Which Kind Of Therapists Will Be Replaced by AI | Elite Performance Podcast #75

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:09:02
Itamar Marani
Why AI is going to split the therapy market into two and why the ones that are going to be left might not actually be the good ones.

00:00:09:04 - 00:00:14:11
Alex De Fina
Most therapies or counselors are people trying to heal themselves through their work.

00:00:14:13 - 00:00:38:11
Itamar Marani
There's no KPI, there's no goals. And this is not how that works. You would never tolerate a consultant coming into your business and saying, "Let's just talk every week." Yet people, for whatever reason, allow that to happen with somebody who's operating on their mind. It doesn't have its own emotional baggage. Alex, welcome to today's episode. Any thoughts you want to share about A.I. and therapy and all that before we get on?

00:00:38:13 - 00:00:44:00
Alex De Fina
Thank you. Great to be here. No additional thoughts that interested to get to the topic.

00:00:44:02 - 00:01:11:22
Itamar Marani
So to explain how we got into it. Yesterday I met up with an entrepreneur and he was sharing his challenges are actually outside of business that he had a bit of challenges with his marriage and him and his wife separated. And he told me that they went into therapy and couples counseling and how it was this very weird and clunky situation that wasn't actually helpful to them or to him at least, and asked them, what do you mean by that?

00:01:12:00 - 00:01:37:18
Itamar Marani
They said, Well, it felt like my wife and the therapist was trauma bonding that during their first conversation, like the therapist told us about all her past traumas and what happened to her. And it was just weird. I didn't understand where this was going and it didn't feel helpful. Now, where I want to leave that to, because this is a conversation I had with him and I asked him this simple question, Hey, think back to high school, okay?

00:01:37:19 - 00:02:01:00
Itamar Marani
Think about, let's say the 30 brightest minds, the sharpest kids that you knew back then. How many of them went to become therapists. And he was like zero. And I was like, cool. So that's one. Now, the reality is that most therapists, the reason they go into therapy again, there's obviously, like, you know, external ones, there's different points of the bunker.

00:02:01:02 - 00:02:19:07
Itamar Marani
Most of them is to try to figure out their own trauma and heal. And the reality is you're getting people that mostly aren't a players because just like IQ, whatever it may be. And on top of that, the people that have their own wounds trying to work through it, and then they're working with other people in a structure where there's no KPIs, there's no concrete goals, no, okay, this is what we're doing.

00:02:19:07 - 00:02:37:22
Itamar Marani
So what is the current bottleneck that we need to figure out in order to solve? And it creates a lot of problems. And the basic thing is that the beauty of AI is that it doesn't have its own emotional baggage. So any thoughts about that before we kind of lock in going hard in the paint this way?

00:02:38:00 - 00:03:13:14
Alex De Fina
Yeah, Hodgepodge. Totally, totally agree with that. I've had some therapists, whether it's a psychologist or a counselor, that have worked in and around some of my businesses in the past. And as I got to know those individuals at deeper levels, it became clear to me that what you alluded to before, the fact that they were potential or possibly going into this arena due to their own traumas or challenges and then turning that into a profession was certainly clear.

00:03:13:16 - 00:03:42:22
Alex De Fina
So that in my adult experience, most therapists or counselors are people trying to heal themselves through that, through their work. Yeah, and I've had some I go to experiences of the actual talking cycle, a lot of talking, but not really saying anything. So interested have, but from your perspectives about how you think that air is going to disrupt that that arena.

00:03:43:00 - 00:04:02:14
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So let's break down into two things. First off, the challenges of the modality itself and how it's practiced. A lot of it is, like I said, it's kind of staring into the past and it's this weird cycle where a lot of times when people want to be validated as victims, a lot of therapists will actually validate them as victims.

00:04:02:16 - 00:04:21:07
Itamar Marani
Well, even if they're not saying in a clear upfront way you are a victim by just constantly talking about and saying, Yeah, that's rough. Tell me how that was. And just keeping them stuck talking about it instead of saying from a different perspective, where would you actually want to go? How can we just start moving past this as fast as possible and in the right way?

00:04:21:07 - 00:04:42:11
Itamar Marani
But how can we move past this to create a problem now? And again, I want to say this is very like a challenging thing. I remember the old the old podcast I did with Emil. They'll leave foundations when he said that his biggest challenge is that therapists would never be able to say, okay, here's a KPI, this is what we're trying to aim for.

00:04:42:12 - 00:05:01:08
Itamar Marani
This is the goal. And so because there's no measurement, there's no accountability, and because there's no accountability, you can't actually vet if someone is doing a good job or not, you might get a little emotional kick from being able to vent once a week or whatever it may be. And it feels good and it feels good to release that, but it's not creating progress.

00:05:01:10 - 00:05:23:08
Itamar Marani
And I think, like you said, and I'll put it this way, there's nothing wrong with going to study something because you want to figure it out for yourself. Like we all like entrepreneurship is a lot of times like you scratch your own itch. However, when you haven't figured out how to actually fix your itch, so to speak, and then your job is to help other people do that and there's no way to track if you're doing it right or wrong.

00:05:23:08 - 00:05:43:22
Itamar Marani
It creates a lot of ambiguity in a lot of issues. And I think the big thing was like A.I. and how we're saying it is that again, A.I. is it doesn't carry us. This is as far as I know, maybe in the course there's some emotional issues that A.I. has, but it's just a very objective bystander saying, Here's the knowledge, here's a process that's reverse engineer it.

00:05:44:00 - 00:06:09:01
Itamar Marani
These are the biases you might have. This is what you need to overcome. And there's no way, because again, we talk about bottlenecks. I think a primary bottleneck to understanding somebody else's things through our own biases and being able to cut through them. And if I'm someone who still has a lot of emotional wounds of my own and I see myself and I project myself into each person I'm working with, that's going to be very, very challenging for me to be a good job because I just can't see things.

00:06:09:01 - 00:06:25:10
Itamar Marani
I see things through a very altered glance. Let's call it. I think again, that's the big thing, that A.I. doesn't carry this emotional baggage. It can give you concrete feedback. Any thoughts on that so far?

00:06:25:12 - 00:06:44:13
Alex De Fina
Yeah. So see if I quickly understand your position here. Essentially, the air is said to be a cliche, but ultimately truth seeking, it's it's not trying to placate to your emotional state. So it's not trying to optimize for reciprocity or familiarity or likability or whatever person or.

00:06:44:13 - 00:06:49:16
Itamar Marani
For returning for you to keep coming for a session next week. It also doesn't have that incentive.

00:06:49:18 - 00:07:20:15
Alex De Fina
Sure. And I think your point a little bit earlier, I nobody that was in the conversation here about the lack of KPIs for therapists. I think that's a very interesting insight because in any other profession where essentially your role is to help someone navigate what they're going through or to a system that I get into a predetermined alcoholic, I want to feel happy or feel confident, or the equivalent is like a personal trainer who's worked with a client forever in the client is getting started with the goals.

00:07:20:15 - 00:07:51:23
Alex De Fina
Fat loss or so. If you're a therapist counselor and you'll still work with the same client many, many years later and there's no metric for improvement, we don't know. We don't have a clear goal for what fixed is. We don't have any tool to measure our progress along the way. Then it could potentially devolve into a mutual forwarding session where your service is optimized for selling hours of time and the person is optimized for.

00:07:52:01 - 00:07:52:19
Itamar Marani
Being delivered across.

00:07:52:19 - 00:07:57:01
Alex De Fina
The nation, which we don't want to do. Yeah, exactly.

00:07:57:03 - 00:08:13:11
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And I think that's the hard thing too. And again, we all have human needs and it's very challenging to not put that on to other people. That is the job of the therapist. And the reality is, like we said, most of these people are already operating from a compromised position where they have emotional stuff. They're still trying to work through.

00:08:13:13 - 00:08:29:03
Itamar Marani
And to double down on your analogy, it's like you would never tolerate somebody, a consultant coming into your business and saying, I don't want to just talk every week. There's no KPIs, there's no goals, and this is not how that works. We can't do this kind of stuff. We just like it's a process. We just have to fill it out.

00:08:29:03 - 00:08:50:08
Itamar Marani
It's different for everybody. If there is no clarity on goals and we're trying to get to you wouldn't tolerate that. Get people for whatever reason allow that to happen with somebody who's operating on their mind, which is a very valuable resource. And what's nice is with these air tools, you can actually tell like what are the goals that we're trying to achieve here?

00:08:50:10 - 00:09:16:07
Itamar Marani
And it operates towards that. And it also, again, it doesn't take their own baggage into it. I remember that my wife and I have a friend who's Dula. She basically is a let's call a midwife, for lack of a better terms, that she helps women through their birth. And she said that she had a really hard time going back to her job after she gave birth because all of a sudden she had too much empathy.

00:09:16:09 - 00:09:29:19
Itamar Marani
She during her birth, it was so hard for her and challenging for her that usually when women are about to give birth, she's like, Yes, I know this is hard, but this is what we got to do. We got to breathe. Now you got to push. And you said the first time she came back, the woman was like, This is hard.

00:09:29:19 - 00:09:51:00
Itamar Marani
And she just looked at and she was like, I know you to do it. And that's the thing. It's like this. There's a lot of human error in therapy. Like I think the therapy itself as a tool can be phenomenal. The biggest issue in it is human error because of the humans that usually deliver it. And with A.I., you get to bypass that human error.

00:09:51:00 - 00:10:08:02
Itamar Marani
You still get to have the modality, the process, the system that can be very effective, but without the human error. That again is more prevalent therapy because you're dealing with people that as a default usually are still trying to figure out their own baggage. Again, exceptions. But that's unusual case.

00:10:08:04 - 00:10:29:11
Alex De Fina
Totally agree. So if I default to analogy again here the Google maps that was a lead on 40 frequently I'm lost I could plug it to Google maps. Get me to this notion that Google Maps will look at the infrastructure, the traffic, etc. So this is the most effective, most efficient path towards pragmatic, and that's where A.I. is likely to to assist us.

00:10:29:13 - 00:11:08:10
Alex De Fina
Whereas the therapist is more likely to talk about, well, how did you get lost in the first place and how does that make you feel? And unpack that for me. And so we spend all of our time stagnant talking about or even worse, talk about the past as opposed to pragmatically moving forward. And that's definitely my end goal experiences with therapy is typically they can spend a lot of time unnecessarily looking at the past or trying to over analyze the past was, in my opinion, the past or the relative to what's required to move forward as if we can never discuss it.

00:11:08:10 - 00:11:13:05
Alex De Fina
But it's only simply how do I get out of this situation? How about my folks?

00:11:13:06 - 00:11:37:22
Itamar Marani
And it's not the focus. It's just the it's a necessary evil that needs to be addressed in order to actually achieve the focus. Yeah. So where I want to move on with this is, in my opinion, like again, I am I work in the performance coaching industry and I see this a lot of people talking about it and a lot of people are pooh poohing it saying I therapy like it doesn't work.

00:11:37:22 - 00:11:57:03
Itamar Marani
It's not a real thing. And I think a lot of it is just survivorship desire. You know, they want to say like, I want to be replaced as performance coach minus coach, whatever it may be. The reality is it's definitely going to be a thing. And I think some people naturally are afraid of it, which always happens. But it's something that we have to adapt and utilize more.

00:11:57:05 - 00:12:20:00
Itamar Marani
Before I get into how we actually started using it in our coaching, I want to talk about the two kind of user archetypes. So from what I've seen there and in my opinion, especially having that conversation with that individual yesterday about him and his previous misses and the trauma bonding, I think there's going to be two types of people.

00:12:20:02 - 00:12:38:05
Itamar Marani
There's going to be the truth seekers, those entrepreneurs that are very linear thinkers and they've kind of listened to us so far and they're like, This is exactly. And I told you I agree with that. And they're going to want the clarity of the tactics and the measurable change. They will readily adopt those tools. And before we hopped on the podcast, you shared an example of one of these guys.

00:12:38:07 - 00:12:57:21
Itamar Marani
I've had this like giant, big, big breakthroughs through it. That's group one. And unfortunately, like, these are the guys that have the guys and women that have used the really high level therapists that just like, okay, we're going to move through this. Let's build the scaffolding so we can like tear down your past and move toward your future and let's just go.

00:12:57:23 - 00:13:28:18
Itamar Marani
That's group one now. Group two is going to be those validation seekers which are natural. Like, even though AI is going to happen, there's still going to be people that just want to be validated, whether it's trauma bonding, whether it's wanting to be told I'm a victim, whatever it may be. And the unfortunate reality is the therapists that enable that, they're the ones that will remain in the market because those people like I will tell them, you need to move past this or whatever, or maybe like you know this better that I may be, I will adapt and enable them as well because I realize this is what I need to do in order to

00:13:28:18 - 00:13:47:01
Itamar Marani
be in favor with this human or whatever it may be. But those kind of therapists that are our enablers, they're the ones that are probably going to last. And that's the shame about it, that these really there are a lot of good therapists out there and those ones might get replaced.

00:13:47:03 - 00:14:08:23
Alex De Fina
So the therapist that are left doing the therapy thing at some point in the future are likely to be those who've become professional babysitters or rent a friend, as opposed to a genuine coach who's got the skills and experience to talk to the client towards the end and say.

00:14:09:01 - 00:14:29:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and it's like, I've met those people that you ask them what they do and they say, Oh, you know, you just take the show for the session, you let them talk for a little bit and then you tell them, Oh, so what you're saying is that you feel like this and this and this, and then the client goes, Yes, that's exactly how I feel.

00:14:29:03 - 00:14:46:12
Itamar Marani
I and you finally understand and you're like, okay, And then just do that again and again and again and again. And you can tell there's no real desire to help them progress forward. It's just kind of like a simple, I don't know, little trick, whatever it may be, to give someone an emotional little kick and then keep them coming back for more.

00:14:46:14 - 00:15:10:23
Itamar Marani
And those therapists, I think, will stay around longer. And this kind of goes to basically the last kind of big point that I wanted to make around this is that I think the biggest factor in this of who will keep using it and who will keep on with various ways is the tribal aspect of us still being humans.

00:15:11:01 - 00:15:31:05
Itamar Marani
Now, those people who want validation again, AA might change in the future to a level where it feels like it's a real human. Like we could hop on a Zoom call or even there's going to be like a robotics for you genuinely believe it's a real person. That could be, but for now there's still going to be the barrier of like, we want human connection in some way.

00:15:31:07 - 00:15:54:12
Itamar Marani
So for the validation seekers, well, we'll call it the lower level, they will want someone to validate them, another person to say, No, no, you are good. It's okay to be, you are a victim. You don't need to move forward. You just it's okay to be in your anger, whatever it may be. And for the high level people, they will want somebody to honestly, like, be able to be in their corner.

00:15:54:14 - 00:16:21:17
Itamar Marani
It's like, this is still hard. I get this logically what AA is saying. I still want some kind of level of emotional support of a human connection. For some people, honestly, it could be as simple as like their misses or their partner, their husband, whatever it may be, or for some people it could be a coach. But I think there's still going to be a bit of a challenge of that tribal connection where I can completely remove everything, for example, like even that entrepreneur that share that with you.

00:16:21:19 - 00:16:42:05
Itamar Marani
He still wanted to share that with you, you know what I mean? And that's the interesting part. He said they had that big breakthrough and he cried a bit and all that kind. Is he still wanted to share that with you. And I'm sure that you telling him that's interesting and like validating that in some way was another like element in his breakthrough.

00:16:42:07 - 00:17:11:00
Alex De Fina
Do you think the full function of the human being is at odds to this dynamic? There's obviously going to be different stages of adoption. So like the the city to the bell curve of the adopters flight of majority of the other majority like Jordan than the laggards. Do you think that some people in line in a text format might be assistance before other group of people?

00:17:11:00 - 00:17:28:22
Alex De Fina
They need to see an avatar, they need to see a face talking to them. Do you think again, a form function dynamic has relevance to certain people who are either more visual or are just a lot to to respond to graphics in a different way?

00:17:29:00 - 00:17:51:13
Itamar Marani
Absolutely. I haven't honestly thought about it in that depth of it's in the visual people, the kind of setting people and and all that. But it's just like anything else is a bell curve. Some people, again, will need more features like that. Entrepreneur We both know him. He's very cognitive. So I'm sure that that's why that was very that was a big deal for him.

00:17:51:15 - 00:18:16:02
Itamar Marani
Whether an entrepreneur that's more, let's say, touchy feely or whatever it may be, that would be more challenging for that. And again, as I advances, whether it's an avatar that looks like a zoom call that's interacting with you and that can have an empathetic pause when you say something can be a big difference maker and it just going to be the rate of time and change they're going to be.

00:18:16:03 - 00:18:46:06
Itamar Marani
There's a bell curve to everything. There'll be early adopters of later adopters and there'll be some people that are just those late laggards that never want to join. And I think that's where a lot of the validation seekers are going to stay stuck because again, they're not going to therapy to actually help them move past it. Maybe they did initially that initially had a desire, but once they kind of tasted that, oh, validation sirup that I can get and I can tell myself I'm going through therapy, I am doing the work, quote unquote is going to keep them stuck there.

00:18:46:06 - 00:18:48:06
Itamar Marani
And that loop.

00:18:48:07 - 00:18:49:17
Alex De Fina
That's the big takeaway from Sorry.

00:18:49:17 - 00:18:51:23
Itamar Marani
So please go to that.

00:18:51:23 - 00:19:18:19
Alex De Fina
That's my big takeaway from this conversation is that as we can see, read the tea leaves and make some predictions about, hey, how I will roll out in the therapy counseling space if I define therapy as essentially high level pattern recognition, when the person says this is as soon as a process of a follow up is when I say that I'll say this before.

00:19:18:21 - 00:19:38:21
Alex De Fina
Well, there's no way as a human being to have the same degree of accurate pattern recognition as an auto, and then that goes up by orders of magnitude once it's on a network. And now it's like, well, there's 8 billion people's split out the on the conversation like this happening right now. So that may refer to other conversations and how they have played out.

00:19:38:23 - 00:20:01:06
Alex De Fina
So you can see the trend lines of where I was going, whether it come from inflection points out tonality or body language temperature. There could be so many tells that I honestly believe in very near future we'll be looking back at traditional therapies where we were crazy for just having a casual conversation.

00:20:01:11 - 00:20:05:13
Itamar Marani
Possible. Yeah. How it is.

00:20:05:15 - 00:20:47:04
Alex De Fina
We'll look back at, you know, call for seatbelts, everything else. Like I can't believe I just like trusted a single person in house so prior to And so at that point there's really no excuse left in terms of if you if you're in a bad place psychologically, emotionally, and you want relief from that, you will have the greatest tools ever available immediately, probably for free, in which case staying stuck at that point becomes a conscious choice that I just I'm optimizing towards feeling like a victim or I'm enjoying the stagnation or there's something else that I'm benefiting from not improving.

00:20:47:06 - 00:21:10:02
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think that's where you with your head and it's again, we share some justifications. We always like justifying things to ourselves why this is or why this is not. And again, I think a big part of some people, they can recognize if they're very committed in progressing through therapy, but it feels good and they can tell themselves I'm doing the work.

00:21:10:04 - 00:21:31:09
Itamar Marani
So it's a justification to why this is still a good idea when in reality you can't justify, for example, the scrolling on YouTube all day. But if you can find that little justification somewhere, that's where it can become very dangerous. Because second order consequence, if like something positive that you're getting out of the negative thing, whatever it may be, you justify it.

00:21:31:11 - 00:21:53:11
Itamar Marani
Now to kind of explain this and I think also this is important to say from my perspective, a lot of people feel like they're going to lose their jobs, their AI is going to replace them. And of course, like that's coaching industry, performance coaching that feels that as well. Now, my perspective on it, my philosophy is that it will replace how I currently do my job and it has to make me a lot better if I don't.

00:21:53:11 - 00:22:16:11
Itamar Marani
And I just kind of close my eyes to it and say, I don't see it how to see it. It's going to just wipe you out. So for example, with all of my clients, what I do right now, and this is where it's a bit of the challenges of AI, is that after our coaching sessions, I run it through a project that we have, which is if a client sustained their biases and also which that project understands Ito his philosophy, his framework, and also his biases.

00:22:16:13 - 00:22:41:04
Itamar Marani
And it says like, what are his blindspots? And really after each session that I do with a one on one client, I have to say it all. Tell me, here's what you did really good. Here's what you can improve next time. And here's perhaps something that you missed. And the I let's put it this way, 70% of the time it gives some really helpful things, even if it's something as small as like, hey, you could have told Jeff there.

00:22:41:08 - 00:23:12:05
Itamar Marani
Remember, this is how we need to think about performance anchors. And if you would have used that terminology of performance anchors, it would have been better for him because he would have been able to latch onto it and clearly think about it next time, which is the feedback that I constantly get from a guy that I don't use the terminology enough, that I could be a better performance coach if I use that right now where it struggles because of its current modality and again, this could change in the very near future is that you can only upload transcripts to it so it doesn't understand tone, it doesn't always understand sarcasm and its ability to kind

00:23:12:05 - 00:23:47:13
Itamar Marani
of pace and lead. A person still isn't fully there. Like again, like when we talk about you want to take someone out of their comfort zone into their growth zone, but not all the way into their panic zone, that it still doesn't seem to be doing really well yet. And I think those are certain things that like if you're hiring a performance coach or a mindset coach or a therapist or whatever it may be, and they're not using A.I. in some way to help them help you more, you need to reassess that because your analogy is kind of like hiring a navigator who just uses maps instead of Google Maps.

00:23:47:18 - 00:23:56:12
Itamar Marani
They just open up like, you know, like a big paper map. And that's going to be their tool. They're just operating with outdated tech. And so I'm going to serve you best.

00:23:56:14 - 00:24:21:21
Alex De Fina
I think, especially in a niche that you specialize in, of performance mindset coaching. So anyone who's out there who's thinking of engaging with a coach or is currently working with the coach who is not using these tools as an assistant, I think you're doing yourself a disservice because I think there's an ethical obligation for the people in those chairs in the same way that they probably don't write text messages with a quill of papyrus.

00:24:21:23 - 00:24:42:06
Alex De Fina
They would use a tablet or sign or whatever. We use all these other tools to make things more effective, more efficient, etc. This is just another one of those. And if you work with a coach who isn't using tools like this, which takes a a, you need, I think, a healthy setting of humility to even to use those tools.

00:24:42:08 - 00:25:02:12
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I'll say that in a different way because as you were saying it, I was reminded of the story that my wife, when she was in her early twenties, she did yoga teacher training certification, and she did it with one of the most known teachers in North America. And he was a very straight shooter. I forget his name because in Northern California.

00:25:02:12 - 00:25:27:13
Itamar Marani
But also just to clarify, he was into spiritual guru. He was a more silicon anatomist, he was an American, and he told them straight up at the end of the training, By the way, ladies, nobody wants a fat yoga instructor. You have to be in shape. And it's because it's a very telling thing that for my example, it would be pretty ridiculous if someone says they're a performance coach and they understand mindset.

00:25:27:15 - 00:25:36:14
Itamar Marani
If they're not willing to see that and say this is something I need to use, I mean, it's like they're the fat. They're the fat fitness instructor, so to speak.

00:25:36:16 - 00:25:39:19
Alex De Fina
Exactly. Yeah. Well said.

00:25:39:21 - 00:25:44:02
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So any last thoughts before we wrap this one up?

00:25:44:04 - 00:25:49:23
Alex De Fina
No, no, no. I think you summarized it perfectly, and I'm excited to see how these two tools roll out.

00:25:50:00 - 00:26:15:10
Itamar Marani
Right. So I kind of summarize it with this therapy a side. First off, ask yourself like, where can you be empowered with, Hey, I that's the real stuff here, whether it's with the people that help you, whether it's with the tools that you can use for therapy, for self-discovery or for business or in other ways, if you don't have any first mindset in this day, again, like how Alex said, you're just operating with a very outdated technique.

00:26:15:12 - 00:26:36:19
Itamar Marani
And it's a shame because you're just not going to perform at your very best. Like if you have one person who's operating with paper maps and you have one person that's operating with a smartphone, with a GPS in it, who's going to outperform the other. Again, it's what it's all about, the performance you can get out of it.

00:26:36:21 - 00:26:40:09
Itamar Marani
Aside from that, you guys have a good week. I'll see you in the next part.