You're Not Behind: The Truth About AI, and Why I Went Quiet for 7 Months

Speaker A: Sa. M. Seven months. Seven months. That's how long it's been since I sat down in this seat and talked to you all seven months of, uh, no new episodes. And if you've been checking the feed, wondering if I disappeared, I can tell you that I did not. I was building. I was in it. And I have got so much to tell you. Girl, the tea is hot. So if you're new here, welcome. If you've been here since the early days, and some of you have been here for hundreds, hundreds of episodes, welcome back. Pull up a chair, get comfortable. Make sure you got your notebook and your pen. You know how we get down. That has not changed. This is go be great. I'm, um, your host, Karina Calhoun. And we are officially back. We are officially back. Okay, let me take a deep breath because I have been waiting for this for a while. If this is your first time ever pressing play on this show, here's what you need to know about me and what happens in this space. Again, my name is Karina Calhoun. I'm the founder and CEO of WarCry Consulting Solutions. And I'm, um, what I like to call a confidently bold introvert, which means I will absolutely get on a microphone and talk to thousands of you. And then I'll need to go and sit in a quiet room by myself for the rest of the day just to recover and refuel. Now, if that's you too, you're in the right place. Let's get to it. Okay, so I build business systems and automation for service based business owners. That's coaches, consultants, creators, practitioners. The people who are brilliant at what they do, but are drowning in the day to day of running the thing. And it's not just online service based, it's service based, period. Local entrepreneurs. Online entrepreneurs. You need to be in your expertise and not drowning in it. So my whole philosophy, the thing, everything that I do is built on is this. We build the structure that runs your business day to day so you get your time and your revenue back. This is. This is structure over hustle, y'. All. Always, always. So we're gonna come back to that a lot in this season because it matters more right now than it ever, ever has in the past. I've been in business since 2018, and I can tell you we need it really bad right now. And so this show, Go Be Gray, is where we talk about all of this. The building part, the growing part, the messy middle that nobody talks about. Everybody post. Hey, I got six figures. Hey, I'm at the beach hey, I'm in the mountains. Hey, I'm on a family trip. Hey, I got this. I got that. But they don't talk about the messy middle. So we're going to talk about the messy middle, the winds and the walls, because we're all hitting walls at some point in the business. Some episodes you're going to see is just going to be me and you. We're gonna be hashing it out. Like today. Other episodes, I bring on a guest who's built something that's real. And we get into, uh, the how, and we get into the why, and we get into the truth of it. Do they have products and services that you can absolutely connect with them, purchase from them, hire them, benefit from? Yes. We're not denying that, we're not hiding that. But you also need to know about the other good stuff, about their business and their process and what got them to where they are and all of the good stuff. So I want to be honest with you about these last seven months, because I don't believe in pretending. I want to be honest here. I want to be transparent. I didn't step away because I ran out of things to say. I told you, I'm a confidently bold introvert. I don't run out of things to say. We just don't say everything. Okay? But I didn't step away because I ran out of things to say. I stepped away because I had too much on my plate to say them. Well, if you know introverts, you know, that's us. True to core. And I made a decision a while back that I'd rather give you nothing than give you something half present. Right. I'm not gonna half do it. So I went quiet on purpose. I went heads down. And in a minute I'm gonna tell you exactly what I was building. Because a lot of it is going to be useful to you. You. But before I do, I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Because a lot of you kept listening to the back catalog while, uh, I was gone. A lot of you sent messages. A lot of you told me this show meant something to you. Um, during that time, whatever, whatever hard stretch you had of your own, you told me that it meant something. And I read those, every one of them. And they're a big part of why I'm, um, still sitting here right now. Why I couldn't, it couldn't be a year. I know some people take their break, they, they, they're gone for a year. I, uh, Seven months was long enough. So let me tell you where I've been. Seven months ago, I looked at my business and my life and I realized I had a good problem. But it was a real problem at the same time. The good problem was that the work was landing. People was finding me, hiring me, trusting me to go into the innards of their business and build the systems that they actually wanted so that they could really truly breathe. I was building out full platforms for clients, the whole engine that runs a service based business, behind the scenes booking, follow up, uh, automations that catch a lead at, I don't know, two, three o'clock in the morning when you're sleeping. The systems that make sure nothing and nobody falls through the cracks. The work, it was good, it was meaningful and it was a lot. The real problem was that I was so busy building for everyone else, I hadn't stopped to really rebuild from that point for myself. I have systems in place. People that know me that have been inside of my business, they can tell you that I have systems in place. But my own systems needed the same care I was giving my clients. And you cannot pour structure into other people's business while you're running your business in your own fumes. That's not sustainable. And I teach sustainability, so I had to live it. So here's some of what actually happened in those seven months. Just so that you are aware, I did a rebrand. Yes. You see a lot of things change. We're no longer go be great with coach Karina. We're now go be great with Karina Calhoun. You see the color palette has changed for many, many, many years. Back from 2018, 2019, our color palette had been the same. We have up leveled that. We have a new look, a new feel, we're cleaner. I feel like we're more calmer. I think I grew up a little bit. Right. We're more grounded. We retired some things. What you'll see now is very deliberate. It's very in this moment, it reflects where I am now versus where I was when I started. I built out client systems that I'm genuinely proud of. Loyalty programs, memberships and subscription systems, booking and delivery flows, whole sites. The kind of behind the scenes machinery that a business owner never has to think about again once it's up and running, which is exactly that point. So I feel like I, I did my job right. If I did it right. My clients are getting hours of their week back and they don't even notice the machine that's like literally humming underneath them. That's the goal. Invisible structure, visible freedom. Let that land. I took on a new client, migrating their whole business off a platform that they'd outgrown. And I got into the weeds of the domain and the email setup and the technical plumbing that a lot of people never see and honestly never want to. That's my happy place, believe it or not. There's something deeply satisfying to me about taking a tangled mess and making it work quietly and correctly. I started laying groundwork for something I care about a, uh, lot. A lot. A program to bring entrepreneurship and AI education into high schools. Now this is still in the works. Nothing definitive yet on the other end, but we're working. So my idea is 9th through 12th grade because I think, I think about who I was at 17 and I think about how different my path possibly could have looked if somebody had maybe shown me this was even possible, that it was actually doable. So that's still the early stages for them, but it's real. And if, if you're here, you're gonna hear more about it on this journey with me. I'm gonna be transparent. And I've also been preparing to show up in my own community, local community, in a very big way, in a bigger way. Local events, local rooms, being a, uh, face people can actually walk up to and not just name on the screen. God had been telling me that for probably the last 12 months. And, and so I've been intentional about it. But here's the part that I really want you to hear. In the middle of all that building, all that productivity, all that forward motion, I also just lived some life. I just lived some life because that's the whole thing. Nobody's talking about this in entrepreneurship. It doesn't pause for your life. Your life keeps happening while you're trying to build. And you have to learn how to hold both. They're not going to be of equal value. You just have to learn how to hold the boat. I have built this business, started building it back in 2018. And I've told this story before, but for the new folks who need to hear, I built it on two 15 minute breaks and a lunch hour while I was managing, helping to manage four corporate departments. That, that's four, y'. All, Four. I was not sitting in some beautiful home office with all the time in the world. I was stealing minutes, literally stealing minutes, building in the cracks of a full corporate day. And so over the next four years, back then, over the next four years, I spent more time doing that, trying to get it together. And I also spent more than $20,000 and I talk about this a lot. I spent more than $20,000 on programs that promise to fix everything and deliver just about nothing. And, and I'm not telling you that for you to, you know, have sympathy. I'm telling you that so that you understand where the structure obsession comes from. Back then I was in corporate and I was helping to really delve into the processes and the, the, the, the sops, the workflows, the systems, how to really get the best out of the, the systems and the people. That's what I loved. But at the same time I was building a business on the side. So when you build in 15 minute windows, you can't afford to waste anything. You can't afford chaos. Every system I build now, I build because at some point I needed it and did not have it because AI was not prevalent back then, Automations was. But automations was not like this, it's not like it is today. So these seven months, it y' all was not a break. They were me practicing what I preach, building the structure, protecting my energy, choosing depth over noise. I'mma say that again. Choosing depth over noise and getting ready to come back to you with something worth your time. Which brings me to what I actually want to talk about today because a uh, lot has shifted in seven months and I think we need to talk about it. And we need to talk about it honestly. Let's talk about AI because in the seven months I was gone it feels like the whole world literally sped up just like that. Every scroll, every feed, every email is AI this and AI that new tool every week, new thing you're supposed to already be behind on. You listen, every uh, it, it's oh my goodness, y' all let me calm down because I get, I get heated over this. People are, they're feeling behind on this and I want to talk about it honestly because I don't think enough people are being honest about how this actually feels. Here's what I'm hearing when I talk to real business owners. Not, not the loud ones that's online. Not the ones that every time you open every single app, you see their face there. You see the AI, you see the technology, you see all of the things I'm talking. The real people, the ones that I sit down with in coffee shops, the ones that I meet at Panera Bread, the ones that I meet at ah, at ah, at the library, the ones that I meet in co working spaces, the real people, the ones that I talk to on the phone, not Zoom, but on the phone. The real People, some of you are excited. You started using these tools and you feel like you found a new superpower. Let's get it. You're getting more done. You're less stuck. And that's beautiful. And I love that for you. Absolutely amazing. I applaud you. But a lot of you, and I mean a lot, a lot, you're feeling something entirely different. You're feeling something else entirely different. You're feeling overwhelmed. You're feeling behind before you even gotten started. You open the app, you see someone posting about how they automated their entire business overnight, and this quiet voice in your head goes, everybody else gets this. This is set. Me. You're feeling like here's a, uh, a party happening and you didn't get the invitation and you're too embarrassed to ask, where is my invitation? And some of you, some lit. Some of you, some of you are feeling something a little bit deeper than overwhelmed. You're feeling afraid. Let's. Let's put that out there. Afraid this thing is going to replace you. Afraid the skill that you spent years building is about to be worthless. Mhm. Had that conversation too. Afraid you're going to get left behind in a world that's moving faster than you could ever keep up with. Or so it feels. I want to sit with that for a second. Because those feelings are real and they deserve to be named, not brushed off like so many people are doing. Oh, just catch up. Oh, just do this. Oh, just do that. It's not always that simple. Here's what I actually believe about all of it. And I've been living inside these tools every single day for months. So I'm not speaking from the sidelines, okay? AI is not the thing that makes you great. I want to say it again. AI is not the thing that makes you great. You are the thing that makes you great. AI is structure. It's leverage. It's the, uh, assistant that never sleeps. But it does not have your judgment. It does not have your discernment. Okay. It does not have your, um, care. You care. It doesn't have that. It does not have your relationship with the per. With the people or the person that you're serving. It does not know your client the way you know your client. What it does give you is it gives you back the hours that you've been spending on the parts of your business. That. And that's where the, the point lies. It gives you back the time, the hours that you've been spending on certain things in your business. I want you to think about it this Way, when I built a system for a client, this. The system doesn't replace them, it frees them. It handles the follow up so they can do the actual code coaching, the actual consulting. It handles the booking so they can do the actual service. The machine does the repeatable part so humans can do the irreplaceable part. That's what this is, y'. All. When it's done right, AI is not to replace you. It's not a replacement for you. It's a return of your time to you. Ah. And listen, here's the thing I really want you to hear. I. I need you to hear this. Especially if you're in the overwhelmed camp, okay? We got a couple of camps. So if you're in the overwhelmed camp, you don't have to do it all. You don't have to learn every tool. You don't have to be on every platform. You don't have to automate your entire life by Friday. The hype is designed to make you feel behind because feeling behind makes you buy things. I know the game. I spent $20,000 learning that game the hard way. You don't need everything. You need the right thing inside of your business at the level you're actually at right now. So if you don't need all of this up here because you're here, you're. Maybe you're in the middle, then that's. Then that's. Maybe that's where you need to be. Pick one problem that's eating your time. Solve that one, then breathe, then pick the next one. That's it. That's the whole strategy. Structure over. Hustle. One clear system, y'. All. It's gonna be ten half built ones. So if you've been feeling behind, I want to give you permission right now to stop measuring yourself against the loudest person in your feed. They're not your ruler. Your business at peace. Running on systems that fit you is worth more than anybody's highlight reel. I want to say. I want to tell you that we're going to spend time on this literally all season. Practical, no hype. Here's actually how to do it. Conversations about using tools that ground you, that help you be grounded. So you're not panicking because I don't want you to be afraid of the future. I want you to be equipped for it. I want to help you be equipped for it. Now I want to talk about something that's connected to all of this, but goes a little, little bit deeper. And this one's personal. I keep meeting. Who are Stepping into something. People, lots of people. When, uh, and. And I say lots and lots and lots of people who are stepping into something new. A new business, a new industry, a new level, a new room they've never been in before. They're moving forward. They're doing the brave thing. And underneath the brave thing, they are lonely. They're lonely, they're unsupported, and they're figuring it out completely by themselves. Yeah, maybe that's you right now. Maybe you left a job to build something of your own and nobody in your real life, quote, unquote, understands what you're doing. Maybe you moved into a new field and you feel like the only one in the room who doesn't already have the map. Maybe you leveled up. You, You. You got the thing, you. You got the client, you got the opportunity in. You assume support would show up at the new level, and instead it got quieter up there. I, uh, feel you. That's a real thing nobody warns you about. Sometimes the higher you climb, the fewer people are standing next to you. I know that feeling deeply. Intimately, unfortunately, but fortunately for you, when I was building this business, when I first started building this business back in 2018, and those 15 minute breaks, I was doing it by myself. My father was extremely ill during that time, and I was carrying that. I was carrying. Helping to carry those, Those departments at work. I was carrying a dream that a lot of people around, around me, they just could not see it yet. And I spent that $20,000 partly because I was so hungry for someone, anyone, to just show up for me in that way, to stand next to me and say, here, this is how you're not crazy. Keep going. Most of those programs took my money and left me exactly as alone as I felt before. I'm gonna be honest with you. And I remember thinking, if I ever get to the other side of this, I'm, uh, not going to pull the ladder up behind me. I'm going to be the support I couldn't find. I'm gonna do just that. I'm gonna do just that. So let me say to you what I needed someone to say to me back then. You're not behind. You're not doing it wrong because it's hard. It's hard because it's new. And it's new because it's something you've never done before. And new is supposed to feel like this. The discomfort is not a sign that you're failing. It's a sign that you're growing into a space that's bigger than the one you used to fit in. And you're not meant to do it alone. That's a lie, y'. All. That's a lie. The lie of the entrepreneur who did it all by herself, himself, themselves, gritted their teeth, never asked for help, pull themselves up by the boo straps. Listen, that story is not aspirational. It's just lonely. And half the time, it's not even true. Nobody builds anything entirely alone. There's always someone. A mentor, a friend, a community. A person who believed before the proof. The problem is that support doesn't always come and find you, especially when you're moving into new spaces. Sometimes you have to build it. Sometimes you have to reach out first. Sometimes you have to be brave enough to say the vulnerable thing. Hey, I'm new here, and I could use some help. And here's what I've learned. Every single time I've been brave enough to say that out loud, someone has shown up. Maybe not the person that I've experienced, expected, but someone. Community is out there, y'. All. It's just usually on the other side of admitting you need it. So if you're moving into new space right now and it's quiet and you feel unsupported, I, uh, want you to hear me. And I want you to hear me. Well, you're not the only one. There's a whole crowd of us out here doing the same exact brave, lonely, hopeful thing. And that's exactly where the next part comes in. Because I think we can fix the loneliness together and on purpose. Okay? I want you to consider that. Here's what I believe with my whole chest. And I'm gonna say it with my whole chest. We can make a difference for each other. Not someday, right now. Today. Not in some big dramatic way like, you know, the fireworks and all those things, but in small, consistent, deliberate ways to add up to something. None of us could build alone. None of us could build alone. Because here's the truth about all of it. The AI overwhelmed. The loneliness of these new spaces we're finding ourselves in, the feeling of being behind. Listen. Almost every hard thing gets lighter when you're not carrying it by yourself. The overwhelm can shrink when someone who's a step away or a step ahead even says, here, let me show you the one tool that actually matters. That loneliness lifts when someone says, I see you. Um, I see you. I've been there. Keep going. The fear begins to quiet down when you look around and realize you're standing in a room full of people who are scared. Just like you are. And we're building anyway. We are literally building anyway. So I want to make a case for something that's gone a little out of style. Standing with one another on purpose. That means choosing collaboration over competition. And I know people have said that for eons, and it ends up being a lie, but I, uh, want you to really, really think about this. I really, really want you to think about this. There is room. I promise you there is room. The person doing something similar to you is not your enemy. They might be your greatest ally. Some of the best things I've built came from partnering with people I couldn't. I could have seen as competition. But instead, we chose to build together. Two people standing together reach further than two people standing apart, guarding their corners. It means reaching back. If you know something, teach it. If you've walked a path, leave the light on for the person behind you. You don't have to be at the top of the mountain to help someone one step behind you. You just have to turn around. Just. Just turn around. The most powerful thing you can do for a community is share what you learn the hard way, so somebody else doesn't have to learn it with the same expensive price, which is the lonely way. The way you did it means showing up for the events, for the launches, for the person who posted something brave and got no responses, commenting, sharing, sending the message that says, I saw this and it matters. Support isn't only the biggest gestures. Is usually a lot of times y', all the small consistent ones is being the person who shows up. And it means being the support you once needed. That's the whole thing. Honestly, every one of us knows what we wish somebody had done for us at our lowest, most confused, most unsupported moment. So do that for somebody else. Be the answer to someone else's quiet prayer for help. This is why this show exists. Go be Great with Karina Calhoun. Go be great. Go be great. Go Be great is not about me telling you how great I am. It's a table. It's a place where we sit down together and figure it out. The building, the system, the systems, the fear, the growth, all of it is people who are in the same space at the same time. Maybe not the same industry, but the space of, um, building. When you go be great, you make it easier for the next person to go be great, too. Greatness is not a solo sport. It's contagious. It spreads. So this season, let this be the invitation. Let's stop doing this alone. Let's build the Support we all wish we had. Let's stand with one another deliberately, generously, consistently, and let's watch what happens when we do. Let's watch what happens. I want you to think about this. I, uh, want you to think about this. Okay, so I'm off my soapbox. I had to get that out. I had to get it out because that's been. That's. Oh, my goodness. That's been in my mind, on my heart, in my soul, and I got it out. Okay, so let me tell you exactly what to expect now that we're back. So you know what you're signing up for. Here's the rhythm of the show. Some weeks is just me and you. Solo episodes, like this one, where I take one real topic and we go deep into it. Practical stuff you can actually use. How to use these AI tools without losing your mind. How to build systems that give you your time back. How to grow without, um, really burning out. I mean, like, crashing out. Crashing out. How to move into new spaces without feeling like you're doing it alone. Grounded, honest, no hype conversations, y'. All. If I hear one more hype conversation, I'm, um, gonna vomit. We're going to be talking about structure over hustle every single time. Structure over hustle. Now, some other weeks, some other weeks, I'm going to bring in a guest to the table, and these aren't going to be polished. Everybody pretends they have it all figured out conversations. I need y' all to know that. I need y' all to understand that I want the real ones. People who've built something meaningful and are willing to tell you the truth about how the walls they hit, the things that didn't work, the twenty thousand dollar lessons. Because that's where the gold is. Not in the highlight reel. In the honest middle, the messy middle. Now, let me just say this. A few things that I want to. I. I want to promise you about how the show operates. I'm not gonna waste your time. I'm not gonna sell you fear. I'm not gonna make you feel behind so I can make you feel like you need me. We not doing that here. That's not how I do anything. What I'm going to do is show up consistently, bringing you real value, and treat your time and attention like they're precious. Because, baby, they are. Your time and your attention are two things that you can never get back once you invested into somebody. If a topic in these episodes hit something that you're wrestling with, I want to hear about it. I want you to reach out to me. I want you to tell me this show gets better when it's a conversation and not a broadcast. Your questions, your struggles, your wins, those shape where we go next. So don't be a stranger. If you don't want me to use your name, I won't use your name, but talk to me about it. DM me, email me, Skype me. Oh, Skype don't exist no more, but reach out to me. Now let me say this about being a stranger, not being a stranger. I want to talk about where you can actually go to get on the show. If you're listening and you, you say, listen, I got a messy middle that I want to. I will. I feel like this is me lighting the path for somebody behind me. You want to get on. Here's something I'm excited about. I want m more of you at this table. So if you've built something real, if you've got a story, you've got a lesson, an expertise, a hard won truth that would help the people listening. I want to talk to you. You don't have to be famous. You don't have to have a, uh, huge following. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to have something really honest and useful to share and a willingness to be real about it. That's the whole, that's the whole thing, y'. All. So here's exactly how to apply to be on the show, to be a guest. I'm going to walk you through it. So grab your, your notebook, your pen, whatever. Um, I want you to the step. Step one is go to podcast war cry.com. that's podcast.warcry.com War Cry is W A R K R Y. Actually I forgot, it's podcast.warcry.com backslash listen, backslash listen again. War cry is w a r k r-y.com and I'm gonna put all of this in the show notes and in the description so you don't have to remember it. But just be on the lookout for it. Okay? Now step two, when you get there, you're gonna see a guest application. Fill it out. It's straightforward. It asks you who you are, what you do and what you want to talk about on the show. All of those things, right? Take your time with the last part. Tell me the real story, the thing that you're actually passionate about, the lessons that you learned, the messy middle. Okay, talk about that. That's what helps me to see. Actually, it's not even me. It's the team. I don't even see your applications, y'. All. I'm gonna be real with you. I'm be honest with you. For those that have been rocking with us for any length of time, you know, I don't. I don't look at the applications. I have no idea. Only thing I know is I'm scheduled on this day at this time to meet with this person. Every single conversation that we have, they're Fireside Chats. We don't have scripts, I don't send out, um, a bunch of questions of what I'm, um, what I'm going to ask. We used to do that way back in the day. We don't do that anymore. Anymore. I used to have a whole long list of questions that I could potentially ask you. I remember one time we did an episode, and the lady was actually reading her answers. She was reading our answers. We don't do that. These are Fireside Chats, y'. All. This is about you. It highlights you. It, ah, highlights you. And it highlights the steps in the middle, the. The messy middle that you're helping to bring somebody else up so that they can go be great. Okay? So the team actually reviews that and decides if you. If you can be on the show, because they know. The team knows we know. They want to make sure you're a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you. So once you do that, you're going to hit submit. That's it. Once you hit submit, it comes right to the team. If it's a fit, the team is going to reach out, get you scheduled, and, uh, we're good to go. That's it. So remember, podcast.warcry.com backslash Listen, fill out the application, hit submit. Whether you're a listener who's been here for years, because we've been here for a minute, y', all, or someone who just found the show today. If you got something to share, the door is open. I love, love, love to have you. All right, so we've covered a lot today. We talked, uh, we talked about why I've been gone for seven months. I've been building, rebuilding, living life, and coming back to you with something substantial, something worth your time. We talked about AI and the truth that you're. You're not behind. You don't have to do it all. And these tools are here to give you your time back, not take your place. Right? We talked about the loneliness of stepping into new spaces and the lie. Oh, my goodness. That you're Supposed to do it all by yourself. You're supposed to do it alone. And we talked about the thing I believe most, that we can stand with one another on purpose and change the whole experience of building for every single one of us. Every single one of us. So here's what I want to leave you with. Whatever you're building right now, however new it is, however quiet it's been, however behind you've been made to feel, I, uh, want you to keep going. You're not too late. You're not doing it wrong. You're doing a brave thing in a loud, fast, overwhelming season. And the fact that you're still here, still listening, still trying, means you got exactly what it takes. And, uh, you don't have to do it alone. That's the whole point of this show. So let's do it together in this season. Reach out, Tell me what's going on in your life, how this show is impactful for you. And even if you choose apply to be a guest on the show situation, send me the message, show up for someone else who needs it. Be the support you once needed. Let's build this thing. Let's build the thing really, that none of us could build by ourselves. I am so excited to be back, y'. Uh, all seven months was. Was long enough. I missed this seat, I missed sitting here, and I. I missed you all. So again, I am Karina Calhoun. This has been Go be great with Calhoun. And until next time, you already know, we will see you all on the flip side. I love y'. All. Remember, I want to leave you with this one last thing. This. This one last thing. You have the authority to go be great. You don't have to ask anyone. You don't have to try and figure it out by yourself. You absolutely 100% can go be great. You have permission. And we're now building our table. See you on the flip side.