AI x Human Connection with Jason Medley
Please enjoy this transcript of the Crown Yourself Podcast, with founder of Thrively, Jason Medley and, your host, transformational story coach, Kimberly Spencer (@Kimberly.Spencer)
Jason Medley is the founder of Thrively, a boutique recruiting and HR firm helping fast-growing tech companies make smarter, evidence-based hiring decisions. With more than 20 years of experience in HR, organizational psychology, and leadership, Jason specializes in blending human insight with AI to modernize recruiting without losing the human connection. He's also the creator of VERDICT, an AI-powered leadership assessment tool, and is passionate about helping individuals and organizations thrive through clarity, purpose, and conscious innovation.
The future isn't being won by whoever creates the most content.
It's being won by whoever creates the most trust.
As AI transforms how we communicate, hire, market, and lead, one question becomes impossible to ignore:
How do we embrace technology without outsourcing our humanity?
In this deeply thought-provoking conversation, Kimberly Spencer sits down with leadership expert, executive coach, and Thrively founder Jason Medley to explore what conscious leadership looks like in the age of artificial intelligence.
Together, they unpack why human connection is quickly becoming the greatest competitive advantage, why authenticity is replacing performance as the new currency of influence, and how leaders can use AI as a collaborative tool without surrendering discernment, wisdom, or sovereignty.
From the rise of AI-generated content and recruiting to founder identity, company culture, health optimization, and building businesses rooted in purpose rather than pressure, this conversation offers a roadmap for leaders who refuse to sacrifice their humanity for efficiency.
If you've ever wondered how to stand out in an increasingly automated world—or how to build a business that people actually trust—this episode will challenge the way you think about leadership forever.
In this episode you'll discover:
- Why trust is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage in an AI economy
- How authentic leadership outperforms performative success
- The hidden danger of outsourcing discernment to AI
- Why company culture is shifting from productivity to emotional resonance
- How values-driven leadership creates sustainable business growth
- Why the future belongs to leaders who amplify humanity—not replace it
Because technology may accelerate business...
But only humanity creates legacy.
*Transcripts may contain typos. We do our best to catch any human or robot errors prior to release. And we thank you in advance for your understanding. Enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast platform. And, you can always watch the episode on YouTube here.
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We good? Great. Let's get to the goods.
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AI x Human Connection
How Conscious Leaders Scale Technology Without Outsourcing Humanity
Crown Yourself® Podcast | Kimberly Spencer with Jason Medley
SEO-Focused Transcript Article • Primary Keyword: AI x Human Connection
Editor’s note: The dialogue below preserves the spoken transcript wording. Strategic headings, timestamps, speaker annotations, and rapid-fire Q&A formatting have been added for readability and SEO.
Guest Takeaways: Jason Medley
Human connection and authentic leadership become more valuable—not less—as AI adoption accelerates.
AI should improve the quality of human decisions by surfacing signal and data, not replace human discernment.
Values alignment matters in hiring, leadership, entrepreneurship, partnerships, health, and the life a leader is consciously building.
Authentic content comes from lived experience, conviction, purpose, and a willingness to be real—not from checking the thought-leadership box.
Leadership principles have not changed because of AI; leaders need to double down on the human fundamentals.
AI x Human Connection: Why Humanity Becomes More Valuable as AI Scales
[00:04.312]
Kimberly Spencer (host): What happens when artificial intelligence can create infinite content, but people are starving for something that actually feels real? In a world that is now flooded with automation, effectiveness, synthetic messaging, AI influencers, AI-generated resumes, that was news to me, and algorithmic communication, human connection is actually becoming a premium product.
And the leaders who thrive in this next era won't just be the most efficient, they'll be the most trusted.
If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the noise of the online world or wondered how to stand out authentically in an AI driven economy or sense that your next level of leadership requires something deeper than, or sense that your next level of leadership requires something deeper than just productivity hacks or performative success, then this conversation is gonna hit home. Today we are entering at, there we go, Joe.
Jelle, you're gonna have fun with this one.
Today we are asking the question, how can leaders scale technology without outsourcing our humanity? And what becomes possible when we stop building from pressure, proving and survival and start leading from clarity, trust and authentic connection? In a visibility economy where information is literally everywhere, trust is your currency, emotional resonance can actually be your positioning strategy,
Kimberly Spencer (host): and your authentic voice is one of the rarest assets that you actually have. Today's guest is Today's guest is someone who has spent decades operating at the intersection of leadership, people, and human connection. Jason Medley is the founder of Thrively, a leadership and relationship-driven boutique recruiting agency, former chief people officer at several top Silicon Valley tech firms,
and the CEO of the upcoming telehealth platform, Orvo, helping you come back to the home of your body, leveraging science and technology. Jason's mission is simple but profound: to help leaders become unblocked in their teams, in their health, in their relationships, so that we all can operate from a space of flow and alignment instead of just burnout and survival. And in today's rapidly evolving technological landscape,
his perspective is needed more than ever. Today we're gonna explore why visibility without trust is becoming ineffective,
why emotional resonance is a new premium positioning, how AI is amplifying the value of deeply human leadership, and so much more. So you gotta stay tuned and hit subscribe to the Crown Yourself Podcast. This podcast exists to help leaders navigate the future consciously. I'm Kimberly Spencer, your host and founder of Crown Yourself,
international TEDx speaker and high performance coach to amazing visionary leaders like Jason. If you are ready to explore what leadership looks like in this age and era of AI, and if you are ready to up level your standards for human connection, then stay tuned and let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Jason.
Conscious Leadership in the Age of AI
[03:33.026]
Jason Medley (guest): Hello, Kimberly. I'm so excited for this conversation. You did a great job on that intro. You're making me sound way more important than maybe I am, excited to go on this journey with you.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Meet I mean Me too. mean this We met years ago in certified high-performance coaching training together and you and I have both have shared such a value for conscious leadership and growth and really leveraging business as a tool for service and up leveling humanity and helping people get unblocked and helping open up those pathways and I think that this is a very important conversation for
where we're going today, because especially with what you're seeing with Thrively, with so much of the technology layoffs and people replacing human connection with AI, how can we operate at this intersection that humanity is literally standing in, which is a precipice that, I mean, we were talking that it only comes along once in a person's lifetime, yes, but I think it also comes on once in humanity's lifetime, or at least as far as we know.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah, for sure. mean, so first of all, the tech industry is not a stranger to chaos and change, obviously innovation, right? But you're exactly right. With the introduction of AI, really the acceleration of AI, a lot of feelings come with that, right? We have a lot of excitement and rightly so. I mean, there's some amazing things that have already come out of AI and absolutely can.
But there's also a lot of fear and quite honestly, there's a lot of anger as well. And I think the biggest thing in this moment or whenever there's any, you know, huge shifts, in the world or particularly with technology. And you see this with leaders as well is our ability to walk side along of humanity, right? To bring humanity into our decision-making. to, it's, It's really easy with, with AI to sort of.
just put it on autopilot and let it go. And that also includes just being a leader and communication and all of those things. But if I can be really blunt, think people are tired of the bullshit, right? And I think, I mean, it's so true. So in the work that I do between Thrively and that's meeting with founders, executives, that's interviewing leaders,
Kimberly Spencer (host): 100 %
Jason Medley (guest): you know, and, and great individual contributors and tech as well to, the work I'm doing with Orvo and then my own coaching clients. sit across from people all the time who are exhausted and tired and fearful and also tired of the bullshit. Even the CEOs tired of the bullshit, right? And we went through this thing called the pandemic a few years back. And I think a lot of people had a moment. and they, you know, they,
There was a glimpse of coming back to yourself and rethinking about your purpose and what that looked like. And some people really carried that through and did some great things. But, But really what people want now out of their work, the candidates that I speak to, even when I was leading as a chief people officer, people are thinking about purpose a little bit different. They're not just buying into the nine to five job. I'm just going to burn the midnight oil and do the thing. And I think right now, particularly with AI,
we've shifted and this happens particularly in tech and other industries as well where at one moment it might be a candidate market and one moment it might be an employer market. And the down and dirty of it right now is that it's more of an employer market. There's a lot of leaders who are taking advantage of this time. They're undercutting employees. They're forgetting their humanity. They're making layoffs when they don't necessarily need to. They're not thinking about
how do we bring this technology in alignment with humanity and how can we really use this to an impact and a ripple effect of good? And I don't mean that everyone is acting out that way, but some of our biggest players are. And that's where the fear is coming in. That's where the exhaustion's coming in. And...
that's where quite honestly, if we don't start having more conversations like this, we're gonna look up and we're gonna have totally lost our humanity in the work that we do.
You Can't Outsource Caring: Human Connection as a Competitive Advantage
[08:10.936]
Kimberly Spencer (host): And I think you can't outsource caring. And when you put care and energy and even if you're working with AI, just as simple as something as like content, and producing content, I'm all for allowing for AI to be a collaborator, but to let it replace your voice entirely, it creates a different dynamic in how it's experienced.
And I mean, I saw it when chat GPT came on the scene a few years ago and everyone is posting on LinkedIn, exciting news about their podcast episode dropping. I'm like, girlfriend, your podcast drop every single week. Like, I don't think it's exciting news every single time. And just being able to see through like what you said, see through the bullshit.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah. Yep.
Kimberly Spencer (host): How do you see human connection as a competitive advantage in today's marketplace for both companies and for founders and for employees?
Jason Medley (guest): Well, I think it's still true that relationships sort of rule the day, right? Even when we're interviewing for people to come into our organizations, like interviewing as an example is incredibly biased, right? And this is actually where when you bring in something like AI alongside recruiting, where it's really broken and incredibly biased and you use it in the right way, you can end up with something really, really great. But we, we,
absolutely, it's actually really rare to find leaders nowadays who are compassionate, who are listening, who are really connecting the products they're building with what people sort of need and what's going to make their lives better. And I don't think it's necessarily like I don't buy into this argument that there's just
a group of evil people that get together a few times a year and go, how can we piss off the world? And how can we like, you know, how can we create the most frustration as possible in the world and do everyone dirty? Right? I actually think, especially when you're very close to technology and are close to these companies, it rarely happens that way. What happens is we have stakeholders, we have investors, we're all in a race to adopt the technology and be number one.
and we're doing what we've been told to do for so long, or what we think what success looks like, that we just forget about the people and the users along the way, and it becomes the bottom dollar. And not that we shouldn't make a lot of money, and it's not okay to make a lot of money, and we can argue if there should be billionaires or not billionaires, whatever, but the folks and the leaders and the CEOs who adopt
strong principle and a value of leaning into their humanity being more authentic and showing up for their people and listening to people and speaking to them in a way that's like just human, know, that's just not being an asshole and like helping like meet people where they're at within their fears and all their emotions around all this is going on if you can show up and do that, I think you're going to be way more successful in terms of going after your purpose.
Jason Medley (guest): I do think you can make a lot of money being an asshole and laying off a lot of people and being evil in this world. You can, you can absolutely make a lot of money. What is that going to net us in the end? It's not going to be great. So I think being able to first one, understand your values very clearly and being aligned with your own purpose as a leader is incredibly important. And I think so many of them aren't, but once you're able to do that and you're able to create that ripple effect,
and all of the work that you do, especially in your communication, especially in your content to your point, I think that's when you can be super impactful. I think that's when people will take you more seriously. I think that's when people will wanna follow you. I think that's when people may wanna burn the midnight oil and go after it with you.
Emotional Resonance, Trust, and the Future of Company Culture
[12:11.268]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, I think it comes down to building that culture that's rooted in emotional resonance, that's rooted in conscious leadership rather than just performative success. And I think quite frankly, it's like when you're burnt out and you're so overwhelmed and your nervous system is fried, your brain literally can't think of like being compassionate. It struggles because we're wired to survive. And so when we're constantly in that survival mode, rather than recognizing that
that what if pressure gets to be a privilege? What if pressure and the pressure of the role and being in that space is actually something that can be treated with honor and in bringing that honor and care and compassion. And I was watching just yesterday the documentary on Teddy Roosevelt and I found it very interesting because I think it's very culturally relevant because he was the first celebrity president. And even though he grew up super wealthy, he
Jason Medley (guest): Mmm.
Kimberly Spencer (host): was very much for the people and he went out and he would go be with the people and talk to people and have conversations. And that opened his eyes to the disparity that was currently, that was happening back then. And I think that that's where the power of conversation comes into play. I have, I think we talked about this in one of our sessions, I call it the hostess standard of the.
the janitor standard of like, are you having a conversation with the guy who's like in the bathroom cleaning the toilets and like just saying hi and being kind and just being aware of like what their life is like. And are you asking about the server who's serving you a meal? Like, hey, how's your day going? And being in that conversation as a leader will help frame and shape leadership because you're looking at everybody through the same lens of human rather than as just a
transactional property that can be discarded if the bottom line isn't being satisfied.
Jason Medley (guest): And so this is so true, right? So particularly, and A lot of the folks that I interview and help hire, my team hires for, and tend to be senior leaders or middle management, or really sort of experienced or super technical, principle level individual contributors, right? So these are people that are making pretty good money, have big impact in companies,
people you don't want to lose. They bring a lot of knowledge to the table, right? The number one thing they are all telling me they want right now is they want, and they say it in one form of another, but they want like realness. They want authenticity. They're tired of that bullshit. They want particularly in AI because this conversation comes up in every conversation and in every interview. What is their strategy around AI?
How are they thinking about it? How are they adopting it? What does it look like? And for those leaders who are, I don't know, like building with their people, having those conversations, calling out those fears, I think they're gonna do a lot better job holding on and attracting the top level talent that they need. Right now there are big dollars going after the people who are building great AI products. And I mean, some of these companies, are north of $1 million
compensation packages and they're having a difficult time closing candidates. Like, did you ever think that we were going to have a time where we would offer people over a million dollars and an individual contributor role most times and they would still turn you down? Like that, like That shows you how disconnected some of these leaders are. And I think they can just write a check and then they can attract whoever they want. But, but, But they are so out of sync with where I think our people are right now,
Kimberly Spencer (host): wild.
Jason Medley (guest): with what we need as humanity and what's gonna carry us over into sort of the other side of AI and what that's going to.
AI-Assisted Hiring Without Outsourcing Human Judgment
[16:13.828]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, not the dark, scary side of AI, but I think an AI future where we can work collaboratively with it. When you see what people are needing, and I mean, you're speaking with people from all walks of life and being able to really see the spectrum, how do you determine signal in relationships to know what is, who is the right person for what, especially as a leader
Jason Medley (guest): Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Spencer (host): rather than just transactional networking or transactional conversations? Because like you said, writing a million dollar check isn't even working. how do we determine that signal?
Jason Medley (guest): Well...
I'll say a couple of things and I'll do a little plug for Thrively here for this as well, if you'll allow me, but only because it's a great example. so, well, one is I don't think we're very good at it. So what I've mentioned before is I think that we're incredibly biased. Like we are shaped by our experiences, by the things that have happened to us, by the rooms that we've been in. And I actually don't think we're always the best judgment
of what might be great for our organizations or not. Now, I don't mean that we're not capable of identifying if someone's an asshole or understanding their values or whatever, but what happens a lot of time is we put a lot of trust in the people around us to make decisions on who we should be hiring into our organization. And what happens is, is people get lost in the wrong competencies, meaning sometimes they don't even understand the competencies that make a really great hire today, right? So,
If you're hiring any sort of leader today, a competency around AI and how they approach AI and how they validate it, how they're thinking about it, how they're doing user research around it, how they're, how they're, you know, leveraging the knowledge base around it. All of those things are incredibly important. And a lot of times what happens is we get distracted by the shiny things as human, or they connect to something in our past that makes sense. And we get really excited. at Thrively, we do a couple of things.
One is when we're kicking off with a new client or a new leader on a new role, we're really trying to understand the motivations and the values. And sometimes that exercise is like the first time they've done it. Right. It's sort of like, what, what's the center of gravity for you? Like, like not, don't mean just like, what are the technical things someone needs to do, but like, what makes someone
Jason Medley (guest): great inside of your organization, what are the values that are important for you in that type of hire? And then how do you measure it? Like that question, like, how do you measure it? How do you even think about it is just like, Whoa, I don't know, or, I just know I had that gut feeling in the first 60 seconds, which is horrible, right? So, so, So one is actually just talking it out and being very real. What are your values? And sometimes they go away, they think about it, they come back and they go, actually, this thing's really important. This thing's really important. And it starts a really great discussion.
But then this is where technology can be amazing. So inside of Thrively, we created a tool called Verdict. And what Verdict does is an AI sort of assisted tool. And in a lot of interviews today, they are recorded. It's become very natural, especially in tech. It's not quite, We don't see it as much in every industry, but it's going to get there. Meaning like many interviews are just like this. They're over a platform like Zoom. There's an AI recorder, and you're able to actually get the transcript
of those sessions. Well, this is where AI is really great because AI can understand what are the key values and the competencies you're trying to measure. And they can tell you based on all the interviews that happened, everyone who interviewed that person, Hey, do we even have enough data points? Did we ask enough questions? Did we get enough examples? Did we go deep enough to even understand if we have enough information to make a yes or no decision for this person based on these individual competencies?
Because I've done this long enough to tell you, and by the way, senior leaders are the worst at interviewing, but I've done this enough to know that like the competencies that we should be measuring for don't actually happen in the interview. We get sidetracked on strategy or that shiny thing. And so this is where a technology and a great understanding of our values and what makes a good fit and the competencies where actually the companies that actually matter and the ones that don't, when you can bring those two things together, it's amazing. And here's the other thing I think about AI.
AI can absolutely make decisions for us. It absolutely can. Could Verdict tell you like who you should hire and who you shouldn't? Absolutely. Should it? No, I don't want it to, right? I think that's where we get in trouble with AI. AI should be a tool that enables you to make better decisions, right? That gives you the data points and the clarity of what you know and don't know and what you still need to go out and find out. It can
Jason Medley (guest): pull in the research, it could pull in the data points, but at the end of the day as humans, particularly when we're talking about people, bringing people into our organizations, ultimately we should be able to make that decision. And believe it or not, like there is AI out there today in a lot of industries, partly in tech as well, where your first and second round interviews are a hundred percent AI. It's literally letting, You're talking to a robot, it's a horrible experience, people hate it, and it's literally making the decision of like pass or fail. Like they're literally giving it
to AI to make those decisions. Horrible, horrible disconnected experience.
Sovereignty and Discernment: What Leaders Should Never Outsource to AI
[21:44.612]
Kimberly Spencer (host): And I see that as well in like thought leadership in content because when when I see a lot of content that I'm like, oh that's that's a thought leader I've been following for a while and it's predominantly like a hundred percent I'm like chat GPT wrote that and you can kind of sniff it out. Like I think humanity has gotten very good at sniffing out content that it has not been filtered through a human experience, but it's just like oh blast it out blast it out.
And in that space there does create that discernment and that decision of like, do I want to be following this? Do I even care about having this conversation with someone who's not even wanting to participate and create that conversation? And I love what you said about us not outsourcing our discernment and our decision making to AI because that's where our sovereignty is. That's where our power is as humans.
And when we outsource that completely without any sort of, not even governmental regulations, but personal regulations of looking at what decisions are we outsourcing to AI? I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, I was working with Perplexity and Claude and Chat over a legal thing. And before going to our company lawyer to be able to discuss that, because I wanted a wide range of
options and looking at and questions based on this issue that we were that we were processing and It allowed me to get data and information and create questions that I then could take to a professional that I then could ask questions. So I had a little bit more education around it, but it wasn't me saying, "Okay, you're gonna make this decision for me," because Perplexities, Claude and a Chat were all disagreeing without a make the decision
Jason Medley (guest): You know what's interesting to me about, particularly leadership content, right? I think the first problem is even before we let AI write it for us, I think many leaders and many people, like, let's just talk LinkedIn for a second. I have a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn. The content on LinkedIn that people put, like, it's, you know, eye-roll emoji, it's inauthentic, people are tired of it. But what happens is I think,
people climb this ladder and they feel like, okay, I've got to say something. It's what I'm supposed to do, right? And actually there's even, you know, a lot of companies you're even measured by, are you a thought leader? Are you putting stuff out? Like that's part of like what you should be doing. And they hate it.
And they hate it because they don't have anything really authentic to say. One, because they've just been in performative mode for so long, they've lost connection with themselves. And so they don't want to be posting this content. By the way, this was me for many years. And they're just putting stuff out there that's actually just noise. And so then AI comes along, which is really attractive because it's like, I'm supposed to be putting content out there. AI can write it for me. Let me just do that. Right. And so
my issue with it is it's not so much is it AI has written it or not. I mean, we all know like if AI has written a lot of this stuff or not, but it's more like is this truly content that people give a shit about? so, And so like, again, like people are so out of leaders or so many leaders are so out of touch with what people want and what they need and what they wanna hear that they're just putting noise out there. and.
I will tell you like it's one of the filters that I think about a lot. You and I've worked together on this like I you know, I will say that there's a part of me that hates putting content out there and part of it is because I don't want to be just another dude that's like hogging the microphone just saying stuff for the for the sake of saying things, right? Like when I put something out there like I want it to be impactful I want it to be meaningful. I want I want it to touch people
AI-Generated Thought Leadership vs. Authentic Human Voice
[25:49.122]
Jason Medley (guest): like their hearts. you know, I want it. I want it to have a ripple effect in their day and how they work and maybe change their mindset a little bit or get them thinking or have them challenge me and my thinking. And but that's not what's happening. And AI has just become like the lazy man's way of checking the box and people hate it. So so that that that's my thought on the content piece. We could talk all day on that, but that's my soapbox.
Kimberly Spencer (host): I I mean, and I see it, I love that you brought it up, that you're seeing that trend be with not just founders, but people across the team needing to quote unquote put out content. I mean, I just heard, read that I think PayPal recently, PayPal and ChatGPT hired someone who is like specifically a director of content for the founders to be able to
look at their content strategy as a founder led brand. And I think more as AI comes to the forefront and it gets bigger and it's like Pandora's box is open. It's not going anywhere. So looking at what founders and what leaders need to be putting out there in a way that allows them to stay relevant, but also stay connected and stay in conversation. And I think one of the biggest things with social media that we miss is the social aspect.
We think We treat it like just media where it's just like, blast it out, put it out. But one of the things I've loved about your content as I've seen and worked with you in growing it and putting yourself out there is like you're involved with the conversation. If someone comments, you're commenting back. There is a human connectedness rather than an auto response, which I've seen also, which I personally hate, because when you get the...
The only time I like auto responses is like for this podcast, when you see it on Instagram and it says, if you want the full episode, type in the word podcast. That's the only place I think an auto response is appropriate.
Jason Medley (guest): Well, and you know, think part of it is the way that we're packaging AI today, right? AI is going to make your life easier. It's going to turn everything into automation, give you more time in your day. And while there's certain aspects of that that are obviously true and a lot of workflows and things that we can automate, like that is not one you should be doing. there, Yes, you're right. There's nothing more than these auto-generated responses, particularly on LinkedIn.
And it's clearly learning, right? And it's so bad. The absolute worst, and I'll tell you, we've really struggled with this as a business. It's the email outreach. It's the AI assisted writing your outreach. if anyone runs any kind of company, you know that you get tens of emails a day from companies who are like, I can get you X amount of more.
Kimberly Spencer (host): You
Jason Medley (guest): you know, clients or users or whatever, like we'll own your email strategy. We can automate it through AI. And it's so inauthentic. It's so bad. And we tried a couple of different outlets. We experimented with it and it just wasn't us. It did not feel like us. Like we actually hated it. And you cut the step back and go is like this what you want represented, like representing you and your brand, your personal brand, your business brand, right?
And, and I think, again, I think so many people are just accepting like, this is what you do now. This is how you do it. So we should do it. And if you send out enough messages, one will stick and one will land. And this is what I mean when people are tired of the bullshit. Like, like if we're not careful, it's just going to be nothing but noise. Our bots are just going to be talking to each other and, we are going to lose our strongest asset. I think.
which is our humanity. And you're seeing it happen every day.
Depth Over Reach: Why Human Connection Still Wins
[29:44.228]
Kimberly Spencer (host): I think there's something to be said for width rather than depth. Like human connection can give you that depth where you truly feel seen and heard. And ultimately as humans, as beings who are needing connection is one of our core values, core values, core primary needs as humans is to feel connected as though we belong. And that only comes from depth
and vulnerability and having courage to say the thing that might get you canceled, to say the thing that people may not like, that comes with a requirement of courage. And I think when we look at the surface level, AI can really map a lot of the surface stuff. It can get massive reach, but does it get you the depth and the quality rather than the quantity? go ahead.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, you're right, right? It's easy to even just talk about the negative side of AI. But AI can absolutely be this very beautiful thing. And it can help you craft strategies. It can help you fine tune your messaging for sure. It can help you like one of the things I like to do is, and this is my old Chief People Officer hat wearing, right? Like one of my things that I've learned in my content and when I'm talking is when you're a Chief People Officer, when you're leading an HR function at any company, you are
you always have to be politically correct to a certain extent, right? Like, and people love you one day and hate you the next based on whatever's going on in the organization, the shit of the company falls at your literally at your doorstep, right? And I caught myself with with with AI being like, okay, am I offending anyone? Like, literally, I was asking, what am I not? What am I not seeing that I should be seeing? Right? Who might have a problem with that? And
Jason Medley (guest): I mean, clearly that's not right, right? Clearly there's a problem with that. but what does that give you? It just, it gives you this like baloney sandwich of nothingness. And I literally think that that's what people are putting out there. Now, like when I shifted and I started asking things like you, everything that you know about me and my values, is this being true to who I am or can I push further? Like, can I challenge the status quo better? Can I?
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah
Jason Medley (guest): Can I be even more real? Can I be more vulnerable and without crossing the line? Right? And that's where I can start to have a conversation and I consist me and challenge me a little bit. And then I go to writing, you know? And that really started to change. I think here's the other thing with content, just while we're on the topic. I get it. Like it's a numbers game, it's an eyeballs game and we're trying to drive revenue. And the more content we put out there, the better, the better, the better.
But if you get so obsessed with, gotta put out three, four, five pieces a week, I need to get like, it just, like you lose the inauthenticity, right? Like, like the, or you lose the authenticity. Like you, you just start making up crap to say, and you contribute to the noise. When, if you can really be putting things out there that are more impactful, align with your values
that sort of scratch at something that certain people can relate to. I mean, I think one day you and I had a conversation and you challenged me on like, who is your real audience? Everyone's not your audience. Who is your audience, right? You're like, yeah. And is it okay if you upset a few? Yeah, absolutely. Now as a chief people officer, no. Right, but as a business owner, as a thought leader in the space that I'm in, as someone who's wanting to change the status quo, absolutely. And it might be necessary at times. And so,
I think that AI can be a beautiful thing in helping us articulate our strategy, help up level us, help us see some things that we're not seeing, but not in a way when it's just contributing to the noise.
Polarizing Perspectives, Vulnerability, and Authentic Visibility
[33:44.26]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mm-hmm. Yeah, and your light will always be a trigger to those who aren't doing their own shadow work. when you say some... One of the tenets of Communication Queens, when I first put out that course back in 2021, and one of the reasons why I saw podcast guesting as such a powerful asset was because of being able to come onto a podcast and have a polarizing perspective. Now, that doesn't mean you get to be an asshole, but it does mean that, like, are you poking the bear a little bit?
to belief systems, to paradigms that are keeping people stuck or trapped or blocked. Like, are you shining your light a little brighter to where people who are choosing or unconsciously choosing to be in a certain state, to live a certain way, that you're poking the bear on that. You're getting to poke the box on that. Like, just the other day, I posted a picture of me looking super cute and a little crop top and jeans, and I was like, mom vibes.
And like, is polarizing to the perspective that like, as a mom of three, I have to be in like sweats and just like haggard and exhausted all the time. I was like, no, that's not the standard that I think we need to have for parents. Like that's my belief system. That's my hill that I want to stand on. And I think when we look at what are those hills that we really want to stand for, for elevating a standard for humanity and stop settling for a standard of mediocrity, you're not going to appeal to the people who are
currently settling for a standard of mediocrity.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah, and there's something amazing that happens when we're being real in our content and the things that we're saying and we're being authentic to ourselves and we're sharing that and we're being vulnerable, right? And I think back to, like, I know that you have a lot of business owners who listen to your podcast, they can absolutely relate to this. When I started Thrively, you know, I made the decision to...
not go after another executive role inside of corporate. I was just really burned out with that. was a, It was a ladder that I shouldn't have been climbing, right? It wasn't my ladder and I did it anyways. And so I needed to, I knew that I had was more entrepreneurial. I wanted to make an impact in a different way, but I would say probably like the first year of Thrively, you probably wouldn't know it, but, but I was kind of one foot in one foot out, right? I was, I,
constantly having a backup plan. If this doesn't quite work out, like what are the other jobs I can jump into? I caught myself like looking at other opportunities just in case I needed it. And when I finally sort of accepted like, I'm, when I can, I committed not even accepted, but committed, I'm going all in on this thing. And I started one, like I just accepted that in my mind. I knew that I could do it. I believed that I could do it.
It also started shifting how I started talking about my impact in the work that I did and I was able to get a little bit more real with my content as well, right? And I think that when we are true to ourselves and we are being honest about what we're sort of going through and who we are and our stories and our circumstances, I think that they naturally relate to other people. When we're disconnected,
when we're on a ladder we shouldn't be on, I think it's harder to put real content out there. I think it's harder to be genuine. A lot of times I work with CEOs who, it's very clear, and I wanna be careful how I say this. So you work with a lot of founders and CEO, particularly in tech, who they are a CEO or a founder
Jason Medley (guest): because they just think that's a good thing to be, right? Or they think it can make a lot of money or it's a power trip or whatever. And it wasn't birthed out of some sort of passion, some sort of purpose, some sort of conviction that they had. And you can tell the difference in the two very, very quickly. And how you know that, one of the ways that I know that is because everything they do,
is almost by a certain book that they read. Like the way they think they should recruit, the way they should evaluate, the way they should lead, the way they should structure their org, the way they should talk to their board, the metrics they're thinking. Like everything is like by an MBA book that they read or like the Harvard graduate, like executive program that they went to. And none of it is out of some deep conviction that they've lived and that they've seen and that they experienced. And you can tell the difference very, very quickly.
And when you're creating and you're putting things out that come out of true conviction and lived experiences, passion and purpose, and it's aligned, people feel that and people want to follow that and be part of that.
The Golden Ladder: Choosing the Life You Actually Want
[38:41.196]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Hmm. Yeah, I mean I see that in every level with the full the all-in capacity, mean I know you coined the phrase the golden ladder and put it like which ladder Are you are you climbing and sometimes I see especially with entrepreneurs that they do in the beginning stages do that one foot in one foot out and it's like they look at this ladder this potential ladder the golden ladder potentially of Entrepreneurship, but it's like do I really want to climb that and there's all these
the doubts that come because you're going to face the greatest. I think the greatest reflection of yourself will be as a parent in a romantic, your primary romantic relationship and as a business owner. Like you will, You will face yourself in your shadow every single time. And if you choose to do all three, like, it's, it's a feat, but being able to say like, what is, what is the ladder that you are consciously choosing to climb? Not because somebody has said that this is what you should be doing, but because you are
leading with that internal values-based conviction of what you're building rather than, oh, I guess now I'm going to be an entrepreneur, even just going into entrepreneurship. It's like that. Not everybody is meant to be an entrepreneur. You discovered quite quickly once you went all in, like you are very solid at being an entrepreneur. Like you can scale fast and you have, mean, but that comes with the full embodied going all in and conviction. What To the leaders who are still
Jason Medley (guest): Mm-hmm.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (host): dabbling, or as I like to say it, playing house with entrepreneurship, what did it look like? What did it feel like? What shifted in you to get you to that place where you were going all in?
Jason Medley (guest): We're getting real now. I love it. love it. So let's couple this with the golden ladder analogy, right? Because this is my favorite one of my favorite topics right now to talk about. And I'll give you an example for myself and I'll give you an example for one of my coaching clients. And we just had this conversation yesterday. So for myself, I don't even know when I decided to climb this golden ladder like we've heard the we've heard the idea of the golden handcuffs, right? We're making so much money. We're kind of stuck to it. We can't leave.
The goal, The golden ladder is like this idea of we climb the ladder, we get to the top of our field, we get the top of our spaces, what we're supposed to do. And I don't even know if we make a conscious decision to do it. We just kind of act as robots and, or I did, I just did it. And what it led for me is sure, like I had some accolades.
I did good work. I unblocked people. I was making really good money. I went from the outside looking in. I was doing everything a responsible adult was supposed to do. I was moving up very quickly in my career, but it was so out of line with the life that I wanted. And I think that's the problem, right? Like when we choose a ladder,
to start climbing, we have to understand where is that ladder taking us? And on the other side of that, is that the life that we want? And is it aligned with my values, right? So for example, for me, I climbed a ladder that basically kept me from being able to connect with myself. I was always on, I was working almost 24/7 my mind was constantly racing.
I lost my way with my health. I was on two cholesterol meds, two high blood pressure meds. I mean, my relationships weren't in a good place, all relationships, all for the sake of this like ladder I was climbing and what I thought I was supposed to be doing. And the moment for me,
Jason Medley (guest): became really real when, okay, my health is failing, it's not doing well, but like, this isn't the life that I want. So what is the life that I want? Well, I don't know, like what are my values? Like when I sat down and thought about my values and I thought, and they don't have to be like crazy, right? It was like, you know what? Hell, I wanna be healthy, you know? I wanna be impactful. I want slower mornings. I wanna sleep through the night.
Like I want to, know, like it was just like, but, but, but, you you started understanding your values and then, and then you go, okay, what is the ladder I have to architect to get that life? Now it doesn't mean, what are the steps along the way to get there? And it doesn't always mean you just quit your job the day and you go there. Right. But it's like, how do I start to go after that life and how do I start to do that? For me, I was very lucky. I was able to negotiate.
Kimberly Spencer (host): You
Jason Medley (guest): negotiate myself out of a job and give myself enough severance and buy to build a business and do the things I need to do. Not everyone has that. And so a lot of folks that I work with from a coaching perspective, it's like, okay, how do we stay in one job and build something along the side until we're able to transition and go all the way in? And yesterday, one of the clients I was talking to, classic example, we've been working together for about a year and I knew this was coming, but she was so focused on
this ladder that she was climbing in the corporate world, but it was falling flat. Everything she did, like we worked really hard to get her that promotion and get her that big pay bump and let her be seen as a more serious leader. And she did it. She got to the other side and like she still, it was still all flat. And why? Because it wasn't leading to the life she actually wanted. She's a mom, she has kids. One of the things that we discovered in our value session yesterday was, hey, like,
Kimberly Spencer (host): Hmm.
Jason Medley (guest): not only do I want to be there for my kids in the morning, but I want to be like, I want to be presently there for them. I don't want to be like a robot and thinking about the 10 meetings I have. I just want to show up for them. And I want the flexibility. If I can run to their like popsicle hangout meeting at school, I can do that. And I was like, okay, great. Like those aren't huge asks, right? Well, she's been doing this, the side business and it's been kind of a side, a side gig. And we sort of been working on scaling it, but she realized yesterday, okay, like
I can actually turn this into a serious thing, not because like, I just love the work, but she does, but actually climbing this ladder and taking the steps to scale that business gets me the life that I want and and her North star is her family and her kids, which is amazing. And she wants to be impactful there and have a huge ripple effect. And she can do that now that she understands her values, what she's building for, and she's literally architecting
the ladder that she needs to take to do that so she can step out of corporate and have this life and be impactful the way that she wants to be. I think that's exactly how you do it.
Architecting a Values-Aligned Life and Business
[45:12.834]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, yeah, because I think when you it really comes down to what the what is the life you want. And I think that that's a big shift that the pandemic really highlighted that was kind of like the golden shadow of the whole 2020 and 2021 where suddenly you're like you're locked in a house with all your family and you're like, "Do I even like these people?"
Jason Medley (guest): Totally, totally. I'm shifting down a little bit. I'm in New Mexico, the sun shifts, it's following me, skylights everywhere, so I'm gonna get out of the sun a little bit.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Being able to architect, think that's, AI can certainly support with supporting and architecting your life. I think there is a value though in the human connection to ask better questions, because you can only ask so many questions when you're inside the problem.
And while AI can structure and give you options and give you questions to ask, you have to be aware enough to ask the questions of what am I missing and what am I not asking that I need to be asking about this? when you, when you, mean, when your clients come to you and like when you came to work with us, like what were the questions that you were like, I, I'm in this space. Where do I want to go that you realized you needed to be asking yourself more?
Jason Medley (guest): you
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah, think as I think every leader at scale has this problem, right? And I think that they, I think there's part of them that knows this, but they need someone to yell at them and they need to really, it's for me, it was like, how do I let go? How do I like, like strategically and practically intact in like
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mmm.
Jason Medley (guest): with tactics that work like how do I let go of being in the weeds of the business so that can really live up to my potential and my purpose and serve and make impact and continue to build the life that I want for myself and my family and go after this purpose and the whole reason I'm doing all this in the first place, right? Because we sort of got like what so I started Thrively with my business partner Jeremy who's absolutely amazing.
Which by, Which by the way, if you're going to build something with someone, understand your values, make sure it's a value alignment. It's so incredibly important. And he's absolutely that. But what we realized was we scaled the business ourselves in a small team, to seven figures pretty quickly, but we realized that like the low seven figures you're breaking. If you're in the weeds, you're really breaking in the weeds. And so the big question that I had to ask was like, how do I really get out of the
weeds and I am how do I describe myself like I great with strategy I'm great with the conversations I'm great with the selling I'm great with some of the actual work but the building the systems and the processes I hate I'm not as good right there's a lot of other people who are a lot better at that than me. And so that was one thing like how do I actually get out of the weeds how do I keep going after impact
more impact. And also the other thing was, is it okay to do that? Like I had to give myself permission to do that because you, you sometimes when you're leading and you're growing a business and you're, you're having some wins along the ways you're like, okay, how much is too much? Is it okay to be doing this? Can I go after that? Okay. Can my dreams change now? I'm actually, I succeeded what I thought I could do.
Like, you kind of, you're leveling up yourself, right? You're changing your mindset and you're becoming a different leader and business operator inside of that. The fact that I'm, you know, about to launch another company alongside of Thrively and my coaching business is like, is insane to me. I, Who am I? I'm not this person, right? Like you could have never have told me this just a few years ago.
Jason Medley (guest): But so anyways, so that's a really big question. Maybe another question is, who do I align myself with? because, And this is where I think AI, like, well, AI can help you think about it, but like the reality is that we still need people, we need partnerships, we need buyers, we need people that we trust. There's still things that we don't know. By the way, AI,
is really good at taking you down the wrong path as well. Literally, AI is competing against each other. What is their goal? To keep you coming back, to keep you engaged. If you've been using AI long enough, you know it starts to tell you the things that you want it to tell you, where you're like, okay, this is getting creepy, right? So those relations, yeah.
Why Leaders Still Need Trusted Human Relationships
[49:50.037]
Kimberly Spencer (host): yes.
Kimberly Spencer (host): actually ask it to play devil's advocate. Like I regularly ask it, counter me. Like don't be the yes man, because it is designed that way. And I've seen business owners deeply fail leveraging just AI as a guide.
Jason Medley (guest): Well, you'll completely miss things, right? So, I think there's just questions that are unique to you and I think that AI can assist in helping them, but I still believe in relationships. I still believe in partnerships. I still believe in the being vulnerable to trust others, to allow others in, to be part of your mission,
to help impact your vision. And I think that's where the real great work happens, right? And AI is only gonna be able to do so much.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, I think that it also looks at, you know, a lot of surface level performative success. You can get blueprints and breakdowns and like SOPs and all that. what That underlying piece of what is your leadership identity that's at your soul, that's buried in your subconscious, like those pieces.
can be extracted and developed and explored in conversation. And sometimes when you have a yes man or a yes AI bot that's repeating back to you how amazing you are, it won't necessarily always show you your shadow because people don't want to always see it.
Jason Medley (guest): And it knows that it's actually pretty smart. Like it doesn't necessarily want to piss you off unless you give it permission to do it. And you can, right? You know, it'll, it'll, it, it can, if you ask the right prompts, which it sounds like that you're doing. And I think that that's amazing. But most of us aren't like, you know, I think your average user is still using AI, like, like it's, it's Google in a way, right? And it learns what you respond to. It's You have to remember that it's also in the business of making money,
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mhmm.
Jason Medley (guest): right? And I think that we forget that. I think that it wants you to come back. It wants you to spend more. And the average use case of AI today for the average person is just the chat feature and asking it questions and it telling you, you know, its thoughts and sort of what to do. But it's learning what you respond to, which can be kind of scary if you don't know how to use it and don't know how to double check yourself before you just believe everything it tells you and you go off and
and implement a strategy that may not be the right strategy for you.
Discernment in Business: When AI Becomes the Yes-Man
[52:54.02]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, 100%. I had a prospective client come to me and she wanted to hit 50K months with a high value service for like $997. I was like, babe, that is a recipe for disaster. If you have 50 clients that you're serving at that low of a price point, you won't be able to pay team. Like your cash flow is gonna be crippled.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (host): and you're gonna be exhausting yourself. And that was exactly what happened. And within a year, she went out of business. But Chat GPT said she could do it. Chat GPT validated every idea. And I think that that's where we need to have discernment and practicing what you said back at the beginning of discernment, not necessarily outsourcing decision-making to AI, whether it's in hiring or our health, which...
I love how you're integrating with Orvo, which are soft launching this summer, AI technology and science with the human component of being able to really bring people back home into their bodies because it intersects in every area. If you're performing in one area, it's very likely that a leader is needing some support in their health or their...
something may be taking a backseat. And I love the fact that you're building something that A, you have so much passion and conviction around because you're such a big proponent for health. You love your peptides, like being able to.
Jason Medley (guest): Yeah, when you come visit I'll show you my peptide fridge. You'll probably pass out.
Kimberly Spencer (host): but being able to really, to launch something that you have such conviction and belief in for the service of other people. And I think that that's where we as leaders can really thrive, is when we look at seven layers deep as to why, like why are we doing what we're doing? Why?
What else could we be doing? What else do we love? What else could be in alignment? And what else could we scale and grow because of that conviction, because it aligns with our values? What inspired the Orvo launch?
Jason Medley (guest): Hmm. So it was my own story. It my own experience, right? I had mentioned before that, you know, I looked up and I was on a bunch of meds and I also had a physician who loved prescribing meds, which wasn't a values alignment, but okay. I needed to get healthier. I was burned out. I was exhausted. And so when I went on this journey of starting Thrively and I identified that health was a value of mine, it was really important.
Then I started experimenting and optimizing my own health, right? What I learned in that process was the way our healthcare system is geared today, it's not geared necessarily just to keep us healthy long-term. And also like you need to take responsibility for your own health and your own body. And so...
I started, I went deeper. started with lab works. So I started testing over a hundred different markers, pretty regularly up to quarterly. And I was seeing what were the adjustments I was making in my life and what were they doing inside my actual body? And how did I feel? What did that look like? What did my, What did my numbers say? And, and then yes, I got on sort of the peptide train. I started experimenting with peptides and seeing what worked for me, what, what did it, and I got, got to the point where not too long ago, you know, my doctor is like, Hey,
We should really think about coming off all of these meds. And I'm like, absolutely. Yes, that's absolutely the point. But, But on a deeper level than all of that, what I realized was, hey, so many people that I'm talking to are exhausted. They're burnout. They have traded in their own health and their bodies for a ladder that they're not. they don't even understand that they're on and chasing something. They're not even sure what it is and what it gets them on the other side.
Very often they're very disappointed. Then they look up and they're extremely unhealthy and unhappy. And so I, the funny story was I started thinking about this from the perspective of men, right? And I started, I was getting passionate about men's health and thinking about it. And I'm seeing like, you know, ED meds being advertised to 20 year olds and you know, just, just so, so many things going on. And so then I went deep. I was like, okay. And we started attracting more and more
Orvo: Human-Centered Health, Technology, and Personal Responsibility
[57:23.342]
Jason Medley (guest): health tech clients at Thrively as well. It makes up about 50 % of our clients today. And I started learning a lot more about health tech and I got really excited by it. So I was going deep. Okay. If I wanted to do something in this space, like I'm seeing the connection of these leaders and these folks I'm talking with, like they're there. they've let their bodies go. Like they're unhealthy. Like how can I even sit down and have a coaching conversation with someone without having the real conversation of like, have you been that blood work done lately? Do you know where your health is? Like, what does that look like? So I went down this like,
you know, wanted to really start understanding like, what can I do? Where can I be impactful in this? And then I, as I started to understand it and I was getting more committed to, want to create something around this. I reached out to my sister who's a clinician and runs a clinic in Tennessee. And when I called her up and asked questions, she started laughing and she said, Jason, I'm like so passionate about women's health for like the past three weeks. I've been going deep on like, how can we build something great in telehealth? And so we decided to team up together. So,
We, yeah, we're launching Orvo and you know, we're thinking about, and the thing we're, know, we're, we absolutely believe in GLP is done the right way. We're looking at hormone replacement. We're looking at we look at, you know, sexual wellness as well. all, All of those things. But what, what we found is we started looking at the market was that, you know, a lot of people are just getting scripts and they're, they're, they're not
really understanding or they're ordering peptides from a shady place and shooting themselves up and they don't really understand the impact on their bodies. And so we've been thinking, how can we have a better experience? What does that look like? How can we make sure that people are doing labs regularly? Because what we're talking about is you're optimizing your body, your biohacking, which I think is cool, but you've got to do it in a healthy way you've got to understand what it's doing to your body. And then how do we start to slowly thinking about technology
in AI? We are not going to lead with an AI integration right away. That is not the way to do it. We're talking about people's health. But what is the data that we need to start extracting to help people understand their health better and follow their health and follow that journey? And you know, so many people, they sign up online for a GLP 1 and they're not really having an active ongoing conversation with the clinician. It's crazy, right? Like you're putting this thing in your body, you don't know what it's doing to you.
Jason Medley (guest): you You're not having active engaging conversations with someone who understands your body and we wanted to be more impactful and do it better. But if I step back from you and all that, what I think about more is my purpose. I really love helping people get unblocked so that they can go after their missions and their visions and fulfill their purpose. And Orvo is just another way that we can that I can do that that I can offer that, that I can help people get unblocked.
So I'm super passionate about it. We're to do a soft launch this summer to make sure, you know, all of our operating pieces and everything's flowing well. But really believe in the power of Orvo and what it can become and excited to get it out into the world.
Jason Medley (guest): I think I lost your volume. There we go.
People First, Technology Second
[01:00:45.518]
Kimberly Spencer (host): There you go. So one of the things I love about all of your companies is that you really truly lead with people first and then technology is a supplemental partner where it's able to assist, it's able to guide, it's able to give you data, it's able to show you a map, but it's not necessarily making those decisions for you. You still get to have sovereignty and autonomy and take that personal responsibility where it's at the core of
of all of it is being able to take that personal responsibility for the people that you hire onto your team, for the people that you, for how you're choosing, what ladders you're choosing to climb and what you're putting into your body and how you're choosing to take care of your body.
Jason Medley (guest): a million percent. And what's crazy, when you go deep into healthcare, health tech, when you understand the business models behind all of this, it is not an alignment. It's not truly in alignment with the person's total wellbeing, right? The ability to thrive, the ability to fully be healthy. Because the goal, if the goal is, I wanna keep you on a med forever, and that's the business model, like, you're just in it.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mm-hmm.
Jason Medley (guest): You're in it for the wrong reasons. Right. And, and, And what we realized, even, even the partnership setups of pharmacies and labs, everything is around that model. How do we keep people coming back and spending more money on medicines, medicines, medicines? And there's some people who need to be on medicine forever. There are some people like, you know, like I'm a huge believer in peptides. We can have a whole peptides podcast. Uh, And I think there's experimentation with that as I think there's things we can do. I think it's safer in a lot of ways,
and I'll probably be on some form of a peptide most the rest of my life. And that's my conviction. And I know how to experiment with that and how to do that in a healthy way. But that's not how the industry is set up. And so, you know, we're figuring our figuring out our way inside that industry. I think we're going to learn a lot along the way. But you're absolutely right. And I think that's what people want by the way, right? Like you can think about this in terms of other things, like people love like,
retail experiences. Like they got so tired of Amazon and online shopping and you've seen this in retail to a certain extent. Like, like people want like an ex they miss the They miss certain experiences, right? They want to connect with people again. And, know, when you talk about your health, like you want to connect with another human who can kind of get you and understand you and you can ask questions too. And it's not a bot that you're chatting with. And I think, I think we will win.
by remembering that humanity and remembering what connects people. And I hope that that stays true in all my businesses. And I hope that we see more and more companies sort of getting on that train because I think that's what is going to set great companies apart from mediocre companies as AI and as we continue to lean more into technologies that leverage AI for sure.
Real Human Experiences in an Increasingly Automated World
[01:03:45.07]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, think leveraging it 100 % and the human experience behind it is really a driving force. I mean, live events after COVID just blew up because people realize by not having it for two years how much we needed human connection. And I think we're only going to see that more as more and more digital noise comes into the atmosphere of the internet and people are going to be starving for that.
human to human connection and connecting in values based ecosystems that are a reflection of the best versions of themselves that they want to take part, that they want to become.
Jason Medley (guest): Thousand percent and it makes me think of one more quick example. One of the things you talk about these companies who are forcing people in office like four or five days a week. The number one complaint that I'm hearing right now is like they're trying to force these cultural moments like they're trying to have the like the happy hours again or the pizza parties or the ping pong ball, you know, like and it's it's falling so flat, right? It's like they're like, my god, this is not what people want anymore. If they're gonna have experiences, they want it to be real experiences, right?
They want it to be super impactful and they want to understand what they're building towards and what the whole purpose of it. But we're still like, I think so many organizations, so many leaders, when they're thinking about that very topic, they're playing by a very old playbook. And they're not being real. They're not understanding what people really want, right? So anyway, it's just funny because I hear this over and over. They're like, Jason,
Kimberly Spencer (host): Mm-hmm.
Jason Medley (guest): we show up like no one wants to feel so forced. Everybody hates it. Everyone is just like scanning their badge, staying for 10 minutes and bouncing. Like it's just like, you know, it's not like it's so inauthentic.
Beyond Performative Company Culture
[01:05:38.328]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, and I think it's funny because I was having a conversation with another client who was building these team culture events, but she really listened to what her team was needing. And they were, they're in a very high stress industry and constantly getting shouted at, constantly getting yelled at. And she was like, I'm going to take them to a rage room. And I was like, that is a team experience because that, that bonded them over like
Jason Medley (guest): Yes!
Kimberly Spencer (host): this is something that is really, that I'm hearing what your challenge is. Let's all face this challenge together rather than performative team building that it feels forced.
Jason Medley (guest): Yep. A million, a million percent. And forcing, let's just take tech as an example. This, You can't do this with every industry, but, for, you know, consumer B2B SaaS, you know, tech for the most part, you don't need everyone in the office at the same time. And it's is very forced. And a lot of that is because that's the old book. It's, It's, think I can control you or we've had a lot of investment in this infrastructure and these offices, but
what happens is instead of listening to your people and going, cause most people still cherish face to face time, but not forced four or five days a week in office. And then you go in and people are still on their laptops on zoom calls with other people who aren't there. And instead of making that time super useful and going, like what if we came in one day a week or what if we met quarterly or what if we did this and really building and creating your offices around experiences that
are impactful and get people collaborating in a really cool way versus this like forced weird checkbox thing, scan your badge, like we're so out of touch. And some companies are getting this right. Many and most are getting it wrong. And as soon as the market shifts back to an employee market, a candidate market, so many people are gonna bounce out of these companies for sure.
Why Top Talent Still Chooses Values-Aligned Leadership
[01:07:37.092]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Yeah, yeah. And I think one of the things that just having been on the periphery of your industry through our working together, the one of the things that you said that really struck me is like those top candidates, they're always going to be the top candidates. they're there. They still have the power of choice. So even if it is an employer market, they still have the power of choice. And really, And that choice comes from how are you going to honor their humanity and their purpose? And what is is how does this
Jason Medley (guest): 100%.
Kimberly Spencer (host): business, this job integrate with their life rather than outsourcing their interview to an AI bot.
Jason Medley (guest): Right? The top 20 % can still pick their company, right? And, you know, I was working with someone one day who they literally used the phrase, you know, I want the old school mentality, burn the midnight oil. They need to work around the clock. They need to be on. They're no longer a client of ours. But they also wanted, you know, they were very early startup. They didn't have brand recognition. They didn't have a lot of money.
The founders didn't have a lot of experience or a track record that they could lean on and prove that they could be successful. But they just read somewhere that this is how you do it. And they wanted like the top talent in their space. And it was like the top. Why would the top talent come? Why would they burn the midnight hour for you? Like, what are you showing them that makes them want to do that? And so, so again, I think this is the theme of our conversation today, but it's going back
to your authentic self and understanding your values and why are you building what you're building and what's the impact and what's the purpose and helping people to connect to that and attracting the right type of people and listening to what those people want and need to be successful and showing up in that way for them is how you're successful and how you get loyal people to come alongside you. And then when it gets really tough and then when you have to burn the midnight oil, then when the macro environment gets crazy, they wanna still stay with you, right? They wanna be impacted.
because they understand what you're about, they understand that you're real, and they understand that you're in their corner.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Jason, I have loved our conversation as I always love our conversations. You know, I'm going to ask the question that I always ask, like, what did you love about our conversation today?
Guest Takeaway: Leadership Principles Have Not Changed Because of AI
[01:09:56.558]
Jason Medley (guest): Well, you checked all the boxes on the things that get me going. So my soap boxes, my... But really, you know what? This topic is so important for me because for so long I wasn't grounded. I wasn't present-focused. I was checking the boxes. I was thinking about the future. I was thinking about the past. And...
Leadership principles haven't changed. Regardless of AI, how to be a good leader is still there, the tenets of that. We got to double down on that today and I love that. I hope your listeners can take even one ounce of what we said today. The world is going to be a much better place and it makes me super hopeful for AI and what's to come and a lot of the companies that are going to be built out.
out of this, but also just always love your energy. So thanks for showing up fully today.
Rapid-Fire Q&A with Jason Medley
[01:10:52.524]
Kimberly Spencer (host): Always, always. I'd love to pivot into a little bit of rapid fire to wrap this up. You ready? Who is your favorite female character in a book or a movie and why?
Jason Medley (guest): I'm ready.
Jason Medley (guest): Olivia Pope in Scandal. She's She is badass.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Ooh, what?
What person alive or alive and in their time would you want to trade places with just for a day to experience life in their shoes? Any person in history.
Jason Medley (guest): ooooh, and-
Jason Medley (guest): Maybe Einstein. Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Oof, good. Nice one. What is your money routine as a founder?
Jason Medley (guest): Understanding the impact of every dollar spent and also being okay to have a little bit of fun with it. But understanding the import impact and being aligned with the people that you trust that are spending that money as well.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Heck yeah. What do you define to be your kingdom?
Jason Medley (guest): my husband and my dogs.
Kimberly Spencer (host): Hahaha!
Lastly, what does it mean to crown yourself?
Jason Medley (guest): To know that you're in step with your values and you're principled and you're taking risks to create the life that you want for yourself and your family and the people that you love. I think that's a person you can look in the mirror, you can put on that crown and be really proud of.
Crown Yourself: Values, Risk, and Creating the Life You Want
[01:12:40.452]
Kimberly Spencer (host): 100%. Jason, it has been my pleasure having you. If you want to follow Jason, follow him on LinkedIn and make sure you connect with him over there as he launches Orvo into the stratosphere. Make sure you get on that wait list so that you can connect and get be one of the first to join in the telehealth and get your labs. If nothing else, get some labs done so you have a baseline as to where you're going. And if you're looking for recruiting support and are in need of
a phenomenal agency who really values humanness, connect with Thrively. As always, my fellow sovereigns, own your throne, mind your business, because your reign is now. Till next time.
The Crown Yourself Podcast is a fast-growing self-improvement podcast, ranked in the top #200 personal-development podcasts in two countries, so far, out of 4.5 million podcasts. Each week, you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity, and confidence so that you too can make the income and impact you deserve. Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
