Your Creative Brain On ChatGPT With Ann Handley

Your brain on AI? Turns out, it might be shrinking. No, really. We brought on marketing legend Ann Handley to talk about what AI is doing to creativity—and how to stop sounding like every other ChatGPT-generated caption out there. 

If you’ve been tempted to let tech do the heavy lifting, Ann shares a smarter way to collaborate with AI without outsourcing your originality. We talk content that connects, the power of personal storytelling, why email marketing is still her #1 tool—and how she’s built a wildly loyal audience by treating the inbox like a sacred space (not a sales funnel).

Show Notes: 

• Visit Ann's Website
• Connect With Ann On Instagram
• Connect with Ann on LinkedIn
• Sign up for Ann's Newsletter
• Check out the MIT study on AI: Your Brain On ChatGPT

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• Not Nice Clever
• Candice Carcioppolo
• Kat Torre

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Transcript

 So it was a study that came out that showed how our brains are atrophying. When we take an AI first approach. You do not internalize any of the ideas. You know, I have real concerns about that as, uh, as somebody who worries a lot about like, what happens to the next generation of. Writers and creatives.

And and marketers. My approach there is not to say, well, AI is evil. You should never use it, because I just don't think that's a practical approach.

What is the purpose of our marketing? It's not just tell people who we are, it's to why we matter to them. I think you've gotta do less and obsess. Do less things, create less, and obsess about that thing that you're creating. The game changer for me was when I stopped trying to be on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and.

Twitter slash x, so I focused on LinkedIn and Instagram and then I started an email newsletter because to me that intimacy of the inbox is just so valuable for all of us. What would be your approach if you don't want them to use AI to shortcut creativity? How would you recommend they use it? Oh my God.

Clever crew. Uh, it's no secret that most content on the internet today is just. Fine. Uh, not great, not memorable. Half the time you can't even tell if it was written by a real person or chat, GPT, but if you're someone who is really trying to stand out, like actually, but your content keeps falling flat.

This episode is for you. Today. We have. Somehow convinced fellow Swifty, amazing marketing expert, Ann Ley, wall Street Journal, bestselling author, keynote speaker, the Internet's favorite writing teacher to join us. She's helped thousands of marketers and entrepreneurs stop sounding like robots and start writing content that actually connects.

So if you're someone who knows, you have something to say and lots of experience and value to offer, but your writing keeps falling flat. Stick around or we'll come and find you. Welcome Anne. I love the subtle threat to that. And I also, by the way, love that you led with Swifty because you know, forget about the marketing stuff.

Let's talk about Taylor. I mean, is she not an interesting case study of product market fit meets marketing, meets storytelling across generations. It's just, you don't even have to be a swifty too. Admire what she has achieved. No, it's true. It's true. Yeah. Just even to appreciate it. It's just, but if you are a swifty, it's all that much more special.

So, so sweet. So sweet. All right. Well, I mean, I guess we can start with the marketing stuff. We can start with the Taylor Swift stuff. I think. Let's just start with your quick take. What do you say when someone comes to you, whether it's somebody who's attending, uh, marketing profs B2B Forum, or in one of your membership classes, if they're just falling flat, they're floundering, they wanna get out of the meh zone.

Mm. What's the Hanley Immediate Prescription? Where would you start? Oh my gosh. Um, where is the immediate prescription? I don't know that there is a one size. Fits all for, for content and for marketing and for writing. And I think that's kind of part of the problem, um, is I think that there's a lot of professionals out there who think, well, I'm smart.

I'll just go ahead and like, you know, share my expertise and share my knowledge. Um, but you know, as much as I have respect for someone's intellect, I don't think it's just about being the smartest marketer or smartest. Um, entrepreneur online. I mean, I think it's about more than that. It's about being very clear.

It's about being very warm and, and very relatable. And that's really where the, the secret sauce is. That's, that's the magic mix that can completely break through and just connect with somebody. Because think about it, you know, what is the purpose of our marketing? It's not just, um, tell people who we are.

It's to. Show people who we are and why we matter to them. And so I think that the way, the reason why a lot of content falls flat is because people lean too heavily on sharing their expertise and they forget about the clear and the warm and the, and the relatable piece of it. Yeah, I had listened to a podcast episode where they had a body language expert on there and she was talking about charisma and how the two ingredients in charisma, right.

That it factor that people have, whether it's in text or in person, is a mix of competence and warmth. Mm-hmm. And that you cannot have one without the other. Yep, yep. Yeah, that's true. And I think sometimes, you know, and I get it, like we, we get so excited about what we do or what we sell, or. The services that we offer.

Um, and we get so close to our own sort of genius, you know, that we forget that, you know, other people need to be not just convinced that we know what we, what we're talking about, but they wanna work with us. And so I think it's an incumbent on all of us. You know, in 2025 and beyond to not just, you know, it's not just showing up as a robot, but it's actually just showing up as like a real person.

I think there's such, there, there's just such power in lo-fi content right now. You know? Instead of being hyper polished and so nicely scripted, you know, that's what AI is trying to do right now, right? It's like, why show up? You do. You two don't even have to do this podcast in person, right? You can just have your avatar show up and you can.

Record a little bit of audio and, and you know, have it sound like it's coming from you. Yeah. Um, or write something and have it sound like it's coming from you. And so, but to twist, we are the avatars. Oh my God. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be something? Imagine if you just like stripped your face right off and there's like a plastic, you know, it's like ones and zeros.

It's like the matrix. There you go. Yeah. Four and zero, the whole thing. Um, but yeah, I think that's just the opportunity is like to, to. To offer somebody a, a glimpse of who we actually are as people. And one way to do that while still being professional, is just to think about, like, it doesn't have to be perfect.

You know, lo-fi is totally fine, the opposite of Hi-Fi, you know, just show up as, as who you are. How else do you teach people warmth. I love the lo-fi idea and Kat and I have been telling people without that verbiage, which I think the verbiage is gonna help us. It is, yes. Um, we've been telling people to do that for a long time, but there's still hesitancy around that.

Like how do you teach someone to be warm and more human online? Yeah, I think, you know, we, we have an advantage with storytelling here. You know, what is storytelling? It's just a collective experience. Um, and it's a way of showing people what we're all about through, through story, you know, telling people a story about something we've lived or, or experience.

Um, and I think one way to do that to. Show the warmth of, of who we are is to start with a personal, start with a, some sort of personal story, but then make sure that you're offering a through line to something that's universally experienced. Um, you know, sometimes when I'm watching on social, I'm watching like a TikTok or.

Or an Insta reel or something like that. And I, I see people just, they get so personal and it's so cringey, but there's nothing in it for the audience. Yeah. And so I think you've gotta make that connection for the audience. You know, if you've gotta tell a personal story, which I completely believe in, it's what I do.

I think it's, what am I differentiator? Jiff differentiators. Um, I think you have to say like, this happened, but you've gotta then ladder it up to some sort of professional point. You know, what's the bigger point here? What is the universal thing that we can all. Agree on or understand or connect to. Um, because the truth is like the more personal it is, when you do it the right way, the more universally it'll appeal.

So the more personal, the more universal, but you've gotta make sure that it does ladder up to a bigger point. It's not just all about you. So good. I, I have shared with clients, and I know Candace likely has too in, in her own way, where we say, you know, lead with the personal, but give us some sort of nugget or lesson or wisdom that you learned Yeah.

So that they can apply it. And I wonder, and do you have an example of a story that you've shared about, you know, your life or your career where you've done that? Like, uh, you know, straight from your vault? Hmm. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Um, yeah, I mean, I do it all the time and, um, I'm watching a bird in my backyard.

It seems to be like diving at the window suddenly. And I'm like, what is, am I being attacked? Summer is summering. It was, yeah. It was all the robot trash talking, sending in the birds. Now they're crows. They're like these massive black folks. If we lose you, Ann, we'll we'll send in support. Yeah. We know what happened.

I know you're coming. My eyeballs. Um. What was the question? Do you have an example? Can you share a story? Yeah. That has a A through line and maybe that's it. Maybe it is the birds. Maybe that's the story. They're actually drones and they're spying on you right now. Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is, that they're about to peel off their own little beaks and.

Reveal the zeros and the ones underneath? No. Um, lemme think I do, I mean, I do this all the time. Yeah. In, in my own work. It's what I do on stage in my keynotes. Like, for example, a keynote that I've given a number of times, and the people remember, every time somebody has seen this talk and every time they see me, if they've seen this talk, they always ask me about the situation.

Mm-hmm. And so the situation is I spent one summer, a couple of summers ago. There was a little rabbit in my backyard who was, when I met him, he was like the size of an apple, just like kind of hanging out in the backyard. And I was obsessed that summer to make friends with this rabbit. Like I wanted so bad to connect with this rabbit to make friends with it.

I had seen these videos online of people like having these like. You know, these moments, like these snow white moments where they'd have like birds, you know, coming to their windows and like, you know, kind of roosting on their arms. And I was like, ah, why can't I ever do that? Like, why can't I ever give a squirrel a peanut?

You know? And so I got obsessed with trying to make friends with this rabbit in my backyard, this baby bunny. And I spent. Weeks, like literally weeks, a hundred percent true story. Trying to figure out how can I like get this rabbit to trust me. And the more that the summer wore on and the weeks went by and I was showing up in different ways for the rabbit, which by the way like spoiler, was basically I learned to not rush at the rabbit, but instead to offer the rabbit something and wait patiently.

For that rabbit to come to me, it became a massive metaphor for how do you actually approach a lead and convert them into a sale. And so that's just one example. At the end of the summer, I, um, I ended up doing the research that I needed to do. I was offering the wrong kind of content to try to convert this rabbit like I was, I was offering it.

Celery and carrots because you know, I thought, well that's like the universal food of the rabbit, is it not? But you know what, this rabbit, this eastern white cottontail, after I did the research, uh, found out. Um, not really into carrots. You know what they really like is like fresh grass. So I bought like a, um, an arm full of fresh grass.

I went out and picked it in my neighborhood looking like an absolute lunatic, like walking through the streets. But it was the right kind of content and patience and nurturing ultimately really paid off. And this rabbit became like ultimately the, the, the end of the talk, the end of the newsletter became me feeding this.

Rabbit, um, some grass, and then a little bit of romaine lettuce, which is another sort of, you know, it's just, they, they love it. It's like Swedish candy for a rabbit. Uh, um, so yeah. Anyway, that became a metaphor. Now, if I had just told a story about a rabbit, people would've been like, first of all, who cares?

And secondly, like, you're insane. Like, you know. It's just, it's just such a crazy story. Mm-hmm. Um, but because it laddered up to a business lesson and it involved nurturing and patience and research and figuring out what does your customer actually need from you, instead of what you want to share or, or what you sell, stop talking about yourself instead thinking about things from their point of view.

And it became this just sort of metaphor. And to this day, I, I, I first gave this talk maybe. Four years ago? No, five years ago. 'cause it was right before the pandemic. Oh snap. I gave it for the first time in social media marketing world. Um, and uh, and people still ask me, Hey, like, how's BUN doing? How's he doing?

Is he still around? And I'm like, well, he's not. But I've gotten a number of referrals because there's definitely long-term loyalty and he's now still in my yard and I still see these rabbits. Um, and uh, and yeah, so it's become like a fang. And so that's just a small example I think of one way to think about something that's happening in your life and figure out what is the bigger business lesson in here and why should people care about it.

I love that you named the rabbit too. I feel that when you name something, it becomes a thing in people's minds. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you know, I had video of him. I didn't start to like immediately. But you have video too. Wow. Oh yeah. The whole talk is all, is all video. 'cause it's like, it's me literally trying and bun running away at first and just like ske daddling completely.

Mm-hmm. And then by the end, you know, there's this great moment where, you know, it's just this epic moment where, but is. Oh my God. Like we are, we're together like we're besties forever. Um, bs. So yeah. Yep. Named him Bun and, um, built a house firm at one point, because, you know, by the end of the summer I started to worry about winter coming here in Boston.

Built a little house form in the backyard. So, yeah, I talked about that in some other speeches that I gave. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's just look at your life in a way that is just always, just keep your eyes open, you know? I mean, get your face outta your phone and just look around and there is just, just so many, like, so many stories out there.

When you look for them, you'll find them. One thing I think sometimes traps the clever crew and maybe ourselves, is our idea. We think it's so precious. This is exactly how this thing needs to happen. And if that person over there would just get it, why this is exactly the steps, these are the words that need to be used.

Mm-hmm. We take it so seriously. Yeah. That we are unwilling to change the strategy or do more research to actually match what the audience wants. How can we overcome that? You mean if you're designing a campaign or? Yeah, let's say like, like I know I have this great idea and I know absolutely if someone tried it in this exact way, it would work.

Yeah. But it's not really landing for some reason. But it worked for me and it worked for this other person, and I know if just these people would just sign up for this, it would be perfect. Yeah. But they're not signing up. Yeah. I know. They refuse to change my, my approach because. This works 'cause it worked for you.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's an example of almost being. Too close to, to what you're doing. Um, and I mean, if, if that were me, and that certainly has happened to me. Like I, it happens to me all the time actually, just on a personal note, like I'll think that like something is hilariously funny, right?

Because it's funny to me and it's like, why don't other people think it's so funny? Um, and very often for me it comes into, I haven't laid the groundwork. I haven't like set it up. Correctly. Um, and again, it sort of goes into rushing the conversion or rushing the campaign. Um. I think there's a lot of pressure in marketing right now, and certainly it's coming from ai, but I also think it's just sort of, you know, it's, it's always been part of marketing that there is this sense that we have to hurry up, that we're behind, that we've gotta execute as, as quickly as possible.

Mm-hmm. And one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about lately is that, you know, very often the power is in the slower. Approach. And sometimes in marketing, that means giving your customer, your prospect time to internalize what it is that you're trying to say or sell so that they truly can make it their own.

Because if you are just, you know, like if you, if you are advising a brand for example, you know, just do this, like go through these steps, um, I don't think it's gonna work unless they really. Think of like, unless they really embrace it and embody it internally, you know, unless they think like, yes, I truly believe in this and we need to give people time to do that.

That's one of my big beefs with AI from a, from a creativity standpoint, is that it's sort of short circuiting creativity and it's making it seem like, you know, just, just fire up ai, have them write your blog post and then. You can massage it and put it in your, in your voice and put it out there. And I hate that approach.

I cannot tell you how I hate that approach, because that's where we're gonna get this sort of, you know, the same, same in, in content. And, and if we're trying to stand out, if we're trying to connect with people, I think things take time. Great things take time. Nurturing a customer, a prospect, or a. Where a client takes time, and you've gotta really show them why it matters to them, not just what it is, but why it matters to them, and give them time to, to internalize that in a very, in a very holistic kind of way.

Does that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I could not agree more. I. I have found myself falling into that trap of using AI to shortcut myself to something. Yeah. And I am deprogramming myself into that because I love optimization. I love efficiency. Yes. But not at the expense of my stored wisdom, my intuition, my creativity.

So, and for somebody listening in who has made AI their be all, end all to save their. Save their days and to keep themselves afloat in their business. Mm-hmm. You know, a lot of our clever crew are in the real estate space, the mortgage space, and that's really been rocked the last several years. Yeah. What would be your approach if you don't want them to use AI to shortcut creativity?

How would you recommend they use it? You know, through Yeah, through your lens. Yeah. I'm always like very worried about, um, well, two things. First of all, I'm, I am not AI by any stretch. You know, I use it almost every single day, but. You know, I don't know if you saw this study that came out of MIT, was it last week or maybe the week before?

Not yet, no. Um, so it was a study that came out that showed how. Basically our brains are atrophying. You know, when we yikes use AI first, when we take an AI first approach to, and this, I think they studied writing a paper. I'll get you the link so you can share it in the show notes. Yeah. Um, but when you take an AI first approach to writing a paper, for example, in school, you, you do not.

Internalize any of the ideas and essentially any learning, any opportunity that you have to grow as a person. Forget about like branding and as a professional and writing blog, post metrics and all of that. Yeah, yeah. Forget about that for a second. Any opportunity that you have to to grow is just like, completely out the window.

Like, it's just like, like negative, like it's just not gonna happen. And, and so. You know, I have real concerns about that as, uh, as somebody who worries a lot about like, what happens to the next generation of writers and creatives and, and marketers in a world where we don't have to think about like writing first.

We, we can, we don't have to worry about our own ideas. We can just fire up AI and ask AI what? Thinks mm-hmm. As a starting point. Um, but I think like that bit of research, it's the first of its kind that I've seen come out that says conclusively like our brains are rotting if we, if we do this consistently over time.

And so my approach there is not to say, well, AI is evil. You should never use it. Because I just don't think that's realistic. And even if I did believe that, I don't think it's a practical approach and I'm inherently practical. Yeah. Um, and so instead I think we need to think about how we use it thoughtfully.

And so what that means for me is that we need to think about our creativity as a muscle. You know, I've talked about this quite a bit, but, um, it's a muscle that we need to grow over time. And when I say creativity, I don't mean. Um, you know that every blog post that you write has to read as, you know, a beautifully as masterpiece.

Yeah. It's not, it doesn't have to be a novel. It doesn't have to be something that Netflix is gonna option. Like, it doesn't have to be that, but I think it does have to feel like it can only come from you in your voice. And so. The only way to make sure that that is true of our marketing and our content is not to practice creativity or, or practice once a week.

Instead, it's to make it part of our daily lives. And so that's what I mean when I say like, just look up from your phone. Like look around. Just, you know, write down a line or two in a journal every day. Um, or, or capture it in a spreadsheet. Um, do something that allows you to. To tap into your daily life on a regular basis.

Um, because I think that's the kind of thing that can be a game changer when it comes to creativity and how does this matter from a marketing standpoint. It's because when you do finally sit down to create a bit of content, whether it's a script for a video or um, a blog post, or an Instagram reel, or any of that stuff, like I, I think you will be.

You, you are primed at that point to create something that you know could only come from you. You can't just use AI constantly and then say, okay, I'm gonna shut it off now. Now I'm gonna sit down and write or create or think about my approach strategically. I think you've gotta work on it constantly, and I think that's important for us, not as professionals, but ultimately as, as people, because.

You know, I'm as lazy as the next person. It's so I did. So I'm like, no, it's so easy to, to just fire up AI because it's who wants to do the hard, sweaty work like no one does. But my concern is that if we don't at least keep some of that ethos, then ultimately we're just gonna be like, we're just gonna have these rotten brains relying on AI for everything.

And we, we can't let that happen. Like, we're better than that, you know. So, Ann, you keep using the word creative and I know someone is listening right now who's like, but Anne, I am so not creative. Hmm. I never would describe myself as creative. Yeah. Well, a creative person is, it just means that you think originally that you've got a bold idea or two.

So if you don't think that you're an original person or you are 100% not bold, I mean, you, you have a lot of listeners who are in real estate. That is a bold choice. Yeah. It is a choice as, as the kids would say, right? This is a choice. It is a choice. It's a hard industry to be in. Yeah. And so, you know, you are a bold person.

It's, it's, when I say create creative, it's, that's why I, I added a little asterisk next to, when I use that word, you know, I don't mean that you are, um, you know, writing a novel that you hope will be. Ultimately on, uh, you know, be Oprah's pick for July. Like, it's not that. Instead it's about, you know, tapping into what makes you unique, um, giving yourself the ability to.

Think about things in an original way. Um, and to have that, that sort of, that sort of bold approach to your work. And you know, honestly, like I've, I've never met a realtor who didn't embrace some of those attributes, or at least aspired to embrace some of those attributes and like look at what's the most, what's what actually breaks through, like what kind of marketing and content breaks through.

It's the bold and the original ideas. It's the way of approaching your marketing in a way that someone hasn't thought of before. And you know, I don't think you need AI for that. I think you need your brain. I feel a lot a mental trap or a limiting belief that our clever crew has, I've seen clients bring it up, is that they wanna wait for inspiration as if it's gonna jump out from behind a corner.

Um, or they wanna spark it as if it's like this one time lightning in a bottle thing. Mm-hmm. Uh, you mentioned it's a muscle, it's a practice. What are some practical things? Exercises people can do to to nurture that. Oh my gosh. So I have this philosophy where I, I thought for a long time, like I've wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid.

And I tried ever since I was a little kid, like since I was eight years old, to keep a daily journal. 'cause I thought I'm a writer. I should keep a journal. Like I should, I should keep a, that's what writers do. Yeah, that's exactly what they do. And that's why like for every birthday there was always that aunt or uncle or somebody in my family or life would give me a journal.

It's like, here, you want you introverted little weird kid, like you wanna be a writer, have the journal, like get all your little weird thoughts out. And I was just terrible at it. Because here's the thing, like I, I needed an audience. It felt pointless to me to like write to myself in a journal because I'm like, I already know what I think about things.

I already know what happened. I lived it yesterday. Um, and so I was always terrible at it. Well, all that changed about five years ago when I decided, you know what I, like, I, and I had tried over the years to like. Keep that same practice. Um, but then about five years ago, I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna actually make a concerted effort to do that.

So I said, all right, I'm gonna do a 90 day challenge. I just invented this 90 day challenge for myself. I'm going to write one line for 90 days in a row, like one line in a journal. And just, it can be, it, it, it wasn't about my feelings. Like that's, that's the mistake I always made as a kid. It's like I don't have to write about what I feel.

Instead, I'm just gonna write one silly thing that I observed yesterday, something that made me laugh. A weird situation. I don't know the fact that like my dog ate a dried frog off the road that had been squashed by a car. Like that kind of stuff, like just dumb stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I started doing that on a regular 90 day challenge every single day.

And. I'm not even kidding when I say that was such a major game changer for me because that was the practice that I needed to tap into my life more often. Because I started every day thinking, what am I gonna capture today in my head? Like, what's gonna be the thing, the trigger that I will write down tomorrow morning?

Like when I do my one sentence? I did it every single morning. Mm-hmm. At like. 7:00 AM right when I got up, um, before I looked at my phone, before I fired up my laptop or started scrolling social and getting angry, like before all that stuff, I would just say I felt that just now felt that in my, in my soul.

Right? Yeah, exactly. I would just write that sentence. And so that for me was the moment where I realized that's the power of the muscle. Like that's the power. I wasn't, I wasn't creating anything beautiful, but what I was doing was just tapping into those small moments that ultimately I could then go back to, and that over time, compounded to make me inherently more plugged into my life and being plugged into my life made me a more.

Like, it just made me experience things differently and ultimately made me a more original thinker. Um, and there's just like all just kind, all kinds of crazy stuff that happens if you pick your head up. It's just, it's out there. And maybe you're thinking, you know, some of, some of your listeners are thinking, well, like, I'm, I don't wanna be a writer.

Like, I wasn't eight years old thinking about wanting to be a writer. And I've let go of, of, of, I don't think the two are, are together anymore. Like, I don't think those two things are coupled. Instead, I think just finding a way to capture your life on a regular basis, either in a notebook, um, in a, i, I said a spreadsheet a little while ago.

I have a friend who literally every morning will do something very similar, but he just writes a single. Sentence on a spreadsheet. And I was like, that would never work for me. 'cause that's not like how I think too boxed in. Yeah, he does. Yeah. Way too boxed in. Um, but that's what he does. And then he can just like, look at them later or not because I think the point is to just, you know, to, to tap into your life, uh, just a little bit differently and you just start to see things differently.

Like one day, um, a couple of, maybe about a year or so ago, I was taking a walk through my neighborhood with my dog and I look up in the tree and I see a squirrel up there. And I look at the squirrel, and the squirrel is like eating a slice of pizza. And I'm like. Like, I'm not even like I live in the suburbs.

I don't like live near pizza Ratt in New York City. Like Right, like on the corner, like Steve's pizza, York City. Yeah. It's not a thing out here. And I was just like, that was just so weird to me. Now if I had been, you know, headphones in listening to a podcast. Or an ebook or something and just sort of like tuning out the world.

I don't, I probably wouldn't have seen that. Um, and I wouldn't have had that moment to just sort of like, you know, laugh to myself, you know? So that's one way that, that I do it. I'm not saying that everyone has to, we love a great challenge. I do think you've gotta figure out some sort of mechanism mm-hmm.

That plugs you into your life, that helps you be more observant so that ultimately you can, you can turn that into some sort of creative spark long term. I'm gonna use that for my clients who always tell me, but my life is so boring, Candace. Yeah, I know. I hear that a lot too. The other thing that I do is, um, I just, I, when I'm tempted to pick up my phone and start scrolling, I think to myself, what if I didn't?

Is there another, is there a different approach that I could take here? So, for example, backseat of an Uber. Standing in line at the grocery store, standing in line at the post office the other day. I never go to the post office, but I had to go in there to mail a package and I was like, I observed this whole conversation between some, a postal worker and somebody who came up to the desk and was, it was like a, who's on first situation.

It was such a circular conversation. I was like, you know what? Like postal workers, kind of like, they, they're almost a trope, like the fact that they're, that they're sort of the angry postal worker. Like literally that's where like, like the goal postal thing comes from. Like they just, oh, is that where that's from?

Yeah, that's where they get so upset, poor postal people. 'cause and I was like, I understand that now because these people are so maddening to deal with. This guy, um, wanted to glue a stamp onto an envelope and he was like, no, you can't like use glue to do that. And he was pulling it off of another envelope and he is like, I've gotta a stamp right here.

Anyway, it, the whole thing and it was just, it was just like crazy. But the thing, the reason I'm sharing this story is because if I was standing there with. Like AirPods in my ears and just not paying attention. And it's like, you see that all the time, don't you? Like I just see people completely checked out.

Airports another great place to do that. Just, oh, I love people watching at Airports Prime. Yeah. I don't even, well a, 'cause I don't wanna miss them calling my name or my seat section, um, on the intercom, but. It's so interesting to watch and almost an exercise in empathy because I feel that it helps me better understand people.

I see their triggers, I see their traumas. Like all playing out in a high stress environment. Yeah. I'm like, damn, that must be stressful. Or dang. Yeah. If I were in that, like I would be upset too, or people watching is a hack toward. Yeah. Becoming a better writer. Just doing that. Yeah. People wa watching or even like just striking up conversations with strangers, like small talk doesn't have to be small talk.

You can ask them a question about like, I, I, my Uber driver last week, I was in Minneapolis. Mm-hmm. And I asked them, what's the thing that surprised you most recently? And just to hear what people say, it's just kind of interesting to me. It's like, and sometimes people shut you down and you're like, oh, all right.

Well. Guess I'm not writing about you tomorrow, but, and when I say I'm writing about, like, I'll just write a line or two, like my life is busy. I don't have time to sit there and like write a whole, you know, write a whole short story about my interaction at the post office. I just write a couple of lines and then I may use it at some point.

Like the story that I told you about watching the squirrel eat a slice of pizza in the tree, that became a story. Talk about like laddering up to a business lesson. That became a story. And when you, when you make the weird choice, when you, when you make the unexpected choice. In your marketing program, in your marketing strategy and what that might look like.

And I talked about a friend of mine who did a LinkedIn show, um, and modeled it after a, a sort of late night show. You know, so it's like that was a very weird and unexpected choice, just like watching a squirrely slice of pizza in a tree. So, yeah. Anyway, I was wondering how you were gonna connect the pizza and the squirrel to business, but that totally makes sense.

Be unexpected. Yeah, and also like how did he get it? I'm still like really amazed by that. Like, does Uber eats deliver to trees? Like, I don't know, do that. I just don't. I'm like, I just don't understand it. I was like, looked on the ground and I'm like looking around. Is it like trash day now? Is there a box?

No. Like where'd it come from? I don't know. As an introvert, thinking of starting small talk conversations, and you said small talk doesn't have to be small talk, which I really appreciate, but it made me think that one hack for introverts is get pregnant. Then you will not have to start conversations because Canda people will start conversations that moment with.

Yes, people will start conversations with you when you're pregnant. They just feel like this is an open door. Let me talk to you. And that your belly is public property. Right? So many people, fortunately I didn't get any random belly rubs, which I was very afraid of because I would chop somebody if they did that.

I pop, I don't. Um, but people do feel like they can talk to you, and I had so many more people, and even now with an infant, people talk to you all the time. Yeah. Isla right on cue there. There you go. Yeah, exactly. That's so funny. Yeah, just get pregnant. I mean, you heard it here. What did, what more do you need outta life?

Really? There is so much. We love you, clever crew, because we know you'll get the nuance, even if this goes, even if Candace goes viral for that. I know our producer Corinne's gonna have so much fun editing this episode.

So, and before we get into our not nice advice segment, one thing I wanted to kind of ask you, because you work with a lot of teams and companies and organizations and we've got a lot of leaders, CEOs, managers, people who are got big teams, they're responsible for in our, our Clever crew. What have you seen?

As opposed to working with somebody individual versus working with a team. Mm-hmm. What, um, what stands out to you when working with teams, um, as opposed to when you're working with individuals when it comes to, you know, being more human and refining and nuancing their marketing, you know, what have you seen from your perspective?

The challenge with working with teams, with teams is that very often it's not necessarily the person with the best ideas in the room. It's just the person who's the most confident about their ideas. Yeah. Who tends to be, who tends to get, you know, take up all the oxygen in the room. Um, and so one of the things that I find is incredibly helpful is, is just to.

Make sure that you literally are hearing from everybody. And that sounds like such kind of basic advice, but it's so easy to not, it's so easy because like, like, you know, Candice, you just described yourself as an introvert and it's like the introverts are happy to let the extroverts take over and just dominate the conversation.

It's easier. It's like that's the, they're conserving their energy and I get it. I mean, I'm an introvert too, so that's. That's where I get my energy by letting other people just, you know, take, take that on if they want it. Um, but I think the, the more important thing is just to hear from, from everybody. Um, and one of the ways that you can do that is sort of just not necessarily only hear from the extroverts isn't necessarily just to like, go around the room kind of stuff.

Because when you do that, I often find too that the, the, those in the room who are more introverted or less confident or. Who are deferring to maybe a more powerful personality or a more powerful person, or a more senior person, um, they'll tend to just sort of parrot what the, what the others say. Mm-hmm.

Instead of, you know, being more confident, um, in their, in their own ability. And so one of the ways you can think about doing that is to pair people up. Um, and I try to pair them up so that it's not just, you know. It's not just an extrovert with an introvert, so that you hope that that'll work out because again, the same thing is gonna happen, but pair the extrovert with the extroverts and the introverts with the introverts, um, and have them brainstorm some ideas and then come back together as a, as a group, as a pair.

I find that that's a whole lot more effective just in terms of really aerating an idea, getting the best ideas out, you know, getting the kind of brainstorming going that you wanna get going. Um, so you just have to, you have to spend a little time with them at first, like just hearing. How people are interacting.

And then you sort of have to typecast like, okay, I do this all the time where it's like extrovert, extrovert, extrovert, like introvert, but I think might have some good ideas still. Waters run deep. I think we wanna hear from that person. Still, waters run deep. I love that phrase. And so, uh, and so yeah, I think it's just, you know, being willing to just like make those adjustments on the fly.

That is super valuable because we had had a conversation with another podcast guest where she talked about how introverts who've been in, in the game of, of being entrepreneurial and building businesses, have learned to adopt extroverted traits when they need to. And that's, I feel, that's Candace, that's you.

That's me. But for those in the audience that might not be there yet, um, you know, maybe suggest a, a buddy system approach. Like Ann, you just laid out. If you're having these conversations in team settings and it feels overwhelming or you don't wanna take up space or you don't wanna be a bother, I hear that all the time, but the best things come out when everybody can just air out what they're thinking about and, and what their ideas are.

Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. And I, and also just like practice learning that, that skill, like, you know, it sounds like you both had to go through this and I certainly had to go through it too, where I had to, it's like give myself permission is kind of the wrong phrase, but it's like I had to push myself to some degree, but also realize that, you know, what I have to say is, is valuable and that I do have a point of view and a perspective that matters.

Um, and so. I think when you stay small, like don't stay small, like, you know, you need to play as as big as you can and you need to push yourself to, to play bigger because the world needs to hear from you. It needs your voice. I love it. Start a revolution everyone, everyone listening in. Immediately after you finish this episode.

Yeah, exactly. Um, just brief aside, Anne, is there anything that we didn't ask you about or something that you wanna mention before we get into the not nice advice segment? Anything come to mind? Um, like something you have coming up? No, not really. No, this was fun. I, um, I can't think of anything specifically.

Okay. But I'm curious about what the not nice segment is. Yes. Well, Candace, do you wanna take that one away? I will do it if I was quiet. Here we go. Okay, so not nice advice. This is from showing up, but unsure. So lately I've been questioning of all the content I'm creating is actually helping my business, or it's just keeping me busy.

Mm. I'm showing up everywhere, but it feels like I'm on a hamster wheel. How do you know when to pause and rethink your strategy? You want me to take that? That's you. Take it away. I, I think especially if you are a team of one or an entrepreneur with a very, very small team and you are acting as both the C-E-O-C-F-O and the CMO at the same time, which it sounds like you probably are, um, I think you've gotta do less and.

Do less things, create less, and obsess about that thing that you're creating. The game changer for me was when I stopped trying to be on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter slash x and all of the things and started focusing. On one or two social channels. And for me, that became LinkedIn and for, for business and Instagram, just mostly for fun.

And it's actually where I aerate a lot of the stories, um, that ultimately may make their way into speeches or newsletters or books. So all of that stuff. Um, so I focused on LinkedIn and Instagram and then I started an email newsletter and I focused on using social to. Help people discover me, my ideas, and then convert them into newsletter subscribers.

Because to me that intimacy of the inbox is just so valuable for all of us in marketing and we don't really have time to get into all of that. But I think it's so important to have some sort of prescribable program, whether it's a podcast or an email. And for me, the choice was email. Um, and that's where I focused it.

And that to me is a whole lot more. Um, enriching, satisfying, and then trying to do all the things and trying to be everywhere. That's why you feel like you're on the hamster wheel because you're. You're trying to show up on every single platform and you don't need to, I think you've gotta let people know, here's where to find me.

Create something that is truly great because it's doing less and obsessing, um, and finding those moments to connect with the people who matter to your business. I think social has shifted so much in the past few years. Yes. And it's less now about getting the biggest audience that you possibly can, which is used to be the name of the game.

And now it's about finding those pockets, finding those niches where when you're showing up, people wanna hear from you because they're your people. They, they wanna, they're, they're a good fit for you and for your business. Um, and so it's not about reach anymore. I think it's about depth. Go deeper. Go home guys.

Such, such good, uh, advice and I'm glad you brought up your email newsletter because for the clever crew listening, and if you haven't subscribed to Anne's fortnightly newsletter, you must, it is such an enjoyable read. It's quite a lengthy newsletter compared to the other ones that I subscribe to. But I always read it, I always read it, and I, I will purposely leave it unread in my inbox if I can't get through all of it.

So sometimes I'll get to binge your newsletters if like April and May were rough months for me personally. So I got to binge your most recent ones, but we'll put that in the show notes. Um, you definitely have done a, a fantastic job with that element of your brand. Yeah. Thank you for that. And, you know, part of the reason why it is different, it it is longer than other newsletters, but I really try hard to not make 1500 words feel like 1500 words.

I wanna make it inherently skimmable. Um, but it, and it's an example of. You know, the world will tell you go short. No one has time. Like, go as quick as possible. Mm-hmm. Like, make it as, as you know, communicate in sound bites. This is the TikTok era. Nobody has time to like read a newsletter. Well, like, I don't think that's true.

Like don't follow best practices. Follow what works for you. I'm a writer, I'm a storyteller. And so I need that amount of space in a new email newsletter to tell the story, to, to bring you along with me as a reader. Um, and that's not gonna appeal to everybody, and that's okay. But the people it does appeal to are the people who drive from me, who buy from me because like, guess what?

That email newsletter, my email newsletter is the thing that. Sells books that books speeches, that gets people to hire me, and so that's where I focus my energy. I love it. So thank you so much, Anne. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. This has been fantastic. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining us on. Not Nice. Clever. Remember to follow our podcast wherever you listen to audio and head to www.notniceclever.com to connect. For more, drop a question, we'll shoot you an answer. We're not gatekeepers here signing off. You're not so nice, but also clever besties that mean business.

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