Something is happening in our lives, and we can all feel it. Voices can be cloned. Stories can be automated. Images can be generated. And most of us are moving through it without fully stopping to ask what that does to our humanity..

In this first part of a two-part conversation, Amy sits down with returning guest Bill Kirst to explore what it means to live in a world where we are beginning to question what is real. Bill reads from his Substack piece, The Buying of Our Breath, and the conversation goes straight to the human cost.

What happens when you discover the voice that moved you didn’t belong to a human body? When narration exists without presence? When we start editing out the very things that prove we are alive — the pause, the breath, the crack in the voice, our human “imperfections”?

The things we once tried to erase may be our last undeniable proof of life.

Take a listen. Hear the plea. Then decide for yourself — how far will we let the buying of our breath go?

Threads We Pulled On:

1. Rest Versus Restlessness – Explore why productivity tools promise freedom yet leave us feeling more unsettled and emotionally depleted.
2. The Commodification of Voice – Understand what it means when Olympic narration, news reporting, and podcasting can be replicated without the human present.
3. Proof of Life in Imperfection – See how coughs, pauses, filler words, and breath may become the rarest markers of authenticity.
4. The Grief of Artificial Reality – Recognize the subtle but profound emotional toll of discovering something you believed was real was AI-generated.
5. Discernment as a Leadership Skill – Consider why the future may demand deeper emotional intelligence and conscious filtering rather than faster consumption.
6. Rebellion Against the Autofill – Exercising discernment and agency in a culture engineered for automation.

You can listen to Bill’s episode - AI & The Poetry of Our Existence with Bill Kirst here - https://create-magic-at-work-r.captivate.fm/episode/ai-the-poetry-of-our-existence-with-bill-kirst/

About the Guest:

Bill Kirst is an author, technology leader, podcast host, military veteran, mentor, educator and mindfulness practitioner. He has been writing stories, poems and lyrics for as long as he can remember. He hails from a long line of storytellers and educators who are deeply inspired, moved and healed by the power of the written word. Mixing in melody, chords and a chorus generate a powerful response toward healing. This is why he sees the world through a songwriter's eyes, and why his first published work was a collection of poetry. And his second book is focuses on how we hold on to our humanity in this era of AI.

In addition to writing, he hosts The Coffee & Change Podcast which went into its tenth season this year. Bill helps people thrive and break through common obstacles that seem to be holding them back so they can reach their true potential. His career as a change leader has been rewarding, impactful and inspirational, reminding him of the importance of this work, all while understanding the human condition.

Follow Bill on Substack - https://open.substack.com/pub/everward/p/the-buying-of-our-breath?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

linkedin.com/in/billkirst

instagram.com/coffee.and.change

instagram.com/journeyeverward

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

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Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

The dreams of dystopia are never for shock

value. They serve like a syllabus for those future

lectures in history where we are sprinting toward frictionless

perfection and like the discard of a pen, unknowingly tossing

out the very texture that makes us real, those tiny

imperfections you despise upon playback. Those are signals of

your presence. They're the micro moments where your authentic

self slips through unsupervised they're evidence of your

essence, of your embodiment of divine breath of humanity trying

to find its footing in real time, in dark times when you

walk between worlds, as we humans must do each dancing with

a machine, we must first know what we are giving away, even

unintentionally, your voice prints, your pauses, your

glitches, your imperfections, might be the last frontier of

unmistakable humanness.

Amy Lynn Durham: Hey, it's Amy Welcome to Create Magic at Work,

where we cast visions for a future of work, where business

decisions ripple outward to our teams, our communities, the

planet and humanity as a whole. If you're ready to edge, walk

instead of sleep. Walk through your leadership, you're in the

right place. So let's start making magic at work.

So that my friends. Is a reading from Bill Kirst, returning guest

on the podcast, from his sub stack article, the buying of our

breath, one of the most profound things I've ever read in this

time, and Bill is back with us to talk more about holding on to

our humanity during this time of AI. And he has a new book that's

been published titled leading change in the era of AI. Last

time he was here, we were discussing AI, but we were also

doing it with poetry, with your poetry book that's out called

ever word, with one of my favorite poems, titled fuck the

auto Phil, I just read, by the way, Bill, for people that are

listening, that are new. I'll tell everyone a little bit more

about Bill. But yeah, I was marked explicit on Apple now, so

that's been Oh no, yeah, okay, well, maybe f the explicit Mark

too, I don't know. Maybe. Anyway, my favorite poem out of

that that is that, because it just it brings our attention to

why are we just following something that's just coming up

in auto like we need to pause and question these things. So

those of you that are newer listeners to Create Magic at

Work, we will drop the link to our original conversation in the

show notes. AI and the poetry of our existence. Bill is an

author, technology leader, podcast host, military veteran,

mentor, educator and mindfulness practitioner. He has been

writing stories, poems and lyrics for as long as he can

remember. He hails from a long line of storytellers and

educators who are deeply inspired, moved and healed by

the power of the written word. Mixing in melody, chords and a

chorus generate a powerful response toward healing. This is

why he sees the world through a songwriter's eyes, and why his

first published work, which we referenced everward, was a

collection of poetry. Today we're going to get into leading

change in the era of AI. And also to note, Bill hosts the

Coffee and Change podcast, which is in its 10th season. So you

are a podcaster. Bill helps people thrive and break through

common obstacles that seem to be holding them back so they can

reach their true potential. His career as a change leader has

been rewarding, impactful and inspirational, reminding him of

the importance of this work, all while understanding the human

condition. And Bill is also a fellow edge Walker facilitator

with me, and I just love that as well. So I have to give a shout

out to the to the edge Walker work that we do in the world. So

Bill, thanks for being here again, and thank you for kicking

us off with that beautiful, beautiful passage from the

buying of our breath.

Thank you. It's. Great to be back with you, Amy,

and thank you for inviting me into the edge Walker ecosystem

and allowing me to, in a way, shine more light on something

that I knew needed, needed light it also just needed to do it in

its own time, and it's been a very generous, very additive

part of my life. So I'm excited to be back with you again. It

feels, feels like we've known each other really long time. I

think it's because we met in a really interesting container in

the world during during covid. We met virtually, obviously, but

we've stayed connected in really magical ways since. So it's

great to be back.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, I'm super, super grateful for our

connection and for all of the the magical things that I'm

exposed to because of that, and thank you for coming on and

exposing the Create Magic at Work, listeners and community to

that as well, and to help us think a little more deeply and

consciously as we move through our daily lives that feel really

busy right now, I think, as we're and really overwhelming to

some before I was coming on to prepare for this conversation,

this theme of rest was coming up like nothing feels There isn't a

time or somebody I'm interacting with recently that I see where

rest feels available to people, and that's really curious to me,

because all of these machines and all of this technology is

supposed to make things more productive. So, in essence, we

can rest and it's not happening. What's going on with that? What

are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, thank you for starting in this place,

because when you say the word rest, the first word that comes

to my mind is restless, and it's interesting, because I was

reading just yesterday about a former podcast guest of mine

who's become a friend who's actually writing his second

Book. And the title is restless and it's it's naming what you're

talking about. It's, it's naming this aspect of, we continue to

insert all of these generative things into our lives with a

promise of, you're going to have more time back, you're going to

be able to rest more, and what we're finding is it's

introducing a lot of additional scarcity and uncertainty and

ambiguity. And even if you told somebody, Hey, you're entitled

to rest, or you're allowed to rest or take a nap, or take a

vacation, take a break, if you also have uncertainty, ambiguity

and scarcity. Anywhere in the mix, anywhere around your

ability to rest is near impossible, and so I think we

are at this intentional tension, is what I'm calling it, and I'm

choosing to stand in that tension, and it's from that

place that I get to inquire and investigate and and in some

cases, interrogate those things that were promised and told that

don't actually feel like the reality is for us. So I'm glad

you started here, and I think about this a lot, not only rest,

but restlessness brought in by all this. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: Really, really good thought. There on the

restlessness. And I'm thinking one of the journal prompt cards

in the Create Magic at Work. Journal prompt card deck I know

you and I both use it is rest. And it's in the affirmation is I

give myself permission to rest. And I think it even goes deeper

than that with this whole AI thing, and everybody's talking

about it. It's all over the place. This morning, when I got

up and was getting coffee, I read a pod news article that

said the Washington Post was laying off hundreds of their

employees. I don't know if you saw that, and they had automated

their podcast with AI. Did you see that?

I heard about it leading up to Yeah, and I'm

like, Oh my

Amy Lynn Durham: gosh, I'm interviewing bill this morning,

and we're literally talking a part of your book, Leading

Change in the era of AI is this, dare I say, plea and correct my

my word, if you don't want me to use that word to. Podcasters or

to people that are recording their voice and things to say,

please do not sell what is human in you to a system or to a

machine. And the same thing that when we kicked off the

conversation today with the buying of our breath, that dream

that you had, that in the future, the very things that we

are editing out or afraid of other people to see or judge or

feel shameful about. She says, like too much. She says, I'm too

much. She says, you know too much. Oh my gosh, there was a

dog barking in the background that they started coughing in

their conversation. All of those things that we want to edit out

are proof of life. And your dream was, those are going to be

commoditized in the future. Those are the imprints of our

humanity. And it just was like, whoa. It really touched me. So

talk to us about that. Talk to us about how we grapple with

that. And maybe a thought on the the AI automation of everything

in podcasting or news or whatever.

I think the word plea is very appropriate, so I

really am glad you put that out there. And as I talk about this,

and I say the word plea, I want people to picture it capital

letters, P, L, E, A plea, right? Because it's not a word we come

across often, but when you hear it, it's visceral, right? I'm

pleading for something. I'm pleading for help. I'm pleading

for existence. And so I think it's a perfect word to start

with. You mentioned this aspect of me trying to write a plea in

my second book. You're right. That is correct. I was trying to

get people to feel, to awaken to this fact of what we're now

seeing in headlines. At the time I was writing the book, I was

actually referring to the Summer Olympics. And here we are today,

February 6, and the Winter Olympics are kicking off today.

When I was writing about the Summer Olympics, back then, I

was writing about how NBC at the time had taken the voices that

we knew as famous broadcasters, Jim Vance being one, Bob Costas

being another. These are the voices of Olympians, or voices

of Olympics that we all know in our in our consciousness and our

these are, these are key narrators, and NBC at the time

said that they had taken their voices and essentially turned

them into AI versions so that people could get Olympic updates

in the voice of Jim Nance, in the voice of Bob Costas. But

it's not Bob Costas and it's not Jim Nance, it's AI, and I

remember reading that, and part of my heart sank, because I

remember exactly where I was in 1996 when Carrie STRUG took that

last vault and landed injured and won the Golden I still get

chills from it, right? Anybody that remembers that also

remembers the narration of the people that were calling right

the Olympic Games. And as you said, there's a humanness to

that, to the voice and the event and the just the irreplaceable

part of emotion that happens. And so fast forward to 2024 and

now 2026 and we have, not only Olympic games being called by

non human entities, we now have news being delivered by non

human entities, podcasts being delivered by non human entities.

Many people probably know this term, AI slop. It's out there,

everywhere. It's on YouTube, it's in podcast, it's

everywhere. And part of the reason I think this dream came

to me, and why I wrote about it, was there are these shards of

our humanity that, as you said, make us show proof of life. And

a lot of times, it's our imperfections and it's our it's

our desire to be perfect and our recognition that we are not

designed to be perfect. And this is one of those tensions that

we're seeing play out day by day, minute by minute. So when I

think about things like the Wall Street Journal or even the news

of the Washington Post earlier this week, where their entire

sports division was let go, they have no sports division at

Washington Post. A majority of the foreign Bureau was let go. I

have to ask myself, Where are the human interest stories going

to be? Where are they going to come from? Who's going to tell

us who we are, remind us who we are when the world faces

conflict or when the world faces championships, and I think about

it today, as I mentioned that the kickoff of the Olympics will

be today, the opening ceremonies, I usually try and

watch those for a couple of reasons. One, it's the stirring

emotions, but two, it's always the music that's tied into the

opening ceremonies that really moved me. Today I know that they

will have two of my favorite Italian singers, one is Andrea

Bocelli, and the other is Laura Pausini. And so I think about

the contrast and the juxtaposition that is going to

be the humanity of voice and song, imperfections and all in

those moments, and then knowing that there's going to be people

getting AI updates, AI generated updates of the Olympics

throughout, and that just makes my heart hurt. I think as we see

these things happen in our news and our life and our world and

our entertainment, I I think we have to rebel, and that's part

of why I started so many years ago with the poetry. I think

it's interesting that Apple marked, marked that episode

explicit, yeah, you know what? Oh, no, yeah. The whole show,

which is, which is kind of interesting. And also, at the

same time, Amy, part of me says, how apropos, because we're

rebelling. I was like, Cool, yeah, right. I mean, it's, it's

a little punk, it's a little cyber punk, but we're rebelling

against what is the autofill? We're rebelling against these

things that are taking our essence and our consciousness.

And you know what happens when you rebel, you get marked as

explicit by the tech companies. That irony is not lost on me. So

that's one of those things I find kind of fascinating. So

I'll pause there. There's a lot I said there, but my emotions

are stirring. It's a cauldron right now.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, just a thought on on the Olympics and

the AI updates. And what I got from the book was, you know,

nothing can replace that feeling of the announcer freaking out

when something amazing happens. Oh my God, because they're

seeing it real time too, and they're a human, and then so

you're experiencing that, and, I mean, freak out in a good way,

like if something amazing happened, you know, in a moment,

and then you're it's this shared meaning, this shared humanity of

what's occurring. And it brings us closer together, because we

experience that together. And so if a machine's just reporting

that out, even if it is trying to mimic emotion in a way, it

just, it just doesn't land. And so I really think you have a

great call out for all of us to recognize that. And a great

point in that last time we met and recorded a discussion. I

asked you, what you what can you sense? The classic edge Walker

question, what can you sense, but not yet see you for our

future? You answered that you sensed that there would be a

backlash to all of this, Rise of AI, Rise of technology, and that

anything that wasn't touched by a human hand or had human

imperfections was not going To be seen as valuable. I hope I'm

saying that right, because I'm bringing that up now, because

I'm already kind of seeing the backlash that you talked about,

and this was about a year and a half ago. I believe we we met,

even on Instagram, we're seeing these deep fakes. I mean, that's

where I see it when I'm like, Doom scrolling, sorry to admit

sending funny reels to my friends. And, yeah, we're like,

oh my gosh, we're getting bamboozled. And so to me, like,

now I'm feeling it. I'm feeling what you sensed already bubbling

to the surface where I'm like, is this real? This isn't real.

This is fake. I don't know what's real. I don't know what's

what's authentic. Is this fake? My best friend for weeks, was

sending me this cute bird on it. She's like, Oh my gosh, I want

to get a bird. Look how cute he was dancing in front of the TV.

Crazy and almost doing like Michael Jackson moves, but it

looked so real, you know? I was just like, Oh, cute, you know?

And then all of a sudden it came up, that bird was aI generated

and not real. And everybody thought it was, or most people

did. I'm sure there were some people that knew it was AI. And

I said it to Christina, and I was like, Oh my gosh, your bird

is fake. And she's like, I'm devastated. And I'm like, I

know. And I'm like, here it is. Here is. I'm sure there's much

more deeper and more impactful examples we can share. But

nobody trusts anything anymore. Nobody it what you put, what you

said, what you were sensing. It's it's happening now. So what

do we do with that? Where do we go with this? Because I have a

my mic drop question at the end of this interview, but I, at

least, I think it is, but yeah, where do we go with all this?

I'm it's like,

uh, yeah. I Yeah. I think what's, what's really

fascinating is we are, you're naming, we're already there. And

what you and I talked about that many months or a year ago,

you're right. It's, it's coming true faster than people

expected. And I heard an interesting podcast that was

actually human podcast the other day. The editor of a publication

called The Verge. His name is Nilai Patel, and he has a

podcast called decoder, and he did an episode where he and a

journalist talked about this very issue, and what he, you

know, was able to suss out from this journalist is what began

about maybe a year, year and a half ago, with something called

Content authenticity, right, the ability to label AI generated

assets as, in fact, AI, right? The fulcrum was was built in

such a way where we would be able to have metadata and

tagging and things that were embedded into the imagery, and

in some cases, from the minute it gets a picture is taken from

a device or a camera, right? It's the metadata installed on

that. And everybody lauded this and said, This is great, right?

We can, we can see the imprint, and we can check the metadata,

and that will solve this problem. And what we're seeing

now is exactly what you're naming Amy, which is the fulcrum

has completely swung the other way, because there's so much

content that is generated that is not real, that is not true,

that it almost doesn't make sense now to be labeling

everything. Do we, in fact, need to change the paradigm and look

for a label that says this is real, not this is AI. And when

you put that equation out there, something happens to the human

dynamic, in a way. It basically says, Wait, the way I've learned

to trust things is being completely put on its head, is

being inversed and all, like you said, the example with the bird,

all of the things that you saw, that your friend Christina saw

like it was designed in such a way to evoke emotion in you and

to believe something and to get joy from it that was

intentional. And at the end of it, you learn none of it was

real. It's not as simple as just scrolling to the next real. You

actually have to grieve what you thought was real is not and then

you have to separate the fact that I have all these emotions

that came up in me, which are human, which is wonderful, that

we can be moved and inspired and changed by art. But the minute

somebody says none of that was real, you're left questioning

yourself, your judgments, your emotions feel a little bit

cavernous, and it there's nothing you can really do to

just jump to the next meeting or jump to the next movie or jump

to the next conversation, because your body, your heart,

your mind, your soul, is still grieving something it thought to

be true, and you and I are talking about one instance here.

Amy, I want you to multiply this by billions of instances. So

there are many episodic grief grievings happening every second

around the world. And that's where I'm starting to say to

myself, we need more help. People need more help. I don't,

I don't know if it. Inversing that equation of, let's mark

what is real and just assume nothing else is but that in

itself is a, oh, man, that's not a world I want to live in.

Sadly, I think that's where we're headed. And if you look at

the incentives for a lot of people, that's where it lies. So

I wish I had better news on that. Your example is a great

one. I encourage people to really have discernment, but

also, if I'm the first person to name this for you, and you're

listening and you feel it, you're grieving the loss of what

you thought was real, and you need to take time to do that so

that the next time you enter into a real or a scroll or

short, you're entering it from a place of discernment and growth

and grief, and then you'll have a different filter. And I want

you to protect your heart. I want you to protect your soul. I

want you to protect your eyes. These are things meant for,

designed for human to human connection. And I don't want to

be saturated. I know you don't either.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, there's something about the grieving and

then the questioning your own judgment and Hmm, that feels

very profound, that then stepping away from the scrolling

or the posts into your actual, real life, that you take that

with you. Yeah, I'm wondering if we're taking that with us. I'm

feeling like we are and so now we're moving through our day

with our human relationships. Question maybe, maybe that's is

that trickling into questioning what's real? Is that trickling

into like is my judgment off here? Is it damaging

relationships is that energy we're carrying that with us.

Spiritually, I feel, yeah, and I'm really recognizing it now in

our conversation. How do we I think for me, this is, this is

something to be conscious of clearing, like an energy

clearing type, right? Like, I can't take this because now I'm

going to move in my world with an actual human and I'm carrying

this distrust within myself, or maybe this shame that I thought

something was real when it wasn't, and now I'm scanning my

human world in that way that feels scary for me.

If you thought that was thought provoking, just wait

next week in part two, Amy and bill go even deeper into

identity, grief and what happens when humans start outsourcing

themselves to machines. Part Two drops next week. Don't miss it.

Amy Lynn Durham: I want to thank each and every one of you for

being here as we explore what it really means to Create Magic at

Work. If this conversation resonated with you, or if

someone came to mind while you were listening, share the

episode with them. Help others who are looking for these types

of conversations find us and don't forget to follow,

subscribe, rate and review so you're notified when the next

episode airs until next time. Keep edge walking, keep

challenging the way things have always been done, and keep

making magic at work.