Ep. 4.1 | Christian, the AI Sherpa?

You don’t need to understand how an engine works to realize you’re suddenly going 120 mph.

(That’s how it felt when I hard launched into writing AI full-time.)

The questions I keep getting: “Christian, wtf are you talking about?” and “Why should I care?”

Lets start over with an intro!

Hey there, I’m Christian. I’m not hear to send you shitty life hacks, or sell you a course.

I noticed a big wave (AI) and decided to jump in.

Here’s a little bit about me
(plus why should spend an hour a week day on AI.)

In This Episode

• More about Christian

• Chocolate Chip P.O.V.

• Curious to Capable

• 1 hour on AI

• (Slam-Dunk) Business Applications

• I’m young. What should I study?

• You’re really hyped about AI!

Who Are You?

Of course I used an AI chatbot as the interviewer here 👇

I love chips & salsa. I grew up in the midwest, now we’re in Montana! I’m a brother, husband, and a dad.
My dream startup would go viral selling protein synthesized chips & salsa that’s actually a completely balanced meal.

My favorite hobbies are

• ice hockey

• day trips with my family

• snowboarding

• reading

• golf

Wait, what’s your professional background?

Former career where I advanced to VP of Sales at an orthopedic company.

Since then, multiple projects:

• 1-on-1 consulting

• digital marketing

• coldsmokeuniversity.com (montana t shirt shop)

• teaching AI implementation

…and something about a chocolate chip cookie?

Hehe. That’s been super fun… & definitely thrown people for a loop.

Creativity is huge for me. I started writing creatively for a segment I call AI Curious.

I knew I wanted to teach AI, but not like everyone else. I didn’t want to sound like a tech bro on Twitter.

(My readers should know that’s only half of my content strategy. I also write the AI Capable series, which is AI building blocks written in plain English.)


When I was designing t-shirts for Cold Smoke, it was always character-based

• FLOAT GOAT on a famous river outside Bozeman

• Ski Rex, the coolest bones in Montana

• Brawl of the Wild, (Montana State beat UM Grizzlies this year 💪)

Curiosity, continued

I’ve brought another character to life with the AI Curious series. Those short stories covers AI basics thru the POV of a chocolate chip cookie.

And regrettably, I pump in plenty of AI-generated metaphors.

His name is Chip, best friend Scoops, and in their story it’s an AI assistant called ChocoGPT taking the dessert world by storm.

I’m still tweaking this format every week. Who knows?

Meanwhile, I’m getting a lot of reps and learning different ways to relate AI concepts.

Tell me why I should spend 1 hour per week learning AI

If you’re under 50 and don’t work with your hands, you should actually spend 1 hour per day on this.

I’m as interested in the business applications as anything.

Not just hype - you’re going to use it daily.

We’re conditioned to treat everything like a news cycle:
“Oh yeah, that AI thing.”
“Remember when that was big?”

It’s not just big. It’s permanent.

The largest companies in the world (Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon) have been quiet. Letting ChatGPT front-run for awhile.
And now, one by one, they’re beginning to reshape everyday products around AI.

You mentioned business applications

Oh yeah.
I’ll teach more on this soon, but my business is getting into AI Workflow Implementation.

Business leaders are going to need a lot of help.

Remember that wave I mentioned? The AI software market is projected to triple in a few years.

Despite my best efforts, this tech is built on statistics and probability. It’s frickin dense.

When I was considering this career move, I would ask business leaders what they knew about AI. Every time I asked, they would fumble over some explanation of ChatGPT. No one mentioned neural networks, tokens, H100 chips, reasoning models, modalities, or agents.

Boom - there’s my entry point.
To become your AI sherpa.

Hey business leaders!

• If you haven’t talked AI yet —> I’ll tell you where to start.

• Ready to implement? —> I’ll have a team ready for that too.

Slam-dunk, no-brainer, applications for AI.

• Copywriting (adios, country music songwriters)

• Customer Service

• Both sides of marketing (creative + optimizing for spend)

• Coding

I’m young. What should I study?

Quality assurance. Anything related to data centers. Prompt engineering. LLM engineering & training. Robotics.

Trades are solid now too. I’d still recommend a 2-year degree, but we will always need electricians, plumbers, repairmen.

You’re really hyped about AI!

The AI hype train is just getting started. This is, as my 2 year old often exclaims, ‘A big one’!

Here’s the thing: There’s always two sides to disruption.

Recently I asked the CEO of MindStudio about this moment, why you don’t want to be last.

He replied with a hilarious analogy.

If you know someone who would enjoy this content,

Here’s what’s coming next :

Tuesdays: The next episode with Chip & Scoops, a couple of AI-curious friends just like you.
(Catch up on the last episode here)

Thursdays: We’ll cover LLM and AI concepts. (Don’t worry. I put the cookies on the lower shelf, where anyone can reach ‘em.) I teach advanced concepts in simple, bite-sized chunks that anyone can understand.