In today’s episode, I’m talking to Amanda Boggs of Mandoline and the host of the Online Income Playbook Summit. We are talking about how to prevent AI from replacing your job.
Becky Beach:
Well, hey, welcome to the Becky Beach on Becky Beach, and today’s guest is Amanda Boggs. She’s the CEO of Mandel line. And the founder of Host of the Online Income Playbook Summit. Welcome, Amanda. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Yes, I’m one of the featured speakers on Amanda’s summit, the Online Income Playbook Summit, and we’ll have a link to it in the show notes@beckybeatshow.com.
Becky Beach:
Well, Amanda, could you tell us about yourself?
Amanda Boggs:
Yes. I have been working from home for the past 25 years. I started, um. My business in [00:01:00] 1998, really kind of. Accidentally. What happened to me was my husband was in an accident at work when I was pregnant with our oldest son and we just bought our first house and he became disabled and was home on disability for three months and we were losing $600 a month that he’d been making.
Amanda Boggs:
Oh no. Yeah, over. And I didn’t get paid maternity leave, so all of a sudden I had to come up with thousands and thousands of dollars and I didn’t know what to do. I was a, I was working as an illustrator and graphic designer for a publishing company. So at first I started taking freelance jobs, writing.
Amanda Boggs:
I’m also a writer, writing and illustrating for people. And um, then eBay was new, so I started trying to sell on eBay. So I would work all day and I would. Then at night come home and, and work on the computer. And um, the internet was new then, you know, too. So it was this big new thing and I was trying [00:02:00] everything I could to make money from it.
Amanda Boggs:
And so at that time you had to be able to code to list on eBay. So it took me a couple years to actually teach myself how to code. I used library books to teach myself to code. And I started selling on eBay. And at first I was trying to sell my artwork ’cause I’m a, I’m a fine artist as well. And, um, it just wasn’t selling.
Amanda Boggs:
Nothing was really selling. I was, my son was born and then I would have like outgrown baby clothes and things and those would sell a little, but they weren’t doing great. And then, um. One day I went to help my grandparents clean out their closets, and we found a bag with a bunch of broken dolls in it that were my mother’s dolls from the fifties.
Amanda Boggs:
And I thought, I’ll, I’ll fix these dolls for my mom. So I was on eBay trying to bid on dolls that were broken, but had I needed like a half of a leg and some eyes for this Betsy McCall doll. [00:03:00] And I kept getting outbid. And these dolls that were broken were selling for more than anything I’d ever sold. And I thought, I wonder what these are worth if they’re not broken.
Amanda Boggs:
And it turns out they’re worth a lot of money. So, um, I taught myself two repair dolls, and I started buying boxes of dolls and selling them, like fixing ’em up and then selling ’em on eBay. And then people started asking me how I had fixed them. So I started to write a blog telling people how I’d fix dolls, and then people from all over the world started sending me their dolls to fix.
Amanda Boggs:
So then I had this doll hospital, and then people wanted to get the supplies I used, so I started to sell doll supplies. And, um, it just got kind of bigger and bigger through the years, and that’s my main source of income. I do some other things, but dolls are my main source. Although over the past few years I’ve transitioned more to, like teaching people how to repair dolls.
Amanda Boggs:
So I have courses and [00:04:00] eBooks and instructions, and I sell doll supplies that come with tutorials showing you how to, how to use the supplies. So like you can buy a pair of doll eyes and then it’ll, I’ll send you a tutorial that shows you how to install them. So that’s, oh, that’s really
Becky Beach:
Neat.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. And then in the course of learning to teach people to repair their dolls, I found that I’m actually a really good teacher.
Amanda Boggs:
I’m really, I’m good at it. People. I have more than 4,000 positive reviews, and they’re for the most part, about doll repair. Uh, people that I’ve taught, I’ve taught people all over the world to repair their dolls, and so I’ve started getting more into coaching, not just how to do doll repair, but how to start a business the way I did because I didn’t start a business.
Amanda Boggs:
I didn’t get a business loan, I didn’t get a business license, I didn’t have any money. I used what I had, which was a sales platform and just started selling. And um, [00:05:00] so that’s something that I feel. Very passionate about. I’m very passionate about helping people start their own businesses and get away from the corporate grind if that is what they want, because this has enabled me to stay home with all three of my children now.
Amanda Boggs:
And, um, so I started the Online Income Playbook Summit, which is going to air in August, from August 4th to August 17th. And I have a lot of amazing experts who’ve been running their businesses for a long time, like Becky here, so, mm-hmm. It is just, I, I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from interviewing all of these experts.
Amanda Boggs:
It’s really been amazing. It’s an amazing experience.
Becky Beach:
Oh yeah, I agree. ’cause there, there is lots of people out there that are working corporate and they’re worried because, you know, AI is really getting integrated and their jabs like these, these employees, the employers are introduced in AI and sometimes laying off entire.
Becky Beach:
Um, entire sectors of the [00:06:00] business, like it’s happened, I keep hearing about over and over. So there’s all these people wanting to be able to differentiate themself and the age of AI and or even start their own business like we have.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. Or make a si even a side business, you know, for about 18 months.
Amanda Boggs:
My business was just a side hustle and then I was able to make enough that I could start staying home with my son.
Becky Beach:
Mm-hmm. Well, in today’s episode, we’re gonna be talking about how you could differentiate yourself and make yourself useful in the age of ai because some people may be losing their jobs as AI is being introduced.
Becky Beach:
So I’m just so glad that Amanda has been able to join us today. We have so much to talk about. So, Amanda, what kind of jab do you think will disappear because of ai? Well,
Amanda Boggs:
I think already a lot of jobs are disappearing. Um, information jobs that I know I was, oh, I can’t, I just read an article about it yesterday.
Amanda Boggs:
Amazon, I think [00:07:00] is, they’ve laid off a whole lot of people, like mm-hmm. Thousands of people, I think because they’re using AI to do what it was that they were doing. Things like data entry and, um. I guess in the case of Amazon, probably certain customer service tasks, I would, I would imagine they’ve, they’ve taken over and, um, so things like that, clerical, things that AI can easily do.
Amanda Boggs:
I would say not, not so much physical jobs.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they have used robots for the physical jobs too, like the stocking, like I saw a video of all these robots just like stocking, you know, areas in the warehouse. And then there there was like people kind of, uh, managing the wear the robots. And I was like, wow, this is crazy.
Becky Beach:
I can’t believe this kind of thing’s already here. Like, I didn’t think this would happen in my lifetime with all these robots. ’cause that’s something you watch like on in these movies.
Amanda Boggs:
I did [00:08:00] see the other day of a robot that’s an electrical, a lineman.
Becky Beach:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Boggs:
And I was sharing that with my husband because that’s actually the job my husband had that almost killed him, so,
Becky Beach:
oh no.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, not
Amanda Boggs:
that’s a dangerous job. So it might not be so bad if, if robots were able to take over really dangerous jobs such as those. But it is, you know, you do have to think what are you gonna do now? And I went through this, not with ai, but with the actual internet. When, um, I was working in publishing, all of the publishing companies started to go outta business because the internet was, was new and it was putting ’em out of business.
Amanda Boggs:
You know, it used to be that publishing companies had these huge staffs. They would have a staff illustrator, they would have. A staff photographer, like pretty much every little magazine, every little newspaper in every little town. There were many jobs that, um, that went away because of the internet. Yeah.
Amanda Boggs:
There was one called, um, stripping was [00:09:00] an actual job that where you, the magazines and newspapers would be. They would burn a metal plate and then they would print the plate onto these clear plastic, like this huge, like a signature. So a signature is eight pages of a magazine. So it’s this enormous piece of paper.
Amanda Boggs:
And they would, they would do this clear, um, printing of the magazine and then that is what they would use to. It’s hard to explain. Like it was like a photo thing that they would burn it onto the paper basically. Mm-hmm. And, um, or burn it onto the plate and then print it onto the paper. And it was these huge web presses.
Amanda Boggs:
And so what the stripper would do was take the clear plastic and like if a business say had changed their address or they changed their phone number, they would have to take an exacto knife and cut the little piece of plastic out and put a [00:10:00] new piece of plastic printed with the new number in. And then you would tape it like with clear tape and they would use that to burn the plate.
Amanda Boggs:
So you, that was like a whole job that just went away.
Becky Beach:
Oh yeah. I can see. I wonder what those people end up doing When that job went away. What do you think? Right.
Amanda Boggs:
Well,
Becky Beach:
in my case, I became a doll doctor. Oh,
Amanda Boggs:
so you were doing that? I would, we didn’t have a dedicated stripper at our publishing company. We would all have to do it.
Amanda Boggs:
So I was a graphic designer and it was a very small company. I was also. Sometimes I would take over for the editors since I had an English degree also. Um, sometimes I would do illustrations. I was the receptionist also for a while, so when it was time to do the stripping, they would, we would take this big, we had a big area in the middle of the office, and we would put up a big folding table and we’d put the signatures out and mm-hmm everybody had to work on it.
Amanda Boggs:
Mostly the people in the design department.
Becky Beach:
Oh, oh yeah. I’m so, so glad [00:11:00] that you, that, uh, that that job went away. It sounds like a lot of stress. I, I would think, you know, having to do that and it’s very like, very tedious sounding work, but I guess some people did enjoy it. It
Amanda Boggs:
was really only stressful when, um, you were going to press.
Amanda Boggs:
So when you’re working on a publication, there’s a whole lot of just sitting around doing not much of anything while they try to sell. The publication, like it depends on if you are working for a subscription based publication or one that is ad the income’s ad based. But either way, they have to sell us a certain number of ads or a certain number of subscriptions.
Amanda Boggs:
So if you’re on the design staff or the writing staff, you’re just kind of sitting around waiting for them to sell enough to make it worth the price to print the publication. Mm-hmm. And then it would go to press, and then it was. Working all day. Like, not like you could hardly even get up after your desk to go eat lunch or anything.
Amanda Boggs:
Like you would just be working, working, working to get it to the press.
Becky Beach:
Oh, yeah, exactly. Well, or earlier we were talking about [00:12:00] dolls because we’re both, you know, doll collectors and we both, you know, like I actually sell dolls myself. Well, in, in that, in that relation, you know, Mattel, the hot toy company that sells Barbie, well, they laid out 3% of their workforce.
Becky Beach:
A lot of them designers. There’s this one designer that I love called Build Green. Mm-hmm. And he was a, a popular designer for 25 years. He designed many of the Barbies that I love and he was laid off. And then, uh, Mattel announced a partnership with Open ai. They’re gonna introduce a lot more AI into their doll creation and package design and doll designing.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah, and it’ll be interesting to see how people receive that. Mm-hmm. I think that, um, meta put so much money into ai and it’s been like a really big disappointment, I think, as far as the adoption by the actual. Clients of meta. Mm-hmm. People aren’t really signing on for it as much as I guess they thought they [00:13:00] would.
Amanda Boggs:
And then there’s also, you know, the fact that somebody’s got to be training these ais and making sure is, especially in the case of design, that they aren’t plagiarizing because that’s an enormous problem. Um, currently with. Any of the AI based image generators they are using, um, sometimes even pulling artist signatures into the work, they’re just stealing.
Amanda Boggs:
Oh yeah, I’ve seen that work. And so that right there is gonna be a job, I think, you know, for somebody to have to make sure that the stuff they’re coming up with is actually original and it isn’t plagiarized from art that they scraped off the internet.
Becky Beach:
Because Disney and a bunch of other media companies are suing Midjourney because they’ve been putting, you know, Disney characters and Star Wars characters and Marvel characters in the ai.
Becky Beach:
And now Midjourney has the AI video. So now people can make their own [00:14:00] videos of Star Wars characters and they’re not receiving any payment like for those licensed characters so that they a mid lawsuit.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. Well, and it also can really damage your brand. You know, if you make a video that’s really bad, you know, or really morally corrupt and you’re using somebody else’s character, that can really be damaging to their brand.
Amanda Boggs:
So you, you definitely want to be able to protect your brand. And I think a lot of small artists are having a lot of trouble with that because they don’t have the means to. File lawsuits against these big AI companies.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. There’s also been been these awful people that are making videos of like Disney characters, like princesses and having them do risk K things such as, you know, do drugs or or whatnot.
Becky Beach:
And then putting them on YouTube for children. Right, right. The AI video. So it’s like a, yeah, it’s a very serious problem against someone’s copyright character. They spent millions developing.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:15:00] So it’ll be interesting to see if Mattel is actually able to. To make a, a, a case financially once they try this.
Amanda Boggs:
I think that they might be jumping the gun a little bit in terms of laying people off now, because I don’t know. I don’t, I, I, it’s not, I, I don’t pretend to be an AI expert by any means, but mm-hmm. You know, just from what I’ve seen, I haven’t seen the level of skill yet there like. I was telling you earlier, I have been making, um, just for my own content creation, an AI twin of myself mm-hmm.
Amanda Boggs:
Just helps me. I can create a whole lot of videos and photos and use ’em in my social media. Saves me a lot of time filming content and, um. You know, obviously then I don’t have to hire a camera person or anything, but, but some of the photos and videos are, are really [00:16:00] weird. Like some of the images are really kind of frightening actually.
Amanda Boggs:
Oh,
Becky Beach:
yes.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. Some of the things you have to, I found you can only use it for about, I don’t know, like 15 minutes and it’ll, it’ll do okay and then it’ll start, the image quality will start degrading and they’ll start to just be really strange things. All of a sudden it’ll be a good picture, but I’ve got an extra hand or something, or no.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, I’ve seen some of the like, ’cause um, because Jim and I has the video, the three Yeah. And I saw some videos of that. And you’re right, like when the, when the people are talking on the video, their hands are like doing all kinds of weird things. Like the fingers are like morphing into each other and, and you could tell that it’s fake, but on from first glance it looks like it could be real.
Becky Beach:
But then when you see their hands and stuff moving around about them. Then you could immediately tell that something’s off.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes, yes. It’s not, the photos are really, really good for the most part. Although even those after, it’s like, it gets tired. I don’t know. It, it, [00:17:00] it’ll do really well at first, and then it’s like the image quality just really starts to break down.
Amanda Boggs:
So I just don’t, I don’t know. I don’t see it being there quite yet. Like, I don’t feel like it’s quite ready yet for, um, I. Mass consumption unless you’ve got somebody, and then you’re gonna have to have a big team of people to correct all of this stuff because, um, you know, you can’t, you couldn’t release these things to the market yet in the, without a lot of input from a human.
Becky Beach:
So true. There’s been a lot of talk about, you know, AI by influencers. Not AI influencers, but just influencers in general, like on YouTube and Instagram, and how AI is gonna overtake those influencers. Even, even those people that make OnlyFans content, like the AI is gonna be overtaking them because the OnlyFans, um, CEO, he’s now, he’s now selling OnlyFans ’cause he sees this happening that he’s not gonna be able to make, make as much money because the AI’s coming along.
Becky Beach:
And it’s gonna completely [00:18:00] disrupt these, these influencers. ’cause they’re gonna be, there’s these, right now there’s even AI influencers making all kinds of money. Yeah, yeah. It’s true.
Amanda Boggs:
I think when these things happen, and in this case it’s gonna be harder because it’s so many industries at once. Mm-hmm. It, what happened in the publishing industry was.
Amanda Boggs:
You had to embrace the internet and you had to embrace digital printing. And the companies that didn’t went outta business and the companies that embraced it did not. They stayed in business and there was a smaller workforce in terms of not needing all these special little jobs like the stripper people like that.
Amanda Boggs:
Um, however, the internet opened up an enormous amount of opportunity. For new types of jobs that didn’t exist before, such as, you know, when I was starting to sell on eBay, that was brand new. And at that time too, I [00:19:00] used a, an internet site to find freelance gigs that was brand new. Like I was one of the, you know, really early adopters, more out of necessity than anything else, but it had made.
Amanda Boggs:
An enormous opportunity. And so I think that it’s important to think about AI the same way. There are gonna be losses, but there are probably also gonna be opportunities that at the moment we can’t even imagine the scope of them yet. I know that I couldn’t imagine in 1998 the things that I do now, just as a.
Amanda Boggs:
On a daily basis, things I don’t even think about. Like, um, my husband and I were watching an old movie the other night, and I don’t even remember what movie it was, but it was a movie from the nineties. And I was like, why don’t they just call that person and tell them? And then I thought, [00:20:00] oh. They don’t have a cell phone.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. Uhhuh,
Becky Beach:
it doesn’t makes lot of sense.
Amanda Boggs:
Like the whole situation wouldn’t have even happened now because now you would be able to, to text somebody or call them or you know, message ’em somehow and in whatever. Like, I can’t even remember now what it was, but the whole situation would’ve been avoidable in, in this day and age.
Amanda Boggs:
So I think that. You know, it can be really scary when these big technologies come and they change everything. But I think you also have to be focusing on how can I make an opportunity out of this new thing? And if you’re one of the early people thinking that way, that gives you an enormous advantage over people that are just scared of it or just ignoring it because they’re worried about it.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, so [00:21:00] true because when it first came out, I was actually using AI when I was working at Verizon. Mm-hmm. We were doing machine learning. It was, it was mostly called machine learning back then, so I was, I was used to it even back then, and this is like, like around like like 20, like 16 or 2017, and I was using machine learning, helping the AI repair servers by itself so that it didn’t have to rely on break fix technicians.
Becky Beach:
So then when Jab GPT came out, like when I quit my jab at American Airlines, I was a web developer, then I immediately embraced the ai ’cause I saw how useful it was and I was kind of glad I quit my jab because it could code too. Like I, I realized it could code ’cause I actually, you know, made it do it. I was like, wow, that thing can code.
Becky Beach:
Wow. I can make HTML pages and, you know, scripting ’em just like what I used to be able to do, they can code even better than I can. So there’s a lot of people that are, that are coders that are now outta work because of the ai. But you need to really embrace it and like use it, like to help you.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. And it [00:22:00] is enormously helpful is in terms of time savings. You know, if you’re a solopreneur, which I am, I am, I hire my, my kids are old enough now that I can hire them for certain things, and I do, but they’re visiting my parents this week, so they’re not home. So I’ve been relying a lot more on different ai.
Amanda Boggs:
Uh, tasks just to help me get everything done that I need to get done.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, it’s very useful for solo printers. It gives you more of a, a lean business model. You don’t have to hire a whole bunch of people. ’cause a lot of solo printers can’t afford to hire some, fulfill people, and because they, they can’t afford it, they end up not being able to scale.
Becky Beach:
Like, um, AI has helped me be able to scale the, like, a hundred thousand a month because I don’t have to hire too many people. I, I have like one full-time va, I have like. A part-time va, I have like, maybe be like, yeah, four contractors and I have, I’d have someone doing my social media management and so I have, so I, I also have AI [00:23:00] help me with my marketing.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, and also if you just, just beyond not having enough money, the time aspect of it, I really value the, especially the older I get, the more I value. My time and time off and being able to mm-hmm. Just live my life. You know, when you have children, everybody tells you, oh, it goes so fast.
Amanda Boggs:
And, and you can realize that to some extent, but at the same time, like you really can’t realize it until my, my oldest son, this baby that I left my job because I wanted to be home with him. He, he’s gonna get married in a few months. Mm-hmm. You know, and it’s, it does not seem possible that he’s that old already.
Amanda Boggs:
And so, you know, I only have one child left at home, my daughter full-time. My daughter’s in college, so she’s [00:24:00] home right now for the summer. But, um, it goes so fast. And the older I get the more I would really rather just be with my family than working.
Becky Beach:
Same here. I was able to take two weeks off this month.
Becky Beach:
Like I went to San Francisco for a speaking mastermind. The next week I went to Disney World with my son. You know, I didn’t lose any income at all because in the beginning of the month I had my, my AI assistant, his name, spark, I had him. Make me a schedule of what to do for two weeks to do everything I needed to do in my business before I left.
Becky Beach:
So everything was taken care of. All the tasks were delegated. He even told me who to, who to give each task to and what to do for them. And, and I put on a Trello board, organize it, and then that was done so that I could take off two weeks of vacation without having to worry about my business.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Beach:
That’s wonderful. Yeah, it’s just amazing what, what it can do. People actually utilize it. They’re not afraid of it. Right. And I think
Amanda Boggs:
[00:25:00] that’s a big thing, being afraid of it. Um, because I mean, and there there’s been a lot of, in the news lately of really fearful writing about it. Um, and so it’s hard, but I think you have to really have that mindset of, I’m gonna embrace this early, and then I’ll come out on top.
Amanda Boggs:
’cause I’ll be up with all the changes. And I think that’s the biggest, really the biggest thing I’ve learned being in business for 25 years, is you have to stay up with whatever technology, like whatever the new technology is, you’ve got to, you’ve got to learn it. Whether you feel like you’re a tech person or not, you have to learn it.
Amanda Boggs:
You have to learn to make use of it for yourself and for your business. And that’s gonna put you ahead of people that, that don’t, quite frankly.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, that was so true. That’s like brings us to our next talking point, how AI can’t replace people [00:26:00] because if they, you know, actually hook onto the AI and make it work for them.
Becky Beach:
And plus they bring a lot more to the table that the AI can do. Like, uh, humans can bring lived experience, empathy, intuition. These are like human superpowers that AI cannot replicate. Right. Well, and
Amanda Boggs:
even I’m trying right now to, to train a custom GPT as a doll repair coach so that when I’m not available, ’cause I have people, I mean that’s like one of the main things I do is answer emails from people about how to repair their dolls.
Amanda Boggs:
And right now the, um, I’m really having to work hard on this GPT because the information that it gives. Initially, in a lot of cases, will just ruin your doll. I don’t even know where it’s coming up with this stuff, like mm-hmm. It’s not anything, it’s, it’s read on in my blog for sure. And it’s not anything I’ve seen people saying on the internet.
Amanda Boggs:
I don’t know where it’s coming up with it. So that’s a [00:27:00] case where a human absolutely has to be involved, or your dolls are all gonna be ruined because it mm-hmm. The stuff it’s telling you to do is just not. Feasible.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. Sometimes it will hallucinate and say, say just weird off the wall things It does even when it codes.
Becky Beach:
So all these people are surprised when they try to make apps with the ai? Yeah. And they’re surprised that it’s not working Well, it’s because that it hallucinates the code and gives code. That doesn’t make any sense. Yeah.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes. It can make a lot of mistakes and And that’s why I’m surprised that the companies that are laying people off so early, because I just feel like.
Amanda Boggs:
This is not gonna go well. It’s not gonna be well received by the public. It’s already irritating enough. So many places have gone to chat Bots instead of customer service represent representatives who are human. And the chat bots are sometimes helpful, but. [00:28:00] I would say probably at least 50% of the time they don’t the, whenever I’m asking it to do, it’s saying it doesn’t know how to do it.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. It’s really sad. I have a family, family member, like, I don’t wanna get too into detail who it is, but I have a family member and, and what happened was, well, she was responsible for helping to train these AI bots. ’cause she was a, she was a call center, you know, at first a call center and they, they trained the AI bots and then when they’re, they, everybody felt, felt they were trained enough, they laid her off.
Becky Beach:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she had to find another job and at the time she had a new baby and a toddler. Yeah, it’s just and like ridiculous what’s going on here. And now they get all these complaints and they end up hiring a lot of people back that they laid off because of all the complaints of the ai.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes, I see that.
Amanda Boggs:
I can totally see that happening because it’s not there yet. At least not that I’ve seen. And again, I’m not an AI expert, but just using it for myself. There are lots and lots of things that [00:29:00] I, I would not release to the public yet. And, and they absolutely need a human to be working on them still.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. It says like, really useful to actually have a person.
Becky Beach:
’cause you know, everybody, when they’re like calling a credit card company or on, on like a customer service number, they’re like wondering where they’re gonna get to a person because like they, they, I guess some of the cures can be answered with the ai, but then, you know, you just wanna get to a person.
Becky Beach:
Like for instance, like I, I battle a disability. And then I need my medicine. So sometimes I can’t get to get my medicine refilled because I don’t remember what the prescription number is. Like all these ais need the, this specific number to be able to refill your prescription. But I, I need to get to an actual person to refill my prescriptions.
Becky Beach:
’cause I don’t, I not keep track of my prescription numbers. I throw the bottle away as soon as I’m done with it.
Amanda Boggs:
Right, right.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. It’s hard.
Amanda Boggs:
It Well, and I had. An, uh, an ear infection. A couple months ago I had this double ear infection, and so I was on amoxicillin, and then [00:30:00] I, you know, you, you take your course of antibiotics and you stop and you don’t need them anymore, but the computer at the doctor’s office and the computer at the pharmacy.
Amanda Boggs:
Refilled that amoxicillin, and then I was getting all these robocalls from the pharmacy over and over and over. My prescription’s ready, my prescription’s ready, and it’s not a prescription that I need. It wasn’t a prescription that the doctor had refilled, like it didn’t even have a refill on it. So I don’t even know how that happened, but it was calling me several times a day, this robot telling me to pick up my prescription, and I finally had to go over there and be like, I don’t need this prescription anymore.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. This is antibiotics. It was a short term thing, and as soon as I could talk to a human, then it was fixed. But I had to go over there and talk to them instead of just, you know, being able to live my life at home.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, just, just crazy why I think that. The roles [00:31:00] that are like hybrid roles, you know, people that use AI will really explode during this time.
Becky Beach:
’cause there’s a lot of, a lot of like unrest because people are thinking their jabs are gonna be replaced. And these are mostly people that have like really kind of easy to use, like automated jabs that can be easily automated. Like white collar type, you know, like paralegals, junior copywriters, analysts, anything rules based is, is mostly fair game when it comes to AI to overtake it.
Becky Beach:
So if those people adopt AI and make, make use of it like, such as prompt engineering, like ethics for ai, UX design, for AI tools, automation consultants, they AI content strategists, AI coaches or trainers, like those kind of people are gonna keep their jobs. Right. Right. And
Amanda Boggs:
you can even make a business out of it.
Amanda Boggs:
I have noticed on Fiverr now there are people that will make an AI twin for you. If you want to keep, you know, stay anonymous online, there are people that will make AI images of you for your blog or for your website, [00:32:00] like a bunch of stuff like that.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. There’s a lot, a lot of jazz to be had. Because everybody’s thinking about the jobs that are going away.
Becky Beach:
But you know, just like the industrial Revolution took away a lot of jobs and made new ones.
Amanda Boggs:
Right? Exactly. And I think that’s where the focus should be. And I found an article, this was a few weeks ago, but it listed all the jobs, all the new jobs that are coming because of AI specifically. And it was a huge list of new jobs.
Amanda Boggs:
And I, I sent it to my daughter because she’s a computer science major. And I was like, this, you know, these are the things you should be looking into right now. Like be looking into this aspect of where computer stuff is going, because this is gonna be what’s opening up when you’re out in the workforce.
Becky Beach:
Oh, it’s really great of you to do for her because you’s always people saying, oh, well, computer science, like useless because everybody’s, you know, hiring AI to do the coding now or [00:33:00] hiring, you know, H one b. You know, people from India or elsewhere to do the, the, um, the coding and, and it’s really hard for a junior developer to break in.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah, I hope that with all my kids, they’ve all had, I never hired a nanny, so I’ve never had a nanny. And, um, once I got my son home with me, I felt like I had missed so much I didn’t wanna miss anymore. So I can count on one hand the times that they’ve had to go to a babysitter. There’ve been times when I just couldn’t.
Amanda Boggs:
Like, I just absolutely had to have somebody watch them. But for the most part, I’ve been with them every day and they’re with me. So they watch me run my business and they help me from when they were really little. Even like shipping physical products. They can help tape, they can help pack. Um, you know, they can bring me even a, even a 2-year-old can like get something outta the printer and bring it to you.
Amanda Boggs:
Stuff like that. So they’ve [00:34:00] been right there with me watching and I hope that that has instilled the entrepreneurial spirit in them and, and the idea that they don’t have to just do whatever they’re told by some corporation. They can make their own feature. You know, they can make their own their own business.
Amanda Boggs:
They can start their own company or they can. Look for a company that’s doing the kind of things they wanna do and go, go find a job doing that.
Becky Beach:
Well, that’s really, really great. You know, like bringing that up. My son and I self-published this book. We used AI to help us write it, and we helped made AI to help us make this picture.
Becky Beach:
No, I love that. And it’s a book, it’s like for, uh, for, for those like preteen kids. Mm-hmm. So it’s kind of thin. It’s like an easy reader. Like the language isn’t very difficult to read. It’s like for young, younger children. Like in the teen, the tweens.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes.
Becky Beach:
So this is a first book and we we’re gonna do a series of this book if it, if it does well.
Becky Beach:
Awesome. [00:35:00] And so did you self publish it or did you find a publisher? Oh yes. We self publish it on draft two digital.com. So go to draft and then the number two digital. Drafted Digital Will Send, will help you format the book and it will um, send it to Barnes and Noble, Amazon like a whole bunch of other, you know, book companies.
Becky Beach:
Uh, and you can Kindle book and have it sent to those companies too. So it kind of broadens your reach instead of just publishing it on Amazon KDP, right. Yeah. So you get more reach. That’s a good idea. And it even helps you, you know, format the cover and the interior too. ’cause that can be difficult if you’re new to make your own interior for books.
Amanda Boggs:
Right. Well, and you, when I worked in publishing, right when I got out, they were starting to use computer, um, formatting, and we used a program called Cork, which still mm-hmm. Exists, but it’s expensive. So, you know, it’s really helpful to have a [00:36:00] service that can format it for you so you’re not having to pay us so much money for the software.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. One of my first jobs outta college was I was laying out catalogs in Cork. Yeah. Yeah. And then when they switched over InDesign, I was so thankful. ’cause InDesign was a lot more user friendly.
Amanda Boggs:
Yeah. I loved court, but it, it is, there was definitely a, a big learning curve and, and it was just so expensive.
Amanda Boggs:
Like, at the time, with my husband’s accident and everything, there was no way I could afford that.
Becky Beach:
Oh, yes.
Amanda Boggs:
And that just in itself, like just book publishing with KDP and stuff, you think about what you used to have to go to go through to try to get a book published. You know, I think that Harry Potter was rejected 34 or 35 times before it was finally accepted at a publisher’s like mm-hmm.
Amanda Boggs:
You know, it’s just crazy. It makes you wonder how many books. That were really, really good don’t [00:37:00] exist because the publishing companies wouldn’t, wouldn’t accept them.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, you’re really, really right. ’cause when I was in high school, I sell pub, I, I didn’t publish it, but I had I, it was before cell publishing existed.
Becky Beach:
Well, I made a book, it was like a storybook about koalas in Australia and it really taught a lot of lessons and also illustrated all myself with a prisma color, pencils and watercolor. At the time, I was an award-winning watercolor and pencil artist. Like my art had been featured in museums and private collectors.
Becky Beach:
And that’s how I was able to pay for a lot of my, my college was my, um, my sale, my sales of my, my artwork. And I published it. I mean, I didn’t publish it, but I keep saying publish. But I made this whole book. I wrote it and I sent off to publishing companies and nobody would publish it. My dad gave me like a whole book from a bookstore about all the places to send it off to, but nobody accepted it.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes. Now I know what
Becky Beach:
happened to it. I lost it.
Amanda Boggs:
My grandmother gave me a very similar book. Um, she actually self-published in like the fifties or sixties. She wrote this book, [00:38:00] um, now I can’t remember the number was, oh, 56, zucchini Recipes. And she had it, like, she typed it on a typewriter and then she had it photocopied.
Amanda Boggs:
And bound at a, you know, like a whatever place existed, like Kinko’s back, but, you know, way back before Kinko’s. And she, it was just a stapled little paper book and she sold it in the backs of magazines. And, um, that actually I rewrote that book with keto recipes ’cause my oldest son is diabetic. And, um.
Amanda Boggs:
All her original recipes, but then the low carb versions as well. And I just recently republished that one, but there was a way to, to self-publish, but it was, it was not easy.
Becky Beach:
Oh yeah, no, it’s like super easy. Yeah. I’ve self-published over 50 books now.
Amanda Boggs:
Oh, wow.
Becky Beach:
Like it’s, it’s really simple on Amazon. KDP, this is [00:39:00] my first draft to digital book.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. How do you like it compared to KDP? ’cause I have several on
Becky Beach:
KDP,
Amanda Boggs:
myself.
Becky Beach:
Yeah, I kind of, I kind of like it a lot more because Drafted digital will give you a free I SB N two that you could use to sell in multiple places. But if you get one on Amazon KDP, it’s only for Amazon. You can’t sell it elsewhere.
Becky Beach:
This gives you more, right. Unless get the
Amanda Boggs:
physical book.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. It gives you more, more options. ’cause this, it gives you an ISVN number. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s really good. It’s free, but draft digital just takes 10%. Oh, that’s good. ’cause yeah, Amazon takes a ton. Yeah, so it’s also sold at Amazon. So I will, I will still get, um, royalty payments, but it’s all through drafted digital.
Amanda Boggs:
No, I’m gonna have to try that. Okay. Every time I, you, I get so many ideas. Oh, oh yeah. We need to like hang out more. Yeah, we do. I’m gonna be like a billionaire if I hang out with you much longer. [00:40:00]
Becky Beach:
Well let, let’s go ahead and ask those listening like, is anyone out there afraid of AI replacing you? Are you ready to partner with it to unlock your next level?
Becky Beach:
Well, you should, you know, come to Amanda’s summit. Yes. Like she’s having a summit called the online income playbook summit.org. Again, the, the link to join is the online income playbook summit.org. Can you tell us more about that?
Amanda Boggs:
So I have, um, so far 20 experts who are gonna speak on making money online.
Amanda Boggs:
And they have, I mean, it is just amazing the number of topics. So we’ve got one lady who. Is a digital nomad who travels the world and she makes money from that. We have, um, people who are telling you how to do all kinds of different things with ai make like ai, digital twins. Um, your talks about AI systems.
Amanda Boggs:
Mm-hmm. How to use AI for your ads. And then things [00:41:00] like Facebook ads, how to, how to maximize that, how to use those without spending a whole lot of money. How to market on social media, how to, um, sell on eBay like, but make really good money. One couple The Stevensons, they are, um. Called flea market flippers, their business name, they only sell on eBay for half the year.
Amanda Boggs:
They take the summers off and they travel around with their kids. Mm-hmm. And they make like a hundred thousand dollars. A year just from that part of their business, from selling things on eBay. And then they take the rest of the year off and travel and they, they do business coaching as well. But, um, it’s just amazing, like how to stand out on social media, how to start a, um, creative career.
Amanda Boggs:
If you are good at music. Just a lot of different things, like really something for pretty much [00:42:00] anyone who wants to learn how to start making money online. Um, digital products, just, I could just go on and on and on. Like it’s hard for, I’ve done so many different interviews in the past week. It’s. It’s hard to explain.
Amanda Boggs:
It’s kind of giving me shiny object syndrome because everybody’s so good and their businesses sound so great. So everybody, I’m like, oh, maybe I should share that business. I should. Maybe I should start this. And it’s gonna give you so many ideas. If you’re somebody who has been wanting to work on, like make money online as a side hustle, or wanting to work from home or work for yourself.
Amanda Boggs:
Tons of ways to do that. And, um, even if you just wanna make extra money, you want extra money coming in online while you go do your regular job. There are all kinds of ways to find out, and every single expert has a free gift that they’re giving away. So you’re gonna get so many courses and eBooks and checklists and, um, things like that [00:43:00] for free that you can actually take and implement right after the interview.
Becky Beach:
Yeah. For instance, my freebie is gonna be the business system’s made easy course. I usually sell that for $147, but you’ll get it as part of my, my gift for the summit.
Amanda Boggs:
Yes. So valuable and I’m so grateful for you to, to you for doing that. When does it start? August 4th and it will air every day for about an hour until August 17th.
Becky Beach:
Oh, awesome. Well, I’ll have a link to the summit in the show notes. If you go to becky beach show.com, I’ll have a link to all Amanda’s information, like her website, her social media, and also a link to join her summit. Well, thanks so much for being here again, Amanda, do you have any last words for our listeners?
Amanda Boggs:
Look for what’s possible. Instead of being afraid of what’s happening, look at what’s going on and think, what can I do with this? What can I [00:44:00] make from this? Because you, you can make something from it. You’re gonna be able to, to find a new opportunity. If you start looking at things like that, you, you’re not gonna believe the amount of opportunities you’re gonna find.
Becky Beach:
Hope everyone has a great rest of your day. Make sure to go to the show notes beckybeachshow.com. Have a great day. Goodbye.
