The Hidden Weakness of Artificial Intelligence - Tom Wheelwright, Angus Fletcher

So, all the rage right now in business is about AI. But here's the question.

How do you how do you train your mind to use AI instead of AI using you?

Is AI going to run things or are you going to run things as the leader of your organization, as the entrepreneur?

Today we have a very special guest, Angus Fletcher, who's specialized right now in humans versus AI and in fact has written the book Primal Intelligence,

you're smarter than you know. Angus, it

is absolutely terrific to have you on the Wealthability Show.

It's a huge pleasure to be here, Tom.

Thank you for inviting me.

So, if you will, Angus, uh, give us a little of your background. It's what an interesting what an interesting area that you've chosen to focus on. Yeah.

So, I should start out by saying I'm a professor, which basically means that I know nothing about reality. Uh, I

trained in neurohysiology, which is basically the branch of neuroscience in which you study living brain cells. And

I moved from there, ended up getting my PhD at Yale, kind of worked around for a while, and I'm now at Ohio State where I am director of the leadership institute

at the business school. And as you say, I've just written this book about human intelligence. And it basically presents

intelligence. And it basically presents the last four of my research uh my last four years of my research with US Army special operations and their most classified units in terms of how to

train up your brain to be smarter in chaos.

So, so here's um where I let's just start out. Thank you for that. Let's

start out. Thank you for that. Let's

just start out with this is um you know there's all this talk about well now we have AI you know we're going to start losing jobs and we we don't really need the humans and yet you've taken the

position which is really quite the opposite which is that the human brain is is now and probably always will be smarter than AI. How do how do you think

that the human brain can outperform AI?

What what what can AI do well? What can

the human brain do better?

Yeah. So, first of all, let's be clear.

When we're talking about artificial intelligence, we're talking about computers. Computer artificial

computers. Computer artificial intelligence. That's what I'm talking

intelligence. That's what I'm talking about. It's possible we'll invent other

about. It's possible we'll invent other kinds of artificial intelligence in the future that might beat humans, but humans are always going to hands down beat computer AI. Computers are smart when you have what? Lots of data, which

means they're very smart in transparent situations that are stable. So, that's

like a library or a lot of texts. Is is

life stable? Is life certain? No, it's

not. And I've been working in AI for over 10 years. I can tell you how fragile, how brittle it is when things get volatile. And I can tell you how

get volatile. And I can tell you how easily it is destroyed when it has low amounts of information. And in fact, most people don't know this, but the US

Army essentially invented artificial intelligence during World War II. And

the reason that they contacted me is they discovered about 10 years ago that it was actually pretty dumb and it was making their best soldiers dumber. And

so they brought me in before all the soldiers got really stupid to figure out what was going right with the smart soldiers and how could we train that up so that we could maintain that human

intelligence.

So what was going on? I mean, so this is one of my concerns is I see uh younger generations and they seem like, you

know, they they they just rely on on Google or they rely on AI and they just don't they're just not as creative asking questions. Is that what you're

asking questions. Is that what you're talking about when you're talking about the soldiers were getting dumber is that they're just it's becoming too routine, too remote.

So everybody goes to school now, right?

And school is programmed. And what's the one thing you that you learn in school?

The one thing you learn in school is that there is an answer and the teacher has it. And so the moment that you don't

has it. And so the moment that you don't have an answer, what do you do? You go

to Google, you go to some other authority. You don't realize that in

authority. You don't realize that in fact there aren't answers for 99% of things, you know, and you've either got to find them yourself through discovery or you've got to invent them. You've got

to create new tools and technology to solve new problems. And we've created this dependent cycle. People are

dependent on data. There's this myth out there that people make bad decisions because they lack enough data. And this

is totally pervasive. This is something that has completely overtaken our culture over the last 50 or 60 years as this computational model of intelligence has started to dominate since World War II, the rise of the programmers, the

rise of all this kind of stuff. In

reality, the reason that you make bad decisions is because you lack initiative. Initiative is the ability to

initiative. Initiative is the ability to spot opportunities faster than people, experiment with them, and then respond to feedback.

All right. So,

what is it about AI that you you think what what what's holding back AI from uh you know, why is this why is all this

data uh driven decision-m so bad?

Okay, so let me let's I'll get technical here. If this is too technical, you just

here. If this is too technical, you just tell me to shut up, professor. Right.

And and and and get away from being technical. But first of all, a lot of

technical. But first of all, a lot of what people talk about when they talk about AI are simply these LLMs, these large language models like, you know, Grock and that's what we have right now.

Yeah. These things are incredibly stupid. It is a huge bubble. You were

stupid. It is a huge bubble. You were

already seeing the bubble break. For

those of you who didn't see GPT5 and the kind of burndown, these guys have these have maxed out their intelligence. You

can check out Gary Marcus' work on this.

You can check out Eric Larson's work on this. There's a lot of very very smart

this. There's a lot of very very smart people that will tell you that these things are a bubble. Um, if you're talking about real artificial intelligence, actual artificial intelligence, if you're talking about machine learning systems, if you're

talking about neurosymbolic systems, if you're talking about expert systems, if you're talking about all these kinds of things, yeah, absolutely. Those things

can be incredibly powerful tools.

There's a history of using them all the way back through, you know, Renaissance and whatnot. Um, you know, that the big

and whatnot. Um, you know, that the big investment uh engine from from Jim Simons. Um, but that all requires humans

Simons. Um, but that all requires humans and AI to work together. And essentially

what humans are doing there is they're making the plan and then the AI is executing it faster. So the humans are saying, "Here's what I think is going to happen." Then you program the machine to

happen." Then you program the machine to execute that the moment it starts to see the market doing what you predict. But

the machine itself can't make its own plans. It can't think for itself. And

plans. It can't think for itself. And

because it's dependent on data, what it's really good at doing is predicting exactly what happened yesterday. So the

more you rely on these systems, the more you get trapped following what the market did yesterday, the more you chase what other people are doing. I mean this you can see this in the fact that so many people are excited about AI.

They're just chasing something mindlessly whereas the really smart people are saying what's next? What's

after the bubble?

Yeah. So so um there's a I I know there's a a discussion in the military saying that generals are always fighting the last war.

Is that what you're talking about? is

that AI is really always fighting the last war because it's based on history and it's not based on the future.

You know what? You should be running this podcast and you should probably have my professorship because that was a much simpler and more elegant way of saying exactly what I'm saying. And so

most famous general in US history is a guy called Dwight Eisenhower. And Dwight

Eisenhower famously had this mantra which he called planner not the plan.

And what he meant by that is you make plans in order to get better at planning. So the more you make plans the

planning. So the more you make plans the better you become as a planner. Most

people once they make a plan they stick to the plan, right? And they they think, "Oh, the plan is the thing." And so they get stuck fighting the last war. They

get stuck doing what they thought was a good idea yesterday rather than throwing out all of the plans the moment that things change and say, "You know what? I

made all those plans yesterday. I can

make a new plan today." That's what artificial intelligence cannot do. It

always recycles plans that it either had or that other humans had. Right? whereas

only you as a human can imagine, be at the limit edge, innovate, do the thing that is unprecedented.

So, one of the things I've said on this podcast before is that I I think that what AI can't do is ask the right is ask good questions. And I'd like your your

good questions. And I'd like your your thoughts on that is that because it seems like all the data is there in AI.

It's got all the data. It's read all the books. It's got all the the history,

books. It's got all the the history, etc. But it doesn't to me it doesn't have any of the questions. And and to me that's where the that's where the learning comes from and that's where the creativity comes from is in the

questions not in the data.

That's brilliant. And you know the technical reason that AI can't ask good questions is because AI doesn't know when it doesn't know. So AI exists in the continuous mathematical presence.

And so it thinks that everything it knows is reality.

And that means that there's no way for it to see beyond its own database.

Whereas you as a human because we have different mechanical operations going on in the brain. I won't bore your audience by talking about what they are, but they're non-computational and they're not something you can replicate with transistors. We have the ability to know

transistors. We have the ability to know when we don't know. So you see this with children. The moment that a child walks

children. The moment that a child walks through a room that they don't know, they'll pause. The moment they see a new

they'll pause. The moment they see a new person, they'll hesitate. This is the origin of curiosity, which is what I think you're talking about in terms of asking good questions. Curiosity comes

from the brain's recognition. There's

something here that I don't know. And

that what that allows us to do as humans is to detect for example things like unknown unknowns, right? You can program a computer to

right? You can program a computer to detect known unknowns, but only a human can detect unknown unknowns.

So AI thinks it thinks it knows everything.

AI thinks it knows everything. And the

more time that people spend with AI, the more that they think that it knows everything and that's where the problem starts.

That's interesting. I I remember a professor in my master's of uh uh tax program at University of Texas. She

said, "The great thing about the tax business is the more you know, the more you realize you don't know." So, it seems like that's that is the the the

seminal weakness of AI.

Yes. First of all, you didn't tell me you went to Texas. I'm at Ohio State.

We're playing this weekend. I just want to put that out there. Second of all, awesome.

100%. Yes. That's exactly right. AI's

fatal weakness is it can't identify the limits of its knowledge. And the reality is what is the reason that you go to school? You go to school to be able to

school? You go to school to be able to identify the limits of your own knowledge. And you know, someone is

knowledge. And you know, someone is really, really smart. That's what we call wisdom. Somebody who's wise is

call wisdom. Somebody who's wise is somebody who's immediately able to identify to you. Here's what I don't know. Here's what I don't know. But you

know. Here's what I don't know. But you

know what? I can still figure out a way.

And that's what's key and unique about human intelligence is the ability to go forward and discover in the absence of certainty. So when you think of um in

certainty. So when you think of um in the future 10 years from now the type of people who are going to be successful it seems like in the last

20 30 years the people who've been there have been a lot of people successful because they have been data driven. I

mean we think about um even even you know Google Meta I mean all these big technology companies they're really about data right they're they're very much they've all been about gathering

data and using data in order to market their products for example and that's been very successful do you think that that will continue to be successful or

has AI actually turned it on its head and it's no longer necessary to be able to search for all those facts because it's easy to do it just by asking a question on a AI.

Well, first of all, somebody's still going to have to gather together all of the stuff and put it on servers and things like that, you know, and so there's always going to be some value to to to being able to kind of, you know, have and manage data. I don't want to

make it seem as if somehow in the future there's going to be not any value for that. However, what I will say is that

that. However, what I will say is that those companies have been very successful for themselves and they've damaged the rest of us. And they damage the rest of us by making us addicted to this climate of stability where humans

get more and more anxious and uncertain the more that we don't have access to all this data around us. You see this with the rapidity with which people check their phones. People are alone for 3 seconds and nothing is happening and they freak out and they have to check their phones because they think I need

more data. I need more information as

more data. I need more information as opposed to what's natural and normal for a human in that situation which is to go out and learn something you know from your environment you know. Um and so you also see in terms of the markets,

there's been a huge push through um you know all these governments to kind of maintain artificial stability in markets which we're now seeing explode.

And I think what you're going to see is you're going to see an increased era of volatility in which people who are in touch with their natural human ability to have imagination to have intuition to have common sense which is the ability

to act intelligently with limited information. I think those are the

information. I think those are the people, not the data scientists, that are going to be successful over the next 20 to 30 years.

Interesting. So, in your book, you talk about four primal intelligence modes.

Can you walk us through those because I find those fascinating. Um, and and actually I actually think they're a very good definition of an entrepreneur. So,

if you would just walk us through those.

Yeah. So maybe I'll start with the big picture with which is working with US Army special operations and how they think in general and how they think differently. So what we're taught in

differently. So what we're taught in school is that intelligence is making the right decision.

But making the right decision means picking from two existing options, right?

And actually what's intelligent is making a new path. That's really what's intelligent, right? Not picking from

intelligent, right? Not picking from what's in front of you. When you're

picking from what in front of you, you're you're feeding into the system.

you're you're developing this data dependence, you know, the meta Google problem, you know. So, what army special operators are constantly doing is they're constantly having to make new paths, which is another way of saying

making a new plan. So, their minds are incredibly good at making new plans that work. If you can make a new plan that

work. If you can make a new plan that works, you will win every day of your life. And so, the question is, how are

life. And so, the question is, how are these operators making new plans that work? And what we found is that there

work? And what we found is that there were four primal powers that underly this plan making process in the human brain. The first is intuition. And

brain. The first is intuition. And

intuition allows you to spot anomalies or in other words, opportunities.

Yeah. Explain that a little bit what you mean by intuition.

So the world is constantly changing.

There's constantly new opportunities emerging because the world is one of asymmetric conflict. And so when a new

asymmetric conflict. And so when a new opportunity emerges, what a computer does is it sees it as a blip or as noise and it eliminates it or regresses it to the mean. But as a human, your intuition

the mean. But as a human, your intuition goes active. Because what your intuition

goes active. Because what your intuition exists to do is spot exceptions to rules. When there's an exception to a

rules. When there's an exception to a rule, that's your brain saying, "Ah, more can happen here than happened in the past." figure out why that exception

the past." figure out why that exception to the rule uh is there and what it can pretend for the future. And so almost anyone who's ever made a successful investment, they've identified an

anomaly, something that's unusual, something that breaks the previous investment cycle and said, "Aha, there's an opportunity." So that's what your

an opportunity." So that's what your intuition does. And when you talk to

intuition does. And when you talk to people who are very very very good at sort of, you know, uh identifying new markets, emerging markets, they have very very high intuition. And we talk about in the book a little bit how you can train that up and so on and so

forth. Then the next thing is

forth. Then the next thing is imagination. That's the second primal

imagination. That's the second primal power. And what primal what that does is

power. And what primal what that does is that allows you to take opportunities and see all the different ways they could go. Because what we find with

could go. Because what we find with people who have low imagination is the moment they see an opportunity, they lock in on it has to go in this direction.

This is what it has to do. But people

with high imagination say no, no, no, no, no. If everything is changing, then

no, no. If everything is changing, then that opportunity can open up multiple paths. And the more of those paths you

paths. And the more of those paths you can see, the more likely you are to be able to react in time as it starts to occur because that's really the key to to a successful investment is is moving

when the opportunity itself starts to move. Um, so intuition allows you to

move. Um, so intuition allows you to spark a plan. Imagination allows you to branch your plans to multiply your plans. Well, how do you know which of

plans. Well, how do you know which of those plans is right and when to act on those plans? Common sense. Common sense

those plans? Common sense. Common sense

matches the newness of your plan to the newness of your environment. So in other words, it's able to identify a match between the plan that's in your head and your environment. And we find that a lot

your environment. And we find that a lot of highly creative people, for example, do highly creative things in highly boring environments and so they lose money, right? A lot of very conservative

money, right? A lot of very conservative people do very conservative things in highly volatile markets and so they lose money. You want to do something that is

money. You want to do something that is highly original in a highly original environment and highly tested and familiar in a test and familiar environment. So common sense allows you

environment. So common sense allows you to do that. And finally, emotion is your ability to know when your plans are

matching your own life. And that's what allows you to know which plans are right for you because there are certain opportunities we identify that you know might be right for somebody else, you know, and we do this all the time, right? You can imagine lots of companies

right? You can imagine lots of companies you could start, but really that's not a company you'd be very good at running, right? It's not the right company for

right? It's not the right company for you. But then you find one that matches

you. But then you find one that matches your emotion and boom, that's when you go allin. That's when you act with with

go allin. That's when you act with with with intensity.

That that's interesting because you know there's been a lot of discussion about AI and that one of the benefits of AI is that it lacks emotion. And so what I'm hearing is it's actually yeah it's a

benefit from one point of view but from another point of view it's actually a weakness in AI.

This idea that emotion is bad is a product of this computer view of intelligence and it's totally nonsensical. So life is not logical.

nonsensical. So life is not logical.

Life is biological. And when you look in the human brain, the oldest part of the human brain is emotion, which is telling you that it's been around for a long time because it's really, really smart.

And so, let me just break down, cuz we do this all the time with operators, a couple of your core emotions. Um, one of your core emotions to recognize is anger.

When you're angry, what is that telling you? When you're angry, it's telling you

you? When you're angry, it's telling you that you have one plan. And your brain thinks, "I have to succeed on this plan or I'm going to die." And so the moment you feel anger, you have a choice. And

you say, "Is this a moment where I'm about to die? In which case, I better act on this plan with extreme violence.

If it's not a moment where I'm about to die, let me come up with another plan."

And you see this a lot in the business environment because people start to get aggressive, they start to get angry, this is essentially your brain saying, "You've only got one plan right now, man. Do you think that there's really

man. Do you think that there's really only one way this situation can go?" And

this signals use your imagination.

Remember we were talking before imagination branches you. Anger is a signal to use your imagination. Another

key emotion is fear. We're often being told, right, you know, dissociate from fear, don't listen to fear, all this kind of stuff. It's very important to listen to fear because what fear is telling you is you have no plan. You get

scared when you have no plan. And that's

because your brain has a bias to action.

It always wants a plan. And so when it has no plan, it gets scared because it makes it more likely to adopt a plan from the environment, right? That's when

you start having herd behavior and chasing other people. So, it's critical to listen to your fear because what your fear is telling you is you're becoming susceptible to outside influence. You

are probably believing that AI is better than it is because everybody else is believing it, right? You've lost your own direction. You've lost your own

own direction. You've lost your own compass. So, activate your intuition.

compass. So, activate your intuition.

Activate your intuition. Start spotting

your own opportunities. That will give you the initiative to start moving forward. So what what's really

forward. So what what's really interesting to me you talk about fear is that the one of the biggest fears you're seeing right now in the in the world particularly in the US is the fear of missing out.

Yes.

Right. Which very much leads to the herd mentality. Right. Then you end up you

mentality. Right. Then you end up you know buying at the wrong time. Right. Or

you end up selling at the wrong time because you're afraid of missing out on on something. So how do you how do you

on something. So how do you how do you deal with that fear of missing out? Um,

and is there a way for AI to help you with that?

So, let's deal with the first part first. Um, in terms of how do you deal

first. Um, in terms of how do you deal with that? So, I I work actually, so I

with that? So, I I work actually, so I often say to people, I'm not a special operator, so don't call on me, right? If

you're in trouble, I'm not a hostage rescue expert, but I work with special operators, so I know how they think.

Similarly, I work with a lot of 9, 10, 11 figure traders. So, I'm not a trader.

Please do not call me for financial advice, but I spend a lot of time working with them and I know how they operate. And the way the traders operate

operate. And the way the traders operate is they develop their own market strategy. They develop their own plan.

strategy. They develop their own plan.

And that way you never have to deal with FOMO with fear of missing out because you're only focused on your own performance. And so the key is to sit

performance. And so the key is to sit down and start to say say what opportunities am I seeing in the market?

And then look around. Are other people spotting them? If other people aren't

spotting them? If other people aren't spotting them, that's good. Don't get

scared and say, "Well, other people aren't spotting, then they must be bad."

No. Start to say, "Okay, what would happen if my intuition is correct here?

What would that look like?" Then start to put a little money behind that to see if it starts to pay off. So, start to learn to chase your intuitions and follow your own intuitions and start to develop your own independence as an investor, as a creative, as an

entrepreneur. Once you start to develop

entrepreneur. Once you start to develop confidence, then start to add in leverage.

Because what you're seeing there is that when you have an opportunity, the faster you can apply leverage, the more likely you are to be able to exploit it before everyone else because of their FOMO

chases you. So all of this comes down to

chases you. So all of this comes down to trusting your own intuition, developing that plan, and learning to scale up leverage.

So you'd mentioned earlier you see AI as a really good way to implement the plan, not create the plan, but implement the plan. Um, so h how do you use AI that

plan. Um, so h how do you use AI that way?

Well, I don't know if this is so to be clear, this is not LM LLM. This is not like generative AI that I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, when

about. I'm talking about, you know, when I work with um investing companies, for example, and what they will do is they will say, you know, we've noticed that often times that, you know, when this

kind of a political event occurs that you get, you know, this kind of thing in the markets where, you know, oil suddenly spikes and then gold goes down and then reversed or something like that, right? You know what I'm talking

that, right? You know what I'm talking about? And so what you do is you program

about? And so what you do is you program the AI to recognize and respond to that kind of an event and then it's able to execute that trade much faster than you

can. So that's a great example

can. So that's a great example and that's where not having emotion is important because you don't want to have emotion when you're executing the trade.

You just need to execute the trade.

That's right. And that's so you know I mean so one of the things that often happens if you're a creative or imaginative person is you come up with a plan and then you hesitate the moment you have to execute the plan. Right.

Because you're you're a creative person.

So you're sensitive to your environment.

This is why when we're dealing with soldiers, we have to train them. We have

to sort of mechanize almost these behaviors in such that once the plan is there, you execute it without getting distracted by your environment. And it's

the same thing with the AI. The AI in that moment is essentially being you only faster and not questioning itself.

Got it. So, um, one of the things that I've heard lately is how hard it is to compete now because all of these big companies have all these, you know, they

have all this data and all that kind of stuff. And

stuff. And what I'm what I'm wondering is does competition even make sense anymore? Um,

or does creativity and imagination mean that you at that point you're not competing, you're just creating?

Yeah, that's brilliant. And I completely agree with that. And I think what's happened here is that these big companies have successfully created through this kind of influence they have over the media the idea that there's a

certain few investments that we all should be chasing. And that's why we all feel like we're losing. But the reality is is that these are huge lumbering behemoths. These companies, they can't

behemoths. These companies, they can't react or adapt quickly. Um and so in fact, every individual investor out there has the edge. The only edge that that a big company has over you is leverage is their ability to go in big

with the trade, you know, but you as an individual investor are much faster at reacting to opportunities and that comes from creativity that becomes comes from be able to come up with new plans and pursue them. So absolutely I think that

pursue them. So absolutely I think that now is in fact as we're starting to see stability uh erode and we're starting to see a lot of these big companies crumble. Now is the best time to be a

crumble. Now is the best time to be a creative and I think there's going to be a future of almost unbounded freedom which will be liberating to a lot of smaller investors.

I I I love it. So entrepreneurs love being able to be creative, imaginative.

I mean all the things you're talking about that really suits an entrepreneur.

How do we how do but how do we train the employees? Because the challenge is is

employees? Because the challenge is is that employees are employees because they don't naturally have that right that's that doesn't come naturally to them and that's because they want the

safety of doing the same thing day after day. So how do you actually take that to

day. So how do you actually take that to a to a group of people which is the largest group of people we have in the world is employees. How do you take that

creativity and teach them how to ask the right questions? Because this is the I I

right questions? Because this is the I I think this is the biggest challenge.

This is the biggest challenge. How do

you get how do you teach people how to ask those questions, how to be creative, how to be imaginative, how to be curious?

The short answer is that I wrote a book for the US Army which you can find on the internet which contains lots and lots and lots of training techniques that you can just give to your employees. So, so if you want to just

employees. So, so if you want to just Google US Army Angus creativity, you'll find that that that guide. But let me just talk more broadly about the underpinnings behind that because this is the whole key to special operations is you have to teach every member of

your team to be as creative as the leader. And so this is a training

leader. And so this is a training environment in which your employees essentially become leaders. And so what is the key to that? The two simplest things first of all is you have to

recognize that every human was in fact born to lead. It is in the nature of every human being to be a leader. We are

trained and conditioned by our society to be followers. We know this because 200,000 years ago, the average life expectancy of a human is about 25 years. That means by the time you're in your early 20s, you were

probably the leader of your little group. You were called upon in that

group. You were called upon in that moment in moments of crisis, in moments of famine, in moments of disaster. You

were called upon that moment to to make a new plan so that they would survive.

And if you didn't do it, you didn't live and they didn't live and you didn't pass on your genes. So if you're alive now, you've inherited the genes of leaders.

You are a leader. You've been trained by our system not to lead. What does

education mean? It means to follow. It's

a Latin word which means to follow. So

think of all the time you spend in school and think of all the time your employees have spent in school. Most

entrepreneurs, the reason they're entrepreneurs because they didn't listen to their teachers, you know, you know, um and so you know, you have the benefit of actually being in touch with your nature. So first of all, get back with your employees and help them reactivate who they are. Help

them make help them feel excited to be human instead of being feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feeling scared. The other

thing is and I work all the time with this on leaders because it turns out leaders usually the more effective you are as leader, the worse you are at encouraging leaders. And this is what's

encouraging leaders. And this is what's known as a tacit knowledge problem. So

anytime someone's really good at something, they're usually terrible at explaining it to other people. If you

talk to someone who's a great guitarist, they can't explain how to play the guitar to someone. A great surgeon, they can't explain it. And so the the key piece of advice I always give to good leaders is

compliment your employees when they do something smart that you would not have done.

Compliment them when they do something smart that you would not have done because this breaks the tendency of most leaders to be like, "Hey, that was good cuz I would have done that." Or, "You know how you could have done that better?" Right? Which is what they

better?" Right? Which is what they always do. Instead, start getting in the

always do. Instead, start getting in the habit of being like, "Oh, you know what?

I wouldn't have done that. But that was that was pretty smart, right? You can

start practicing this with your kids.

Look at how many adults just micromanage their kids. Like, you know what? There's

their kids. Like, you know what? There's

a better way to do this. There's a

better way to do that. Like, let me give you all my experience, right? It's like,

no, let them do it their own way and reinforce when they do something smart.

And so, I think a lot of leaders are actually killing leadership just like education is killing leadership in their organizations. A lot of it is just

organizations. A lot of it is just sitting down one-on-one with employees, empowering them, and then just pointing out those moments where they do something smart that surprised you.

Well, and sometimes I think we're we're so we're we want things to go so smoothly that we're we're afraid to let our we're actually afraid to let our our employees

lead. So, we're afraid to let them take

lead. So, we're afraid to let them take charge. I I I had an experience just

charge. I I I had an experience just yesterday. Just yesterday, I couldn't

yesterday. Just yesterday, I couldn't make a meeting. I was uh supposed to be on this meeting with one of my uh managers, and I uh I I said, "I I can't

be there. You handle the meeting." He

be there. You handle the meeting." He

says, "Well, I think we should reschedule meeting." I said, "No, I

reschedule meeting." I said, "No, I think you can do this." And of course, he did great. And I'm just going, "But sometimes it seems like we actually have to press people to do what they would

naturally be fine with if they didn't feel like they had a a safety valve."

That's 100% true. And also, I think a lot of times, uh, leadership will prioritize shortterm optimization over long-term growth. Anytime you're going

long-term growth. Anytime you're going to turn over the keys to your employees, they're going to screw some stuff up in the short term, right? They just are, right? You would do it better in the

right? You would do it better in the short term than they're going to do it.

But in the long term, by turning over the keys to them, they're going to identify alters of opportunities that you never would have seen. And so you you've got to shift your psychology to the long term. This is what we call in

biology the grandchild principle, which is that actually what defines your evolutionary success is not your children, not how many children you have, but how many grandchildren you have. And so you've always got to shift

have. And so you've always got to shift your horizon, you know, to that next step. Not be thinking about, oh, is this

step. Not be thinking about, oh, is this going to make me money today, but oh, what's going to make me more money the day after today. And the more you do that, the more you want to empower your employees because that's what allows them to grow in the short term and then

give back in the long term.

Yeah. To me, it's like, are you building an asset or are you just creating an expense? Right. That's because an

expense? Right. That's because an asset's going to produce income over and over again. You want them to be an

over again. You want them to be an asset. You don't want them to be an

asset. You don't want them to be an expense where you just get a little bit out of them today. You want to get a lot out of them tomorrow. One of the risks everybody worries about, of course, is well, I train them and then they go

somewhere else, right? Which is a true risk, actually. Um I've trained hundreds

risk, actually. Um I've trained hundreds of people to become uh to run their own CPA firms. I literally have done that.

And uh and and so I get it. I I get that you feel like, well, wait a minute. But

at the same time, it seems like you get so much more out of the people. Um, you

know, I I hear people I I hear business owners all the time, and I'd like your thoughts on this, say, "Well, you just hire the best people." I'm going, "They're all the best people. They're

the they're only the best people if they're the best if you make them the best people. They're not the on their

best people. They're not the on their own, they're they're great, but they, you know, the the key as a leader to me is to make them better.

So, we need to hire you at Ohio States.

We need to get you away from Texas and hire you to Ohio State. First of all, that was beautifully said. I mean, just so eloquent, but also totally true.

Everyone has that potential in them. And

you know what? If you if you if you train someone up and they get so good they want to leave your company, let them go because if you make it hard for them to leave, right, you're going to have that ranker between you. But if you encourage them, they will give back to

you, right? They will see opportunities.

you, right? They will see opportunities.

They will partner with you in the future and you will build your team. you'll

start thinking like a wolf pack, you know, where you have all these wolves that you've you've raised and you've trained and you can get together and do things together. And you're exactly

things together. And you're exactly right. If you're always trying to hire

right. If you're always trying to hire the best person, you're overpaying.

You're just overpaying, right? Because

you're you're paying for someone who's already sort of optimized their skill set, right? Whereas, if you bring in

set, right? Whereas, if you bring in someone else and help them develop, then you're getting real value out of that person while they are with you.

Well, and they have to stretch. And so

what a lot of what I hear you saying is what one of the great things about humans is we can stretch. AI can't

stretch. AI is AI is basically finite, right? Whereas humans can stretch. We

right? Whereas humans can stretch. We

can see the future. We don't just have to dwell on the past. We can see the future. We can be creative. And that's

future. We can be creative. And that's

what makes us unique. That maybe that's what we ought to be instilling on our employees rather than having them be more like AI.

I think that's so beautifully said. Yes,

AI is optimized. So, it's already perfect, right? That's the idea of an AI

perfect, right? That's the idea of an AI is to be perfect. What is the goal of life? It is to grow. Every living thing

life? It is to grow. Every living thing on the planet, its goal is to grow. As a

human being, your goal is to grow. That

means you never optimize. You're always

evolving. You're always changing. You're

always developing something new. And the

more we can cultivate that in our employees and our businesses, the more that we will be prepared for whatever future comes.

I love it. So, um, in wrapping up, Angus, give us two or three actionable items, things that, you know, entrepreneurs, we're creative, but we also like to do things. What are two or

three things we could start with to really help um not just utilize AI, but really discover how to be um how to have

our creativity uh take advantage of the creativity we have and being human and and really really putting humans over AI.

So the number one thing we know in terms of stimulating people's intuition is to travel.

The best thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to travel. And by travel I don't mean like you know go somewhere then stay in a fivestar hotel and then eat in the restaurant you know in the hotel lobby. I mean actually get out and

hotel lobby. I mean actually get out and see something different you know um maybe you know um eat in someone's house you know uh do something. Get yourself

in a place where everything is different everything is new. It will stimulate that part of your your your child brain that grows. Another thing is to start to

that grows. Another thing is to start to identify a couple people who you admire and respect who think differently from you and start asking yourself what would

they do in this situation? What would

they do in this situation? AI can't do that because for AI there's always an optimum solution whereas for humans there's always multiple answers which is why you have groups of people and you can start to build that kind of inner

thing in your mind. The final thing going back to FOMO is my final piece of advice is the operations community, US Army Special Operations has a technique

they call covert victory. Covert

victory. And this means that when you do something that is in keeping with your purpose, you can keep it secret and still feel like it's the most important thing. And this is why if you

important thing. And this is why if you go into the kind of the secret hallways of these secret organizations, they have heroes walls with no names on them because the heroes already know. And

what that means as an investor, if you don't need to flash the fact that you're successful, if you don't need to go on Instagram and tell people how much money you have, if you don't need to, you know, buy the nicest car and drive it

around because you know that you're successful, it can be a covert victory.

You will never be distracted by other people. you will always maintain your

people. you will always maintain your own purpose and you will assassinate the market.

That's fascinating. I I've uh read a lot a lot of the the most successful CEOs, nobody knows who they are.

That's exactly. Do you think Warren Buffett is out there on Instagram?

Hardly. So, thank you. Um Angus Fletcher has been our guest. Uh it's really our our topic's been humans versus AI and it's really to me humans with AI. How do

we make AI just really part of our workflow? Make it easier to do what we

workflow? Make it easier to do what we want to do. Make it easier to um really use our primal intelligence modes emo uh intuition emotion imagination and common sense. Thank you very much,

common sense. Thank you very much, Angus. Um the book is

Angus. Um the book is primal intelligence.

The book is primal intelligence. There it is

primal intelligence. There it is intelligence. Primal, primal

intelligence. Primal, primal intelligence. I love it. And where can

intelligence. I love it. And where can we go to get more information about your work Angus?

You can go to operationhum.com if you want to see my work with the military, or you can just Google me. I

think I'm the only Angus in Ohio, so you'll probably find me pretty quick.

All right. Thank you very much. And

please, if you've enjoyed this, please share this with your your friends. Um,

please uh promote this to your your neighbors. Just let your other

neighbors. Just let your other entrepreneur friends know that look, they have an advantage because they can't ask the right questions. And when

you learn how to ask the right questions and then when you can help your employees uh be creative and ask the right questions, you'll always make way more money and pay way less tax. We'll

see you next time on the Wealthability Show. Thanks for listening to the

Show. Thanks for listening to the Wealthability Show. If today's episode

Wealthability Show. If today's episode gave you a new perspective, remember this. The tax law is not your enemy.

this. The tax law is not your enemy.

It's a road map. And when you know how to follow it, you can build real lasting wealth. If you're a business owner or

wealth. If you're a business owner or investor who's tired of overpaying taxes, the Wealthability Accelerator is your next step. You'll have the

opportunity to work directly with me for 80% less than my standard rate. And I'll

personally guide you through how to change your facts so that you can change your tax. Go to wealthability.com/bonus

your tax. Go to wealthability.com/bonus

and apply today. Remember, it's not just what you make, it's what you keep.

This podcast is a presentation of Rich Dad Media Network.