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Speech Transcript (very little editing so not exact)

L. Scott Ferguson: [00:00:00] Time to Shine Today, podcast varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson, and I am God, my legend, the legend, Cody Lowry here someone that takes on a life of unique perspective executing bold ideas, making others laugh and being ever mindful. of the little guy, past divisional president of the Intermark Group, a full service advertising digital and branding agency located in Birmingham, Alabama.

L. Scott Ferguson: [00:00:00] Time To Shine Today. Podcast varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson. And I have a 2. 0 interview with my really good friend, the clarity coach, Mark Kanty and Mark. And I spoke a couple of years ago and like, we always kind of like touch base with each other, but Mark has been pouring into me and really leveling up.

Time to shine today podcast. I mean, I’m blessed to be a top 2 percent globally. And thank you for that, for all the listeners and whatnot, but Mark is just really kind of pushed me over the top in Mark again, he is the clarity coach and online coaching business strategy expert in a co presenter of the popular, which don’t go there now, but do definitely check out upscale your business podcast.

With Jamie Scoletti as well, who I had on a couple of a couple of years ago as well, but Mark guides people on a journey to release the full potential of their coaching business by rediscovering their unique competencies, gaining a profound understanding of their client’s desires and creating a thriving online coaching practice through the application of practical business strategies.

And Mark, thank you so much. Welcome [00:01:00] back. Please introduce Podcast for RC squad, but first, what is the superpower that you have? That nobody really knows about.

Mark Kanty: Woo. Well, it’s right. Hey, Scott. Thanks. It’s as always. It’s so much fun. And I got to let everybody know we’re going to have some fun today because Scott and I are flying solo.

We have nobody, no support team in place. So there’s going to be a lot of laughter and maybe a few hiccups there as we work through this. But I think you, you called it out. My superpower is clarity. You know, I, I, I was raised in a small business environment and I just always had this ability to walk into a business, whether it’s brick and mortar or see it online and instantly, you know, it’s kind of like the matrix to me.

I can see all the little things and I can see the tweaks and the things that need to be clarified and need to be removed or need to be added. Literally, you know, in an instant. So I know that sounds maybe braggart or whatever, but it’s just, it’s kind of an intuitive thing for me that that I go straight cut straight to the chase and see what’s new, what’s fresh, what needs [00:02:00] to be done.

And I

L. Scott Ferguson: love. That the clarity, cause you can’t have clarity about curiosity. You know, you get very curious with stuff. And you know, one thing that really stood out about our last interview, Mark, is that, , that like, that I even take with me this day is, , you, you said that we all have our own unique story to tell.

We all have potential to change ours and other people’s world. And I mean, even as the human body, like our body’s always evolving. I mean, we’re aging, but we’re evolving. We change. And I believe that if I’m the same person I was a year ago, I’m really not serving the world to the best of my ability. So I want to thank you for that knowledge nugget that you gave me a couple of years ago to really continuously level up and help others level up brothers.

So again, welcome back, but what’s been going on in your world, my friend.

Mark Kanty: Well, what’s been going on in my world. And, and I think, you know, you just called it out again, this, this idea of we live in a world of constant change and change is accelerating. As a matter of fact, in a few minutes, we’re going to jump over.

I want to [00:03:00] share a few visuals with everybody and those who are on the podcast and can’t see it, I’ll, I’ll just quickly describe each as we go through. And so hopefully that helps you or we’ll, we’ll give you tools so that you can get the slides and you can see, I’ll be in the show on this for sure. But the, the idea of constant change and embracing it, it excites me rather than, you know, a lot of people fear change.

And to me, as I see, because it can be overwhelming, right? When you see things coming at you so fast, you think, Oh my God, I just got this finished. How do I now move on and adapt to this new change? So how do we do that? How do we, how do we get in that mindset where we’re, we’re making decisions faster and we’re feeling confident in them?

You know, to me, that’s really key. And one of the hottest topics right now and what, what I’m right following to a T and I’m going to share why, because to me, this is a major transformation that’s going on not just in the online space, not just in the business world, but in the world in general is AI.

Yes, sir. And you can be [00:04:00] afraid of it. You can think that it’s you know, the devil incarnate. But the reality is it’s here and it’s going to be upon us and it is upon us. And if you don’t embrace it and really figure out how to leverage that to the best of your ability, not to take advantage of people, but in an ethical and congruent way that fits with your values and fits with what you want to do in terms of serving the world and serving.

The people that you serve, you’re going to get left behind you, you know, others are going to step into that space and do that for you. So I want to focus on that today and really encourage people to dive in and understand, not get overwhelmed with it, not chase rabbits, but to really understand how they can leverage it.

L. Scott Ferguson: I love it. And I love that you said that, you know, that it can be the devil incarnate and there’s so much change, but Mark, when like I’m 51 years old and I know that in school Teachers would frown on me having a calculator in math, math [00:05:00] class. And I’m sorry, but a calculator is nothing more than AI in its earliest infancy, right?

And it was like, you’re using it. And now if you don’t have a calculator, much less that a laptop. In class, then you’re left behind, right?

Mark Kanty: You bet parents are running out. It’s part of the, it’s part of the package. They have to pick up before the kids go in September. Right, right, right. It used to be pencils, coloring pencils, notepads.

Yeah, now it’s laptop. Calculator. Yeah. Even farther than calculator. Now it’s the laptop, right? Right.

L. Scott Ferguson: And that’s all AI and at an infancy at one time, it was all AI. When you went to a webpage that was artificial intelligence in 1995 or seven, or when we really started surfing. Right. And so what really clicked with you, Mark, to say, Hey man, I see this.

I’m skeptical yet interested, but then it clicked and said, Hey man, I’m used. I’m going to implement AI to, to really, to my version of changing the world. Like what really clicked with you? What [00:06:00] was it, Mark?

Mark Kanty: Yeah. You know, I love this. The perfect segue you’re, you’re, you’re bringing up metaphors that are blowing my mind here.

But the idea of the calculator moving to the computer, moving on is speed. Is the currency today? Yes. Yes. And what did the calculator give us? It said, well, you could write out this long algorithm. I mean, I remember from uni days, you know, writing out in statistics, writing out these long, long formulas and then programming them into my little calculator.

Right. Before that, it was all done longhand. How long did it take to write that out and do that calculation? Then the, then along comes the calculator and All of a sudden it’s, you know, what a million fold it’s done. And, you know, in terms of speed that it changes everything, then the computer comes along and does that even faster.

So this is a key I think to AI is that what it’s going to allow us to do is to accelerate at a dramatic rate. A lot of the things that we can do. And not [00:07:00] only that, but it’s going to allow us to do them better and at a higher quality standard than we possibly could on our own. So i’ll give you a quick example and this is where I got to be careful because scott and I can get together we could yeah This podcast could go on for hours.

So I gotta be tight here.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah real quick mark while you’re getting set up squad I’m going to preface this is that this will be In the show notes because we’re going to do a little bit on video here. And that You know, Mark’s going to kind of have a teachable moment here. So it will, I’m going to actually do the whole full length video on Vimeo and YouTube, and also this part where Mark’s going to have a little, little teachable time for us, but go ahead.

And,

Mark Kanty: you know, Scott and I are here to serve. We’re here to give you. To help you level up to give you the information that you need to level up. So know that you can reach out. I know you have various channels that you can reach out to Scott on. You can reach out to me and we’re happy to share, you know, any of these visuals or anything that we’re doing here.

Please do love to connect with you. [00:08:00] On, on any platform and I’m more than happy to share anything. So don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything you’re here. Am I sharing?

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah, your screen’s on there. Yes, sir.

Mark Kanty: Cool. Okay. So again, you know, you kind of set this up, Scott, and, you know, I’ve gone on here, this is the, by the way, full disclosure, this is a little presentation I did, you know, I think last Thursday or something.

So I just pulled a little one slide from it or with a couple of visuals on it. So I was talking specifically about when you create an online course, but Scott, you brought it up like going to school, right? The textbook, the courses, why, why is, is university or college or even high school changing? Because we’re working with textbooks that are old, even when they finish, they’re already obsolete.

Sure. So what happens when we create an online course or we go and we purchase an online course, we kind of get into this situation where. It’s a roadmap that somebody’s created for it, but it’s like an old school roadmap. And by the way, I’m describing the pictures that if you [00:09:00] can’t see the visuals, I’m describing them.

So it’s like, you know, you’re going to go to the gas station. You’re going to buy an old school roadmap because you want to get from A to B, right? Right. Here’s the problem. What happens if the road’s closed? Right. What happens if there’s a traffic jam? What happens if there’s that big detour sign? And we’ve all inevitably experienced this.

And we turn left and we follow that detour sign. And guess what? There’s no more detour signs. Now we’re lost. Right? We’re lost in Detroit. And we don’t know where to go. Somebody forgot to put that next sign up at the turn. So what, what, what this correlates to is how fast things change. And the fact is that we have that roadmap, but, but the roads are constantly changing, they’re being moved.

There’s detours, there’s construction, there’s traffic. Sometimes the roads don’t even exist anymore because they literally put in a bypass and the roadmap is obsolete within months, but that months is now turning into [00:10:00] minutes, it’s turning into seconds. And if we relate this to growth of technology or anything in the world, think back and now I’ve got, you know, if you think about this, this Massive what we would call this a ramp, if you will align, if you will, that’s going to be exponential growth.

You know, we look at the time it took from the printing press, you know, then to move forward from there. And all of these inventions that happen, the telescope, the steam engine, the light bulb, the telephone, the car, you’ve all seen this graph before. And it just keeps getting steeper and steeper and steeper.

And as we go up that steep curve of the graph, we’re seeing the microprocessor, the word processor, then DOS was created. Then the Mac came out, then we got cell phones. Then the internet came along. DVDs. Anybody remember those? How about eight tracks? Right. How about VHS? Right. All of those things that came and went in, in a, in a heartbeat.

Now we’re into hybrid cars. Now we’re into flying cars. I don’t know. You might’ve seen this in the news that the, [00:11:00] the I don’t know what body it would be in the government, but whoever handles the traffic and everything has approved the first flying car, right? Right. So that’s crazy. It’s insane.

You know, along comes Google, YouTube, Facebook, you know, all of these are happening, the iPad comes up, then we’ve got driverless cars. Right. We’ve got Tesla we’ve got 3D chips coming out. The flying car, like I said, is on the market. And guess what’s now next upon us right now is AI. So all of this is happening really, really fast, which makes that concept of the paper roadmap even more obsolete.

Sure. So what’s the, what’s the solution? What, what is the next evolution of that that we’ve come up with? GPS. Right. Yeah. Remember old school GPS when you used to buy the GPS for a thousand bucks? I don’t know if anybody on this call remembers, you know, when it first came out and people were buying a GPS and mounting it in their car and then paying for maps.

Right. Right. Yeah. [00:12:00] Now. That technology is obsolete, right? Who, who even has one anymore? Can you even sell them one? I mean, they might be in a junk box in a garage sale for free. Right. Because now we’ve got it all for free on our, on our cell phone. Right. So this is where AI comes into play is how do we, we pick up the speed and how do we make that change?

I’m going to go ahead and stop sharing here, but that was the visual. I wanted to share with you. I love that visual. Did that make sense?

L. Scott Ferguson: Absolutely, because everything is changing in real time. And I love how you backtrack through time with regards to how everything is evolving. And thank you for putting that out there for those that are able to see it.

Again, it’ll be in the show notes squad. But for those being able to see it, it really, you know, hit home. So thanks Mark

Mark Kanty: for that. So, so this is where we’re at. And, and I think, and I’m going to give a kudos and credit again where credit is due to Scott, because he and I were chatting a little while ago and he said, you know, it’s kind of like, I I’m an artist and [00:13:00] it’s the brushes have changed.

And I thought that was a wonderful metaphor, Scott, because you think about, think about artists who are embracing technology or using like MacBook pros or, or the iPads and are creating incredible visual art with that, right? There’s, there’s a new brush. There’s a new brush. And I think that’s a really cool way of looking at AI.

It’s another brush that will allow us. To embrace that concept of speed and be able to produce things faster. I think you’ve got a great example of this. I mean, I shared a little tool. We’ll, we’ll give it to you here on the podcast. It’s called Max AI. It’s an app you can download for Google Chrome. I’m not sure what else it’s available on.

So Scott and I were chatting about this, but maybe you can tell your, your

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah, guys, it was, it was incredible. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with Mark and he’s like, Fergie, I got a, like a really cool thing to share with you. And it has AI. So when Mark says something, I generally tend to listen [00:14:00] in with, you know, I really lean in and listen with my neck.

And so I took his ideas and I started having the AI. Like from all the notes they take all the transcripts that we do with a voice transcription and kind of dumped it into the AI and prompted. The AI to deliver me, you know, four or five pod podcast titles. And it just happened to be the, the way that it set it up, they were beautiful titles and I was like, I’m gonna use this.

And I also had ’em develop me hashtags and tags for YouTube and, and on and on. And my downloads exponentially went up. I did nothing, changed anything with the marketing the guests. Then I have we’re, we’re fantastic. But again, I don’t think it would have mattered if, you know, I had somebody that is just a regular coach, or if we had Tony Robinson, I would have still had the same downloads because of the tool that Mark kind of turned me on to the max AI, [00:15:00] a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful tool.

So thank you, Mark. You’re

Mark Kanty: welcome. And what a great example of how fast, you know, you know, we also, I think you were sharing with me, Scott, that you’re doing, you know, how fast you’re able to do this right before it was kind of agonizing, or you had to send it to a team for, you know, rewrites and everything else.

Right, right. I liken it to, here’s the way I look at it, and you and I talked about this a couple weeks ago, Scott, is that, A lot of people look at, and this was how it was first introduced to me, they said like chat GTP, for example. Oh, it’s going to, it’s going to get rid of Google. It’s like a search engine.

It is not a search engine. It’s not a database to search from. So here’s the mind shift. It’s a reasoning tool, and this I got to give credit again, Sam Woods was the one I first heard this from, it’s a reasoning tool, so think about it this way, you’ve got these tools allow you to have basically a PhD who has studied everything on the planet, and you’re able to ask them questions, and you’re able to reason with them, in other words, you’re able [00:16:00] to have a dialogue or a conversation with them, and that is such a different way of looking at it than just searching for something static.

Thank you. Instead of just saying, Oh, give me this or give me that. You have to be able to have a dialogue and have to use it as a rationalization and a reasoning tool. And then you’re plugging into this PhD who happens to have a PhD in every topic on the planet. Yes,

L. Scott Ferguson: that is a fantastic metaphoric way to really talk about it because it’s like I would put in Almost when I was first doing the prompts and squad, if you don’t know the prompts or what you you’re going into, ask your AI I was, I put in prompts like, as if I was going to Google, right.

And then from a couple of things I learned from you and other people, you know, the, the prompts that I’m putting in, start a discussion. With them, and I feel that AI is going to, if it isn’t already, it’s already going to learn our personality, the way, we can prompt it to learn your personality and whatnot, but I think that [00:17:00] eventually, Mark, especially if it’s Google, if you’ve, I’ve had a Gmail account since 2000 or 2001, right?

So I think that Google already knows a lot about me because if not, all these ads wouldn’t be showing up on my sidebar, you know, and stuff like that, but I think they know enough about me that they know how they can present it to me. But let me ask you some, what do you think the dangers of AI could present, you know dangers, it could be a.

A, a physical danger. It could be a technological danger, but what, what dangers do you think possibly, if it’s not controlled, could AI present to us? Because, I mean, a calculator’s, a calculator, a laptop’s a laptop. I mean, you could use a laptop to learn how to build something to hurt people, right? Yep. Like how can, how, what are dangers do you see?

Like a I possibly presenting mark

Mark Kanty: a great question, and I’m going to split it into kind of two. I immediately what comes to my mind is two thoughts. [00:18:00] One is, there’s the obvious stuff, right? Terminator, you know, there’s a new movie coming out, I can’t remember what it’s called, you know, all of that stuff is real, I mean, you know, this is where AI could really take over.

And we hope that the powers that be are paying attention and are keeping, you know, that in check and keeping, you know, in control of it, for sure. So I think we need to be aware of that. I think we also need to be aware of things like deep fakes. I saw an ad campaign. I couldn’t believe how long this ran.

It was on YouTube. It was on Facebook and I kept seeing it pop up and I thought, how is their algorithm not picking this up? It was targeted Canadians and it was Gail, whatever her name is, Oprah’s, you know, buddy, Gail. King? Gail King? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Gail King kind of doing a, a, oh, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Canadians are never going to have to work again when they invest in this amazing new product. And then she introduces Elon Musk and he starts [00:19:00] talking about this new technology that is, that he’s created. That if Canadians get in now, they’re never going to have to work again because it’s going to go through the roof and, and you could tell, I mean, if you, if you’ve looked at it, I mean, you and I are in the space, we can tell deep fake.

Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t. I heard this the other day that a woman saw that ad and lost her entire life savings, all of her, an older woman, all of her retirement savings. She lost three quarters of a million dollars because of that ad that was run as an ad. So how did they get by, you know, the firewalls of Facebook and YouTube and everything to actually, you know, they had to become an advertiser, a publisher, like that’s scary stuff.

So the deep, fake stuff, I think we need to be very aware of. So. For me, if I get anything that looks even remotely suspicious, I’m always, you know, I’ll go to my good old Snopes. Like if it’s, if it’s patient, I want to know that person really die, or is that fake news? So using [00:20:00] pausing for a minute, anything that you hear or see, if it seems.

too good to be true, or it seems funky or off in some way. Use Google. Use this amazing research tool to figure out whether somebody’s trying to game you or not. So I also see dangers in terms of, and I’m going to shift gears here in a minute. And this kind of fits in that category of the Gayle King, Elon Musk thing is, is there’s going to be a lot of manipulation.

There’s always scammers. There’s always people, you know, trying to, to manipulate. So voiceovers. I had this the other day too. And I’m not sure if you, anybody has heard of this, but a woman got a call from her, her grandson who had, it was the typical shtick. He’d been arrested. He needed bail and everything, but it was his voice.

So somebody had used AI to get a clip of his voice and then play that to his grandmother. Wow. And they

L. Scott Ferguson: just put it together. So these are scary things, right?

Mark Kanty: Yeah. Yeah. Now, so [00:21:00] my, my thing is, is the, the fear, the challenge that I have with that is that’s going to have everybody running away from it. Right?

So let’s go back, would be akin to somebody coming around with this newfangled thing called an automobile. Right. Right. Coming on route. I got this new power. Oh, okay. The devil’s workshop. You can imagine in the era. Right. Right. Stay away from me. I got my horses. You know, I just need them to go faster. You know, I, I want them to be able to work 24 seven and everything.

I’m just going to stick with my horse and buggy thing. Right. Right. So that is the, the other thing that I would say is something that we need to be aware of is that this is here. And if you don’t become a student of it. If you don’t embrace it, you’re going to become a victim of it. I mean, Scott and I are aware we can tune in.

We can, we can spot a deep fake. You know, we can hear that, that subtle change in a voice. We can, we can listen to language and go, that’s [00:22:00] not really that person speaking. Why? Because we are in the space. We’re constantly learning. We’re constantly absorbing. But if you put yourself in a closet or worse, you turn your back on this stuff, then you become a target.

Love it. So that would be the other thing I would say is embrace this and really become a student of it. Don’t become obsessed with it. Don’t become overwhelmed by it, but become a student of it and learn how you can leverage this to serve others in a better way. Absolutely.

L. Scott Ferguson: And I’m, I’m hoping that they do build, I don’t want to call them support thing, but like, just for, because right now baby boomers are of age to where they’re readily settling down.

I mean, I live in South Florida, so, you know, 10, 000 people a day are turning 65 in the United States, right? So that’s three and a half million plus people a year. And we’re going to get at least a half million to a million coming to Florida every year, you know, and that’s why they, we affectionately jokingly call it a sunny place for shady people.

So it’s [00:23:00] like you get a lot of people, the retirees being taken. So, you know, that’s why I’m hoping they, they bring out stuff to really make sure that the elderly that are technologically they, they do the Facebook, they do the Instagram, you know, cause they want to keep up with their grandkids and stuff like that.

But they see that one thing. They might, you know, click us. Hopefully that there’s people out there that are going to. Well, you

Mark Kanty: want to, you want to believe that people everywhere from defense on down to local law enforcement, they’re not fooling around. I mean, those guys, they have departments, they have people that are studying this and, and that’s really important.

And I’m thankful for that because you’re right. I mean, it’s so, so critical. That’s that ethical issue that we need to be aware of.

L. Scott Ferguson: Right? Absolutely. So. How are you using AI, you know, in, in your business right now? Like with, in a, like a 30, 000 foot view, like how is Mark using AI in his business?

Mark Kanty: So you, you tied into something with your example of how you used it for blog post [00:24:00] titles and stuff.

So one of the things that I teach when I work with people is we, we have a concept, we have an idea, and we own it. We’re excited about it. The challenge comes is then we try and sell it. And, and the way I, the perspective I have on that is that you’re trying to push it on people. I call that push marketing.

Right. That’s old school. That’s old, you know, back in the vinyl siding days or aluminum siding days, you know, the Mad Men or whatever they were, all that stuff. Now with technology and with advancement, we need to create what’s called what I call pull marketing. What does that mean? We need to stop. We need to be aware of our strengths.

You and I’ve talked about this on a previous podcast, our personal history, all of our knowledge that makes us unique and nobody’s able to compete with us, our gifts, our talents, what we bring to the world. We need to accept those and realize how powerful we are and then pause and start focusing on others.

So this is where AI is so powerful because I can come up with what I think is the greatest [00:25:00] headline. I’ll use your example, but really that’s me. Right. That’s my opinion. That’s all of my biases and my personal history come together to put that headline out there. What AI allows me to do is tap into the world and say, what would the world want this to say?

What language would be most attractive to my audience? And isn’t that giving them a gift? Because if I do it my way… And a thousand people don’t hear my message, then I feel sad about that because I really am passionate. Right. You can tell. I want them to hear my message, but if I can language that and create that language in such a way where those thousand people go, Oh, I want to hear that podcast.

I want to hear time to shine. I want to hear that specific podcast because of the way it was written. That’s where AI can help me. Oh,

L. Scott Ferguson: beautiful. Yeah. It, and it, and it does, because again, like I’m also hearing, and I know that it’s true that you have to set kind of some of your ego aside, because you might [00:26:00] want to write something a certain way and your mom and dad and people might, okay.

That’s cool. But like you said, you’re asking the AI, like how would the world want to. Have this presented to them. And then, yes, that’s awesome, man.

Mark Kanty: So that’s where I’m really right now. I’m diving into it so deep and using different models. Cause that’s the other thing you can plug in, you know, psychological models and all kinds of language models and things into your prompts.

That will then produce content in different ways that will appeal to the people that you want to appeal to. So, and that research also understanding their needs and their wants and their values. AI can be great at helping you do research that way, but you have to structure it correctly. So that’s, you know, one of the things that, that, that I’m using it on, and that’s just one of hundreds of different ways, as you know.

Yeah.

L. Scott Ferguson: It’s went across so many things for me. And you did some, send me something confidentially, which thank you, which was, it was pretty cool. I was [00:27:00] having a conversation with my AI. And it started to really get to know me as who I am. And now when I put stuff in there, the prompts or whatnot, it, it just spits stuff out that again, it doesn’t always make sense to me, but again, it’s what other people might need to hear.

And the way it’s said to have them tune into that.

Mark Kanty: Yeah, that was something Scott and I had a conversation about, I shared this prompt that I use that actually teaches. ChatGTP, it has ChatGTP teach me how to ask it the right question. Right.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I’ve also heard, you know, from the guy from SmartBlogger, his name is alluding me right now, but you know, SmartBlogger is kind of the biggest blogging platform since 1997 or something like that.

And, and he’s, you know, says he. Really that if you can take certain prompts and like make them like 200 words, which I know [00:28:00] that the one that you sent me was it was, you know, lengthy, right, make them 200 words, but you can use the same prompt with different criteria from what your. Looking to get a feedback or an answer to, but still with the same prop, just kind of fill in the blank with it.

Which he says is absolutely working you know, for people and even for him. I mean, the dude wrote a book with his through chap GPT with his like, like I read some of it. And it sounded like, or it read just like the book that he wrote, you know, like another one that he wrote, wrote. So it’s just the power that this is going to have.

How are you seeing, Mark, college campuses and stuff like that fighting back against term papers being turned in using this tool? Like, again, I know I’m kind of going the negative, but I’m just seeing from somebody that’s way ahead of the curve than I am. What are you seeing them doing to [00:29:00]

Mark Kanty: battle that? You know, it’s a great question.

And by the way, I wanted before we move on from this, though, I also want. People to be aware of where some of the things that are coming at us right now, and to be aware, a lot of people think that, oh, it’s all in the prompts. I just have to have the prompt. And, you know, of course you and I have talked about that too, but that’s baby steps, man.

Like the prompts are like learning. It’s like when you learn how to print and they give you the lines and you’re printing a, b, c and stuff. There are so many other subtleties and nuances to AI and how to use it properly that have you doing. cursive writing, have you creating grammar, all these other things, if I use that as a metaphor.

So just be aware. It’s not because there are a lot of people peddling out there. Oh, just buy my 10 prompts or whatever. And your whole world is going to change. And you know what? It’s going to give you, it’s going to give

L. Scott Ferguson: you design your own, but you want it to get to know you. You know, you want it to get to know your personality.

You start buying [00:30:00] prompts, it’s getting to know somebody

Mark Kanty: else’s exactly. So, and I want to circle back to that in a minute about the idea of, of that. And you and I talked a little bit about how to create your own knowledge base, if you will, about you and your business and who you want to serve. Cause there are some limitations that are, we’re right on the cusp that are going to be blown away.

I want to talk about that in a minute, but let’s come back to your question. So I was, great question, by the way, because I was talking with a friend his son is finishing up his MBA and he said, I was in one class and the teacher was like, if we catch you using AI and I will know and I will be checking, you will be expelled.

You’re not going to get your MBA. Most of the profs were kind of nervous and were, that one was really strong, but there were a number of other profs that don’t use AI, don’t use chat, you know, we’re watching for this stuff and everything, they’re all very fearful of it. One prof, and then he walked into one class and the prof brought up on the screen, he [00:31:00] said, okay, who’s played around with chat GTP?

Right. And of course, everybody in the room, he said, great, let’s see how we can utilize this in the subject matter that we’re, that I’m teaching you right now. How can we leverage this new technology? And it was like, what a breath of fresh air, right? So it’s, it’s like they, I think you shared the story. I don’t know if it was before we started talking or not, but yeah.

Live here, but about, you know, the teachers that said, you can’t use a calculator. You know, you’re not bringing a calculator. You got to do everything longhand or whatever. It’s the, the professors and the people at the university level that are embracing it and understanding how to use it are, in fact, giving their students a tremendous gift.

By saying, let’s, let’s figure out how to leverage this because think about it, if that prof goes, okay, I can give you the little bit of knowledge I know, and I can give you, you can get the knowledge that I’m telling you to look at in that way overpriced textbook that is already completely obsolete. Or we can use a towel to [00:32:00] tap, to tap into the greatest knowledge in the world.

We can, we, I can not just me as a professor, but I can have a thousand PhDs teaching you this topic, right? So embracing it that way as a tool is to me, the leading edge professors, I’d be listening very carefully. If I was a student, if I was a parent, I’d be going, okay, which teachers are embracing this and figuring out a way to teach my kid how to use it.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. Yeah. To the benefit not of passing a class, but to benefit, to level up their life.

Mark Kanty: Exactly. Leveling up by tapping into this knowledge base, the world’s knowledge base that we can tap into in a heartbeat. That’s awesome. Does that answer

L. Scott Ferguson: your question? Absolutely, man. And I’m actually taking a note on that.

So I appreciate that.

Mark Kanty: So So, sorry, I wanted to circle back as well to some of the limitations, some of the things that are, that are coming up and I actually, this was something I came across just yesterday, if I can find my notes [00:33:00] on this. And what are some of the limitations right now that we’re seeing?

So I’m going to shift back to kind of business gear, if you will. First of all, one of the things we know about OpenAI, which is chat GTP, is that they loaded in all of their information from databases up to 2021. So we’ve already got, you know, a gap in data, if you will, a lot of people get freaked out by that.

Don’t get freaked out by it. There’s a hell of a lot of data from 2021 back to the time information first started getting recorded. So, so don’t get hung up on that. And if you use it as a reasoning tool, you’re still tapping into the greatest blinds, but it is a limitation. The other limitation, one of the other things, there are kind of a couple each that all fit together here.

One is limited data. So you know this, you can only upload so many characters at a time. I think it’s like just over 2000 characters. So if you’re trying to teach chat TTP about you for it to learn about you, you only have about 2000 [00:34:00] characters to work with. And now there’s a workaround people propose that there’s a workaround.

But, but the workaround isn’t that, that, that foolproof it’s 2, 000 characters at a time. So you’re inputting and now you got 10, 000 characters and you say, okay, now I’ve given it a lot of information. Now I can really understand what I’m trying to accomplish and what I’m all about here. The problem is it has a limited memory span.

Mike Filsaime was talking about this. I love it. If anybody’s seen the movie Memento or was it

L. Scott Ferguson: Memento? I think it was

Mark Kanty: Memento, yeah. Yeah. A brilliant movie about a guy that only had a four minute time span that he could remember things. So only short term memory. So chat GPT is like that. And you’ll see that because you’ll start to see the answers get kind of weird after a while.

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s because it forgets, it has a very limited short term memory. The other thing that’s a challenge is searching, like trying to find things. You’ve got all these threads with it. Right. And I think it’s not [00:35:00] collaborative. Like you can’t go, I want to share this with somebody. You have to cut and paste and give it to somebody.

Right, right, right. So the next kind of iteration, if you will, the new tools, and I came across one yesterday. I’m not going to promote it or, you know, talk about it. Memento was the movie, by the way right now, but if anybody wants to know about it, reach out to me and I’ll tell you more about what’s going on.

But this idea, that’s the next evolution. Can I create my own knowledge base? In other words, can I put in everything that I know? Can I have it scan my website? Can I put in all this documentation that’s limitless in terms of characters? So that now it can pull from not only The world, the database up to 2021, but it can pull from everything that I’m telling it.

It can pull from my knowledge base. Right now we’re getting into really detailed personalized content. Forget about plagiarism or anything else. It’s going to be in my voice all about me because it’s, it’s, I’ve created the database. Right. I created the knowledge base that it can draw upon. So this is the next evolution [00:36:00] to that.

And then being able to work with that. So that’s where I’m at. I’m right on the cusp of that and excited about that about

L. Scott Ferguson: what’s happening. What is the best resource that people can go to, to really keep up with AI?

Mark Kanty: That’s a great, great question. Where do you go,

L. Scott Ferguson: Mark? I mean, to, to really keep up with stuff, like if there, give us like one or two, like, , sites or, , tools or something that people can maybe use.

Mark Kanty: I’ll, I’m going to give you a couple and I’m going to give you a full, full confession here. I’m one of those guys that’s a self.

learner. I’ve never been good. Like whenever computers, software, even coding and everything, I couldn’t, I’m not good at following a course. I’m really not. So I, I deviate, I’ve got a bit of ADHD. I think maybe a lot of it going on. So the idea of picking up, and this goes way back when computers first came out and I’ve got one of the first ones is, you know, I could never go through the manual and learn it.

I learned by doing. [00:37:00] So that’s my number one thing is by playing and going, aha, what happened and looking at the output. So I’m, I’m really self driven that way. That’s one of my, probably my best resource is my own playing around experimenting and working with these tools, like, you know, like that. Like, coming up with prompts and things like that and those ideas.

Discovering Max Eiger. What’s this all about? Let me try and play with that. So that’s my number one thing. I would say my second resource would be one of my mentors dating back over 20 years is Rich Shefrin. Okay. For those who know the name, Rich Shefrin. Rich Sheffrin is a, you know, it’s an incredible guy.

He’s one of my coaches. I, you know, he, I still, you know, hang out with them and, and you know, once a month have the opportunity to, you know, to have conversation with him in a small group setting. We’ve known each other for over 20 years. So I really follow a lot of what he’s saying he’s. [00:38:00] Probably my number one source right now.

Beautiful. In terms of what

L. Scott Ferguson: is going on. No, I appreciate you sharing that. And we gotta kind of like

Mark Kanty: wrap and I can share too. I can share more, but I know we’re gonna wrap. Yeah, we gotta wrap

L. Scott Ferguson: this down here, mark,

Mark Kanty: For now. And what we can do too, I’ll just mention, I, I don’t have, I don’t have it up right now, but Rich put together a little course recently.

And I can share that link with people later, whatever. Get in touch with me and I’ll share that with you. How can people find you? That’s really good. So connect with me in different ways. First, I’m going to give you my email. My email is mark at release dynamics. com. Release as in release your breaks dynamic as in it’s a dynamic world that we live in.

So mark at release. Dynamics. com. You can reach me there via email. Find me on LinkedIn, Mark Canty, M A R K K A N T Y. Mark Canty. Just find me on LinkedIn. Reach out to me, connect with me there. You can also find me on Facebook. And two [00:39:00] business names that two businesses that I have. One is Release Dynamics.

And that’s Scott talked about that earlier, how to release. Your full potential, how to release the full potential of your business is the tagline. That business I’ve had since 1990, and that’s my, began as a consulting business and, and morphed into coaching. So release dynamics, and you can find me by searching that, and also upscale your business.

Upscale your business. And my colleague Jamie Scoltetti, I work with on that business. And that’s where we help coaches and consultants to, , to bring out the best in what they’re doing and to really create profitable practices by leveraging the power of the internet. Beautiful. Reach out to me, just Google Mark.

Can’t he and you’ll

L. Scott Ferguson: find me excellent and squad like hopefully you were taking notes like I was and just make sure you go to the web page that we’re going to build for my good friend mark here has just been just a plethora of awesome information. And there’ll be like I’m also going to do like a little cut of the [00:40:00] part where you’re showing the graphs in case you weren’t able to see it now but just go on over to, to, to the.

The web page that will be in the show notes here below wherever you’re listening, no matter where you’re at, I’ll make sure that it’s there, but , Mark’s superpower, , it’s clarity. And that starts with a curiosity has for the constant change that he loves to really keep up with, , it’s how we adapt to make decisions.

That makes us a little bit faster and more confident. And Mark really put it out there. The chat GPT or just AI can really help you with the congruency that fits your values, , Mark said that, , speed is the currency of today, , AI will allow us to accelerate a dramatic rate and really do it better.

And just remember, it’s not a search engine. It’s a reasoning tool. Have a dialogue with your AI, like really get into it. And become a student of AI because it’s not going anywhere and become a student or like Mark said, become a victim. , you want to keep your cup full so you can pour into [00:41:00] others.

And the way you can do that is really keep up with the AI. So you can really help each other. It’s like teachers that are out there, profs or professors, , like the professor that Mark talked about how he really pulled the class. , and said, Hey, who’s using it? And how can we use it to leverage and level up into a data knowledge database?

It’s going to work for you. So if you’re a teacher or professor, you’re probably in there like kind of stuck in your version of a dark ages. It’s not going anywhere. Learn how you can use it. To help level up your students and mark again. He can be found at market release dynamics. com and everything To find him will be in the show notes and mark.

Thank you so much for coming out for a 2. 0 I look forward to doing a 3. 0 here in another year or so, but I know that we’ll keep in touch I mean you level up your health you level up your wealth. You’re humble yet. You’re hungry You’ve earned another varsity squad letter here at time to shine today.

Thanks so much mark for coming on brother

Mark Kanty: Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it. And let’s not make it a year. [00:42:00] Things are changing too fast. Yeah, that’s very true. Let’s not wait a year.

L. Scott Ferguson: [00:00:00] Time to Shine Today, podcast varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson, and I am God, my legend, the legend, Cody Lowry here someone that takes on a life of unique perspective executing bold ideas, making others laugh and being ever mindful. of the little guy, past divisional president of the Intermark Group, a full service advertising digital and branding agency located in Birmingham, Alabama.

Cody is a refreshing change of pace and a welcome addition to any corporate boardroom looking for innovative, realistic, out of the box ideas and solutions. I mean, this dude is a legend. I already said that. You have to pick up his book. There will be a book giveaway, so listen to the end. You know, the schmooze, what they should teach at Harvard business school.

And the stories in there about getting to meet the president of the United States, being chosen to carry the torch in a relay race, getting a Superbowl ring in a fricking autographed baseball from the Pope, which is just, it just blows me away. This man is the most interesting man in the world. He should have been on those Dos [00:01:00] Equis commercials and Mr.

Lowry, thank you so much for coming out. Please introduce yourself to time to shine today, podcast varsity squad. But first what’s your favorite color? And why blue, blue,

Cody Lowry: blue. I look good in all colors, but blue, especially

L. Scott Ferguson: you are one handsome double man, everything’s in your color. Will, if you’re watching a Vimeo or YouTube, he’s got, he’s rocking the yellow blazer and the blue, the blue button down this rocket, man.

So I got to get to the roots of you. I know that we’re both from the mitten, Michigan on our younger days and whatnot. I thought that was really cool that we aligned that way, but I’d love to get to your younger days, man, and where you were and. And how you’re leveling up now, making people laugh, but putting the lessons within the laughter.

Cody Lowry: Absolutely. Well, it started early. And as you, as you just mentioned I was from Michigan a blue blood family. But we weren’t blue bloods very long. Our family moved down to Fort Lauderdale when I was about five and within seven year period, a seven mile radius, we moved 32 times. My dad was good at a lot of things.

Paying the [00:02:00] rent wasn’t one of them, but I started I started schmoozing at a very early age at age 11, Scott. And, my dad left and my mom, she was a debutant from Detroit. She never worked a day in her life and now all of a sudden she’s got two jobs. And I started selling papers for the Miami News.

Now there’s three papers in South Florida. There’s the Miami Herald, there’s the Fort Lauderdale News, and And then there’s the Miami news, which really is, you know, it’s a stretch to say it’s a newspaper. It’s more, it was more like a, a fish wrapper. Okay. But you know, people ask me, how did I start schmoozing?

I started schmoozing at age 11 and I would have fun. My beat was the sunrise shopping center. It’s called the. The Galleria now, and I used to walk the mall, paper, sir, paper, ma’am, the blue street edition. It’s the latest that most people didn’t give a damn what I had. They weren’t going to buy a paper. So I had to engage them, Scott.

And if Scott came by and I said, I said, Miami news, sir. And you walked [00:03:00] past me, I’d say, sir, would you buy a paper? If I told you where you got your shoes, what state you were born in, how many birthdays you’ve had, most people would turn around, you know, for five cents, they would buy. I’d say you got your shoes on your feet, you were born in the state of infancy, and you’ve only had one birthday the day you were born.

So, I tell people that’s where I started schmoozing, and I learned a lot of things, selling papers, I learned how to build relationships, I learned how to have a sense of humor, I learned, I learned hardship, and that’s another story that we may be able to get into later on, but I, I learned, I learned overcoming adversity, you know, coming from The family that I did where, you know, my favorite, my favorite saint was Saint DePaul and he was my favorite saint because he was always there for Christmas or, or Thanksgiving with a big box of food, you know, and when you move around like we did, we actually lived in two places twice.

The lights were always being turned off, you [00:04:00] know, in high school, I used to hitchhike to school. So, you know, it was it was a time for me where I appreciate more than I can tell you. What I learned selling newspapers. Oh,

L. Scott Ferguson: well in the schmooze, where did that come from though? Mr.

Cody Lowry: Schmoozer. So, you know what?

Mr. Schmooze are the name of the book schmooze, what they should teach at Harvard. Nito Kwee Bang, president of High Point University, wrote the forward of the book, and he said, Today we live in the most connected society in the history of the world, and yet we’re more disconnected than ever before.

Yes. And schmooze, I’ve always been a schmoozer. I’ve been called a schmoozer. And I’m an Irish Catholic, and it’s a Yiddish word, but you know, for me, somehow it fits. And so when I was writing the book and, and you mentioned the, the sizzle setting up a meeting with the president of the United States, wait, getting a baseball signed by the [00:05:00] Pope, carrying the torch Olympic torch torch relay getting a super bowl ring from a gifted NFL hall of fame coach auditioning for Saturday night live within a 24 hour period, the sizzle that gets them in the book that, yeah.

Thanks Alan Dershowitz, right? A nice forward to your book. What the book’s really about is, it’s about hearkening back to the day we looked people in the eye, we greeted them with a smile, our word was our bond, and our relevancy wasn’t based on likes and looks on social. And so it’s a real, it’s a real powerful business book that’s been embraced by a, a, a, Large large companies around the country and you know, and, and making it part of their, their leadership program.

But it’s, it’s about overcoming adversity. It’s about a winning smile. It’s about building relationships, relationships that last and a good portion of the book. And thank you for reading it. You know, I talked about. [00:06:00]

L. Scott Ferguson: And it was like, I was sitting here talking to you when I read it. Okay. You know, that’s what it felt like that you were just sharing stories with me.

And that’s the kind of book, like I’m a really kind of a parable guy or a fable guy, like I, that’s what I’m writing right now is a business fable. And I like that because there’s a lot of conversations that happen between human beings. And it, but it was like, you’re just like, we’re having a little Johnny Walker and you’re, you’re kind of going through and I’m spitting some of it out because I’m laughing so hard.

And then I’ve also gripping the glass because you went through some kind of adversity, you know, in your life as to what. Part of that adversity, what really stands out to you? What was the biggest lesson from your most adversarial moment that you think that you’ve experienced?

Cody Lowry: Well, first of all, I’ve got to give my mother credit.

And I just casually mentioned she was a debutante. She there’s a high school in Detroit named after her father, Frank Cody high school, which you may remember. Wow. Okay. He was the first [00:07:00] president of Wayne state university. She was the that’s

L. Scott Ferguson: royalty out there, bro.

Cody Lowry: Yeah. I mean, when she was growing up, I mean, she, she literally hung out with the Ford kids and the Fisher kids and what have you.

And then you met dear old Emery at a, at a camp. And you know, they got married in a fever and bingo, four kids later, they were in Florida. My dad was blowing any inheritance he had any inheritance my mom had. And so when I, when I look at my situation back then what’s, what’s the biggest lesson I learned?

I think it’s that you can, you can overcome. Almost anything. And there’s people that have stories that are horrific, you know, and a lot more, you know, dramatic than mine, but there’s the Japanese proverb, Scott, that I love, and it says, fall down seven times, get up eight, and I learned that, and you got to learn that in life.

And I try to teach people in the book to do just that. There’s [00:08:00] nobody. You know, out there in, in the podcast land or that’s, that’s viewing on YouTube or reading the book that hasn’t had to overcome adversity. And it’s how you handle adversity when, when it comes knocking, that’s important.

L. Scott Ferguson: Very a hundred percent true across the board there, Cody, do you ever work with people

Cody Lowry: one on one?

Yes, but it’s, it’s more, it’s, it’s a very private, private, but. Yeah.

L. Scott Ferguson: Okay. So maybe if you’re in the discovery period of maybe those discussions, is there any secret sauce that you might use with your experience? If you don’t mind sharing to maybe help them identify that initial blind spot they’re up against?

Cody Lowry: Yeah. So it’s funny you mentioned the secret sauce. And if I could just pivot a moment A big part of the book is you know, building relationships. You build the relationship, you get the client to trust you and you never let them down. And what’s so very, very important. And most [00:09:00] people aren’t aware of this.

What’s, what’s, what’s paramount. Is that first meeting that first 60 seconds that are already making a value judgment whether they like Scott or they don’t like Scott Okay, I want to do business with Scott or I don’t care if I ever do business with Scott and so, And I give a pretty good example And i’ll share that that with you But 25 years and then I was as you mentioned president of intermark group But I had a call from a from a Toyota dealer in North Carolina and all the Toyota dealers were getting together.

that we’re going to having a little meeting. I think that’s how he described it. They’re having it at the Grove Park Inn. If you ever been to Asheville, Grove Park Inn is kind of a nice property. It’s a spa now. But anyway, I get there and I go into this hall and I’m meeting the dealers and, and talking to them.

And, and when, when you. You and I first met. I mean, I’m asking you all kinds of questions about yourself. I want to dive deep so I get to [00:10:00] know you. So I want to build that relationship. And I do what I did. You know, I did what I do, you know, naturally. And I started building relationships with these guys.

Then, you know, they invite me to dinner. And one of the dealers looks over at me at, and he said when Oh, no, he said, he said, who are you going to bring with you? And I thought that was an odd question or who, who, who did I bring with me? And I said, I didn’t bring anybody with me. Well, Scott, this was a presentation for the whole account.

It was a 5 million account, 1993 that, I mean, it’s a lot of money today for a local ad guy, right? Absolutely. It was, it was. Saatchi and Saatchi, billion dollar agency. They had the account and they may invite it. They invited four other agencies to pitch. And I said, you know, I must’ve made a mistake because I didn’t realize this was a presentation.

And

yeah, my stomach is burning. Go up to my room and honestly, Scott, I’m, I’m just thinking about calling [00:11:00] gentleman, Jerry, who is a president of the association and say, Hey, listen, I got to back off. I’m not prepared for this. And, you know, maybe next time. And then I started thinking about it. I was ready for this.

I’ve been doing this for, you know, 10 years. I had the best creative reel of anybody. I didn’t have any spec creative, but I knew my creative strategy. I didn’t have, I didn’t know anything about the Charlotte market, but I knew our media strategy. I said, what the hell? I’m going to, I’m going to go for this thing.

So we get down, I’m And in the morning I’m meeting the other agencies and they’re just dismissing me, you know, they got storyboards and beautiful girls and three piece suits and parting gifts, you know, all that kind of stuff. And you know, like, who is this guy? And but in any event, one thing I’ll tell your listeners, and when you’re making an advertising presentation, you either want to be first or you want to be last, but it’s put on last.

[00:12:00] And these dealers, they make a decision very, very quickly. And so I was last and they called me in and when I walked in, it was Cody. Hey man, that was fun last night. Hey, how you doing? Make sure to see me when you get back down to see my brother down in Fort Lawrence and now it’s like old home week. I’m with these guys, right?

I built the relationship the night before I only had enough, but they knew me. I was on film with most of them. Right. So I wasn’t a stranger and they got a sense of who I was and how can I trust this guy? So I got up there, I did my pitch. It was about 45 minutes. I had a very, like I said, I had just done a What we call the sizzle reel with your really hottest creative.

So I had that with me. And when I left the room, you know, they, they applauded and I walked out and about 30 minutes later, [00:13:00] Italian guy burn alarm, he comes up, Cody. Guys want to see you. I thought they were going to throw me in the trunk with the fish time, right? Go in, they close the door and they all get up and they applaud.

I won the business and you know why I won the business. There was creative. That was as good as mine. There was media strategy. Those relationships, there were people, they didn’t have a chance because mr. Schmooze. was schmoozing.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. I love that. And I can see unfortunately I haven’t met you in person yet.

Well, we’re going to make that a change to that, but like, I’m a big believer that you’re, you’re, you are a believer that God or your creator gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. Like you really lean in and you’re getting curious. Like I would say if you, if I had to give you a superpower, it’d be curiosity, you know, because when you’re working that room, you’re curious.

Compliment I can get at a networking event where I’m pressing flashes when I walk away from them [00:14:00] They’re like what the hell is that guy do right like they don’t know anything about me And i’m that guy that will go out to the cut my car and I have a stack of thank you notes in there I’ll hand write one i’ll dump in the mail at my townhouse before I even come in and that’s my version of schmoozing, right?

and That’s fantastic. Somebody asked you something then cody is Have you seen the movie

Cody Lowry: back to the future? Not like yesterday, but yeah, I

L. Scott Ferguson: feel you Okay, let’s go back to the double deuce the 22 year old company What kind of knowledge nuggets would you drop on him not to change anything because your journey is pretty freaking awesome, right?

But to maybe shorten the learning curve blast through or level up maybe just a little bit

Cody Lowry: quicker. So 22. Wow, I was I was engaged. I was working at a car dealership, which is a funny story. And you know, I just, I, I guess to your point you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve always been curious and, you know, one of the first things I did when I got started in the [00:15:00] automobile business was, you know, reach out to the other superstars, if you will.

But I must tell you, it wasn’t a an easy First week for sure. I had, I graduated from college. I worked my way through college. I was driving a Corvair that used more oil than gasoline. And my brother who lived down in south Florida, not too far from you. There was a big automobile franchise called King Osmo.

And I couldn’t find a job in my major, which was advertising. He said, why don’t you try selling cars? And I said, There’s no way I’m gonna sell cars. So, you know, that, that, that’s just, that there’s nothing about that that sounded good until he said, well, you know, you can make a few bucks and then, you know, you get a demo.

And I said, a demo, what’s a demo? He said, you get a brand new car to drive. I said, you’re kidding. Well, that’s all I need to hear. I went down to pennies and with the last, you know, a few bucks paisley tie.[00:16:00]

You know, I driving around, I noticed that these guys are pretty flashy dressers and I, and I drove around looking at all the dealerships. So I, you know, Cody. And I wasn’t suffering from low self esteem would be able to pick out the dealership that I was going to work at. I, I just felt like I would be doing them a favor, right?

So I go in there and I asked for the, the, the guy in charge and they said Mr band about down at the end office and talk to him. So I go in there and Bucky looks like a caricature of a yeah. Car salesman out of the late seventies. Right. And I mean the big lapels and the, and the sprayed up hair and whatever.

You ever walk into a room, Scott, and the chemistry just isn’t there. You probably have kind of an outgoing guy, but I can tell you at 22, I was, I was a little nervous and Bucky he didn’t think much of me. He was very distracted. And I told him, I said, listen, I just graduated from college. I said, [00:17:00] and I was smoking them a little bit here, Scott.

I said, I want to get in the car business and maybe one day I’ll own a dealership and blah, blah, blah. And he said, why don’t you do me a favor? He said, why don’t you come on back in about six weeks? Let’s say we already hired a couple of people, Cody. Like, okay. I got up from where I was sitting. I looked down at him and I said, you just made.

the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your life. And I said it like that, in that tone. I said, because you don’t have a salesperson, I can’t outsell. Thank you very much. And I walked out, there was another guy sitting in the corner. Manny Fernandez, a Cuban guy. He had one, a glass eye and a limp, but he was, he was another character, right?

But he comes running up, Cody, Cody! Man, I ain’t never heard nobody talk to Bucky that way. I saw Bucky just made a big mistake. He said, Oh, call me today at three. Let me see what I can do. So I called him at three and he said, you start in the morning. I said, great. I [00:18:00] couldn’t even believe it. I’m there the next morning.

I think I’m going to see him. He doesn’t come on to 12, but they’ve instructed me to go see Bucky. Just the guy I want to see. Right. So I get. I get down to his office. Morning, Mr. Vanderbilt. I sit down, he doesn’t acknowledge me. He’s doing the papers and I’m really getting a little nervous now and looking around and I thought I’d break the ice.

So Mr. Vanderbilt, I said, do you have a training program? And now he grins from ear to ear, probably remembering the threat the day before he said, let me ask you a question. He said, can you figure out 4 percent sales tax? I said, yeah, I think I can figure that out. And he said, well, then get out on the point.

He screamed at me. I, I can’t remember being screamed at like that, but anyway, I got out in the point, didn’t know where it was. That, that month I was salesman of the month. Wow. And so I think, I, I think what, what to, to your question at 22, I was full of, you know, what, and, and [00:19:00] vinegar, I figured that I could, you know, conquer the world and, and that’s where it all started and I learned an awful lot and eventually I learned an awful lot from Bucky.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love that for someone that you might even not even have thought you would That’s amazing. So how do you want your dash remembered then that little lining between your incarnation date and your expiration date your life Date and death date. How do you want your dash remembered? How do you want people to look back and say cody lowry?

Cody Lowry: First of all, I don’t need to be identified by schmooze. And I don’t care how many zeros somebody has under their name. Their real treasure is their family and their friends. I have 11 grandkids. I have four of my own. I’ve got friends that You know, I’d, I’d take a bullet for, and so I, I would say one thing that I I’d like people to remember that I was kind, I looked out for the little guy and there’s several stories [00:20:00] in the the book that that, that speak to that and you know, that I, that I was, you know, pretty good egg, pretty good schmoozer.

L. Scott Ferguson: It’s a good all around human being most definitely. So schmooze, what do you think people? Misunderstand the most about you.

Cody Lowry: The depth, maybe that there’s somebody else besides a flashy yellow coat and then unpack that for me. Go deeper. Well, well, no, I think sometimes people look at you and, and when, when you come into a room and, and I’m not a wallflower, right, so I can pretty much take over, I mean, not too long ago, I was in this 70th birthday.

I mean, this MC guy wasn’t going anywhere. And somebody said, Hey Cody, can you help out? So I got the microphone and no problem. And we, we we gave him a good 70th birthday party. But I think when I [00:21:00] walk, I think sometimes I intimidate because of my personality, but once people get to know me. I think they’re kind of glad they do.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah, I, I, absolutely. I’m, I feel like we’re kind of brothers with different mothers in a sense where I get the kind of the same thing, but more with my size, like I’m six, one, you know, go to 40 and pretty well put together. But I’m that guy that walks in and gets hugs like, Hey, what’s up? And I’m always over the left shoulder.

Cause then you’re hard to heart, right? And that’s how I break the ice with people. Like I give a hug and I give it over the left shoulder. I’m like, Nope, we got to go to the other side, heart to heart. That’s the way that I have learned. You really kind of break the ice unless you’re from the east coast and stuff.

They’re like don’t touch me Hey, so what is cody’s definition of a

Cody Lowry: life well lived I think my definition of a a life well lived is to You know There’s nothing we can do about yesterday But, but be very positive about [00:22:00] today and tomorrow and you know, make sure that maybe you can make a difference in somebody’s life.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love that. I love that. And that’s what life is really about because I mean, like, even with my coaching clients, I have locally in South Florida. I’ll take them into their car. One, I kind of want to see how they keep their car. Cause you can tell a lot about a person, how they keep their car. But I sit there and I put them in the driver’s seat and I say, see this little thing here, this little rear view mirror, it’s small for a reason.

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s happened. What’s happening. What’s happened is not what’s happening. And that. You know, a lot of people get stuck there and they have, you know, it’s a great place to learn from and visit. Right. And then you have this windshield, huge windshield. Oh, shit. Scary. What? Where am I going?

But you can’t get anywhere unless you frickin put your seatbelt on, hit the ignition, put it in gear and go. And on these dashboards now is a thing called the GPS. And that’s what I am to them. Right. So I really have them. So every time they get in their car, they’re like Ferg, man, it’s like, I think of you every time I get in the car and it really helps kind of [00:23:00] with a coaching tool, right?

 Time to shine today, podcast, varsity squad. We are back and Cody.

We’re definitely going to meet a hundred percent. I’m going to make it a point in my lifetime while we’re breathing air to actually meet you and break some bread and have a nice, nice afternoon sometime. But we’ll talk about some of these questions, maybe 15, 20 minutes each, but within this leveling up, letting you’re on, you got five seconds with no explanations.

They can all be answered that way. You’re ready to level up. I’m ready. Let’s do this. Cody, what is the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received? Be frugal. Yes, sure. One of your personal habits that contributes to your success. Get

Cody Lowry: up early, leave late.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love it. So Cody, you see me walking down the street or maybe at an event or whatnot.

And other than you say, man, Fergie looks like he’s in his doldrums a little bit other than, you know, your book schmooze, 1776.[00:24:00]

Really? You know this one?

Cody Lowry: Okay. Excellent. I think everybody ought to read it. You come away with a great regard for our first president. Love it.

L. Scott Ferguson: Awesome. What’s your most commonly, if any, emoji that you use when you text? Thumbs up. Awesome. Nicknames growing up. Code commode mode. I love it. So any hidden talent and or superpower that you have that nobody really knows about?

Cody Lowry: Well, I do about 100 impressions, but a lot of people know about that. I’m not, I’m not sure. I’m not sure I’ve got one of those. I

L. Scott Ferguson: think curiosity, but I’ll just say we’ll go with the, with that. So chess checkers or monopoly chess. Headline for your life.

Cody Lowry: Meet a great guy.

L. Scott Ferguson: Any superstitions that you kind of carry around [00:25:00] with you? I don’t beautiful go to ice cream flavor vanilla beautiful kind of boring. No, I’m right there with you Right there with you. So there’s a sandwich called the code commode schmooze build that sandwich for me. What’s on it?

Cody Lowry: Oh, man, we got we’ve got pastrami.

We got corned beef. We got baloney we got oh we got jalapeno peppers. We got Big gob of mayonnaise and mustard little salad dressing.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s so funny. You said that. Cause I’m actually meeting somebody at a Jewish deli today today for lunch. And he’s like, dude, we’re going to have a like a corn beef pastrami sandwich best crazy.

You just said that favorite charity and or organization like to give your time or money to,

Cody Lowry: St. Jude. In fact my MC a lot of That’s awesome.

L. Scott Ferguson: A lot of functions. Yeah, that’s awesome for the kids. Beautiful. Last question. You can elaborate a little bit on this one, but what’s the best decade of music?

60s, [00:26:00] 70s, 80s, or 90s. Oh, since my baby

Cody Lowry: left me, I found a new place. Man, it’s gotta be the sixties,

L. Scott Ferguson: huh? Yeah, was that Heartbreak Hotel, was that the fifties actually, though? Well, I mean… I’ll say the fifties, I love… It’s funny,

Cody Lowry: growing up… I like… I’ll do this. Late fifties, early

L. Scott Ferguson: sixties. Okay, very cool, very cool.

Alright Mr. Schmooze, how can we find you,

Cody Lowry: my friend? You can find me, go to mrschmooze. com M R S. C. H. M. O. O. Z. E. dot com. That’s my website and it’s got everything you need to know about Cody Lowry, including a lot of his relationships.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love it. Love it. And squad, he’s, he’s authored a book that I believe came out in mid Mid 2020.

Right in of this, that thing called coronavirus, and it was a great read, and it got recommended to me by my good friend, and also Cody’s good friend, Brian Ahern and I read it, and [00:27:00] fantastic book. But can you dig a little bit into you writing, the mindset you had behind writing this book, and then what you, I, you, you’ve Actually talk about the lessons you wanted to pay forward with this But just maybe what was going through your mind while you were authoring this freaking awesome book

Cody Lowry: So when I was president, thank you when I was a president of the agency in birmingham You know, I still had a home in florida.

And so I was by myself many nights and, you know, and it’s, it’s good to be able to sit there and just kind of think about your life and what you did and what you’re still doing and endeavoring to do. And I thought, my God, with all of the, the things that have happened to me and the, and I, you know, we just really scratched the surface.

A real funny story is teeing it up at Augusta National and how that all And that story. But, but you know, so I just started, you know, making notes, making notes. And the next thing you know, it’s it’s turning [00:28:00] into a book. And next thing I do, I get a publisher and get some pretty Pretty a high level people to read it and like it, including Alan Dershowitz, including house Brenner of the Yankees, including Tim Gannon, founder of Outback restaurants, including so and then my good friend, Nito Quibain, have you ever met Nito?

If you’re people out there ever get an opportunity president of high point university, we met back in 1979. I could hardly understand him. He had just come over from, you know, the old country. But he is an incredible person. He’s he’s won the Horatio Alger award along with Oprah Winfrey and Schultz of Starbucks fame.

And he, he is a guy that got ahold of the book and I went to see him at the university and he goes, Cody, this is amazing because he’s written six books himself. And I was going to have him, you know, endorse it. He said, no, I think I’d like to write the [00:29:00] forward. And I said, so yeah, he was a special forward.

I, I hope people get a chance not to read the forward, but really got to go to YouTube and Google neato Cui Bain. Yes, sir.

L. Scott Ferguson: You’re a great American, too. Love it. It, it just, it was, it’s such a fun read and just kind of the lessons that I just picked up. One day, I’m trying to think, I think I read it in 21 like mid 21 it’s, it’s actually not that long.

It’s only, I, I believe it’s less than 150 pages total yeah, yeah, it was fantastic. It was fantastic. And Cody you know what, squad, I’m going to do, actually, I was going to do a two book giveaway. I’m going to do a five book giveaway to the first. The first say five people that put in either schmooze or code commode.

I know it’s funny, but I don’t care if it’s in my Pinterest feed. I don’t care if it’s Instagram. I don’t care if you text it to 561 440 3830. I’ll get the the, the copy out to you and it’ll be on time to shine today’s dime. [00:30:00] And Cody, if you could please leave me with one last, our squad with one last knowledge nugget we can take with us.

Internalize and take action.

Cody Lowry: Smile. It’s free. It’s cheap and you’ll live longer. Love it.

L. Scott Ferguson: It’s true. So squad, we, like I have pages, I’m having pages of notes just from this little conversation, it’s hard to kind of just to put it in a synopsis, but it, , Cody is someone that I immensely respect start smooching at age 11, , he come from a kind of a blue blood family and then kind of married into kind of a royalty family.

And then the family just kind of. Decided to spend the money in it, which put a work ethic within to the schmooze that he knew we had to level up on a daily basis. So he started learning relationships. He found out the hardship, the humor through schmoozing, , how we could put that together into the artwork that he has today that, , you can overcome, he reminds us.

Everything he brought up the Chinese proverb fall down seven times get up eight or like we like to say [00:31:00] Fail forward or we either win or learn we never really lose as long as we’re always progressing, Really big to cody is building the relationships the client trust and never let them down.

That’s kind of the golden rule with all business. , Cody loves to dive deep with questions. And he, and I really realized that he’s a guy that really, even when I was asking him questions, he listens with his neck, not just his ears, but he really leans in to the question and he really contemplates his answer.

And I absolutely love and immensely respect that, , his real treasure to Cody is, , his family and friends. will be remembered. It was someone that was kind and looked out for the little guy. And this dude does it for the intention, not the attention. And I really love it. He’s going to get the attention because of the way he carries himself.

, he’s planting trees daily that he’s never going to sit in the shade of. And that’s somebody, again, I respect a ton. And then there’s nothing we can do about yesterday. Be positive about today and also project out positive side of life. positivity [00:32:00] about tomorrow and surround yourself with that tribe that’s going to help you get there.

And lastly, super important smile. Cody said it’s free, it’s cheap, and you’ll live longer. And Cody, thanks so much for coming on the Time to Shine Today podcast. And you level up your health, you level up your wealth, you’re humble, yet you’re hungry. You’ve earned your varsity squad letter here at Time to Shine Today.

Thanks so much for coming on, my friend. Thank you,

Cody Lowry: John. Thank you very much. You bet.

L. Scott Ferguson: Have a great day.

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