How to Use AI to Make Money, Grow Your Business, and Be More Productive | Geoff Woods

Geoff Woods 0:00 There are three skills that somebody fundamentally has to learn. I don't care how good your prompt is, if you aim it at something that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. You use this to solve your biggest problems or to help you achieve your most ambitious goals, that matters.

Codie Sanchez 0:12 Today, I'm bringing on Geoff Woods, who's an expert at helping normal people use AI to change their lives. We're going to steal his homework and a four-step framework he uses with AI to completely change the way you work in almost every aspect of your life. What about people who say that AI kills creativity?

Geoff Woods 0:31 The difference is people who are creatives have been creative with design, creative with writing. You're no longer the player of one instrument, you're now the conductor.

Codie Sanchez 0:39 What are some obvious things that you see that you go, "That is AI and not in a good way"?

Geoff Woods 0:44 There are certain things that it opens a paragraph like ...

Codie Sanchez 0:49 It seems like people have a lot of misconceptions about what AI can do, how it can actually help our lives, and make them better. Can you give me, like, your most jaw-dropping-

Geoff Woods 0:59 Hmm

Codie Sanchez 0:59 ... example of how AI has helped somebody in the last six months? Because it seems like it's changed so much.

Geoff Woods 1:07 Yeah. The greatest use case I have found-

Codie Sanchez 1:10 Mm-hmm

Geoff Woods 1:10 ... is not using AI as an assistant, but using it as a

Geoff Woods 1:14 thought partner.

Codie Sanchez 1:14 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 1:15 'Cause your ability to think strategically is the difference between growing your business or going out of business.

Codie Sanchez 1:20 Mm.

Geoff Woods 1:20 Uh, we had one company, venture backed, racing toward an exit, hopefully over the next 24 months. CEO calls me and says, "We have a big problem." And I said, "Give it to me." And he goes, "You know, despite, we hit our goals every quarter. Every year we exceed budget. No matter how good we do, we have a hostile board."

Codie Sanchez 1:41 Mm.

Geoff Woods 1:42 "Every quarter is an absolute bloodbath. I'd say 50% of my executive team's time is wasted every single month with distractions from the board. The chairman just calls me and says our relationship is so dysfunctional. He's gonna give me six months to turn around, but if by the second board meeting I haven't done it, he's gonna fire me and my whole executive team."

Codie Sanchez 2:01 Oof.

Geoff Woods 2:02 And I asked him, "What are you gonna do?" And he goes, "Honestly, Geoff, I don't know. I swear it's not us, it's them. It's like these guys have all this childhood trauma they've never healed. They think we're their punching bag. I was hoping you could tell me AI could help."

Codie Sanchez 2:14 Hmm.

Geoff Woods 2:15 Doesn't seem like the obvious use case. I think one of the greatest opportunities for people is to realize, don't go looking for an AI use case. Realize whatever problem you're solving right now is the AI use case-

Codie Sanchez 2:27 Mm

Geoff Woods 2:27 ... if you know how to approach it correctly. And so we pulled his exec team on Zoom, like, right then, and I wrote a CRIT, context, role, interview, task. Context, I literally said, "I'm the CEO of," and I named the company. "We've been racing toward an exit over the next 24 months." Like, literally, Codie, everything I just told you word for word was the context section. Role, we said, um, "You are an HR professional with deep expertise in creating personality profiles."

Codie Sanchez 2:57 Mm.

Geoff Woods 2:58 "Interview us. Ask one question at a time of the five questions to gain deeper context about one board member, and then your task is to create a personality profile for them we could use to train a project to create an AI board." AI conducts an interview, five questions on one director named Susan, spits out a profile. I immediately look at the CEO and say, "Don't trust it." This is another one of the mistakes people make with AI. They're getting an answer, and they're choosing to believe it as the final result. They're judging it. View it as a first draft.

Codie Sanchez 3:32 Mm.

Geoff Woods 3:33 I told him, "Tell it what you like about it. What's good about it? What do you not like about it? What are the top changes you need to make to it?" He gives that feedback. The updated profile was amazing. We did that for every single board member, pulled that into a custom project, and then gave it instructions on how we wanted it to act as an AI board.

Codie Sanchez 3:52 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 3:53 To test it, we took the deck from last quarter. We pull that in and said, "Give us your feedback on what you think the board will say." How long do you think it took it to read over 60 slides as every single director and tell it everything that they thought it would say?

Codie Sanchez 4:08 90 seconds.

Geoff Woods 4:09 Five.

Codie Sanchez 4:09 Yeah. [laughs]

Geoff Woods 4:10 Five seconds. One of the insights it said was, on page eight, Susan's gonna get distracted by all the details on the slide. This is gonna lead to a 30-minute detour. It's gonna derail your entire meeting. Instead of all the details, just say these three things. It's what she cares about most.

Codie Sanchez 4:25 Mm.

Geoff Woods 4:26 I look at the CEO and he's like, "That's exactly what happened in the real meeting."

Codie Sanchez 4:30 Oh.

Geoff Woods 4:30 So we know it works. To make it better, we get permission from the board to use an AI note taker in the upcoming meeting. We get an actual transcript of what they say. We pull that back to the AI board and told it to compare what it had simulated to reality and tweak the personality profiles so it could have simulated reality. Day of the second board meeting comes, my phone rings, and this ... I ask the CEO, "What's the verdict?" And he said, "Well, the chairman just called me." He said, "This is the best meeting we've ever had and the best deck we've ever seen." It completely transformed their relationship with the board. So instead of just hammering away at how do we get this board to get off our ass and be hostile, that we were able to just, with a really simple prompt, get AI to interview us about the personalities of every board member so it could simulate them, so we could anticipate what they might say and receive coaching on how to interact with them to transform that relationship.

Codie Sanchez 5:29 Could we rapid fire? Like, what are all the ways that people are not using AI right now-

Geoff Woods 5:34 Yep

Codie Sanchez 5:34 ... that they absolutely should?

Geoff Woods 5:36 I'll give you one way.

Codie Sanchez 5:38 Okay.

Geoff Woods 5:38 That if you just focus there, you'll get 80% of the value. What is the biggest problem that you are facing right now, that if you could just solve it, it would unlock a huge amount of value for you? This can be personal or professional. And then instead of going to AI and asking it questions like it's Google, go to AI and engage it as a strategic thought partner to interview you about how you're currently thinking about solving that problem, and then show you the non-obvious approaches you could implement that would lead to faster results. And a very simple framework for that is CRIT. Give it lots of context. Assign it a role where you tell it the kind of expert you want it to be, but then make it interview you by asking one question at a time, between three and five questions, to gain deeper context so it can then accomplish a task, which is whatever you want

Geoff Woods 6:30 it to do.

Codie Sanchez 6:30 So you have a formula where you can get AI to become your, you know, smarter, limitless, blue-pilled friend.

Geoff Woods 6:37 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 6:38 And it's called CRIT. Can you break each one down quickly-

Geoff Woods 6:42 Sure

Codie Sanchez 6:42 ... so that somebody listening can use AI way better than 99%-

Geoff Woods 6:45 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 6:45 ... of people out there?

Geoff Woods 6:46 So CRIT is just a really effective way to talk to AI.

Codie Sanchez 6:50 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 6:50 It stands for Context, Role, Interview, Task. Context, while AI's been trained on the information in the world, it doesn't know you, Codie, your business the way that you do. You can't give it a short answer. You gotta give it lots of context about the situation, the more, the better. Role is where you describe the kind of experts you want AI to be, 'cause you literally have ex- access to expertise of the world, and it's not like saying you're a marketing expert. Be really vivid. This is a creativity. You're an expert CMO with deep expertise in the CPG space, but you're really good at understanding the nuances of the whole food, healthy, holistic. Like, you get really specific about it, 'cause I mean, it's tapping into 500 million books worth of data. Access to the expertise of the world. If you're really clear about who you're looking for it to be, it'll be that type of person.

Codie Sanchez 7:43 Mm.

Geoff Woods 7:43 So you give it context. You assign it a role. The most important part is the interview. I just don't ask AI questions anymore. I make it turn the tables and ask me questions-

Codie Sanchez 7:54 Mm

Geoff Woods 7:54 ... to pull deeper context out of my head than I would've ever thought to have shared, but also to elevate how I think and to shift how I lead. That's a game changer. And with all that additional context, Task is whatever you want AI to do. You aim that at any problem, at any goal, it'll blow you away at what this thing can do.

Codie Sanchez 8:14 It's such good advice because I remember when you first were talking to me about this, um, I have a real problem with AI slop, which I think is actually what most people are doing now.

Geoff Woods 8:23 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 8:24 Most people who use AI are not using it agentically, which, you know, would be probably the, the most forward way you could use it now. Um, but they're just asking a question, getting... And that question is usually a sentence, two sentences, getting a really big readout that has so many missing parts in it, that's hyper generalized-

Geoff Woods 8:43 Mm-hmm

Codie Sanchez 8:43 ... that is immediately obvious that it's AI. You know, we had a thing the other day. I was, uh, interviewing a candidate, and it was for a pretty big job, and I'm like, "Well, you know, give me the breakdown of, um, how you would go about this. Like, I would like to see what a, a brief looks like from you on this." Guy must have gone to ChatGPT, you know, listed out a few questions, and wrote me the most obvious AI ChatGPT brief of all time.

Geoff Woods 9:08 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 9:09 And because of that, didn't get the job. Didn't get a second interview because that showed me, like, the level of detail that he was thinking on.

Geoff Woods 9:17 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 9:17 So I feel like a lot of times people with AI, you can go to the lowest common denominator, which is like a slop cannon, or you can go to actually a little bit of a superhuman-

Geoff Woods 9:25 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 9:25 ... with AI. What do most people do wrong with AI, besides asking the questions? 'Cause I found that's, that was so important when you taught that to me.

Geoff Woods 9:34 You familiar with the 80/20 rule?

Codie Sanchez 9:36 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 9:36 So 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

Codie Sanchez 9:40 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 9:41 Most people are using this for the 80% tasks that only drive 20% of the value.

Codie Sanchez 9:46 Mm.

Geoff Woods 9:48 They're not asking, "What are the 20% applications that could drive 80% of the value in my business or in my personal life?" They're defaulting to using it like Google or to write better emails.

Codie Sanchez 10:01 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 10:01 It's not entirely their fault. Most people spend most of their days in the 80%. That's just, like, this huge challenge across the board in work today. It brings some value, but it's not transformative.

Codie Sanchez 10:16 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 10:16 And my gr- and by the way, I used to be that guy.

Codie Sanchez 10:18 Yeah, me too.

Geoff Woods 10:19 Um, when I first started using chat, I was a C-level exec for a public company based out of India, and I was literally using it to write better emails. And I remembered thinking, "My greatest superpower is asking leaders the right questions to drive growth. Here I am asking AI questions." And that's when I wondered, Codie, could I turn the tables and make AI ask me the right questions to make me think more strategically? 'Cause I know how valuable that is-

Codie Sanchez 10:48 Mm

Geoff Woods 10:48 ... in a business or a personal context. And that's when I discovered this idea that you are the thought leader, AI is your thought partner.

Codie Sanchez 10:57 Mm.

Geoff Woods 10:57 And if you choose to view it that way, it can truly be transformative. And I'm talking any generative AI tool, ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Grok, Perplexity. It does not matter which tool. I... We can deliver magic for a company. I saved one company $300 million in 10 minutes with ChatGPT

Geoff Woods 11:20 'cause I knew how to get it to ask me the right questions. So I was doing a workshop with a small group of CEOs, and I asked them the question I ask most people, "What is the biggest problem that you are facing in your business that if we could just solve it, it would unlock a du- a huge level of growth for you?" And the question itself is really strategic, 'cause for a guy who wrote a book about AI, I don't care about AI. It's not our goal. We all wanna cre- become a better leader-

Codie Sanchez 11:50 Mm-hmm

Geoff Woods 11:50 ... who builds a better business and creates better lives. So how do we use AI to do that? One guy looks at me and he goes, "I have a very big problem. I run a manufacturing company here in the US. I lease all this equipment from this company in Japan, but since I did that, the market has fundamentally shifted. The debt structure is killing us. We're gonna go bankrupt if we can't get it restructured." I go, "Okay, what have you done?" He goes, "Man, I think I've done everything." And he lists five very specific strategies he's deployed. "Codie, none of them have worked because the board of the company in Japan that holds the debt- ... is refusing to allow the restructure 'cause they think they'll lose face in Japanese society. He looks at me and he goes, "I have no next steps. We are going out of business. Do you think AI can help?" Maybe. I literally opened up, in this case, ChatGPT, wrote context, role, interview, task into the context window, and in the context section, I literally wrote, "I run a manufacturing company here in the US. I leased all this capital equipment from a company in Japan. Things have shifted in the market. The debt structure's killing us. We're gonna go out of business if we can't get it restructured. I feel like I've tried..." Everything I said to you verbatim was the context section.

Codie Sanchez 13:11 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 13:11 Role was, "You're an in- you are an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to three questions to gain deeper context. Your task is to give me five non-obvious strategies I could deploy to get the board to restructure the debt." Here's what's interesting about this. If you think about how many books you've read in your life, whether it's 100, 500, 1,000, thousands, what percent of all that knowledge can you recall and apply right now?

Codie Sanchez 13:46 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 13:46 Almost nothing. And look at how far we've gotten in our lives. These models have been trained on about 500 million books worth of data. It can recall 100% of it. In under a second, it was able to read through 500 million books to simulate an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt, who also knew 2,000 years of Japanese culture and history, and with that knowledge, it asked a question. "Do you have any relationships with any other executives in Japan that the board would respect?"

Codie Sanchez 14:18 Mm.

Geoff Woods 14:19 I look at him, and he goes, "Wow, what a great question. I would have never asked that. Oh my gosh, I do." It asked two more questions like that before it turns the tables a final time, and it said, "Here's your five non-obvious strategies." Number one, it called the Saving Face Consortium. It said, "You have enough relationships with all the right people in Japan. Why don't you just approach them to acquire your debt? Give them really favorable terms, get debt get restructured. The board saves face." I look at him. He's actually holding back tears, and he admits to everybody in the room, "I haven't slept in 90 days. I've been making peace with the fact that we're going out of business, but in less than 10 minutes, I got hope." Two months later, my phone rings. It's a text from him, and he says, "The ball is moving. This is actually gonna get done."

Codie Sanchez 15:09 It's amazing. And so it, for most people is what happens that we don't ask. We don't give it enough con- So if you wanna use AI right now, what you're probably doing wrong is you don't give it enough context, you don't assign it a role, and you don't let it ask you questions to get to th- the final results.

Geoff Woods 15:28 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 15:28 And if you do those three things, then you can actually make your partner smarter and, and in- and then focus on the output.

Geoff Woods 15:35 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 15:35 As opposed to we just say, "Give me the output up front."

Geoff Woods 15:38 Yeah. That, I would say that falls into skill number two.

Codie Sanchez 15:40 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 15:40 There are three skills that somebody fundamentally has to learn to really be able to harness this in a way that enhances them instead of just being a replacement.

Codie Sanchez 15:48 Mm.

Geoff Woods 15:48 Step one, can you identify a 20% use case?

Codie Sanchez 15:53 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 15:53 If... I don't care how good your prompt is, if you aim it at something that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

Codie Sanchez 15:58 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 15:59 You can use this to write a better email. That is not going to change your results. You use this to solve your biggest problems or to help you achieve your most ambitious goals, that matters. So pick something that matters. Two is, can you communicate effectively? Just like a marriage, this is a relationship with technology. CRIT is just a really simple framework to communicate really effectively with AI. And then number three is, can you remain the thought leader? When it gives you an answer, can you be skeptical? Do you not trust it and submit the AI slop like that person did with you, but instead really be thoughtful about, "Here's what I like about this. Here's what I don't like about this. Here's the top changes I want made to this"? When you interact with it that way, it then becomes a true thought partner going back and forth, not over one prompt, over a conversation. This will enhance the way you think and collapse the time it takes you to get things done.

Codie Sanchez 16:55 Quick aside, here's the thing about everything Geoff walked us through. AI can analyze where the growth is, find places to move the needle, even map out a plan, but a plan still takes execution. You know what kills the execution? You hesitating. I see it constantly. An owner knows the move. You hire, then you do the second location, the inventory you need to stock up on, and you sit on it for months because getting funding feels scary or buying stuff feels scary. AI might give you the clarity. Capital is what lets you act on it. So let me tell you about a new business lending product from SoFi. There's something called SoFi Small Business Loans, and they're built for growth. With a quick digital application, you can receive a decision quickly, and if approved, get funding as soon as 24 hours later. But here's the part I actually really like. The pricing is really clear and upfront, so you see your terms before you accept. No surprises, no penalties for paying off your loan early, and repayment terms tailored to fit your business, not the other way around. It's built for solopreneurs and small businesses. So if you're looking for capital to buy, build, grow, head to SoFi.com/Codie or click the link in the show notes. Your business moves fast. I think your financing should too. SoFi Small Business Loans are originated by SoFi Bank NA, subject to eligibility and approval. Terms and conditions apply. This is a paid SoFi partnership. What are some other hacks to use AI better than anybody else?

Geoff Woods 18:12 Uh, [laughs]

Geoff Woods 18:14 speech to text is a big one.

Codie Sanchez 18:15 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 18:15 I think about a quote that I, or a piece of advice I was given my senior year of college when I asked, "What job should I get after school?"

Codie Sanchez 18:23 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 18:24 And the CEO tells me, "You're asking the wrong question." He said, "Focus on mastering the skills that will be so valuable they'll serve you no matter where you go."

Codie Sanchez 18:32 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 18:33 Phenomenal advice. AI is changing what skills matter. Speech to text is a skill that matters. I don't know this to be certain, but I think typing's gonna go away.

Codie Sanchez 18:44 Yeah, me too.

Geoff Woods 18:45 Um-

Codie Sanchez 18:45 Don't you think they'll re-engineer the computer entirely?

Geoff Woods 18:47 It- totally.

Codie Sanchez 18:47 Like it won't even look like this anymore.

Geoff Woods 18:49 Totally. And with AI, context is king. So when you type, you naturally edit yourself. You care about punctuation, sentence and paragraph structure. None of that matters with AI, and people feel sometimes uncomfortable talking to it 'cause their thoughts aren't organized.

Codie Sanchez 19:05 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 19:05 That's okay. You can, you can just start pressing record, and you can pause, and, like, you can be a hot mess. AI can handle all of this, and the more you give it, the better. So that's one. Um, another pro tip, when you are writing CRIT, when you think you've given it enough detail, assume you have not, and ask, "What else?" And when you think you've given it enough, assume you have not, and ask, "What else?" So, like, when I'm ... I mean, I did this with you. I took you three levels deep-

Codie Sanchez 19:35 Mm

Geoff Woods 19:35 ... on the context section 'cause it's just, it's not enough. So I think this habit of give AI more than you think it needs, and the quality of the results will go up drastically. Um, another pro tip is that I play I- AI against itself. So once I get a result, and I tell it what I like, what I don't like, the top changes, and I go back and forth multiple times, and I like whatever I'm looking at, I recognize that's just the best that I can do.

Codie Sanchez 20:00 Mm.

Geoff Woods 20:01 Not the best that can be done. So I will h- often have AI flip personas, flip roles, and say, "Now be the challenger. You're world-class at stress-testing the insufficiency of everything I've come up with. As that person, I want you to tell me what you like, you don't like, the top changes." It finds all the cracks in the foundation. It highlights every bias, every assumption that I've overlooked. And once I work it there, I'll then say, "Great, now be my ideal customer," where I build actual personas of our customers, so it can simulate the CEO of this company. And as that CEO, it can give me feedback on our recommendation before I even give it. So I really get AI to play against itself to elevate the quality of the results.

Codie Sanchez 20:48 It's funny you say that because AI can be too kind to you often, I've found.

Geoff Woods 20:54 Mm.

Codie Sanchez 20:54 And so, you know, it'll just say, "Yeah, that's totally reasonable that you can hit this goal," when you're typing in unreasonable goals.

Geoff Woods 21:00 Mm.

Codie Sanchez 21:00 Um, you know, it'll say, "Yes, of course, you're probably right in this endeavor." And one of the ways around that is by saying, like, no, now you have to attack it.

Geoff Woods 21:08 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 21:08 So, so how do you get AI to not just be rose-colored glasses?

Geoff Woods 21:13 Yeah, so there's two ways. One is you can do it in that very specific prompt. You can say, "Don't just agree with me."

Codie Sanchez 21:20 Mm.

Geoff Woods 21:20 I, I love to have it be the aggressive growth-minded board member-

Codie Sanchez 21:23 Yeah

Geoff Woods 21:24 ... as part of the role. Like, "Don't just buy what I'm saying and tell me I'm great. I want you to push me for the next level." So this is how I talk to it. I have ac- ... That's in the single prompt. The next level is once you figure out how you really want AI to talk with you, is you put it into the custom instructions of the model. So what- whatever tool you're using, whether it's Chat, Copilot, Claude, any of them, you can give it instructions that will carry across all of them, where mine knows I'm a high D. I have zero patience pants. Give me the 20% that's gonna drive 80% of the results, and don't, don't fluff me up. You need to tell me, like, be the challenger. Red team everything. Fact-check everything so that what you send me is solid. Like, that's in the custom instructions. I can do any prompt, and it'll give us an answer, and then it's gonna say, "Here's my red team," automatically.

Codie Sanchez 22:15 You have a use for AI and sticky notes that I thought was fascinating.

Geoff Woods 22:19 Oh, yeah.

Codie Sanchez 22:19 Talk to me about that.

Geoff Woods 22:20 So, you know, we, we get to go into so many companies and really change the way that people view AI.

Geoff Woods 22:29 But how many keynotes or workshops have you sat and were like, "That's amazing," and you did absolutely nothing? I didn't want that to be the case. Impact's a core value for me. I really want people to change. What's missing is a trigger, a trigger in their environment that will cause them to change, and I have found ... I did this myself. I literally put two sticky notes on my desk. One sticky note said, "How can AI help me do this?" Because I already said this, e- don't go looking for an AI use case. Realize what you're doing right now is an AI use case. So that first sticky note of, "How can AI help me do this?" is that trigger. And then the second sticky note says, "Context. Role. Interview. Task." Literally sits on my desk. I was reviewing my financial statements one month, and I'm literally going over it, and I'm going, "This makes no sense. Like, what do I need to know here?" And I looked down, and I saw the first sticky note. I'm like, "Huh, how can AI help me with my financial statements? What would that prompt even look like?" And then I see CRIT. I'm like, "Come on, Geoff." [laughs]

Codie Sanchez 23:36 [laughs]

Geoff Woods 23:37 And I wrote, "Context. Here's our financials for the last month," and I drag and dropped it in. Our ChatGPT is locked down, so it has the security. "Your role is to act as a strategic CFO who's world-class at telling a CEO the top five things they don't know about their business based on their financials that they should know about their business. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to five questions to gain deeper context. Task, tell me what those five things are." Codie, that was so mind-blowing for me that I have now gotten to the point where I have built an actual agentic AI CFO-

Codie Sanchez 24:14 Yeah

Geoff Woods 24:14 ... that literally is in my email every single day. If I get anything from my finance team, it reads it, it opens up the Excel files. It has got probably 10 pages of instructions on how to run analysis on our financial statements, and based on that, it sends a Slack message to our finance channel with what are the things that we need to know about the business based on the financials. I mean, this is world-class level analysis. Took me 30 minutes to set up when I was on a plane 'cause I got bored And it happens automatically now.

Codie Sanchez 24:46 Yeah, the part that's crazy for me is that once you have your first, you know, agent set up.

Geoff Woods 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 24:52 Which I think can be really intimidating, actually.

Geoff Woods 24:54 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 24:55 And I'm relatively s- tech-savvy, and, and the first time I set it up, I was like, "What the fuck's terminal, and what are we doing here?" And, you know, there's l- and, and it's gotten easier. Every two weeks I feel like-

Geoff Woods 25:05 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 25:05 ... the entire AI landscape changes.

Codie Sanchez 25:08 But I think it's worth playing around with if somebody hasn't done agentic AI, because what you'll find is, um, every small little thing you hated to do, it doesn't mind doing it and remembers the first time how you asked to do it. And then all you might have to do-

Geoff Woods 25:22 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 25:22 ... is reset it every so often and say like, "Why haven't you done that? You were supposed to."

Geoff Woods 25:25 So here's where I have a different approach to most people with AI. Um, people hear about building agents, like, "Oh, I got to build an agent." For most people, that's a distraction.

Codie Sanchez 25:36 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 25:36 I really think of AI adoption like dominoes. If you stand them up and line them up correctly, how do you knock them all down? You just tap the first one.

Codie Sanchez 25:44 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 25:46 Agentic AI's like the 18th domino. Lead domino is the three skills I mentioned earlier. Can you identify a 20% use case? Can you communicate really effectively with CRIT? And can you stay in the driver's seat as the thought leader, not trusting what it says? Tell it what you like. Tell it what you don't like. Tell it the top changes. If you do that once a day, every day for the next 30 days, you'll be playing in a different league. You won't even recognize yourself. So just start there. If we want to talk about agents, you have to realize you don't need an agent. That's a solution looking for a problem. What's the problem you have where if you could use AI to take it off your plate it would bring value? And here's where you have to think about your job. Your job is just skills you apply and processes you follow. So y- like you look at your job here with Contrarian Thinking, there are certain skills that you apply and certain processes you follow. I can segment those into two groups, the 20%-ers that drive 80% of the value and everything else.

Codie Sanchez 26:48 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 26:49 What I'm interested in is how do we build an agent that either allows you to do the 20% better or to take something annoying that's 80% off your plate? And in that case, you're looking at what skills need to be documented, what processes need to be documented. CRIT is actually phenomenal here, because you could have it... You could give it context about what that skill or process is. The role is to be the perfect agentic AI builder, have it interview you to gain deeper context, and the task is to create the markdown file. Markdown is the format that AI loves. The markdown file that it could save so that an agent could replicate that without you being there. And it's just about recognizing that any knowledge you have in your head for how you do your work that is not documented is an opportunity to document. Use AI in, to interview you to create that documentation in markdown format. You save it in a file folder, then you give an, a agentic AI platform like Claude Cowork the ability to tap that, and all of a sudden it can replicate you.

Codie Sanchez 27:49 It's so good. Also, when you realize all you have to do is just talk to your computer. You just be like-

Geoff Woods 27:53 Just talk to it

Codie Sanchez 27:54 ... "All right. I would like to build this thing. I don't know how. What would be the next steps? Can you walk me through it? I don't know what a terminal is. What's a terminal?" And it'll lit-

Geoff Woods 28:01 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 28:01 ... literally take you through every single step.

Geoff Woods 28:03 That's literally how I built my AI CFO. I was like, "Here's my vision for what I want this thing to do. Assume I know nothing about how to build this thing. You're like my eighth grade teacher. You need to walk me through this like I'm an eighth grader, just step by step. Help me do this."

Codie Sanchez 28:16 Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. And that way I think it doesn't have to feel so overwhelming-

Geoff Woods 28:19 Correct

Codie Sanchez 28:19 ... for so many people, because sometimes if you go on the internet these days, everybody's an AI expert all of a sudden.

Geoff Woods 28:24 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 28:24 And everybody has 400 agents doing all their work, and they've made $10,000 in 20 minutes.

Geoff Woods 28:28 And by the way-

Codie Sanchez 28:29 And that's just not reasonable

Geoff Woods 28:29 ... that's, that's all BS.

Codie Sanchez 28:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Geoff Woods 28:31 That's all BS. If you really, yeah, if you pull all those things apart and ask, "Number one, did you build things that actually matter?" Most of them, no. I, the number of people I talk to who go, "Oh, I save six hours a day with AI." And I ask, "So what do you do with the other six hours?" "Oh, I study new AI tools." They've actually gained no business value from what they are doing. So the real opportunities, are you using this in the things that matter? Is it showing up in revenue? Is it showing up in profit? Is it showing up in better retention or better CSAT scores? Like, how are you using this in a way that matters?

Codie Sanchez 29:05 So let's get tactical. What would you do as a framework to determine what your 80%, uh, is that you're doing as opposed to your 20%-

Geoff Woods 29:13 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 29:13 ... percent that you're doing? So how do I know I'm doing the highest value tasks with AI?

Geoff Woods 29:17 Let's start with the 80 and the 20.

Codie Sanchez 29:19 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 29:21 You can literally get a piece of paper and a pen. I'd go analog here. I would not go AI. I would write down everything you have to do this week.

Codie Sanchez 29:28 Mm-hmm. Everything.

Geoff Woods 29:31 Meetings, email, phone calls, Slack, proposals, board report. Like ev- I'm literally thinking through all the things on my plate this week. And once it's all on there, I would start with the first one, and I would ask, "Does this single item represent a 20% priority that's gonna drive 80% of the results in my business?" That is an incredibly high bar. If the answer is no, just skip to the next one. When you get to a yes, just put a star next to it. Very fast you go from all the things you could do down to the focused things you should do. And then I ask the question, "If I can only do one of them this week, what is the one that is actually gonna deliver the most business value?" And I put a number one next to that. That is literally how I prioritize my life. That's how you quickly identify the 20% from the 80. AI throws a bit of a curveball, because what we do as humans is going to change.

Codie Sanchez 30:29 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 30:30 If you study technology shifts throughout history, it didn't take jobs. Remember, a job is just skills you apply and processes you follow. What it did is it made the value of certain skills and processes skyrocket in value, and the value of certain skills and processes plummet in value If one of the 20% things you're doing is something that AI can do better, you should not be doing it anymore.

Codie Sanchez 30:55 Mm.

Geoff Woods 30:55 In fact, if AI is 50% as good as you right now, you should start working to have AI replace it, because within 12 months it will be as good as you, and then it's gonna run away with it.

Codie Sanchez 31:06 Mm.

Geoff Woods 31:07 The things that I think are gonna matter from a human skill standpoint moving forward, the ability to think strategically, to solve problems, to communicate, to collaborate with people and machines, and to create, to be creative. Those are the areas where you will see this become a massive enhancement, not a replacement. But most people, frankly, their job is so focused on outputs, do this report, send this message, generate this proposal, that's machine-based work.

Codie Sanchez 31:38 Mm.

Geoff Woods 31:39 In the Industrial Revolution, it required humans to do that kind of work, not in an AI-driven world.

Codie Sanchez 31:44 What do you think are the first jobs that go away with AI?

Geoff Woods 31:49 Um, customer service, frontline customer service, paralegals. Um, and maybe you'll still have paralegals, but document review, document generation, that type of stuff, that goes away. Um, I think a lot of entry-level work goes away, and this is actually a bigger problem, because you have to get the entry-level job to develop the context to move up the ladder, and this is gonna be one of the bigger gaps in the workforce is, how do we bridge that gap? When kids coming out of school, we're not gonna hire somebody to do this work, 'cause an agent can do it for basically free. How do you leapfrog somebody to this level of performance when they haven't had the reps?

Codie Sanchez 32:31 Yeah. Let's say you have kids that are-

Geoff Woods 32:34 Child

Codie Sanchez 32:35 ... uh, like of the age of going into the workforce.

Geoff Woods 32:37 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 32:38 What jobs or skills would you absolutely never let them do because of AI?

Geoff Woods 32:45 I am very skeptical. I'm not saying you don't do this. I'm very skeptical of the number of people going into law.

Codie Sanchez 32:56 Mm.

Geoff Woods 32:56 Um, mostly because most of them go to law school 'cause they lack direction, not because it's what they actually want to do. Um, I think that industry will absolutely remain. The skills are gonna be fundamentally different. Um, I don't have a strong opinion on that. Where my opinion is is if you are going into applying for a job where you, they're, they still operate in a traditional hierarchy where you report to a boss, you show up to work, take direction from a boss, and do something repetitively, I would not work for that company.

Codie Sanchez 33:32 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 33:33 And here's why. That's how we had to work in the Industrial Revolution.

Codie Sanchez 33:38 Mm.

Geoff Woods 33:38 In an AI-driven world, AI-driven organizations are for- far more like networks and swarms rather than this hierarchy of top-down. It's far more, can leadership cast the vision for where we're going and the strategy and clearly communicate it? And this is about a company that's gonna say, "Codie, what are your God-given superpowers? What is it that makes Codie Sanchez Codie Sanchez?" And this is not a long list. This is probably three things that truly make you you. And how do we actually get clear on what is it that makes you you, and how do we harness those strengths and then focus you on here's the 20% things of this role that these two things gotta match up with? Here's how it lines up with our mission, and now I'm gonna give you agency to harness AI, to build agents so that you can surround yourself with technology as well as human teams to go deliver more value than you would have ever thought possible.

Codie Sanchez 34:32 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 34:34 Yeah, we call them daycare employees versus department chair employees.

Geoff Woods 34:37 Uh-huh.

Codie Sanchez 34:38 And I think in, historically you could have a lot of daycare employees.

Geoff Woods 34:41 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 34:41 They need activity time. They need to be told what to do.

Geoff Woods 34:44 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 34:44 You know, they're there from a certain hour. Uh, it's not really about what the outcome is. It's about time in seat.

Geoff Woods 34:51 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 34:51 And that existed for a long time. But now I think you're gonna move to everybody becomes a department chair. I don't think you have to be an entrepreneur or a founder.

Geoff Woods 34:59 And most shouldn't.

Codie Sanchez 35:00 Yeah, but you do have to have your own center of gravity.

Geoff Woods 35:03 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 35:03 And if you don't, if you're waiting on somebody else to tell you what to do-

Geoff Woods 35:06 You're literally acting like a machine

Codie Sanchez 35:08 ... I know, and then you're really, it's very problematic because-

Geoff Woods 35:11 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 35:11 ... we humans forget. We don't put it on our calendar, and we think it's okay to be reminded multiple times. Machines don't think like that.

Geoff Woods 35:17 So [laughs] my, um, I used to be partners with Gary Keller-

Codie Sanchez 35:21 Yeah

Geoff Woods 35:21 ... who started Keller Williams.

Codie Sanchez 35:22 I forgot about that.

Geoff Woods 35:23 Yeah. Um, the very first thing he ever said to me was on November 1st, 2015. He said, "Welcome to Austin. Good luck. You're gonna need it." [laughs] And I said, "Hi. Thanks. Why?" [laughs] And he asked me, "Geoff, do you know what the best part about your job is?" And I said, "No." He goes, "That it's your job. If you try to give me pieces of your job, you will no longer have one."

Codie Sanchez 35:49 Ooh.

Geoff Woods 35:49 That was the very first thing he ever said to me.

Codie Sanchez 35:52 I like Gary.

Geoff Woods 35:52 Now, I, yeah. Now he and Jay, they, they hired me to turn their book, The One Thing, into this training and consulting company, and he said, "Look, you're gonna wanna get me on podcast, me on stage, me on video. But if you need me, then I don't need you. So go succeed without me." Codie, this was extremely valuable for me, because how often do we look for our boss to tell us what to do? How often do we bring our work to our boss for their approval before we can submit it? We are allowing them to own pieces of our job. The best part about your job is that it's your job. You need to own 100% of your job, which means thinking leverage. If your boss has to follow up with you to ask if you got something done, you are not owning 100% of your job.

Codie Sanchez 36:43 It's, it's very true. But also, like, it, it worries me for a lot of employees today. And I've, I've been there. I'm sure I was at some, some point in time, you know, when I was, when I was younger and starting. But right now, if you are waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do-

Geoff Woods 36:56 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 36:58 My little funny line is I always like to say when somebody brings me something like, "Well, what do I do here?" I say, "I'm really excited for you to figure that out."

Geoff Woods 37:04 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 37:04 "I believe in you. This is why you have the role."

Geoff Woods 37:06 This is where, um, you know why The AI Driven Leader is about leadership more than it is AI.

Codie Sanchez 37:12 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 37:14 There are things you can do as a leader to start to create this culture. So, you know, I, there, it is part of our culture. It is your job to identify what you believe the 20% priorities are that you need to focus on this week to be on track for delivering what you need to deliver by end of month, so you're delivering what you need to deliver by end of quarter, so by end of year in alignment with business plan. I'm not gonna tell you what to do this week. You're gonna show up to our one-on-one, and you're gonna tell me, you're gonna show me your plan for what you think the 20% is. That's thinking leverage. Then it's my job to help you see what you don't see so that we can bridge those gaps, so week after week after week we get to the point that you can truly prioritize your work independent of me.

Codie Sanchez 38:01 How do you change somebody's mindset who thinks that that is, like, toxic culture? Like, I think a lot of people today would say, "Well, your boss should help you and tell you what to do. You shouldn't be expected to do that. You're not running the company."

Geoff Woods 38:15 Mm.

Codie Sanchez 38:15 That's like a common thread in society today.

Geoff Woods 38:18 That-

Codie Sanchez 38:18 How do you flip that switch?

Geoff Woods 38:19 Well, one, I didn't say that. My job as the leader is to be clear on what our goal is. My job is to be clear with you on what your 20% is and the results I'm expecting from you by end of year. But it's your job to show me how you're gonna get there. It's your job to look at all the things that are on your plate and to ask yourself, "What is the 20% that's gonna drive 80% of that?" And I don't expect you to do it in a vacuum. That's why you get the opportunity to, to bring it to me. Show me your thinking. Show me you've done the work to think this through. You're not alone. We're locking arms. We're on the same team staring at the sh- same goal. I'm gonna help you see what you don't see. Today, my executive assistant goes, "All right. Our agenda for today is one, two, three, four, five." And I immediately stopped her and said, "Are those in order of priority?" And she goes, "No, they're not." And she really-

Codie Sanchez 39:13 Did she roll her eyes at you? [laughs]

Geoff Woods 39:14 No, she goes, she goes, "They're not. It really should be four, three, five, two, one." I said, "Good. Run the meeting that way."

Codie Sanchez 39:20 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 39:20 'Cause we may not get past the first item. Let's make sure we're investing in the things that matter most. She's in her first 90 days. That's me training her every single week, but she's getting to the point where she used to show up and wait for me. Like, first time she's, we meet, she, like, looked for me to drive. I said, "This is your meeting. This, I, I'm gonna give you five minutes to think about what do you think the most important thing is. I'm gonna go get a new coffee. When I come back, you're driving the meeting." That was our first conversation.

Codie Sanchez 39:46 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 39:46 So, I... And by the way, that's me empowering you. That's me saying, "I believe in you. You're talented. You are capable. And I believe that you can think this through, and you're not doing it alone. I'm gonna be there to coach you and to guide you." I could tell so many stories of how people have grown inside my orbit as a result of this. It's, it's crazy.

Codie Sanchez 40:09 Well, it's really the only way to grow is the-

Geoff Woods 40:10 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 40:11 ... the unfortunate thing is that I still don't think society thinks that this is the way that you get better, I think. You know?

Geoff Woods 40:20 I als- I've also found myself asking, "Who do I wanna serve?"

Codie Sanchez 40:24 Mm.

Geoff Woods 40:25 I've realized that with our company AI leadership, if we have to convince you that AI is important, you're not our customer.

Codie Sanchez 40:32 Yeah, 100%.

Geoff Woods 40:33 We're for the people that know that they need to become AI driven, and they're running into the wall. They're taking such massive action. They're running into the wall. My job is to take away the wall.

Codie Sanchez 40:43 What about people who say that AI is bad, and it's kills creativity, and it's bad for the environment? And why are you guys even talking about this?

Geoff Woods 40:53 Um, creativity is a big one that I hear often. I would ask them, "Might it be po- w- would you change your stance if you found that this could help you become more creative?" They can't say no to that.

Codie Sanchez 41:05 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 41:06 And then we do something together. I mean, this is such a creative enhancement. I was with, this last week, one of the biggest brands in the world.

Geoff Woods 41:21 I'm in the, I'm in the boardroom with the C-suite. They gave us the biggest problem that they are facing. I mean, you're talking billions of dollars at stake. We wrote a CRIT on how to solve it, totally came up with viable solutions. That alone was worth billions of dollars for them. That was a 20-minute use case, but it requires massive change, massive mindset shift. And I said... I, I had AI flip it, and I said, "Great. Now I want you to be Steve Jobs. Imagine you got to come back and deliver not a message, but a manifesto that I could deliver as the CEO of this company to our workforce that would allay all fear, all anxiety, and would galvanize people to run through walls with excitement, and this thing would be so damn good it would put the release of the iPhone to shame." And it lays out this manifesto that could be delivered in a minute. The CMO of the company goes, "Can we put that on letterhead?" I mean, that is... The creativity is not your ability to create the draft. Your creativity is the ability to cast the vision for where you want to go, to be descriptive with AI on the types of things you're looking for, to be creative in terms of the roles that you pull in or the type of tasks that you want it to do. The difference is people who are creatives have been creative with design, creative with this specific type of art, creative with writing. Like, you were the player of the instrument in the orchestra. You're no longer the player of one instrument.

Codie Sanchez 42:57 Mm-hmm

Geoff Woods 42:58 You're now the conductor, front and center, who's waving the baton and creatively engaging AI as a business analyst, then transforming it into a world-class communication expert with deep expertise on your ICP, and then turning it into an aggressive growth-minded board member who identifies all the non-obvious growth levers that you could be pulling that you're not pulling. Like, even listening to me talk, like, my brain is firing on such a higher level right now even thinking about how I could use this thing.

Codie Sanchez 43:28 Let's say that somebody's listening right now, and they want AI to help them become, uh, more prolific in their writing.

Geoff Woods 43:36 Mm.

Codie Sanchez 43:36 You know, they wanna write way more, but in their voice-

Geoff Woods 43:38 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 43:38 ... the way that they do it, just a very tactical use case. Like, what would you do to go in? What would you upload? What would you include-

Geoff Woods 43:46 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 43:46 ... in order for somebody to turn their AI into their little mini version of them?

Geoff Woods 43:51 Um, first, I would feed it 20 to 50 emails. I would feed it past writing samples of what you would say is your work, and I would include all of that as the context. The role would be, um, you are an expert prompt engineer but also communications expert whose true superpower is actually creating a writing persona. I wanna have a style guide of my voice that I can embed into AI, and your world-class at figuring out how to do that. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to five questions, to unlock deeper context, uh, that you need to do this thing, and then your task is to create the file in markdown format that would be my voice, that if AI ever were to write anything on my behalf, it would nail this. I have that, by the way. I have that. So, uh-

Codie Sanchez 44:46 How many em dashes does it put back in there that you don't want in?

Geoff Woods 44:49 Oh, see, I have it in my cust- my global custom instructions-

Codie Sanchez 44:52 Yeah

Geoff Woods 44:52 ... to never use. Hyphens are okay when they're appropriate.

Codie Sanchez 44:55 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 44:55 Em dashes are not.

Codie Sanchez 44:56 Yeah, and so it still doesn't ... Mine still sneak 'em in. I still gotta, I still gotta keep my eyes-

Geoff Woods 45:01 It's not, it's not perfect

Codie Sanchez 45:02 ... on the prize there.

Geoff Woods 45:02 It's not perfect.

Codie Sanchez 45:03 No. I feel like there's still a 10 to 20% failure rate-

Geoff Woods 45:06 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 45:06 ... even with the best prompt that is the best thing ever.

Geoff Woods 45:09 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 45:09 And you still go in there and go, "That's an em dash. That's a, it's not X, it's Y." Like, what are ... I mean, I'd be curious your take. What are some obvious things that you see that you go, "That is AI and not in a good way"?

Geoff Woods 45:22 Em dashes is number one.

Codie Sanchez 45:23 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 45:24 Um, there are certain things that it opens a paragraph like, "In the AI era," "In this transformation," like it, that's, that's almost-

Codie Sanchez 45:34 It uses the word era

Geoff Woods 45:35 ... it's, it's a little verbose, hypey, inauthentic.

Codie Sanchez 45:39 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 45:39 Um, I can also just tell when I'm reading and there's a lot of words that aren't delivering a message.

Codie Sanchez 45:46 Yeah. It's just too much stuff.

Geoff Woods 45:48 It's a lot of fluff.

Codie Sanchez 45:49 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 45:49 It's a lot of fluff, and all that says to me is ... By the way, I want people to use AI.

Codie Sanchez 45:53 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 45:54 I want you to use it to get to a draft faster, but all that tells me is that they allowed AI to become the thought leader.

Codie Sanchez 45:59 Mm. Yeah, that really comes back to your point 'cause for me, I'll lose my mind on-

Geoff Woods 46:03 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 46:03 ... on, you know, myself and my writing or the team if there's the ever-present en dash, the it's not X, it's Y, the, um, what nobody else will tell you. It says that line a lot. Uh, in the era. It uses the word era a lot. Like, there are a few things that must be just so prolific in human communication-

Geoff Woods 46:21 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 46:21 ... that, uh, it assumes we do that constantly.

Geoff Woods 46:24 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 46:24 And I think sometimes I think employees are scared a little bit-

Geoff Woods 46:28 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 46:28 ... to sound robotic in that way.

Geoff Woods 46:31 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 46:31 But the cure is really just remember that you have to keep leading from the front and-

Geoff Woods 46:35 Remember whatever draft, whatever it gave you is just the first draft, and, uh, before I even look at it, I just tell myself, "This is the bad answer."

Codie Sanchez 46:42 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 46:42 I don't care how good it sounds. This is the bad answer. I'm about to make it better, and then I review it, and I literally tell it, "Here's what I like about what you gave me. Here's what I don't like about what you gave me. Here's the top changes we gotta make," and then it creates an updated draft, and then I do it again.

Codie Sanchez 46:55 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 46:55 And I keep doing it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until I like where I'm at.

Codie Sanchez 47:00 Yeah. What about, um, you have an AI board.

Geoff Woods 47:03 [laughs]

Codie Sanchez 47:04 You know? Your AI board-

Geoff Woods 47:05 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 47:05 ... has a bunch of members.

Geoff Woods 47:07 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 47:07 I'm curious. Do you think everyone should have an AI board, and if they should, who's on it?

Geoff Woods 47:13 You should have an AI board if you are in a position where it's lonely at the top, and you would like to have advice on demand from people that will, or personas that will have your best interest at heart, that are custom designed to augment your weaknesses. So I, um, am the founder and CEO of a company called AI Leadership. I self-funded this thing. I have no investors. I have no board. At the end of the day, the buck stops with me, and it's lonely at the top. And, uh, I see the value in boards 'cause I'm inside a lot of public companies, and I see the role that, that that thing plays. So one day I wrote a CRIT where I fed it my 10-year vision. I fed it our business plan, culture documents. I fed it my personality profiles.

Codie Sanchez 48:01 Mm.

Geoff Woods 48:01 I told it in the context section everything that I thought were my strengths and weaknesses, but also called out, "Those are just the ones I'm aware of." And the first CRIT, it had to interview me to identify what my other strengths and weaknesses were that I was unconscious of, that I needed to be conscious of, and based on that, to identify the skills that I was missing, that if I were to assemble an actual board, I would want to attract those skills to the board to get me to where I wanna go over the next 10 years.

Codie Sanchez 48:34 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 48:35 And it gave me this list of skills. I didn't trust it. I, I applied judgment, and I culled it down, but, like, one was vision. One was product design. One was storytelling, risk mitigation, finance, and I said, "Great, now research famous people, world-class businesspeople or, or f- or leaders who exemplify these skills." Well, three of those skills were taken up by one guy. Vision, product design, and storytelling, who better than Steve Jobs? So I literally built a personality profile for Steve Jobs, but custom augmented to me. So he has rules on what he can do, and he has very specific rules on what he can't do. He is not allowed to give me advice on being a husband, a father, or a leader. I'm dead serious. I'm not interested in his advice in those three categories. Warren Buffett is on my board for long-term planning and risk mitigation. Jeff Bezos is on my board for scale and operational efficiency. My most valuable board member is my future self.

Codie Sanchez 49:35 Mm.

Geoff Woods 49:36 I created a persona of the man I wanna be 30 years in the future so that that version of me can advise me every single day.

Codie Sanchez 49:43 This is actually wild. We've taught 1,500 business owners how to increase their revenue inside of one quarter by anywhere from 26% to 100%. How? Well, we stole the playbook from private equity. We use something called the 12 Ps, which is the framework that takes you from whatever your revenue level is now to a higher level, plus more profits. You see, the thing about private equity is they don't guess how to grow a business. They know every single time. It's just never been applied to normal everyday businesses. We stole the homework, integrated into the 12 Ps, and deliver something called the Owner's Score. Your Owner's Score and our boardroom is what helps you move your business forward. So if you right now are wondering, "How do I make more profit in my business? How do I grow my revenue of my business? Why is this one problem continuing to happen?" Maybe it's hiring the wrong people, maybe it's not having enough sales, maybe it's not having enough leads. I can almost guarantee you it is one of the 12 Ps holding you back, except no one's ever taught you this. If this is you, I wanna meet you, and if you're a fit for our Contrarian Thinking boardroom, I may invite you out to our headquarters in Austin, Texas, to learn more about how we help small business owners double, triple their revenue with just one of these 12 Ps. You can click the link below to see if you are a fit for the Contrarian boardroom. So you say that AI could lead to cognitive decline or decay. What's happening there?

Geoff Woods 51:04 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 51:04 How do we know if that's happening to us?

Geoff Woods 51:06 I, I think this is the greatest risk with AI that is not being talked

Geoff Woods 51:10 about, is unfortunately, a lot of people are lazy, and they're not realizing it, but the- your brain, your ability to think is a muscle. If you stop using it, it's gonna get weaker and weaker over time. Most people are using AI in a way that it, it is replacing their ability to think. Anytime you ask AI a question, get an answer, and you just accept it, you made AI do the thinking leverage, not you. You can absolutely flip that, though, in a way that this requires more thinking on your end, and this is where CRIT has been really good, 'cause when you describe the context, you have to think, like, "What's all the stuff that I need to tell?" And you're recalling all these different things. Your brain is working more. When you describe the role, you're getting really creative about the kind of experts that your brain is working more. When the AI turns the table and starts to interview you, it asks questions that you would never ask yourself. Your cognitive demand goes through the roof, and with all of that, it then accomplishes the task, which you then still apply judgment and discernment, and then you're thinking more about, "What do I like? What do I not like? What are the top changes?" So if you actually look at when you write CRIT, how much more you use your brain, it goes through the roof. In that case, I... it is enhancing me. Unfortunately, most people are allowing it to replace them.

Codie Sanchez 52:41 Yeah. So how do you know if you are allowing it to replace you?

Geoff Woods 52:45 I-

Codie Sanchez 52:46 If all you do is you take the answers, you don't allow it to ask you questions, that is the biggest indicator?

Geoff Woods 52:52 I think, well, one, those people aren't even aware that they're doing it.

Codie Sanchez 52:56 Right.

Geoff Woods 52:57 So there's a lack of awareness there to begin with. For me, the thing that I pay attention to is when I try to solve problems, can I still do it without AI? I think about this a lot, and, um, it's a dance, Codie. There are... 'Cause there are times where I am just... I'm so clear on how inferior my human brain is to solve things without being augmented by AI. I am so... I know what it feels like to have superhuman powers.

Codie Sanchez 53:27 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 53:27 And when you suddenly can't fly anymore, you know what it feels like to not be able to fly.

Codie Sanchez 53:34 It's a really good point, and it's hard to have patience with it. You know, I was with our mutual friend Charlie the other day, and he's like, "Well, we can just upload this into Claude, and Claude can give us a..." And I was like, "No. We have, we have these sticky notes on the window." I said, "I want us to think through this critically first."

Geoff Woods 53:49 Mm.

Codie Sanchez 53:49 "Then we can take pictures of it. We can feed the whole thing through AI. But I actually want us to just make sure that we like the output before we take an output." And, and I can see how we actually would get... It's annoying.

Geoff Woods 54:02 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 54:02 Because it, it, it could be so much faster if you allow the computer-

Geoff Woods 54:05 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 54:05 ... do the thinking for you.

Geoff Woods 54:07 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 54:07 And so it can feel dumb-

Geoff Woods 54:09 Mm-hmm

Codie Sanchez 54:09 ... actually to not do it.

Geoff Woods 54:11 Well, I mean, I, in my office at home, I have a, a nice leather chair that is my thinking time chair.

Codie Sanchez 54:17 This is very manly of you. I like this.

Geoff Woods 54:19 Very.

Codie Sanchez 54:19 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 54:20 Um, I only sit in that chair when I'm doing strategic thinking.

Codie Sanchez 54:25 Really?

Geoff Woods 54:25 And I'm talking pen and paper strategic thinking. So the guy who wrote the book about AI uses pen and paper still, because I sometimes need to sit down and really process my thoughts, and it's not a one-shot thing. Sometimes I need to sit there for an extended period of time to really think through, "What am I missing? What am I not thinking about?" And I get all that context on the page. Then you better believe I'm bringing in my computer and going, "Here's the question I just asked myself. Here's the, all my notes from the result of my thinking time." And I'm talking to this thing, dumping all that context into AI, and then having it play a very specific type of role to ask me deeper questions to pull even more out of my head to then- Do whatever task that is, whether it's creating files that I'm gonna build into an AI agent, whether it's using it to harness that against our strategic plan, whether it's communication that's gonna go to the company, that's what it looks like.

Codie Sanchez 55:21 Top three AI tools to use in 2026.

Geoff Woods 55:24 Claude.

Codie Sanchez 55:25 [laughs] It's fair. For everything. Sad, no, we need some competition. We can't have another Google that owns everything, but yes, okay, I agree with you. That's the one I go to. Although, you know what? Actually, I don't agree with it all the way, 'cause you know what I still like ChatGPT for?

Geoff Woods 55:41 Hmm.

Codie Sanchez 55:41 ChatGPT does a really good job of very short, prompted, uh, image creation.

Geoff Woods 55:48 Hmm. Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 55:49 I still find even with Claude Design, Claude Design has a design-

Geoff Woods 55:53 Mm-hmm

Codie Sanchez 55:53 ... that looks like Claude.

Geoff Woods 55:55 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 55:55 And you have to beat that design out of it still.

Geoff Woods 55:57 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 55:57 I'm sure that'll be gone at some point.

Geoff Woods 55:59 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 55:59 But Chat actually does not have a specific chat design-

Geoff Woods 56:03 Yeah, yeah

Codie Sanchez 56:03 ... which is interesting.

Geoff Woods 56:04 A- and that's where I can give you the high level answer, and then there's-

Codie Sanchez 56:07 Yeah

Geoff Woods 56:07 ... what's the problems that you're facing?

Codie Sanchez 56:09 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 56:09 You know, my videographer will have a different answer in terms of the AI tools that he's using for that-

Codie Sanchez 56:14 He does, probably

Geoff Woods 56:14 ... versus, you know, if you're in graphic design space, like you're gonna be using something very different. If you're focused on research, you're gonna be focused on something very different. But I think just broad-based across the board, Cl- Claude. Um, by the way, even the way you described that use case, was your brain working more or less?

Codie Sanchez 56:32 Oh, yeah, more. I have to... Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 56:35 Like, I watched your eyes. You started looking up and to the right, and you're visualizing this thing. Your s- your- your speech started talking faster. Your brain was firing.

Codie Sanchez 56:42 How many AIs do you use at once? Do you ever have like Claude over here working on a, an issue-

Geoff Woods 56:48 Mm

Codie Sanchez 56:48 ... Chat creating an image for you, Higgsfield rendering a video simultaneously?

Geoff Woods 56:53 Sometimes, but that's not the 20%.

Codie Sanchez 56:55 Really?

Geoff Woods 56:56 And this is, this is again where I really focus on the 20% that's gonna drive the 80. For most people, can we just identify a 20% priority that matters, write CRIT really well, and then apply our thought leadership to the situation?

Codie Sanchez 57:12 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 57:13 That's gonna take you so much further than what tool and how many can I use somewhat. Like, that is so what most people are focusing on. That's not gonna transform the EBITDA of your company. That's not gonna change the competitive positioning of your company. Now, when you do this really well, and then you start to build agents, do I have Claude running different things at different times? Sure.

Codie Sanchez 57:38 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 57:38 But that's not the goal. It's can I focus on one thing that matters right now and do it really well? And if that's a repetitive task, can I turn it into an agent so it starts to run on itself? And can I focus on making that thing really good so that it actually does bring me 100% leverage? Otherwise, it's not that valuable. And then I can move on to building the next one.

Codie Sanchez 57:59 What do you think about, um, having centralized AI brains in companies? This is a little bit 202, but having a centralized brain in your company-

Geoff Woods 58:09 Mm-hmm

Codie Sanchez 58:09 ... uh, or having decentralized brains per division, and also having decentralized agents-

Geoff Woods 58:16 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 58:16 ... in each division. How do you see companies doing that today? Let's call it companies that are doing anywhere from one to 100 million bucks.

Geoff Woods 58:25 They aren't.

Codie Sanchez 58:26 Mm.

Geoff Woods 58:27 They aren't. And it's-

Codie Sanchez 58:28 Like what, less than 5% are doing that?

Geoff Woods 58:31 Less than .01 are doing that.

Codie Sanchez 58:34 Wow. Mm.

Geoff Woods 58:34 And in most, the vast majority of companies, people are still using this to write better emails-

Codie Sanchez 58:40 Yeah

Geoff Woods 58:40 ... or to be their Google. They say they're building agents. They're not. They're building a project or a GPT. True agent that can do things independent of you. Now, the smaller companies that are startups, like I do believe that they are starting to go down this. I would really challenge how much of that is the 20% versus the 80. I think a lot of people are doing a lot of things that aren't actually delivering results. So I'm not even worried, like most, most companies shouldn't even be worried about that yet.

Codie Sanchez 59:08 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 59:09 If you are, that is a high level of sophistication, and my guidance to them is, step one, I want as much data centralized as possible, 'cause it's a massive, massive asset.

Codie Sanchez 59:21 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 59:21 The question is, what access to what data, which is, that's when you can look at divisional stuff like that. And then the question is, how is the data structured? Is it actually in the right file format, like a markdown, where these models can actually talk to it? And more importantly, can you give your people agency to start to use AI to document what they do so it can do that for them, so it can liberate them to deliver more value inside the company?

Codie Sanchez 59:43 Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing we found with the centralized, overly centralized AI, AI database bases are they really need sub-agents-

Geoff Woods 59:53 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 59:53 ... for the most part, and those sub-agents, you're right, you have to have a data lake, and then that data lake needs to have protections for all the individual, you know, um, subsets that you need to have. But I think inside of a business, what we're seeing, at least-

Geoff Woods 1:00:06 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 1:00:06 ... with our businesses that we talk to, is there's usually one, this is probably your 20%, there's one part of your business, usually sales, 'cause that's where your, your, the money makes.

Geoff Woods 1:00:16 Mm-hmm.

Codie Sanchez 1:00:17 And inside of sales is like the first place where agents make sense, or, and I don't mean agents that are gonna go do your sales even. I mean, is there an agent that can comb through all of your phone calls that your salespeople have to determine what are the most common objections, feed you the best solutions for the clients-

Geoff Woods 1:00:35 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 1:00:35 ... that were actually closed, and then help you, uh, you know, train your salespeople without having 30 managers.

Geoff Woods 1:00:41 I, I got cool, two cool use cases here.

Codie Sanchez 1:00:43 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 1:00:44 Uh, voice of customer is super important to us.

Codie Sanchez 1:00:46 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 1:00:46 So we want to understand what's on the hearts and minds of our

Geoff Woods 1:00:49 people. Every conversation we have with a customer, i- there's an AI note taker there.

Codie Sanchez 1:00:54 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 1:00:54 And we ended up creating, um, something where with the note taker, if a customer says something that we think is voice of customer worthy, we click a highlight button, AI rewinds to the beginning of that customer talking for that segment, records until we say stop, built it so that snippet gets sent to a voice of customer channel on Slack. Once a week- An agent goes in that Slack channel, finds everything our customers have said over the last week, sends that to another application where it's turned into a podcast. When I wake up Wednesday morning, by 5:00 AM when I'm at the gym, I'm listening to an actual podcast of everything my customers have said over the last, past week. That's how I prepare for our product market fit meetings.

Codie Sanchez 1:01:33 Well, that's cool. That's a good idea.

Geoff Woods 1:01:35 So that's just voice of customer.

Codie Sanchez 1:01:37 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 1:01:37 We hired a new salesperson.

Codie Sanchez 1:01:39 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 1:01:39 And I asked the guy who... W- I was promoting him. She was backfilling him. I said, "How are you gonna train her?" He's like, "Well, you know, I got my scripts. We're gonna role play. I'm gonna listen to some calls." I go, "Nope." And he goes, "Okay, you clearly see something I don't see. What do you see?" And I go, "Hasn't every sales call we've ever done in the company been recorded by an AI note taker?" He goes, "Yeah." "Don't we have conversion data on what's happened with every single prospect?"

Codie Sanchez 1:02:06 Yep.

Geoff Woods 1:02:06 "Yes." "Why don't you feed AI the last 100 sales calls and the conversion data as well as what you think your script is, write a CRIT, and have it come up with what the ideal sales script is based on conversion data on that volume, turn that into custom instructions for an AI sales coach so we can build an agent so that when this person gets off a sales call, that note, the note taker automatically sends the transcript to the sales coach who compares that against the best that could be done, and slacks them on what they did well, what they need to change within the next five minutes before their next sales call?"

Codie Sanchez 1:02:45 Yeah. That's what we do, too. We take all the data from Avoma and actually feed it into something that in real time-

Geoff Woods 1:02:52 Yeah

Codie Sanchez 1:02:52 ... can give you feedback on these objections.

Geoff Woods 1:02:54 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 1:02:54 And it sort of voice triggers based on what you say on the phone call. It's been a game changer, especially for, we had an underperforming sales rep that I love. He's a great jet. And traditional training just wasn't working.

Geoff Woods 1:03:06 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 1:03:06 But this iterative real time training-

Geoff Woods 1:03:08 Yes

Codie Sanchez 1:03:09 ... is so much more sophisticated-

Geoff Woods 1:03:11 Yes

Codie Sanchez 1:03:11 ... that now he's one of our top closers.

Geoff Woods 1:03:13 Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 1:03:13 And he was the one that, he was, you know, speaking of being an employee, he was one of the guys that came up with the V1 of this as a non-technical person because he was struggling. He was gonna get fired.

Geoff Woods 1:03:23 Yeah. Yeah.

Codie Sanchez 1:03:23 Uh, and then he showed it to the team, and now we're like, "Okay, let's roll this out a- across a bunch of it." It wasn't even top down.

Geoff Woods 1:03:29 That's awesome.

Codie Sanchez 1:03:29 So it's really cool what you're doing. So for somebody listening today, if you had to give them one thing to do with AI right now, what

Codie Sanchez 1:03:37 is it?

Geoff Woods 1:03:37 Once a day, every day for the next 30 days, write CRIT in a strategic way.

Codie Sanchez 1:03:46 That's it.

Geoff Woods 1:03:46 Pick something that you're doing once a day that matters, write CRIT, context, role, interview, task, and when you get an answer, don't trust it. Say, "Here's what I like about it. Here's what I don't like about it. Here's the changes I want made." That will blow your mind. If you do that every day for the next 30 days or the next 30 business days, you won't even recognize yourself. And here's what's gonna happen. Codie, it's really tough to describe color if you've only seen black and white.

Codie Sanchez 1:04:15 Yeah.

Geoff Woods 1:04:16 Most people are living in black and white. I mean, even the use cases we were just sharing, people are like, "I could never come up with that."

Codie Sanchez 1:04:22 Mm-hmm.

Geoff Woods 1:04:22 Yes, you could, but you haven't seen color yet. And when you start writing CRIT on the 20% every single day, you start to see color. Then you start to look at a process and you're like, "Why the heck are we doing it that way?" And you will be so much more creative about how you can approach something, not by bolting AI onto the way things used to be, but by truly imagining from first principles, how might we do this if I was an AI-driven leader or this was an AI-driven organization?

Codie Sanchez 1:04:52 Geoff, you're the man. I love how you take AI, make it really simple but profound, and, uh, I always push you. I'm like, "What about this hack? What about this hack?" You're like, "No, no, no. It's this. It's nothing else. Do this one simple thing, and if you do it, AI does not have to be so scary, and in fact can really be life changing."

Geoff Woods 1:05:09 That's it.

Codie Sanchez 1:05:10 All right. Thank you for coming, Geoff Woods.

Geoff Woods 1:05:11 Thank you.

Codie Sanchez 1:05:11 Woods Everywhere. And I love AI-Driven Leadership. AI-Driven Leader, the book, and, uh, I liked it so much we bought it for, uh, all the employees.

Geoff Woods 1:05:19 Oh, thank you.

Codie Sanchez 1:05:19 I think I told you that last time you were here. Thanks for being here, Geoff.

Geoff Woods 1:05:21 Thank you. [upbeat music]