How Ambitious Do You Actually Need To Be To Succeed?

Are you ambitious enough? And is ambition all you need to succeed at work? That's right. Ambition is what we're exploring on today's episode of "Per My Last Email," including is ambition all about getting to the top? Or is it mean something else? Completely. Let's get into it. All right, before we start talking about ambition, I just have to do a little plug. We are going to talk about our work rants. Yes, we are. Segment called work rants. And guess what it is? It's a work rant. So Kyle and I each have hot takes. You're going to want to stick around for those. I think mine is going to be pretty spicy. A little extra spicy today. All right. We're excited about it. Yeah, wait for it. Because someone did something that pissed me off. Okay, well, well, I'm just going to jump right to that. No. First, we just talk about ambition. All right. So, Kyle, are you ambitious? Yeah, I would say I'm fairly ambitious. I would agree with that. I think we are probably all a little more ambitious than we all think we're a little more ambitious than we are maybe because you know. Really? I don't think you really know the next level because you, I don't know, I haven't met many people who are like, I'm not ambitious at all. So I think we all probably overestimate our ambition. Yeah. But I would say I'm fairly ambitious. I would say you're, but like, okay, I would say you're fairly ambitious, but I just like sense that. Like what when you think of ambition, like what do you think that means? I, well, I would say there's ambitions, which I think is a little different than what we'll talk about, which are goals. Like what are your ambitions in life? It's like I want to do X, Y, or Z. Ambition to me is the energy at which you attack your goals. Like if you want to accomplish something, are you going to accomplish it? And how big of an accomplishment do you want it to be? So maybe there is two vectors of ambition. It's how high are you shooting? How big are your goals? And how much energy do you attack them with? You could have an easy goal, but you get after it and accomplish it. You could have a massive goal, but you are, you don't do anything towards it. Right. So there's maybe multiple interpretations of ambition, but when I hear someone is ambitious, yeah, it's maybe both energy and what they want to accomplish. Yeah. So like when I think of ambition, I think of like, I want to be the CEO. Or like I want to achieve something very like big. The CEO thing to me is so interesting. Like, obviously you just said that we were talking to other people and they had the same idea that like if you have ambition, you want to be a CEO. Like that's your goal. I think your ambition could be to become a CEO, but when I hear someone's ambitious, I don't go, oh, you want to be a CEO. Right. It's more about impact for me. Like if you're ambitious, it's like, oh, you're really driven. You have a clear goal. You want to accomplish and it's kind of out there and you're attacking it. And whether that's becoming a CEO or not, it doesn't really matter what that is. Why do you think it's about CEO? Well, I don't know that it's CEO necessarily, but I think that's like emblematic of ambition. It's like, oh, I want to do, I want to do big things. And like there, that's what ambition is. Like I want to be great. I want to be well known. I want to achieve the highest level of XYZ. Like if we're thinking about corporate America, maybe it's C-suite, maybe it's the best at X. Maybe it's, I want to be the best marketer there is, but that ultimately being the best marketer means your CMO. Ultimately being the best marketer means you're on the cover of Forbes, blah, blah, blah. Forbes marketing. Forbes marketing. I don't know. Vogue. I don't know. What is that? I mean, you have to be a pretty damn good marketer. Get on Vogue, like I said. All right, shout out to you. Yeah, I think a lot of that, the titular stuff would come with ambition because, yeah, if you want to have a big impact, well, you could probably have a bigger impact if you're running the company that has the impact. So therefore getting to CEO drives the impact. But I think you can be very ambitious without necessarily becoming a CEO because you might be ambitious in terms of a creator. Like you want to make the best content. You're not going to become a CEO of a company to do that necessarily. You're going to become the best version of that creator. And that's kind of a whole separate lane than corporate America. So maybe where it applies to corporate America, that could be an objective to rise to the C suite. I would still say it should be based on impact. But in sports, in creativity, in art, it's going to look very different than a title to me. Yeah, I agree. But at the same time, it's like what you, I don't know. I want to be the best artist. I want to be the best creator. What does that actually look like? It looks like recognition. To me, it feels like ambition is very externally validated. Interesting. Yeah, it could be. If you become truly great at something, people will probably recognize that and applaud you. If your ambition is to become famous, that's fine as well. But I would separate those two. Like to me, ambition has nothing to do with an external force. It's more about internal. Do you have big goals? And do you attack them or let them see with a lot of energy? If you answer yes to both of those, you're ambitious. And if someone recognizes it or not, it does in fact, you're into the equation. But I would be shocked if no one did. Yeah, I don't know. Interesting. I mean, okay. Yeah, I guess I agree with you. I think where I'm like, can you not be ambitious and still achieve success? Like does the opposite also exist, you know? I mean, this is where NEPO babies were born. You can achieve success in a lot of different ways, probably without being ambitious if you are in a very lucky situation. If you take away those edge cases, I would say it's very hard to. Like if success is defined by producing a great thing, building a great company, making great art, I would say for most people a really active ingredient in becoming that good at something is putting in the work, doing it for a long time, attacking it with energy and having ambition. So I don't think it's necessarily causal, but they're definitely correlated. Yeah, okay. Let's talk about the NEPO baby thing because I think that's interesting because I think like, it's like, that's my dad was a famous podcaster and that's why I'm here. This role came out. Let's talk that through because let's say your dad is a famous podcaster and that opens a ton of doors. Like, Harlan is like, yeah, I hope Kyle, I hope my dad gets really big a podcast to get to open so many doors. I have so serious. That's the serious thing. I have so serious. I have so serious. Yeah. For those listening. No, I'm thinking like because you're saying, okay, the way that you can be successful without ambition is to be a NEPO baby. But like, I think you still need ambition. Like, you can have all the doors open for you, but if you don't walk through them, like, you're, you can, there's like so many NEPOs that are failure to launch situation. Totally. I mean, I agree with you. I think my broader point is in order to be successful, you probably have to have some level of ambition, even if everything is handed to you, you have to grab it. Does it mean that you, everyone works exactly as hard as each other and we all get the same things like, no, the world is not fair like that? But you do need some juice, even if you're born in a really privileged position. Yeah. So this is kind of where I think like maybe we've been thinking about ambition incorrectly. Okay. Because to me, I like this idea of the two lanes, which is having lofty goals and achieving them aggressively or attacking them aggressively. But like, for me, I've always thought that ambition is like wanting to reach the upper echelons of your craft, whether that's business or art or whatever. Yeah. And like, it being an achieved, like ambition is about achieving a specific thing. And that thing is something that is like widely accepted by society as like a success. Okay. That's what you're saying. Well, I would say yes. I do actually, I'm coming around, even though I said it, but I initially had ambition only as an energy, but I do think that lofty goals is part of it. And I think you need both to be truly ambitious because we've all met people who are like, I want to, like one day I'm going to be like president. Yeah. And then you're like, you're absolutely not. You do nothing. Right. Like, there's no way that's going to happen. And so I think it's easier to talk actually about having lofty goals. The harder thing is like doing anything with intensity. Right. And I think a truly ambitious person is in that upper right where they're both high goals and high energy. So I agree with you. You think that there's like a, most people have a different definition of ambition. No, no, I think that's the right definition. But I'm like, is, is feeling like you have these lofty goals and you're attacking them, like relentlessly? Is that the only way to find success in your career? And I feel like right now, for example, we're in this time where specifically thinking about like, we were in the girl boss era a few maybe 10 years ago now. Yeah. Shout out to the girl boss. Hashtag girl boss, you know, where it's like, oh, you can have it all lean in. Do everything aggressively. And you too can be like a man and succeed in these ways. You know, and I think there's a little bit of a of a reaction to that now. And so I'm like, I have friends specifically who are, would say that they're not ambitious. They're not gunning for traditional success in the field that they're in. but they are succeeding and they are thriving in their careers. Okay. And I was thinking a little bit about this over the last few weeks because I was like, like I have friends who are actively like, I don't want to be doing this every day. I don't want to do it. And people still give me more responsibilities. I'm still getting promoted. Oh, but this is, to me, that's a very annoying person. I'm sorry to diss your friends. Oh, like there is a type of person who's like, I don't even want to be doing this. Yeah. I'm not even trying. Oh, look at me succeeding despite my best effort to fail. Yeah. No bullshit. Yeah, but that's different. You're so talented that you don't even try and you get every, like, come on. No, it's different though, because I think there's a difference between trying and being ambitious. Okay. Like, I think that's where I'm saying I think we should rethink what ambition is because ambition to me is like, I want to be successful and therefore, I want this thing and therefore I'm trying to get there. Well, okay. So to not have you answer questions for your friends, but to have you answer questions for your friends, then what are they trying to accommodate? They're not going to accomplish. I mean, they are. And are they accomplishing that? So I mean, I'm trying, there's like three people that I'm thinking of specifically. So good. I'm just a multiple people. I'm going to like try and like synthesize what I think their answers would be here. But I think like there is a, there is a difference between being like, I am trying because I want to get promoted. I want to be seen as a success in this industry. And I am trying because this is my job and I'm good at my job. And I want to do anything that I do. I want to do well. And I see what's going on. Success is an aftermath of that, but not the intended goal. So you're saying like the default definition of ambition that most people have is like, you have to get to the top. Right. That should be your goal. And what you're saying is your friends, their goal isn't that. But they do have a goal, which is to be great at their craft. It sounds like, and it by all accounts sounds like they're crushing it and achieving that. So to me, the default definition, I think, correct. They wanted to be ambitious under that framework. But I think this framework of, well, what's your goal? And is it lofty? And are you pursuing it with intensity? To me, it sounds like, yeah, then they are ambitious. They're just, they've just been deliberate about choosing a goal that works for them. Yeah, maybe. I think if I said, hey, friends, you are ambitious. They would be like, no, I don't care about any of this. However. But they do care. You can't tell me they want to be really good at their craft. It matters. If they put out work that isn't good, they're like, I'm offended. That isn't reflective of me. To me, that's ambition. You care. You care a lot about what you're doing. You want it to be excellent. I think that is an ambitious person. To me, the unambitious person is like, I don't really care about this. And like, oh, it's like, okay, that's fine. It's okay. Why does it need to be good? It's getting the job done. I show up, I clock in, I clock out, I go home. Yeah, I would not say that person is ambitious at least professionally. So to you, like, what is the opposite of ambition, like laziness? It's like a complacency. Apathy. So, like, that, then I think that's a change in the definition. Because for me, ambition is like, I'm trying to reach this high echelon, but like, upper echelon of whatever. But like, I don't believe that the opposite of ambition is laziness. Or if you're not ambitious, you're inherently lazy. I think it's like, I don't know. I'm struggling to think of the exact word that would be like the opposite of ambition. But I think it's like not having these really big goals that are related specifically to the job that you're doing. Because one of the things that I realized when I was thinking through my friends who I wouldn't call ambitious is they have ambitions, but they are outside of the scope of their work. Yeah. You know, it's like they are the type of people that want to achieve big things and their job is a way to get money to pursue those. Totally. And I guess you could be like where some people might fall down on the ambition skill we've built with big goals and energy is the goals you have, maybe just aren't that big, which was maybe what we're saying about your friends, which is like not that their goals are bad or wrong. It's just like they're not like I need to be the become the best and rise and grind and become so big. It's like, I just want to do a really good job. Yeah, but they are. They are big. It's like I want to start my own company. I would sort of, Kayla, these are ambitious people. But like what I'm thinking, that's what I'm saying is what I'm thinking of in their specific job right now, they're like given 60%. I'm doing just enough to be, you know, to learn a little bit, to get money like, but this isn't my ultimate goal. It's like there's ambitions in your current career and then there's ambitions externally. And all the people that I would say have not less ambition at their jobs, but are succeeding are people that have ambitions, lofty goals elsewhere. I have a friend who wants to write for HBO, you know, and like, isn't amazing writer and is pursuing that in their free time. But isn't like I need to be, you know, to the, I need to be the CEO of this company. They're like, damn, I deserve a promotion. But they're not like, oh, I want, I want to be like head, head bitch at whatever this company. Right. A broader point that we're talking about, which I think is a great way for people to think about this is you can be ambitious or not ambitious in many different ways in your life. Like if you're saying that this person's goal is to become a writer for HBO, I think we can all safely say check. That's ambitious. There's not a lot of them, at least I don't think so. I know. No, I think there's like two. And is she pursuing it with energy? Like you would have to tell me, but it sounds like inner free time she's doing that. She's probably whatever she's doing for work is probably the scaffolding to help her even become better at writing. Like that's a very ambitious person. Her job is the, the, the step, the training ground to reach her ultimate ambition. If you maybe zoom in on her exact role right now, like, yeah, maybe she's not ambitious about growing in that particular company, but that isn't her goal. This is a step ladder to get to her broader goal. And I think you, you talked to some people who became founders. They're like, I knew I wanted to be a founder, but like, I needed to go and learn first. So I went to work for a company. Right. I learned all I could there. And then I went to become a founder, started a big company. That's a very ambitious person. Maybe in that particular role inside the company, you could define it as not ambitious because you didn't want to grow on the company. But I still think they're striving for this big goal and they're pursuing it with intensity. And we'll be right back after this. Did you know that Paylossity offers one platform to help handle HR finance and IT? It's true and that means innovative solutions like AI-powered automation, centralized workforce data and flexible time tracking help your team's work smarter, especially during key moments like tax season and performance reviews, with mobile clock ins and intelligent insights. All in one place, you can drive efficiency and make more informed workforce decisions across your organization. Learn more about how Paylossity can help streamline work and bring teams together at Paylossity.com/1. That's Paylossity.com/ONE. Okay, back to the show. Okay, yes. So I agree with you and I also have a little framework that I've developed. Here we go. I think you don't just need ambition to succeed. Okay. I think ambition alone, having that lofty goal, is not enough. And I think you kind of solved that with that energy element. That's fixed. Thank you. But I have a three-pronged. It's kind of like these three elements that you need. It's ambition, talent and strategic work ethic, and I think you need two out of three. So I think if you're ambitious and talented, but a little lazy, you can kind of get pretty far in life. I think if you're talented and strategically know how to work hard, you don't need to be, like I want to be CEO and people will just keep like promoting you. You're working hard and you're good. Even if you don't have lofty goals, people will recognize your hard work and your excellence and you will have success, hopefully. And I think if you have ambition and strategic work ethic, you don't need to be particularly talented. It's just like shots on goal, like winding. You keep grinding. Yeah. And I think you can be successful. Yeah, I think that's a pretty solid framework. It's picked two of the three and you're probably going to do pretty good. I think the question that is the most interesting is like how ambitious should you be in general? Is it a bad thing if you're not ambitious? And is that a fine way to live? Right. Do you think it's okay if you're not ambitious? I mean, I've had a lot of difficulty with this because I think I grew up and grew up being like high school college until like three or four years in my career. Feeling like, well, of course I'm ambitious because I'm hard working and like good at my job, I'm good at school or whatever. And like, therefore, of course, I'm ambitious. Of course, I want to be good at something. But I've never been like, if I'm not C-suite, I'm going to die. If I'm not a manager of a huge team, like my career has been a failure. And so I've, when I kind of was a little burned out a few years ago, I was like, oh, I'm not ambitious at all. And I don't think that's true. Interesting. But I think I've had this hard. time, understanding my own ambitions. Like I don't think I've got a lot of self awareness around what I actually want to achieve. And I think that has for a long time was never a problem because I was, not to do what I'm hard and talented, and I had strategic work ethic. And that gets you very, very far. And I think where when my work ethic dropped because I was burned out, I was like, shit, do I not have ambition? Like, am I so burned out that I don't even care where I go? Like, you know, I want to sell bread for $10 a loaf. And like, that's my life. Like, is that what's wrong? - That'd be kind of awesome. - That'd be pretty sick. - Yeah, yeah, I'd be glad you're right. - Someone buy my bread. No, no, but like, and so that was a really, really hard time for me, where the work ethic had dropped off, and I only had one. And I was like, I don't know what my relationship with my own ambition is. And as I like stopped being burned out and like my work ethic came back, and I was like, ready and willing to work hard, I had to be like, what do I want to achieve? - Exactly. - And like, what are my values and goals? And I think that I never had to question ambition until I really did. And now I'm like, yeah, I do think I am ambitious. I do want to achieve certain things in my life. But like, I don't know that I need it in order to be proud of my career looking back in like 20 years. - Yeah, okay, that was a beautiful answer. And thank you for the self-awareness and self-reflection. - I think what you said is really important, which is it's actually more important to figure out your ambitions before deploying being ambitious to whatever, like random goals. - I feel like we're in the Oprah, and are you silent or are you silenced? Like we're like talking about - Shout out to Oprah. - Shouda, - Barry's Pacific letters. - Well, but my brother point here, going back to your story, when you had school, it was like your ambitions are given to you. - Yeah, yeah. - You're gonna get a 4.0, that's what school is. So if you're just generally ambitious, you're like, oh, fuck yeah, it's a goal. I'm gonna get that 4.0. You get a job that's like going well. Hey, do this thing, accomplish this thing. Okay, your ambitious, boom, I'm gonna get it. The issue is if you get to an environment that hasn't been structured for you, and you don't know actually what your ambitions are, what you want to do, that's when you hit this burnout phase where you're like, wait, fuck, like, what am I supposed to put this energy for? Like, am I even ambitious? Like, because I think if you don't understand what you're trying to achieve, then you feel lost. And so I do think in general, we over-index on like this, trying to accomplish things and being really proud of that, and we spend not enough time being self-reflective of like, what do I actually want to get out of this one life I have? And this is where I think you could have ambition that isn't just professional. Like, many people, myself included, you have a child or you have some big life experience, and it shifts what your ambitions are. Now it's not just like, I want to be the best ex. Maybe it's like, I want to be the best father now. That's really important to me. So my ambition energy is deployed more towards that. And if that means sacrificing some at work because like, that isn't my goal anymore, a lot of people make that trade off. And I think that is fine. And I think that's where I'm saying, if you're not ambitious in general, I think it's like unattractive in some ways, because I don't think ambition is, I want to be CEO. If someone said that, I'd be like, yeah, that's fine. But to me, ambition is like, art, did you get real clarity on what you want to achieve and are you trying to achieve that? To me, that's really attractive. Like, okay, you figured out what you want in life and you're going after it. Fuck yeah. And whatever that is, I don't care what your goal is. But do you have one? I think that's important. And that's where many people get lost. They never figure that out. Yeah, I agree. I think it's like the pursuit of something, whether it's professional, professional, or professional, or whatever. Like, you'll run into an artist and they're like doing the crate. They're like, I'm making a miniature version of New York City with toothpicks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've been down in my basement for 15 years. I'm like, that's the coolest shit I've ever heard in my life. What I want to do that? No, I would go clinically insane if I tried that. But for that person to know what they want and just go after it, I think those are the people we're drawn to. It's magnetic. 'Cause like, wow, you actually figured out what you love in life. Like, that is cool and you're going after it. Like, Kudos to you. I want to apply that same energy to one of my goals. Yeah, so which brings me to the next question. Okay. Do you think you mentioned like when you had your daughter that some of your ambition energy shifted to being a good dad, which to be clear? Is exactly what you should have done. What it was like, I try to be the most mediocre dad of all time. Like, that would be crazy. So like, that's correct, right? Like, I'm not pushing back on that at all to be clear. Kudos like, what actually one day I saw you? No, no, no, no. But my question is, is like, that is not just ambition energy. That's not just gold. That's also like time. Yeah. And so can you, not you Kyle, but you the general, the royal you? Can you be ambitious at work and have some level of work life balance? I think it's going back to your like, pick two of three. And this has been my experience. And maybe there's just gangsters out there that can do everything. But I don't think you can do everything because you are limited by time. To me, anyone telling you you can do everything or have everything is just that's bullshit, like you can't. And so yeah, I do think that there's certain energy you need to put into something in order to hit a bar of excellence. And that depends on your talent, your overall talent, your strategic work ethic that you're talking about. But I'd say it's the same for family. Like, you need to put in enough time. You need to be doing the right things. You need to be like demonstrating love, care, all of that. And a portion of that is just spending quality time. And so you have to pull time from somewhere else. If you all of a sudden have a kid that you didn't, you're going to spend more time with the kid. And I still think you can be very ambitious professionally. But if you add those two together, to me, there's very little time for anything else. I'll be honest, like I've just been a worse friend to like many people. I don't talk to as many people as I used to. I just can't. I don't have time. You were a very, very social person. There was a lot of people you were like, you could have cut some of those people out. Yeah, I care. So thank God. But like, you know, it's just one of those things. Like, you, you just have to understand, like, there's, you can only be amazing at so many things. Because like, you run up against the bottleneck of time and sleep. Of course. And it goes back to the broader point we're making, which is like, do you have an overarching goal that you've thought about deeply and you really want to achieve? And if that is being an amazing family person and like an amazing entrepreneur, operator, whatever it might be, that's cool. And like, you should pursue that and you should just be realistic that there's probably not enough time to do something else amazing. 100%. And it feels like what the thing you always fucking say, which is like, show me your calendar and I'll tell you your priorities. Yeah. It's like how you're scheduling your time. Like, you can be ambitious. And like, you can have some level of balance with your personal and professional life, but there's always going to be trade-offs inherent with that. Yeah. One last question before we move on to our work rounds. Okay. Which is, for everyone listening, you know, we've been talking about the limits. We've gotten a little philosophical. Yeah. We got real philosophical. It's time for the limits of ambition. We're talking about work ethic and talent. What is like one piece of advice or tactic that we should be taking away today when we're talking about ambition and success? That's such a good question. I know. And I don't really have an answer. So I'm hoping you got a good one. I mean, to me, my belief is that everyone on the planet has ambition. Like, and I think a lot of people maybe get in this cynical loop of like, you're not excited about what you're doing and you think you ought to be. So your conclusion becomes, I just don't, maybe I'm just not ambitious. I just don't have that juice. To me, like, that isn't how I see the world. I think if you're feeling that, it's not because you don't have ambition necessarily. And I don't think, I think everyone does. It's just you haven't found the thing that is going to make you ambitious. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just, I've seen people who struggle at one job and they're like, maybe I'm just not good. And they find themselves in a new job and they absolutely crush it. And you're like, oh, the issue wasn't you. It was about fit. Right. Like, if you find your fit, if you find the goal, the thing that you want to wake up and you want to attack with energy, because like, you love doing it. It brings you a lot of joy. Then I think your ambition is going to get unlocked. And so my tactic would be, don't say, I'm not ambitious, because I think that you're going to get stuck in things in situations that aren't actually good for you. I would have the mindset of, I am ambitious. I just haven't found the right ambitions yet. And that's where you want to explore and you want to experiment and you want to increase the service area of things you're doing in people you're meeting to find what those ambitions are. And then you'll be like, holy shit. I do love that thing. And now I'm attacking it. I am ambitious. So that would be my tactic is if you feel like you are under ambitious, it's probably because of fit and think about where you can find your best fit. Yeah. I think it's also like so much of life is like the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Right. And like if we are defining ambition as being a CEO, then like many, most people are not going to be ambitious. So I think like if you're like, I'm not ambitious, I think it's like, well, what does ambition mean to you? What do you actually want to do? And can you reframe it where you're like, oh, I am ambitious. I want to be the best marketer. I want to be the best analyst that there is. I don't need to go beyond that. Yeah. Then how, how can you spend your energy and your time being the best marketer? Yeah. What are the steps you have to take? And then I think career success just kind of comes from that versus I want to be the CEO, but I don't really know what to do. Like I don't know. Whatever. You're not going to be as successful as somebody who's just really focused on everyday being a little bit better at marketing. Yeah. I totally agree. If you like, if I use a sports analogy, if you take like a bench player for the Minnesota Timberlost show, that's my Timberlost, like they would be delusional to be like, my ambition is to be the best basketball player ever. You'd have to pull them aside and be like, brother, I didn't happen. And have you seen Mike? Have you seen Michael Jordan? You're not even close. Right. So I think sometimes if your ambition is to become the best of all time, you might just run into a fundamental blocker. You're not athletic enough. Like there's just limits to what you could be. But I think you could still be very ambitious by saying, I want to become the best basketball player possible for me. And like those are the people I think actually end up getting further than they ever would have with this lofty goal. Because then they're just like, they kind of block out the noise. And they're like, what can I do every single day to become the best version I could possibly be? Right. And like, producing something that is far greater than anyone ever thought they could. I think that's a great lesson for us in general is like, sometimes having the big lofty goal that's like actually kind of unrealistic, it's not really motivating. But if you wake up every day and saying like, I want to become the best version of whatever you're doing that I'm capable of and that means doing this every single day and you focus on the granularity, it seems almost counterintuitive to like not be focused on the big goal. Right. And then you get much more success that way. Well, I think that was a great, great place to wrap up. All right. Let's hit on with some work, Rant's Kayla. Let's do it. You want to go first? I'll go first because then I really want to focus on yours because you said yours a little faster. Well, okay, maybe I just was excited. My work, Rant is the AI slop apocalypse. The AI slop apocalypse is crazy. We have to, someone's got to say something. I don't know who it needs to be, but it's like the UN probably has to come out with a statement at this point. Holy shit, people. You got to check your work. You got to put some thought like the copy and paste from directly from Claude, it has to end. And I'm not even saying it's that bad. It just feels a little sometimes disrespectful that like did you actually think about this? And I'm a big proponent of using AI and I've definitely sent people peer AI slop, but I will always send it with a caveat that like this is peer AI slop and it's meant to like, let's like attack this together. It's more like brainstorming. But if I do use AI like thoughtfully, I'm never copying and pasting it. I'm like, okay, here, this is a really interesting thing. This got me further. I need to like put it into my own words because that translation is where your thought happens and that's really important. And I think we're just seeing more slop than ever before. It's a slop apocalypse. I think I will first. And we're probably guilty of a little slop. Sure. Sure. I actually, I don't do AI generated slop. My slop is my own. You have artisanal slop. I have artisanal slop. It's just bad work. You got that farmer's bark is slop. Yeah. But no, I agree. I think if you can immediately tell that something is AI and it's presented as a thoughtful thing like chances are it's bad. Yeah. Okay. Moving on. You're a ranch. Let's hear it. Okay. So now after yours, this feels a little less ridiculous and a little sillier. I need everyone to stop sending me high as a Slack message and then stop typing. Yep. Been there. Hi. Okay. What? What do you want? Quick question. QQ. Okay. What's the quick question? You said it's quick. Ask it. Like, it's so annoying. If I see QQ and you're not immediately typing immediately after, I'm like anxious. Yeah. Like, what is the question? You need to ask it and then I'm going to click out of that Slack. I'm going to forget. Yeah. And you're never going to get your question answered because you couldn't fucking press sent. Just send me the question. I think this is a work rant held and felt by all. Yes. I feel like it's like I, I, I'm so happy that you're doing well. I'm so happy. I love to say hello to you. Just send the question. And then in my response, I'll say hello, hello. Yeah. And I'll respond with the answer. I'll hit, I'll hit your high and I'll answer the question. We don't need to go high, high question answer. We go high question, high answer. Right. Even high enter question. Yeah. And then high enter answer. That's fine. But I need to see that you're typing once you've said hi. All right. So everyone that works with Kelo is now going to check their logs. To be clear. See how much we've offended you. To be clear, this is something that has not happened recently. Oh, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. It's an old, I'm thinking about somebody. It's just probably what you had from years ago. I'm positive. That was the inspiration for that work. Yeah, well, exactly. All right, save in your ass. Should we roll the credits? Let's do it. Our producers, Michaela Hackett. Our typical directors need a Miller. Kelsey Jones is our sound engineer. And our president is Devon Emory. This shows the production of Morning Brew. Thanks for listening and we'll be ambitious with you next week. See y'all. Overwhelmed by investing. If you're anything like us, the hardest part is getting started. That's why we created the investing for beginners podcast. Our goal is to help simplify money so it can work for you. We invite guests to demystify investing. At least like the minimum 10% into the 401k. I'm Dave Aherne and I'm Andrew Saither. And we hope you join us on the investing for beginners podcast. On the investing for beginners podcast.