Episode 405: Is Everything Just a Commercial Now?

Welcome back to the streaking podcast. We are really glad to be back. It's been a

while. Our last episode was in October of 2025. So it feels great to be behind the

mic again. Let me ask you a question. Have you noticed that almost everything

online feels like it's trying to sell you something? So if everything is

promotional content, how do you know what's real and how do you stay authentic

in a world like that? That's exactly what Jamie and I explore in this

episode, content, AI, and how to lead your own thinking in a world full of

influence. Quick thanks to our sponsor, the MyStreaks StreakTracker app. If you

want to cut through the noise, build consistency and what matters most. My

streaks helps you do it one day at a time. Alright, let's start streaking.

What is streaking and why should you do it? Streaking is how you set up personal

winning streaks. Look at who you want to be and what you need to do to become

that person. This is streaking. I'm Jeff. And I'm Jamie. And we are streakers. Through

30 years of marriage and seven children, we have learned the power of

consecutive consistency or streaking. To start streaking is simple. You just

follow these three laws, make it laughably simple. Keep a record and join the

streaking community. Streaking is your hidden superpower with it. You will

consistently progress and grow in whatever area of life you want. In this

podcast, Jeff and I will share all the fun, exciting, serious, solemn, wonderful

parts of family, spiritual, professional, and personal life, and how

streaking powers it all. So join us in the conversation, join the movement, and

start streaking today. So Jamie and I were in a conversation this morning on our

streak run walk. And how many years have we yet been at that now? Eight and a half,

nine, ten. A lot, ten. But I want to invite everyone to join our

channel. Oh, that's right. Just real quickly. Before we go to our topic, walk 100

miles in April for cancer. Yeah. It's a fundraiser, an opportunity to, so I'm

going to do that. And I'm going to create a challenge on our I think that's

great. Or I will create the challenge. You'll help me create the challenge.

We'll start. I'll create the challenge and we'll do it. We were talking a

little bit about that this morning about Jamie comes up with the idea. And

then she says, Jeff, you do it. And I'm like, yeah, because honestly, that's how

we operate a lot is I have a bias toward action. And Jamie has a lot of great

ideas. And so, for example, I remember way back when you said, we need to go on

family vacation. And I said, okay. And so we went off we went took a Disney

cruise. And it was great. And then that led to many, many, many vacations after

that. We were talking about that as one of the things. But something that

really we discussed that we'd like to discuss here with you is the idea of

being authentic. And Jamie, you probably need to give a little bit of a thought

process on this because you were you were the one that kind of came up with.

Okay, I didn't come up with I was question. Well, you were question. Yeah, you

came up with a question. Here is my question is is so it started with I have

a service that I bought about four years ago. It's a it was a class on

planning. And since then, she has sent me she sends me about three emails a

day or not a day. Sorry, a week, three emails a week. She does a weekly newsletter.

She has a weekly podcast. She does a live event like once a month or maybe

twice a month. So in all of those things. And then she also has like a yearly

planning event. So all of those things I'm getting information on on a regular

basis. Right. And and then just says what we've been thinking about was

streaking. And I was just kind of thinking about years and years ago when I was

little, we would watch TV. And you had to watch TV based on what was out at a

certain time. So you'd get the TV guide and you'd see what show was coming on.

And you would plan to watch so that you could watch the show at the time you

wanted to. And then there were commercials. And then when I was in advertising

was an advertising major, we talked about the different forms of advertising

direct mail or print advertising or commercial advertising on TV or commercial

advertising on radio. But now we are in this place with social media and the

internet that pretty much everything is content. There was a point in advertising.

And I remember studying this. We're advertising changed from just kind of throwing

it out there like a TV commercial. And and they would when when TV had certain

times that everyone watched, they kept statistics on demographics and who watched

what kind of shows. And so you get advertising based on who was watching those

shows at that time. Then as TV and streaming kind of came into to purview

advertising change to what was called content advertising, which you would give

people content. You'd give them information. And in that information, you're

advertising. And I think that's a lot of what we have now is content advertising.

But as I was thinking about it, I'm like, we have become so content oriented that

people that are running any kind of business or social media think are constantly creating content.

And I just I just was asking the question because sometimes it can be off-putting. It feels like

everyone is just creating a lot of content. Well, we even talked about it in regards to our

podcast right here. Are we just creating the content in order to get more followers or to

or to pitch our wares, our product or services. And there is some truth to that. I mean,

not necessarily to get more followers, but we do want to encourage people to use

streaking and my streaks. And that's one of the reasons we do the podcast. However,

any any product that's out there, people have to be aware of it. Right. And that is a huge

out of what advertising is is you are making you're helping people be aware. But then you're also

trying to persuade them. And so it was just interesting to me to look at and think we've changed a

lot in that everything has become content. And so how do you feel that things are genuine? How

what's what's when you say things have become content. You mean everything has been promotion,

been content has moved to promotional. That most of it is performed promotion. Yes, that

yeah. Yes. What used to be content like, oh, I want to learn something. Now I feel like nearly

all content is at some level of promotion of something of some sort. At least that's what I

feel. I don't know if that's accurate, but I'm starting to feel that way. Yeah. And so the question

I asked you was, do you find value in what you get in those emails from your planning service?

Do you find value? And the interesting thing is that sometimes I find value in it, but it's also

challenging because you're getting it all the time. Right. All the time. The content is coming at you

all the time. And so that was part of what I was I was kind of joking that I pull up a recipe

online and there will be anywhere from four to five ads on that same space while I'm trying to

do the recipe. And so it's just interesting that that this is my kind of ready player one when

Nolan Sorrento is talking to the board of directors. If you've seen the movie.

The movie. And because they're using, you know, it's virtual reality and they're using goggles,

he was saying, once we control the oasis, which is where people went into the oasis.

Yeah. Into the oasis was the virtual reality. Once we control that, we can populate their visual

screen with 80 or 90% without causing them to go crazy without without causing a psychotic break.

And I think that that's what I think about when you talk about the recipes.

Well, because when I pull up a route, it's like 3000 as you try to find where the actual

recipe is and you've got a sift through many, many, many different promotional ads.

So at the same time where we have access to more content that access has also created

this environment where everything all content seems to be some form of advertising.

Right. Right. And so I was just asking them like, how do you yet if you're running a business,

you have to be producing content.

The other thing that we talked about though is that you would go to AI and have a conversation

because there was an a promotion. And in fact, if you wanted that same recipe, I'll bet you could

go to AI and say, give me a recipe for out of, and you name it, Mel's Kitchen or Best Bites or

whatever. And AI will return it to you without all of the advertising advertising. Right. So it'll be,

oh, how long will we have that before someone finds a way to have sponsors in AI that your

top sponsored search has now produced something that someone has paid to have at the top.

And the thing that I look at is how do we genuinely add to the, because because what I look at,

so here's a couple other things as you were talking, here's some things that came to my mind. One

that what we try to do here on our podcast is provide value, value of some sort. Now that value can

be entertaining, entertainment is valuable. That value can also be a new skill or thinking about

something in a different way. That value can be learning about what a streak is and how to keep

it alive and what that can do for you in your life, specifically in streaking. Right. There's other

times where we'll have guests and we provide value in a way that we bring the guest on who has had

a specific insight or something that's been really interesting and expertise that is really

interesting that we want people to experience and feel, right. So all of those things to add value.

Now what what you can't do like what you can with AI is have a conversation with us. And with AI,

so with with chat, I have many conversations. I just had a conversation this Sunday, Sunday morning

with AI as I was questioning some things in my professional life and in my life in general. I was

just questioning going forward. And so I basically plugged it into chat and I had a conversation.

And it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. I read it to you. It was great. In fact,

it led me to having a chat, a conversation with chat where I specifically asked, I said,

your responses are very kind and encouraging and friendly. How much of that is the like,

how is the programming incorporated into that? And it was great because it did. It's so fun to

ask chat about chat about itself, but it said AI is meant to be helpful. Like the responses that

are given are meant to be helpful. So it often so it's programmed to answer questions in a helpful,

not critical way. So often it's very kindly. It is. It's positive. It's kind. So I would rather

now go to an AI engine. Whatever engine you prefer, I prefer chat. And that's one that I typically

use to get whatever. I mean, it can be any type of questions whatsoever. That's the amazing thing is

it's very difficult to say, what's the limit? What is the limit of what we can really do with AI?

And I don't think we know yet. We don't know what that limit is or where it's going to be. However,

when I go into it, I know that I'm going to get a conversation that I can go back and forth with,

be challenged a little bit, but there's something else I know or maybe I don't know. Maybe I feel

this way is that it's not biased toward a particular action. Now it may be biased because of how

I train it. Right. However, if I go to the streaking website or the mystreaksapp.com website,

that is has a specific bias toward streaks and streaking. If you go to chat and say, how do I develop

consistency in my life? It may offer a streak. Now for me, it would definitely because I've trained

it that way. Right. However, someone else is just looking out there. I don't know that it would give

them that. It probably talks about habits and about what you need to do to establish good habits and

how you do that. I don't know that it would say something about streaking, but what the reason I bring

all that up is because I know that I'm going to get bias when I go to a specific source. I get

less biased with chat and I can direct it in the way I want it to go or through the questions that

I ask. So I know that it's that I'm being if there's promotional content, it's being promoted because

I'm asking for it, not because it's being forced upon me.

Which is true. I've asked specific questions and it's given me three or four apps or three or four

programs that are and what that I could use to accomplish the thing that I'm asking about.

Right. It is interesting. I asked chat what AI is being used for most now and it did say that it

originally it was answering questions, but it's definitely evolved into more says it's used most for

a lot of deep and deep thinking. Kind of a brainstorm companion. Yeah, brainstorming was a huge

part of it. And then the third thing was it's being used much more as a collaborative resource.

In other words, similar to what you're saying, people are appreciating and using more this,

I can ask a question and then I can go further and I can I can even ask it to recognize things

I'm not seeing, like help me see what I'm not seeing. And so it becomes almost a partner. Yeah.

In in the way that people are using it. Yeah, totally fascinating to see. Well, it honestly,

it's so we're so I am a narrator for audible. I've been doing audible books and one of the books

that I narrated recently was called How to Become a Genius by Boris Krieger. Phenomenal book.

We're going to try and get him on the podcast. Yeah, we want to get him on the podcast. And in

that he or where was I going with this? I got excited about reading the book. You just mentioned,

you talked about. AI and using chat. Oh, yeah. Thank you. So he's talking about actually how AI is a

cognitive extender. In other words, it extends your cognitive ability and that it can it can be

it can be negative in the sense that if it takes over the thinking for you, then it's negative.

But it's positive if it helps you to think through and the analogy that he uses is a calculator.

And I wonder if I have this right here because where where are you in the book? You're

I haven't got to that part yet. Yeah, I haven't gotten that because let me just see if I have

that really quickly here. Where would I have it? I think I have it in books. And while you're talking,

yeah, go ahead talk talk amongst yourselves while I look for this. Just kind of this isn't

what we were going to originally talk about. We got stuck talking about artificial intelligence.

But I've had some fun conversations that it was talking about how a lot of the things that used to

be done all by humans. Now the initial part of it is done by AI. So the writing of an email,

the initial actual writing of it is often being done by AI and then being edited or reviewed by

humans. The programming coding is often being done by AI and then reviewed or edited by humans.

And so this idea that a lot of what we used to do instead of now becoming the people that are

doing it all, we're becoming the people that are evaluated and making the decisions as it moves

forward. So it'll be interesting to see where it goes from here. All right, I think

I almost have it. Calculator. So it's the idea and the concept is that it extends.

Okay, yeah, the extended mind. That's the chapter. So in the extended mind. So this is chapter 14,

the extended mind. I feel like I'm reading a yes. I know how to become a genius. How to become a

genius. In 1998, do I read it like I do? Am I audible voice? The philosophers Andy Clark and David

Chalmers published a paper that proposed a radical idea. The mind does not stop at the skull.

If an external device performs a function that weren't done in the head, we would unhesitatingly

call cognitive, then the device is part of the cognitive system. A notebook that stores memories

is functionally equivalent to biological memory. A calculator that performs arithmetic is functionally

equivalent to mental calculation. The boundaries of the mind, Clark and Chalmers argued are not

fixed by anatomy, but by function. So this is the extended mind thesis and artificial intelligence

transforms it from a philosophical curiosity into a practical reality. A person working with a

large language model, which is AI, is not using a tool in the way they might, excuse me, use a hammer.

They are thinking with it. The AI generates hypotheses, identifies patterns, retrieves relevant

information, drafts text, catches errors and proposes alternatives. All functions that done

internally would be called reasoning. The boundary between the person's cognition and the AI's

processing is not sharp. It is a gradient defined by the bandwidth of the interface. So that now

he talks about how quickly you can start to interface with it. But the whole idea is that it is

something that the tools that we use are still a part of our cognitive process. Interesting. Isn't that

fantastic? Isn't that amazing? So he talks about just how you use AI and there's one other part in

here engineering your own system that I don't think I'll be able to get too fast enough because it's

a little bit more involved. But basically he's saying where it is a cognitive extender can be a

cognitive limiter if AI starts to do the thinking for you. So how do you stop from having that happen?

The whole idea behind it is that you're coming up with the prompts and the questions. You're

thinking it through. You're the forward thinker, not the chat. So here's another way to describe it.

Have you ever been in a conversation with chat where at the end of it it says, if you'd like,

I can show you x, y, and z. All the time. I think it's programmed to do that. And so you respond

sure. Certainly that. Well now as soon as you go that way, it's starting to lead you rather than you

leading it. Now that's not necessarily bad. However, if that's always the case, then what you're

actually doing is surrendering your cognitive ability to the AI rather than looking at it and

saying, no, I need to ask some different questions. So there are times where I have followed that

vein. I've said, yes, please. And through several questions. And then there's other times where it

suggests it's something, no, that's not really where I'm going. What I want to do is think through this.

And I think that it's important that we take the lead in the thinking rather than letting the AI

take the lead in the thinking. I think it's going to. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think it's

going to take some attention. Does that answer your question? Yes. I think I'll take some

intentionality on our part to be able to to be able to learn how to how to do that. Right. This is

where I do love. So bringing it back to streaking. I do love having a methodology in place that is

saying, okay, now we have this new tool, artificial intelligence. I want to learn how to use it.

But just like any new tool, whether it be a hammer or a knife or a writing lawnmower, there is risk

involved that I could get hurt or that I could that that things could not go well. So I want to

learn how to use it well. Yeah. And so I love that by setting up that you could actually set up

streaks to help you learn how to how to have AI be how to use AI in the way that you want to

learn to use AI without it dulling what you do already to make it something that enhances not

not diminishes. Right. And so there was a woman and I've been thinking about this when we spoke at

the organizers group. We are all over the map today. We've it's been a while since we've been on

and we talked about this beforehand. We're like, we may go through several subjects, but we are

going to come back to authentic. I promise. So she used streaking not to keep track of

her objective was not to have it be so many days in a row. That wasn't something that she was

proud of or she found motivating. She actually set her streaks by the seasons. So each season,

as things changed, she had new streaks that she decided she wanted to have for that season.

And the way that she kept track of it rather than numbers, she actually created a notebook

each season with her streaks. And she she's an organizer and a designer. So this fit what she

wanted. I love that she made it work for her. But for every time that she completed her streak,

she had a page that had that streak on it and colored dots in varying sizes. And sometimes very

in colors on a page that was really aesthetically pretty that had a picture for her streak. And she

would add the dots to that page for the streak. And she was inspired by in the book where we talk

about the poignolism painting. And she's like, I'm going to do that. And I just loved that she

adapted it to what worked for her. In other words, she was saying, I don't need, I don't need to know

that I've done this this many hundreds of days in a row. And that she would change her streaking

every season. I just thought that was fascinating. I that she would change it in that way. Yeah.

And find a way to adapt. So I love that the concept of doing something consistently runs through

all of it. But that she found a way that worked specifically for her. So I think that that leads

beautifully back into being authentic. Yeah. That's true. Because she was authentically

herself. And what we try to do with streaks and my streaks is give people a tool by which they can

get chronically consistent. And that chronicle consistency leads to compounding wonderful results.

I want to come up with a word better than chronic. Because they always use chronic with pain.

I don't with pain. So chronic pain. This is chronic chronic consistency. It's just if you can get

there the strength of consistency, the superpower of consistency. If you can really unlock that,

like I believe we have, it really does help you to continue in your own authentic self.

That's the that's the one thing I've always appreciated about the streaking methodology.

Is it's not a, you know, a specific do these seven things, do these six things do this. It's more

about here's a tool to be consistent. And this tool can help you accomplish whatever it is you

want to do in life. So it's more of a framework framework. And then you actually add the content.

Yeah. Each individual person creates their own content based on what they need in that moment

in life based on because I do, I do love that we've developed that there's lifetime streaks.

Things that you really are like, I want to do this my whole life, no matter what.

There's time of life streaks where something is really important right now and I need to capture

this time of life. But it's not going to be something I do forever because it's specific to

this time of life. And then what was the third one I just forgot? Challenge streaks. Thank you.

Yeah. Once that you're like, I'm definitely, this is something that's going to stretch me.

Like what we're doing with the hundred miles in April for cancer. Yes. So cancer research,

cancer fighting, whatever it is. So as we get back to just talking about where

we started, which was the content and content being purely promotional because I think that's

what you were saying is content has evolved from just something that's something that's either

interesting or educational or entertaining to now it's always promotional. Yes. Everything

is a promotion. And it's and it's what I think a negative side of that is that I don't view

content as positively anymore because it's now got this feeling that all content is just trying

to sell me something. Right. Rather than looking at it being like, this is this is actual content

that I can do something good with. But I do think that we have gone into a place where a lot of

content is promotional. Yeah. I agree. And so. And I believe that there's a balance because there

does have to be some promotion out there else we wouldn't know about any of the content. And AI

needs to be trained in some way to be able to tell us we only have some of the resources.

True. We only have AI because of all the content. All the content that's out there.

I look at it and say if people see and or see this podcast or hear this podcast and they're

thinking about it and they're like, I want a tool that allows me to be able to keep track of

the consistency in my life. Well, that's the My Streaks app. That's our promotional part of this.

And I think that there has to be some amount of promotion. Yeah. But what's what is the balance?

And I think that's more so what we're asking is it is the pendulum swung so much the other way

that now I don't really trust any content because it's all promotional or is it is there still

room to go? I mean, can it can it get even more promotional? And I think the question that I asked

and the thing that I was thinking about this morning when you asked when we were talking about

AI and having a conversation with it, I can have a genuine conversation and I am completely

vulnerable with AI. I don't feel any compunction to hide anything because I don't feel like it's

it's not a thing that's judging me. I'm I'm looking at it as a tool that is drawing on

billions of points of data and can it bring to still that data together to be able to help me

to find an answer to questions that I have about any number of things at any given point in time.

Can it can it help me to distill and also draw from the sources that are out there? For example,

this podcast is public. If it's trained on streaking and streaks, it may be something that someone

who's asking some AI engine somewhere that it can go out and grab this information and be able

to present it in such a way that a person can change their lives for the better. So their

content still has to be produced. I think the question that you have and that I also have is

can it because it's promotional, can it be believed? In other words, are they just pushing the

product or are we actually getting the the genuine real content that we can use? Information that

we can use to change our lives for the better. For the better. And part of the challenge is that

there's a lot of information out there and and being able to sort through that is also part of that.

You seem like you're way out there in cognitive land. Just trying to. I feel like you're you're

thinking your your mind has gone and expanded in this area. Not more expanded. Just kind of looking

at being like I don't have an answer to this question. I'm curious how and what but what is the

specific question? I guess answer to the question of I think that I think that I think it was me wanting

to trust content more and not feel like everything is just someone advertising to me. Like how do I

get to on this flip side though? And something that I don't want to discount is that I have access

to a lot like a lot more information and content than I've ever had before. So taking my cooking

recipe that I experienced before. If I wanted to have a recipe before the internet, your options

were cookbooks or grandma or mom grandma or those were yeah those were that was where you found

your if I want a recipe now I can go on and say I want a recipe for this and I can find

probably millions of them right yeah 100% with hundreds of different permeations or variations

of that same recipe. I can be in the middle of cooking a recipe and like I did the other day where

I was like I've got this recipe for minestrone soup. It doesn't include turkey. Can I put ground turkey

and minestrone and immediately it'll be like that's a great idea. That's great. People do that all

the time and I probably could have found a recipe. Did you do that in AI? Was that all AI? Can I put

turkey in it or was that? Well the interesting thing is that AI is incorporated into the site that

into yeah to the search engines now. Oh I see what you're saying okay so you were doing it with

the search engine and you have the AI at the top where it says it responds it in the same way that AI

would. Anyway there we are. Here's