In this episode of Better @ What You Do, host Ben Olmos brings back three former guests of DissedMedia: A Startup Story to work through a question that has seemingly crept up on most operators in recent weeks, which is what remains worth measuring once somebody else holds the scorecard. The conversation opens with a recent Omni Calculator survey in which 40% of employees said managers who use AI come across as less competent and 36% said they trust those managers' judgment less, with Gen Z offering the harshest read of all. Stephanie Sylvestre separates what she calls lazy AI from the kind that gets real work done, while Rich Ashton argues that communication may be the most powerful tool a leader has, and that handing it to a machine can give some of that leadership away. Joshua Griffin adds the view from a growing agency, where a phone call between two people outperformed every automated outreach campaign his team had tried.

From there the panel turns to social media, where LinkedIn feeds have begun to read like the same post written fifteen times and where YouTube's changes to how a view gets counted may leave creators with bigger numbers that say less. Views and subscriber counts can look impressive on a channel page; however, the panel keeps returning to whether any of it leads to a sale, a relationship, or a conversation worth having. The final stretch centers upon what draws listeners to a podcast, the host or the guest, before taking an unplanned and candid turn into women in leadership and the idea that hiring decisions should rest on the knowledge, skills, and abilities a person brings to the job.

Connect with the guests

Stephanie Sylvestre, CEO of Avatar Buddy: https://avatarbuddy.ai | https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-a-sylvestre

Rich Ashton, Owner of Growing Your Own and author of Growing Your Own: https://growingyourown.net

Joshua Griffin, Co-Founder of Intrinzi: https://www.intrinzi.com | https://www.joshgriffin.co.uk

About the host

Ben Olmos is the founder of DissedMedia and the host of Better at What You Do and DissedMedia: A Startup Story. Find more episodes and everything else DissedMedia is working on at https://dissedmedia.com, with guest booking powered by https://rostr.studio and more from Ben at https://benolmos.com.

Grit, the blend of motivation and dedication that has long separated high performers from everyone else, may be getting harder to sustain now that AI can deliver almost any answer with a single tap, and in the first panel episode of Better at What You Do, host Ben Olmos and four returning guests from DissedMedia: A Startup Story explore what that shift means for leaders by way of the Meta social media addiction settlement and YouTube's new monetization requirements, along with the steady decline in new podcast launches.

The conversation opens with the settlement, which the panel compares in scale to the tobacco settlement; however, Adam Spector of Chore argues that it may be fighting the last battle, since the next wave of concern seemingly centers upon AI chatbots and the companies building them. Brett Schklar raises the contradiction of teenagers who reject anything that looks AI-generated while spending hours inside algorithm-driven feeds, and Rob Broadhead points to the age verification problem that has followed the internet since its earliest days. That thread leads into the heart of the episode, where Ben introduces the idea of a motivational quotient, or MQ, as the capability that may matter most once intelligence becomes available to anyone by the token, and Brett names it plainly as grit. Adam worries aloud that frictionless tools could leave all of us sitting in WALL-E chairs, while Rob offers a more hopeful reading in which AI clears away the grunt work so that people with real drive can aim higher than they could before.

From there the panel turns to the YouTube Partner Program and its higher watch-hour threshold for monetization, and the reactions vary considerably; Jeremy Yang expects smaller creators to lean harder into sponsorships, Rob suggests the change may push creators toward owning their platforms and audiences directly, and Adam takes the view that AI-generated content will eventually reshape YouTube much as YouTube reshaped Hollywood, while Brett, speaking as a viewer who has grown tired of AI slop and faceless videos, welcomes the higher bar. Ben's observation that nobody dabbles in social media, and that consistency and relentless improvement tend to separate the channels that last from those that fade, prompts Adam to widen the point to any career, since obsession with getting better at the work seemingly pays off whether someone is building a YouTube channel or baking pies.

The final segment centers upon podcasting itself, where celebrity shows and Netflix distribution sit alongside a decline in new launches, a pattern Brett attributes to the pandemic hangover finally wearing off. The group compares notes on podcast monetization and lead generation, with Rob, whose show has passed 1,000 episodes, describing podcasting as primarily a networking game, and they weigh whether being a guest on other shows can deliver more value than hosting one; Adam closes by framing the entire conversation around the ROI of your time, which may be the most useful lens any leader can bring to deciding where their grit is best spent.

Panel: Adam Spector, four-time founder of Chore and host of Entrepreneurial Excellence https://hirechore.com

Brett Schklar, enterprise futurist and author of AI Without the BS: The CEO's Playbook for Actually Getting AI Right https://brettschklar.com

Rob Broadhead, founder of RB Consulting and host of Develpreneur https://rb-sns.com

Jeremy Yang, founder of Digital Goliath and host of Marketing and Ops for SMEs https://digitalgoliath.com.au

Better at What You Do is sponsored by Rostr Studio.

Questions about topics or guests can be sent to podcast@dissedmedia.com.

www.dissedmedia.com www.rostr.studio www.benolmos.com