Latest / Just What I Needed / EP008 Just What I Needed: JOY (ft. Gretchen Schoser)

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EP008 Just What I Needed: JOY (ft. Gretchen Schoser) · Just What I Needed

• Esther And Paul: Hey everyone, welcome back to Just What I Needed. It's a beautiful day here. We have the view of the ocean. It's warm outside. I don't know about where you are, but it's warm outside over here. And at the same time, it's easy to forget that the world is kind of on fire right now. There's insanity going on everywhere. And so if you're a person who feels like it's part of who you are and part of your mission to bring goodness and hope and something positive into this world, it can be a tough time. Paul Rivera: I'm my own wave Seeing light even on the thawed days of days I trust myself and know my worth There is nothing but stars behind me Can we go higher? Can we go higher? Together, we're better, you can dream bigger and louder Can we go higher? Esther And Paul: So it weighs on you personally, it weighs on you professionally, it weighs on you emotionally sometimes. So we have brought in the expert. Today we have the luxury, the pleasure, the honor of having with us Gretchen Schausser, who, by the way, I know we're going to talk about it later, hosts, co-hosts an incredible show called Shit That Goes On in Our Heads. It is wonderful if you've not caught it. It is refreshing. It is, it is. Paul Rivera: Can we go higher? Esther And Paul: unlike just about any other podcast I've ever heard. So we are so honored and thankful to have you here with us today, Gretchen. Paul Rivera: Together we're better to dream bigger and louder can we go higher? Gretchen Schoser: I am so honored to be here and I have to say, you I love you guys' energy. ⁓ When we had Esther on our podcast, it was the actual pivot I needed in my career. She changed everything. She changed the trajectory of this whole year. And I get goosebumps just thinking about that conversation because we were just talking about this the other day. We recorded our season 16 ender and like we were both gushing over you and it was like... I need to reach out to her and then I remembered I was going to be on your podcast today. ⁓ But we do things because we're passionate about it, right? And sometimes when we go into things that we're passionate about, we don't lay everything out. When I decided that it was time to leave corporate America, I had a semi plan. Okay, I used ChatgyPT to come up with my business plan. I kind of had like a loose idea of what I wanted to do. And it worked okay for a couple of months and then, you know, the economy tanked in like the middle of last year. I mean, some people say that it didn't, but you know, for those of us that are entrepreneurs, we all know that, you know, businesses weren't, you know, picking up any new clients or, you know, getting new consultants. So I had to kind of pivot and it was scary, but I did it. So when I pivoted, I went something completely out of my comfort zone. It's something I'd used for years and years and years, but didn't know how to capitalize on it. And when I did it, it lit a spark inside of me. And that's kind of where my journey kind of launched. I was kind of stagnant. Like last year, I'm gonna call last year was my unpaid vacation for a year. I mean, I did get a little bit of money. Not a whole lot, but it was like my unpaid vacation, it also gave me that ability to find myself again. Esther And Paul: That's amazing. That's amazing. And I think it goes really nicely with the question that we have ⁓ from an audience member, They feel that they constantly have to choose between making money and making a difference, right? And if you listen to this podcast, know, and I are always pushing that you can do both, right? It's not one or the other. So what are your thoughts on that? Gretchen Schoser: So my thoughts on that, you know, it's a hard place for me to be because I love to give, give, give and you know, keep giving and not making any money. But then I had this incredible guest on our podcast. I don't know what her name was. ⁓ that's right. Her name's Esther. And Esther reminded me that we can, we can still give back to the world, but we can also get paid for our time. So what I ended up doing, is I have free beginner AI courses that I give at our local library. And what I did is I went to local businesses and I got them to sponsor my time. Okay, so now I can still keep those classes free for the people that really need them because for me, I live in rural upstate New York. You know, we are all, for the last couple months, we've all been paying around $900 electric bills and people don't have that money. but they need that technology. And so when I went and pitched myself to a couple of local businesses, they were really excited. And the reason they got excited is because now it helps us to give back to the community. It helps us to make our community smarter and stronger and not feel left behind. And so, yeah, for the people out there that are like, yeah, I want to give, give, give, but you know what? We all need to still eat. I still need to pay for my bougie cell phone. I still need to be able to buy Girl Scout cookies. And so it was an inner working for myself that I really had to lay out of like, what can I do and still keep this available somewhat free for the people that want to come, but can still put food in my belly, pay for myself on, do the things that are important to me. And it doesn't take much. Esther And Paul: You Gretchen Schoser: I mean, no matter what you're doing, you can still get paid for it, whether it's $5 for per class or going to a local business. Sometimes even, you know, community centers and libraries have money that they can pay you, but make it reasonable. Like don't walk into the local library and say, hey, it's going to be $10,000 a class. Okay. Cause they're not going to be able to afford that. Keep it like, keep it simple. Keep it simple for yourself. Keep it simple for the person that you're going to be serving. But always go into it with your morals and your integrity in place. Like, don't ever do it for the wrong reasons. Does that kind of answer the question? Esther And Paul: Yeah, no, I love it, right? Cause there was nothing better than having this podcast and this conversation. remember it till fall and then we met and then you just ran with it. And I, and I think that's, that's really the message. And I, I want to like circle back to, right? Because we talk about the podcast, right? But I mean, you made it happen, right? Like we, we had, we talked about it. We talked to plan, you know, the mindset shift, but then you went out there, you knocked on doors, you know, you asked them, right? And I think. That's key. You have to take action and also see it as it's a money flow, right? Because these businesses do want to help their community. They don't know the best way how. Not everyone's an expert in AI like you are. And it's like you make it easy for people to do the good that they want to do. And I honestly believe that. We talk about the ultimate. There's two. theories, There are theories, two spectrums that everyone's inherently bad and then everyone's inherently good. But, you know, there's a middle, there's a gray where, yes, some people may not value helpfulness. You know, you look at your values, right? You may not have helpfulness, service, or compassion altruism, but at the same time, you care about your neighbors. You care about your community, right? So even those folks, if you can make it easy for them to give, why not, right? It's a win-win for both parties and also helps with their brand. Gretchen Schoser: . Esther And Paul: It helps with their everything and I think we need to reframe this. So many folks, know, I mean they're like, ⁓ but I don't want to go ask. I don't want to do that. Like it's kind of like they feel like, ⁓ it's either someone has to give me direct money or that's it. But there's so many ways that money can flow. And I think we need to like open our eyes to all the different possibilities. Um, there was another person I was talking to recently that she does amazing, um, workshops for people with addiction. And I told her the same thing because she's like, Oh, it families a lot of time. And I'm like, sponsorship, right. And I think we forget that there's sponsorship. And I remember last year, the humanitarian sector took a huge hit, right. And people were like, Oh, but our grants are gone, you know, and there's no government money coming in and you We were hit too, but at the same time, yeah, but there's individuals. There's other ways that money flows outside of these traditional donor systems, right? And just asking, you might need to get more people, individuals, and collect a little more from different entities, but it's possible. Can I make a plug? if anybody, for those of you who've heard this show before, you've heard me talk about... big universe, small universe, right? And so often we're caught in that small universe. And in this case, oftentimes the small universe is our concept of how it is that you can earn a living, how it is that you can have income coming in. And oftentimes it's so linear and so limited to what we've been told socially, culturally, or whatever it is. And anything that we can do to see even not... just the big universe, but a different concept of the small universe that widens our scope and takes us to a place where we can look. bigger at what's happening is going to be that sort of like floodgate of creativity that should propel you forward. Yeah. And I was thinking about that because I even had, we had another, this question that I'm bringing up was asked by five people. So I'm so glad we're answering it together. And everyone's brought up about like, they like to mentor and coach and they feel like, well, I can't get paid for that. Again, theirs is paid, right? Like there are programs that... do need mentors and coach like accelerator programs for businesses, tech programs. There's all these ways and we got to think outside the box, but I want to circle back to you Gretchen. okay, so once you let's continue with your story. Once you did this and now that you have these workshops funded, let's let's let's talk about mental health. How has that switched for you? Gretchen Schoser: Okay, so we have to go back. Okay, let's go back to Christmas Day 2022. So on Christmas Day 2022, for people that don't know me, I'm a true empath and a true extrovert. And I attempted suicide. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knew how depressed I was. Nobody. Not even my wife. Okay, we've been together for 28 years. But I ended up calling 988. Esther And Paul: Okay. I'm sorry. Gretchen Schoser: And I'm so thankful that I made that call to 9-8-8. And I attribute a lot of what happened was to, is I wasn't taking care of myself. Being a people pleaser, know, being an empath, taking on everybody else's crap, not taking care of myself. And at that moment, after I got off the call with 9-8-8, I did two things. One, I called and an appointment to see a therapist. Two, I went down and talked to my wife. Okay, she was like stunned. Everybody was stunned. And then I started to reevaluate what was important to me. What's important to me? My boundaries, because I hadn't set them. I was 59 and a half when all this went down. So I didn't learn, know anything about boundaries. I didn't know about taking time for myself, finding the things that make me happy. And so on top of all of this, I was getting ready to retire after... being out in the workforce for 45 years, I was like, you know what? The after-me or early retirement, it's probably a sign that I need to step away because the company that I had been working for was kind of crappy, right? Toxic, didn't need any of that. And then I took a couple of months off, got our podcast launched completely like we sort of did it as a joke. We didn't think it was going to really take off. Joke is now on us. But as I'm doing that podcast, I'm remembering that when I was in my darkest, darkest times, I could not find a podcast that was like ours. Okay, it was like, if you guys remember the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or Bueller, Bueller, Bueller. Listen, that's all I heard because like it was also clinical. And ours is the direct opposite of clinical. We are like anti-clinical. But we also add some livativity into those conversations because when it comes to mental health, laughter, believe it or not, helps a ton. Like if you spend 20 minutes of laughing in the morning, it kind of can change that trajectory of your day. And that's what I did. I started laughing more. I started finding myself more. And then I went back to work. I went and worked for a really small consulting firm because like I wanted to work. My brain was still like... in that engaged mode and yes, I'm at the later part of my career, but I'm not dead. Okay, like I can still work. I still have a working functioning brain and I'm smart. I'm a subject matter expert in my field. And then, you know, that kind of turned to crap because that company got picked up by one of the top five consulting firms. And you know, if I'd been 20, that'd been okay. But I was 61 at the time and I'm like, mm. This is not for me. So my wife knew how unhappy I was and she's on December 21st, we were sitting in a restaurant in New York City and she looked at me and she's like quit. Okay, so a couple of things happened there, right? Like I got this huge weight that came off my shoulder and then I had like an ⁓ shit, what am I gonna do moment? But thankfully we were sitting on the plane the next day. And, you know, I do live in upstate New York, but I did forget that it takes forever to de-ISOPLANE. But I had my resume, I had ChatGPT, and I had my phone. So as we're sitting on the tarmac, I fed my resume up into ChatGPT. I said, based on this resume and all the work we've done with the podcast of my mental advocacy, design me an independent consulting business. So it came back in about two minutes and it spent out a bunch of crap that they didn't want to do. Like stuff that I'd done earlier in my career was like, oh, I don't want to focus my time on SQL tables. No, oh, gross. But I picked out the pieces that I wanted, and then I created my company. I launched my company on December, on January 2nd, 2025, with the purpose of having a split business, right? So I would have the technical side of my business, and then I have my mental wellness side of the business. I to make a bunch of decisions at that time of like, where do I want to focus my time? Well, thankfully for me, I got two tech, you know, two tech contracts right away. That's easy money, right? Like I didn't have to really go chase that. They came to me and I was like, ⁓ perfect. I can do this because I can do it with my eyes closed. But then June rolls around and I probably, as a business owner, you should really, really, really think about what your pipeline is. and maybe not wait until your back is against a wall to figure out what your next step is. I didn't do that, okay? Lessons learned 101, don't wait. June rolls around, I don't have a whole lot of work. September rolls around, I still don't have work. now, you know, I've been out there pitching myself, you know, sending out all the lead, cold emails, nobody's giving back to me. So then end of November rolls around. still not working. like I said, you know, last year was my unpaid vacation. And I thought that, you know what, I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to AI. I live in a rural upstate New York village. People don't have a lot of money. It's something I can do for free. And it keeps my mind busy. I approached the library and I said, Hey, can I start teaching beginner AI courses? And they're like, yeah. And they were all in. And so, like I had my first class in December, and as I was getting ready to prepare the class, I wanted to have an application on top of the class, so that people, when they're using AI, they have a safe place to go out there and use AI. Because you know what? The internet's a scary place. It's a scary place for me. And I wanted to make sure that when people use my application, that kids couldn't figure out how to take their own life. adults couldn't figure out how to make a ghost gun, and the app took off. And so as part of like my, like trying to figure out what my business plan is, and not only serving the community, but also serving myself, I'm going to add some advanced features to the application that are going to be paid, that people can pay for. They're going to get a 21 day, you know, free trial if they like it, great. If you love it, we're going to charge you like a nominal fee, we can either do like a monthly fee or you can pay for it lifetime, right? But that's how I kind of pivoted. And then coming into like January of this year, still didn't have any work. And then February, I had a small consulting firm reach out to me. They needed some help doing a technical implementation, which is actually turning into be a little bit more and something that I can, you know, get income from. But I'm still out there doing the right thing. I'm still out there creating articles about mental health and making sure that companies are taking care of their employees. I don't care how big your company is. It could be five people. You better make sure you're taking care of your employees' mental health because right now, as Paul said earlier, the world is literally on fire. So people are coming to work every single day with not only their day-to-day stuff, but all the stuff that's coming into them from the outside. So I'm writing articles about giving people free tips and tricks on how to make sure your company's taking care of each other. Looking for signs of burnout, looking for signs of stress. And it's not that hard. So that was my pivot. That was my pivot story. And I hope that answered your question. Esther And Paul: No, I love it, you know, and then And you're also doing like the sponsorship workshops, which is awesome, right? This year. no, I love that so much. It made me think about, for example, the workshops that we gave you, you know, we're talking about mental health, right? Like, ⁓ we do like the values, motivation sprints with, with teams, because a lot of times people assume that everyone thinks the same, solves problems the same, and they don't and have the same values or motivation, especially right now the world's on fire. You need to know how to support your teams. Cause when you support your teams, that's when people become more productive. when you get the bottom line. If you're not supporting them, they're sitting there quite quitting, right? And spending their time doing other things and doing the minimum. And on top of that, It's, when you, I was reading the stat the other day that like 75 % of hospital, like ⁓ why people come in, admissions are related to stress. Like everything, like cardiovascular, all that, all that. Like they pinpoint that 75 % of that is stress and mental health. Gretchen Schoser: Did you also know that the number one reason people take FEMLA is for mental health? Esther And Paul: Exactly. and I remember I had to years ago when I was a diplomat, I like I had to take that for myself and my daughter. It was that main thing for her and me. And exactly. So you know what mean? But then at the same time, companies and teams don't want to invest. And then it's about even though that's what's affecting their bottom line and your own bottom line. So if we circle back to making a difference and making money, right. I think it's about debunking this because, okay, if you start to quiet that voice. of making a difference and I'm so glad you shared about that. I also tried to take my own life at 16. So I understand, and nobody knew either. And I think that's the thing, when you're a heart-led, high-achieving person, you are the one that no one is ever going to suspect that you're suffering. And so in your teams, that's why it's even more important, because like I said, there's probably someone there that's smiling, that's suffering in silence, that you have no idea. ⁓ man, I lost my phone. Well, let me prompt you then I was willing as, as I heard Gretchen, I heard a couple of things. One, something that you said in there about laughter, like immediately took me back to my childhood. And I remember any time that I would, I would go, I could, I would go to the bank with my parents because they had the piles and piles of the reader's digests there. And I would always turn to the laughter is the best medicine page. I loved it. So you just gave me a momentary like flashback to my childhood, which I really appreciate. ⁓ But the other thing, Esther, I was thinking about one of the things that Esther has been working on and studying up on a lot lately and actually given some really, really nice talks on is emotional intelligence. Yeah. And the whole EQ concept and a lot of what Gretchen was saying to me, that whole awareness that you need to have, not just self-awareness, but group awareness, you know, like it doesn't matter how big or how small your team is that their wellness matters to you. And that's the thing. And you have to be able to give the space for people to become self-aware of their triggers and how they're managing strides. to then be able to self-manage it. And then when you can self-management, that's when you can do social awareness and that's when you can do relationship management. But you have to take care of the individual. But I remember my thought now, if we circle back to the money and wellness, is that there's this myth, right? That, ⁓ I can only make money not helping people, but then it starts to eat you alive. So if we're talking about that stat again. Gretchen Schoser: You Esther And Paul: the more you're in misalignment, the more it's gonna affect your mental health and the more stress it's gonna give you. So if you're gonna go on this path where the only way I can make money is not making a difference and that's important to you, it's gonna eat you up. Like I know it did for the both of us. And then until we made that pivot, that yes, there's a way of... making money, taking care of yourself because the more money that goes in the hands of hard giving heart led people, the more it's going to help the planet and everyone. Right. So you have to think about that that way. Right. When you're charitable prosperity, the more money you have, the more money we give, the more money that goes to everyone else. Right. So when people are like, ⁓ I don't want to make money. I don't even want, I feel bad even making money off something good, which we hear that all the time. But, but you're the one that if you have money, You tend to multiply it for people. And so why wouldn't you want to have more to make more of a difference? And, and it's like you said, it doesn't have to be like, ⁓ that means I have to go exploit the person. Absolutely not. You can charge fairly or someone else can subsidize you that can pay and then you can give a discount or you know how like you have an app, we're also building an app. You could have free tiers with ads. Like there's so many ways around it that it creates still access, but you're still getting getting payments and compensation for your time because we know this, right? The more money we have, the more we can build. Like Gretchen, if you had more money, would you build more things? Exactly. Gretchen Schoser: ⁓ yeah, but you know what, I still need like five more people, okay? Because like when you're a solopreneur, which I am, I don't have anybody. Unlike you and Paul, like you guys can bounce off of each other. You know who I get to bounce off? Me and my wall. But it works for me, right? And now that I have found like this inner peace, I had to find inner peace with me to be okay to charge people. to use the things that I've created or use my knowledge. And I always lead with my heart, always. And people that have come to my class say they love spending time with me, right? here's, these people that are coming to my class are in their late 60s, early 70s, have technology scares the crap out of them. But we sit down and I give them a prompt and. somebody created a beautiful image, somebody created a poem, they're like, oh my God, this helped me spark something, right? When I see their eyes light up, it makes my heart light up and it makes me want to go out and do more. And so I'm thankful for our local library system because they reached out to all the local libraries within the county. And now that spring should be coming, probably, I don't know, we had fake spring this week, but it's going to snow tomorrow, so who knows? But as time comes open, I can still continue to do this. And I'm now going to be offering the courses online for free. So I'm working on getting a landing page set up, and I've got somebody to sponsor those classes for me. It doesn't take much, but what it did take for me, it took a talk with Esther, having her on my podcast, and making me think about how I can still continue to put a ton of good out into this world, but still put a little bit of money back in my pocket because somebody once told me, don't cut yourself short. You know, I have spent 45 years in corporate America. I know a ton of technical stuff, but I also know what it's like to be a mental health advocate and somebody who has gone, who has been in the deepest, darkest place of my entire life. Like it was hard for me to crawl out of that hole. But I want people to see me as a story of hope because I went from that really, really, really bad part of my life to where I am now. You know, we just celebrated three years on our podcast. We just won the podcast tonight, Best Mental Health Podcast, which freaks me out. We got nominated for an industry award, right? As podcasters, especially indie podcasters, that means a lot to us. freaks us out a lot, like I can't talk to my dirty skittles about the numbers anymore because it freaks her out. Kind of freaks me out when I see the numbers. But we go into it and we lead with our hearts and we lead with intention. And no matter whether I'm doing a technical project or I'm talking to somebody about mental health or finding somebody about talking to somebody about finding your joy and making intentional. It all comes from my heart because I've been there. I know what it's like and I'm going to be 63 in a couple of months. I know you can't tell from me, but if you look at my body and inside every day, it will tell you I'm 63. But you know, take a chance on you because if you don't take that chance, you're never going to know. And like the world kind of is our oyster. Thankfully for us, know, mental health is worldwide. It's not something that happens just here in New York. It happens in the United States. It happens Canada, Brazil, India, wherever you want to go. But that message transcends. And also people still want to learn. You have something you want to teach. You want to teach from your heart something that, you know, it came to you maybe overnight in a dream. Teach it, but also go out and find those resources that can help you pay for it. Especially if you don't want people you're like So people that are taking your classes or using your app so they don't have to pay for it. So that's my spiel. Esther And Paul: I love it. There are so many things that I want to hit on right now. So many things. This is like this is a gold mine. OK, so one of them is one of the things both of you are talking about. But Esther was talking about. I don't know if you know Gretchen. I'm an economist by training. So I whenever people say things. Gretchen Schoser: Yeah. Esther And Paul: that strike a chord in me as an economist, I think that's really important. Oh, can I also put a plug that you're also a huge AI enthusiast. You guys can spend like five minutes talking about all the different apps and which one is good for what. We can do that. I think that would be great. Yeah. But here's what I was thinking. like Esther and I spent a lot of years working in international development. And one of like the most well-known robust findings in international development is that if you put money into the hands of women, Gretchen Schoser: therapy. Esther And Paul: that that's the best investment that you can make because women are so much more likely to invest it in their families and their homes and health and education and things like that. But I bet, and I'm just speculating, but I bet that there is such thing as something like a heart led multiplier that somehow, I think that would be a great academic Put it in the hands of people who want to make a difference. I think that would be tremendous. So anyway, that's one thing. The second thing that I wanted to mention Gretchen Schoser: Yeah. Esther And Paul: Wait, can I put a plug? mean, that's usually when I pitch. I tell everyone that if they invest in me, I will give them a return that's at least 10 times to 30 times their investment. Like the amount of people it'll help, amount of people it'll reach. And I believe that's true for you, Gretchen, too. And so because since it comes from our heart, don't take for granted that someone sponsored or gave us any funding. Right. So the minute we take that and we're like, ⁓ we're going to grow, we're going to build and we're going to give it to more people. Yeah. Thank Gretchen Schoser: So Paul, before you step in, I was just going to say, so with my pitch, the first time I did my pitch, I was like nervous, man. I was sweating in places that people just should never sweat. But it was a two minute pitch. It was two slides, two minute pitch. I, you know, the who, the what, where, when and why and how, and that was it. And thankfully for us, you know, like I said, I live in a really small community here. Esther And Paul: you It's so hard, right? Gretchen Schoser: So there was only like three businesses I could really hit up. And you know, they didn't give me thousands of dollars. They just gave me enough to pay for my time, which is what I wanted. And so that's, don't be afraid to pit yourself. That is my thing. Esther And Paul: ⁓ and then I'm going to put a shameless plug that our app is actually called Pitch. So you can, it has the demos available there and you can practice your pitch. just added that component so you can literally, it'll record you and it'll rank you and then it will give you feedback and then you can do it again. people who are scared, guess what? That's why we create this thing so you can practice it. And you know, right now the demo is free and it's, for the same reason though, right? Cause our heart is this, right? I want people to get sponsorships. I want people to be able to get opportunities and it's literally Gretchen Schoser: you Esther And Paul: really call you just said two minutes I the title is called two minutes can change your life. That's exactly what it says on our landing page. don't think Gretchen knew this. Gretchen Schoser: But but but it's I didn't realize that but it's true like it took two minutes and then they asked me like five questions and And it worked out perfectly But here's coming from a person who would never ever ever have done that in my former life But I'm a new person right like I think that once my what my suicide attempt did for me Is it opened me up? It helped me to find my true self my true Esther And Paul: Yeah. Yeah? Yep. Yeah? Exactly. Yeah. Thanks, Yep. Gretchen Schoser: calling, and it has opened up this creativity slot in my brain that I think has laid dormant for last 20 years. Because now I'm vibe coding a ton of different apps, and I love it, and I get to break it and fix it and break it and fix it, and you know what? I don't have anybody yelling at me, so it's perfect. Esther And Paul: Exactly. Isn't that amazing? Because when you're in alignment, the creativity just comes because and then you're and then you're in service mode. And I mean, that's what entrepreneurs do, right? They create solutions for people. And I don't know, it's amazing. Will you go ahead? You're going to finish your I was off. I was off on a whole other thing. I was thinking about Gretchen. Esther and I, we've spent a lot of time throughout our lives and careers working really heavily with black and brown and underrepresented groups. the mental health issues are just as deep, if not deeper than average. And at the same time, there's so much stigma, there's so much cultural pressure to deny it. And so I really appreciated. you making the linkage between mental health and joy and all of these things that I really want our listeners, but really those groups that we focus on that almost feel sometimes like either they deserve the mental health issues or that they don't deserve the joy that comes with it to understand that it is yours. It's there for the taking and it takes work. and it's not always easy, but it's within your reach, it's within your right to seek it. So anyway, I really appreciate you putting out that message and I didn't want that to get lost in everything else. I love what you said though, that they deserve that, they don't deserve it, right? We hear that a lot, that there is, because the world is on fire, I shouldn't be celebrating or I shouldn't be hosting things. I've had three people be like, ⁓ I don't wanna post. Gretchen Schoser: ⁓ you should. Esther And Paul: that I'm doing something fun today because there's all these people suffering and that they don't have the right to. ⁓ And I want to change that message. Joy is resistance too. And joy means actually that's what they want. They want us to get fatigued. And they want us not to experience joy. And we read this study. I mean, I think, you know, not to get clinical is more like a study that ⁓ happiness is work. Gretchen Schoser: Ha Esther And Paul: Like I was reading about it, you have to be intentional every single day to be happy. Like they studied happy people and they're intentional. They practice gratitude every day. They practice being optimistic. They laugh. They, they purposely have joy, but it's not automatic. Like you have to start creating these, these habits and also like, how do you call that? Unhabits like for even in our culture, right? Or I think it's actually worldwide. You have to stop gossiping. You have to stop complaining. You have to stop being away. You have to remove yourself from toxic situations and negativity, right? So it's not just even practicing happiness, but you have to unlink it and you have to kind of help your circle change. Like I think I've had, I've had ⁓ people lash back. I mean, when I'm like, look, I'm going to hang out, but we're not going to complain and I'm not going to gossip. Like I will go and hang out if we're going to talk about ideas. If not, don't count me in because that just gives me anxiety. And they're like, ⁓ but that's our culture. That's our thing. We're not supposed to have boundaries. That's what we do. And gossiping is about bonding. And maybe there's something to that about storytelling, but there's a difference between good gossip. Like, ⁓ look at how good you can have good gossip. And then there's bad gossip. So yeah. Gretchen Schoser: There's always bad gossip, but you're right. Joy is intentional. And so every day, I've had the same routine since January 20th of last year. Every day, the first 20 minutes, I spend watching a really messed up video of raccoons destroying somebody's property. Because yes, it is funny. Then I spend like a couple of minutes and I feel bad because now they've just destroyed somebody's property. But then... I stand up and I say what, dude, yeah, but they're super cute, okay? Even when they're dragging the food bowls away. But then I stand up and I say what I'm grateful for, right? And it can be anything. I could be grateful that it's not snowing today. I'm grateful that I have a client. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm grateful for all sorts of things. And then I start my day. Esther And Paul: They're called trash pandas for a reason. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: And it usually is with calling dirty skittles. We haven't worked together for three years, like at a job job, but I still call her every single day. And it's part of like keeping that, keeping our friendship together and, you know, talking about life stuff and helping her decide, you know, whether today's going to be the day she actually like rage quits. But, you know, and then finding my joy. And you can find joy in anything. Esther And Paul: That's amazing. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: Joy of listening to a little kid laugh. Joy of watching the deer eat your rose bush. Joy of, ⁓ my God, the sun's out for the first time in like two weeks. You can find that joy and it is okay to be joyful even when the world's on fire. Because like Esther said, they are trying to break us down. You know what? Remember to laugh. Remember to smile. Remind yourself it's okay to post fun stuff on You can find that joy and it is okay to be joyful even when the world's on fire. Because like Esther said, they are trying to break us down. You know what? Remember to laugh. Remember to smile. on social media. Because you know what, it kind of breaks up the monotony of all the horrible things that are going on around us. We can still be sad, we can still be thoughtful, but joy always takes us back to center. And as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, you need to remember to find that joy. Because not everything is like roses and sunshine when you own your own business. I learned a couple of hard lessons. And now when I talk to other people that want to, you know, kind of break out on their own, I have my whole lessons learned of like, don't do this, okay? Listen, been there, done that, maybe let's not do it again. And, you know, it's all part of teaching too. It's part of us taking what we are collective learning and teaching other people what we've learned so that they don't make the same mistakes that we did. But you know what? I call it a growth opportunity. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Exactly. Gretchen Schoser: Sometimes it's a horrible growth opportunity and I'm like, shit, why did I do that? Or it's a really good growth opportunity that helped me to unlock something new. And so like that growth opportunity for me was when I decided to create that vibe code, the beginner AI app and start teaching my class. And then other things started to fall in line, so. Esther And Paul: That's amazing. Exactly. I, I just still like plugging cause it me think about it. Um, part of lessons learned, think one of the biggest lessons learned that we pass on to other people is just start and don't invest in like a web, all these things. Cause you know, everyone's going to sell you everything when you're starting a business. Like you need to have the perfect website. You need to have the perfect Instagram. You need to have all this infrastructure in place. And I tell people, know what, you can start with a free Instagram page if you want, or whatever it is, Facebook, whatever, go, you have to, this goes back to the money thing. You need to have your basics covered. Like something, what do you need to live? And that's why I do that 12 month plan. I'm like, what do need to live? Let's get that first. And then. anything extra, let's invest. Then you can build out your website. Then you can build out the fan, hire the graphic designer to make everything fancy. But you need to serve, give a solution to people that even if they're, you you're getting a small amount, but you're covering your basics. Because if not, I've seen so many businesses that then create and make this beautiful thing, but they've sold zero. And then they have to close. And I'm like, I don't want you to close and I want you to serve people. you're looking, and that's the comparison thing, because you're looking at businesses who are already five, 10 years ahead. And so you're like, ⁓ I need to have what they have. But they started at zero at one point with nothing, right? I mean, we see that with the big companies, right? Amazon, he had like a paper, was it like the paper thing on his desk that just said Amazon? He didn't even have a banner, right? And like all these people, they started with... no fancy gadgets, right? And I think a lot of us get sucked into that because of that comparison. So I know us, it was a lesson learned because we tried to invest all this money and we got, you know, we went with the wrong people at first, the wrong website and we're like, we should have just started simple, you know? Like you don't need all that. But that's what they try to us, that if we have all this and then if we have a hundred more credentials, which you don't need either, if you're solving something for someone, that's all you need. You think that that's gonna make you ready. I love what you're saying about the growth, that that's what's gonna make you ready to go pitch. to go put yourself out there, right? You're waiting for all these magical check marks. But truth is none of that stuff is gonna make you ready. Like you said, you gotta test it, learn from the mistake, test it again. You gotta get out there. You gotta start with one thing, refine it, and it's messy. Man, we're speakers, but remember, I tanked like two or three of like my talks and one really bad. No, no, one I tanked bad. And I was like, okay, it's okay. I tanked that one. Luckily, they hired me for two. The second one, right, we put in like, we learned. Okay, I learned now how to read from the client what they really want. Second one, boom, did better, right? But if you focus so much on like, ⁓ this thing didn't go well. It's everything is like, it's not you, it's it. You're trying to see what lands with the other person. So I love the thing where you're saying about growth and lessons learned, because I think entrepreneurship, say, it's like the biggest therapy that you go in your life. That's when all your childhood, everything is on the table. Everything that you've been trying to push down, it's right there for you. All your insecurities come directly to the surface. Everything is there. Gretchen Schoser: Hahaha. Directly, like right there, you're like, and it always says like you suck, you can't do this, blah, blah. But that leads me to another thing. There are a lot of people out there ⁓ around my age group, right? They either take an earlier retirement or they have decided that corporate America is not for them anymore. You know what? This is a perfect time for you to take all those years of service. Invest in yourself, invest in your community, invest in building a company for yourself. Because right now, know, every three years people are like getting laid off. You know what? Take all that anxiety and put it into yourself and go build something. Go build a community. Go build, like maybe you're a subject matter expert. You know, build a newsletter. Use Substack. Esther And Paul: Getting laid off. Gretchen Schoser: Like with the podcast, we just moved all our newsletters from kit.com to Substack. I get a much greater audience, I get much better feedback, I build a community. Nothing happens overnight. Because remember, Rome was not built in a day, okay? Neither was Shoser Solutions because you know what? We're still building and growing and pivoting and making it up as I go and don't have a real business plan and you know, if it... Esther And Paul: Yeah. Exactly. Gretchen Schoser: If it ticks a box, it ticks a box. If it doesn't tick a box, then I'm like, nope, I'm out. And that's where boundaries come in. So boundaries are not just important in your day-to-day life, but as a business person, you set those boundaries. If it smells like drama and it's something you really don't want to do, don't compromise. I had an interesting situation that came to me and it was something that I could have done, but I really didn't want to do it because they wanted me to. Esther And Paul: So. ⁓ Gretchen Schoser: wanted me to be a W-2 employee. I don't want to be a W-2. I'm a 1099 employee all day, every day. And so I didn't compromise. Five years ago, I would have compromised. Today, I'm not compromising because I know that the motion is pushing me forward. And, you know, believe in yourself because like Esther said, you know, all that bad crap from your childhood comes up from when you're starting out your business. Esther And Paul: is angry. Exactly. No. Yep. Gretchen Schoser: Don't believe it. Believe in yourself and what you've done. Like look back for the last five years. What have you done in the last five years that you're really freaking proud of? Focus on that. Don't focus on the stuff from the way back because you can't do anything to change it. What you can do is change your trajectory going forward and find your happiness, find your joy. Find things that make your heart smile. Esther And Paul: Mm-hmm. Gretchen Schoser: Use that creativity that's been locked up for last 20 years. And you know what? When you work for yourself, you don't got anybody else telling you what you can and cannot do. If I want to take a nap today, I can go take a nap. I just turn to myself and be like, hey, can I take a nap? And some days I say yes and some days I say no, kind of depending on what I got going on that day. But believe in yourself and believe in your community and believe in the people that have supported you throughout your career. Esther And Paul: I don't. Gretchen Schoser: because these are the people that will help you get from point A to point B. And don't be afraid to sell yourself because listen, up until January of this year, I was like, I can't do this. And then I had Esther and Esther was like, yes, you can. And you know, and you know, and use the force and like see the light and I saw the light. And so I want people to realize that Esther And Paul: Use the four stretch in. Gretchen Schoser: Life doesn't stop at 60. Our business minds don't stop at 60. For a lot of us, like me, I'm going to continue working as long as I find joy in it. There's no end date. And yet, you may not find all that money that you had when you were working at your 9-5 job, but listen, you don't have as much stress as you had in that 9-5 job. give a lot more freedom, you get to make your own decisions, you don't have to ask somebody else about that. But always remember to take care of yourself because your mental health is way more important when you work for yourself than if you worked at a nine to five job. Esther And Paul: And I do want to challenge that initially you won't make as much money as your nine to five, but then you will surpass it. We surpassed our nine to five income. did take, it's not automatic, like you said, it's not, it takes a while, but then you will. And then you're going to look back. You will, know, because we look at stuff like, a year, you have to look at things at five year increments, right? And then five years, you will. And then when you look back, you're like, wow, I'm making as much or more than I used to and so much better. And I love what you said too about the flexibility. I mean, we see that we, our schedule we like is having four core hours to work on our business, both of us, that every day. You know, so that means like, yeah, we don't have the nine to five schedule where we take weekends off because we want to every day be able to spend an hour and a half exercising. We want to be able to spend time with the kids, you know, so that means it's spread out seven days, but that's what's beautiful about it. You get to make the schedule that works for you and your values. And I also love what you're saying, Gretchen, because you are very clear on your values and because your values tell you your boundaries, right? So they tell you, these are my triggers and these are the things I need to put boundaries around. But if you don't know... your boundaries, which 80 % of people don't, I mean, your values, you have to figure that out, right? And that's what we help people with, but you can look at that and be like, what are the things that are non-negotiables? Like you were saying about like even picking opportunities. Like I have, ⁓ my top values, meaningful work, his is growth, right? And I think one of our triggers was picking things or clients that didn't have that in common. You know, and I remember you feel it in your gut when something's triggering your value. And in the beginning when you're scarcity. If you don't really know yourself and you feel like I have to, there's when you have those limiting beliefs, that's how we're starting with this, right? That I can't make money off something I love or value aligned. That's when you give in to going against your values. But the sooner I think that people can know that that's why I love what you do even with like AI, cause that's a tool to help them discover themselves, right? ⁓ the sooner you can be in alignment, you know, sometimes I get frustrated when you're talking about that. I'm like, why did it take me so long to learn about myself, right? I could have saved myself 20 years. ⁓ Gretchen Schoser: You Like, God, why is this so hard? Stop! Esther And Paul: Yeah, why? ⁓ by the way, my joy is watching Elmo. I'm Elmo's biggest fan, and I love watching his fights with Rocko the Rock. Like, I wake up every day and I'm like, where's Elmo's beef with Rocko the Rock? And I watch him and I'm like laughing hysterical. I'm like, there he goes, because he's like, ⁓ Rocko the Rock, who put you up for this? And I'm like, I love it, ha! And I just laugh all day. Gretchen Schoser: And that's important because you know what? That will help the rest of your day, right? It just changes the trajectory of your day. And one thing I am going to say is like if you're out on LinkedIn and you've just opened your business, you're going to get ⁓ a crazy amount of like inbox invites people of like try this, try that, or I want to coach you or blah, blah. But if somebody... Esther And Paul: Exactly, I love it. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: it wants to be your coach and they're going to charge you an exorbitant amount of money. Think twice. I made that mistake. And you know what happened is it didn't actually help me. It had the exact opposite effect on me. So now I lost $5,000 and you know, had just been in my company like five months. Don't do it. Re-evaluate what's important to you. And ⁓ use the free resources that you have around you. Right? Like check in with your Chamber of Commerce, check in with like other business leaders. Work with them before you go and get professional coaching. Because it can ⁓ get expensive. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Yep. And, follow that person for a while to know if your value aligned, right? Because there are like, ⁓ like we have found good coaches, but it's after like, you know, we follow them, you know, that their message aligns with you because if they don't match. with your values, then they're not going to know your triggers. They're not going to know the things that you're susceptible to. So even like that has to be someone who fully understands because they're the ones who are going to help you because they're coaching people two chapters behind you. So it can't be anyone. It has to be the right fit. have to shop for it. And that's our episode on partnerships. like, it's just as important. Your clients and who you ask for help. It's just like dating. It's like you, have to Gretchen Schoser: Yeah, like there's so many vultures out there, right? Like don't be preyed to them. You know, take care of you. Watch out for your mental health. just prioritize and be thankful for everything that you have, right? You may not be making money today, but you're like doing something AI and you're like creating. That creative brain, boy, it sparks so much joy in me. Esther And Paul: Exactly. Yep, I'm prioritized. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: I have done, like I said, I vibe coded a couple of different apps, like when we were moving from Kit to Substack. For anybody that's out there, if you move from Kit to Substack, Kit does not have a way for you to take your newsletters from Kit and put them anyplace else. So it pissed me off. And this is what happens when you get pissed off and you're a vibe coder, right? I went and vibe coded an app where it went out and got all my newsletters. I can edit them right in the app. Esther And Paul: You Gretchen Schoser: It creates an RSS feed that I can send right over to Substack. So, you know, use the tools that are available to you and you'll be amazed at like how joyful it makes you. Esther And Paul: Yeah, amazing. And you you're talking, when you're thinking about that, came up to me too is you also have to ask yourself, are you taking these tools to cover up a deeper internal issue? Right? Like I felt like when we were chasing the credentials and paying for these, you know, websites, these things, it's also too, honestly, it wasn't really addressing the major issue of I'm scared to go pitch myself. So I'm going to mask it under all these things. Right. And, or if you go into coaching before actually trying it. then okay, it's not going to work, right? Like, you doing, are you like looking at these shiny objects to mask the real issue? I mean, I'm being faced with this right now. I can be a little vulnerable right now is that we have, we need to go do a Kickstarter for this app, right? That we know is going to help a lot of pitch, but it's going to cost a hundred K to fully build out. And I told them, My business mentor, I'm like, oh, I don't want to message everyone. I don't want to ask people to help fund it because it's a little different to being a sponsor. It's like I'm asking people to help me build this thing. And he's like, where is that coming from? He's like, why do you think ask pinging people twice and asking them for something that's going to help the world is going to come off as icky? And I was like, you know what? You're right. Where does that come from? And I started to think about it, and I started to think about it comes from my childhood. you don't go asking people for help and especially you don't ask people for money. And then it went back to my high school where I was like lunch, not eating lunch. Or me, like my mom wouldn't let us go trick or treating because to her it was begging for food at other people's houses. then it goes back to like, I remember not eating because they would put the lunch, reduce lunch people in the cafeteria and I wanted to be around the AP students. So I would not eat. So I wouldn't tell anyone. And, ⁓ but it goes back to that. Right. And so there's a, a lot of internal things you have to deal with. So it doesn't matter, for example, I could pay for the best lead generators, whatever, for this app, but unless I deal with that, that core thing in me, I'm not gonna move forward with this app because that is something that I need to move through. before and try for myself and really push through before doing that. so I think when you were talking about tools, it's not just even like technical tools. got to like the inner, the tools you have inside, you know, you need to deal with. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: You need to dig in and sometimes it's super duper uncomfortable. You're like, don't want to deal with this today, but I have a block and I need to get past it. So sometimes you have to deal with that block. But I will tell you, I have found a tremendous amount of joy in my own business, doing the things that I love, being successful in my own right. Right? Like I'm not out there with big shiny awards, but I see myself as successful. And when my wife and my friends and people that just send me email saying how grateful they are that we're here and that we are providing them with an outlet, because our mission truly on the podcast is we normalize conversations around mental health. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: and we want to make sure that no one ever feels alone in their own journey. And it's that connection that keeps me going. And I think we talked about just everything that we've put out into the world. I'm now starting to find that it's coming back to me, but it's not coming back trickling, right? It's like a gigantic avalanche. so like trying to figure out how to deal with all that. But I'm thankful for people like you and Paul and Esther And Paul: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: for us helping to go out and make a change to the world. It's a ripple effect, right? And pretty soon it's gonna become like this roaring river. And before we know it, it'll become an ocean. But we're out there trying to make the world a better place, just based on the own things that have happened in our own lives. And we know what that outcome could truly look like. So, thank you both. Esther And Paul: Exactly. Yeah. I love this Gretchen. And I mean, one of the things that we spend a lot of time talking about is the importance of community and champions and knowing that you don't do this alone. Exactly. Like this quest, this inner fire to make the world a better place oftentimes feels like a very lonely journey and oftentimes feels like a very risky journey. ⁓ But that realization that you don't do it alone, that there is ⁓ a kind of increasing returns multiplier effect when we come together and we show our strength together, think is And that's why we have people like Gretchen on the show to show people they're everywhere in the world. And so we're not by ourselves. And like you're saying, we are creating this ocean together. And I know we talked a lot about entrepreneurs, but I do want to say this is for anyone. Like if you're in a nine to five, you're at staying home it doesn't matter you can make change wherever you're at right so leadership change the difference you want to make It doesn't matter because you can be an entrepreneur in an organization. You can be an entrepreneur at home. Our kids are little entrepreneurs. Like it doesn't matter where you're at. You can have this ripple effect. I think if the world continues on how it's going, I think we went to a NAS Daily event. was saying that he, you know, it's predicted that in five years, 90 % of people, exactly what you were saying Gretchen, are going to have their own business, even if it's on the side. and building their own things. Because as we're starting to see, we have to create your own security. It's a different, the world's changing. And also we're starting to see that if the difference you want to make, there's sparks coming around. I have to build my own security and if I want to make a difference, I have to do it like this. And maybe it means it can be solarpreneur, it can be with other people. We've seen more seven friends have come together to build something, ⁓ whatever it is. But I think the world is moving in that direction. So even if you're nine to five, someone choosing that, all these things relate to anyone listening. Gretchen, can I ask you question and take you in a slightly different direction? ⁓ I heard you a little while ago in the same sentence, use the words AI and creativity in the same sentence. I know what you mean, but I think that there are a lot of people out there who don't. Gretchen Schoser: Yes. Esther And Paul: I think there are a lot of people out there who believe that AI is the end of creativity, that we're just giving over our independent thought to the AI. And so I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit. What does that mean for you? What does it look like? How does AI serve as a tool to help you actually spark your creativity? Gretchen Schoser: ⁓ that's such a great question. So I use AI to brainstorm with, right? I have all these eight bazillion different ideas in my head, but I don't know how to get started with them. what AI does for me is, remember back in the day when we used mind maps to kind of figure out kind of what those steps were? That's how I use AI. I tell it to mind map this idea that I'm having and it helps me spark maybe I didn't think about this. Or if I need to, it's not taking away from my creativity, it's actually making me more creative because it comes back with those ideas a whole lot faster than my little brain can spark off anymore. Maybe in my 20s it was a little faster, but at 63 it takes a little bit longer for it to kick into effect. All the things that we talk to AI about, right? Those are our original ideas. What we are looking for, and think of AI as another person, right? So maybe you think of AI as your coworker and be like, hey, I had this great idea, but I'm not sure how to launch it. What AI does, it's got all this freaking knowledge and it's super fast, well take that idea and if your AI starts to get to know you, can help you decide what direction you should really push your energies towards. And AI is not going to take over the world. You have to remember, it still needs a human sitting behind a keyboard to input that information. And for the artists and the creative people out there, it's not stealing your work, right? It may be enhancing it, but... It's not stealing it. And unless you copyright your work, it can never really be used by AI. So if you're creating something that you don't want somebody to steal that idea from AI, copyright it, trademark it, do those things. But use it to your benefit, because you know what? We all have eight million tabs open in our head at any given moment. Some of us have ADHD, so look, there's a squirrel. That happens to me 12 times a day. But ⁓ use it to your advantage to be super creative. And the more you improve your prompt, the better that creative idea is going to be. Don't give it something super general. And ⁓ I can give... ⁓ Esther and Paul, a link, I created a document with the nine different kinds of prompts that you can use and it has different ways you can use it. So like in our class, speaking about creativity, I had a 73 year old woman in there who's an artist and she needed some, to spark some creativity around writing a poem and then also a picture that she wanted to paint. And so we started with a very generic prompt. And then we used one of the nine prompts. We said, based on this document that I've attached, which prompt would be best suited for this prompt? And it helped me rewrite the prompt. And then it brought back a poem and a picture. And she's like, ⁓ my God, I would have never thought of this. And it was exactly what I wanted. I didn't know how to put it into words. Does that answer your question, Paul? Esther And Paul: It does, it does. And I mean, I'm agreeing with you completely that the beauty of learning, taking the time to learn a little bit of prompt engineering is just... reaps incredible rewards in terms of the AI. I would say that as someone me who is a chronic over-thinker, that conversation with the AI really helps me get down to ⁓ something that is actionable much, much more quickly. So I appreciate that. Yeah, and for me, it's less about the over-thinking, right? Like, I know exactly where I want to go, but... I don't have time to be searching on Google for everything or do weekly searches. So it also can serve as like an assistant. And to me that it gives, it's a different type of creativity because I'll tell it, do spend the week searching for me for opportunities that are aligned with me and it knows me ⁓ about with the app I want to create, like find sponsors, grant things, ⁓ accelerators I could join. every month, and I tell it sends to me every Monday morning at nine a.m. And so every Monday morning it sends me everything it found. And it's things like I would have never thought of, because then it makes me think of like, ⁓ that's a cool person I would want to meet, or a cool partnership, or they're doing really alike things. then I can save it, and then I could do that. And then like, you know, we talk about not being alone. It helps you find these like-minded institutions, partnerships, and people to get in touch with and reach out with. Or maybe it can help you find podcasts to listen to, right? There's, and I think like that type of thing where you can find things that are your people. It helps with your creativity too, because then you can go there and be like, oh look, like there are people who care about what I do. There are people who this, so I need it more for, that, but for Paul, does the things. Paul and Gretchen, do you guys want to talk about like, just to give people a little bit of something practical, like what are the different types of, cause everyone sees all the different AIs, like what you can use each one for. Yeah. I mean, we talked to a lot of people who think that basically chat GPT is the only thing else. Gretchen Schoser: ⁓ no, no, no, no. There's Claude. So I use both of them pretty much hand in hand, right? When ChatGPT has given me dumb answers, I go back to Claude and you know, because Claude's really good with writing, especially long form writing. ⁓ I don't use Gemini too much. So here's my take on Gemini and Copilot. They were a little late coming to the game. Esther And Paul: Yes. Gretchen Schoser: ⁓ So they're not as ⁓ savvy as like ⁓ Claude or ⁓ OpenAI. ⁓ I also use perplexity, especially when I'm writing my articles and I want to make sure I get good sourcing. So here's my plug. If you are going to use AI to help you write an article, make sure you have your sources in there. Perplexity can help you do that. It makes sure that... The link that you got from ChatGPT is actually a true link. It can also ⁓ make sure that it is cited correctly. ⁓ There are other ones out there that I don't use. I do use this one called AI Chat Playground. So it's six different models of ChatGPT or AI. You can put that prompt in there, and then you'll get six different answers. from the six different ⁓ AIs that are out there. And I can provide you a link for that too. Esther And Paul: ⁓ that's cool. Yeah, that'd be great because then we could put in the show notes for everyone. ⁓ I think that's great. Yeah, use Cloud's great for marketing emails. ⁓ Really nice for that. And then chat GBT, because we do some career strategy sessions. show people. It's a really good acting like a recruiter rinker. So you can put it in and say, how does my... resume materials rank with this job, right? And circle back what you said in the beginning about how like, Chaddy gave you not great. call him Chaddy. ChadGBT. Gave you not so great, the job things that weren't aligned with you, right? Because our whole thing is, it's as good as the input you give it. So we help people is help them create resumes and profiles that Gretchen Schoser: Mm-hmm. Esther And Paul: talk about their values, how they solve problems, so that when they put it into AI, it's actually you and not just a list of. tasks, right? Because if you ask Chad GBT to make your resume, it's just going to take whatever you have and format it prettier. if your resume doesn't really say the value ahead that you bring, how you solve problems, your value alignment, then no matter how many times you put it into this thing, it's not going to help you, right? So a lot of that is first know yourself or maybe ask it. You can use it to ask it. mean, that's really important. Both of you have said it, a passing mention of once it gets to know you, ABC, XYZ, but the process of of it getting to know you is something that is conscious on your part, right? That you need to know what to give it and oftentimes people don't. so Chad Javitch is great for that. What else? You use a bunch of things. I use Claude a lot. I use perplexity. For what? what do you use Claude? As you said, for sort of the longer form, frankly, slightly more elegant type writing, I would say. For the research pieces, I like perplexity. I actually like Gemini for some of the academic type research stuff that I've had to Because it does a web search. Yeah, it's a little bit deeper in terms of sort of academic literature, and I've enjoyed that. I have not used DeepSeq, I think it's called, but I've heard that it's pretty good, but I don't really have any experience with that one. Gretchen Schoser: Right. Yeah, and I don't have any experience with Gronk or whatever it's called because listen, it's aligned with Elon and that's just not going to ever happen in my wheelhouse ever. But you know, it's all in what you ask. so there's like other other apps you can get out there. There's another app called Pretty Prompt. And what it does is once you're in your chat, JPT or cloud window, you can click a little icon and it. Esther And Paul: Yeah. you Yes. Gretchen Schoser: It updates that prompt so that it will bring out, bring back better information. But, you know, just remembering the better you ask a question, the better your answer is going to be. ⁓ Don't steal other people's work. Okay, it's just not nice. Just don't do it. And have fun with it. Don't be afraid of it. But there is a huge difference, too, between the paid versions and the free versions. The paid versions will save your memories. Esther And Paul: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Gretchen Schoser: whereas the free versions don't really save your memories. It is totally worth that $20 a month that you're going to pay. Esther And Paul: Yes. And it doesn't share it for data either. Gretchen Schoser: Yeah, it doesn't share your data. It doesn't use your data to train their model. and you know, there's this big thing now with OpenAI and cloud and the government and whatever. What people don't realize is that for years before the ⁓ consumer apps came out, these companies have been doing business with the government for years, right? So who knows what's gonna happen. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: I am not leaving ChatDBT. I've used it for the last three years and it holds a ton of memories. ⁓ I have been able to do a ton of automations with it. But I do use Cloud a lot for my writing and things like that. Esther And Paul: Yeah. And it's a great tool, right? So all of us that are like suffering either through overthinking, people pleasing or struggling with things, right? And think about what you were mentioning, good questions, just like you have to ask yourself good questions. Or if you want to get to know a friend, you got to ask good questions. You have to also, and you can, and if you're stuck. ask the AI, give me questions that you need to know about me to give me a solid product. And then it'll give you the questions that it's that you have to then give it answers to so that it can, you can start doing these prompts and, using it for your best advantage. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: And I want to do just one quick plug for VibeCoding. right? So VibeCoding, the market is huge right now. ⁓ I think it's going to explode within the next two to three years. If you... Esther And Paul: Yeah. I don't think most people know what that is, Gretchen. Can you give a little description? Gretchen Schoser: Yeah, so Vibe coding is you, it's an application like Levelable or Base 44. You give it a prompt of an application that you want, you want to build. Like, because we all have ideas of applications we want to build in the back of our head, but you know, for years you had to pay somebody $100,000 to do it. Now what you can do is you can give these programs a prompt of like, hey, I want to build a knowledge base. that has this information and I want it to be able to pull credible information from perplexity or whatever. You put that in there, it goes in there and starts building your app, right? And it gives you a UI, it gives you prompts, you can play with it, you can even sell it. But the thing you want to remember is like if you're going to build stuff that you're going to sell, build something that you would actually use yourself. There's a bunch of 18 year olds out there making a shit ton of money. Esther And Paul: Yep. Gretchen Schoser: crap. All right, remember it's your personal brand. So if you're gonna build something and you want people to use it build something that is gonna help you or help somebody else or unlock something in your brain. So what I use vibe coding for now is because I am a small business owner. If I can't find an app to do what I need it to do I go build it myself. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: talk about creativity and yes, I do use ChatGPT and Claude as my software developers and my QA people. But I'm allowed to, it allows me to go in there and ask questions. can give it the errors that I'm having. And if we use AI to create our apps, we still own the app because that idea came from our heads, not from the AI's head. They just help us to program it and make it work better. Esther And Paul: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We also bounce our app stuff with it to make sure that it flows. Right? Like, how do you do it in a way that the person interfaces it? So that's what I love about it. So point is, don't be scared of AI. Try it. And it's great for us, all of us that are heartfelt and building stuff, because, hey, you don't have to be alone. Now there's these tools that can help and that can pull things and keep you into that creativity zone. Gretchen Schoser: Don't. Esther And Paul: Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: And just like ⁓ as a good note towards the end, like if you're a business owner or out there working a nine to five job and you are really struggling, like mentally really struggling, talk to somebody, please. Please, can, here in the United States, you can call 988. It is not just a suicide ideation line. It is a crisis hotline. I understand the world is on fire. I'm feeling it too. Take care of you because if you're not taking care of you, you cannot take care of anybody else. Esther And Paul: Exactly. And that it's okay to ask for help, right? Don't suffer in silence. Gretchen, what's next for you? How can people follow you and support you? ⁓ Gretchen Schoser: Yes. What's next for me? Okay, so there's two places as always, because you know, there's two parts of Gretchen. So if you want to follow the podcast, you can go to goesoninourheads.net. It has all our episodes, all our awards, blah, blah, blah. Esther And Paul: I'm Huge podcasts, millions of downloads. Definitely listen. Gretchen Schoser: Millions it's crazy and makes my heart beat very fast And then if you want to find out more about my company, you can go to shows or solutions.com And on both sites, that's where all our socials are. I'm on linkedin instagram facebook I can't do tik tok. I'm sorry. I tried it's just not going to happen in this lifetime not And i'm pretty active on social media If you send me a message on any of those apps, I will get back to you right away. Our emails addresses are for both Schoeser Solutions and goes on our heads.net, on our apps, our websites. And I love to connect with people. I have been through some crap, but I will tell you even on your deepest, darkest day, don't give up. Listen to that glimmer of hope that things will get better because in my case, It completely turned around. Esther And Paul: Mm-hmm, ours too. And definitely, I hope if anything people come out with hope, with ideas. It's all possible and you can make a difference, you can take care of yourself and things will get better. And not just better, they can be great. Yeah. Gretchen Schoser: It can be beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. Like, I have a beautiful life. This is probably the happiest I've been in 20 years. Esther And Paul: Yeah, same. We talk about that every day. with us. Awesome. Amazing. Gretchen, this has been a true honor, a true pleasure. I could not have imagined how amazing this conversation would be. So thank you so, much for being on with us. I know our listeners appreciate it. Anytime you want to come back, we are happy to host you as often as you like, because this is wonderful and we love having what we feel like are our people. So thank you so much. Gretchen Schoser: Listen, you guys are part of the family now, you know? We take care of each other and, you know, for anybody out there, man, just go find your joy today. I don't care what it is. Go laugh at a dumb raccoon video. I promise it'll make you laugh. Or Elmo. Esther And Paul: Exactly. Yeah. Or Elmo. Awesome. Well, I hope this was just what you needed. Yay.