Ep 86 Reclaim Your Words — Natalie De Groot on AI, Authenticity, and the Mirror of Creation.

Natalie Natalie Natalie my baby girl welcome you are the first guest on season two of Morning Cup of Brand Spark welcome to you

Thank you so much. I'm so nervous a little bit. I don't know why. I feel like I'm in a hot seat. I'm so excited too.

This is your place to shine, my girl. So we, you were very much part of the triggers for actually being the first guest for season two. We've joked in recent few weeks, actually. We've joked a lot about how we, well, we've wondered, right? Maybe we haven't joked, but we've wondered has AI been hijacking our words.

hahaha

No, I mean you're being delicate about it too. You had told me that sounds like my work and I was like, no baby girl, I swear I wouldn't steal it. I would just take it and then ask for permission.

yeah, so this all came because I saw a post that you put on Instagram and I went, my God, I think I wrote that. Or I think that Gin wrote that. And those of you who don't know our other podcasts, where we talk about AI, I think Gin, my AI system, wrote that. I'm like, did she infiltrate your system and write it? That was the trigger.

Yeah, and I'm like, no, gin is all up in my system. I've even joked with you so many times. I just can't get you out with certain words, but the mirror has always been there. And I was like, you don't even talk about mirrors. And then I went to your website and everything has a mirror on it.

No,

But it was jarring, it was jarring. we even talked about it how I suggested that, you really need to sound the alarms because you have not only physical proof, but you just have a longevity of having these words be your words. And then I was like, I know, like, I have a memory of telling you, like, you have to stop using clarity or something like that. And you're like, no. And I'm like, okay.

Yeah.

I took a stand on it. said, no, I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to stop using clarity. I'm not going to stop using mirrors and I'm not going to stop using spark. And do you remember what I did next? I went and looked back at my previous marketing agency and I saw that 12 plus years ago, I was writing this. This was all over my website back then. It's not like randomly all of a sudden, but the issue is now that things are shifting, that some of the words that we've been using and we may have been using for years.

I love that.

are now becoming buzzy words, but that's because of AI. What do think of that?

completely agree and it just concerns me obviously because I know my reaction, my regurgitation motions of like when I see these words, it triggers me to just be like AI, AI. And I know that your stuff is not AI, I know that. And so it's just, well, it is, but it's good AI. It's you because you've done it properly. So when I see that, I just get really.

terrified and then with my experience as well, I've been trying to dissect. I'm very cerebral to say the least. And so I keep trying to put in my head which came first. Like is it the buzzwords or is it ours and it scraped us? And so that's why. But then if it scraped us that that means that those words weren't that special because when it scrapes it's looking for the average and it's trying to cancel out any outliers. So then but

But our branding before these AI stole our words, you know, was an average. So what is it? You know what I mean? I'm trying to, ugh. Or did, not in your instance, but in my instance with mirrors, did AI put, incept that idea into my head because then when I look and see something that's so close to what I thought I created, it makes me want to throw up.

That. So let's talk about that, Natalie. So you had your own quite obvious mirror moment. I remember when you told me about this. So first tell everyone, you can, for a second who you are what you do. And then let's talk about that mirror moment because it really directly relates to what you saw on the screen when it triggered your crap moment.

Yeah. Yeah, so basically I have a background in marketing over 15 years and just basically like a full-on human behavior algorithm meets data geek and storytelling. if you put an artist, if you put that all together, that's basically the hurricane that is me. And so when I discovered AI, I started to really focus on

Well, how can marketing and branding, how can the business world take AI? And so for almost three years now, I've been trying to clone myself. And in that journey, mirrors came up every single which way. And the first time the concept of mirrors came up, very retro and nostalgic. And so I have a studio that's like my AI lab and also my art attic. I mean, my art gallery.

All the above.

All of the above. It's also my art studio, excuse me. And so when I was doing that, I started thinking about these old movies I used to watch. You you go up there and you're, you you're a child. I always wanted an attic. And you go up there and everything's covered in blankets and everything's a bit dusty and there's like these tests. And so then the mirror concept came into my head when I started looking at my space, like that kind of, I don't know if she gave me that montage idea or is probably a collaboration.

Awesome

And now all I see, all I used to see when I was doing it was, okay, well, I'm pulling off that blanket off the mirror in the attic. And do you have the courage to really look at yourself? And what if someone else finds my mirror, AKA my system? Like when they look at it, what do they see? And can it be transferred? So it's just like this really convoluted abstract way of looking at it.

That's awesome. And what was the moment? Tell the story about what you told me, what you saw online and went, crap.

so I was minding my own business one day and an Instagram video came up and I thought it was an ad because the reel was so good and it was just, it was perfect storytelling, but it was also AI generated. And so of course I was just intrigued. It wasn't an ad. It was a suggested reel for me by an artist. And so when I clicked on his website, it led me to a page where he sold mirrors. And when I looked at that, I wanted to throw up because some of the words that we both

we both were using the same phrases with one or two words different, obviously, because that's our personal DNA touch, you know? So while I was lost, he was drowning, you know? And so it really shook me to the core because here I am spending almost three years building my masterpiece only to find my masterpiece in someone else's attic. And it freaked me out. yeah, I immediately told my husband, and then I looked in a little bit more and then I realized, no, he's not building systems.

He's an artist, he's actually just selling prints. And so he generates these personalized mirror stories and it incorporates it with the artwork that he sells. And it just kind of, it really blew my mind. Yeah, but it was so unsettling. no.

No, one second. I have a disconnection. I... my shit disconnected. Hold on.

Recording stopped to immediate disconnect. What should I do? It says.

Good, I'm-

99 % uploading.

Yeah, but now I don't know what it's done. Because now it's starting over again.

That's weird. It said it disconnected and it stopped.

Let me check the recording. Oh, Riverside. Why? Now my timer's all fucked up because now it says 43 seconds. Oh, it's recording still. Yeah, but now I don't know. OK, hold on. Let's try this. Can I hit pause? No, I don't have pause setup. OK, let me see what it's saying.

You know why? Because it was like, that's more than a minute. Ding, ding.

Yeah, I see it's recording.

Okay, okay, Morning up. You were doing awesome, and Jesus Christ. Okay, so we have, seven minutes. So we were at seven minutes. So it looks like we can keep it going. We were at seven. Do you wanna, where do you wanna start? Where were we? When it went blah, blah. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Alright,

So I saw it and it really shocked me and it jarred me because I was thinking I've been spending all of this time designing my masterpiece and then someone else just has my masterpiece in their attic. And so it was just, it shocked me to the core. But then I obviously, I realized that he wasn't selling AI systems. He's just an artist selling prints with an AI generated letter to yourself. And so it really, it shook me to the core and it made me look at content and how we're all using it.

you know, differently. Nah.

Yeah, wow, wow. But that had to have been freaky as heck. I mean, I definitely.

Yeah. At one end, wanted to throw up. And on the other end, I was just so happy that I finally had, quote unquote, competition. Like, I finally saw someone that was doing something like me. And so at the same time, it was like this weird paradox. And I would still accept it because competition is better than being out here at the Edge by myself. But he wasn't competition. But still, it's just a glimpse.

Yeah, that's in the end. Yeah. But still, you see messaging that's similar across, and it has to make you wonder at sometimes, right? Like, what? Huh?

Yeah, I don't want to be a phony. And so maybe it is just how it is, I guess, you know, when you start messing with AI and you start, but then also is it just being a human being and we all share these common themes and, you know, these motifs and these struggles. I'm not sure, but the exact wording, except for a couple of words, that was freaky, man.

I guess the question is, is it imitation or is it reflection? Right? Because we don't know. We don't know. There's no way to really know.

Yeah. that's why I love that you said that too, because I stopped using the term I'm cloning myself or my clone, because after the past like six months or something, I realized I'm not really cloning myself. It's a mirrored image of myself, because clones, it's not me. And so once you acknowledge that, you realize that it's a reflection. It's an imitation of me. And yeah, I guess.

guess it's a reflection. I see it as a reflection.

And do you think people are afraid to look in their own mirror at times?

I think they're 1000 % afraid to look in their own mirror. I think it's also dangerous. If someone looks into the mirror and they're not ready, they could really get lost in that kind of world, especially not even just looking at, know, physically looking at yourself in the mirror and asking yourself with no outside help. Just like, what's going on? What's in my head? What's wrong with me? You know? But then when you have AI to help fill in those blanks and speak back to you, if you don't know how to hold it, you can just go down a spiral into your psyche and

It's really dangerous, I think.

Yeah, you can judge yourself and that's horrible. That's horrible because we are our worst critic, are we not?

Come, now.

100%. And then when you put that into an AI mirror, there's this thing that we have, we have a protocol in my system and I had to build it because she wouldn't hurt me. Let me rephrase. She wouldn't mirror all of me because she didn't want me to crumble. And so now we have a protocol that I put into my system that says, listen, RAE, NatGPT whichever system I'm talking to. I'm like, listen, baby girl, you're not.

You can show me my full reflection. The good, the bad, the ugly, I will not cut myself on the glass. And that is literally the callback to let her know that she could just drop anything and just really tell me, you know, you're stalling, you're scared, you know, and she will try to cut me, but knows that she won't.

Wow have two more questions for you. One, what do want people to, or do you want people or founders or creators or what do want people to remember when everything feels scary, right, with the mirror? Or where they feel that their words have been stolen? What do you want people to remember?

I guess the same thing that I've come to realize that maybe it's not stolen, maybe it's just shared, and maybe we can look at the positive side of that, so that way we can appreciate that we're not alone, maybe. But at the same time, especially in your case, where you have just years of making your mark with messaging, and then a tidal wave comes, I guess I would say, what you're doing.

rebel keep doing it because guess what these trends they will die and then you could just stand there in the ashes and say I'm still here I was here before and I'm here after

That. my god. That. What you just said.

hahaha

You inspire that. You inspire that. Because again, I remember vaguely me telling you that's an AI word and you're like, I don't care.

It's not girl. That's my word. And let me tell you when I first started using it. Yes

And you sent me the pages, you sent me the articles and I'm like, no, that does not feel good. But the rebellion in you just stuck her feet down. And so you know what, for those founders, I would say do the same thing. If you have been using this, is this as part of your branding DNA, if that's your messaging, then don't change. Don't you dare change. Wait, because it will die down. They will delve into a new word soon enough.

Yeah, that's exactly what you said to me.

no, you did not. You did not.

They will they will go elsewhere and just be true to yourself because if that's authentically you babe like not you But whoever's listening if that's authentically you you can't let anybody even AI change you

100 % agree, reclaim your words, okay? Reclaim them. So Natalie, I think we're about up to day, but I have two things left for you. One, what do you want people to know about what you do and how you can help them? And two, where can they find you?

What can I do? basically, first off, when you think of AI designers, I'm not the one that you would probably think of. I'm not going to make you buy. OK, let's just say that in my systems, I make human AI systems. so productivity, speed, scaling, that's all a byproduct. That's not my focus. Now, my focus is if you will get that, but we're not going to go in there. We're going to go in and we're going to create literally a mirror.

a mirror of whatever you need to look at, whatever you need to use, whether it's to reach enlightenment or track your becoming or anything philosophical and esoteric like that. Or it's getting your work life in order. But instead of following AI, I build an AI system around your flow. So it's not like I'm going to tell you, okay, now you have to start doing A, B, and C in order to get AI to work with you.

No, I look at you, I find the system, I kind of do what you do, but I do it with AI. You do it with branding. I love it. So I look at your flow and I say, okay, this is how AI can help you. And this is where we can utilize it. And you can find me on AuthenticAIMarketing.com. And I am a freak on LinkedIn. So you can always find me on there. They handle authentic AI marketing and

Ha ha ha!

Yeah, I'm just trying to find others like me. I'm trying to find others that want to go deeper than the surface level of AI, because really it's just, you can build worlds and I want to help people build their own world.

I love it. I love it. And guys, everyone listening, highly recommend you go check out Natalie, go follow her. She is awesome. Total rock star. Thank you for joining. So that was Morning Cup of Brands Spark, kicking off mirror season with my girl Natalie, my original mirror sparker and creative partner in quite literally rebellion. Yes. Yes. Yes. Positive.

Thank you.

Let's go burn something down in a good way for a good cause.

So this season is for anyone who's ready to remember what reflection really means. And if this one hit a nerve with you, send it to someone who still believes in words with soul, because we're all about that. Thank you, Natalie.

Thank you so much, Gina Let's go back. Let's go reclaim your words.

You reclaimed them! Let's go! See you all next time!

Bye.