AI Grief Is Real: Job Anxiety, Change & the Future of Work | Cassandra Worthy

Welcome to Making Sense of AI Together, the podcast that explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping our everyday lives. I'm Claudine Wong, journalist and news anchor. And I'm Lisa Bernard, a former TV journalist now creating AI content on my Instagram channel, Demystify AI. Each week, we break down the buzz, cut through the hype, and help you make sense of the AI that's becoming part of your world. And if you liked that intro, yes, AI helped us write it. We are putting it all to the test. Welcome, everybody. All right, so let's talk about this technology that is supposed to make our lives and our jobs easier, apparently. But according to this Reuters poll that just came out, half of the people are more worried that it's going to take away their job. And I think a lot of us feel that it's going to cost them or someone in their household a job. And so even though, companies here, and this is what we want to talk about today, companies are like, yes, we should embrace AI. Yes, you should all use it. The employees are maybe not so on board with this quite yet because there's this something called AI grief that apparently we're all going through. Yes. So the question is, what are we grieving? Is it the loss of a job or is it your loss of purpose, your loss of value when a computer can take your job? And to help us unpack this is Cassandra Worthy. Thank you so much for joining us. Best-selling author, internationally recognized speaker, and expert on navigating change. And we are in such a disrupted time. So much change. Cassandra, thank you for being here. And if you could first, let's start us off by defining what is AI grief? AI grief. Yeah, of course. And thank you so much for having me. You know, I think about AI grief as the grief that comes when we are recognizing what we're losing because of the advent of AI and the integration of it into every aspect of our lives, right? Grieving the way that we knew things to be, the way that we were used to working, grieving the loss of our co-workers, and potentially grieving the loss of our own positions. And I think as grief goes, AI grief is still two-sided, right? There is that sense of loss and mourning and sadness because of what we are losing the way that we used to know and understand life. But also there's excitement and joy and celebration of what we knew and how we can bring that forward and what's to come, what's possible because of AI. So it's a two-sided coin as I see it. If you would take us back for a minute and your journey, because I understand that you've become sort of an expert in dealing with the emotions of change because of your own life experience. If you would just take us back a little bit to how you came to this point where now AI grief is the 2026 thing we're dealing with and your prior experience with other change and transition. Of course. So I'm a chemical engineer by training, and I spent 15 years working in corporate. That time was predominantly spent at Procter & Gamble. But through that time, I went through two major multibillion-dollar acquisitions. And so I really experienced what loss felt like and losing culture and losing an organization that I thought I was going to retire from. And I experienced the depth of the emotion that's inspired when you move through really, really big change in your life and your career. Those emotions like fear, like frustration, like grief, like anxiety. And I had a mentor when I was going through my first acquisition that told me, Cassandra, you have a choice in this moment. You can either get bitter or you can get better. It's your choice. it's up to you. You have that agency. And that awoke something inside of me, the realization that I always have agency and the power to choose which direction I go in. I can't always choose what happens, what changes introduced, what demands I have, but I can choose how I experience it. And so that really started me on a path to this, you know, creation of what I call change enthusiasm. It's a three-step mindset that I now have the honor of teaching all over the world. And I actually founded a company that brings this message around the world called Change Enthusiasm Global. And it's rooted in the fact that these emotions that we experience, like grief and anxiety, they're signals. It's data. It's information. It's wisdom. And the mindset helps us embrace those emotions, not ignore, not suppress, not try to avoid them, but see them as data. Because typically, they're lighting our path to our greatest opportunity. And then we have the choice to choose how we show up, how we use that emotion, how we transform it. So that's what I have the honor of teaching now. Is there something that you've learned from where you started? I like better, not bitter, but bitter creeps in a little bit. You know, when I always say I'm like people who have been in a business for a long time are bitter because they're like, can I not be a master of anything? Because once you master something, it just changes and you're like, great. OK, let's learn something new, which is easier to do in your 20s than in your 40s or your 50s. But is there something in this journey as you've talked to people and kind of examined in yourself and this idea of change that maybe surprised you or that, that you've really grown from, from the, the initial start of Better Not Bitter? Yeah, I think it's the realization that yes, better will happen. Yes, better is inevitable. And that's what I feel is the most surprising part of me putting this into practice. And what I see is the most fruitful when I teach it around the world, that it is indeed a practice. It is a cycle. So I talk about steps, right? It's a three-step process, the signal, the opportunity, and the choice. But once you've made that choice to get better, something else will happen. There will be another announcement. There will be another coworker that just joins the team that you can't stand. There will be another demand that frustrates the heck out of you. And that brings you right back to the first step. So is it sort of manifesting also? Is there like a manifesting, keeping positive, seeing opportunities maybe in this micro case, you know, you learn AI, you learn AI skills, you become more valuable if you've lost your job to AI. Yeah. What I see the power of the practice is that it's not necessarily constant positivity, but it's a building of your resilience. And I think about resilience as a muscle. It has to get ripped and stretched and torn to get built up over time. And we're going to have the honor of doing that by going through constant change. That's what modern day change is. But we always have a choice on how we face that. And the more times you practice the change and the mindset, your resiliency gets better and better and better. So it's not that you stay positive all the time, but when the hard times come, when the fatigue hits, when the bitterness hits, you know what to do with it. You know how to transform that bitterness into curiosity and the questions to ask yourself on how to maximize the opportunity in front of you. And I want to drill down on that in just a bit, but I do want to, like, you know, in a newsroom, there's all sorts of change how do we use AI how do we use it responsibly where should it belong where should it not belong and and then this idea that that you cannot control and and what are the terms have you used in here is that like the train is leaving the station and you just have to decide if you're going to have a seat on that train or not but either way the train is leaving and i and i think it's a framing of that's the helplessness part of you can't stop this train and then there's this other part where you're like, but can I get a seat? But do I feel good about sitting on the train if I get a seat? And I think AI is unique because I can see the change discussions that you might have had over the years with, okay, you're in a tech industry and tech layoffs, or you're in, you know, people have divorces or they have major life events that changes everything. The thing about AI is that as an entire global community, we're all going through this and so it's not like someone who's not going through it can be like it's going to be fine we're all in this this like is it going to be fine or is humanity going to be dead by the year 2030 like and and so that kind of change makes this kind of change quotient of of this journey for all of us I think unique because I don't you can help people but as we're trying to support each other it's like we're all in the same pit trying to help each other out of it well no one knows what next year looks like no one knows what next week looks like there's no precedent yeah so how do you manage like a mass room of people who are all worried about the same thing as opposed to each individual person saying oh i've had this happen i've had this and we're all in this you know AI bubble across the entire world yeah it's a it's a global thing and i think this is one of the the biggest opportunities that we've had probably in humanity's history to come together as a human species and determine how we want to maneuver and manage through this to ensure that this technology is the biggest enabler of the human species that's ever happened and not the destroyer of it. And so what I see my role being in this mindset and the work that we do around the world is to arm individuals and the globe with what to do with all of the anxiety and the fear and the worry that is happening, right? Again, I see it as signals. And I think that we need to listen to those signals. If we as a human species collectively are feeling so much worry and anxiety, that's something to listen to. And it's pointing us towards an opportunity to decide what do we want to do with this technology? What kind of safeguards, what kind of things do we need to put in place so that we ensure that it is a collaborative tool that is something that is expanding and elevating us and not destroying us? And so I think we need to listen. If you're feeling worried, if you feel a concern, get curious, right? Get curious about what's happening with the biggest players in the industry, what's happening in government and, you know, we're about to face the midterm elections. Who am I going to elect that I know is going to have the same level of value and we'll be able to put the things in place that I know will help as we move forward and using this technology? Yeah. Yeah, because it's valid, right? These emotions are valid. People really are losing their jobs. They really are, you know, seeing departments become more efficient and computers can do the work that you used to do. So they're not wrong to be anxious, right? Or grieving or upset. It's valid. It's absolutely valid. And I don't think that we should be suppressing it. I don't think that we should be beating ourselves up about it. I think it's something we need to pay attention to. What is it pulling us towards? What concerns do we have? And how can we help alleviate those concerns by getting curious and learning and growing through it? I think we all need to step into this moment with a high sense of curiosity and never lose the fact that we have agency in this moment. And we can rise together. It's like a Ted Lasso quote, don't be judgmental, be curious. But I do struggle a little bit with the macro issue of AI versus the micro issue. I can see in an office, in a newsroom saying, okay, let's hone in on how AI could maybe help this job be easier let's not be so angry that it's there but let's figure out why it's there what we're going to do with it and frame it that way it always though feels like there's this overlying macro pressure of the world and humanity and it is very hard to separate that if i equate it to something that is not AI I mean I would think it would be like you know a family member has cancer and you're really focused on this person suffering cancer but you're also so upset there's no cure for cancer and you can't like get away from all of it. It feels like that's, it's almost oppressive because if you're positive about it in your small space, it almost feels a little like you're ignoring the wider concerns by embracing it at all. And I feel like a lot of people struggle with that. They're like, oh, this person supports AI. I don't support them because they really support the fall of humanity, but they might just like making, you know, like My dad likes making AI videos of random things. Well, I mean, I would interject and say there's no not supporting AI. That's just, it's not a thing. Like, AI is here. It's expanding every day. It's everywhere you turn. Yeah, but there are a lot of people who do not like it. Yeah, you may not like it, but you can't say I'm going to choose not to, you know, acknowledge it's here or make plans for its arrival. that is that is not a good idea you're to do not put your head in the sand about this technology and you know it's it's absolutely everywhere it's just at a football game you know as you enter the stadium you know instead of your ticket it's it's everywhere you don't even realize it is so to say i'm against ai is you gotta get past that but i think there's a lot yes regulations and yes paul you know help see politically what can happen but um i think it be a mistake to just say, I'm not going to talk to that person who's against AI. No. Help them understand that it's here. It's the most disruptive thing. Yeah, I think the integration of AI in our world is inevitable. AI taking over is inevitable as the internet. The internet completely changed our world. I think AI is going to do something even bigger than that. And so I think it's important that we all keep our eyes open to that reality. And then think about, I think, you know, to your question earlier about this macro issue, that can get so overwhelming if that's where you stay. If you stay in this space of, oh my goodness, there's so much that's happening. The world is changing. I have no control over it. There's only five or six of these leaders leading these massive companies that's changing the entire world. Maybe humanity is going to die. You start feeling that helplessness. I want people to stay in the space of what can I control? What can I control? What do I have power over? And I think this technology is inviting all of us to question what is it that is unique about me? The gift, the talent, the skills, something that I offer that's special to the world. And then how can I use this technology to bring more of that out? Because although the world is changing in incredible ways, I think there's so much that will be unchanged as we move through this revolution. Our desire to want to love, our desire to want to feel valued, our desire to want to give value, that curiosity, the instinct, the ability to experience emotion. So think about what is it that's unique to me? And how can I use this technology to bring more of that out? Because that's what the world needs right now. How long do you think that process takes, though, for people? Because it is one thing to cognitively say it. And, like, I get what Lisa's saying. She's like, it's here. Gotta, gotta get over it. But the actual getting over it is a real, is a real thing. I mean, grief is that grief and moving on. And I don't know how much time you give yourself. That's valid grief to say, I wish it was this way. I miss the way it was when you become the person like, oh, in the olden days, we just, you know, but but I think like for me, it's it's almost like time limits. I'm going to give myself a minute because this sucks. And I'm just going to say it sucks. While it's great that I can use touchless TSA to get to the airport, which I have embraced. It took me a second, but I've embraced it because those are shorter lines. You can also recognize that you can see jobs leading, that people who are training models are going to train them to take their jobs. You can also, I just don't know how much is healthy grief and how much then you have to say, okay, I'm done. Yeah. I'll tell you, it depends on the person, right? It does depend person to person. I can't set or prescribe a certain timeline that's going to work for everyone. But I also tell you that pause that you're talking about, that time to allow yourself to grieve is so powerful. We see this in our data, right? So my company, we specialize in merger and acquisition, but really, really big change. And what we have seen is that employees experience that grief when they're going through an acquisition, the grief of the culture that they knew, the grief of the products that they made, the grief of the manager that he used to work for. When you give them time and space to process that grief, you acknowledge it. The senior leaders are in the room to see it. They know they're not alone. Their ability to judge and to understand the vision and embrace the change expands. And we see that quantitatively. We see that in the data. So when you give yourself that time and space to grieve, to feel it, you're going to alleviate some haze so that you can see things better and make better judgments moving forward. So give yourself the time. So that's the industrial and organizational psychology, like kind of approach to how workplaces operate. So is the emphasis on companies, on managers to help guide this process? I mean, we, you know, people like to say we're building the ship as it's sailing, right? Because AI is coming so fast. It's not like back in the old days, again, I'm using that term, but like If you use TV, for example, back in the day, TV and Lisa knows this, they would have these consultants come in and they would be like, you know, people like to watch this, this, your stories for a minute and 10 seconds. So you're not going to go and they would almost give you this template that if you tell stories within this parameter, you will be successful, right? AI and everyone's changing habits and streaming and everyone's struggling in every industry, whether it's movies or news or anything. And so how much impetus is it on those companies who don't really know where they're headed to also then guide the experience of their employees? I guess if they want their employees to feel better, they will do that. But what do you tell these companies when they bring you in to say, what is our job here? How much of this should be on our shoulders? Yeah, I'm going to sound like a broken record on this one because I feel like it's the thing that people miss the most. It's allowing emotional energy and emotional expression in the workplace. I think for so long, and I grew up in this, there's this unspoken grit your teeth and bear it. There's an unspoken leave your emotions at the door. There's an unspoken, the only thing that we want is positivity. We want you to feel good. We want you to embrace this. We want you to be excited. And so they push and push and push for that. But you have got to allow employees to feel heard and understood by the difficult emotions that they experience. The anger, the frustration, the grief, the anxiety, and let that flow. And so it is on managers to create the type of space and environment where employees feel safe and comfortable doing that. That's when connection gets stronger. That's when communication gets clearer. And honestly, that's when change adoption grows faster and it becomes more sustainable. And we've seen it time and time again. And I'll say this one thing, because I know there's a manager listening right now and they're thinking to themselves, all I have to do is just show up and be as positive as I can and optimistic as I can and tell them it's going to be okay. But if you do that, what you're role modeling for them is perhaps the only emotion that you want to see from them, right? You're only showing positivity. So they're thinking, well, gosh, I only can be positive when I'm talking to them, right? But if you can show some vulnerability, what I call confident vulnerability, and show that you also have some fear, you also have some anxiety, you give them permission to express that too. You give them permission to feel. And the thing that happened from that is magical. So a couple of things. I mean, that sounds like a really good roadmap. A couple of things. First of all, a lot of managers, I imagine, also don't know what the heck they're doing right now. I mean, they're managing huge companies and they have to learn this AI thing on the side and imagine how it will be implemented in their companies. So I don't know how new this is to even, you know, HR departments and upper level managers. But I also think there's this tension. I wonder if you've seen this with your work between, I better learn AI, I better learn AI so that I'm valuable. I need to be valuable at my job. I need to show that I know AI to save my job. And yet, hostility towards AI, maybe even a little bit of what Claudine's touching on, you know, what is this stupid thing that's going to take my job anyway? Now I'm supposed to embrace it and I'm supposed to spend my free time learning it. And I just have hostility towards it. You know, there's a lot of tension there because I do believe you need to learn AI and how to incorporate it in the workplace. Otherwise, someone who knows how will, you know look more favorably yeah yeah I have seen that tension um and I think in that tension lies tremendous opportunity right um and it's up to you on how you maximize that opportunity um the tension is real I don't think it's something that needs to be ignored and for me it always starts with okay this thing is here this thing exists like I said it's inevitable I know what I love to do I know the skills and the talent that I have how can I use this to make those skills more efficient, more effective. Let me get curious on how I can do that. And then at least there's a little bit of excitement and fun in the learning process that happens. And so that's one way to embrace and step into the tension. You're bettering yourself and hopefully also bettering your chances about staying within your organization or being hired by another org who's seen how you've embraced and learned the technology and how your natural skills have gone kaboom because of it yeah so i'll take that one step further and say okay let me give you a scenario you're a manager and you have a office full of 30 people and you know you know that the long term plan for the company is to eliminate 10 jobs that ai will make this news this office i'm gonna make a newsroom let's not make it the newsroom let's just make it an office generic office they're going to lose 10 jobs. I have heard people saying, I just want them to be transparent and tell me. However, you don't know which 10 people that's going to be because Joey over there might prove to be freaking phenomenal at this AI thing that you might need him for the job that you don't even know exists. And Susan over here, who has been great at her job, we don't really need her to do that anymore. The question is, you're a manager, you know, this is coming. What is transparent and what is lying and what is not your position to be able to relieve that? Because I think that's where I see from employees on the ground. They're like, someone just tell me if I could lose my job. Yeah. I don't know if that's what, what do you do as a manager? Yeah. Oh, that's such a powerful question. Um, and I struggled to answer it because of different cultural dynamics. Um, you know, the way that different companies operate, I'll just speak From me, from being a CEO and a founder and the way that I lead my company, it is on the transparent side. And if you know that job losses are coming, tell them and tell them what you don't know, right? We do know that positions will be lost because of this technology. I don't know which ones. And then tell them, what is your advice? How do you support them knowing that that could happen? You know that it's possible that your job will be eliminated. So what might you be doing in order to continue to have employment elsewhere? Um, so I lean towards complete transparency. It's going to invite fear. It's going to invite anxiety, but there's a methodology and a framework called change enthusiasm. That's going to help them embrace that and use it as opportunity and explore curiosity and use their agency to move forward. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the, it then becomes your change philosophy at the management level, at the personal level, at the workplace level. And I think that's, that's where I think it's, it's the juggle, right? Because it's on a personal level, how do I feel about AI you know and I actually know 20 somethings who hate it right I know professors in college who are like I'm back to those blue books because they're trying to adopt around it and use it for where it should be and and prevent and then it's this other thing if if this we go back to the Reuters poll where they're worried that someone's going to lose their job or someone in their household will lose a job it's awfully hard to frame something in a positive way if you don't know how you're going to pay your bills so like it's yeah many things you know I mean? And that's, I guess that's why back to the timeframe, if you're, someone's listening to this right now and they're sitting in an office and they're feeling all of those things and they're just all pounded down on them on their shoulders. And they're like, I want to do what Cassandra's telling me to do, but I just can't even take that first step because I'm overwhelmed by this thing that the things I can't control. And even the things I think I can control, I'm not sure, but maybe my husband can't control that. Yeah. Yeah. I often look to those that I see that are embracing, or maybe they're not embracing, but they seem to be faring better than me, and look to them for advice and support and mentorship. And also ideas. How are you using this technology? How is it helping you in the best way? And I do that with many, many people. Because it gives me a lot of ideas on how I can use it differently in my life and across my organization. And I'm telling you, the more that you explore it, the more gold mines that you can find. But I also don't want to make light of the fact that we need to recognize the global anxiety and fear that we are all feeling and recognize that I think that it's a really, really big signal for us as a human species to come together and decide and choose how do we move forward with this technology? And what do we demand of our policymakers, of the folks that are creating this technology, safeguards and everything that needs to be in place so that this is an enabling tool and not a destroyer. So I've been connected with this nonprofit. It's called Mighty Humans. And it's an amazing organization where there are people who have lost their jobs, say AI, or fear of, you know, possibly losing jobs, say AI, and how to learn AI tools and the basics. So it's educating in basic AI so that then you can try to get the next job and you're more qualified for the next job. And there's a big emphasis on the human piece and people coming together. So they have these in-person events where everybody together collaborates on using an AI tool to address a challenge in a city like Seattle or San Francisco or wherever. And that's the really important piece is the human and the fact that we can grieve together if we're grieving. And we can also brainstorm together, you know, what do I need to learn? And what are new jobs that are being created? You know, it's the same as people say, oh, job loss, but also job creation. You know, before YouTube, there weren't all these roles that were created and producers and videographers and content creators and, you know, selling the equipment. I mean, many, many jobs for the auto industry. And now there's a gas station, you know, after the horse and buggy. So trying to look at it as how can I be best positioned for the new jobs that are created and grieve, but also to your point, I think, take action so that you feel you have an active role in the future. Yeah, what I love the most about what you said is their focus on human connection and the importance of that and the power of it. That's another thing that I don't think will ever change. So a buddy of mine, his name is Tucker Bryant. He's also an incredible speaker. He created a billboard in San Francisco and it was a new AI platform, ChatJTB. And the AI had an asterisk next to it. Y'all know what I'm talking about? I do, I do, I do. Yeah, it's amazing. Go on. the AI stood for average individual. And so what this was, was him responding to every prompt. And this thing exploded. It exploded. At one point, I think it was getting 5,000 prompts an hour. And it got to the point where 10,000 average individuals had reached out to Tucker saying, yo, I want to help you. I want to help you respond to these prompts. And it was human beings wanting to connect with other human beings. And so I don't think that's going to change. And so I think that's something, again, that we question and we ask ourselves, what do I bring uniquely to the table as a human being? And how can I use this technology to nurture the connection and all of those human species, innate things that are in us? How do I bring that to life? How do I bring that to life? I think we maybe appreciate them even a little bit more. I went to a sporting event when you're in a stadium full of thousands of people and you're all cheering. That can't be replaced. i went to concert the other night with TLC and Salt-N-Pepa it was awesome and it was nobody cared about perfection of anything everyone was just so flippin happy to be reliving the 80s and 90s um with these amazing women and it was it was so fun and i understand that those things and i thought to myself i'm like this is the break this is where you putting away your phone unless you're doing the flashlight thing. And you actually just enjoy being in the moment. I wonder though, Cassandra, if there's an age group that is better at this. Are 20-somethings better at it or 30-somethings? Because someone described Gen X the other day to me as, which I thought was awesome because I'm like, what does Gen X do? What is our contribution? And it was described to me by Sean Fletcher, who's a San Jose state professor he's like we're the bridge generation that helped bring this technology in like we remember when it wasn't here we we helped people our our parents learn it and we brought our children up in it and yeah and it is an interest it was like i'm like huh all right i'll take that bridge generation got it you know but i i don't know if that makes us more accepting of change because Gen X has legitimately seen it in their lifetime. You know, you've got a Gen Z who doesn't remember anything without internet and you've got Gen Alpha, I think we're in, who won't remember a word without AI, right? So which group have you seen that when you're like, do this, frame it this way, change your mindset, they're more on board than the others? Yeah, so first off, what up to the other Gen Xers? I'm also a millennial. I'm one of the older millennials. Yeah, I didn't want to leave out millennials. We could talk about millennials, Cassandra. We could. We could have a whole podcast on millennials. Different generation. My bad. Yeah, so I'll say what up to them first. And also, so we do research all over the world at the intersection of change and emotion. We do it across the six generations that are in the workforce now. And what we've found that's so interesting is that Gen Z, they are showing the most positive outlook on change right now. they have the highest level of anticipation, like wanting and ready for change. And I think it's probably because they grew up going through a lot of change and disruption. But the other thing that I've seen about this generation is that they're the most willing to express their emotions. They're the most willing to emote in the workplace. And honestly, what I'm hearing from Gen X and the baby boomers is like, Cassandra, we're not their therapists. We're not their counselors. Just pull your bootstraps up and get to work. And that's the world I grew up in. But it's like we can learn so much from the Gen Zers by wanting to emote and by expressing those emotions. Again, that's honesty, that's candor, and it's helping you with that level of connection and truth. It helps you find truth and it helps you clear the haze so that you can find that opportunity. Everything that I was talking about before. The other thing that I think is interesting about the alpha generation is I think I read that we're actually seeing less and less social app engagement in that generation. They're using social apps a lot less often. So here's my hope, right? So the internet and social media, I think, began to drive us apart. I think that we all got sucked into our phones, and many of us still are. My hope is that AI is going to reintroduce us to ourselves and reintroduce us to the importance and the power and the feeling of being at a TLC concert with a whole bunch of other people who love TLC. Thank you. Who doesn't love TLC? Who doesn't? I'm telling you, they're the best. And feeling that level of connection. So that's what I hope with this new technology. Do you think, though, why is that? Do you think that AI will make us more human because it's so robotic and gone so far the other way that you're like, wait, it's so artificial and so let's have humans because the other way i could see it is people are into their chatbots and they're on their chatbots all day all day boyfriends right ai friends and therapists so i think we're going to go through a wave probably as we move to this age of ai where we might get sucked into our chatbots um you know one of my leaders actually uh she we use we use Claude um at all throughout change enthusiasm global and it's been incredible and and she told me the other day, I love Claude. And her partner overheard her screaming this to the computer screen, like, hey, wait a second now, keep her professional. Well, I think we're going to go through a wave of this, but what I've also seen and what we do is we use Claude, we use AI tools to brainstorm ways to better connect us. So when we have team offsites, when we have team meetings, what are ways that we can engage ourselves? What are ways that we can have fun, keep things exciting and still learn. And so it brings a whole bunch of ideas to better connect. And the other thing that gives me the hope and the promise is this experiment that Tucker ran where folks just wanted to chat with an average individual, right? And then that caught like fire. Yeah. Given an opportunity, you choose people and you choose humans. But then again, that goes back to the guardrails and goes back to use cases and how we do this. I will say going back to the millennial thing, i will say millennials i feel like are a bridge between that pull yourself up by the bootstraps you certainly got that in the millennials were taught that but i also feel like they were the first generation to push back on that be like i don't want to have that job i don't want to do that which is why millennials got the lazy reputation initially right like millennials don't want to work but i feel like you're the first you guys were the first generation to say I want a balance in my life. I don't want to pull myself up the bootstraps every day. I want to work hard, but I also want to do this other thing. And we're like, what you want to, you want to do? This is another prediction that I have, right? I think about entrepreneurship and I think about the fact that there will be significant job loss. And I am teaching people to learn that thing. That's innate and unique in you that you can do better and different from everybody else. I think there will be a rebirth of incredible entrepreneurship, incredible entrepreneurs that are using this technology to make the world a better place, to inspire connection, to bring something different to the world that we've never seen or experienced before. And so that opportunity is massive. It's massive. And so I hope we see a lot more of that as well. Cassandra, when are you ever down? Like, when are you like, when are you like, this day sucks. I don't like it. Are you ever grumpy? I don't want, I don't want to be happy. Today is my down day. I need to have my wife be on this. Okay. Because they can tell you, I absolutely have down days. I experience this. This signal emotions, like I call them. I feel fear. I feel anxiety. I'm CEO and founder of Fast Growth Startup. There are so many down days. There are days when I don't know if the company is going to continue to grow at the rate that it's growing. There are days when I have to be on a plane three or four times in that day where I'm giving five, six, seven keynotes in a week. It's exhausting. Yes. Answer your questions. Yes, I have down days. But I am maybe, maybe, we have a lot of hundreds of thousands of practitioners around the world. I'm maybe the biggest practitioner of this mindset that I created. And it's helped me so much in my life. I'll be 12 years sober come November. And if it wasn't for my, thank you so much. If it wasn't for that sobriety and that clarity, I would never have invented this mindset and never began practicing it. But the reason that I can find this excitement and this engagement is because of the practice of change enthusiasm. but trust me I have down days and I use them I use well it makes the rest of us I mean you have a superpower of making us believe that you might not so um that's what a joy you are are there concrete steps so someone's listening to this and they're like okay I'm gonna effort towards that space I'm buying into everything instead of saying I'm going to try to not be so grumpy when I go to work tomorrow and they want me to use use AI but but sometimes people need some concrete like how do I start? How many, how much time do I give myself? I'm going to be positive tomorrow for 10% of the day because usually it's, it's 5%. And cause I don't have to, as you said earlier, you have to practice and it's, it is harder on some days than others. Of course. And this is, again, this is not about always being positive. And so I'm going to give you hard, fast tips. That's going to help even if you're feeling signals, that fear, that frustration, or if you're feeling very, very upbeat and it's how do you use curiosity? So what are questions that you can ask yourself? How can I use this technology to expand and explode the unique things that I can offer the world? How can I use this thing to help me do that better? How can I use this technology to do my job just a little bit better? And how can I use this technology to help somebody that I love, to help somebody that I care about? Explore those questions and see what you come up with that's an interesting that used to help someone I care about is an interesting one yeah I just did that with my dad I he's 84 and um I told him he was reading a book and he couldn't remember a couple chapters ago what happened and I said I put him on ChatGPT and I said ask you know about chapter one about chapter two or about the ending I think at that point and he was like oh my god this is amazing and he was all ready for his book club and um you know he he was blown away and he's like in two seconds how good did that make you feel yeah it was great i said just keep asking it for you know what show should i watch tonight he asks me i said dad go to ChatGPT tell him what other shows you've liked have it suggest a show like the ones you've liked oh my god this is amazing yeah you know it's real it's real it is a real thing and I and I and I will hold on to the space where you said it would make us want human connection more because I think I do get worried you know I'm one of those people that thinks AI because it sounds so lovely they're so nice to me you know and I have to challenge that and recognize I I find this with people with young people dating if it's at all bad they're out you know and I'm like oh gosh like we just we're just like oh that annoyed me all right you want to get dinner you know because you just you didn't have another option with someone i'm like who is just gonna compliment you the whole darn time you know that's Gen Z that's Gen Z stop it stop it but this also say millennial every generation not in the room we're blaming them there you go everyone that's not represented but this speaks to what i talk about you have to still make room for the difficult emotions because that's where growth is. The intersection of change and emotion, especially the difficult ones, that's how you grow. That's how you become a better human being. So don't let those out of the room. And do you think about the end of humanity in 2030, apparently? I do. I do. And that's why I talk about it's all of these signals that we're hearing and that we're feeling collectively. We need to pay attention to it. And how do we use our agency to come together as humanity and the choices that we make and who we elect and what we demand of these policymakers, what we demand of the people who are creating these technologies to make sure that they are safe, that they are safe and truly a collaborative tool. We have to listen. If you're feeling anxious and fearful, listen to it. Don't ignore it. Listen to it. All right. Great advice. Wow. All right. I'm going to work on it. That's a mic drop. Yes, mic drop. We'll go work on being change makers and being positive and all the things. You're right. then maybe on friday i'll be grumpy again for just a minute and i welcome it yeah maybe not maybe not thank you Sandra Worthy amazing i think it is a it is an exercise in managing not just AI but really the world around us which can feel overwhelming to many of us i would say all of us at times and also it's a it's a good lesson to be compassionate to your co-workers yes because they're going through stuff. That might be their Friday that they're having an off day. That's right. There you go. There you go. Make that space. Thank you all so much. Your delight. Thank you. Thank you so much, Cassandra. Thank you.