In a recent video transcript, Brian Davis, a busy father and full-time professional, chats with Imteaz about his experiences with generative AI and personalized learning. Davis explains that he is fascinated with the idea of having a tool to make life easier. He uses chat GPT, a generative AI tool, every day. He describes it as his new little assistant.
Davis explains that he initially started using chat GPT to understand better how it worked. He did not intend to incorporate it into the technology he was building. He wanted to take what he was already doing in his job or at home and improve it. For instance, if a task takes him two hours to complete, he wants to know if he can complete it within 10 minutes with chat GPT.
Over time, Davis found that personalized learning was the key to his success. He loves skill stacking, learning something new, and applying it to something else. For example, when his daughter struggled with chemistry, he used chat GPT to teach her the concepts she was working with. He found that it was a way to personalize her learning and help her understand the images in a way that was meaningful to her.
Davis also discusses the challenges of managing high-performing, difficult employees. He explains that he has had many experiences with these types of individuals in the past. He approaches them with a different mindset, recognizing their unique motivation and drive. He focuses on protecting their space to live in their creative genius and blocking requests that are coming in, so they can be hyper-focused on their work.
Ultimately, Davis believes that the future of productivity lies in personalized learning and AI. He explains, “Finding worthy problems or things you’re passionate about is key. It’s important to use the skills you’re learning and what you’re doing already, not to take away from the time you already have.”
Davis’s approach to productivity reminds us that we can use AI tools and personalized learning to make our lives easier and achieve our goals. By focusing on what we’re passionate about and learning new skills that we can apply to other areas of our lives, we can be more productive and efficient in our daily lives.
Guest’s social handles: LinkedIn – Brian Davis, https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianelliottdavis/
Hosted by: Imteaz Ahamed
Podcast Transcript: Imteaz and Brian
Imteaz: Hi everyone, welcome to Applied Intelligence. Today, I have a dear friend, Brian Davis, joining me. Brian’s currently the Director of Technology at LSU. He joins me from sunny Louisiana. I’ve actually only known Brian for a couple of days. We met last year when he was running StartupBus USA, which is something we share in common. I love for
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: startups, I love for competitions, I love for helping people. build solutions. So we’re gonna have a fascinating conversation. I’m really looking forward to it. Welcome to the show, Brian.
Brian Davis: Yeah, thank you, Imteaz. I’m super excited to be here. I definitely appreciate the invite.
Imteaz: So this is a question I love to ask. I typically ask this in interviews, so I’m going to put you on the spot.
Brian Davis: Okay.
Imteaz: What’s your story and how did you get to where you are? And to give you more context, the question I typically ask in an interview is, if you had to write an autobiography for yourself and it only had five chapters, what would the chapter titles of each one of those chapters be?
Brian Davis: Okay, yeah, that’s a great question. Let’s see. I think the chapter one would be achievement. So like I said, I’m from Louisiana, born and raised, a little city in North Louisiana, and there sports is a very huge thing. Everyone plays sports to pass the time, and it’s serious business there. I grew up as an athlete and I love competing. So I was involved in track and field and love running summer track. And with that, I got a chance to travel all over the country and meet some amazing people and do some pretty cool things. And at one point I was nationally ranked, believe it or not, in my event. And yeah, loved basketball and football and got a lot of awards and recognition. doing those kinds of things. And on an academic side as well, I was almost a straight-A student, got great grades, and wanted to be the best in whatever it is that I was involved in, and always had people pushing me along the way. And so, and had a lot of support for my family. The neighborhood that we grew up in wasn’t the greatest neighborhood in the world, and I was always the little… the nerdy skinny kid and my older brother, he was always pushing me to be tough. My dad was just always present and he was the one that kind of showed me the impact that your presence can have on someone. You don’t have to say a whole lot of words, but just being there meant a lot. And my mom was my biggest cheerleader. And she was the one that would tell me, I can do anything. She was always there for me and no matter where I was, it could have been a crowd of hundreds of people in a stadium somewhere. I can always hear her screaming for me over anyone else. And so she really helped develop in me this delusional optimism that I can do anything, which served me very well as a kid. And I would say coming into my senior year or so, Um, that, I don’t know if that optimism necessarily worn off that, that was always there, but I suddenly became more aware of where I was in the world and aware of how, how I fared against others. And for whatever reason, I, you know, I started comparing myself to, you know, a lot of different people and I noticed, um, a lot of the kids as we grew up in puberty hit and all of a sudden they’re 15 years old with a full goatee and like rippling muscles and that just wasn’t me. But still was able to compete but got in, started to get into my head a little bit and you know doubting myself and had a couple of run ins with different adults and coaches who you know would scream at you and almost belittle you a little bit. I didn’t really, that’s not really my style. I didn’t really resonate with that. And so. As I graduated high school, kind of left that achievement phase and I’ll say the second chapter would be pursuit. I found myself in the search of something. At the time I didn’t really necessarily know what it was. I had questions about faith and about God and I started wanting to know more. I found myself just being interested in and concerned about, you know, starting a family and what I even, you know, be good enough to, you know, to be a good dad or be a good husband and all those different things. And I also started on the academic side, started to figure out pretty quickly what it is that I wanted to do. And I started pursuing that. So I remember the very one of the very first, the first video game console we had was the old the old school. Nintendo and I remember playing Super Mario Brothers and I was like yeah that’s it I want to make video games and so I started on this quest to say okay well if you want to make video games like what do you have to study in order to do that so I figured out it was computer programming okay well I want to be a programmer because I want to make games and you know I got into to LSU and Um, programming was, was really hard for me. It, it wasn’t something that I, um, took to right away. Logic always came easy. Math came easy, but for some reason, the syntax of a language was, that was just a foreign concept to me. I didn’t understand that computers really weren’t as smart as I thought they were. Right. Like it will only do what you tell it to do and nothing else. And so I struggled quite a bit. And so I found myself. Um. I felt at least behind from a lot of other kids, right? So a lot of kids were in these computer science class at LSU and they’ve taken classes in their high schools and this was my first time ever doing anything like that. So it was a lot of, you know, trying to get up to speed and trying to prove to myself that I can do this. And so, yeah, so after college started my, Yeah, I got married. We got my wife and I got married right after school. No jobs. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. But we started our young family and I started my career right after that. And it was almost like I arrived. And so as I started going through my career, started learning and I would say maybe chapter three would probably be. revelation. And I say revelation in the sense that I started to realize how things really work. Like I started to realize what it meant to have a family and to lead a family. Finally I started to realize what it was like in the in the quote-unquote real world to be a professional developer. I started Um, realizing that, you know, I was a little bit more capable than, uh, than I thought I was. Um, I realized that I had a lot of insecurities. There were things about myself that I realized that I didn’t like and, um, that I wouldn’t dare admit. And, um, yeah. And just, just in general, there’s a lot of things that I started understanding. It was almost like when Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz and she peeks open that curtain and she realizes, you know, how things really are, that that’s kind of how I felt. Um. So yeah, I feel like I’m still at the tail end of Revelation. Like I feel like there’s still a lot of things that I’m realizing about myself and the world. And I’ll say the last two chapters are still unwritten. So we’ll see what those happen to look like.
Imteaz: Super cool. I like the chapter of Revelation and realizing insecurities that you have. And once you realize the insecurities you have, you also realize that the majority of humanity is in the same boat.
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: Everyone’s got insecurities. I’ve met the most confident, overconfident, crazy people that know how to speak to anybody in a room, but then you talk to them one to one. And then they tell you all the insecurities that you have. And you’re like, hang on, your external facade will say, is completely different to what I pictured
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: you to be. But then you realize everyone’s got their own demons. Everyone’s got things that they’re concerned and scared and worried about. At the end of the day, only human to be like that, right? So, you know, we have a common humanity. And sometimes I think the grass is always greener on the other side when you think, you know, that person has this.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: I don’t have that. But at the end of the day, it’s all puts and takes.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: You got to work with what you got
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and realize that the majority of us, specifically, if we’re fortunate to live in the West at this time, we have a pretty good make it, we’ve got to make do with all the opportunities that we’ve been given thus far.
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: I also liked how you broke down achievement versus pursuit and the importance of upbringing and the importance of family. And similar to you, I actually got married straight out of college
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: as well. And we started our family young and it’s tough.
Brian Davis: Mm.
Imteaz: And there’s a lot of growing up and a lot of maturing that you kind of have to do when you leave home. Will leave all of this stuff and there’s no book or no like… training manual that kind of prepares you for that
Brian Davis: Absolutely,
Imteaz: stuff.
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: You make so many mistakes.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: And if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. So
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: like, I remember one of my funniest memories is when I got my first place, I moved out of home when I was 20 years old,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and I didn’t know that you had to call the electricity company to get the power connected.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: So this was on a Friday afternoon in Melbourne. Melbourne is like a 12-hour drive away from Sydney, which is where I grew up. So about an hour flight. Anyway, so I get the keys to this place on a Friday afternoon and I check, I get into the apartment and I realize there’s no power. So I call the power company and they’re like, oh, we need two business days’ notice to
Brian Davis: Uh.
Imteaz: send somebody. We’ll see on Wednesday. So I went to the supermarket. I had to go buy some candles. Thankfully,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: there was gas in the place so I could cook some stuff.
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: But I had five days of cold showers and no electricity. And I was
Brian Davis: Oh yeah.
Imteaz: trying to do that. So it didn’t kill me. It was character-building.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: But it’s a funny memory. But it goes to show you like… nothing really prepares you for life, you kind of have to go through the things that you have to go through. And as long as you have that grit about you, you can kind of pursue and do anything you want to do.
Brian Davis: Absolutely. It’s one of those things too where, just like you said, like no one teaches you these things, right? Like you, and you have this, at least for me, like I just, I had this unrealistic understanding of the world and what it took to survive. And we just found out things as we went. And, you know, we dealt with different things. And just like you mentioned, simple things like… getting your electricity turned on. Like no one talks about that, right? And there’s a lot of things that we did, again, just mistakes that we made and growing up, you know, just as a young family that we just, it just happened on the fly. And to everyone else, it seemed like, at least to, you know, your parents and that generation, it’s like, oh yeah, it’s obvious. And the whole time I’m thinking, well, why didn’t you tell me these obvious things, right? So, but it was. It was interesting, but it was a challenge and a lot of fun learning as you went.
Imteaz: Um, one of the things I think about, and I’d love to get your perspective on this, um, is experience for kids. You have four kids,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: which is a huge congratulations. I don’t
Brian Davis: Ha
Imteaz: know how
Brian Davis: ha
Imteaz: you do it.
Brian Davis: ha!
Imteaz: And you look at someone with four kids. Let me tell you. Um, but one of the things I think about is, you know, with the way the world is changing, I have a 10-year-old and, um, you know, she’s got. versus the childhood I had, she’s got a lot more than what I had when I was 10 years old. But how do you prepare your kids for the future that is coming? How do you prepare your kids to obviously be lifelong learners, but how do you kind of teach them grit when they don’t didn’t necessarily or don’t have to struggle as hard as we did or maybe our parents did before us and our grandparents before us? They’re interesting. see how do you kind of discern or not teach but at least give the perspective to your kids that you know the rosy colored glasses that they may have or how everything is so easy now
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: what isn’t going to be the case when they’re on their own
Brian Davis: Yeah, that’s a great question. I feel like we are still figuring it out. So we’ve been, you know, being, we’ve been parents for 17 years now. I can’t believe it. My oldest daughter just had a birthday Sunday. And my wife and I, we talk about this all the time. Like we feel like in the beginning, we tried to give the girls a lot of what we didn’t have. And so, and then I think a lot of it too was, probably went overboard, right? Because we were subconsciously or maybe even consciously trying to undo some of the things that we experienced or protect them from some of the pitfalls that we fell into just growing up. And I feel like now we’re making a course correction to try to bring a little bit more balance there where we allow them to experience some. hurt and disappointment, you know, a little bit more because I feel like that’s very useful for growing up and like you said, building grit and helping them understand that life isn’t fair all the time and that’s okay. So some of it for us is, again, allowing them to fail, allowing them to make mistakes, you know, within reason. I talk to them a lot. We talk to them a lot about meeting. new people opening themselves up to the different cultures and so they can understand, at least here in the United States, I feel like we have this view of the world that’s very unrealistic. It’s our view of the world from the United States. It’s almost like the rest of the world is like the US, but that’s not the case. And so… trying to get them exposed to other people and other cultures that have a different worldview. And I think that helps a lot too. And one of the things that we always try to lean into with them is values of faith and just good family values in general. Like I feel like those things will never go out of style and they’ll help you no matter what age you’re in. you know, being kind to people and, you know, sharing and, um, genuinely having concern for other folks and, um, you know, that kind of thing. So we definitely try to lean into the basics, the world that’s, that’ll be here 10 years from now, it’s going to be, it’s already changing so fast and there’s no way for us to, it’s hard for us to predict what that’s going to look like. Um, so a lot of those core values, we definitely try to, um, hone in on and develop in them. Cause I just, I feel like that that’s going to serve them no matter what.
Imteaz: One of the things I I’m trying to install in my daughter is financial responsibility.
Brian Davis: Hmm.
Imteaz: She’s 10 years old but
Brian Davis: Oh, absolutely.
Imteaz: But like, you know, she’s used to Grandparents and you know extended families that Enormously spoils or anything that she wants right
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: so And I don’t want to be a no-dad like
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: no to everything so we got her um, it’s called busy kid and there’s lots of other versions of this
Brian Davis: Okay.
Imteaz: but It’s basically like a debit card. You deposit your, their pocket money in there.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: And then, you know, anytime we go out to shopping or for a coffee or whatever,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: you know, buy something it’s kind of like, okay, you’ve saved up your pocket money, use your money, right? Like you have a debit card, you can go, you can do it. You can buy whatever you want, manage your own money. It’s not my job.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: But that. Ever since we started doing that, she’s just become a bit more conscious of, you know, dollars and cents and the impact that has on her bank balance,
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: not just my bank balance. So, you know, I think we have a lot of these tech tools
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: out there to help people along or to help children along. And I think financial literacy specifically is not something that is well taught at school, if taught
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: at all, when they decide to do finance. So yeah, we’re trying to instill that as well.
Brian Davis: Yeah,
Imteaz: Anyway,
Brian Davis: that’s a great idea. Yeah.
Imteaz: let’s pivot to StartupBus. Tell me, let’s talk about StartupBus. What is StartupBus and how’d you get involved?
Brian Davis: Yeah, so Startup Bus is a usually an annual competition. And the best way I can describe it is it is our hackathon, our entrepreneurial bootcamp, a little bit of shark tank, and it all happens on a bus. And what happens is typically there are, there’s a selection process and. developers and UX designers and project managers or just general technologists and entrepreneurs, they apply to be a part of a competition where essentially what you’re tasked to do is come up with an idea and create a working prototype, working software in three days. And usually you are grouped together with complete strangers. And like last year’s competition, that’s the last time we had it in 2022, we had, I believe, five buses, different parts of the US, and there was a bus coming from Mexico. And folks came in from all over to join one of those buses. And what happens is teams are formed and you pitch for your idea to get selected and you try to form teams and then you… You have the next three days where you’re traveling across the US to the whole city and you’re literally that very little internet connection. And, you know, there’s so many challenges along the way. It’s hot, you’re hungry and all these kind of things. And you’re trying to get a product done. It’s the first six months or so. Think of, you know, building a startup. A lot of that is simulated on the bus. And then what happens after that, you get into your host sitting, you have two days for a competition where you’re pitching in front of other Startup Bus alum like yourself, or there may be VCs there who are interested in looking to fund the business, and then there’s a winner declared. And I tell you, for me at least, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done professionally and personally. But yeah, we’ll get into that, but I’ll stop right there.
Imteaz: No, for me, it’s obviously the competition. And I did it back in 2014
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: when I had been a career corporate person for six plus years and I thought I knew it all. And I did start up Boss in Australia, the first competition when it happened in Australia back in 2014. And then… It, you know, like in neuroplasticity, um, on neuroscience, they talk about rewiring your brain
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: in those three days. My brain was rewired completely
Brian Davis: Yeah. Yep.
Imteaz: because you learn that you can make decisions very fast
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and if you are put in a high pressure environment to do those decisions, to make decisions that actually matter,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: you’ll break. process all of this stuff.
Brian Davis: Yep.
Imteaz: And it’s not for everyone, not everyone can, you know, adrenaline for three days straight,
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: or four or five days straight, straight or two, three hours of sleep. But once you go through that process, you can effectively supercharge your decision making process
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: for anything and everything. So that’s part one. Part two, one of the… most fascinating things about this for me has been the community
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: around startup. Um, in the sense that, you know, most of the people that are involved are volunteers
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and they’re doing out of the kindness of their hearts. And you know, anytime I’ve rung up anyone from the community to help me with something, it’s always been yes. And this is what you should all. So, you know, from, it’s just, Firstly, they’re just crazy people to begin with.
Brian Davis: Yep.
Imteaz: Everybody who, you know, they go through the neuroplasticity rewiring of their brain, and most people are super kind and helpful. But then it’s also this amazing group of people that actually wanna make a change.
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: So it’s, yeah, and anybody who’s gone through this competition, and I highly recommend, anyone who’s done any form of technical work from a death point of view.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and involved in anything to do with digital or technology must go through this process, because if you don’t go through this process, you will be just another one of those, uh, just another developer, just
Brian Davis: Yep.
Imteaz: another UX designer, just another one of those people, um, that doesn’t necessarily understand how quickly and efficiently you can actually build product and actually solve problems. And then also be part of a really cool. community as well.
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: But tell me, oh sorry, go ahead.
Brian Davis: I wanted to say, just like your experience earlier, you’re talking, we’re very similar in that regard too. My past, my working career was all corporate America. It was 100% Fortune 500 companies. So I went on the bus in 2018 and a friend of mine, she got her way on the bus and she’s not technical at all. So a good friend of our family, Nodula Thompson, she’s awesome. She’s a great friend, she’s a serial entrepreneur. And she got on the bus and she got her invite and she told me about it. She said, hey Brian, I think this is gonna be great. And I was told I can invite somebody and here’s my invite, you should apply. I’m like, okay. So I look it up and I see everything they’re gonna be doing and you know, you probably gonna make apps and all this kind of stuff. And… business and a product in three days and immediately I was just like intimidated. I’m like, I don’t know if I can do anything like that. And I know I can build software, but I don’t know if I can do anything in three days. And I’ve never done anything outside of my company. Like I’ve never built a product that was public facing or anything like that. And to me, that’s a whole different animal. And so I get in and the folks that were doing the interviews, I let them know, look, I do know how to code. I don’t, at the time I knew nothing about React. I knew nothing about Angular. I knew nothing about those types of technologies. You know, can I still apply and I wanna try. So got on the bus and so long story short, I get on the bus, I get part of a team. One of the members of our team at the time was one of the principal engineers over at Tesla. And I’m just like, what in the world? Like, how do you find these people? And so, yeah, so I get on the bus, and there’s no way I’m going to learn. We chose Angular for our product, for our language, our framework. There’s no way I’m going to learn Angular in a couple of hours to be effective. So like, OK, how can I be effective with this particular competition? So I was like, well, again, I know I can serve, right? So I know enough about software development where I can help our engineers. Name was Harvey. I can help. RV, you know, talk through some things or get him what he needs. And, um, I can help our, the person that’s going to be doing our pitch. I can help them, um, perfect what they’re doing and, and all that kind of thing. I can be a runner, I can be a project manager, like all, all those things. And just like you said, Imteaz, I was, I was shocked at how quickly you can really build things. And because my. Again, going back even to school, when I was in computer science there, our programming language was C. And when you were, it was time to do an assignment at school, it was a blank blue screen and just white text. Like you just started from scratch and you just started cranking out code. But in my mind, I could not conceptualize how you can actually build a legitimate product from scratch. And I found out that, I mean, nobody’s really doing this from scratch, right? Like… I found out what Twilio was and how a lot of the messaging platforms back in the day, the underpinnings of that a lot of times was the Twilio technology. It was just repackaged and white labeled and sold somewhere else. I learned about all these different APIs and these frameworks were there and these different tricks of the trade. I had to suppress my corporate need to make sure that everything had to be perfect in a certain way before you can ship. And I understood that good enough is okay, you know, a lot of times. And it, I still, I was just blown away that at the end of it, we were able to make something, not it seemed like it worked, like it actually worked. And I was just, my mind was just blown. And my, and it’s like you say, like your brain was rewired into, into what’s possible and I came away with that, with a brand new confidence, it was. It wasn’t necessarily, I’ve never been like the greatest coder in the world. I’ve been pretty good. Um, but I came away with the confidence knowing that I may not, I can’t guarantee you that I’m going to be the best in the world or I’ll get this in a week. I do know that given the right amount of time, I can do anything. And so I started leaning, leaning into that, you know, a little bit more. Um, and. As a result, I’ve always wanted to do things on my own and have my own company and build products for clients. Really it was fear that kept me from doing that. After the startup bus, I told myself, because I always had people come up to me and they knew that I coded. They were always, hey, Brian, I have this app idea and could you help out? And they’re always declining. So I said, okay. The next time someone comes to me with an idea. and I think it’s interesting, I’m going to tell them yes. And I have no idea how I’m going to do it, but I know that I can figure it out. And so, yeah, so that’s what happened. So a couple of years later, someone approached me about an idea that they had and I said yes, and I’m actually finishing up that product right now. So, and I’ve never, maybe I would have done it, but maybe it would take me another 10 years to get ready to, or feel like I’m ready to do it, but. But yeah, Startup Bus really turbo charged that for me and gave me the confidence. Like saying, just rewired my brain to think a little bit differently on how to get things done.
Imteaz: Which is a great segue to the next question, which is about, you know, how do highly technical people such as yourself transition into leadership positions, right? Because it sounds like, you know, out of startup bus, it wasn’t just learning hacks or just learning how, you know, the internet is basically a giant pivot table with multiple API calls, just, you know, leveraging data from different sources. It’s also learning that, you know. solving problems is probably the thing that we get paid for, rather than just understand the technology. So, how have you made that transition and what advice would you give to highly technical people to become leaders within their space?
Brian Davis: Yeah, so I would say, so I’ve seen developers become leaders a couple of different ways. I’ll tell you the first way I’ve seen it’s, in my opinion, it’s a little unhealthy. I’ve seen developers as they progress in their career, because they’re really good at what they do, their leadership automatically assumes that the next role for them, the next level for them is leadership. that’s not necessarily the case. Because you’re a great developer, it does not mean that you are a great leader. There are two completely different skill sets. So I think that’s one tip for any leaders that are involved. Definitely consider a different approach when you’re looking for leadership in your dev groups. For those developers who are looking to become leaders. I think, especially in the dev space, I do think it’s critical for you to be excellent at what you do. One, you need to understand what your team is going through. Not that you need to tell them how to do it, but you need to be able to empathize with them. You need to be able to help them see some of the blind spots that maybe that they don’t know they have. So being excellent at what you do, I think is critical especially for these highly technical roles. And a lot of times, to be honest, the folks that are really good at their jobs in a technical standpoint, they a lot of times don’t respect leadership that don’t understand them, that can’t speak their language, right? So it’s kind of dual purpose there. And then the last thing I would say is, if you do want to become a leader and you are in that technical role, I think you have to lean into serving. service has to be paramount to what it is that you’re doing. For me, I had this idea of serving as whenever a problem came up or whenever my team was struggling with something, my idea of serving was to put on my Superman cape, jump in and solve the problem for them, right? And I was thinking that I was removing roadblocks for them. And once it was done, they could continue with their work. And I pat myself on the back, say, great job, leader, and kind of move on. And I remember my director at the time, his name is Mark. I still talk to Mark today. We talk about ideas and get his advice on different things. He told me, he said, hey, Brian, you are holding your team back. What do you mean, holding my team back? He said, yeah, you are robbing them the ability to learn. That really hit me because I never want to be the reason why someone isn’t progressing or someone isn’t getting better. He told me, he said, well, how did you get good at what you’re doing? How did you learn? There were problems that you had to solve and no one did them for you and you had to struggle a little bit and then that’s how you learned. He said that, could you do a better job? at what they’re doing? Probably. Would it be easier? You know, probably, because you know the system more than they do. That doesn’t mean that you’re smarter than they are. You have more domain knowledge. And your role is to set the parameters, make sure they don’t fall off the cliff, but allow them to make mistakes. And then you have to be comfortable with solutions that you may not necessarily 100% agree with. If it does the job, then it’s probably okay and let it go and kind of let them make their own path. So, but yeah, that was one of the things that I had to learn. And it wasn’t until I, and when he said that to Imteaz, I realized that I created this codependency that I never intended. And I found myself barely taking any PTO because I felt like my team needed me. Or if I did take PTO, I was constantly getting calls and. That was a sign to me that I wasn’t doing a great job of being a leader. Like I was creating, um, I was creating, I was creating dependents instead of autonomous developers who could make their own decisions and had the confidence to go out there and, you know, make mistakes and learn. And so that was, that was something that I had to, to learn, you know, early on.
Imteaz: That transition you make in your career from being like an individual contributor to like a team lead is a daunting one, especially if you’re one of those people that, I would say, you know, if you’re a perfectionist, but if you hold a very high standard
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: of your own work and you don’t see that being translated by the people that necessarily report to you,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: it’s very hard not to, you know, get your fingers into the weeds of like… you know, make sure that everything is perfect. I had to learn that myself. Like, you know, I was double, triple checking my team’s work all the time and,
Brian Davis: Mm.
Imteaz: you know, basically micromanaging everything. And yeah, they didn’t necessarily take responsibility because I was meddling in everything and then, you know, hunted their growth.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: And then I had to learn and I, you know, similar to yourself, I was overworking myself,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: not, you know, instead of. letting the team manage the work and me manage, you know, a strategy and,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and business objectives. I was working way too hard and not necessarily doing my job properly.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: And I was doing my team instead. So taking that setback, being okay with most things being at 80 to 90% and
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: not always at 100% is such a hard transition to make
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: when own up succeeding or achieving very high marks at school or very high quality of work as an individual contributor. And then you come to being a manager and you’re like, Oh, I have to be okay with 85% of that, even though, you know, he’s trying his best, he’s doing this thing, but not to my standard, but like, I can’t lose my life and lose my time
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: by, by perfecting other people’s work. So
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: it’s a hard transition. You got to do it.
Brian Davis: Yeah, absolutely. And again, it’s, I feel like too, it’s, it’s one of those things where we’re taught in school, one thing. And then again, you get into the real world and you have this revelation that just things don’t work that way. And like you said,
Imteaz: No.
Brian Davis: sometimes 80% or 85% is amazing. And, but you know, 80% in school is, is not. So like you’re, it’s,
Imteaz: Yeah.
Brian Davis: it’s weird how that, how that works. And Um, it’s, that’s almost, it’s almost like you go through the education process and then you have to wake yourself up and, and teach yourself and you have to learn a, like a brand new way of doing things. And that, that was definitely interesting for me.
Imteaz: Have you ever had to manage, it’s called an abhorrent genius, somebody who’s like ultra smart at what they do, but they’re a complete a-hole.
Brian Davis: Yes.
Imteaz: Tell me about that because I’m sure everyone goes through that at some point in their career. I’ll share your story too. But tell me about what it’s like managing a high performing. Crazy person.
Brian Davis: Yeah, it’s, so what I found with, and I know exactly what you’re just saying, with those, I feel like for me the approach is a lot different. If I have someone who is high performing and they may be a little rough around the edges personality wise, my thing with them is I do want to understand what their motivation is and why they do what they do. what it is that they’re doing. A lot of times it’s, they enjoy being on top, if that makes sense. Like they enjoy being the 0.01% of technologists out there that, that are involved in what they’re doing. And that, that’s definitely admirable for them. A lot of times it’s, honestly, it’s protecting them. And it’s some, it’s not anything that you necessarily that you say, but it’s trying your best to make sure that they have the space to live in their creative genius. That’s what I mean by protecting. It’s blocking the requests that are coming in and trying to make sure that they can be heads down and they can be hyper-focused on what it is that they’re doing. Sometimes it’s just sitting and letting them vent about frustrations that they have because… A lot of people don’t understand their world and they don’t understand what it’s like to be them and they don’t understand the level of genius that they’re putting into their work. And so sometimes it’s acknowledging, like truly acknowledging the work that they’re doing. It’s getting involved and, hey, show me, I want to see this code, like show me what it is that you’re doing so that you can really understand and appreciate that. And they need to know. that you know that they’re amazing, right? So that’s what I found with dealing with those. And, you know, so yeah, I’ll let you go ahead and tell your story.
Imteaz: Yeah, similar kind of thing. I had the pleasure of working with someone like that who, from an output point of view, was delivering the work of 10 people hands down.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: Right? The next 10 people that were working would not provide the same level of output as this person, but I could not put this person in a room with anyone else. Right? So
Brian Davis: Yep.
Imteaz: I could manage him and protect him
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: and shield him. and kind of do the interpersonal work on his behalf.
Brian Davis: Right.
Imteaz: But putting him in an audience, he would just literally tell everyone else that they were stupid and they had no idea what they were doing. And his idea was the best idea. Unfortunately, every time he opened his mouth, it was the best idea.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: But it’s just the interpersonal skills weren’t there. And there’s only so much coaching, feedback, blah that you can give to someone. For some of these people, it’s just a little bit too much, right? So if you do get that blessing of managing someone, I call it a blessing because
Brian Davis: Absolutely,
Imteaz: I actually like working
Brian Davis: absolutely.
Imteaz: with people at that caliber. But yeah, you just gotta completely change your management style and work with them and work for them
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: in some capacity. rather than just try and make them fit into your generic like middle manager or, you know, individual contributor type archetype from an employee. But yeah, super interesting
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: and super fun.
Brian Davis: Empty is quick question. Have you, have you ever, I’m not sure if you’re into sports or basketball, have you ever seen the Netflix series, The Last Dance?
Imteaz: Yeah, I’ve watched, I want to say I’ve watched the first half of the series, but yes, tell me.
Brian Davis: Okay, so second, towards the second half of that series, they get into Dennis Rodman. And if you’re familiar with Dennis Rodman, he’s this super eclectic character and he has this wild lifestyle, but just excellent at rebounding, defense, and one of the people that truly gives you everything that he has. And the coach of the Chicago Bulls, you know, Phil Jackson, he talked about that. And I remember when he came in, you know, Michael Jordan was, you know, to me, the greatest player that has ever lived. He was against, you know, getting Robin on board and, you know, he was just, you know, so different and the way Phil Jackson managed him, you know, cared for him was completely different than everyone else. Like he gave him his space and he let him be himself. And. long story short, once Dennis realized that Coach Jackson was going to let him be himself, he gave everything that he had to the team to win. And if he wasn’t there, there’s no way they would have won those championships. So yeah, to me, those types of developers, technologists, they remind me a lot of Dennis Rodman. They are excellent at what they do. It might be different than the rest of the team. but extremely valuable and you definitely have to let them be themselves. And like you said, don’t, don’t try to change them.
Imteaz: Very cool. So talking about hyper productive, hyper smart people, what’s your kind of process for learning new things and applying them in what you do?
Brian Davis: Yeah. So, yeah, so for me, I have the tendency of if I’m trying to learn something new, I want to consume as much content as I can in the beginning. And I, my friends are probably tired of hearing me say this, but I always talk about learning Spanish. I took, started in 2020 learning Spanish and I’ve always had this goal to be able to speak. And one of those things, you know, you putting the attention to it. And at the time, I just, I consumed as much content as I could. There’s so much out there and there’s the good, the bad, and there’s things that don’t work and things that work for you, but I wanna consume it all. From that, I usually can start recognizing the patterns of what truth looks like. So there’s one school of thought that says that, Oh, you don’t ever need to pick up a grammar book and you just need to immerse yourself in the language. And there’s others that say, no, before you say a word, you need to know all of the grammatical structures and the truth is somewhere in between that. And so usually I start recognizing what the patterns really are and I kind of hyper focus on that. And then I start trying to understand what resonates with me. So what ways of learning are really aligned with my energy and so I can make it seem like it’s effortless. And so for me, so once I get that and kind of realize the patterns there, after that I am setting a goal. I am time boxing myself. I wanna make sure I’m hyper specific once I feel like I’ve found the content. For me, I found this platform, it’s called baseline.com. You can get on and talk to native speakers and you can have, it’s all one-on-one sessions and you can either do classes of grammar or you can have conversations. And for me, I didn’t realize the thing that I needed was the conversational, you know, part. So for me, I needed a little bit of structure. So I signed up for classes. I time-boxed myself based on the budget that I had. I was like, all right, I’m going to give. I have two months to get this done. So what do I need to do? And then I’m researching if I have two months and my goal is to be able to have a 30 minute conversation with a native speaker, how like, how much time do I need to put into this in order to get this to work? And so then I figured out I needed two hours a day. And so after that, it was eliminating everything else in my life other than my family and my job, you know, business. and really putting the time in to do that. And so anyway, I did that six weeks later, I was able to accomplish my goal and I was able to have a 30 minute conversation with someone completely in Spanish. It was the weirdest thing in the world because it was, of course, you know it’s possible. There are people that speak all kinds of languages, but it’s because you’re not doing it, it’s like, man, I wonder what, is this possible for me? What is it going to be like for me? So actually living that was, was fantastic. And so, um, so once I got out of that, usually when I’m out of that time box, that hyper-focused period of time, I usually like to set, you know, micro habits that I can sustain, you know, for, um, you know, for forever. Right. So now for me, it’s consuming 30 minutes of Spanish, you know, every day. And, and I’m constantly listening to podcasts or learning different things. And so now. I just do most of it in Spanish. And so that way I can continue the things that I like doing and continue learning things. But at the same time, I’m continuing my Spanish as well. So anytime I get a chance to have a conversation with somebody, I usually raise my hand to do that. Cause I just, I just, I love it. So, but yeah, that’s
Imteaz: That’s
Brian Davis: a little
Imteaz: amazing.
Brian Davis: bit how I learned.
Imteaz: No, but you know, the question, a lot of people that I come into interact with, especially from corporate and when they have like startup aspirations and ideas and they’re like, oh, it’s too hard.
Brian Davis: Mmm.
Imteaz: I can’t do it or blah, blah. And I’m like, how much do you really want it?
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: Right. And you know, what you’ve kind of just demonstrated is you really wanted to learn Spanish
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: and you really wanted to get it done. And you did.
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: So a lot of the time people would say that they want to get fifth,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: they want weight, they want to do this, they want to do that, but they’re not focused. They just say things, because it’s the right thing to say rather than dedicating the time and energy to achieving those goals. Incredible,
Brian Davis: Yep, absolutely.
Imteaz: very cool. So this leads me to… you know, the, the raging topic of our times right now, which is generative AI, and all the craziness that’s surrounding generative AI. How are you looking at gen AI? And, you know, what are some of the applications that you’re thinking about in terms of your day to day now?
Brian Davis: Yeah, so I am fascinated with the idea of having a tool to just make life easier. Um, whether it’s work, whether it’s at home, I’ve been so fascinated empty. It’s with, uh, with talk about like chat GPT. I use it just about every single day. Like I think of it as my new little assistant. I tell my people, yeah, it’s my new best friend. And there’s so many different applications out there. Like honestly, it’s, sometimes it’s overwhelming the possibilities. And so for me, at least when I have so many different options in my mind, it can definitely just like freeze you. And so I started out using it just because I wanted to understand It had nothing to do with building systems or building products or incorporating it into the technology that I was building or anything like that initially. Initially it was how can I take what I’m already doing either in my job or at home and make it better? So for instance, if it takes me two hours to do a task and I can do it within 10 minutes with Chad GPT, then yeah, let’s do that and let me figure out how to how to use it for that. Quick story, my oldest daughter, she was a junior last year. She started taking chemistry. Throughout her entire career, she’s been a AB student and she has made good grades in school pretty easily for her. One day I was working and kind of finishing up, she came home, she’s like, hey, dad, you know, I gotta tell you something. She was like, what? I got a D in chemistry. Okay, got a D in chemistry. So again, that’s odd. She’s made A’s and B’s for forever. So I’m asking a bunch of questions, trying to understand what is this that she’s not getting. And so she seems like, at least when we’re talking, she seems like she has a good understanding of concepts in general and things like that. And I’m like, okay. And I started digging into a little bit more of what her process was for studying. And I found out that she did not know how to study. So what she was doing with What she would do with all her classes was the day before, she just kind of review everything. It’s like, all right, close the book up, roll in the class and make an A on a test. So I was like, well, you can’t really do that with chemistry, right? Like you have to like study and that kind of thing. Anyway, she was on like a spring break and we had like a week. I said, look, this is what we’ll do. We’ll take this next week. I’ll show you how to study and why we wanna do it that way. And I’m gonna show you how to use chat GPT. I know y’all. keep hearing me talk about this and you’re probably tired of hearing me talk about it, but you’re going to learn. So start up an account and let’s get going. So I opened it up and I was like, all right, chat GPT, you are an expert in high school chemistry and I need you to teach me about XYZ topic, whatever she was learning. And it kind of broke it down for her. She was like, okay, well, that’s pretty cool. I was like, all right. So now chat GPT. I need you to create for me a three question quiz. I’m gonna answer the questions. Tell me that I’m right or wrong in the character and personality of, and then I named this character from My Hero Academia. It’s an anime that she likes. And it did, and she got a big kick out of it. And she took my computers, okay. She started asking questions and, you know, kind of based on some of the things that she was learning. And over the next week, she… started studying alongside of chat GPT asking it to break down concepts for Explain things different ways and she did that over the next set like month or so and then Every test that she had there after she made a she made an a on every test on every quiz And she finished the semester She had a final on her an a on our final exam and she finished the class would it be a couple of points away from It was to her, it was mind blowing. To me, it was mind blowing. And so for me, finding worthy problems or like things that you’re passionate about, like I’m passionate about my kids. So how can I use this to help them out? And so I was already a believer anyway, but finding something that was important to me and really using that there. It motivated me and opened my mind up to other possibilities about things. And so now I’m looking for different ways to incorporate it in other areas of my personal life and then also with work as well.
Imteaz: That’s amazing. Like in terms of personalized learning, um, you know, each kid, each person learns very, very differently. And, um, you know, we don’t have enough teachers in this world to give one-on-one service to
Brian Davis: Mm hmm.
Imteaz: each and every student we have. Right.
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: So having this as a supplemental aid in terms of the learning journey
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: is insanely powerful. All
Brian Davis: Absolutely.
Imteaz: right. Like this. personalizing down to, you know, what are your gaps,
Brian Davis: Mm-hmm.
Imteaz: right? Which is a very efficient way of learning any topic, I guess. Very
Brian Davis: Yeah.
Imteaz: cool. Okay, so on a personal front, Brian, what are like some productivity hacks that you use in your life to make your life easier? As a busy dad and as a busy professional, I’m sure you’ve got many.
Brian Davis: Yeah, so kind of go back to my previous example. I love skill stacking. So usually if I’m learning something, it’s not something that I’m gonna use. It’s a one-off thing. It’s something that I’m gonna apply later on to something else that I’m learning. Like for instance, before my daughter came to me about her issue with chemistry, I was already learning about Chad GPT and understanding how it worked and understanding more about prompt engineering. And, and for me, it’s a way to apply that to other things in my, in my life. Like for instance, I told you, you know, learning Spanish and I want to keep that up though, the skill that I learned with learning Spanish, I use that same skill now for other things, I’m consuming Spanish content to, to learn other things. And so. For me, it’s important because like you mentioned, my time is compressed. I don’t have a ton of time. I have a large family and a full-time job and an app that I’m building. And so those are the things that I like to do. So if I can find a way to use the skills that I’m learning and what I’m doing already, if I can find a way to not take away from. the time that I have already. Those are the kind of things that I’m that I usually kind of look to do and that’s what helps me to you know stay productive and also to stay available to my to my family and work and things like that.
Imteaz: Cool. Brian, it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting to you today. How can people reach out to you? They wanna learn more about you and all the crazy things that you get up to.
Brian Davis: Yeah, so I’m not on TikTok and Instagram a whole lot. So probably the best way to get in contact with me is through LinkedIn. So just look for Brian Davis on LinkedIn. You will see a nice AI-generated picture of me smiling big and bright. I’m definitely not hard to find.
Imteaz: Again, it was a pleasure chatting to you today, Brian. Thank you so much and we’ll speak again soon.
Brian Davis: Thank you so much, Emtis. I appreciate it.
Other Links:
Watch the full podcast: https://youtu.be/BZPYmKNbySQ
Listen to Spotify:
Subscribe to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/e5VtgV2f