Bouncing Back
When your guest tells you ‘I want this to be the best podcast episode you’ve ever done’ — you know you’ve found a great one.
Maybe it’s because our personalities flowed.
Maybe it’s because we connected on a deeper level.
Maybe it’s because I took the guest research to another level and prepared 10x more for this episode (thanks for giving me your masterclass, Darryl Stickel, PhD! To everyone reading this, I highly recommend investing in it)
Maybe it’s because we went DEEEEP on one main topic, and methodically unpeeled it like a tasty brown onion.
Maybe it’s all of the above and more…but it doesn’t matter, because it worked. Really well!
After going through a few personal self-confidence issues recently (haven’t really figured out why tbh), it was great to rediscover some drive, pizzazz and form a connection that i’ll truly cherish in the future.
What better guest to do it with then one of the world’s leading experts on TRUST!
It just shows, you won’t always perform at your peak. And if that’s your own self-expectation, then you need to change because you’re your own worst enemy. Your own biggest critic. The only one that will spot the flaws and dismiss the wins.
Please remember, fellow humans — life happens, we can’t always explain why we feel a certain way…so give yourself a break, stop expecting perfection, get off social media and free yourself to be a human being, flaws and all.
I want to thank Darryl for his wisdom and for inspiration — after our chat I remembered why I started this pod and, yes, it really was one of the best ones to date!
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Chimpanzees & The Trust Formula
Darryl and I weren’t lying when we spoke about ‘trust’ forming the bedrock of all relationships in life — with ourselves, with each other, with our pets, with our leaders, heck even with technology.
The overarching formula is quite simple:
-Uncertainty x vulnerability = perceived risk
If perceived risk is high, we don’t trust. If it’s low, then we do.
Delving deeper, Darryl talked about various levers that we can pull to help build trust, including:
👉 Vulnerability
👉 Certainty
👉 Integrity
👉 Ability
👉 Benevolence
👉 Context
It’s a pretty logical model. Yet why can’t each and every one of us can’t apply the model on a wholesale level with all our interactions?
I get it — life is complicated, people are puzzling, emotions can be serpentine…but if we DESIRE to make a change to our relationships and improve things, why do we continually fall into conflict with each other?
Is it maybe hardwired into us?
Although our brain can understand on an intellectual level how to build a ‘good’ relationship, is there some hidden override function within us when it comes to our actions?
Don’t laugh, but when I recently watched ‘Chimp Empire’ on Netflix I had a little realisation…
We share more than 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Although we’ve clearly evolved a little and i’d wager life is bloody good compared to a few million years ago, as a species we still:
👉Routinely fight other tribes over territory
👉 Sometimes abuse members of our own tribe (emotionally at a minimum and sometimes unintentionally, but sometimes the worst of humans will do it physically)
👉 Routinely enable violence, whether it’s government-sanctioned or not
Of course, i’m not an expert on psychology, evolution or chimpanzees…and maybe i’m just talking absolute bollocks. But it does make you think how much further we have to go as a species!
For me, being aware of the distilled elements that make up trust in relationships has allowed me to make some changes with my interactions — both in the business world and in my personal life.
As with many things in life, simple…but not easy, right?
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Trusting AI — A Test of Trust
Earlier I wrote about how awesome this episode was to record, however the train almost came off the rails.
When I downloaded the recording I had a serious ‘oh f*ck’ moment.
The recording on my side picked up audio from my laptop mic instead of my professional pod mic.
The result? T.o.t.a.l rubbish. Unmarketable quality — distant, distorted, underwater-sounding audio from yours truly. Talk about a major facepalm moment!
The situation seemed dire, but I had options:
👉 Struggle for hours with software I barely understand
👉 Beg a sound engineer mate for help, cashing in a precious favour (he’s a ghost writer and producer for many top worldwide pop artists)
👉 Enter the realm of the AI spirits and manifest a one-click fix, preferably without breaking the bank
Guess which road I took?
You got it—number three. Here’s how it went down:
‑5 mins on Google
‑1 min signing up with Adobe
‑15 secs to upload
‑10 mins processing
‑15 secs to download
Voila!
Audio magically fixed, sounded almost studio grade.
Cost? Zilch.
Happy little vegemite here.
Now, this was my first real use of AI beyond a few sentence re-writes using ChatGPT. I was in a serious pickle. Yet I had to do some trusting AI.
And trust delivered.
True, AI won’t understand your vulnerability like a human can. It doesn’t particularly care about integrity like me or you do.
Benevolence? Who knows, hopefully it stays good and doesn’t go Skynet on us. Trusting AI is easy, no?
Yet the core trust levers that Darryl spoke about were absolutely part of the Daniel Topor-Adobe-trusting-AI equation:
👉 Ability/certainty (the end result was fixed within the timeframe indicated)
👉 Conext (it was designed to fix voice audio and that’s what I asked it to do)
👉 Vulnerability (I told it I had a problem and it listened and wanted to help me fix it [yeah i know it didn’t really care deep down, lol])
You see where i’m going here.
Above we have some of the key levers to building trust. I’ve just applied them with a non-human entity. The exchange was successful. Trusting AI is now something i’ll do more often, and am keen to employ more!
Since then i’ve started using another AI tool to create my video snippets and literally save myself 4 hours per week in doing so.
So my overall quality of life is now improving materially and I have more time to spend with my wife, my dog and finding more amazing guests for you.
We should trust more often. Try it sometime.
May success be with you!
