AI is making people faster.

But speed isn’t the real question.

The real question is what you’re doing with that speed.

In this episode, Ray explains why the same AI tools helping people produce work faster may also be making their roles easier to replace. Using a story about a 1917 hay delivery business and the arrival of Ford’s Model TT truck, he shows how technology can quietly eliminate the very job it’s helping you do more efficiently.

Ray also walks through a real example from his own business—where a ghostwriter used AI to cut corners, and how that decision allowed Ray to replace the entire service with a better automated system in less than 24 hours.

If you’re using AI to simply produce the same outputs faster, you may be riding the wave… while the market for your work disappears.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. Why AI is creating winners and losers—and it’s not about who uses it
2. The difference between using technology to be faster vs. using it to be better
3. The 1917 hay delivery story that perfectly explains today’s AI shift
4. How using AI to cut corners can quietly make your role replaceable
5. The real-world example of replacing a ghostwriter with an automated system
6. Why knowledge workers must rethink how they create value in the AI era

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This podcast is where Ray thinks through hard decisions — especially when the usual playbooks stop working.

If that approach resonates, that’s what you’ll find more of here.

New to the show? The “Start Here” playlist outlines what the podcast is about and how to approach it:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/a7577a6f-15da-4521-b214-35e4e47f320b

AI is creating winners and losers right now.

And the difference isn't who is using it and who isn't.

It's.

It's who's using it to be better versus who's using it to be lazy.

I'm going to share a story that frames this perfectly.

Side note, I actually write this kind of stuff in my weekly newsletter frameworks.

You can actually use things I don't share on the podcast.

You can sign up for it@raiseemail.com if you're interested.

Now, here's my story.

Imagine it's.

And, and you're servicing all the horse and buggies, right?

Like that's the.

Which is the primary means of transportation at the time.

And you get your hands on one of the first Model tts.

It's.

It's Ford's truck from the Model T, but it's, it's built for hauling stuff.

And you see an opportunity, right?

Like the, the light bulb goes off for you and you start using the truck to deliver hay.

Same routes, same customers, same rates.

But now you're doing it twice as fast because using a damn truck instead of a horse buggy yourself.

So you're getting the job done faster, you're getting it done more efficiently, you're charging the same rates because it's basically the same deliverable, but you can do it twice as fast.

So you're home by noon every day, right?

Same money, have to work.

You think you're riding the wave.

You're like, hey, this is fucking awesome.

And then the wave hits you.

Because the Model TT doesn't just deliver hay faster, it's actually eliminating the need for the hay to begin with.

Because every Model TT that hits the road is one less horse and buggy that's on the road, which means one less horse that needs feeding, which is what you do.

The tool that you're using to do your job faster is putting you out of business at the same time.

So you're squeezing out like a few more lazy days of profit while the market for your entire service is evaporating.

Few short years go by.

Horses as a transportation means on, on the street, like, that's gone.

It's like it's.

It's basically extinct.

And that's what I see happening with AI right now.

People are using GPT and Claude, Gemini, whatever it is, to do their old jobs faster and, and same deliverables, same rates, half the effort.

And they think they're smart.

I'm getting this done in like a fraction of the times.

Same old job.

They think they're gaming the system and in riding this wave because everybody else hasn't caught up yet.

But what they're really doing is delivering hey, with a model tt.

Like I and I, I'll give you a specific example.

I just parted ways with a longtime ghostwriter, like a content marketer that I've, I've worked with.

And it's for this exact same reason.

Like I started noticing outputs that look like, hey, this is just like pretty standard Claude.

Like it doesn't even, doesn't even look, doesn't even feel edited.

And I like, I work with AI a lot so I can like, I can almost tell which model you're using when I, when I get content at this point.

And I can see like the same structure that anybody can get in 30 seconds.

And so I got a batch of content recently.

I looked at it and I was like, all right, I know this is like straight AI.

I spend less than an hour in Claude creating a skill based on my own content.

And in a skill for, for if you don't know, it's like a pre programmed extensive prompt, right?

So you can just ask Claude to, once you've built a skill, ask it to use that skill to write your content.

As long as you spent enough time like writing that skill.

Spent like an hour creating a skill based.

And I trained it on my own content and I got the exact same output.

I shit you not, word for word.

The hook was the exact same.

The post was the exact same structure, it was the same messages.

Like, like, for all intents and purposes, it was the exact same thing.

And it took me less than an hour to build that.

Now granted, I have a lot of content that I can use like to, to pull in to, to train it.

But you know, like you, you get all that, no spreadsheet, you plug it in and an hour later like I've got the exact same output that I was paying as a service.

So like the obvious question is like, hey, is this service even necessary?

And I get the temptation.

You can charge the same rates, half the work, maybe you can take on twice as many clients and you can make more money, you can ride that wave.

But here's the thing.

I'm not even mad that he used AI.

I use AI all day long.

I have a wear an AI device to meetings that records virtually everything that I do all day.

Right?

Like, so using AI is not the issue.

The problem was he's using it to be lazy instead of like making things better.

And that he was, he's riding that wave like, hey, same deliverable, same paycheck.

Maybe I could take on twice as, twice as many people or work half as much.

But within 24 hours of spotting this, what I did was I actually built a complete system, like automated, that not only replicated what he was doing, it did it better.

And it was triggered because I saw this.

I was like, this is a hey situation, right?

So I, what I did was I created a Google sheet that has a script built into it, by the way.

Used AI to help me write all this stuff that automatically goes out.

It fetches my podcast transcripts, pulls them out, puts them in a Google Doc, sends that over to Claude, which is using this, the pre programmed skill that I, that I created to write content in my voice and in my style.

Spits out three different versions and sends them to the project management system.

Creates a task for me to review and edit and approve.

Same exact thing I was paying for is now basically done automatically.

And I went back and I told Claude, I said, hey, this is a fucking problem.

Here's the output from my ghostwriter, here's the output from, from the skill that we created.

These are the exact same.

It means anybody can scrape my content and write the way that I write.

So we went back to the, to the drawing board and like upgraded that skill substantially.

And now I'm getting better content on demand, efficiently, like automatically, without the service.

So the tool that he used to cut corners is the same tool that made him completely replaceable.

He was delivering hay faster and I was building a gas station.

And this is the fork in the road right now, like for every knowledge worker.

Like you can use AI to protect the old job, to like to do the same work faster and hope nobody notices.

Or you can use AI to build something new to amplify what you're doing, to do work that wasn't possible before, to make it substantially better, like in a way that you never could before, to get outcomes and like actual outcomes for people instead of just outputs that you're, that you're trying to pawn off on people.

And you can make yourself more valuable or you can make yourself more replaceable.

And one path is going to buy you a few months, right?

Cool, Write it out.

So if it works like it's a cash in, like the other path is going to buy you a career, it's going to be what actually takes you into the future.

In the hay delivery guy didn't see it coming.

Like, he was.

He was too busy celebrating with all that free time.

And my advice to everyone right now, like, in the way that I'm talking about it with my kids, listen, it's here to stay, like it or not.

Like I like it, but you know, how you use it is going to determine whether you're a winner or loser in this tech.

And, you know, my.

My best advice?

Like, just don't be the, hey, delivery driver with a Model T. Like, build a gas station.

Hope that helps.

Adios.