How to Embrace Tech Without Losing Your Soul with Leanne Shelton

Overwhelm or robot apocalypse fears? No. Today is about how we actually fuse humanity with ai. Leanne Shelton is the author of the brand new book, AI Human Fusion, and what I love about Leanne and her work, and I'm hoping you all do too, is her non-techie human first approach to this whole AI thing. She went from copywriter to ai.

Hello Leanne. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to finally have a chance to share your genius with my audience. How are you today? Yeah, good, good. Thank you for having me. Oh my absolute pleasure. Like let's get right into it because as we know, AI is such a thing right now. It seems to be on every single social media feed.

Everyone's talking about it. It is like the latest and greatest, and as you and I have talked about it is such a phenomenal tool that can help so many of us. Build our profile, attract and build our businesses and help us from a productivity point of view. But before we get into that, first up, congratulations on your new book, AI, human Fusion.

Professional expertise space that you were in to now becoming this phenomenal thought leader in the AI space. And I'm curious about not only what flipped the switch for you, but how, what your advice would be to other women to recognize these pivot points in their career before they miss them.

Chat BT threatened was content and that is what I got paid to do. And you know, it was a free shiny tool. Sure, eventually you could pay for it or whatever, but still, ultimately people can access it for free. And one of my pet hates initially was that people were just using this tool. Let a second thought about what the output actually looked like, and it sounded like.

And the quality of it. Everyone kept going, how good's this? It's so like they kept focusing on the productivity factor, how good's this? But as a copywriter, so putting my copywriting hat on, I'm like, but it's garbage. And they don't see it because they're not writers. And I basically saw a bit of a gap in the market there.

Which, you know, is often the first thing people use AI for and go, okay, you wanna use it? Can't beat 'em. Join them. Let me at least show you how to do it properly. Okay, fine. Don't go to me as a copywriter, but let me at least show you. The right steps to make it work. And so the message actually lands so you're actually getting output that you are happy with.

It doesn't sound robotic and lifeless and it's just a lot of people just don't know what they don't know. And it's just evolved and I've just developed such a major passion for this and the whole human first approach as well as has evolved from that. And yeah, I'm really loving it. I'm happy I took this, took this, uh, trip down this new world.

But where so many business owners make the mistake is this, they stay stuck, they stay immovable. They don't necessarily keep their eye on how the world is evolving and changing around them, and therefore how they need to adapt and change. And what you clearly did there, as you said, is I noticed a gap in the market.

So as opposed to. Being in fear of this tool. 'cause as you said, your livelihood was at risk as opposed to running away and being in fear of it. You got curious, you got onto that proverbial balcony and went, actually, how can I look at this differently? What is actually going on? Where's the opportunity here?

So super excited about that. So let's go into it. You know, you talk about AI as being that tool and not a threat, but I think a lot of people do see it as a threat still, or they're using it. But they're not really using it. It's like I'm used chat gp, but yet they're not necessarily using it. So my question to you is, how do we as leaders, as business owners keep our authenticity and our creativity center stage when these amazing tools, these amazing bots, can essentially draft schedule and even think faster than us?

Look, the thing is, we all have experience and expertise to bring to the table, and I think if you believe AI can replace you, it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We really need to see ai, just like we saw the internet and social media. A tool to amplify our message in a different way. Look, there's still newspapers.

And this is where I say as well, we don't want people to get lazy. And that's, that's I guess, a fear of a lot of people. And that's where people go, oh, we're gonna lose our creativity because ai. Well then you're using it wrong. Like it. It's actually really and emphasized my critical and creative processes because what I want everyone to think about is with AI, it's often removing a barrier to entry or it's replacing the repetitive notness stuff that you can otherwise use your time for more quality things like building customer relationships or actually doing the thing you're really good at, rather than playing out the little admin stuff.

So the way I use it, it's often like, oh, I just need to create this email sequence, or I just wanna get weekly thought leadership pieces out. Wanna make sure it's all based on my content. It sounds like me, it's all me, but I don't wanna spend hours doing it when I really need to work on my book. You know?

I'll ask for this. Oh, it's not quite right. Okay, what have I missed? What have I assumed? Same thing with a junior real life human assistant. Right? Or team member, they've missed something. Okay. I obviously haven't briefed them properly. And then you go up with other questions and other prompts, and then they often say as well, and people ignore this.

It'll say at the very end, would you like help with this or would you like another perspective? Or we like look at that line. I'm gonna put up a little, um, post about that actually. But remember, it wants to help you. And please, you, you need to guide it. You need to stay in charge. And that's what a lot of people aren't doing.

You wouldn't send a new team member off into the world in at an onboarding program or the checking in or the guiding and the coaching to help 'em get up to speed, and it's exactly the same. What's your view, whilst I've got you, because there was a beautiful article that came out, I think you might have even commented on it, around the cost.

Of the pleases and thank yous. 'cause I am guilty of that. And I actually don't mind, there's a beautiful client in you, you might have even heard this beautiful client in Elevate that literally every morning will go, good morning, I'm about to do this today. You know, how are you? And it's like that first morning coffee chat that she has with her chat bot.

But really it's maintained that human habit of using manners. And I think especially when voice becomes a bigger thing, like we won't always be typing to AI tools. We might just be picking up our phones just like you know, Siri and obviously next level. It's gonna even more important because you wanna get in the habit of.

Saying Please and thank you. Just like you would if you turn to a real life colleague, family member, friend. And if you are just Shannon demands, it's gonna be very hard to then switch your mindset to go, oh, hang on now speaking to a human, I have to speak differently. So there's that point of view. I think just.

I say it's the same sort of thing. But I think what's also important is that these tools are being trained up on how we treat them. And if you want it to be respectful back to you, you need to be respectful to it. And it's actually has been proven because it's trained to respond like a human and humans respond better to manners, that you'll get better output as well.

I think it's just a good habit. Those that don't use it often, they're in the IT techie space that is used to coding where you don't have to worry about it. But for the sake of humanity, I reckon it's a good habit.

No, do this, and it'll go, of course, no and deliver it, but it may actually not be the right thing. That situation. I love that. Tell me more about that. So

What tips have you got for that?

So what you need to push back on, and I did get some comments about this, um, on my LinkedIn feed. Some people, and I've gotta try this myself. Is to say to it, I want you to push back. Tell me when I'm wrong. I want you to always be critical of everything. I prompt you or you create a, a custom GPT if you wanna have a a critical bot, but.

Just in your prompts, just say, here's what I'm thinking. What are suggestions? And please tell me, maybe flip it, tell me what could be wrong with this, or what am I missing? Any key information? Do you think this, it would actually serve me? Or like just that kind of questioning and then see what it comes back with.

If you don't agree, push back and why? And tell me why.

And you also talk in your book about a habits framework, which I think is ingenious and. Just to continue this conversation, let's dive into that H, which stands for human and you know, in this world of clicks and likes and chatbots, have you got anything else that you would add to that of how do we really keep this human connection piece going and make our superpower?

They focus on updates, and although at the times I feel like I should be doing all those things, I'm like, okay, no, no. I wanna be different. I wanna maintain that human first approach. There's a lot of like hyper on AI first, which is like, oh, we find any ways to embed AI tools. But I strongly believe in human first, which means how can the tools serve us and do we even need many tools or just one tool?

And I think that's what people need to focus on too. Like don't focus on replacing your team members. Don't focus on replacing the human thinking. Definitely. Look, if you already have ideas in your mind. Pull those notes together and then ask it to improve or expand. Don't ask it to always start without your proper input.

Always prompt it with you properly thinking about it first, and that's where I just say with let's just keep the humans in the picture and a trap that a lot of people fall into. With the whole productivity thing, they're thinking about their own productivity. How will this serve me? And especially like a marketing point of view, how will this serve me?

And what's happening then, is your audience losing that know, like, and trust factor with you? Therefore it's you're just shooting yourself in the foot. You're going, how good am I? I'm so proactive, but it's not landing. And that's a big trap that I want everyone to avoid. Remember, how is it actually landing you?

Have you just think about it? If I just flick this out, does that sound like me? If that person was to have a human conversation with me in real life, if not. Maybe change it.

Actually, what we have to do is stand. Out because it's all just becoming noise. We can't sense make, we can't work out what's relevant. And so it just becomes like, blah, just, there's all this noise. As always. How do we actually ensure that we stand out in the noise? And, and you know, one of the things in my business, what we've been working really hard on.

So personally, I'm having to work even harder to ensure that my content is hitting that mark to get that standout. The second piece though, that we've got going on is this. Everybody is searching for trust. And I think this talks to your piece too, in that we know that as a society, our levels of trust in brands, in government, in the media, in leaders is on the decline.

We also know research from Gallup showed this, that, that when people are looking, when they, they did a piece of research recently where they were asking, what are you looking for in leaders? What is it? And the number one word that came out was hope. Followed by trust. So we've got these two really interesting things going on in the market where it's really noisy, increasing amount of noise where people just are almost switching off.

What we want to go out in the world off to a machine that we can pump out a whole heap of content in five minutes, but we're actually intentional about how we use these tools in such a way that it enables our voice to be heard, that it enables us to cut through that. It helps us share our messages in such a way that it reinforces who it is that we are.

Oh yeah. Look at the first LinkedIn newsletter, and straightaway there was like. In the first three lines I could tell is AI generated and trust has evaporated. I'm just like, I have no idea if any of these thoughts are yours or it's from a mishmash of all these different bits and pieces that have been used to train up the tool.

I have no idea, and this is why I do say to people like, I don't use whatever's been pre the tool's, been pre-trained with, like I'm always giving it, here are my workshops, here are my keynotes, here's my manuscript chapters, here's whatever. Can you draft something based on that? And I'm never going external because that way I know it's gonna really resonate.

I also secure that trust by being transparent when I have used ai, and that's something people aren't doing as well, and so people are like, I think it's ai. I'm not sure, and then just move on. If they don't think, you know, if it's purely ai, I like to say a little phrase like little Ps. This article was written in collaboration with chat team.

My human brain, you know, a bit of fun, but just being transparent that I use it to support me. But how good is it? It sounds like me. Like I've, I've worked with it, I've trained it hard. If you are, use ai, please just share that you are using it. I think that's gonna help with maintain that trust, because otherwise gonna lose completely.

You know, we could talk about this for absolute hours and as I said, I can't wait to share your genius at an event that I'm running at the end of June. Um, I'm looking forward to you teaching my community some of the incredible stuff that you have got in your book, and I highly recommend. People who are interested in this to reach out to you and to, uh, get their hands on a copy of your book for themselves.

But then my final question is, is if, if someone is listening to this podcast and they, they're still feeling like they actually need a digital detox 'cause it's all just got too much, rather than an AI strategy, what's one move that you know that they could make this week to start building? AI literacy on their terms.

And that's quite often what people do. Um, the majority, if they're too scared to do much more, I challenge you to do something like, say you're overwhelmed with your working week with this and this. Put in a question into your chat. PT tool or chat pt, sorry, or Gemini or, or you know, whatever co-part, whatever you prefer to use.

Just put something in like, I have the following priorities this week. Which one should I do first or have the following things in my mind? How should I plan out my day? Something just like that, which is gonna be helpful for you instantly. Or I just wanna come up, can you just gimme like five ideas for my next article based on, here's information about me, and, and put a link to your website.

I wanna come back with this, this, this, this, this. Just take out the emotion and get it to help you as a starting point. Then you go and improve on it. Just those kind of little starting points. Just think of where you are right now, where, where you're already feeling overwhelmed. Don't add to the overwhelm.

Get it to help you remove it, and, and go from there.

Just like the Internet's part of our world, social media's part of our world. Electricity once did a major shakeup, right? It's just the latest thing. We are gonna survive. We are gonna be okay. You just need to take baby steps towards the right direction and make sure your team is feeling supported right now as well.

Because if you are freaking out, they're probably freaking out. You can't just say, Hey, go use touch BT to increase your productivity. That's not gonna solve their problems. It's gonna add to the confusion and overwhelm. So I really encourage if you do have a team, like sit back, have a chat. Where are you all at with it?

Just bring it back to the humans and have a holistic view like you will get through this. You just gonna take baby steps.

But just have no idea. And there's so much noise. Um, you know, we kind of touched upon the h and the, the framework, the habits framework, but there's also the ai, which is the training it up like actually, so it sounds like you and knows you, your brand voice, your customers, everything like that. And there's also this side of things, which is like the business integration, like the AI policy, the security.

And I think this book, there's nothing like it at the moment. It's all kind of, all the AI books out there are all about the hype and the tools and, and all that. This just brings it back to the human and how you can slowly step by step, implement, integrate smoothly, successfully, and keep it human.

I love it. I'm a big fan and as I said, I can't wait to share it with my clients. Congratulations, Leanne. Finally, someone is talking about the human side of technology and your book is a great tool in terms of not only sharing the possibility and the potential, but also there's that reality check and the tools and frameworks to help people navigate it.