BizTech Superhero

Joshua McNary [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Biz Tech Superhero, the podcast that empowers you to unleash the technology superpowers within your business. I'm your host, Joshua McNary. I'm joined today by today's superhero, Brigitte Gemme, founder of Low Impact Lab based in Vancouver, British Columbia, to talk about tech inside her lifestyle business, Vegan Family Kitchen. Brigitte, welcome to the show. Thank Thank you for having me.

Brigitte Gemme [00:00:26]:
It's awesome to be here.

Joshua McNary [00:00:27]:
So for folks just meeting you for the first time today, could you share a little bit about what you do and who you are and what you're all about?

Brigitte Gemme [00:00:35]:
Sure. My pleasure. My current business as it stands right now is to be a content creator, so it's largely being a brand. I'm an educator in the field of healthy vegan cooking and nutrition. I split my time really between creating content and teaching or facilitating education in workshops primarily online. When I first started this about ten years ago, I had this idea that I would do a lot of in person events. And having two young children at the time, I very quickly decided that being at a certain place at a certain time carrying, schlepping around all the kitchen cooking equipment and the ingredients was really not compatible with the lifestyle I had to have at the time. And so definitely going all online and using my skills to to keep this primarily online has been, a big, liberation for me.

Brigitte Gemme [00:01:33]:
I have to say that I come from a background as an academic. I have a PhD in, sociology of education. Basically, I worked in project management also for a long time in the field of research and education, clean energy, lots of stuff. But way back when, from '94 to '97, I had a blog before the word blog was invented. It's even in Wikipedia, the French Wikipedia, as I said, the first French language blog. So that's my background. I I was involved with some kind of tech from the really early nineteen nineties and, been dabbling ever since. And That's right.

Brigitte Gemme [00:02:08]:
Here I am today. Yeah.

Joshua McNary [00:02:10]:
Yeah. And now you're a a biz tech superhero. So, you know, look at that.

Brigitte Gemme [00:02:14]:
It took me somewhere. I'll tell my mom.

Joshua McNary [00:02:18]:
Well, you know, and and and there's a lot that's changed in the last ten years. I mean, we had a global pandemic. You know, there's various things happening in the world. So talking about, you know, technology and running a a business like this, something that you're you're passionate about. I mean, I know we've talked before and you've, explained, you know, having this whole kitchen set up and whatnot and moving. Yet you still have that, you know, and still do that, but you're you're deploying it in a different way. So maybe you could speak to a little bit tell us a little bit more about that evolution and maybe a little more of the nitty gritty on what happened and how you actually go about doing that.

Brigitte Gemme [00:02:51]:
Yeah. You know, technology is the core of my business. My business doesn't exist without it. And at the same time, I'm dealing with these really fundamental material things like cooking food. Right? Which is, sometimes I wish I could just, like, cook food, like, program it, you know, code it and not have to actually move ingredients around because it's awfully inconvenient. But that's a really important part of life, so I'm happy to be doing it. But my business has evolved over the last my content has evolved a lot over the last ten years from being as desk bound as possible just because going in the kitchen to film is challenging. Like, there's so many material bits and pieces involved.

Brigitte Gemme [00:03:34]:
The tech in terms of, audio video, lights, cameras, all this that stuff, plus having the food in the right angle. And I have to say, I'm not a very visual person. So a lot of the food, Internet universe is focused on sharing really beauties.

Joshua McNary [00:03:54]:
Yes. Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:03:55]:
And it's very aesthetic and styled, and that is so not me.

Joshua McNary [00:04:01]:
And you're you're about the substance of this. I mean, literally, you're the substance of the food, substance of the the reason why you're you have a passion behind what you're doing.

Brigitte Gemme [00:04:08]:
Yeah. And the and the nutrition aspects are way more important than me, for me and also the habit aspect. Something else I do that it didn't mention, I do a little bit on the side, habit coaching online and, like, in

Joshua McNary [00:04:22]:
the on

Brigitte Gemme [00:04:23]:
the digital platform, supporting other creators, academics, writers, people that are trying to do, like, creative work and struggle with their habits for whatever reason as I think we all do. Mhmm. So anyway, I do that on the side. That's also an online thing. But I was really challenged for the first eight years to film myself in the act of cooking

Joshua McNary [00:04:45]:
Mhmm.

Brigitte Gemme [00:04:45]:
Before I was able to move. Recently, I think I'm I've taken up like, okay, I'm just going to show up in the kitchen and show it the way it is. And I work in my own kitchen, like, if a lot of the food content you see online, they have, like, set up a studio kitchen and their house is garage or they rent the kitchen and they sometimes I I watch some online content, some webinar or whatnot from somebody in my niche, and I'm like, that is not their house for sure. It's it's

Joshua McNary [00:05:13]:
a It's an Airbnb or something, yeah, something else.

Brigitte Gemme [00:05:17]:
Yeah. You know, you can't possibly have kids and it'll and and also I care a lot about food waste. So when you're cooking, you're creating, you know, all that food and then you need to eat it. So so anyway, the material dimensions of this are really challenging. So for the first eight years, I was mostly doing talk content about habits, about getting organized, about nutrition, mindset, all those things. And the last couple years, I've bitten the bullet and, gone a lot deeper into creating videos in the kitchen, which has added a whole layer of hardware. I was really comfortable with the software, but now I need to add hardware to my collection of tools.

Joshua McNary [00:05:54]:
Well, and and and since you're about the substance of it, I mean, you have to have a certain level of production value to be able to do these things. But there's also an element of and this is true of this podcast. This is, you know, early episode of this of this podcast for those that are listening. Thank you for being here. But it's you know, we're early, and the idea is not necessarily to have it be perfect production value. The point is you have to get it done and out the door. And technology enables us to do that in a kind of simple way, the simple edit, but it also can get very complicated very quickly and are almost spoiled by our riches of what's possible with the technology we have.

Brigitte Gemme [00:06:31]:
I'm a good I'm a I'm a strong believer in good enough.

Joshua McNary [00:06:34]:
Right.

Brigitte Gemme [00:06:34]:
Good enough is my church. You know? And one of the beaut I'm not a perfectionist, and I know for some people, it can be a struggle. And as I was saying, you know, you look at content online, sometimes it's really slick. And I remember when I first started taking food photography courses, I was just getting so mad because so much of the work was, you know, you see the behind the scenes part and sometimes, like, the food is not even cooked, you know? Like, they've used the ingredients before cooking or anyway, stuff like that. So that didn't work for me. But what I'm realizing is that being authentic and basically lovable, right, relatable

Joshua McNary [00:07:13]:
Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:07:13]:
Is often more important than I'm not going to be a masterpiece ever or I'm not to be going to be rainbow plant life if it's somebody in in my niche direct directly with, like, 3,000,000 subscribers on YouTube. I have a much smaller niche. I have a different business model. People like seeing things the way they are.

Joshua McNary [00:07:30]:
Right.

Brigitte Gemme [00:07:31]:
And there's a lot of value in that. And being able to relate directly to me and have those conversations is really important, and they see that it's not all about these unachievable ideals of aesthetic, but that they can in their home environment do this.

Joshua McNary [00:07:47]:
And

Brigitte Gemme [00:07:47]:
I've built that as part of my brand, and I'm starting to I'm starting to get comfortable with it.

Joshua McNary [00:07:53]:
Well, that's that that being authentic coming from that marketing side, and you you could use that to further niche down to the people that really are your tribe and such. Right? So I mean, having my own experience in marketing and sales, and we've had previous conversations around these kind of things too, that around that part, I mean, that's that's how we wanna bend the technology and the things that we're doing and the content that we're creating towards that. And that's gonna allow us to actually stand out. And we don't need that 3,000,000 subscribers. Right? We just need a certain percentage of people that care about what we're talking about. And, hopefully, those that are listening to this are getting value and and doing that right now for me and for you, those of you that that you share it with. But I guess with regards to that technology angle, I wanna learn a bit a little bit more about how you're doing it because, through our previous conversations and and and I should note here at this time that we met through technology initially on the focusmate.com, which, my my listeners and and followers will know because I talk about it often with, and and recommend it as a tool that is allow you to basically find an accountability partner from anywhere over the world to help you spend an hour or half an hour, focusing on whatever's important to you. So that's how we met, and we often, almost daily, are meeting there to as accountability partners.

Joshua McNary [00:09:04]:
But, outside of that technology, which I know you use, I wanna learn a little bit more about what technology you're using to actually do this because I know you're a small you're a small business user. You're just you, basically. Right? So, like, you know, how how are you doing this? How are you actually pulling it off? I mean, yeah, you got a computer, but, you know, tell us a little bit more about what software you're using. You know, when you're moving from your where you're sitting right now at your desk to that kitchen spot that you do the recordings on, or other things that you're doing within your environment to be able to actually produce this. I wanna learn more about that.

Brigitte Gemme [00:09:39]:
Right. Yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about my technology stack, I guess. Right? And Great. Practically everything runs on my website, and that's the essential part. I run everything on WordPress. I was not a web developer. I mean, back in 1994, I had this HTML website.

Brigitte Gemme [00:09:55]:
Right? But things have moved forward quite a bit. So someone ten years ago introduced me to the DV. Is that how you say it in English? DV. Right? DV team, on WordPress. It suits my purposes. So I know just enough about WordPress to make things work. I use that when I don't know something. There's so many resources online that I can tap into.

Brigitte Gemme [00:10:17]:
It's such a big platform, you know, that Well,

Joshua McNary [00:10:18]:
and, again, people who follow me know that I do I've done WordPress websites and and that for many, many years. It's a huge platform. And and Divi, the the the theme plugin that you're talking about is a very popular platform that a lot of people use, has a nice user interface. And people like you that are just trying to get stuff done can definitely use that to get a great looking website, without well, doesn't not that doesn't take effort, but you can you can you can wrangle it.

Brigitte Gemme [00:10:45]:
Right. Yeah. And it's it's not, like, the perfect website. It's not totally custom to my needs. It's more it's definitely more advanced, though. I don't recommend this to people who, like, are who, for example, for whom Wix would be stretching their needs. You know, there's a bit more tech involved. There's a bit more risk.

Brigitte Gemme [00:11:03]:
I'm using a hosted WordPress solution. That would be an issue for me not to do that. It just takes away a number of issues.

Joshua McNary [00:11:12]:
Putting on that hosted solution basically takes away all the technical worry Backups. And you just get focused on

Brigitte Gemme [00:11:18]:
the website. Yeah. Exactly. So that's really key. I use MemberPress as a plug in because my main product, which is a meal plan service, it's a one it's basically an info product if you wanted to give it a category. You know, people get PDFs by email. And so there's a recurrence there with the payments and stuff. So I went to MemberPress at the very beginning, and now I've just gotten into the habit of using it for everything.

Brigitte Gemme [00:11:43]:
I'm I have a habit of using software as we would say in the as people would say the pharma industry, like, off label a little bit. I stretch the boundaries of what is supposed to be done with stuff. I've used, podcast podcasting platforms to do, like, video recording for my courses even when it was definitely not a podcast and stuff like that. Anyway, I tried to patch tools together, but MemberPress has been good for me. I'm still using it. WooCommerce a little bit, but as little as possible. I make extensive use of Zoom now. We can go back to that if you wanna talk about some problems I've had.

Brigitte Gemme [00:12:21]:
But last year, I decided to invest in a higher tier I've seen it's been totally worth it. I used, Descript for video editing, and now Descript has built in AI. Yes. I mean, I guess, it always has. I don't know. But since I've had it, it's had built in AI for doing transcripts and stuff that makes editing really easy and also the stock large amount of stock video that's included has been useful for me. And, Chad GPT, of course, has been a fearless assistant recently. And not just an assistant, also like a cofounder and

Joshua McNary [00:12:54]:
Right.

Brigitte Gemme [00:12:54]:
Just a useful business partner and minion at the same time with very little ego. And I with MemberPress, I was mentioning, I run a lot of emails. I've I'm embarrassed by the number of emails I sent. When I see you you've sent a total of 94,000 emails. I'm sorry. But I use Kit, BBC known as ConvertKit. Yes. I've been on Kit now for, about eight years, something like that.

Brigitte Gemme [00:13:22]:
It's a really big chunk of, my tech stack, and it's pretty expensive. But, also, it's really worth it because that's I I can't be cheap on that. It's where all

Joshua McNary [00:13:34]:
my customers go to. Tools you're talking about. You know, you've mentioned a number of times now that you've been on these tools for a long time. Right? You've established these. And and you're you, you downplayed your kind of, you know, technology skills, but but you not everyone could do what you're doing. You're pulling together these things and and patching these things together. But that's also now, like, you're bought into these tools, and you're like, this is what I do, and this is what I know. And you won't change it unless you really have to.

Brigitte Gemme [00:14:00]:
Yeah. That's really key for sure. It would be distressing for me if Kit disappeared tomorrow. I mean, not just the history I have with them, but also how would I reorganize everything. And the funny thing is, you know, you you mentioned it's been a long time and sometimes, well, I'll give another example of another software I use that my life really hinges on, which is Obsidian. Obsidian is a note making tool, a note networking tool. It just works like an extension of my brain. It's not my second brain.

Brigitte Gemme [00:14:29]:
It's just like the the the appendix of my brain in many ways. Sometimes it's more than the appendix, more like the core. And it's super simple. Some I think most of what Obsidian is could have existed in nineteen nineties. I mean, it's marked down files and very simple, connection and links.

Joshua McNary [00:14:47]:
Node node based and link based kind of a kinda wiki kinda wiki like in that term. People know what that is. But, you know, like, it's it's it's, yeah. But it's got a visual element to it as well and connections and all that.

Brigitte Gemme [00:14:58]:
A little bit. Yeah. You can use it. You don't have to, but it's very flexible. And I've been using it now for about three years. And once in a while, I run into something that doesn't work anymore. And I didn't even know I did anything to make that work in the past, but maybe there's an update in one community plugin and then it the other one doesn't work or something. And I encounter the same problems sometimes between my website, like, between WordPress and Divi and MemberPress and Kit.

Brigitte Gemme [00:15:26]:
And I'm like, I don't remember how I had patched this together. Like, where exactly and that's something I need to grow into more looking forward, and that's something that Obsidian helps me with is better documentation. I think a lot of the work, when you're kind of like me, jack of all trade, masters of none, we do a lot of patchwork. There was a bunch of band aids and duct tape holding things together.

Joshua McNary [00:15:52]:
Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:15:52]:
And when one of those things breaks, it can take days to fix it.

Joshua McNary [00:15:57]:
Mhmm.

Brigitte Gemme [00:15:58]:
And definitely better documentation is something I should be working on, but it takes more time.

Joshua McNary [00:16:03]:
It's it's important. Trade off. But not urgent, and you're busy parenting and doing various business things and all this. So that in in your case, that's true, but it's true for, you know, huge businesses as well. Right? There's always something else to do, and this is a very common problem I see in my practices. Just trying to document what's happening or where we currently at to even be able to make future decisions. So one thing about, like, you and I being a smaller firms is the is we could be more nimble. Right? And we can't kinda pull it out the back of our head, and maybe it takes a couple days so we could fix it.

Joshua McNary [00:16:40]:
But, you know, as we get to larger businesses or even those that are trying to make solid decisions about what to do next, that documentation has to happen. And that's usually when I see it actually get done. You know, it's like, we have some Yeah. Break point where we have to make a decision or we have to make some movement one way or the other, and and now is the time to to actually make the documentation because the ongoing documentation is very hard.

Brigitte Gemme [00:17:01]:
See, something I've not documented just I just remembered now, and I'm like, oh, no. I need to do this. I hope I'm not exposing myself here to, you know, liability and saying that at some point, I ran into problems with my website. I guess it was because I was getting a lot of spam. Like, I was getting a a lot of spam, and I was getting a lot of, you know, brute force attacks on my website. And it was kinda stressing me out, though it doesn't really need to, but it was annoying. And for some reason, I decided to use CloudFlare.

Joshua McNary [00:17:28]:
Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:17:28]:
And I that's the sort of stuff that's just on the other side of my tech ability, of my tech boundary. And, like, I vaguely can make it work, but I'm not confident that I'm making it work right. You know? And it's currently working. But once in a while, I I I forget that I use Cloud Flare until once in a while, I get an error message that I trace back to, oh, it's because I'm using CloudFlare. And I don't even know what my settings are. I made it work. I watch a couple of videos, and it's okay. But that's the sort of thing that if anybody is like me and listening to this, they should rely on someone like you to to set that up because

Joshua McNary [00:18:07]:
I know

Brigitte Gemme [00:18:08]:
I know it's probably set up wrong. Right? But it's working.

Joshua McNary [00:18:11]:
Well So But is it but is it wrong if it's if it's working? Yeah. There's always gonna be things. There's always going to be more things that come up. But, yeah, as those types of tools do introduce a bunch of potential things that it could lead to paying on your situation. But I tend to be, of the mindset that the lowest common denominator for technology is often the right choice at that time. But it's also not to get put into the false sense of security that it's gonna stay that way. And that's another thought I I have for you is, you know, maybe just looking back at this technology journey you've had about building and and layering all these tools you've told us about here today already. What are some high level thoughts on, like, what you've seen in that process? Like, what what have you noticed over the last ten years ish as you've been adding these tools or as they've as those tools have evolved? Because, I mean, the amount of tools and the variety and the capabilities of many of these tools you mentioned has expanded immensely in the in that time frame.

Joshua McNary [00:19:07]:
So any any thoughts on on what you've seen as a practitioner using these tools?

Brigitte Gemme [00:19:11]:
Yeah. You know, something I just realized as you were asking this question is that, you know, sometimes you've been to high school with somebody and you continue seeing them, and you still see them exactly the same as they were when you were in high school.

Joshua McNary [00:19:26]:
Right. Yeah.

Brigitte Gemme [00:19:27]:
And I think there's something like, they've changed a lot. Our our children, our spouses, you know, anybody around us, we're kinda frozen in this image we had of them. And I think with regards to tools, one of the dangers for someone like me is I've set up tools ten years ago, eight years ago, five years ago, and I still use them at the level that they were five years ago because I haven't necessarily kept track or even there's some of the tools that I use. I don't don't have an example on top of mind right now, but, like, everybody's building in some kind of AI. Right?

Joshua McNary [00:20:00]:
Right.

Brigitte Gemme [00:20:00]:
And they've built in features. They've improved it. I'm paying a certain amount. Those things are included in them, and I'm not using them. And there's a missed opportunity there, and it's hard to decide, should I be spending maybe twenty minutes now or half an hour, keep track of those upgrades and maybe change accordingly? Maybe now the features that software a has take care of something I used to pay for separately because I have this whole stack of things, and then can I, you know, let go of this other solution I'm using? And I think that's a a like, there's a lot of evolution, and we're paying now for software service. We have licenses instead of, you know, paying it once, and then you're stuck with

Joshua McNary [00:20:44]:
it for,

Brigitte Gemme [00:20:44]:
you know, ever as it goes. But that does mean that the the software evolves, and I'm not keeping up really quickly. This morning, I got an email from Descript that they've changed, updated, improved, whatever, the screen recording options. And my first thought was like, oh, no. You know? Because that's What do

Joshua McNary [00:21:02]:
I gotta learn now?

Brigitte Gemme [00:21:03]:
Exactly. And at the end, I was like, I don't use screen recording very often, so I just deleted the message because I'm thinking next time I use it, they might not have done the improvement. Another company that I love, another type piece of software I use more in my learning professional development aspect is, Readwise. I use Reader extensively. I think it's an amazing company. I just love how they send their newsletter. They're growing all sorts of things. They're really listening to their, customer base and making really cool improvements, and I can't keep up with them.

Brigitte Gemme [00:21:36]:
And I feel it's too bad because I know a lot of the innovations they're doing would help me out, but it's a bit of a struggle. So it's it's it's a challenge.

Joshua McNary [00:21:44]:
To this the same same reason as the documentation is what's important to you in a day is is not Right. The same as what's important to them. And, ultimately, software companies, if they're doing a really good job, and the best ones I've often promoted over the years are the ones that are making it easy for you, the practitioner, or me, the practitioner, to do the things easily and be able to jump in there and not have to Intuitive. Do a lot of research and whatnot. Now that being said, some of our conversation earlier was about, you know, configuring and merging these things and mapping these things against each other, and that's where you start to get into, yeah, I need to know a little bit more what's happening behind the curtain there. And that's probably why you're saying that. But I I would encourage you, and this is not a consulting call, but I would I would say for those that are listening as well, like, these types of problems with technology and these evolutions and them moving. And I love I love your your comment about the, you know, the the friend from high school that you that looks different now.

Joshua McNary [00:22:43]:
You know, that's that is a great way to put and a great insight having done this now for many years with these tools. The idea that they're they they start one way and they evolve and they should be evolving because this technology is evolving, and they're trying to keep up with just as much as you're trying to keep up with it. But ultimately, for us as business people, it's about knowing what you are trying to achieve. And so that is a key. You have to put that North Star out there as to what am I trying to do in the next month, three months, six months, year, five years, whatever. And then bend the technology to that, and that'll drive you into where do we need to actually look, which technologies do I need to actually look at, and where do I need to put my attention when I do have the time to think about that. Because otherwise, it's just overwhelming.

Brigitte Gemme [00:23:29]:
Yeah. And, you know, I've just made a note in my calendar listening to you. I think what I need to do every year, I do a yearly review. I'm quite, I'm a very organized person. I have a yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly review, daily review. But I think I need to make a point of, at the very least, I should spend two days a year doing a tech audit. I'm sure that's something you do with your clients. Yeah.

Brigitte Gemme [00:23:50]:
You know? And reviewing my stack, I kind of do that a little bit through the financial lens. When I look at my expenses and I see the recurring subscription, sometimes like, oh, you know, they really need to keep paying for this, and then I will maybe engage with this. But sometimes it just goes completely below the radar, And I think part of this is scary. One of the things that come to mind, you know, Cloudflare, I was saying, is seems like something that if I mess it up, the consequences could be bad. Right? But even more fundamental than that, the hosting of my website. And just thinking about it makes me really nervous. Like, what if I discover that I'm you know, I should be hosting my website differently in different place and it would improve with some of my, you know, website responsiveness? Because it is a thing, for example, to to rate highly on Google results that your website is faster. And over the years, I, once in a while, get a message from some of my plugins telling me, hey.

Brigitte Gemme [00:24:48]:
You know, you could improve your website speed a little bit. I'm like, oh, I don't wanna get into that. Right? But I think it would be worth it for me to do that, like, a couple days a year Mhmm. And and really get into it and schedule it in a recurrence so that it comes back on on my new passcode. So thank you for the idea.

Joshua McNary [00:25:04]:
A tech sabbatical or something. I like that idea. Maybe we can come up with a new thing. I like that. Yeah. That that is something that

Brigitte Gemme [00:25:10]:
I do.

Joshua McNary [00:25:11]:
Yeah. Except you're doing work the whole time on your technology. Yes. I don't know. I mean, we gotta think about that. But, the idea of of those regular reviews is something that I definitely preach, in some capacity. But, again, the practical matter is, you know, you're looking at your your technology budget and your profit and loss or whatever, and you're like, oh, this is getting kind of pricey because they've been raising the rates because they keep adding all these features that I'm probably not using. So do I wanna keep this tool? You know, what can I do? That's, again, practically speaking, when we often look at this stuff, and whether we're a small business, midsize, big business, doesn't matter.

Joshua McNary [00:25:46]:
That's when it often, gets that's where the the push comes to shove and, similar to the documentation theme earlier as well, when push comes to shove and we really need it.

Brigitte Gemme [00:25:56]:
Something, you know, I think that really needs to be looked at in the context of business needs. Going back to Descript, for example, one of the features I dearly love in Descript is that you can basically click a button and it will tell you from this big video you've done, here are three to five short videos that can may be made into, like, YouTube shorts or Instagram reels or TikTok, whatever. And that's an amazing feature. And also and it's very tempting for me to use it. And at the same time, I've decided that those are not on my business's path right now. And all of those added features, I think I'm more of the kind that snoozes them, but I know many of my business colleagues who are more of the type to chase shiny objects.

Joshua McNary [00:26:39]:
Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:26:39]:
Yes. That's the risk too, right, where those features are added and maybe maybe I don't know. Maybe I get on TikTok and I'm going to blow up and my business will be multiplied five times. Right? But there that there's a fear of missing out

Joshua McNary [00:26:51]:
Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:26:51]:
That's involved. And I'm happy that they're working on improving the tech. But finding that balance is is really maybe the biggest challenge as far as tech is concerned. Really being aligned, having clarity on what your business strategy is, and making your tech choices accordingly with keeping an open mind that sometimes there's a tech innovation that might arise that could transform your business strategy. For me, Descript has done that. I it Descript has enabled me to really grow my YouTube business, whereas previously, it felt like such a pain to edit video. Maybe I just hadn't looked into it really, but I stumbled upon Descript. Actually, it was on a Focusmate Mate session.

Brigitte Gemme [00:27:29]:
Somebody told me, hey. I'm doing this on the script. I was like, what's the script? And then I looked into it, and I was like, goodness gracious. That just hits all the boxes for me. Right? And it's a massive AI tool.

Joshua McNary [00:27:38]:
I mean, it's a that's I mean, that's it's it's it's amazing features come from the AI components. So that's we didn't really talk about AI today specifically, but but that's I mean, we talk about AI a lot

Brigitte Gemme [00:27:49]:
in the context of

Joshua McNary [00:27:49]:
CRGPT or other things or the spark the sparkly little icon like you talked about or mentioned earlier. And but Descript is a AI first company that, you know, fun like you say, fundamentally changes the way that you can do, I mean, not video, audio, etcetera.

Brigitte Gemme [00:28:04]:
It's it's been transformative. But so having that alignment is challenging. Working on it with intention is really important, and it goes back to having a rhythm of making time to get involved deeply in our businesses, not just doing the work, but thinking about it.

Joshua McNary [00:28:20]:
Right. Beyond the technology, also thinking about thinking about what we're actually trying to do with the technology, which is a great place to kind of start to wrap up here because we're getting towards the end of our time together. I I think that's interesting that we went through kind of progression there. Of course, we were learning about your business there towards the beginning of the conversation, then we got into the weeds a little bit more. And then we kinda came back out the other side back thinking about the business again. And that seems very natural for talking to you today, a a solopreneur that's been doing this for a long time, helping a lot of people in this niche that you that's your passion area. And that's what makes you the biz tech superhero today because you've actually been able to make this work and stick with it and and and continue to follow your passion and and help the people that you wanna help most, and that's awesome. So, I I just think that progression was interesting to see in this conversation today.

Brigitte Gemme [00:29:11]:
Thank you. Yeah. It's really fun to think about, you know, thesis, antithesis, and thesis.

Joshua McNary [00:29:16]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. You got the PhD too. So we got that part too, in today's conversation.

Brigitte Gemme [00:29:20]:
We got it all sorted out.

Joshua McNary [00:29:22]:
Yeah. Alright. So the final question we ask is, what is one actionable tip that you would give businesses looking to better leverage technology? What's what's your kinda takeaway that you would tell people as you wrap up here on Biz Tech Super Hero?

Brigitte Gemme [00:29:36]:
I can't speak for every aspect of business, though I'm quite sure this is also true. But for anyone creating content specifically, and that really should be any business. This is all news by now, but getting really intimately familiar with the possibilities of LLMs, specifically AI in general, but large language models such as ChatGPT. And personally, I've picked one. I I ChatGPT is my friend. You know? Like, they know me really well. A friend of mine who is a music creator calls ChatGPT Chuck. Yes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:30:11]:
I find it very charming. So Chuck is my friend. Chuck knows me very well, and I know increasingly well how to leverage it really deeply as I was mentioning to do both the nitty gritty sometimes of, repetitive tasks. I don't have that many of those, but it's it's definitely been useful for me and also more higher level strategy thinking and everything in between. And engaging AI first is often a good idea and remaining the human in the loop, you know, as Ethan Malek, really cool book, called Co Intelligence. It's now, like, three years old, but it's still really good. I saw you recommended it in your newsletter recently. So, yeah, totally into that, but, like, remaining in the loop because sometimes it makes mistakes.

Brigitte Gemme [00:30:58]:
It makes fewer and fewer mistakes now. Now it's getting better at counting. It's getting better at generating images with proper spelling and stuff. But not being too too reluctant to engage with it, because the more you know how it works, the more you'll understand the whole, universe of business around you. And it does have I I can understand the reluctance in many ways. I also feel that reluctance. And at this time, I hate to be the one quoting Margaret Thatcher. There is no alternative.

Brigitte Gemme [00:31:31]:
So it feels necessary. So, that would be if someone listening to this is still feeling the heebie jeebies about the CHPTs, just pick one and play with it and see see what it will do for your kind of business. And if you continue to disagree with using it, then that's fine. But at least you'll know better why and you'll know where your competitors and colleagues in your in each are going.

Joshua McNary [00:31:55]:
Yeah. Don't be afraid. And and you've certainly, not only with the with Chuck, but also with, you know, the other technology you've been exploring over the years. You haven't been afraid to to try things, and that's why you're able to do what you're doing. So that's that's awesome. And I also note that, back on episode two, my friend Heidi was on, and she she talked about Chad, g e p t, in in, large ways about the various aspects that she uses it for. It's similar to you, different business, but, similar, concepts. And she calls him, Chad or it, Chad.

Joshua McNary [00:32:29]:
Yeah.

Brigitte Gemme [00:32:30]:
That's good. Yeah. So

Joshua McNary [00:32:31]:
so so, you know, you know, all those are all those are good. So, you know, it's it's a common thing, and that's fun to hear people, fun to hear and maybe a little spooky that, you know, we're we're calling, these names because that's that's what it feels like, right, when we're when we're using It is. It is. This has been great. I wanna give you a chance to tell people where they could find you online if they're interested in learning about vegan cooking, or the things that you're doing or will do. Where can they find

Brigitte Gemme [00:32:54]:
you? That would be awesome. Thank you for the opportunity. The main place to find me is veganfamilykitchen.com. That's where I have the hub of everything related to my business. I have a small presence on medium, more related to my coaching practice, but really, yeah, Vegan Family Kitchen is where it's at. I offer some really simple I have a lot of free stuff that's accumulated over the years, especially meal plan templates, some printables, Mad Lib meal plans. Those are my favorite. You know, you just take a few boxes, fill in the and you've got a

Joshua McNary [00:33:27]:
meal plan. So That's great.

Brigitte Gemme [00:33:28]:
I always love to be able to help people who are just tired of making decisions because it goes back to that. You know? The core of my business is that is decision fatigue. People get tired of making decisions about administration, about technology, about life all day long, and then they come home and they have to decide what's for dinner. Right?

Joshua McNary [00:33:48]:
Yep.

Brigitte Gemme [00:33:49]:
And so that's where I come in. Want something that's healthy. To help out. Yes. Oh, even if it's not healthy, they still have to decide. So might as well pick something healthy. Right? That would be nicer. But, you know, make those decisions to stay connected with our physical bodies in this world that is largely facilitated by technology.

Brigitte Gemme [00:34:10]:
So I think it's important to keep that connection to the material world. And yeah. So, anytime, happy to help anybody decide what's for dinner or get their food life organized.

Joshua McNary [00:34:21]:
Yes. That's great. Okay. Veganfamilykitchen.com. Check it out. You got it. Even if even if you're not vegan, I've I've looked over there. There's some interesting stuff and useful to, to to bring back to your family, so check it out.

Joshua McNary [00:34:32]:
Okay. Well, thanks for joining me again today.

Brigitte Gemme [00:34:35]:
My pleasure. It was great to be here. I have a whole to do list.

Joshua McNary [00:34:40]:
Great. That's great.

Brigitte Gemme [00:34:41]:
Thanks, Josh.

Joshua McNary [00:34:42]:
Alright, folks. That's it for today. I'm Joshua McNary, and I hope you will join me again next time so you can learn how to become a biz tech superhero. Bye now.