is now is like, you know, some people
like myself and business and things like that
we're trying to wish still trying to catch up
to it. And it's moving faster than you know,
I am. But it's okay, because I think I think
because I have a personality where, like, I'm
open to it. Like, at first, I was like, Oh, this
is kind of crazy. But it's not. I mean, it may
be crazy. Yeah, okay. Well, every definition
of the word. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And it does
serve a purpose. And hopefully that it just continues
to serve a purpose that makes us as human as
a human race better. And with business, how does
like, how does one in business use AI to advance
itself with with value? Well, I would say the
best way to do this is use AI to ask it. So go
into ChatGPT or whatever chat that you like to
use AI that you like to use and say, here's what
I do. I am a whatever. I'm an entrepreneur who
runs a real estate company. I do this, whatever.
You tell exactly what you do and you say, how
can AI help me in what I do? Mind blown already,
you know, you'll see the response and then you
could just keep on drilling down. And that's,
that's how you start. That's how you get started.
And you won't believe like, Oh, wow. I didn't
even think of that. That's a, that's a great
idea. Yeah. And yeah. And you can go in and do
the things that you need to do that, that can
curtail to, you know, your experience and your
purpose and things like that. But you as a young
person, younger person, I don't know how old
you are now at you've told your first company
at. 20 at age 29 for 20 million. Can you explain
that story talk about that? Sure. Yeah, that
was my my first large company or the way I like
to word it is my first company of significant
value I sold that so Just to give you some some
history behind that I probably had like 10 different
businesses before that Like they weren't all
official businesses, but they were like business
ventures or whatever and like none of them did
well the last one The last one I had before that,
I actually paid my way through college with it.
So it was doing well, but I ended up taking on
a client who ended up ripping me off, scamming
me of several hundred thousand dollars. So I
ended up having to sell the business for $1 to
my partner who took on that debt and I got out
of it. That's a big lesson, right? It's a lesson,
of course. And we talked about how you become
more critical after you get scammed and conned.
And that certainly happened. Perfect scenario.
Yeah. So when I started the web hosting business,
that was back in 1994. And it was the perfect
time. I was in the perfect situation. I'd just
graduated college. So I had had a little money
left over. I had no debt. I could still live
with my parents if I wanted to. So I was in the
perfect place to take a risk. And it was just
when people started finding out about the internet,
like what the internet was. And I was fascinated
because I grew up with computers and doing programming
and stuff. So it was kind of a natural fit for
me, even though I went to school for marketing.
So that's how I started. I started a first web
hosting company. And it was one of the first
ones out there. I grew it. I grew it with like
an affiliate program before Amazon had their
affiliate program. So it was, it was just caught
on and it wasn't, it wasn't like a straight climb
up either. Despite how successful it ultimately
was when I sold it, there were a lot of ups and
downs and a lot of times in that six year, approximately
timeframe when I was thinking, Oh geez, am I
going to make it next month? You know, is I'm
in big trouble here. Especially with like all
the technical and hardware issues and the downtime.
And I mean, it was, it was a different internet
back then. Oh yeah. I dial up. Is that, is that
a ring of bill? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but yeah,
that, and so I, it was, it was the perfect storm
of factors that, that allowed me to start that
company and sell it for when I did. That's, that's
pretty extraordinary. These days, I mean, you
know, internet is different, you know, and you
know, we fast paced things we have did, you know,
things are fiber optic and all that wonderful
stuff. No longer. Oh, there's a LL. I mean, it's
still around still there. There's something better.
They don't listen. Right. If someone wanted to
start a business today, like what is a what's
a what's a good first step for anyone who is
really looking at starting their own business.
Well, most people will tell you, you know, do
what you love, find something that you love doing
and do that. That's I think that's stupid advice.
And the reason is because most people love things
that don't make money, right? Right. There's
I mean, I love tons of things that will never
make a penny and are unlikely to make a penny.
But people hear those one story like that one
story where somebody like Jim Henson is a wonderful
example. Jim Henson loves love puppets. He always
loved performing with puppets. And he became,
you know, multi billionaire or however much he
made and incredibly famous and changed the world
with his with his puppets. But he's like the
one guy, you know, who would do that. Yeah, that's
the only one I can really think of except for
that. that guy with that what's wrong with the
dog. Right, right. Yeah. So but for the most
part, for most people, like unless you're willing
to take that one in a billion shot, and you're
willing to accept those odds, and you're willing
to accept failure, then you might want to think
about a combination of doing something that you
hopefully love, but something that you at least
really enjoy something that that kind of that
gets you excited. That's good enough. And Something
that also has marketing potential. That's the
key. It has to have marketing potential. And
how do you know that? Well, I guess you give
it a shot. You see what the interest is. You
see what happens. And if it doesn't work out,
then not a big deal. Change courses. Find something
else. Find something else, yeah. But specifically
focusing on doing what you love. Bad advice.
What's a belief that you once had about success
that later? You changed your mind about it. Oh,
boy. I was big into all the self -help books
and the gurus. And that's how I know people like
Anthony Robbins, Dennis Waitley, Zig Ziglar,
Les Brown. I know all those guys. We're in the
same vein. Yeah. And I got to tell you, to this
day, they're incredibly motivating. They're inspiring.
The human psyche likes to hear that stuff. We
like to associate with energetic people, people
with charisma, people like, just listen to them
talk about anything. It doesn't matter. It's
like you feel that you feel the energy and it
builds you up as well. So there's, there's something
to that. But what I, what I discovered, you know,
after after some schooling and a PhD in psychology
that a lot of what they actually say is complete
nonsense in terms of like the content itself.
Okay, it's mostly it's mostly like pseudoscience
in a way or just like completely wrong made up
facts. I think it was I think it was Zig Ziglar.
I don't want to pin this on him if it wasn't
him, but you could look this up. Your listeners
could look this up. Like in one of the speeches
he gave, one of his famous recordings or whatever,
he talked about this statistic between Yale,
like people who set goals 20 years later, they
made like $200 ,000 more on average versus the
people who didn't set goals. And that was like
motivating. Like, wow, I could see the power
of setting goals. It was completely and totally
made up. There was like, I think it was fast
company who actually did the research. They had
a whole team of researchers go in there. call
Zig Ziglar's foundation and his people and say,
you know, where did this come from? They couldn't
find it. They looked up like all the records
of Harvard and Yale. They couldn't find anything.
It was completely and totally made up. And that's
not just to say like this one, this is a one
secluded instance. I mean, that's just what they
do. If it sounds good and it makes you feel good,
that's usually good enough for people. And that's
why the self -help motivational industry does
so well, because it makes people feel good, even
though it's not completely factual. So overall,
like in general, I kind of learned to separate
that information from what I now kind of look
at. And that's called positive psychology. And
that's like the science of the good aspect of
psychology. Most psychology is focused on like
what makes us, what hurts us, you know, mentally,
like the deficiencies we have psychological deficiencies
where positive psychology focuses on that opposite.
It's more like the self -help. It's like what
makes us great. And it looks at case studies
and it looks at like experiments and all that
stuff. So I would encourage anybody who really
likes the success gurus like I do to transition
from them to the science of positive psychology.
You'll get the same benefits plus you'll get
the truth and more accurate information. How
does someone get connected with someone who actually
practices positive psychology? You just Google
positive psychology. I think you'll find tons
of books on it, courses, everything. Talking
about positive psychology, just coming up with
a question. Do those, is that, I guess, does
it change your habits or daily practices? And
does that help impact what you do daily for your
personal growth? It's hard to tell. It's hard
to pin any cause on a certain effect. So I could
tell you I feel like it does. And I think that's
the best I could say. That's the best you could
say. Okay. I like the truth. I like the truth.
So you worked in businesses, psychology, AI,
comedy. What's next for you? I still have AI
tunnel vision, basically. Okay. So much that
I want to do with AI. Got a huge laundry list
of ideas. So I'm going to keep working on that
until... Until something better comes along.
Until I'm motivated to take a different course.
But that's what I'm doing now. Nice. I like that.
What's an unconventional piece of advice that
you would like people to hear? Well, I think
the best unconventional piece is the piece I
already touched on. You feel like you want to
follow your dreams and follow what you love doing.
Rethink that idea. You could be an unsuccessful,
unemployed person who's doing what they love
doing. And let me clarify that too. I don't want
to sound like a greedy, rich, scrooge guy when
it's all about money. If you don't care about
money and you don't care about financial success,
then by all means, go ahead, play with your puppets.
Write that song. Do whatever you want to do.
But if you're looking specifically for something
that has marketing potential. If you want to
be a successful entrepreneur, then rethink, reshape
your dreams, your goals, your hobbies, the things
you love doing and connect them to something
that has marketing potential and then follow
that. Follow that. I like that. You currently
have 10 businesses or is that true? Is that accurate?
Well, it depends how you define a business. I
have dozens of websites. websites. Each websites
is like, yes, essentially a different business,
but it all falls under my main company Archie
Boy Holdings, which is a holding company for
all the different websites and businesses that
I have. So to answer your question in short,
I would say yes. Same here. So I understand.
I understand. So how do people get in touch with
you and how do you connect with people? Well,
you could go to, if you're interested in the
businesses and what I'm doing, go to archieboy
.com. If you're interested in some of my writings
in the books and psychology, motivation, success,
critical thinking, you could find my books at
bobenet .com. That's my personal website. Perfect.
It's been an interesting conversation. I'm full
of questions right now and I don't want to kill
the time. What you had to share was opening my
mind to how psychology can... work in my business
and just the fact of just being critically thinking
and all that we do, separating my emotion to
critical thoughts and being able to move myself
and my business forward. So I appreciate you
being here. Do you have any last words? The last
words? These are the last words of the podcast,
not of my life, I hope. Of the podcast. That
should have been a little more clear. I hope
we're done here. I'll get in, get out of here
and I'll keep doing other things. Well, I do
have one other piece, some last words and maybe
unconventional advice if you want to call it
that as well. And that's this whole idea of,
you know, I'm just thinking if I get into that,
we're going to be talking for another 20 minutes.
So I better, I bet. No, it's, I mean, it's up
to you. You have the last word and we'll wrap
it up with that. Right, right. Yeah. I'll just
give you something quick, and that's be flexible.
That's what it's really about. It's about knowing
when to change courses, knowing when to give
up, and don't use the term give up. Use it, change
courses, because then we associate that with
negativity, when in fact so many people just
kind of stick with the same thing, the same path,
and it's not getting them where they want to
be, but they have this desire. And it's ingrained
and they're brainwashed that giving up is failure
and it's bad when in fact it's often the good
thing to do. If I didn't give up my graphic design
business that wasn't doing too well, I would
have never started the internet business and
I would have never been as successful as I was.
So keep an eye out for opportunity and be flexible
and know when to shift gears when needed. What
I'm hearing is okay to pivot. Well, thank you.
I really appreciate you being here on the podcast.
We have great information. And for all you watchers
and listeners, you know that you can always connect
with us on Facebook, Instagram, and we'll have
both information in the description so you can
be connected with both. Again, thank you for
being on the podcast. Thank you for having me.
I really appreciate it. Good talking to you.
You're welcome. As we say about this time, make
thriving your new normal.