Kian Gohar: 0:00

Hey, Craig, I know you're traveling today. So the wildest travel story I've ever had in my entire life. I had this this opportunity eight years ago, when I was invited to go to Korea. And my mom who's a amazing soul, offered to give me a ride to the airport. And she said, Where are you going this time on this trip? I said, I'm going to Korea. And my mom said Which one, south or north? And my mom is like, super smart. And I couldn't lie to her. And I said, Mom, I'm actually going to both. And there's like this awkward silence. And then she turns to me, she says, Can I come with you? I'm like, No, Mom, you can't come to North Korea. I was on this expedition with a bunch of Americans authorized to go to North Korea, on a on a learning journey. And we land in Pyongyang. And there is like, you know, airport military all around us. And I just looked at myself like holy, what did I just do? I do not have insurance to get me in case I need to get extracted out of North Korea. There was like absolutely the wildest wildest trip I've ever had in my life. And that was crazy. I definitely did not have any extraction insurance. But I am delighted to be here. My name is Qian Gerhardt, and I'm an insurance to today.

Craig Pretzinger: 1:22

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Jason Feltman: 1:29

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Craig Pretzinger: 1:36

I am Craig Pretzinger.

Jason Feltman: 1:37

I am Jason Feldman. We are agents. We are insurance. Oh, yeah. What What were you doing in North Korea,

Kian Gohar: 1:50

we were going on a People to People expedition organized by an American organization here to learn about the history and culture of North Korea. And we got to see some some fascinating things, we got to talk to some local people. And it was the wildest place I've ever been because it looks like nothing anywhere else on the planet. Because there's no advertisements. There's no billboards, like when you're driving down the streets, or walking on the streets, which you don't really do. It just feels like you're like in this like alternative universe that basically avoided all of commercialism for the last 100 years. It's just really, really bizarre place. And I was I was grateful that I got to go but it was even happier to come back

Craig Pretzinger: 2:36

that It's so wild. Right? Like, would you travel you go like if you go to like, I went to Portugal, everything is a little different. Right? You go I'm in Costa Rica, everything is a little the plugs, you know, like the light switches. But they're like, think about it. Nobody's interacted or help them besides Dennis Rodman. And so which I you know, right. So, I mean, it's interesting, like they've had to engineer everything themselves, right. So everything is thought is like been created from a different point of view. So

Kian Gohar: 3:10

everything was just looked different. So bizarre, because, you know, we can have a long conversation about like, how unique they are. But I guess the one thing I'll say is that people are people wherever they are, whether they're are in, you know, the US whether they're in places that are oppressed, people just want the same thing. They want people, they want their kids to grow up healthy, they want their kids to go to school, they want jobs, they want food. And while the world is more people generally just want the same thing. And so we give them if we have grace with each other, and allow us to like understand each other better. Even these really complex, crazy places that sound like should be no go zones allow us to really connect with our humanity. So that's, that's the one thing I'll leave that story.

Craig Pretzinger: 3:58

Did you drink margaritas with the leader? I did not what I'll

Kian Gohar: 4:02

tell you this, the you're only allowed to stay in one Hotel in Pyongyang, which is for foreigners. And they have this this this bar downstairs, and they had the best beer have ever had in my entire life. And I'm like, How is that possible? And it's because way back in the 1950s the East German communists would go to North Korea, and they helped them develop these micro breweries and so like these micro breweries still exist and beyond Yang, and the beer was really delicious. Who did the

Jason Feltman: 4:32

Oh, wow. That's wild. Do you know that there's cameras and all cut like they're watching you sleep? Are

Craig Pretzinger: 4:40

they are they watching everything like they're the bathroom?

Kian Gohar: 4:44

They are with inside, you know, the hotel rooms and stuff. Some of it is very, very primitive. It's not developed in the way that we would see now in much of the developed world. It's Very, very primitive in a lot of parts of the country. So I don't think they even think about like recording a lot of that stuff. How

Craig Pretzinger: 5:07

the food, if I never have kimchi

Kian Gohar: 5:09

again in my life, it will be a day to

Craig Pretzinger: 5:13

be some kimchi was

Jason Feltman: 5:15

it every meal,

Kian Gohar: 5:16

it was an every meal. And I'll be very honest, it was, we have limited food, and they hadn't really gone out of their way to provide us with food. And so they really made an effort. Because we were coming on behalf of an American organization, they wanted to show their best foot forward, and that was lovely. But we didn't have enough food. And there were days where, you know, I'd have like a tea bag, and my colleague who was on the same trip would have like an extra piece of toast and I bought I'd say, hey, I'll give you my tea bag for your extra piece of toast. And that's how we got you know, through it. And but for the North Koreans, this was like a huge luxury that didn't even have these kinds of foods. And they were like offering it to us. And so again, politics can really make people upset in ways that we think is crazy. But like on a on an individual level, people really tried to do their best to help each other and even on the food front. So we helped each other get through that week with sharing our food that we were able to even get which most North Koreans would not have access. Oh, wow. That

Jason Feltman: 6:20

is wild. I mean, that's what an experience. Very few people very, very beautiful. Super cool. So I definitely want to get into the like, we're just talking about being humans. I definitely want to get into the AI human conversation. I want to know your past. I want to know also about you so you pronounce your name key on.

Kian Gohar: 6:42

Kia. It's just like Keanu Reeves with piano without blue.

Craig Pretzinger: 6:48

But way cooler.

Jason Feltman: 6:49

Yeah, but do you have an interesting story about that?

Kian Gohar: 6:52

Well, I always introduce myself to people and like, my name is Qian Johar, and when they can't pronounce it correctly, like it's like Keanu without Ooh. And then I lived in LA. And a couple years ago, I was at the Chateau Marmont, with for dinner with my family. And in wachsen Keanu Reeves and so of course, I grew up to him and I introduced myself like piano My name is Qian, I always introduced myself as Keanu without the EU. And just to look on his face was like, very, very unamused.

Craig Pretzinger: 7:23

He's off.

Jason Feltman: 7:25

God, I love that story. I love that story.

Craig Pretzinger: 7:28

Imagine though your Kiato right, like all day long, every single day people come up with you with something they think is that isn't original. Right?

Jason Feltman: 7:37

That is pretty original, though. I bet.

Craig Pretzinger: 7:40

I bet you like that probably was right at actual original that how off like it's just like,

Jason Feltman: 7:46

it was this. It was it was it was wild. It was wild. Yeah, that is wild. So your history, your backstory is so interesting. Take us back. Well, you know, you can go childhood if you want, but like, how did you get where you're at? Now, I know you have a killer story

Kian Gohar: 8:03

about that. So I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. And starting companies starting venture capital firms, running companies and lots of great chapters and stories, some of which succeeded and some which didn't. But I'll tell you about the most recent part. So about Lashley, you know, step back for a second and two in 2011, I left my last entrepreneurial business, which was a startup in South Florida, making kitesurfing equipment of all things. And it was a wonderful company, a group of people that I was with, and had done it for five years, I needed a break to figure out what was next. So I bought a one way ticket to to Africa. And I spent six months trekking across Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, in a truck and camping out every night in the tent. And this is a whole nother story, just super wild. But when I was in northern Ethiopia, so just about five weeks away from the end of my destination, I got a text message from my brother saying that passed away, please come home now. And my dad passed away in an accident. And so within 24 hours, I was back in LA where I'm from. And I ended up spending the next year taking care of family affairs. And after a year I was like, Okay, well, it's time to go build another company to figure out what to do next. And I ended up actually being introduced to a gentleman named Peter Diamandis, who is the founder and was the CEO of the XPrize Foundation, a technology nonprofit here in LA. And we ended up getting along like a house on fire. And I know that's bad in the insurance world, but this is great. And he, he invited me to join the XPrize Foundation and help them build a new business around technology, education. So the XPrize is this amazing nonprofit in LA that was founded in 1996, by Peter to basically solve this problem. The problem was how do we build a spaceship that's privately funded and goes to outer space, because up until then, only organizations like NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency had gotten space. And Peter wanted to democratize access to space travel. And so he launched this competition $10 million to whoever can build the first privately funded spaceship. And this competition, went on for eight years, ultimately, was won by a company that licenses technology to Richard Branson, and is now Virgin Galactic. So the organization knows a ton about like innovation and exploration and like new technologies, and and Peter wanted to basically create a new way for the foundation to monetize them and raise revenue by teaching companies about innovation. So I joined this foundation. And for the better part of the next decade, I was an executive director at the XPrize Foundation in LA, helping teach companies about these disruptive new technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, 3d printing, this, I got suddenly immersed in this world of deep tech, and Silicon Valley that I had never really anticipated being in. And I did this very successfully, probably, I don't know, coached 1000s of CEOs from companies all across the world, through this, this experience. And the lesson that I had, by about 2017 2018 Was that if we're going to go live in the world, where we work side by side with AI, and with robots, the thing that actually will give us competitive advantage compared to technology is not whether we're good at being at AI, but rather if we are good at being humans, and the kinds of skills that allow us humans to have competitive advantage, like emotional intelligence, complex problem solving, empathy, all those kinds of things, which we learned in kindergarten, but we kind of forget about by the time we get to adults. And so for the better part of the last five years, my my firm geo lab does leadership development, training, helping, teams become better at being more hyper productive by learning these soft skills, and allowing us to really lean into what makes us better humans, because that's all we got. When we as humans need to work side by side with AI in a very near future.

Jason Feltman: 12:35

I love it, we're gonna say, Greg,

Craig Pretzinger: 12:38

walk me through meeting with, with somebody with a client that you're gonna you're going to help with these things. And something that's a train wreck, maybe the opposite of that, that house fire that you had with with with your buddy that you met, that was really challenging, and how you what, how you were able to change the organization and change the thinking and really just improve the overall situation for them?

Kian Gohar: 13:02

Well, I'll give you I don't want to give you a generic answer, but because for confidentiality, I can't go into details, but their phone number that's doxim now. Well, the reality is that like these new technologies that sound like science fiction, like AI, and robots and spaceships, all of that is actually like reality now, and organizations are using them to get better solutions to problems for themselves and their clients. The limitation I think a lot of companies have and a lot of organizations have and leaders have is that we're humans, we learn a certain way of doing things. And then we want to keep repeating those certain way of doing things because it works, it's safe. And we default to those. And instead, we should be like going to the gym and learning new skills. But we don't want to do that, because nobody likes going to the gym. And so for a lot of companies, their leadership, their teams, they want to just keep doing work the way they've done for the last 20 years, because that's how we learn how to do it. And that's, you know, that's human behavior. But we have to stop and be like, Okay, now we've got these new tools and new technologies, should we be doing the same things we've done in the past? Or should we be doing it differently? And that's hard. And so my work with companies is helping teams learn these new behaviors of how to interact with AI. And then also, how do we make sure that we as a team are really benefiting from that. And we're also leveraging those resources to solve human problems. And so my work is really that is like changing mindsets. That's the first step and a lot of just don't even think about the mindset shift. That's like the most important thing. It's

Craig Pretzinger: 14:47

it. It's interesting how much has changed just in the last five years, right? So it's COVID. Well, and you could go back to the internet and all that, right, like just everything in last 20 years, has been so remarkably changed by technology. Yeah, and here we are, you know, now there's this study with, with the brain cells being connected to the computer chip, and it's actually carrying out functions. I mean, it's crazy, right? Like, it literally is like the future from when we were kids, you know, so

Kian Gohar: 15:15

we, the future will never be as slow as it is today. And which is wild, super wild. And so many, so many new technologies and inventions are happening. So there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of like, overwhelming amount of information, like, how do we live. And so I think, you know, our responsibility as leaders is to try to, like, minimize some of the noise and like, reduce some of the hype, and think about, okay, what are like the one or two or three things that are going to really transform the world and my world? And how can I make sure that the people that I care about are also knowledgeable about these things, so that we have like, better life? So, you know, one of the things, the technologies that's gonna change everything, is this idea of like genomic? Like, how can we make sure that we can live healthier and longer beyond what has been human lifespan, you know, right now, the average lifespan in the US is like, some at at once, and like that, but children born today, their average lifespan will be 100 years old, that's gonna mean that we're gonna have a whole lot more people living longer than, than we've been used to in human history. And that's not a whole lot of impacts. Like, for example, we're going to have a lot more people in the workforce longer, that's going to impact retirement and, and Social Security benefits. And people are gonna need like, a lot more health care in the long term, and elder care. And so all these things like actually have like dramatic impacts on us and our children, and our grandchildren for lucky. And so this is a technology that's going to radically shift how we as humans live, and we individuals might not have like, ability to change it. But we should be aware of it so that we can figure out what kind of path should we be taking to live in this world where humans live a lot longer. And this is all because of these new technologies. That's just one example. I mean, we also know just even in the last year, new technology, like general AI, has seemingly come out of nowhere, even though it hasn't been nowhere. It's been in the works for a long time, that live chat GPT, that has totally transformed how we work and communicate. And you know, we can talk about that as well. But I'm super excited about the future. Because I feel like these technologies allow us to democratize access to a lot of things that historically, people didn't have access to you whether it's education, or healthcare, so these are all like, global goods that people will have access to, because of these new technologies. And so I'm optimistic for for the future, but there's just a lot of noise, there's a lot of things happening. And we have to we have to be very conscious about minimizing some of that noise so that we don't get distracted.

Jason Feltman: 18:06

Well said, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And there's a lot of noise about it. I think it's interesting, like, we were talking the other day, about, about leads, and sales and AI and just like, like, all this stuff. And I think what is interesting to me is that even though that, you know, things are gonna be more regulated, and, and everybody has access to everything, I find it really interesting. Like that, it's allowing David to compete with Goliath for the first time, like, like, a kid is going to be able to use AI to gain knowledge to become a better athlete to, you know, build out a team, where, you know, he can grow a company and maybe it's just him like, like, the idea of like, solopreneur ship or very small teams that are making big impact is so cool to me. Where it's like I see, like, in the future, where the, the corporate model, when you have all these layering of management, all that stuff, I just see that kind of like that not having the advantage because it's too big and too just

Craig Pretzinger: 19:17

and I mean, the modus operandi is like, is preserve and protect, right, like, I have this job. I don't want to learn anymore. I don't want to advance I'm good. I'm just want to protect my cubicle. Right? Yeah, no innovation, and it's gonna die.

Kian Gohar: 19:33

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like there's gonna be like two kinds of companies in the future companies that use AI and dead companies. Which one do you want to be with? Right, right. To your point, Jason, about like solopreneurs and small teams, small companies being able to accomplish a lot more than was historically possible because those large companies they had, they pool their resources together. They pulled the people together. And they were able to get like economies of scale. And they were able to get like lower prices. And that's how they basically, you know, created these massive monopolies for decades. And now, every entrepreneur solopreneur has access to many of these similar tools that historically they would never have had. So

Craig Pretzinger: 20:18

I think it's important also to distinguish that the generation now like younger than, than my generation, you know, the millennials, and then the next younger one, have have had access to so much more information and knowledge that, like we just didn't have, right unless we want to ride our bike to the library and yeah, right, right. So that'd be these guys, with with podcasts with everything just, it's amazing, my 18 year old son knows a hell of a lot more at 18 than I did at 18. Right, because of listening to podcasts, and Rogan consuming just various ways of information from YouTube and all the other

Kian Gohar: 20:57

traditional. Just imagine, like, you know, if you're an insurance, do you run an agency, you have a small team, and you want to grow, and you have, like, let's say, a regulated environment, and it's hard to grow, because you need to have more revenue to be able to hire more staff. But you can't really do that, because it's like a chicken and egg problem, right? So imagine if you could, like use these AI? Yeah, imagine these like AI tools like chat GPT, to be able to, to do a lot of the work more effectively, more efficiently, faster. So for example, like I was working with a company earlier this year, as part of this major research project we did on on AI, is to, like how could you use AI to identify like new revenue streams, or to be able to identify leads much more effectively. And so you can actually use chat GPT to solve a lot of those problems when you as a solopreneur would historically never be able to do so like, I can ask you a GPT and say, you know, identify the top 10,000, you know, ways that I can find new leads or new clients in this particular market. And then I can use chat GPT to think about, okay, if I want to grow my business 15% This year, in this particular market, with this particular product, what are the 10 recommendations that you can give to me that I can follow to be able to do that. And it's essentially like this personal coach, business coach that you can rely on that we've never had before. And so like, to your point, Jason, yeah, like the David and Goliath story is changing. And I'm much more interested in being on Team David than I am on being on Team Goliath now. Yeah,

Jason Feltman: 22:41

100%. Yeah. I mean, we, Craig and I both have agencies with a large corporate parent company. And it's just like watching every the world go round the way it is, it's like, it's interesting, because, you know, I see so many agents that are, you know, independent agents, or something that have some access to tools that are just crazy, like, crazy, great. And it's just interesting how corporations are going to navigate some of this stuff, just because they're just so layered. And I just can't imagine anything with how fast technology is moving how anything's gonna get through in time to like,

Craig Pretzinger: 23:23

it's like, two opposing forces. It's like the slowest moving industry when it comes to technology in a time when technology is moving faster than it ever has. And it's gonna just keep taking off. But I think the obvious, like, like, what normally happens in that situation? Yeah,

Kian Gohar: 23:42

we actually ended up working with a major insurance company this year that was super innovative, and like, wanted to lean in to AI and these technologies. And so I think you have like in any industry, like a few people who really want to be like early adopters, and are willing to like experiment, and to one like, you know, small tests and see what works. And then you have people who just aren't comfortable with milking the cow. And until, you know, that's done. And maybe I think in the insurance industry, have fewer people who are willing to, you know, be early adopters, and maybe some in other other industries, but they exist. And you know, what I would say to folks who run agencies is identify just like one small problem that you have, that you want to have a better solution to, and use that as a as a starting point to have a conversation with AI, like chat GPT or whichever one you want to use, and ask questions to help you solve that one problem. You're not going to become like aI fluent, or AI conversationally, like capable overnight. It's just like, if you want to become you know, an Olympic Gymnastics champion, you don't do that overnight, you practice. And so the way I recommend practicing is to take a small bite, find one small town that you have, and take that question. To chat GPT so we're having a conversation with it and asking it like, you know, how can I solve this problem. And eventually you'll start developing like the skills and feel more confident. And before you know it, you'll have maybe like five of those little small experiments that you've run. Now moving your business, like a lot forward faster than then your competitors are, and certainly than some of the bigger players are. And so like, this is all eminently doable and learnable and that's why I'm just so excited about

Craig Pretzinger: 25:28

it. It's, it's even possible to have as many as 1000s of these projects working at the same time. Absolutely, really crazy questions.