Lisa Virtue [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the Heartset Leadership Podcast. I'm Lisa Virtue. My guest today is Michael Eskenazi, founder of Chefry OS. And I should probably tell you right up front that Michael is a self-proclaimed troll. His words, not mine. He likes challenging big companies, conventional thinking, and some of the assumptions we're making about AI and the future of work. That is actually one of the reasons I wanted to have him on Heartset Leadership. Because you don't have to agree with every perspective someone brings to the table to learn something from the questions they're asking.

Lisa Virtue [00:00:34]:

In this conversation, Michael challenges us to think about whether we're really using AI to make work more human or simply layering more technology onto systems that are already fragmented, overloaded, and exhausting people. We talk about cognitive load of employees, trust, lost context inside organizations, the role humans should continue to play as AI evolves, and what leaders need to consider before introducing yet another tool to their teams. There's been a lot coming out lately in media about how companies are really realizing how to do things well with AI adoption and how they're going poorly. And Michael is building a tool to focus on the human side of the cognitive load and try to reduce that for employees. One idea kept coming back throughout our conversation, and that is that technology shouldn't require humans to adapt endlessly to broken systems. Maybe we should be designing the systems around the human instead. Michael has some big ideas, some provocative opinions, and he definitely isn't afraid to push back. So whether you agree with all of them or not, I think this conversation will give you something worth thinking about.

Lisa Virtue [00:01:41]:

Let's get into it. This is the Heartset Leadership Podcast. We're here on the beat of modern leadership to help you crush your goals without crushing your soul or your teams. Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to come talk to me. We are going to dive into a hot topic, which there's a lot of conversations stewing around this, but I think your angle of What's going on with AI and how it's supposed to be reducing burnout, but it's— an argument can be made it's making it worse for us in life and in workplace. So we're going to get into that. But before we do, I would love for you to share with the audience a little bit about you and your background and how you came to be doing the work you're doing today.

Michael Eskenasy [00:02:32]:

Absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. And I love your background. I don't know if that's real or not, but it's awesome.

Lisa Virtue [00:02:38]:

It is real. Thank you.

Michael Eskenasy [00:02:40]:

Okay. Okay.

Lisa Virtue [00:02:40]:

Good for you.

Michael Eskenasy [00:02:41]:

Good for you. Okay. So I started out working in technology, working for large organizations. One of the first ones was Disney Corporate IT. And when you start looking at those kind of roles, you realize that the burden is the coordination. So what's happening up top is the coordination is trying to trickle down and there's nothing going in between because it's all task-based. So you're losing the context. So then I started realizing that the real role of a project manager and a relationship manager was to provide that context in between.

Michael Eskenasy [00:03:19]:

So then I started realizing very quickly that the other part of that is the context shifting. So now you've got an engineer who is a fantastic, brilliant engineer who doesn't have the opportunity to explain to a customer themselves who— that's who they really want to hear from. They don't, they don't care what I have to say. I'm the sales, I'm the schmoozer. So they really want to talk to the engineer and the engineer has no problem talking to them, but the engineer doesn't have time. The engineer has to get lunch. They've got to respond to emails. So I started becoming the context between organizations.

Michael Eskenasy [00:03:55]:

So what I would do then is go, okay, I'm going to run and get lunch for everybody. What do we need? I'll send the emails out. So I would embed myself with them and do the admin work. And even running and getting that because the experts in the room need to be doing what the experts need to do, not the guy who can't answer the question beyond what's going on next in the timeline. So when you look at that gap across, you realize that context and intent is broken across systems because you're moving tasks around. So the human beings become the integration layer for that. And I started seeing how that works. And then what I started realizing is because humans, and they shift, right? Because these roles move as they leave companies and they take that context and everything with them because the companies ask more and more for them because really what they're doing is taking their cognitive load and shifting it into integrating tasks between different apps that are not communicating to each other again, because that context is being lost.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:01]:

Yeah. So you were working at large companies that for all intents and purposes, a lot of people are really interested in working for. And you notice it's just a communication challenge and the cognitive load challenge is universal. It applies at every workplace. I've seen this too, where how you said it's just tasks being delegated in different ways and then context being lost. So a task might be pushed out and worked on. And then a leader goes, wait a second, that's not what I meant. Or I didn't want you to work on that.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:35]:

I wanted you to work on this. And so this is where there's such an appeal and a craving from a corporate standpoint of like, how can we reduce this inefficiency that we see that happens universally along workplaces, especially big workplaces where there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of people?

Michael Eskenasy [00:05:53]:

You have to look at the mechanism of what is driving that, right? Because what everyone's doing is they're looking at the surface layer and they're going, how do we protect the human? But the problem is, is the system's not designed to protect the human. The system's actually designed to drain the human because think about what it is. I need to get a job. My life is not where I want it to be. If I go work, like you said, people say they want to work at Amazon, they want to work at Disney, they want to work for these companies and these companies know that. So they have an opportunity and they put you through a very stressful test, and then they bring you in. And really what happens is the HR person sits down with you and they don't explain, you know, the company's great. What a great culture we have, which means this, you know, this is how we work.

Michael Eskenasy [00:06:38]:

You're going to love it. You're going to make this money. Your family, you know, here's insurance for your family. We're going to take care of you. And then they start throwing out things like agile. You know, we're looking for people who are agile, which is we really don't know what we're doing. So you're going to have to adjust. Like ownership, which is someone needs to take the heat when this goes wrong.

Michael Eskenasy [00:06:57]:

It's so everything's a code. Like I have a whole breakdown. So everything's a code of that. So then the HR person, they sell you and they're not looking for the best fit. They're looking for the person who they can tell their boss, they checked the boxes. I asked these questions, they answered it. So now you're not filtering for good people. You're running to the middle.

Michael Eskenasy [00:07:17]:

So people know that. So, so the real things that you need to know about people who are getting fit in roles is not the stuff that you're finding out because it's just like the LinkedIn algorithm. If you look at what's popular on LinkedIn, it's Simon Sinek writing on a napkin and saying, have a good day, and people just thumbs up it, but that's what gets the rotation. So messages don't communicate. So everybody runs to the middle, they get the message that all sounds the same and nothing moves through. So you now go into a company you know nothing about because the interview didn't communicate what's actually going on. And they tell you everything's great. Go drink our sodas, you know, go take a seat at the couch, like take your time onboarding.

Michael Eskenasy [00:07:58]:

So you're there for 3 months, everything's great. Your family settles in, there's money, the kids are now in programs, and then, you know, it's getting busy and they start kind of pushing you and they start grinding out your cognitive load and they're taking your best hours, right? So they're taking your 9 to 5 and the leftover garbage goes to your family, your friends, your hobbies, your wellness, everything else. So now they're pushing on that, but the numbers are now coming in because those investments need to get paid back. So now they're looking, how do we lean the company? How do we do more with less? So now they push on that person. That person's like, man, I want to leave, but I just, it's been 8 months and I just set my family up. Like the kids going to school, they're in the middle of soccer practice and the company knows that. So that's how they put pressure on you. And then when they do a layoff, it's, they bring you all together and say, you're fixed.

Michael Eskenasy [00:08:52]:

And everyone just goes, oh, it's so lucky to be here because they don't want to get axed too, because that represents a life transition. And that's the relationship of the company. So the burnout is happening because all that world is colliding and the human has to carry that and be the context layer because there's nothing that exists within the company to protect that.

Lisa Virtue [00:09:15]:

Mm-hmm. You just described what so many people are going through, especially right now with all the big tech and push and lots of layoffs going on. And yeah, the investment that we have right into these jobs, and then you get into your daily life and it's just a grind. And then you've got, like you just said, all that pressure you're holding. For sure. And let me add this, you add so many software tools. I know this is one of the reasons you have your product Chefry OS now is Add all these layers and these different products that come on the market and leaders that are like, oh, I want you to try out different products. Oh, I want you to implement this.

Lisa Virtue [00:09:52]:

So you're constantly, again, context shifting and trying to figure out how do we bring tools in that will help? And that has been going on for years. And then now we throw AI on top of it.

Michael Eskenasy [00:10:02]:

Yeah. So, so let me explain again is let's look at the mechanism that you're seeing, which is you look at the investors, they invest in companies, they say, find your wedge. Salesforce goes, my wedge is CRM. So they build a CRM, which is really nothing but a filing cabinet. And that helps you track stuff. And, and then, you know, Zendesk builds your support tool, which is a filing cabinet, which has most of the same information. And they talk to each other through the API, but they're not passing context. So when somebody goes in at the end of their day and they've got 20 entries to do, but they got to go home.

Michael Eskenasy [00:10:39]:

Because, you know, they've got a family dinner, so they're putting in garbage and it's going in. And then all those companies are like, hey, let's supercharge this with AI. And they're spinning up the garbage. And so all you're doing is creating more garbage faster. So, and all the apps that you're talking about, so I got like a ton of reminders for this podcast. That's a signal. That's you telling me that you've been burned many times. That's a trauma that's been created because of the fragmentation.

Michael Eskenasy [00:11:13]:

One more app, more notifications, more dashboards that you need to interpret. So all of that has caused you to realize that your time is segmented. And this time, those notifications are you telling me how important that is to you. What Chefry OS is designed to do is it's designed to capture the reality. So what's going to happen. Is the reason I have my note-taker is it's going to grab this information and it's going to look at the transcript and it's going to look at, and it's going to take the MP3 file and it's going to go through it. And instead of just summarizing it, because a summary is nothing, what we do is we capture reality and it's going to take 1,000 snapshots of it. It's going to listen to how I sound.

Michael Eskenasy [00:11:57]:

If I push the video through, it's going to look at you and it's going to understand where did you connect? What landed? How did you respond? Where did you go? What could I have done better to communicate with you? And what did I compress in a way that now allows you to not understand it when you go back in a day and have to remember this when you're editing this and putting it together? So your burden at the end of this is ridiculous. So Chefry OS will take that and it will Grab all that information and it puts it in a million different places. So then when we meet again in 2 weeks, you get something on your handheld that now pushes you a notification that says, this is what you've talked about with Michael. Here's what Michael's done in the last 2 weeks that would be relevant. So now you don't have to go back and do the catch-up with me. We now start from scratch and it's now all net new. Experience is what people want, not doing the same thing. Oh, I got to explain this thing a million times.

Michael Eskenasy [00:13:00]:

So that's what it designed. And human cognitive infrastructure is the piping, the automation that is a million-part symphony that works at the same time that allows everyone to connect in that way. So everybody gets an Iron Man suit and instead of spending all their time doing email. They refocus themselves to the customer-facing stuff that makes money, that makes them happy.

Lisa Virtue [00:13:28]:

Hmm. Okay. So Chefrio asks if you could explain what the product is in a really quick couple sentences.

Michael Eskenasy [00:13:37]:

Really what it does is it removes the cognitive load from the human having to remember everything.

Lisa Virtue [00:13:43]:

Great. And I hear you're saying like it's capturing everything. It's basically like a, feels like a memory bank, but with context, it's not just a file cabinet. It's like the Putting the puzzle together.

Michael Eskenasy [00:13:54]:

That's exactly what it is. And I describe it a lot like, think about it like an elevator and every floor is something different. So the first thing is you walk into the lobby and you ask whoever's sitting behind the desk, you ask them the question, what's going on that I need to know about? So then you take, take whatever and you walk into the elevator and it stops at floor 1 and maybe it's a legal issue. So the lawyer walks on and then you go up another couple floors and then it's, you know, a podcast issue. So the media guy comes on. So all the people who are required for that happens. And what we're really doing is we're pulling the data that way that matters for the decision that you're making. So the situation that you are in, it now puts that together.

Michael Eskenasy [00:14:44]:

And pushes it up into AI at the very top, which then processes what's happening and then is able to say, we need to do these things. And the automation then kicks off. So it handles it for everybody because it heard you say it. You don't have to repeat it. It heard me acknowledge it. We now have intents. And because we've now, we now know your preference. Because you've told us, we now remember that and that becomes a memory.

Michael Eskenasy [00:15:15]:

Every time something similar happens again, it goes through the same process and that memory gets on the elevator and becomes part of the equation that spits out the answer. And then the human looks at it and it sees the pros and cons or whatever they want their output to be, and then makes the best decision they can knowing what the best information is at the time.

Lisa Virtue [00:15:38]:

Okay. Very cool. I can definitely see benefit, especially at the workplace where there's so many goals that just feel impossible, right, to me. And so many times, for instance, like a customer service rep gets on a call with a customer. And I mean, I have this happen to me as a customer. You call a call center and they have to go look at notes, but they're missing half of what happened in that conversation. And I get so frustrated because I'm like, I have to tell you again. And by the way, can I just talk to a manager? And then that takes another hour.

Lisa Virtue [00:16:05]:

I mean, it's just insane, right? What happens out there. So I can absolutely see the benefit. And on the flip side, I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second. There's so much noise right now, especially with youth and like AI taking over some of the cognitive functioning that we don't wanna lose as humans, right? So this balance going on with the pros and cons of all of this, how do you react to that and where do you see the biggest value of this future?

Michael Eskenasy [00:16:34]:

I 100% go with the people. So people say the term AI slop a lot. And really what that is, is it's an unbounded constraint. So what you're doing is you're going to ChatGPT and you're saying, I want you to make me a poem. And it doesn't know you in your head. You've got this knowledge that like, this is what I mean when I say a poem, but ChatGPT doesn't know. So you say that and it goes, okay. And then you go, it's stupid or hallucinating.

Michael Eskenasy [00:17:03]:

It's like, no, it's not found.

Lisa Virtue [00:17:05]:

Yeah.

Michael Eskenasy [00:17:06]:

So it's now making a decision that was the wrong decision because it just had to choose and it chose poorly for a context it didn't know and then fragment on that decision. So all the other decisions were made on that bad decision, which now ripple through the decision of AI, and that's where you get AI slop and they're 100% Right to reject that. It is soulless and it takes away from the human, which is why I'm not trying to replace that. I'm actually reducing AI to an operational layer and putting the human being on top of it. The only thing AI's job is to do, it will not decide, it's to provide. So if you think about it from a language perspective, if I want to talk to someone in Japan and we're on a business call, There's culture differences, there's communication style differences, there's context differences. We do not know who each other are, but we can be in the room, we can ask the questions, we can try. So now if we grab this information and people go away and then they come back the next day, they can sit with it and understand, oh, you have to understand there's something happening in Japan that is pushing this market over here.

Michael Eskenasy [00:18:20]:

So the pressure's coming down. So That needs to get communicated. So if you can communicate that, then the human being should be the one who now communicates that, because I believe the business intent is the most important thing. I actually don't listen to the specific words people use sometimes because they're stylized. I want to know the intent. And when you write as a human, you're stylizing it because someone's going to see it. So now you are putting a twist on it that's going to break their context when they read it. So I believe AI is designed for technical conversations that people need to understand.

Michael Eskenasy [00:19:03]:

So that way, if I say something and you're like, explain it to me like a video game, the kernel is there and it can translate it into a language you understand. And that's what we're doing is we're preserving that so the human doesn't have to hold that. They can go, hey, I'm going to have a great time now. I'm going to go see my family and put it down. And if someone has questions that are non-urgent, it recognizes that, hey, this is not a priority. It's not going to bother you. If your kid gets sick, that's coming through. So it's able to handle that.

Michael Eskenasy [00:19:35]:

And that's the use of AI in the system. So it's ridiculously cheaper than— as AI prices go up, our automation costs actually go down. So it's going to be a fun conversation with the people who don't like me.

Lisa Virtue [00:19:50]:

Yeah. Tell me more about that. So you're a disruptor and I love talking to disruptors.

Michael Eskenasy [00:19:55]:

I'm a troll. Let's be clear.

Lisa Virtue [00:19:57]:

Okay. Tell, let's tell the audience, what does that mean? What is Mike being a troll? What does that look like?

Michael Eskenasy [00:20:03]:

It means when I transitioned from Silicon Valley, I got really burned out through that process. And that's how I learned a lot of that. I went with my now ex-wife at the time. She opened an incredible bakery. I'm such a fan. I have so much heart for it. But when we were going through that, there was times that we lived in a van. There's a story on it on Eater.

Michael Eskenasy [00:20:24]:

And we, my dog, Jeffrey, who the system's named after, destroyed our apartment. We were making the Silicon Valley, you know, but you say it's a lot of money, but you gotta realize the apartment's expensive and a burger's $20.

Lisa Virtue [00:20:36]:

Yeah.

Michael Eskenasy [00:20:37]:

So, but we didn't have that money. Anymore because I had gotten laid off and I went to go work in the bakery because I didn't want to go back. So we said, well, let's go live in a van because we don't have anything to move. Like, what are we paying to store? So we packed up and we moved in a van and all of our stuff was in this van. And the night before it got totaled, like some guy came out and he hit it so hard from the side that it totaled. So we ended up living in a U-Haul van and I realized during that time that I'm happy. Like, this is awesome. Like, I got to walk my dog.

Michael Eskenasy [00:21:11]:

I got to hang out with people. Like, I'm slinging cookies and like, no one's happy not getting a cookie. So it's just, it's just a better life. And I enjoyed that, but things happened and, you know, those experiences taught me. So now I moved out to where I am. So I'm poor and I'm living with my parents. So I gave up the bakery. I became financially I'm politically clear.

Michael Eskenasy [00:21:33]:

So I started realizing that I have a really interesting opportunity here because all the large companies have sold their trust. So Facebook says, hey, go ahead and gimme your data. I'm going to use it against you, but you need to because otherwise you're not going to get access. And LinkedIn does the same thing. So all those companies are pushing and they're doing it because they've got stockholders. So they've now Committed to a model that they can't back out of. So as a result of my automation being so ridiculously economic, because it's an automation that gets cheaper as it scales, and my use of AI is very small, my margin, and because I don't really need money, I don't care. I have a great time doing this.

Michael Eskenasy [00:22:18]:

So because of that, I can go very low. And distribute the technology at the lower level. So as people build it up to coordination, they don't have to go through these models. They're going to end up getting rid of their Facebook. Everything's going to consolidate because once we've got everybody's information, which the reason I'm poor is because I will never sell that information. And as long as I don't take a nickel, no one can make me. So that's why, so that's what you're seeing. That's where my X feed is now starting to grow.

Michael Eskenasy [00:22:52]:

I'm having an issue with LinkedIn. We'll talk about that off camera, but you can Google it and you'll see what I'm talking about. So as a result of all of that, I can go underneath the layer of all those companies because I have trust. People will give their data because it is their data and they can do anything they want with it. So now they control their own data and we can now say, well, you don't need to use LinkedIn to get a job because you're now creating a generic resume that you're putting through AI. They're using AI to sort it. We actually know that you had a conversation with Lisa and this is what you think. That matches really well with this manager over here who's looking for someone who actually has your skill.

Michael Eskenasy [00:23:35]:

We can actually see that. And because we can automate it, if people are individual contractors and they can move in and out of projects and simulate the idea of large companies with very, very small companies that manage everything around their lives without stress. And it goes straight to that generation.

Lisa Virtue [00:23:57]:

Very cool. I love to talk to people that bring their heart and soul to their work, as you know, because this is called Heartset. And I'm also really curious to know more about where you're seeing the biggest challenges. You mentioned it, like big tech sold their souls, right? Like there's a lot of that going on.

Michael Eskenasy [00:24:16]:

Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:24:16]:

And we're seeing it play out in litigation. We're also seeing it play out in the workplace. We're seeing just this divide, even not just politically now, it's even like AI, not AI. So there's a lot of polarity going on, especially here in the US. A lot of opinions and then people complain about things, but then they go back to their TikTok feed, right? It's like, it's such an interesting phenomenon happening. I think it's a fascinating time. I can also see where you're capitalizing on the technology is there to make this a better environment.

Michael Eskenasy [00:24:48]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:24:49]:

And just like cell phones and different, you know, things that have happened with technology along the way, there's a reason why it doesn't blast out right away, right? Like tech companies either hold onto it and trickle it out cuz money, or people aren't ready to adopt it, right? So there's a lot of different reasons on the adoption side, and I'm curious for you, what is, what is the biggest challenge that you're having? To get this into the marketplace?

Michael Eskenasy [00:25:18]:

So one of them is because of the constraints, because of the level of detail that we're asking. AI is really, it's an incredible tool. I believe that the market that exists today is very unfortunate because it's so extractive, but it's extractive because nobody trusts each other. The moment that somebody comes in And money changes hands, the relationship changes, and the market and structure and legal is all dependent to protect people because that trust doesn't exist. That's not anyone's fault. It's, that's reality on reality's terms. Now, when you look at the reason why that's happening, it's context because people don't share the same context at the same time. There's a cap on my salary, which is I'm going to have enough to protect myself.

Michael Eskenasy [00:26:09]:

And then 100% of the money goes back into the organizations who are building to give people the opportunity to subsidize systems so they can start small businesses and stuff like that. So I've constrained myself to a very, very specific set of rules because if all of this isn't true, then this doesn't work. I had to go through channels and one of my things is I can't take money, so I don't have marketing. So my marketing is this, my marketing was LinkedIn, and that's part of the problem because what those companies do Is they optimize because they're starting top down, which is the incentive structures drive.

Lisa Virtue [00:26:43]:

Yeah, because AI tools are just being layered on top of broken systems. I mean, that's—

Michael Eskenasy [00:26:47]:

It's never going to change.

Lisa Virtue [00:26:49]:

Yeah. My next question is really, I want to bring this back to leaders that are in this situation, right? They're being told from stakeholders, from their leaders, whoever it is, clients maybe, because maybe they're the founder of a startup and People are wondering, what are you doing with AI? Let's go. Why aren't you utilizing this? Let's get more efficient. And there's another layer that I'm seeing too, especially with the work that I do, which is there's some really, really great heart-centered people out there and heart-centered leaders that want this tool to enhance the people around them, not replace them. That's very controversial, but there are people out there thinking this way.

Michael Eskenasy [00:27:28]:

Oh yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:27:28]:

And I'm very optimistic that I do think This invention and innovation is going to really enhance humanity if we do it in the way that you're talking about, which is slow down and really be strategic about how we're doing this. So I see huge potential. I see huge hope and benefit. And I think that we're just in the, the age of transition, which is hard. Transition's hard. Yeah. So for leaders, if we back up and we think, okay, our audience is leaders and they're hearing all this and they're going, Gosh, yeah, I'm feeling all of the things you guys are talking about. So frustrating.

Lisa Virtue [00:28:04]:

What are some of the tips that you have for leaders as they're evaluating tools to bring on? Um, and how can this conversation help them with the strains they're feeling right now and the people that they're leading through this change in this age of AI? What are some of your top tips?

Michael Eskenasy [00:28:23]:

So, so one of the things that they need to understand is It's not that people are using AI wrong. I can't make that judgment. I don't know. I just know how I use it and it's very, very, very different than other people. So what most people do when they use AI is they sit down and Claude makes this actually worse because you build things into them that you've now invested in. So they need to work. But if you ever think about when you do a prompt, it always changes a little. The situation's always a little different.

Michael Eskenasy [00:28:51]:

So you kind of build them and unless it's like a technical thing that needs to chunk the same way through. Prompt can't really help you. So it's going to break and because it's going to run to best practices and you're going to get the same information as everybody else. So what you do is you sit there and you sit, how do I explain this? And you type it in and you go, okay, that's not right. No, no, that doesn't explain it. So now what you're doing is you're marketing yourself and you're telling the system, and then the system, it goes into the system defaults and then it goes, okay, we need to give them an answer. So it brings up like, it needs to bring things up. So it now throws red herrings into you.

Michael Eskenasy [00:29:28]:

So the way that I use AI is I use ChatGPT. I put it on the audio and I put headphones in and I just go talk. I'm in this meeting and I'm having trouble trying to communicate this because what you're doing is when you're typing, you're now setting, we need to go this way. We need to go this way, we need to go this way, and you're building constraints. But when you are talking about an idea and you're putting intent in there and you're putting emotion in there and you're putting ideas in there and abstracts, the system understands, well, it's a calculator. So you're now putting bounds in different orders because they're now ideas that are becoming abstracts in the system that it can now look at. And go, okay, here's the best way to communicate. So it now gives you a different kind of answer because it's whatever you give it, it'll give back.

Michael Eskenasy [00:30:23]:

So you need to turn it multifaceted. And that's why it's so hard for people to do. And that's why I built the system. So everyone doesn't have to figure out how to do that. The system, what they do and remember it so they don't have to constrain it every time. In a way, it learns what it is through patterns and builds preferences around you. So until you get this, until we can get it to you, the best way is to just talk to it and listen to what it comes back with and argue with it because what you're doing is building constraints around the argument, but it takes too long when you have to sit there. Just go take a walk.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:02]:

Mm-hmm.

Michael Eskenasy [00:31:02]:

You know, and when it chunks through, listen to some music and then it comes back. And then when you're ready to listen, that's how you do it. That's the best way.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:11]:

That verbal processing.

Michael Eskenasy [00:31:13]:

Yes.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:13]:

As a coach, I really appreciate it because I have a lot of clients that will supplement coaching with AI and such a good complement if you can afford coaching too, because you can verbally process and get clear on, oh, what is the challenge I'm actually having? I see that tools can really help with that. And the context, like you're saying, a lot of people are like, oh, you have to have the right prompt. I'm like, no, you have to give it context. Like that's more important.

Michael Eskenasy [00:31:36]:

So here's the difference between coaching and AI. I think both of 'em are good, right? Because when you sit with AI, that's, that's, that's steel on steel sharpening steel, right? It's coming right back at you. Like you're not gonna like it. It will tell you. And if you're honest with it, it'll slap you. So if you do that, you are only gonna get better. But then the coaching part comes to it. There's this, this great thought experiment that I love.

Michael Eskenasy [00:32:00]:

It's called Mary in the Black and White Room. If you've ever heard of it. And Mary lives in a black and white room and she's been there for 30 years and there's not a pixel of color in the room. And all she's done is she's studied color and she's looked at wavelengths. She's looked at what they go on. She knows, she knows. I mean, if it's, if it's color, she's there, but she's never seen it. So on her 30th birthday, she's now going to walk outside and see color for the first time.

Michael Eskenasy [00:32:25]:

The question is, does she learn anything? My answer to that is yes, she does. She understands how colors complement emotions. And that is so important to me. And I think that's why you need the human touch. I think you go do your workouts when you're walking and talking, and that's where you use the system. And then you sit down with a human being, you grab a drink, you do whatever you want to do, and that's where you coach in a couch. You don't remember, record it. Well, you don't have to sit and write stuff down or remember and sit and hook your brain into an idea because you don't wanna forget it.

Michael Eskenasy [00:33:04]:

It's there, it's covered. You need that human, but you also need the technology to push as hard as you're pushing back.

Lisa Virtue [00:33:15]:

Yeah, I agree 1,000% and I use it myself. I, like I said, I have clients that use it also for leaders when they have team members that need to be coached or have mentorship. Same thing, like you said earlier, tools and technology is soulless. There, you can't replace a heart and soul and something that happens. A lot of people have different ideas of where and why it— something spiritual maybe, or an energy that is transferred between humans.

Michael Eskenasy [00:33:43]:

It's 100% that it's reactions. It's things that fire in your brain. It's oxytocin. It's when you hug someone, it's all of that stuff. That's the stuff that you want. That's why I'm saying automate the crap. You don't need to send an email and tell me like, look, if the time that I need to be on the podcast is this time, like that shouldn't be your job to carry for me and let the system handle that so we can have this conversation and you have time to go get a coffee when you're done.

Lisa Virtue [00:34:12]:

Mm-hmm.

Michael Eskenasy [00:34:13]:

Yeah. 'Cause I'm a lot.

Lisa Virtue [00:34:15]:

I love it. Well, everyone is a lot if they allow themselves to be, and that's the beauty of humanity, isn't it? Like we want people to be unique, we want them to show up with our heart and soul. Even when people have theories and conspiracy theories about getting rid of humans and replacing with robots, I don't believe it. I don't buy it for a second. They can't, it can't replace it.

Michael Eskenasy [00:34:36]:

They, they want to, they can't.

Lisa Virtue [00:34:39]:

And I, I will argue, I don't think that they exist. I do think that there's some bad players out there for sure, but that's my personal opinion. I think that when You take even bigwigs that are doing all this in billions of dollars of automations and stakeholders. But yeah, they still want their humans.

Michael Eskenasy [00:35:01]:

I'm going to push you on that because what you're talking about is a direct human to human, but that's not what's happening. It's board members who are sitting over here who are sending messages into the stock market that are coming down that are then trickling into humans. So these people, although what you're saying is true, They're not doing it maliciously.

Lisa Virtue [00:35:21]:

Like, oh, that's what I mean.

Michael Eskenasy [00:35:23]:

A lot of 'em I don't think are, but that's the result of, yes. You know, it's just like, and I think that's the other part of it is we're so removed from humanity that you don't see how that affects you. So that's why the coordination layer's important because people can't see it. So when you can measure where pressure goes, And how it routes between humans. And that's what we do. I mean, you can see a lot of that on X right now because I'm talking about the LeBron thing a lot because you can, you can see what's happening. And I called it about a week ago. You should read the article.

Michael Eskenasy [00:36:02]:

It's not because I know basketball, it's because you can see how pressure moves and you can see the repercussions of what happens when you go to places. So that's all mapped in the system. So it just follows it and it adjusts every time that moves. So if you don't have to do that and all you have to do is be here, it's the greatest thing in the world.

Lisa Virtue [00:36:23]:

Yeah. And I completely agree with you. It's the consequences of people's actions. It's the consequences of, again, some bad players and some people that just don't care about the consequences. But when it's on their doorstep and it's their children that are like, why are you investing in AI? This is horrible. And all of a sudden it's in their face. Oof. That's where things change.

Lisa Virtue [00:36:42]:

So I mean, advocate too, of like, have these conversations, talk about it. Don't just sit in your cubicle being frustrated and annoyed and then going to TikTok when you get home. Like there is more to us as humans having a voice. And I hope that I can continue to help people like you have a voice and talk about, hey, look, this can enhance our humanity, not take away from it.

Michael Eskenasy [00:37:05]:

Yeah. And I think the hardest part is getting in the room, right? Because again, The incentives that drive it. How do we communicate right now? We're communicating over video, which, you know, as much as I want to pick on all those billionaires and stuff like that, like, thank you for at least giving us this. Even though your goal is to stack cash in an account because it makes you feel good. Like, I'm glad that makes you feel good. If that's what it takes to give us this, I'm fine with it because we are better off for that. Now, that being true is we need to recognize that our need for that level of disconnect is the fragmentation of it. And people are looking at it going, if I can route this away, it's not that they want to get rid of people, it's that it's expensive.

Michael Eskenasy [00:37:46]:

People are complicated. And when the investors see that and then push back down on it, it's like, we need to make money.

Lisa Virtue [00:37:53]:

So, yeah, people are complicated and that's why these systems are not doing a great service in a lot of cases because like you said, it's going to the middle, it's making an average. I personally, you know, bots have their place in my opinion. Sometimes they help me with my Q&As. Most of the time I'm like, give me a person right now. I wanna talk to a human.

Michael Eskenasy [00:38:14]:

100%.

Lisa Virtue [00:38:15]:

And if I have to wait 24 hours to hear from a human, that's so frustrating. So I think investors, the market's going to push back.

Michael Eskenasy [00:38:25]:

Yeah, because the way that I see this is I've got, I've got planned, like I've designed this to Star Trek. So with the way that I see things going is actually a huge shift because when you look at what's true today in a job, you walk into, you get a call center. Let's use that perfect example. They're getting fed, it's going through Zendesk. They're picking up tickets, right? And they're doing all the administrative work. Let me put it in. Imagine if they didn't have to do that because the call grabbed it and then sorted it with the customer and put all the information there. So the AE knows about what's going on there.

Michael Eskenasy [00:38:59]:

And this is going on there. So now you don't get rid of the human. You put the human back on the phone, you put everything in front of them. The call comes in, they understand what's going on with this person. You don't need to share all the information about what's going on in their life, but you can know because even, even AI right now is searching for sentiment. So they're trying to figure out anger levels of customers. So if you do that, all that comes into you because, you know, it's not invasive. Maybe someone just got yelled at.

Michael Eskenasy [00:39:27]:

by a customer and had to take it and they need a break. So we're not going to route that ticket. We heard on the call how stressed the agent was. So now we're going to lower that. We're going to give that person a break. We're going to stop routing calls and it's going to go to this person who just came back from break. Here's the context. So our ability to do that and give humans the ability to, like, it can all be changed.

Michael Eskenasy [00:39:50]:

So that's the goal. New jobs will be created. I mean, imagine if you go into a restaurant and I say, let's go get a scotch. And so then you say, yes, it knows you and I like going to this place. It looks at our calendar. It sees that we're available on Thursday. There's no priorities that grow. It knows that you're a tier 1 priority friend.

Michael Eskenasy [00:40:12]:

The only thing that comes above you is family. So it does the lookup, it checks, it schedules it, and then sends the thing to the restaurant. You have a gluten allergy, you have this, but they do this right. All those things are true now. And they get to serve you differently where the server comes in and they know you from before. That is heartwarming. Imagine the shifts that now change because of the efficiencies. That's where we want to go.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:37]:

I wish you all the best with this because I do think that you've got a bit of an uphill battle because the world is so tumultuous at the moment. And I would love to hear how, so leaders listening to this going, okay, the technology sounds cool and it sounds like it can solve a lot of our problems. And I'm looking at tools to implement. On my team or my business. What would be the first step do you feel like that a leader should take with their team members to help them with that trust building and participating in AI adoption?

Michael Eskenasy [00:41:13]:

So tell me a little bit more about that question, because I feel like I heard 2 different parts of it. You said, I have an uphill battle. And then you said, how can I help leaders? Are you saying in the current Architecture that exists or on my architecture that exists?

Lisa Virtue [00:41:29]:

Either way, it could be like a leader looking at your architecture. And so helping them understand how to bring their teams along, right? Because that's where we keep getting challenges is people are pushing things down. There's change adoption challenges.

Michael Eskenasy [00:41:45]:

Oh, I see.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:45]:

I see. You know, and so for you as a founder and as an innovator in this space, Helping leaders with the change adoption. That's why I'm saying it feels like a bit of an uphill battle for everybody, right? What is your advice for leaders? And of course, you know, I'm sure you're open to talking to people and all of that, but what advice for them to help get their team members ready for this kind of technology?

Michael Eskenasy [00:42:11]:

So the beauty, and I'm going to answer this selfishly because the technology is here. The way that I look at onboarding would be for this particular technology. I'll explain the process I'm going through. So somebody reached out to me, a Latin influencer. They are a group. They have about 200 agents on it. We looked at their company and we said, this is their customer base. These are the tools that they have to use.

Michael Eskenasy [00:42:34]:

This is what it would look like. And we built the model because my system's self-building and it knows every part of its last spec. So when I say this is the model we need to build for. It now builds me a design and the architecture of what it would look like. So we built that into about 5 documents that were renderings that explained the model. This is what you're seeing right now. This is how it would transition. This is it.

Michael Eskenasy [00:42:58]:

What they're gonna do is they're gonna all look at this and give feedback on it and record it. And we're gonna take that and we're gonna go all the way through it. This person doesn't want to do it this way. Let's find out. So you go through and you keep adjusting it until it's there, and then you push it through the system. It builds the architecture, and then we plug into Gmail. So your information will come into Gmail and we'll pull your information in, sort it for you. And then if you want us to send an email right now, we'll either put it in your drafts, or if you've got the handheld, it'll let you know.

Michael Eskenasy [00:43:32]:

You look at it and approve it and send it out. So. The things that can be true need to be discussed cuz it's not about what your team can do with the tools that you've got is what do you wanna do and let's build around it. And I think that's why it's hard for me to answer it another way cuz I don't see how it gets fixed another way in reality.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:51]:

So I hear you say for our leaders, bring your teams and have them part of the discussion. Don't just push it up there.

Michael Eskenasy [00:43:57]:

They have to be. Okay, absolutely. Because you also have to understand like what those traumas are from a team. I worked at a company, Amazon was very corporate, very stacked. My personality didn't work in there. I'm a human observation kind of person. Don't put me in an overly technical, move this person because that's the way they like to work. And I don't think people do enough of that.

Michael Eskenasy [00:44:23]:

So you now have someone who's doing something they're really bad at and it's like, you gotta get better. It's like, no, let that person do what they're good at. So I think that's, there's a little bit more shifting like that. And even if you have to push projects back for success, it's better to align them right, because you will lose less in the long run over adds, moves, and changes than you are pushing it. And you've gotta be able to support your team that way and then push up against the people. That's the hardest job that you have as a leader. And that's what people don't understand is being a VP isn't just pointing your fingers over there and saying, let's go. You're protecting because somebody else needs your budget too.

Michael Eskenasy [00:45:02]:

You've gotta look at where the money's going. And there's not enough of that happening.

Lisa Virtue [00:45:06]:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. People are just running fast, investing, and then it falls apart. Now all of a sudden, so many companies are rehiring back to what they used to do instead of evolving the organization, evolving the processes, which is what I'm hearing you also say is like, we can evolve this. We don't have to just stack on top of what we've done poorly in the past.

Michael Eskenasy [00:45:27]:

Yeah. And that's also the other part now, right? Is when you're bringing people back in now. You've now told them, we don't want you here. It's like, even if that's not true, that's the message that comes in. So now that's another political battle that people aren't taking into account when they're saying, okay, we're going to go full speed at this project. It's like your team's playing Warcraft in the middle of the shift because they don't want to be here because they figured out how to do your 8-hour job in 4 hours and they're not giving it back to you. You can't turn on people like that. And That's where I come back to and say, I'm a troll because I don't have to.

Michael Eskenasy [00:46:03]:

All the people who are going to look at it and say, you don't like me. And I'm like, yeah, I want to help you start a business and give back to the economy. Like I want to give, I want to give hospitals this for free and charge other companies to have more of a margin that we save them as a result. So it goes all around. That's why it's easy marketing. I just kind of have to hang out and just, you know, let people have Microsoft explain why they don't want to do this for their customer.

Lisa Virtue [00:46:25]:

You know, it's Mike, thank you. Keep bringing your heart and soul to this work because we need it more and more. I mean, obviously it pays off. And so I'm wishing you all the best too, because we saw how Anthropic just went out the window because of certain messaging. And so people are really craving this approach that you're doing too, which is show up for the humans, think about the whole systems thinking, not just an isolated here, we're going to replace all these people with bots, bye-bye, and we're going to lay you off really quickly and like that. That race, you know, that a lot of companies have been doing lately that people are pushing back on and saying, hey, can we step back and think of this differently?

Michael Eskenasy [00:47:03]:

That's what happens when you have to engineer around trust. It's like, that's where we are. Okay.

Lisa Virtue [00:47:08]:

And the stakeholders and all the things that, yeah, what you reward is what you will get. Let's just put it that way.

Michael Eskenasy [00:47:15]:

That's exactly.

Lisa Virtue [00:47:16]:

Yeah. I love it. Mike, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming on and I encourage everyone to check out what you're doing and Hopefully we can get this message out that there is a better way to approach all this. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining today's conversation. Before you go, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and to leave us a 5-star review and support. If you'd like to take this conversation further and continue strengthening your leadership heartset, check out heartsetstudio.com and subscribe to our Heartwire newsletter.

Lisa Virtue [00:47:47]:

Heartset Studio is also available to connect on your leadership development goals and initiatives for you and the other leaders in your organization. Contact us today through the website. And most importantly, thank you so much for all you do for the other humans in your life. We know that you show up with heart time and again, and it is most appreciated.