Transforming Complexity into Clarity: Jalen Gonel on Intuitive AI and Personal Evolution (Part 1)

Join the conversation with Jalen Gonel, the brain behind Breadcrumbs.ai, as we unravel the threads of complexity in learning and entrepreneurship. Imagine a world where the intricate becomes attainable, where AI is your ally on a transformative journey through knowledge—this is the essence of Jalen's vision. In a heartfelt discussion, we trace Jalen's personal evolution from an introverted thinker to a pioneering force in tech, highlighting the pivotal role of self-education and emotional intelligence in crafting solutions that resonate deeply with human needs. As we navigate his narrative, we uncover insights into the art of connecting with others, the power of empathy, and the significance of solving real-world problems through intuitive and innovative thinking.

What if the path to your dreams was not strewn with obstacles but paved with ease? We question the traditional mantra of 'no pain, no gain' and invite you to consider an alternative approach to achieving your aspirations. In this episode, we dissect the creative process, contrasting meticulous planning with the allure of spontaneity, and offer guidance to all visionaries yearning to bring their ideas to life. Delve into a philosophy where meaningful pursuits are guided by your own North Star, and where the genuine effort is not a bid against failure but a peaceful endeavor towards living without regrets. Our dialogue with Jalen promises to not only inspire but also provide you with the mindset to forge your own path, illuminated by purpose and the courage to share your story with the world.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Okay, hello and welcome to another episode of the Leader Brew. I am Dr Rick Auerwood and I am your host for today. As I always say, I'm so excited to bring you yet another story from another former student, but I will say this time I am really excited. I think it's going to be a fascinating topic, not only from what's facing us all today with the influx of AI technology, machine learning, robots and all of that sort of stuff, but I want to also spend some time with my guest today talking about that human side, talking about what makes him motivated. Where is that confidence coming from? What's that conviction? So it is my pleasure to welcome today to the Leader Brew podcast my former student, jaylin Goodell, from breadcrumbai.

Speaker 2: 1:15

So welcome. Yes, yes, yes, professor, it is such a pleasure. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I've listened to a bunch of your podcasts and it's honestly an honor to be on this podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:26

That's fantastic and I think it's going to be really exciting to where we can certainly talk about breadcrumbs and that whole platform that you've put together. I did an attempt at trying to simplify an explanation for our listeners of what breadcrumbs is. I'm going to test it out on you and see how close, if at all, I came and I come up with the. This is my sort of what breadcrumbsai is. It's like gathering breadcrumbs to piece together like a loaf of bread. How close did I come in that?

Speaker 2: 2:07

I want to say you hit the nail right on the head right there. I mean, that's exactly where the name comes from. The goal with breadcrumbs is essentially to make complex topics simple by breaking them up into little, small, little chunks to create a path to learning and understanding. I guess like a trail of breadcrumbs, but using the power of connection, or connecting ideas through the power of AI to get you to your goal faster and yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:40

So I think sometimes we're looking at AI and leadership and new products coming at us every day, and yesterday was the text to video program that will eventually come out, and I was just sitting on the couch listening to this and I thought to myself, okay, now this is something new, this is something different, and it feels as though it's getting overwhelming. I think, in some respects, what I'm interested in is really less about the technology and more about you. What motivates you to do this work?

Speaker 2: 3:21

Yeah, yeah, it's a very good question, I mean. I think, first and foremost, I think, with everything, if you really want to do I mean to do anything right there has to be some motivation behind that. And to do bigger things and take up a lot of time, take a lot of sacrifice out of your life and other things that you could be doing, it takes a really large amount of motivation. I guess it's twofold. So the first was I grew up very shy, anxious, nervous, but I did love to build things. I remember in the third grade I built like a 6,000 piece like Taj Mahal set. In high school I was programming with like a VR headset. So the Apple Vision Pro is getting a demo of that.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Crazy, how much time has gone by. In like you know, past seven years I had after getting into college, I basically told myself I'm done like being a scared of the world. I want to get. I want to give myself the education that I guess I hadn't gotten in school about life, how to communicate, how to make myself better, how to articulate, how to just, I guess, feel confident to do what I set my mind to. And you know there's lots of different areas in which I mean, it's everything from, like, the tactics of conversation to the, I guess, the psychological aspect of it. But from that period of time, which I about three months to being in college, I went from, you know, maybe having like me, like well talking and being able to talk to, I guess, so many people, and that opened up so many opportunities for me. I mean, and I remember my 18th birthday I had maybe seven people outside my, I guess, like family. It's a happy birthday to me. And then that next year I had like well over 100. And that was one of the first very strong moments for me, when I realized that giving yourself the education that may not have just sort of come in front of you is like the key to unlocking power in yourself or reimagining the way that you could change your world and the way that you wanted to. And I thought that was an amazing feeling and I wanted to, you know, create that in something or in others.

Speaker 2: 5:35

But that was freshman year, and so I take a little break and there's quarantine, right, and I guess I'd fallen off that path and someone had said, you know you're very emotionally unintelligent. I took that more seriously and so during quarantine I mean most of those books over there I spent reading If I disagreed with someone, if I didn't know what I could say about a given group of people, if I couldn't get what it is what it was about, them maybe want to understand them more, and it was with this heuristic that you know, I just want to be an entrepreneur and if I understand people then I can understand their problems. If I understand their problems, then there's some value somewhere that can come from that, like that understanding along with being able to, I guess, understand people better, such that I can connect with them better and just be able to say something that resonates, or be able to get to something that resonates. I mean then I guess this is the third part, but big in San Francisco. I was there for about six months ago. I just wanted to see entrepreneurship, and you may not see it over there, but over there you'll see a leash wrapped in rope. Was it that you'd wear around your leash as you're surfing? It was the end of our presentations, the end of the semester in San Francisco.

Speaker 2: 7:02

I was surfing in Maui and I thought, oh, wow, pretty cool. Well, out of all the things I expected to happen, I didn't expect the leash to actually break, snap in the middle of the ocean while I was fighting a rip current and take my board all the way to the ocean. And it was quite a near-death experience. Had there not been a surf instructor who swam all the way to shore, grabbed my board, swam back and got me, I don't think I'd be here. And it is those and I've read a lot about the idea of near-death experiences and how they can really bring clarity to your life.

Speaker 2: 7:40

It was in that moment. It was like, ok, well, what do I want to do? And it was starting off with a just to make as many mistakes as possible clothing line within Northeastern. But then, when I saw I was playing with chatGPT, I bounced on this idea of leverage and realizing, oh my gosh, this thing is pretty cool, this thing is just utility incarnate. And I was just trying to test it, asking questions, and I was asking this really obscure subject in psychology Termin's termites, basically this guy who did a study just to test IQ.

Speaker 2: 8:18

But Termin's termites? It refers to the 1,000 children that he had watched over 40 years to see how their lives would play out based on their IQ. And this came from giving 250,000 kids IQ tests. But I realized in that moment I couldn't even begin to ask that question if I didn't even know the word, the term Termin's termites and I thought, ok, as the area of our knowledge grows, so greater does the perimeter of our ignorance.

Speaker 2: 8:56

So how could I create a way to expand that area of knowledge such that you could get into something, you could learn something and just get exposed to the topics, to the subjects, to the real aspect of learning, which is through connection, through play.

Speaker 2: 9:18

We learn really well in terms of play, in terms of being out in our environment, because, yes, there is some structure, but when you're forced to have unpredictable situations, to things, you're able to build multiple connections, you're able to build those synapses in your brain such that you can just comprehend it because your mind has recalled all these previous sort of test cases. And okay, long story short. Okay, connection, bringing that idea of connection into learning and using the utility of AI, which is just the power of thought, but using that such that, based on the individual, it could unlock, explain and connect whatever it is that they wanted to learn, and there's nothing that would allow more than learning and learning and I think as well applying sort of your mind mapping of those breadcrumbs, those interconnected possibilities and interrelated perhaps, and I think that's something that has been a big part of your makeup.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Now you have this opportunity, through technology, to get it sort of out of the head and onto something tangible, something that others can experience as well, because, as you're talking and I'm quite sure the listeners were thinking as well here's someone that's really motivated, very passionate about what they're doing, and I think sometimes we get lost in the details and we forget to sort of take a higher view up and say, okay, what did I just say? What am I really saying? And I think the one thing about you is that, yes, you can provide us with details. Clearly, I've seen your TikToks, with the showy, the diagrams written on the board, the complexities associated with that. It doesn't look anything like my to-do list, by the way. Mine is much more linear, but I think what's really really exciting is that thing you're bringing forward. I suppose the question really becomes do you think that people are born with confidence or do you think that's just something that they gain over a course of time?

Speaker 2: 11:42

Yeah, yeah, I think that, for example well, I think the real answer is much grarer, but I mean maybe in the near future, with how AI is able to sort of like work and think and solve all these problems, we'll probably get the real answer. My personal belief is that it's a mixture, but I think humans are sort of like rewritable software in that we're born with, I guess, some predispositions we're born with, I guess what our genetic makeup says that we're in some ways predisposed to be. For example, I have a relatively well, very low temperament. I get that from my father because he has a very low temperament. I recognize that him and I have a certain empathy towards people that my uncles and my even my mom and my sister cannot understand, but we just both really resonate and I really love that about him. I think that's one of the best things I've gotten from him, because that low temperament has actually allowed me to have a greater sense of empathy, because it makes me really consider the other person as opposed to just instinctively getting mad.

Speaker 2: 12:47

But I think that confidence I once heard from a very wise person that you know confidence is building an unshakable stack of proof that you are who you say you are and at the same time, right, you know, it just inherently takes experience. Right, it takes trials and tribulations, it takes the ability to do hard things and the hard things. The hard thing about hard things is that, like it's not easy, it builds adversity, but it's essential because, you know, I think I've worked very hard within myself in my life where I don't care about what anyone says about me. I mean, I do obviously like in the sense of like for a product, did I make the correct product such that I'm able to cater to my customer, my archetype. But just in a, I guess in a higher sense, right, I am like I'm not anything, but I'm not nothing either. Right, I'm the one who decides the way I want to live my life. And I think that that really just comes from like those really hard, I guess, 20 seconds of courage and like being willing to go the other way and, you know, against the crowd.

Speaker 2: 14:07

And it may not be a really strong moment initially, right, it may not be like willing to stand up, you know, against everyone for a given belief. Right, being ostracized publicly in front of like hundreds. It may not be that. It could start off just something like, really seriously, just as simple as I'm going to order this on the menu that I've never ordered before, right? That little like that little sort of battle, right Can be like the hardest victories for somebody, and we never know that. But it takes being willing to think different, to do different, to act different, over and over and over again, to the point that's beaten into you that, yeah, I may be wrong, right, but I'm confident, based on what I know, based on the time I've had, that this is the correct answer. And yes, people are saying things and, yes, they're very smart, yes, they're smarter than me, yes, they're saying this, but based on this and this, I believe this. I could be wrong. I want to test this hypothesis and I'm confident enough to at least be willing to try.

Speaker 1: 15:07

That's wonderful. Let me sort of pick up on that, but take us back back in time, two years ago. Let's go back to just a short period of time it seems like a couple of years and I think one of the things that people would be interested to know is how do you take something that's sort of twirling around in your head, something that in your mind you can obviously see, and then how do you actually go about getting it out there, getting it worked on, making that plan? Is it where you say, okay, here's my calendar for the next 12 months and I'm gonna do this in month one and this in month two and this in month three, or is it more? I'm just gonna get on this horse and I'm just gonna ride it and see where I end up at? I mean, I guess what I'm really asking is if someone is out there that has some sort of an idea it doesn't have to be AI, of course, but whatever that may be how do you actually make that happen?

Speaker 2: 16:09

Good question. Yeah, I think it's a million dollar question right For this person who I'm saying this to. Have they ever made anything before? Or probably not really, because I think that changes things.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Oh, in my hypothetical yeah. No, let's just say they're like most college students, just trugging along ultimately getting their degree. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:38

So I think that there's, like, I guess, the deeper sense and then there's, like this quote, unquote, in reality sense, right, in the reality sense. One of the best questions I ever learned was from Tim Tim Ferriss. He had an essay called what if it was easy? Right and how. Whenever we do anything right, we tell ourselves there's a certain amount of effort and time and sacrifice that has to go into something. But often that's what we've told ourselves is the feeling in our gut of, like, you know, the anxiety or like the, you know, overcaffeinated surge, right, a burnout, right. We need to feel that in order to feel like we've done the effort we need. But often it's not the case. What if it was easy? What if I had a day? What if I had, you know, three days? What if I had an hour? What would this look like? Right, because obviously it's not going to be perfect.

Speaker 2: 17:28

You are an individual and if it's your first project, it's going to be awful, right, I mean like. I mean with the exception that, like I mean, some people are just, you know, born, you know, like geniuses. But I think that that's actually much more subjective term and much more made Right. Even in your first iteration it will be awful from what you imagine and envisioned in your head, but to be willing to put it out there, to be willing to show it to people, hey, what do you think Right, even okay and like, if it takes having to work on it, a bit sort of quote, unquote learning in public, right, posting something on like a page that you don't really have, like your family and friends you know there to judge you on, I think. I think I think it's actually a very strong component. It really seriously is the people that you're around to determine who you become right, because, like, even though you have family and friends who really, truly, truly seriously mean the best for you, it's in those very impressionable moments when you're creating something new that you never have before, that people's words are the most powerful and you need to be able to either be strong enough to rise against it, but it's, it's. It's often much harder right, like, even just a slight little jab or social ridicule towards what someone's done, that that first thing they've done is their entire identity Right, and it's only until you make more things does that does, like the given thing, you do become less of an identity in comparison to your previous track record. So it's, I mean, honestly, just, I guess, just just putting stuff out.

Speaker 2: 18:57

I think in the deeper sense, it simply would be really think about, okay, who are you? What do you want in your life, right? Are you someone who is willing to say no, I don't want to do this, I'd rather do something else, I don't want it enough? That's a very valid answer to say I don't want it enough, right? I think we, you know, we have this culture of like ambition and do, do, do, but you know it's it's even more important to say I don't want to do this, this thing, that thing, because then it really clears your mind up.

Speaker 2: 19:27

I think that it really just takes a much deeper sense of why am I doing this? I mean, I actually was talking with my friend who's also an entrepreneur, and we, I guess, traded in terms of this, like our personal philosophies. I'm, I guess I'm much more biased towards the idea of, of meaning, but my idea of that is just, is just a North Star, right? Why am I doing this? Because this it could be for any reason, right. Because I want to, because I mean for me, another one is I have this serious fear that when I'm like old and, like you know, on a rocking chair and I look back on my life and the opportunities I had when I was too scared to do what I had the really clear capability to do, even just to fail, and to look on, to look back on that with regret.

Speaker 2: 20:11

I have a few experiences like that and it hurts. But the idea that the end of my life I would feel that scares me. To like say you know what if I, at least I try, because I've had experiences where you know what, if I tried, fine, you know what, I did everything I could and it wasn't good enough. That's cool, at least I tried. But to not scares me.

Speaker 1: 20:33

I think that's really interesting because that is really where you find the solace in trying it, giving it serious consideration, because you're right, as life goes on, in a stage of life I'll just say later stage at this point you know, you do sort of sit and say, well, you know, when I was in my twenties I should have, I could have, and it's not such the level of regret, but it's to that level of, well, maybe I could have done more. And so I think that takes us back sort of to that achieving part.