"AI readiness in my book is a set of principles, and those principles are pretty simple. One, you are now in a world where you can be a doer, not a talker." — 𝗡𝗼𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀

As automation strips away the tasks of our jobs, we are entering a Great Repurpose where our value shifts from what we 𝘥𝘰 to who we 𝘢𝘳𝘦. Noelle Russell shows us how to use AI not just as a tool, but as an amplifier for our unique human lived experiences.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆

Noelle Russell was there at the start of Alexa, as one of the first ten employees on the Amazon team helping bring it to life. Motivated by a desire to create a kinder world for her son, who was born with Down Syndrome, Noelle has spent 25 years at tech giants like AWS and Microsoft. Today, she runs the 𝗔𝗜 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲, where she champions responsible AI and helps individuals become single-person unicorns by amplifying their work through intelligent agents.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽

• 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆: Decouple your self-worth from your daily tasks; when AI automates the doing, your value lies in your integrity, critical thinking, and empathy.

• 𝗔𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁" 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲: Before consuming content (doom-scrolling), commit to producing something that educates, informs, or entertains.

• 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗙𝗹𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗹: Use AI to handle the bane of your existence (like scheduling and inboxes) so you can focus on the high-value work only you can do.

• 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: Your history as a caregiver, parent, or divergent thinker is a superpower; it allows you to guide AI models with more patience and better questions.

• 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 "𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄, 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹": Don't just talk about AI; build a prototype. Use tools to visualize the backlog of ideas you once thought were impossible.

𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

• [𝟬𝟬:𝟬𝟭:𝟬𝟬] The Crisis of Meaning: Tying work to worth in the age of automation.

• [𝟬𝟬:𝟬𝟱:𝟬𝟬] The Great Repurpose: Rediscovering who you are outside of your job description.

• [𝟬𝟬:𝟮𝟱:𝟬𝟬] Crafting a Career: How Noelle’s journey as a caregiver shaped her approach to tech.

• [𝟬𝟬:𝟯𝟯:𝟬𝟬] Baby Tiger Mode: The danger of falling in love with AI models without leadership.

• [𝟬𝟬:𝟱𝟰:𝟬𝟬] Single-Person Unicorns: How Noelle uses 32 agents to amplify her business.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗸𝗶𝘁

• AI Leadership Institute: https://aileadershipinstitute.com/

• I Love AI: https://www.skool.com/iloveai/about

• The AI Salon: https://aisalon.mn.co/

• She Leads AI: https://she-leads-ai.mn.co/

𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲, 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲, 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲

Catch a new episode of The AI Readiness Project every Wednesday at 3pm (PST), co-hosted by Anne Murphy of She Leads AI and Kyle Shannon of The AI Salon. Want to meet others navigating this new terrain with humor and humanity? Visit The AI Salon or She Leads AI to find your people.

Noelle Russell

Announcer: AI readiness project. We believe that in this remarkable age at the AI Readiness Project, we believe that in this remarkable age, AI isn't the main character you are. While the tech is racing ahead, it's the humans who learn to harness AI mindfully. That will win.

Each week we meet remarkable people doing just that. Join Kyle Shannon, tech leader and AI instigator and Ann Murphy fundraiser and AI consultant as they lead the conversation about staying grounded, growing smarter, and leading with what makes us human.

Speaker 3: It's the bop.

Kyle Shannon: The bop. It's

Speaker 3: bop. We love the bop bop that's

Kyle Shannon: always there. Um, um, are you, are you leading with what's being human? How's your, how's your leading with being human?

I'm finally using what I learned in college and my master's degree, which is how we self-identify in our unpaid time. Ah. So I'm not just doing it. Love that. I'm back to all my texts. I've been reading my textbooks, bowling Alone Flow. Um, what else?

Kyle Shannon: There's a theme that I'm seeing that is some version of people shedding

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: Parts of what they did that they had tied to their identity and

Anne Murphy: Yep.

Kyle Shannon: And I, I just stumbled on this thing that I launched this week that I know you've seen.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: That, that, um. Lori Blair actually on my life, she came up with the name for it. But I, but I was talking about, I feel like we're, we're entering a crisis of meaning, a crisis of identity.

Anne Murphy: Oh, I just wrote a, I just made content about this.

Yeah, you did. When you say what do you do? Like, I was just, sorry, interrupt. Really quickly, just so you know. Oh, please. Where we're at. Like, we're on the state wavelength. So I, we always

Speaker 3: do this.

Anne Murphy: I know we always do. Compared with when I lived in the Midwest and what do you do was always, always, always, oh, I work for customs.

I'm an accountant. I do this. And then when I moved to the West Coast, people were like, what do you do? And they're like, oh, we have a sailboat on the San Francisco Bay. I'm a surfer, I'm a this. And I'd be like, right. Oh, I need to find some hobbies so I have something to say

Right. You know?

Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

Kyle Shannon: You know, time equals money. And then the Industrial Revolution sort of codifies this with punch clocks and, you know, our, our work is our value, right? Yeah. And we, we trade these hours for this money so we get our food. And so we we're generations into, mm-hmm. What do you do? Tying our work to our worth.

And what struck me is that even if people keep their jobs, but if all of the tasks are now automated out, like I, I just saw a piece on, I think it was on Twitter on X that was talking about, there's a crisis with, with software engineers. Right now we're software engineers that love to code.

Anne Murphy: Oh yeah.

Kyle Shannon: Are no longer coding.

Anne Murphy: Yep.

Kyle Shannon: And, and so the, so this idea came up with is called the Great Repurpose. And the whole idea is, and, and I think it's something that. Instinctively has been happening in the AI salon. It's instinctively been happening, and she leads, in fact, next year at the Create Conference, you've got a whole arts and crafts booth that Cindy Kon and, and this, this other crafting person are gonna put together.

Yeah.

Anne Murphy: And a silent disco. We're doing a silent disco.

And you just described the sort of innocence of discovery in college is now you're rediscovering that now, like, this feels right, this repurpose, this idea of rediscovering who we actually are feels like that's gonna be the job of the future.

Anne Murphy: That is the job

Kyle Shannon: is, but how do we get there? Like that's, that's the thing that got me obsessed in the past couple of

Anne Murphy: weeks.

Yes. Okay. So we have to talk because this is, like I said, this is the only thing I learned in college and master's degree was this like, that's it, that's the only thing I studied.

Kyle Shannon: This is

Every little pellet of altruism brings us closer to why are we here in our one precious life, what actually are we doing? And, and like a lot of people retire. This is, this was my work in philanthropy. A lot of people retire and they don't have self identity anymore. Yeah. So then they're looking for who lose the purpose, the meaning.

Kyle Shannon: Yes.

Anne Murphy: And we're like, give your money to nonprofits, become connected with us. Do altruism. You actually live longer. Mm. The more altruism acts you do. Altruistic acts you do, including watching other people do altruism.

Kyle Shannon: Oh wow. Just witnessing it. That's amazing.

Anne Murphy: Yeah. It has a, uh, proximity effect.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne Murphy: So, um, when you do that, you create an environment of meaning and belonging and a sense of something bigger than ourselves.

Kyle Shannon: and, and, and I think that the answer to that historically for a lot of people was, well, I'm part of the company.

The company's part

Anne Murphy: of the company doing good things.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah. I'm doing my part. Like my, my purpose is tied to this thing. That thing is about to be shattered. Right? So we're

Anne Murphy: about to answer

Kyle Shannon: a moment, a phase in history where millions of people are, you know, getting that whatever their connection is to that kind of work ripped away from them.

Anne Murphy: Yep.

And I thought. Like, when I'm at networking events, or even if at, I'm, even, even if I'm at parties and someone doesn't ask me what they do, they say, tell me about yourself.

Speaker 3: Oh,

Kyle Shannon: my

Speaker 3: answer

Kyle Shannon: is, oh, I'm the co-founder. I've run CEO of that. I'm like, I, and I'm an artist. Right. I've written a flip in musical. I've got a degree in acting.

Like I know, I know, I know what it's like to be in touch with who I am.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: But my answer to that is my job, and I'm like, story this.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: Hide. Yeah. I'll tell you the thing that, that kind of melted my face and, and my soul, uh, recently was on my live, I asked, um, Liz Miller Hirschfeld to come on my live and talk to me about, you know, how do I turn this, this thing that I do every night, which is kind of this habit.

Yeah.

And it crushed me.

Oh,

it crushed me. 'cause it's like, like, I don't know, like, like it was like, it was like the thing of like, I don't know that I've asked myself that for real in a really long time.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: And so I think that's the thing that people are gonna be confronted with. If you've got this meaning sort of ripped away from you and you're left with, well, what do I actually want? That's actually a hard question. It's so simple, but it's quite, it's simple to be able to answer it.

Anne Murphy: It's simple, but it's also really, really complicated because it's in our DNA, it's in our nature and our nurture and mm-hmm.

Societally, um, we put value on time and productivity, uh, only because of slavery.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Anne Murphy: Right? Time does not exist for me, fortunately, and because of extensive privilege, time does not exist for me to be sold to something or somebody else. Mm-hmm. No longer maybe when I was an employee, but now my time. There is no value. You can't, you can't put a value on it. Like it's about decision and meeting and discernment.

I will decide how I'm gonna spend my time and the amount of meaning that brings me. And if it's not, I honestly have been getting really clear. On that. Like,

The education system is about creating workers, not independent thinkers. Not critical thinkers, right? It's about creating people that, that are willing to put in the time to, to deliver the value. And so that, that's the thing. So anyway, that's, that's the thing that, that has me obsessed lately is that, is that anything that we can do in our communities to allow people to decouple

Anne Murphy: Yes.

Kyle Shannon: The tasks that they do, the skills that maybe they've taken 20 years to hone. Like this is not, this is not a trivial thing, right? This is a, you know, if, if I went to school and I got a master's degree and I spent 20 years honing these skills that are now automated and, and valueless effectively. Yeah, I'm left here with, with what?

Anne Murphy: I agree.

I agree. Um, and, okay, couple of other, other things for the audience members. Um, one is that we historically are very bad at deciding what future you should do with time. One of the classes that I took in high school actually was bowling. And the purpose of the bowling trip was not to teach us how to bowl.

It was to teach us how to walk into a bowling alley, talk to the people, get your shoes, score the thing we got scored on how we scored the, the, so we learned how to make decisions and do the things that allow you to do something wholesome in your unpaid time.

Speaker 3: Wow.

Anne Murphy: We don't have an, we don't, I don't know how probably 'cause we were in a boujee school district.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah.

Anne Murphy: How do you plan leisure activities? Yeah. Because those muscles. Aren't, they just aren't there. You know,

Kyle Shannon: I'll tell, think about, I'll tell you what. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think job jobs of the future, I think, you know, people that are good at that stuff, planning that stuff, their value's gonna go way up like that.

Those are gonna be good businesses.

Anne Murphy: Condo percent,

Kyle Shannon: condo

Anne Murphy: percent. How

Kyle Shannon: do I do this? How do I not be the work?

Anne Murphy: And, and, and to give a, it's kind of, it's a scarcity mindset reason to figure it out. But figuring it out is important because when we have unobligated time. There's something called Purple Leisure that happens, or compensatory leisure where we make bad choices about what to do with that time addiction.

Kyle Shannon: Yep.

Anne Murphy: You know, we have doom scrolling for forever in a day. Like, if we are left to our own devices and we don't know how to choose the things that bring us purpose and meaning and like get on the horn or get a reservation or plan ahead for a trip.

It's

Kyle Shannon: purpose.

Anne Murphy: It's gonna be a year and a half, right?

Kyle Shannon: Yes.

Anne Murphy: So then we, and and you can start really small. You can start with taking a walk around your block and noticing that your neighbor has a new Japanese maple.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Anne Murphy: Right? That, oh, it turns out that like we've got four people who have chickens in their front yard.

I wonder what's gonna happen with that.

Speaker 3: Yep.

Anne Murphy: You know, oh, the daffodils are coming up like. You all you gotta do is the hardest part is between the couch and the doorknob. You get to the doorknob and you walk through that door and you can be having an enriching experience. It doesn't have to cost money.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It reminds me in, uh, AI Festivus when Sunday Williams came up and she was like, Hey, I just got done feeding my chickens, my

Anne Murphy: chicken,

Kyle Shannon: you know, she's now feeding her chickens.

And it's like, oh yeah. And, and it's one of the things that I'm seeing in the AI salon, in the mastermind practice lab. So all the people that are designing their daily practices, as they've gotten as, as they start stripping things away, like they're slowing down, they're, they're getting more simple. So the frenetic system of trying to keep up with AI is, is sort of drifting away.

They're discovering who they are, what's important to them, and a lot of the things that are important to them are things that they've lost and they're rediscovering.

Yep.

And then they're bringing AI in back in. In a, in a more intentional way, but in, in a much more calm way. And that, that simplicity feels very right.

Well, look, why don't we, why don't we talk

And now, yes, I have, I have a paintbrush and I have paint, and I have a piece of paper. So there, Mrs. Ple, um, Mrs. Ple, one of the things that I am doing that has been a real unlock for me that's very analog is I'm doing a hand stand, not a headstand, a hand stand a day for 30 days.

Kyle Shannon: I love it. I've seen your TikTok videos.

Anne Murphy: Turning my upside, myself upside down. That seems

Kyle Shannon: beautiful.

Anne Murphy: Apt.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah, but I mean like, but that kind of thing. There, there is something about like, as people are slowing down, it is triggering, oh, you know what used to make me happy and if it was, if it's handstands, there's some flip handstands. I, I fully support your inverted being,

Okay. I just had to share because it can look like anything you guys. Beautiful. It can look like painting. It can look like sitting, it can look like petting your dog. But to take out, to take notice, like of your breath of your environment, name things like, um, say, oh, it's a philodendron rather than it's a plant.

Kyle Shannon: Mm-hmm.

Anne Murphy: Right. Observe your world like an author would.

Kyle Shannon: Yep. It's beautiful. It's really good. Um, well let me talk quickly about the AI salon. Yes. Um, so the AI Salon is, is a community. We're now about 4,000 AI optimists we call ourselves. But, but more importantly, what's emerging in the AI salon is kind of a subset of the community of people that are really taking the time to just be that, that, that they're understanding that, that AI is a piece of this, that AI is gonna precipitate a lot of this change.

Um, and we're now creating a space for the great repurpose. We're gonna figure out what that looks like and what it is and what that's gonna lead to. So, um, so if, if you were looking for that kind of community, that's what we're about. And, uh, and please, please check it out. Um, and with that, I know you've got some, some we do.

Anne Murphy: But I, I just want to say more about the practice lab, because this is a moment, people mm-hmm. This is a, I mean, and I, I, it's so. Otherworldly that. I just have to think that this might not be able to last forever. Maybe it will, but people who are on the fence or mildly paying attention to it, join the mastermind in a salon right now.

Kyle Shannon: Well we have, we have this, yeah, we have this week off and so it's, uh, I forget, but the next week we're starting a new cycle. So we do these in 10 week cycles. Okay. And the practice is people that are designing and starting and, and maintaining a daily practice for themselves.

It's changed my life, Anne, the first cycle, like shift, a lot of stuff has shifted in my life as a result. So

Anne Murphy: Amazing. For amazing.

Kyle Shannon: And, and Mandy, you have some stuff going on as she leads. Tell us about that. Let's get,

Kyle Shannon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anne Murphy: Um, and we accomplished just an insight. I think it was

Kyle Shannon: a little more than that. I think you might have had something Do I had

Anne Murphy: something,

Kyle Shannon: I had something

Anne Murphy: to do

Kyle Shannon: with it. It was five. I get it.

Um, and a couple of things that are really emerging, the in-person conference, big deal for people. People seem to like knowing. That the in-person conference exists, even if they don't come, it's like, oh, this is an organization that does stuff like that. So that's an example of a change. Another example is, um, we're starting to share some of our vault out because we've got these, like the best educational workshops, like, and they're all recorded and they're all, they historically have been for society [00:21:00] members, which is thir like 30 bucks a month or mm-hmm.

Two something a year. Mm-hmm. Um, but we're starting to leak some of them out because they're so high quality that we, we feel like we shouldn't hoard it.

Announcer: Yeah.

Anne Murphy: And so we're sending those out in our newsletter. So for anyone who's not on the Slay Effect list, it's on our website. If you are open, your emails, we've got just.

Bangers. We're doing the best of the best. So, um, that's really fun. I love being able to share like that. Um, and then one more thing to highlight is as we began to really understand who was flocking to us, we understood that we needed to create, um, a certified AI educator program, which we're in our third cohort now, and it's going gangbusters.

Although we do have a couple Fortune five hundreds. Um. Putting themselves out there to work with organizations to tackle AI adoption. And, and included in all of that, in both cases is the instinct to help women make money. Because the way that women spend money is better for communities than the way other genders spend money.

So the more women wait, which, which better

Kyle Shannon: gender?

Anne Murphy: The women who make,

Kyle Shannon: oh, this one,

DM me, find out.

Kyle Shannon: Yeah.

Anne Murphy: Get it.

Kyle Shannon: Really important stuff. Well, speaking of which, I mean our, our our guest today, Noelle Russell. I'm so, I'm so excited to have her. Um, th this is, um, she's been at this for a long time. I think a lot of the stuff we're talking about today, uh, is stuff that she has deep, probably deeper knowledge than I do.

I'm kind of a weak into my big epiphany. So I think she, she may have some trust on this, but why don't you tell the, the folks about Noel and then we'll bring her up here.

Anne Murphy: Yes. Alright. Let me just read a couple sentence from her. Uh, her dossier. Noelle Russell is a multi-award winning technologist, a bestselling author, a prominent AI executive with over 25 years of experience in the tech industry.

And absolutely, if, if you don't follow, if people don't follow her, it's Noelle Russell. You must follow her and pay attention to what she's doing because what she's doing, she's like a year or two or three ahead of everybody.

Speaker 3: Yeah, she, she's in the future.

Anne Murphy: She's from the future. This is Noel dropping in from the future.

Kyle Shannon: Hello, Noel. Welcome.

Noelle Russell: Hello. So glad to be here and the future is bright. Bright, so

Kyle Shannon: ah, so good. I'm so glad you the, the, you know, we, we like talking to time travelers and the future is bright. So, so tell us so, so tell us who you are. Yeah,

I, I'm like so entranced by so many. I wrote all these notes down by what you all were just saying. 'cause I'm like, we're the same. We think about the same thing we

Anne Murphy: say. I love

Noelle Russell: it. Um, and so it's so cool to, uh, to be here. My journey. I always mention, um, I always say it's really important when, you know, in the age of ai, and I actually say even before that to start with the who, not the what.

Right. Like, you know, and that's exactly what you were talking about. Like the, who allows you to really tie into like your value. Like why do you do what you do? Yeah. Yeah. And my, my journey into the world of AI started actually, and, and really my journey into technology started with, uh, my son, uh, who's now 20 years old.

But he was, uh, born with a condition known as Down Syndrome, and so he was my first born. I didn't know anything about anything. I now have six children, but the lessons I learned when he was born probably started with like the geneticist and my doctor being like, I'm not sure the world's ready for, you know, to take on a child like this.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Noelle Russell: Two things that were true about me then that are true about me now. One is that I survived the first time the world was gonna end.

You all might remember Y 2K, right? So that's how I got into tech. Um, I, and I, I realized like tech was kind of my superpower. That's where I found a lot of joy. A lot of, to your point earlier, Kyle, like. My, my value is kind of like embedded in my ability to use technology. And so when he was born, I'm like, I got this.

I can fix it. Um, but the other thing that's true about me is I'm also come from a very cultured family. And when that doctor was like, the world isn't kind to humans who have this condition, the world isn't kind to adults or children, like the world just isn't nice to kids who have Down syndrome, you don't want to do this.

And I, I know people are still giving this advice, which

Speaker 3: yeah,

Is that I handcrafted my career. I decided where I was gonna work. I, you know, set an intention and my why was very big. So I was willing to put up with a lot of nonsense to get there. Mm. But I ended up at AWS as a cloud architect, and I got an email from Jeff Bezos, and he invited me to join Amazon Alexa.

And I was employee 10. So I was an early employee, but I was also the only mom. I was the only caregiver taking care of my dad. Um, I mean, yes, I was the only woman and I was the only Latina, but that was like insignificant compared to the fa the, the lived experience that I had that was so different from everyone else.

But that is actually their superpower. Right. Exactly. And that's why created, you know, the, I love AI community and like just an opportunity to let everyone know there is a space here for everyone. And I'm not gonna let someone say the world isn't kind to you. Like now we get to choose, we get to make that world.

And that's, that's the world I, I'm, I'm making

Anne Murphy: absolutely. I

Speaker 3: incredible.

Anne Murphy: I would like to postulate that the caregivers of the world are the best. Suited for this next era.

Kyle Shannon: Yes,

Anne Murphy: there's no problem that cannot be solved when you care somebody who you love and the world in a world that is thought to be, or maybe the narrative is, it's not kind.

Mm-hmm. Just like what you've, I'm sure what you, you've experienced with your son over 20 years. Every single one of those things comes into play now.

Noelle Russell: Exactly. Even more so. Right. And I, I agree with you. I often tell people that, uh, caregivers, I even dare I say pet owners, right? Like, uh, parents, we're just better at this world where we might need to tell something, you know, 50, 60 times in a slightly different way and guide it to the right outcome without, or maybe with a little frustration.

But because we know how to do this, we know how to take a breath. I mean, I loved what you all were sharing in the beginning around, you know, self-awareness. Like that is the superpower, is your ability to know what is yours to do and what can I delegate? Like what, what do I not want to be defined by?

Which ones I'd keep and which ones I'd give away.

Kyle Shannon: Right. Well, and, and AI is going to, is gonna force some of the things you give away right's gonna force it. Right. What, what people talk a lot about is AI is gonna take this away, but we also get to use the AI to bring some things back. I, I talk about this idea of aching gaps, which is we as humans, we all have gaps.

There's things that, you know, we can't do. There's also things that we can't do that we really want to do. And now with AI we can, so, so if you could do anything

Noelle Russell: right,

Kyle Shannon: what would you choose to do? And I, and that's, that's the question I think is actually a really hard question if you're not in touch with who you are.

What is the, what's the key for them opening that up? What's the key for them navigating through not being aware to being aware to then, you know?

Noelle Russell: Absolutely. I think it's, it's fascinating because, um, for example, last year I got invited to, uh, speak in an AI summit hosted by a company called Mindvalley.

And that is what I actually, I created a company. 10 years ago called AI Leadership Institute, because back then when I was talking to the biggest executives and biggest boardrooms in the world, I was more worried that the people leading those companies did not know what the leadership skills to manage an organization that would bring on ai.

And now I'm seeing the unfortunate reality of what a lack of leadership looks like, right? I always say like, if you're laying off people who have worked for you for more than let's say 10 years, you don't get it. Like you don't realize that the AI systems you're building are not going to be perfect at the beginning, and they'll be even worse.

Three years in. And the only one who will know what's good for your business are people who know your company, who care about your customers. And oh, wait, in year one I let y'all go see, go. Right? And we're, we're in the early, early stages of that. So we're, we're still

Speaker 3: early.

Where leaders Mm, they're like dollar signs, you know? Do you remember that, uh, Donald Duck character who like, uh, what was his name? Anyway, he would get like dollar signs in his eye. 'cause he was like, oh my gosh, I love money. I'm all about money, all about capitalism. It's so tempting in the early days of ai, I call it baby tiger mode, where you get a cute AI model.

Yeah, and I, I'm sure I have one. Of course I do around here somewhere, right? Cute, old baby tiger. Like an AI model. When you first start using it, it's job is to entrance you and go. Mm-hmm. This is amazing. I love it. But what no one wants to do at this stage, which is again, first step is like, I don't need a tiger tamer.

Or, you know, look at those teeth, what's it going to eat? How much is it going to eat? Where's it gonna live?

Kyle Shannon: Yeah.

Noelle Russell: You know, or one of my most important questions, what happens if I don't want this tiger anymore? What Then, I don't know if you know this, but like our DNA taken by an AI company not too long ago, spit and DNA billion dollar company, they decided they weren't gonna do that work anymore.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Noelle Russell: Where's our DNA now, right? Oh, it's for sale on the open internet. Yay. Right? Like, yay, what more can we ask for?

Announcer: This is

Noelle Russell: the world. Yeah. This is the world we're in. It's, it's technology has evolved to meet every gap. Mm. The challenge is self-aware leaders that are willing to take the time to figure out where's the right and intentional use of this technology.

And we're all in baby tiger mode right now. So

Anne Murphy: tiger mode.

Noelle Russell: Little exciting.

Announcer: That's

Kyle Shannon: beautiful,

Anne Murphy: man. That is such a great analogy.

Noelle Russell: It's easy to understand, right? Like

Anne Murphy: yeah.

Anne Murphy: we need at least one, one person who has worked with tigers over the course of their, you know, lives to to, yeah.

To, to help us predict what's happening. Yeah.

Noelle Russell: Yeah. And to your point, like that is the caregiver mindset, right? Like that literally the caregiver mindset, the parenting mindset, like the mindset that's gonna be like, look. I get that you messed up AI agent, but we're gonna help you get better. Like a caregiver doesn't just go, well, this is garbage.

You're, I'm just gonna, no, you're done. I'm out, out, out to the pasture. You go, right. A caregiver's like, no, let me, let me ask more questions and get the right answer and then, you know, guide you to a positive outcome. That is what organizations are, are desperately needing these days. They don't know it yet.

This, I mean, mark my words, that's what's gonna happen over the next few.

It's like exactly your words. Like you, you know, because it's, you know, it's a reflection of all of our language. Right. And so to the extent that you understand how to talk to people, you're gonna be good at this. Right.

Noelle Russell: Exactly.

Kyle Shannon: And care and care for them. Right. That's, that's awesome. That's an awesome insight.

Anne Murphy: Noelle, um, I don't wanna put you on the spot, so if you're not prepared to answer this question, that's a okay. But I am wondering in part, because the women I hang around with, increasingly we've all been the mentors we've poured in, and that is so important. And maybe some of us were lucky and we had somebody, or someone, ones pour into us.

Noelle Russell: Okay, this is a great question. Um, and I love being put on the spot, so this is awesome.

Anne Murphy: Okay, perfect.

Noelle Russell: Um, but one of the challenges, and so I have been doing this work for a long time. One of the challenges is just systemically people who are just like you, who are female, who are successful. I mean, during COVI did a 12 part series on black women changing the face of AI in business.

And these people were very successful. They were authors, they were taking stages all over the world, but no one knew. And to this day, there are people on that list that people don't know, and not because they don't exist, but because we can't see them. Right. I don't know if you've ever watched like the WNBA, but it's like

Anne Murphy: that's my whole, yeah.

That's my life.

Every woman I've ever worked with or for has not been one to be like, let me put my hand on your back and guide you up. It was more like, it took me my whole career to get where I am right now. And they would call me kiddo like, you just got here. Like, you got 20 years, honey. Like, enjoy your trip. You know, like they weren't looking to support me or sponsor me.

Like, no, they're like you. I worked my tail off to get here. You're gonna work your tail off too. And that was my vibe. Until I quit the corporate world and started my own company. Mm-hmm. And I get it though. Like I understand I'm empathetic to that journey. Yeah. But at the same time, I could not do it by myself.

Which first thing that means is that I have to think who I wanna be five to 10 years from now. Ooh. I have to have clarity on what is my goal. And I am a ambitious person. I have a, a leadership framework called lamplighters, and of course it's an acronym. It actually came from Ben Franklin. So I was super excited to hear you mention, um, but at the end of his autobiography, he mentions like, have 12 principles that you focus on every year and you can focus on one principle, right.

A week per quarter. Mm-hmm. And you get to basically get better at 12 things four times a year. And it's like this little algorithm. Cool. Love it. And so I love it. And so I built Lamplighters, which happens to be a 12 letter acronym. Right. But those, those letters stood for principles of who I wanted to be like loving and ambitious and mindful and purpose-driven.

There is a small contingency of women and it, they have a little. Star evaluation metric that shows the philanthropic indication for each billionaire. Ah, and I'll tell you, there is a pattern to be recognized in who gives and who doesn't. Yep. And, uh, you know, go look at the list. I'm not gonna, you know, won't, uh, spoil it for you, but the pattern is real.

And I was like, that means I need to become a billionaire. So,

Anne Murphy: yeah. So you can give away money,

Can I pay to play similar to your, you know, your mastermind, right? Like, can you, can you buy yourself into a room with people that will help you think the way you need to think? But what I would always do is find someone who wasn't me. You know, next year it was me. Like five years from now, five years from now, and then go to their social now is a be, you couldn't do this 10 years ago.

Go to their social media and scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and find out who they were five years ago on social.

Anne Murphy: Oh my God.

Noelle Russell: Oh. And then you're like, wait, wait, wait. That's, that's a little bit like me. I'm closer than I ever thought. And so I never even have to meet them to be inspired by them, motivated by them.

And now we have a chat, bt, or whatever model you have that does deep research. Yeah, they can, you can ask them these questions. Yeah. What, what kind of choices did they make when they were 10 years, you know, 10 years ago? Mm-hmm. So it's really, really cool. Um, so I didn't exactly answer the question smart, because I don't have smart who's, but, but that, that was the method of my data science mind of finding patterns that I could mirror

Anne Murphy: brilliant

Noelle Russell: to, uh, yeah.

Grow my success.

Anne Murphy: Brilliant.

Kyle Shannon: I wanna, I wanna flip it, flip it the other direction. I wanna flip the lens, the other direction. Um. You, you were gifted a, a really strong sense of self. There was probably some of that just from who you are. Um, you have six kiddos now, so I'm, I'm a, I'm curious about, you know, what, what are the ages, what's the, what's the spread, what's the range?

Speaker 3: Yes.

So for someone who's been so deep in this for so long, I would love to just hear from you, like, how are you guiding them in both areas? AI and, and sort of critical thinking around that, but also just sense of self and the things we're talking about here that are ultimately gonna be the, the, the key.

Noelle Russell: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited you're gonna love this because it's like on right in the mindset that you all have.

But, uh, I have six kiddos, so my oldest is Max, he has Down syndrome. Um, and then, uh, so he's 20 and then 19, then 18, and then a big gap. And I married my high school sweetheart, so we're like. You know, in it to win it. Um, and so then, uh, 10 years goes by and then we have Jacob, who is now 11, and then we have two girls, so nine and eight almost now.

Kyle Shannon: You have, you have cohorts.

Noelle Russell: Yeah, the cohorts. Exactly. Uh, cohort living. And so these cohorts, uh, I love that is very, very different. 'cause of course, who I was the parent I was, was different than, than I am now.

Um mm-hmm. And the technology was different 20 years ago.

Speaker 3: Right.

Noelle Russell: Uh, however, there are some things that are same. So all my kids learned sign language, for example. All my kids learned, you know, like, um, we have. The, the, the one practice that I did back then and still do to this day, that I think really changes who they are, um, is this concept of being a producer before you're a consumer.

They go to YouTube and they look at YouTube shorts and definitely, but before you do that, you have to produce something. And that production doesn't have to be social media, though. You're allowed to build a social media piece of content. Um, but when you produce something, it has to educate, inform, or entertain.

Those are the rules. Shut. You

Kyle Shannon: my mommy. This is amazing. Did you say, can you be my mom?

Noelle Russell: I very good

Kyle Shannon: did. I did say, can you be my mommy?

Noelle Russell: He's like my son who is, um, 11 now. Like he's built content, he's got 10,000 views. And here's the cool thing when you become a producer that you're, you know, one of the worries we have in social media for young kids is that it, they, it, it becomes something they build their self-esteem on.

Yeah. Like, it's not you're, and the most important thing is, is that if you aren't the producer, that means you're the consumer, right? So now you are the product of someone else and the product for you, right? Like that mindset is so, so valuable and it's. Insignificant. Like I didn't tell them any of these things.

Um, right. But along with that, the other practice that I think brings it home is this maybe, um, who's that old painter that like would make these families. No. Oh, very good though. Oh, Norman Rockwell, my whole family. Oh,

Kyle Shannon: Norman Rockwell.

Noelle Russell: Yes. Norman Rockwell. Everything was just like, see, everything's perfect.

Yes. And so I have this like Rockwell, you know, this rockwellian uh, vision of my family eating with the Big Turkey. But every night, and so every night I'm home, we sit at the table and we go around and we say what we're grateful for. Now, eventually it got rote and everyone was just like, I'm grateful for the cats and the house, and the dog, and the da, da da da.

And it's, it's just, you know, and it's so human. Right. Is there AI all over our house? Yes. We have over a hundred ai. Voice enabled or sensor driven devices in our house. Wow. It equips my son to do anything he wants with his voice. Cook food, do his laundry, uh, launch the VA vacuum cleaner. Right. My dad lives right on the other side of this wall.

And the only thing, the only difference in that is your choice. That you make to be the builder. Yeah. Everything else, yeah. It's, it's inherent. And like you said, all you have to do is get good at using your words, which is something

Kyle Shannon: Yeah, yeah. Just, yeah. You know, the, the term abracadabra means, you know, as I speak, I create Right.

Or whatever, whatever that translation is. Um, yeah. Brandon Tid, who is one of the parents there, he is got like a four and a 6-year-old and, and his 6-year-old, you know, wanted to create a song. And so Brandon took him to Suno and they made this song. And like their car now, like the soundtrack of their car on trips is songs that their kids wrote.

So that, you know, like a 6-year-old will be like, oh, play the song about the truck I wrote. Right? Like, there's a pride of authorship there. That's just like we live in that world where these kids get to experience that. It's amazing.

Like, AI's gonna tell our life story, but it's gonna give it to a human country singer who's now going to bring life to it. And then he gave it to us, and the whole family was all teary-eyed. Like the song, every one of their names was spoken little like innuendo. That, that the AI extracted from knowing who we were and knowing our content.

Uh, it was just so beautiful. But it was a combination of like AI generated by itself, me, but like having a human, like a country singer sing about our family. Um, even though the script was written by it, I, it was a really beautiful, beautiful combination. Wow.

Anne Murphy: Yeah. That's so cool.

Noelle Russell: Like, like we're in a whole new world of gifts, by the way.

Anne Murphy: Oh my God,

Speaker 3: yes. Hyper personalized.

Noelle Russell: Yeah. Hyper personalized gifts that make people cry, like, yes, exactly.

Speaker 3: Exactly.

Noelle Russell: Yep.

Maybe a little bit about your decision making process. 'cause we're all, this is taking candy from a baby Noelle. Yeah, yeah. We don't, we don't know how to do this.

Noelle Russell: Absolutely. Yeah. So my journey, you know, I, I've always worked at companies. I always tell people that I have never voluntarily left a company, but I've only been fired once.

But that just means like eventually they just, you know, they put the squeeze on you and they're like, you know, it's not really working out. You could choose to leave or you can wait it out and we'll eventually get rid of you. And so I, I always took the writing on the wall, but as a result of that, and that's just because I'm a divergent thinker, right?

Um,

Speaker 3: go ahead and not use that one.

Noelle Russell: Yeah. Yeah. So all in good love, like I'm still friends with, you know, most of these people. Um, but I end up, you know, leaving, uh, the last company that I worked for. And I was like, this is a pattern. Like the pattern is, they say they want what I offer, which is a diverse perspective on how to build AI systems that serve everyone.

But what they really mean is they want the idea of it, but they don't wanna change anything. They don't wanna change their behavior. And so I was like, I'm gonna start my own company. But here's the challenge is that I am a bit of a, a loner, a bit of a, you know, I'm like, heads down ambitious. I could do, can I just do it myself?

So I started a community called I Love ai. We got about 2100 members and I was like. What if I could teach you all to become people I could hire, but I don't want you to become reliant on me because I do think you all talked about this a little bit at the beginning. I do think the future is not all of us working for the man, as they say.

Right. I, I think we're in a future where we all. But take what we know, what we care about, what we value. We build services that are needed in the world, and we get 10 to 20 clients and we're making seven figures. Like, let's, like, it's not hard. Um, so that's the future. I see. So I was like, how do I create one a, a flywheel, which I learned from Jeff Bezos, right?

Yeah. Where everyone's chartering. And so this was my vision because I didn't want employees, but I wanted to equip people to make their own money. Yeah. The bad thing is, is that to run a company you need things in your, like processes have to continue where you need humans for, but not, not now. So the first thing I did was I created an AI system that could handle my.

Like the bane of my existence, my inbox and my calendar. Yeah, that, that was the most important thing. I get four to 500 to this day. Emails, some of them are critical. Sign this contract so you can get paid versus here's a newsletter from someone I like and I, being a DH, D, I'm like newsletter, same. Just launched a new tool like

Anne Murphy: newsletter I didn't sign up for.

Thank you. It's, I'll now be reading this for 45 minutes and then go down all the rabbit holes. Yeah. Instead of signing the thing that gets me paid. Yeah. Yeah. I cannot have those in front of me. I

Not publish it for me, but I wanted just to like image generation things that I'm not strong at and that I actually don't want to do. Um, but that I, I'm, it's not like I hired someone and I'm letting them go. Like I literally am just trying to do all the things myself, just

Kyle Shannon: like crank it out.

Noelle Russell: Crank it out.

Yeah. So if you go and look at my social right, it's all AI assisted on every website. It's like Noelle Partners with AI on everything.

Kyle Shannon: Absolute.

Noelle Russell: And what that means is that all of it's me, but it's me. I mean, this is the the future. It's me amplified by ai. It allows me to become a single person unicorn. I could build a billion arc.

They're actually probably not even that great at building it, but they are good at looking, is everything spelled right? Is it on brand? You know, like they're my validation. And we kinda started earlier in the backstage talking about like building an AI for that. Maybe one day I'll build, you know, all of my systems will have AI monitors.

Um, yeah. But at the end of the day, I like a little human touch. You know? I, I want, I wanna free up my time so I can be there in person. You know, most of us are delivering education. I don't want that to be nearly Noel teaching a class. Like that's always Yeah,

Anne Murphy: right.

Noelle Russell: Yeah. It's always gonna be my vibe and my like haphazard quest.

And that goes what you both were talking about, like clarity of thought.

Kyle Shannon: Wow, this is so awesome. This is so awesome. So like, I almost like, I feel like we should do a whole other hour just on, I

Noelle Russell: know

Kyle Shannon: I wish two was four

Noelle Russell: hours

Kyle Shannon: and how we got there.

Noelle Russell: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: But I, I, I want you to, I want you to sort of abstract it all away.

Let let all of the details fall away. And, and this is a question we ask all of our guests, and I feel like you're, you are uniquely qualified to answer this. What does AI readiness mean to you? And then the, the, the sort of nuance to it is what would you say to someone who's maybe looking at this like, she's got agents.

What the hell? Like, how do I use chat EPT if someone's just getting started? Right? So what does AI readiness mean to you? And then what would you say to someone who's just like, where do I even start?

So many people are talkers and like, you know, went from nothing to AI expert overnight, but what differentiates you in. From a readiness perspective is your ability to actually do, and I don't mean do at the enterprise level do for Coca-Cola. I just mean have you put your fingers on a keyboard and asked it to do something for you, right?

As soon as you do, it's very addicting, as all of us can achieve you. Yeah, yeah. But be a do or not a talker. Show versus tell. Every time you talk about something, have a prototype, you can demonstrate what you're thinking. There are products like Lovable and Chat, GBT, and Gemini that can help you visualize something that we, you were mentioning earlier, I call it, instead of the gap, it's bringing back the backlog.

Show. Don't tell. And most importantly, learn by doing. Get into a community. Find your people. They're we're all out here. You just have to commit to one hour, maybe a week of just getting in a room. The benefit of that room is like when you join, right? The salon or she leads AI or I any of these communities, you'll find out there are people just like you in there.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Noelle Russell: And then they're gonna do something and you'll be like, well, well, if they did it, maybe I could do it. So yeah, that's what I think readiness is like just

Speaker 3: beautiful.

Noelle Russell: Start doing. Start doing

Speaker 3: it. It's start

Anne Murphy: doing, stop talking.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Anne Murphy: It's

Speaker 3: so

Anne Murphy: right. The experts overnight thing. Um, one of my colleagues wrote about it on LinkedIn today, and I rarely repost, but I reposted it with my thoughts because I've been on social media hiatus for a little while and I came home and it was all those overnight, oh, now you're an AI expert.

They're talking about buy this, buy that. Right?

Noelle Russell: Yep.

Anne Murphy: But for audience members and, and our friends and our community members, it's so important to understand that, you know, comparison, first of all, comparison is the thief of joy.

Noelle Russell: Mm-hmm.

Anne Murphy: Don't worry about what those yokels are doing because they'll, they're gonna fade away because no one's gonna care about blah, blah, blah tool in a heartbeat.

Right. They're gonna care about, meaning, purpose, togetherness, enrichment, enjoyment of being around other people. And that's what's gonna make AI. What we all hope it will be. Right.

Noelle Russell: That's great.

Anne Murphy: Benevolent.

Noelle Russell: That's the direction.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Anne Murphy: Yeah.

Kyle Shannon: So, well, well, Noelle, this was absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much. You're like such a, a beacon of light and you are, you're doing remarkable things in the world and, and with your kids too. Like seriously.

Noelle Russell: Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Yes.

Kyle Shannon: Dang.

Noelle Russell: That's the nice thing is knowing we all exist. Right? So thank you for putting this together, letting me be here, and, uh, introducing me to all of your amazing people.

So thank you very much for this. It's been really amazing. I can't believe how fast the time went by. It went

Kyle Shannon: myself fast. So. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. And, uh, and take care. We'll talk soon.

Noelle Russell: Thank you.

Anne Murphy: Bye everybody.

Kyle Shannon: Okay. Bye-bye.