Alicia McKenzie (00:00.216)
Personally, I think being able to control your time makes you incredibly successful. Yeah. I think that would also delineate your happiness factor. you're able to control your own time, you're probably happier than if someone else is controlling your time.

Alicia McKenzie (00:20.11)
Welcome to Married to the Startup, where every day is a new adventure. I'm Alisi McKenzie, a wellness entrepreneur and digital creator. Alongside me is my amazing husband, George, the CEO who's always ready for a new challenge. We've been tackling the craziness of marriage and running startups for over a decade. From boardroom meetings to bedtime stories, we're here to share the real unfiltered journey with you.

Join us for insights and candid conversations about integrating love, family, and entrepreneurship. This is Married to the Startup. All right. And we are back for episode nine of Married to the Startup. I am your host, Alicia McKenzie. Who are you? I don't know. It's a deep question. It might take a whole hour. Who am I really? At my core essence, who am I? Who are you? I am George McKenzie. Cool. Today.

Tomorrow I could be somebody else. All right. So we are back for another episode today. And first, I want to talk about some of the feedback we got for the show. And it was really interesting because it was kind of unanimous across the board that everybody hated the intro. Yeah, mean, it's interesting because we picked the intro before we really knew everything that we were going to be covering from a topic perspective. So once you started listening to the content, was...

sort of a mismatch. Yeah, didn't quite match up. That's okay. I always wanted to be a radio DJ and I think that's probably where we leaned, leaned in hard. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, we got some good feedback and I think we're going to make a change here and we'll have hopefully a new intro pretty soon. So first topic today is we're going to talk about how we define success as a family and how we teach our children to define success. And this is a conversation we have a lot because of where we live. There's

a lot of influential and powerful people in the Washington DC area, whether they're sports figures, news figures, senators, presidents, rolling stops in DC, there is no shortage of fame. And is that fame or is that notoriety the definition of success? In our book, we say no. I think from our perspective, we try to teach our children that the definition of success is extremely wide, right? And if you make it

Alicia McKenzie (02:43.328)
very narrow to say that success is defined by money or success is defined by fame or by power, then it really limits your ability to be successful. So if you don't do all those things, you're not rich and wealthy or famous, then you're not successful. Where if your definition of success is broad enough to say that if I am happy, if I

and loved, if I have friends, if I am successful in whatever it is that I'm doing, whether or not the world deems that success via monetary value, it doesn't matter because for me, that's success. If I have friends and loved ones and I am happy doing what I'm doing every day or most of the time, then it's a successful life. And I think we try to teach the kids that no matter what you choose to do in your career or no matter

which road you decide to take, you're still a human, you're still a person, and everybody around you is still, you all bleed the same blood. Until AI takes over. That's true. Until AI takes over. But at the end of the day, just because you're a famous athlete or just because you're on the news, that doesn't make you any better than anybody else and vice versa. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that, you know...

those people don't deserve your respect as a human being more than anybody else. Like just because they're living their life on the screen for you or on Sundays for you if they're a football player or baseball player or what have you that it doesn't mean that every day they're that person. Like sometimes they're just dad and you don't need to be bombarding them with things that would be what you would do when they're working, right? Versus when they're just being the dad. Yeah.

And I think just as an example, there's a little kid in one of our son's classes and her dad is an athlete. And one of our sons wanted to go up to him and like, I really just want to meet him and so on and so forth. And we're like, but he's at his child's game. Like just leave him alone. He's not here to be an athlete. He's here to be a father. And you need to learn how to respect that. If we're at a baseball game and you see him, sure, great. Go get his autograph. Go talk to him. Go high five him.

Alicia McKenzie (04:56.172)
or at a little league field and he's just there to support his child, then that's something that I'm teaching our children to respect, that people are people. They don't want to be bothered. You wouldn't go up to someone else who's CEO of XYZ company and see him on the sidelines and try to run over and get his autograph. So the definition of success in our household is it's pretty wide. Personally, I think being able to control your time makes you incredibly successful. Yeah. I think that

would also delineate your happiness factor. you're able to control your own time, you're probably happier than if someone else is controlling your time. And what we talk to our kids about and we talk about all the time that the only thing in life that is truly valuable is your time. Because that's the one thing that once you spend it, you can't get it back. Like money, you can always make more of it. Time, once it's gone, it's gone. Absolutely. And even though we do have small children.

We're not solely in control of our time, but I think we've got a pretty flexible schedule and we're able to dedicate time to the things that we want versus the things that we need to do. And it's back to that broad definition of success. So controlling your time, it's not a hundred percent of the time, right? It's trying to get to a point where you, for the most part, live a life that you intend to live and what you want to do. And your time is how you support that. Sometimes, you we all have to do things we don't want to do.

this morning, I had to wake up at 4 a to let my dog out because he just probably ate something that didn't agree with him. So he was going crazy and I had to be up from 4 to like 630 dealing with him. So not something I wanted to do with my time, but you get through it. Yeah, you choose your heart. Choose your heart. like that. Choose your heart. And then you sent me an article, which it was actually, it was a pretty interesting read. And I'm just going to read this little snippet because I think it's something that we talk about often.

Dear teenagers, a Harvard study found that 99 % of our success depends on one thing, who you associate with. You may not realize it, but you're like a chameleon. You can and will absorb the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of those you choose to spend the most time with. If you spend time with winners and positive thinkers, you'll start to become like them. Spend time with negative underachievers, and you'll become like them. Choose your friends wisely. And I think that's one.

Alicia McKenzie (07:20.59)
100 % something that we preach. Life is about your mindset. If the first thing that comes to your mind when you wake up is, today's going to suck, it's probably going to suck. Yeah, back to the manifesting. And I think that when you, you know, the people that you surround yourself with, and that's what, you know, that article was something I thought was cool is that, you know, if you boil down success, that's one of the biggest criteria for success is who you surround yourself with. you know, thinking about, you know, Warren Buffett and his criteria for success, it's to whom and to where you're

you know, to where, where and to whom you're born is a predominant of success, which is also most of the times, you know, what situation you're born into will dictate your friend circles and who you associate with and being able to understand it's hard as a child, but as you get older and understanding that, who is adding positivity to my life, who is enhancing my life? And it's something one of my friends recently sent shared an article with me that we're not talking about here today, but it was great. And it said, Hey, there's

Deal friends and real friends and real friends are the ones that you want to surround yourself with. And I think that that's that goes back to that article as well as people that are positive people that are winners or people that aren't exactly like you that are different from you and not someone in which you have something to gain from. And the only part I don't like about that was the whole networking part. But I can see how the networking part in that article works because you're in those circles. You're just naturally introduced and and you talk to people.

that are in the other people's circle. in the Venn diagram of people everybody knows, there's probably not a lot of overlap, but when it does overlap, you start to meet new people. So I like that. I thought that was an interesting one. I think that's kind of how we choose our friend group. And we have a very small circle of people that we choose to spend our time with. And let's be honest, I don't like a lot of people anyway. That's true. So if I like you, then that's it. No, I'm kidding.

I don't like a lot of people. And we have a very small circle because you don't want to be in a relationship where you feel like somebody is always expecting something from you or somebody is always looking for an angle on how to make a business deal or so on and so forth. there was one point within social media where people were DMing me to get to my husband. And I'm like, all right, you're blocked because that's just why.

Alicia McKenzie (09:46.018)
Don't do that. I mean, I guess good for you for shooting your shot, but also I'm not the person to do it with. Yeah. It's interesting. And I think that that's a quick way to realize if they're real friends or deal friends is when they start to want to leverage your network to get ahead. And I know that's probably things that people say all the time is, you'd love to leverage your friends network or your networks networks.

I just think that that's not a recipe for success. No. And I think within conversation, things come up and you're like, okay, it could be organic. And if they're real friends, right? And as part of that article is talking about those folks are the ones that want you to be successful. They challenge you, they're sounding boards for you. And if you're experiencing a problem and it's in an area in which maybe they don't have domain expertise, but they know someone who does, they're naturally going to introduce you a network that way. And I think that's just part of being a friend.

versus who in your net, do you know anybody that knows so -and -so so that I can get an intro meeting to so -and -so? Yeah, that those just, those don't fly with me. To be honest, like I don't care who you are. If I like you and I like your personality, then great. Let's, let's go cold punch together. But if, if you're so -and -so's husband and he did, he won a world cup or whatever, whatever, like I don't care. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. And it's teaching that to your children.

and making sure they understand that too, that who you surround yourself with is extremely important to your overall success, be it wide or narrow. If they're bringing negativity and maybe bad decisions into the relationship and then like that quote you said, like you're a chameleon, so you're going to start to do those things whether you want to or not, it's just human nature. And if you're around people that are doing bad things, eventually you start to do bad things too.

What's the one thing we say to Ava when she leaves the house? Make good decisions. Make good choices. That's it. Just make good choices. Yeah. And I think that, you know, to tie it back to a business side of it is when you're, when you are an entrepreneur and let's say you're starting a business, that's those first hires that you have, you know, go into who you're surrounding yourself with, who you're starting your business with. Are these people that add positivity to the business and to that relationship or are they?

Alicia McKenzie (12:00.896)
only bringing one thing or a mirror copy of you with your exact same belief systems and that most of time is not good. So you have to make sure that who you're surrounding yourself with within a corporate environment is very similar. You don't want Eeyore to be your chief marketing officer, right? So you got to have someone who's positive in that role and understanding that they add something to the business. I look at a business almost as if it's its own

living thing, it's its own relationship dynamic with all the owners of the leaders and you all have to bring something to the business and then also be able to have that relationship where you can grow it. I think like tying this back, like within our friend group, there are a multitude of different opinions, different political landscapes. it's

I feel like our friends are, they're very diverse in what they believe in and how they think and their political views and so on and so forth. And honestly, I don't even know what I categorize myself as anymore. I'm not quite a Democrat. I'm not quite a Republican. I think I'm like this hybrid in between. There aren't really any good choices, but if you have to pick one, honestly, I don't even know. But I think within our friend group, it's very similar.

Right. There's no straight down the line Republican to Democrats anymore. And I like that. I like that we're able to have these hard conversations within our friend group. And yeah, we may not agree, but I think it's important to have those different opinions because if you're just in a sounding board or a room where everybody thinks like you, like how there's no growth. Yeah. You're just in an echo chamber. then, you know, I think the

perfect example that is social media where you get down this rabbit hole where the algorithm will feed you the data that it thinks you want to read, which will all be similar to what you've already read in the past. then all you're exposed to is one side, which as you get deeper and deeper into the readings, it's going to be more more skewed that way. You don't get a balanced debate over anything. And it doesn't have to be politics. It can be anything. Having that

Alicia McKenzie (14:19.586)
that friend group or having that leadership group, if you decide, let's say in a business setting, hey, we want to launch this new product line or we want to go after this new market segment. Like having everyone that just says, that's great. We should do that. that's an amazing product. We should do that. That market segment is ripe for us. We're going to crush it versus someone saying, hey, why are we doing that? Do you think we can be successful there? You need that antagonist. Yeah, or at least the different opinions.

on someone that may had different experiences that you're like, hey, I've tried to sell into DOD before, it sucks. Or, hey, I've tried to launch XYZ product. And then same with your friend groups is, hey, I've done the private school route thing before. Or, hey, I've done X, Y, Z thing before. Or, I vacationed there before. I loved it. Or, I hated it. Which is also, this is a perfect segue into our next topic that I think we used to have this debate a long time ago.

Now it is what it is, but it's private school versus public school education. You're a product of public school, I'm a product of private school. And when we first got together, we weren't really sure which route we were going to take. We were poor when we first got together. So it wasn't really a choice. It was going to be, hey, they're going to go to the school that I can afford, which is public. No, they went to parochial. Yeah. Right. yeah, we...

we were not flush with cash when we first got together. But Ava went to, she went to a parochial private school and those are typically more cost effective, but we were still able, we didn't live in the greatest area and I wasn't comfortable sending her to the public school. And then when we moved, we pulled her from the parochial school and she went to public school for a little bit. And then she ended up back in private and then back in public. So I think Ava is like the perfect testament of she did both.

And in this area, you really can't go wrong. Yeah. Right. We've got some really, really strong public schools in the McLean and Northern Virginia area. And we've got some great private schools. And I know that's not the case for every environment or every locale, but we're fortunate here. And I think it's interesting. And I was pro public school because I think you get exposed to diverse thoughts. You get exposed to diversity because it's whoever lives in that. Did you have a private school where you went to school?

Alicia McKenzie (16:37.134)
Yeah. Was there a private school? Yeah. What was it? There was a couple of Woodbury Forest is one that the boys went to. Okay. It was high school, not elementary. Yeah. And then I think there's a Christian school somewhere. Okay. But most everyone public. Yeah, there weren't a lot of options. No. Yeah. Yeah. But I think public gives you that. then, you know, if you're my view, if you're going to be that top 10%, you're going to be that top 10%, right? It's not going to matter.

public school is not going to make you the top 10 % or a private school is not going to make you the top 10 % that it's you and maybe how high up you get with that top 10 % is probably better in private where you get exposed to more and you can learn faster because of the, let's face it, mean the way that they weed out people that come to the school, right? So it's almost preaching to the choir, so to speak, that it's easy for everyone to make good grades because you've vetted all the people coming in that they're all capable of making good grades versus public where it's...

you get what you get. So whoever lives on that street is going. think a bright kid is going to thrive anywhere. Yeah. And I think the thing that got me, one, you know, when, when Michaela got in and you're like, okay, guess we're going here. But talking to other people that have had kids that have gone through private when what they said was, you know, one of the guys I talked to, his son needed that extra support. And because of the private school environment, he was able to get the extra support with tutoring and one -on -one because it's

the student -to -teacher ratio is much lower and everyone's vested in your success. Where in public school, the teachers are vested in your success as long as you can pass the test and kind of public school moves at the pace of the slowest child. And it's hard because of the ratios. If you're doing 20 kids per class or 25 kids per class. I think it's more like 30. 30 kids per class and one teacher, how much time does he or she really have to help that struggling student?

And then it becomes the parent's responsibility or outside tutors or something else to help drive it where in private you get more of that. So, I mean, if the child needed that extra help, you know what was there. if you can afford it, then why would you not? Absolutely. We have three kids in private school and we have one in public and the one in public is thriving. Like she's doing great. Like I wouldn't change a thing. I think her high school experience has been so great for her.

Alicia McKenzie (19:00.798)
And honestly, if I could get our kids to go to high school. Right. Yeah. I mean, she said the, you know, the typical high school experience of what you would think is Friday night football games, like the student body comes out, paint the face. It gets really exciting. And the same with volleyball and like, it's a

It is a community aspect in the school around athletics and it's not like they're great. It's just that. But I was talking to a mom who is from the Midwest and she's like, you think this is a big school on a Friday night? She's like, I'm from the middle of the country. This is nothing. And I'm like, well.

All we know is private school. So this is amazing. Like private school games are at like 4pm on a Saturday. And it's attended by parents of the athlete. student body. It's not a student body thing. They tried with Friday night lights to make it a thing and maybe it is. It got better. We didn't go. So shame on us. But yeah, it's definitely a different situation. Yeah. It might not be the Midwest, but it's still pretty cool in our book.

Yeah, the private school, public school debate. think it's funny because even in the private school having conversations with other parents, they have a similar debate structure because when, you know, if they were a public school, you know, bread, then it's like, Hey, I don't know why we're spending all this money to go to a private school. can get the same education. didn't, I didn't get the private school education. I turned out great, but yeah, you're probably turned out great because you were that.

you were going to turn out great regardless. Yeah. think if you're a bright child who's a good self -starter and easily like internally motivated, then I think you're going to thrive anywhere. And then back to the peer group thing. you know, because of the vetting process, the peer group you're going to be exposed to in a private school versus the peer group at a public school is probably, you know, the ingredients for success is probably higher in the private school because of the people that you will be around. Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (20:50.21)
I feel like the odds though aren't in our favor. We have five kids. One of them is bound to be a screw up. It's possible. Which one's it going to be? We can all take bets. Yeah. Yeah, seriously. All right. So moving on to the next topic, this one is around AI and the ethics surrounding open AI, which first I kind of want to talk about the Scarlett Johansson issue, the voice issue because

When was it? It was probably about a week ago. Chat GPT released a voice that, what was the name of it? Sky? I don't remember. Maybe. But yeah, it sounded a lot like ScarJo. It sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson. And the issue was that when they approached Scarlett Johansson to use her voice, she said no. So then they came out with a voice that sounds eerily like Scarlett Johansson, but they're saying that it's not her and they did not intend

for it to sound like her and she sued them. Yeah, I guess, I mean, it's the perfect tie into their ethics and governance board where you would think that an ethical company would approach someone to be the voice. And when they said no, you would go a different direction, not let's leverage AI to create a voice that sounds exactly like the person we want to use. exactly. And then when we tweet her that this new voice came out, but it wasn't meant to sound like you. was just a real, it was a coincidence. What a happy coincidence. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, I think the ethics and AI, it's walking a thin line right now. Yeah. And I think that the article that I shared with you with some of the whistle blowing about the internal governance boards within OpenAI and the fact that they're all run and operated and chaired by Sam Altman and the same guys that are leading the company. So wait, so okay, you have a company who the CEO is Sam Altman. Yes. And then you have an ethics board. Yes. That is supposed to keep

and govern and make sure everything's copacetic. But that is also run by Sam Altman. Yes. Okay. So that was the accusations and that's where, you know, kind of the topic for me was, you know, well, Sam, Sam Altman kill us all.

Alicia McKenzie (23:01.74)
Well, AI just, you know, go ungoverned and be, because who's going to be the one to reign it in? Yeah. Who's going to tell Sam Altman no. Yeah. Exactly. Who's going to reign it in when there's an ethical dilemma around, you know, should we make this choice? Is it good for the company? Yes. Is it good for humanity? Maybe no. And who makes that decision? It's an interesting one. And it's one that I think is a broader topic on the business side.

And it may be a stretch, it's also looking at, you know, one of the books that I love is scaling up and it's oftentimes, you know, the, the leader of a company, let's say the CEO of the company may come from a sales background or a marketing background or a technology background. And whichever one of those he comes from is normally the weakest part of the business, which is, it doesn't sound intuitive, right? And the reason for that is because it's often where the CEO would say, I'm not

going to hire a key leader in that area because I can do that. Yeah, I don't need, you know, a CMO because I can handle the marketing, but I'm also the CEO. I also have to handle, you know, strategy and direction and also have to handle, you know, finance and all the other things that the CEO has to handle. But they neglect the marketing aspect because they that's their bread and butter is what they're used to and what they think they add to the company. And I think, you know, I'm going to give Sam, I don't know, obviously.

But the benefit of the doubt is that he thinks he is ethically empowered to make that decision because he believes so wholeheartedly in open AI and AI for good and all the things it can bring to humanity. So I would obviously make the ethical and correct choice because I am so passionate about it. And that's what I believe. at what point is he so blindly?

Yeah, it's Enamored with the new shiny product that he's willing to overlook some of these ethical things that are coming into question. Yeah, or not see it, right? Because you're so laser focused. Yeah. I think in business, that's a good lesson, right? That, you know, it's hard. You can't be objective when you're so deep in the weeds. It's impossible. Yeah. And, you know, don't just make things for the theater of it. Like, I'm going to create a diversity program or I'm going to create, you know, this.

Alicia McKenzie (25:18.05)
community aspect of the company. scholarship programs or so on and so forth. Yeah. Or it's, hey, I'm going to do town halls because I care about my community and all I'm going to talk about in the town hall is finance. Yeah. Like there's a blind spot there and to be able to understand that or vice versa, you know, where, hey, I'm at the town hall and my role is X and I'm just going to talk about stuff that is all fluff and rah rah. So you have to, when you're running an organization or you're building that

governance structure or roles, you have to understand who's that person in the role and make sure you get the right person in the role and not just, I know best, I'm the best marketer here, so I'm going to be in charge of marketing. So you've been the CEO of several companies. Where do you think your weakness lies? My weakness? Yeah. Plenty. But no, think sometimes I get too deep in the areas that I'm

good at, like the technology side, I'll dive in too deep or too controlling, too in the weeds. then sometimes I'll do the opposite where I try to give more control to people. then when I don't like the outcome, then I dive in and take more control. So that part, I think it's the good and the bad. And if I get the right person in the role that I feel I know they can do it, and probably the weakest part for me.

is even when that person is incredibly capable, I'll like to poke just to make sure that we're, because we're making sure we're doing the right thing. To be that antagonist, even though I fully trust that that person knows what they're doing and I think that they have the right idea. But a lot of times people who are incredibly intelligent or really good at what they do, no one pushes back. So it's my role to push back to say, is that right? Can you do it faster? Why aren't we doing that? Why don't we do this?

leads to lot of arguments, but I think at the end, a healthier company. definitely. mean, your path speaks for itself. Yeah. I think we've done some good work. I try. So actually something I think that's it's a really interesting topic. mean, we're on the topic of AI, but how can you as a founder lean on some of these new products that are coming out to build a company faster? Right? Because I think you're seeing a lot of people really

Alicia McKenzie (27:40.982)
they're definitely leaning into the idea of using chat tpt or using some of these AI powered tools to help grow certain aspects of their business. But then you also see that when people are coming to banks or they're going to private equity and they're asking for money, they're asking for less because they are using these AI powered tools. Have you seen that? No, not particularly. But I mean, I've read a lot of stuff about that. That's I mean.

Yeah, it's definitely enhancing or lowering the barrier to entry to get a business going. Right. So let's say you're a brand new founder. What can you do to really use some of these to help grow your company with less resources than you could potentially afford 10 years ago? Yeah. mean, the marketing aspect, like having it help you create marketing ideas. And it's not that I'm going to leverage chat GPT or Claude or...

or something else to give me my entire marketing campaign. But it's an easy way to get outside thought and ideas that you can riff on to say, okay, I like a piece of that one. Let me pull that thread a bit and add my own intuition to it. Or, hey, can you help me with which company I should form, which state I should form my company in? Or the questions that you may have that you would run to a lawyer for, you could probably get quicker answers using AI, not the...

say that you should rely on AI for legal advice, but I'm saying there are some questions that you could get answered. We don't do that, Andy, I promise. that and just like logo designs and helping word your pitch deck and helping to formulate the... The logo design is really interesting. the chat GPT illustrations or the Ali.

some of the things that they come up with. It's really cool, but my one issue with it is that you can't correct an image. Yeah, I think they got some. There's some newer ones that you can. You can use a similar image to edit it. you? I mean, there's tons of them. Mid -Journey, there's a bunch of things that do really cool Which is nuts because I swear I was doing graphics maybe like four weeks ago and now there's something that can't. That is the thing with AI. There's LLMs that come out every day.

Alicia McKenzie (29:58.126)
hundreds and thousands of them that come out every day. speed at which AI is developing is just, it blows my mind. Yeah, I saw it was a headline. That was a click bait, I'm sure. But it was saying that, we'll run out of user or human generated content for LLMs to consume by 2026. Interesting. Yeah.

You see it on Instagram now when you go to post something, it says, has this been generated by AI? It's now a shadow box that you have to check if it's been generated by AI because they're trying to just be more transparent about the content that you're consuming on their platform. I think we're getting hopefully closer to AI is that assistant or helps you with the mundane and is the replacement for Google search, right? Where you just ask it.

the question that you would ask Google today and get a real answer versus, hey, here's 35 of the highest ad revenue sites to click through to read articles. And then eventually you can get to an answer. And I think that would help, you know, being able to have that co -pilot, being able to have that assistant in a startup world before you have funds to hire one to help you make reservations or book things or, you know, create a project schedule and do all the things that you need to do to.

in the early stages of a business to have that to rely on versus, you know, trying to work 24 hours a day to get those things done by yourself before you can afford staff. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's definitely lowered the barrier to entry for entrepreneurship, which it's not a bad thing. now we just needed to be able to do the dishes and mow the grass for you and do all the things that we actually don't want to do. Alexa bathed my kids. I'm sure to read a bedtime story.

Alexa, read me a bedtime story. I'm sure that works. I wish. I bet you it does. We should try it. It probably does, but our kids don't want it. They want you. They want you, or at least our boys do. Our boys want you in their room reading the bedtime story every night. It's not really bedtime stories anymore. Now it's just books, chapter books. Yeah, our baby. All right. That's all folks. Thank you for tuning into Married to the Startup. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did,

Alicia McKenzie (32:11.054)
Please take a moment to rate, like, and subscribe to our podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and keeps the conversation going. If you have any topics you'd like us to cover, please feel free to drop me a message at liftlikeamother or at marriedtothestartup. We love hearing from you. Until next time, George out.