[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Your Goals podcast. I’m your host, Hal Elrod, and today we are diving into a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately because it’s something I’m personally struggling with, and I have a feeling that you might be too. However, like me, you might not be aware that you’re struggling with it or that there are any potential unintended consequences that you may want to mitigate now, you may want to be aware of and think through. Here’s what I mean. The question that we’re asking today is, how is AI and technology fundamentally changing us? What is it doing to our brain, to our cognitive function? And is there an unintended spiritual consequence? And that might be more collectively, but it’s going to happen on the individual level first. And of course, it amplifies its skills as more and more people adopt these new technologies.

But some of what I realize is maybe the old technologies like using my digital calendar, which I’ve been using for probably a decade, how is that affecting me? So, I’ve been going really deep into these topics and we’re going to look at this question of how AI and technology is fundamentally changing us from two different perspectives. Number one, is it making us dumber? Are we unknowingly allowing it to take over our natural God-given mental abilities such as our memory, our critical thinking, our problem-solving, our creativity? If you can just ask AI and you get an answer or even just Google an answer, well, you don’t have to think anymore. You don’t have to think anymore. And if you don’t use a muscle, you lose it. The same is true with your brain.

The second question or second perspective on this question is, are we so reliant on technology that we’re replacing our relationship with God? Now, this is a big question. Or at the very least, our intuition, which many people would say are one in the same, right? You quiet your mind. You listen to your intuition. Many people would say that’s the voice of God or higher intelligence, right? And are we replacing higher intelligence with artificial intelligence? This is a big topic and I have a lot to say on it today but this is a lot of self-reflection, a lot of research that I’ve been doing. I want to have other experts on the podcast throughout this year because this is such the more I look into the topic, I realize how pervasive this is going to be in our society. It already is.

And if you’re not paying attention to it, which I’m paying attention to it somewhat, but when you go deep dive, you go, “Oh, my gosh, AI is going to change virtually every facet of our lives.” So, if you’ve ever wondered, and by the way, if you’re not using AI, this applies to you. I’m going to talk about using digital calendars, using reminders, using smartphones. Like, if you’ve ever wondered whether your use of technology is helping or harming you, stick around because this is going to be an episode that will apply to virtually all of us. Unless you don’t have a smartphone and you don’t have a computer and you don’t use the Internet, then this doesn’t apply to you. It might apply to you if you have grandkids that do, right?

Before we dive in, I have a question for you. Do you ever wake up in the morning feeling tired? And I’d imagine the answer is, “Of course.” We all do, right? So, here’s what I want to introduce you to. It’s the easiest, fastest way to wake yourself up and get going in the morning. It’s downloading the new and improved Miracle Morning Routine app. This isn’t just another alarm clock. It is your personal guide to waking up better. With just a few minutes each morning, the app walks you through the SAVERS, silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing or journaling, all designed to help you start your day with energy, clarity, and motivation.

So, there are guided meditations to clear your mind, powerful affirmations to boost your confidence and keep you focused on what matters most, visualization exercises to help you achieve your goals, quick morning workouts to get your blood flowing and your energy up, handpicked book summaries you can grow yourself every day, a simple journaling tool to capture insights in gratitude. No more rolling out of bed feeling like a groggy zombie. No more scrolling social media first thing. Just intentional mornings that set you up for success in every area of your life.

So, if you’re ready to stop waking up reactive and start your day proactive, download the Miracle Morning Routine app today and start waking up to your full potential. And with the Premium Plus membership, you get live events with me throughout the year and you can add another person at no additional charge, friend, family member, or colleague, and give them an app subscription to be your accountability buddy and help them transform their mornings and their lives as well.

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: All right. Let’s dive in, talk about how AI and technology are fundamentally changing us. There’s three segments today. The first segment I want to talk about is the cognitive impact of technology. So, we’re going to start with I’d call this a hard truth, and it’s one that, again, I’ve had to come to grips with myself more and more recently. And it’s that my use of technology, things like my online calendar, ChatGPT, my smartphone reminders, things that we take for granted that we use on a daily basis, it’s literally causing and accelerating my own cognitive decline. This is what I’m inviting you to consider, that if you are relying on these things as much as I am, it’s probably doing the same to you.

Think about it. If I depend on my Google calendar to tell me where to be at all times, which I do, if someone says, “What are you doing tomorrow?” and I might be worse than most, but I don’t know. I’m like, “I got to check the calendar.” I don’t know. It’s all in my calendar, so I don’t even think about it. I don’t worry about it. It’s in the calendar so I don’t have to remember what I’m doing. I just everyday look at my calendar the night before and go, “Okay. What do I got on the agenda tomorrow? Great.” And I usually only look a day ahead. Sometimes for the week, I’ll look at the whole week. But essentially, if I rely on my Google calendar and I never exercise my ability to remember my schedule, what happens to my memory? It atrophies. It weakens.

And the same with AI tools like ChatGPT. If every time you have a question, you immediately turn to AI instead of thinking, pondering, or using your intuition, then you’re literally outsourcing your brain’s ability to problem solve, to think deeply, think critically, to imagine. And when you don’t use a muscle, what happens? You lose it. And there’s actually a term for this. It’s called digital dementia. Researchers have found that our reliance on technology is reducing our ability to focus, to think deeply, to retain information. And I struggle with all of these. And I always thought it was chemo brain, which it might be. But if you don’t have chemo brain and you don’t do chemotherapy, right, but you still struggle to focus, think deeply, and retain information, you may be dealing with digital dementia.

Studies show that when we store information in a device rather than in our brain, we actually become less likely to remember it. Our memory gets weaker. Now, there is a book and I’ve only scratched the surface of the book summary. I haven’t read the full book, in full disclosure. It’s called The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. And it talks about this topic. And Nicholas Carr, who is the author, he wrote an article titled Is Google Making Us Stupid? Now, again, this is Google. It’s been around for, I don’t know, a decade, longer. Not ChatGPT. So, I know that some people listening are like, “Yeah, I use AI. I use ChatGPT,” but maybe half of you maybe you listening, you’re like, “I don’t use AI, Hal. Does this apply to me?”

Okay. Well, again, this article from Nick Carr was on, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, where he explained how our brains are changing. We are losing our ability to focus and engage in deep thinking because we’re always consumed in shallow surface-level content that is only a click away, a search away. And one of my favorite books that I’m reading right now is Deep Work. And why am I blanking on the author’s name? I completely know this author. In fact, I know him personally so I’m really embarrassed if he’s listening. Cal Newport, right? Anyway, the book is called Deep Work, but he talks about this is how, based on Google searches and AI, like our ability to do deep work, literally, we are losing the ability. We’re losing the ability.

If we continue to be reliant on technology to replace our memory, to replace our critical thinking, to replace our ability to focus, those muscles, those mental muscles are going to atrophy. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that for myself. And I don’t want that for you either. I don’t think any of us want that. So, right now, I have kids, and I’m thinking about this not only for me but for my daughter, who’s 15. My son is 12. And thankfully they use Google a little bit maybe, but they don’t use any AI and I’m really trying to think about how I introduce this for them. So, I’m thinking about this for myself and optimizing my mental faculties. I’m thinking about it for you. I’m thinking about it for my kids. I’m thinking about it for maybe a future book that I write. I want to change gears right now.

All right. So, I made the case. I hope you are at least thinking about this. Today, this is an invitation for us to think, for us to explore, for us to consider how is AI affecting our cognitive abilities, our intelligence, our memory, our recall, etc. The second area that I wanted to approach this from is in relation to God. Is AI replacing God? And I’m not saying that AI could actually replace God. I’m talking about people’s relationship with God, replacing God in our lives. Now, hear me out. I’m not saying technology can actually replace God in physical/spiritual reality, nor am I saying that AI is necessarily evil, although I think it could be or could become if programmed by the wrong people.

But consider this. Before AI when we had a question about our life, about our purpose, or a difficult decision that we had to make, where did we turn? Before Google, before AI, many of us, if not all of us, turned inward. We prayed, we reflected, we sat in silence, and waited for divine guidance. Or maybe we reached out to a friend, a family member, a loved one, and we leveraged their life experience, their wisdom, and we created a bond, a connection, a rapport between those people. And I’m not going to go into deep exploration of how our relationships are maybe affected by technology. I’ll save that for another topic. But what do we do now when we have a question about our life, our purpose, or a difficult decision? Where do we turn now?

Many of us, if you use ChatGPT or even Google, we just type the question into our phone or into our computer. We hit enter and then we get an answer in seconds or an array of articles to read where other people do the thinking for us, whether it’s the technology doing the thinking or it’s the other person. Again, I never thought of Google in this way. It was only when I started diving into the research of how is ChatGPT impacting our cognitive abilities and our relationship with God and our intuition that I realized, “Oh, wait a minute, it’s been happening for decades. It was happening with Google. ChatGPT is just a radical 10X evolution in the way technology is replacing our thinking.” So, we’re losing our ability to think critically and potentially we are losing our connection to our intuition, to our higher self, to God. Again, we’re replacing our connection with higher intelligence with artificial intelligence.

Mark Vernon, a philosopher and author, he has written a lot about this. His work really has inspired me to understand this topic at a deeper level, and he argues that AI can never replace spiritual intelligence, thank God, because spirituality is rooted in direct experience, things like suffering and joy and love and longing and connection. AI is just data. It can’t give us real wisdom. And for me, personally, and I’m going to do an episode on the power of prayer coming up because I realized recently that I’ve had so many real-life results-oriented experiences where I prayed for something that the odds were one and – I don’t know the official odds, but say one in a million, one in a billion. And these things happened in, call it, God’s perfect timing.

But to where it’s like to call it a coincidence one time if it happened. Two times, you’re like, “There’s no way that could happen twice in that way, in such a specific way based on the prayer and based on the timing,” right? And then three times like I have these, again, I’m going to tease you this. I’m not going to give you all the stories of these prayer examples. But the point is, for a lot of people, I’m concerned that for our society, a lot of people, especially, they don’t have God in their life and they don’t have a relationship with God and they’re not used to praying and they’re not used to going inside, like as generations continue to evolve where AI becomes like introduced at a young age. And I’m so thankful that we’re not there yet but I would imagine that’s coming at some point in the not too far off future.

But that’s going to teach from a young age while a child’s brain is developing, instead of learning how to access their intuition or learning how to pray and connect with God or higher consciousness, they’re going to immediately go to technology and lose that connection and lose that ability and lose the trust in their intuition. Think about that. If you’ve relied on your intuition and it’s gotten you through difficult times or helped you make difficult decisions that have led to great opportunities and you’ve learned to trust your intuition, it is literally a tool. You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t touch it, right, but you can trust it.

Same thing with if you’ve prayed and God you feel has come through for you in these amazing, miraculous ways that you can’t explain, that you can’t dismiss as coincidence based on the precision in what you prayed for and the result that came from it, then you can learn to trust that. But if you never learn to trust your intuition or God or prayer and you rely on technology for the answers, what is that going to do to us as human beings? How is that changing us individually and then collectively? And the beauty of this, the good news, if you will, is if you’re listening to this, most likely, unless you’re like a kid right now, you grew up without all of these technologies, right?

So, you have real-life personal experience, like I do, of accessing your intuition, of critically thinking through difficult decisions, of reaching out to a friend or a family member or a colleague to get their advice and their perspective. And you gained wisdom from their wisdom, which may have been gained from, like Mark Vernon talked about, real-life direct experience that AI cannot replace because it only is data. And so, if we rely on technology too much, we can easily fall into the trap of treating AI as our ultimate source of knowledge, of God. That is dangerous. In my opinion, that is dangerous. And also, is it just like we’re losing our humanity? We’re losing our spirituality if that is the case. Again, I love that comparison. In fact, maybe that’s what I’ll call the episode today is Replacing Higher Intelligence with Artificial Intelligence. That’s what too many people are starting to do. And like it’s trending toward a technocracy, if you will.

All right. Most important part of the episode today, let’s talk about how to have a healthy relationship with technology. I’m not saying that we should all throw our phones in the trash and go live off the grid. Trust me, by the way, I’ve tried that. My wife, Ursula, and I moved onto a 30-acre property. We started raising animals, grew a garden, installed solar panels, and attempted to kind of live off the land. And, yes, we’re doing it in a hybrid way but let me tell you, it is a lot harder than it sounds.

This is one of those scenarios that I have found. The fantasy is better than the reality. Don’t get me wrong. I’m looking over my computer right now at our property. It’s beautiful, 30 acres. We got horses back there. We got chickens over there. It’s amazing but it’s challenging. So, I’m talking about how to live with technology. The goal is not to eliminate technology. It’s to have a healthy relationship with it. So, I’m going to give you all some actionable steps that you can take today, starting right now to develop, cultivate a healthy relationship with your technology.

Number one, this might surprise you. It might not be what you expect. Stop taking your phone to the bathroom. Yes, I said it. I said it. I know many of you right now are resisting. You’re hitting your phone or your computer screen. You’re upset at this podcast. You’re like, “Hal, no. I have to take my phone to the bathroom.” And I know me telling you to stop doing that, it creates a certain reaction, I’m sure, within you. And I know it also sounds like maybe a small thing, but it’s actually huge. Our addiction to our phones is so bad that we can’t even go to the bathroom without them. So, I am challenging you. Do it for a week. One week. You can do anything for a week even if it’s hard. Start by leaving your phones outside the bathroom and maybe put a sign on your bathroom door like right by the handle that reminds you so you can remember because it’s such an addiction. It’s so unconscious.

By the way, this isn’t easy. And I’m recommitting. I’ve done this before and I’m doing it again right now. I’m on day two right now. This was yesterday where I finally was like, “All right. I’m having a breakthrough in these areas. I’ve got to share this. What are the most effective ways that we can all implement this healthy relationship with technology?” And this is the first one. And I’ve done this before for an extended period of time. I’ve done like a week or a month at a time. A 30-day challenge I think was the longest I went without my phone. And I don’t know if I even succeeded. I don’t know if I made it all 30 days, to be honest with you.

But anyway, here’s the point. It’s a small step toward breaking the cycle of dependency. And if you want a positive frame on not taking your phone to the bathroom, this is what I tell myself, “I’m going to go to the bathroom with God. I’m going to go to the bathroom with God.” And again, if you don’t even believe in God, go to the bathroom with your intuition, with your own mind, your own spirit like whatever it is, whatever it is for you. For me, it’s, “I go to the bathroom with God,” and so I leave my phone out. And think of it this way, well, let me keep going.

All right. Number two, spend more time with God without technology. So, the bathroom is the start, right? That’s like it’s a small thing. You’re only in there for a minute, five minutes, maybe, maybe longer. Usually, we’re in there a lot longer because we’re on our phone but you’re going to get in and out a lot quicker without the phone. But that’s step one. Again, small thing, small step toward breaking that cycle of dependency.

Number two, my second tip for you to develop a healthy relationship with technology is spend more time with God without technology in addition to the bathroom. And whether you call it prayer or meditation or quiet reflection, we all need time to be still and go inward and listen. Spend time in nature. Sit in silence. This morning I did a two-hour Miracle Morning and I wasn’t allowed to touch my phone until I was done with my Miracle Morning. Now, I know it’s counter-intuitive. You’re like, “What if you’re using the Miracle Morning app?” Well, today I was like, “All right, I’m going no technology. I’m not even going to use the Miracle Morning app. I just want to do a digital detox.” So, have meaningful in-person conversations, either with yourself or with other people. The point is, spend more time without technology, in nature, in silence, in conversation with others. Make this a daily practice.

Number three, and this is in conjunction with number two, track your time of ‘on technology’ versus and you can either say ‘off technology’ or you could say ‘with God.’ Like, how much time are you spending with God in solitude, in silence, in nature versus with technology on your phone, on your computer. Pay attention to how much time you spend between the two, and you might be shocked at the imbalance. I was. I mean, I’m spending literally 8 to 12 hours a day on technology on my computer working eight hours a day, on my phone in between, on the TV in the evening. It was almost like, I don’t know, embarrassed is the right word. I’m just like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m spending like an hour or two a day in silence, in nature, and I’m spending 8 to 12 hours on technology.” So, track your time. You might be surprised.

And then number four, and this is important, this is specific to those of you that are using AI, artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT. That’s the most popular AI tool out there. And here’s the tip. Number four, use AI as a tool to enhance, not replace thinking. And I learned this from Geoff Woods, the author of The AI-Driven Leader when I had him on the podcast a few months ago. He explains that AI should be used as a tool for augmentation, not a substitution. So, what I mean is instead of letting AI think for us, we should use it to challenge our thinking, to spark new ideas, to improve our decision-making process. He suggests asking AI open-ended questions to get different perspectives. And then just like if you were reading a book, you’re getting a different perspective but then taking the time to analyze, to reflect, and apply our own reasoning. So, don’t let what the AI spits out and go, “Yeah, that’s truth. I’m going to copy and paste it and that’s it.” No. Use AI to support your cognitive growth rather than diminishing it.

And then the fifth and final tip is create a 30-day Less Tech, More God challenge. And again, I’m using the word God here. I don’t want to say it loosely. I don’t ever want to use the word God loosely, but meaning that for, depending on your beliefs, I’m just always trying to be sensitive. We have people of all different beliefs listening to this podcast. And so, for you, if you’re like, “God, that doesn’t resonate with me. I don’t talk to God or I don’t even believe in God,” great. Less tech, more solitude. Less tech, more silence. Less tech, more deep thought. Less tech, more nature time. Less tech, more meditation. For me, the word God encapsulates all of that. So, a 30-day Less Tech, More God challenge.

And again, if for you, 30 days you’re like, “Ah, Hal, not ready to commit for 30 days,” and maybe you just start with that seven-day Don’t Take the Phone to the Bathroom challenge. For the next 30 days starting with those seven, be intentional about reducing your screen time and increasing your time spent in deep thought, in prayer, in meditation, in nature, in real-world connection and see how it changes you, see how when you elevate your consciousness to be aware of technology and the role it plays in your life and how addicted to it you/we, I’m in this too, how addicted to it we are and that way you can make more conscious decisions.

And again, pay attention to those two questions, those two perspectives around the question of how is AI and technology fundamentally changing us in two ways. Is it making you dumber? And I know it’s a crude way of saying it, but meaning, right? Is it affecting your cognitive abilities, your mental abilities, your mental function, your memory or, aka, your recall, your ability to focus, your ability to reason and think, your creativity. If you’re outsourcing that to Google or ChatGPT and you’re not using that part of your brain, it is literally atrophying and you will lose that ability.

Have you seen that? What is that movie? It was a cartoon movie. I forgot what it was. It was where in the beginning, all the human beings are up on a spaceship and they’re just staring at a screen and they can’t think. And that came to me as I was prepping for today’s episode because I’m like, “That’s the future that we’re headed towards as a society/humanity if we continue to outsource our thinking and our decision-making and our creativity to technology.

All right, my friends. Let’s recap. Technology and AI are incredible tools, no doubt in my mind. I agree. But if we rely on them too much, they can weaken our cognitive abilities and disconnect us from God, from our intuition, from higher consciousness as it’s replaced with artificial intelligence. And the solution is to be intentional, to use technology when it serves you but don’t let it replace your ability to think, to reflect, to connect with something greater than yourself. So, the challenge, again, is join me in the 30-day Less Tech, More God challenge starting today. Don’t wait. Reduce your technology use. Start by not taking your phone to the bathroom. Again, it seems small. Also, I know you’re thinking, “That’s going to be hard.”

Think about it. You use the bathroom at least a few times a day, right? So, every time you do, it’s only a minute without your phone. It’s only a minute or two or five but you’re reinforcing, “Hey, I don’t have to have my phone. And now that I’m using the bathroom like I used to without a phone in front of my face and I’m left to my own devices, I’m left to think, I’m left to connect with God, I’m left to tap into my intuition,” maybe you’re going to have the most brilliant thoughts you’ve ever had while you’re going to the bathroom and your phone’s out in the hallway. You follow me? All right. So, spend more time in nature, in prayer, and silence, and let’s see what happens.

And I’d love to hear from you. How do you balance technology in your life? Send me a message on Instagram, tag me on social media. Send me an email. Reply to the email. If you’re on my email list and you got this podcast email, reply back, and let’s keep this conversation going. This is the first of many conversations. I’m going to bring an expert who knows way more than me on this topic where it’s their expertise and bring them in to keep the conversation around technology going.

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: All right. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit from it. And don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss an episode. If you’re down, leave me a review on iTunes or your favorite podcasting platform, Spotify. It really helps the show. And until next time, keep striving to achieve your goals and remember the answers you seek aren’t just in technology, they are within you. Appreciate you. Love you so much. And I will talk to you next week.

[END]