Episode 267: Nick Koshnick

From Thoughts to Reality With Storied.work and Nick Koshnick

[00:00:00] Fonz: Hello everybody. And welcome to another great episode of my ed tech life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day. I hope that today your day was just full of greatness and you had a wonderful, wonderful, awesome day. And thank you so much for joining us and for all of our friends that are joining us across the globe.

I don't know what day it may be. It may be already well into the next day, but wherever it is that you're joining us from, thank you so much for always listening and for all of your support. And I want to give a big special shout-out to all of our sponsors. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

I want to go ahead and give a special thanks to our newest sponsor EduAid. ai. So thank you so much. To Thomas Hummel and Thomas Thompson, who have also been on the show. So please make sure that you check out EduAid. ai and also a big shout out to GooseChase, Content Clips, Derivative, uh, Alongside Care.

And thank you so much, you know, for believing in us and. Can't forget lucid for education. I appreciate all of your support. We do what we do so we can amplify educator voices. So thank you so much. And I am really excited about today's chat. Uh, our guest is just an amazing person. I found out about him and the work that he's doing.

through his platform called storied. work through a former guest that we had, Matt Ivy and Matt, if you haven't checked out that episode, please make sure you check it out. Cause Matt is doing some great work as far as integrating AI with dyslexia or dyslexic learners and trying to do some great work for, with accessibility and accessibility tools.

And. He used this particular tool that he posted up on LinkedIn. And I just got very curious. And from that moment on my world changed. And so I am excited to welcome the founder of story. org, Mr. Nick Koshnik to the show. Nick, how are you this evening? I'm

[00:02:38] Nick: wonderful. for

[00:02:39] Fonz: having me. Yes, Nick. Honestly, I really excited.

I know we talked a little bit about pre chat. I know we've met twice before online just so I can hear your story and hear the work that you're doing. But then I also get to share just some great wins for story dot work and being able to share this. At TCEA this last year here at the Texas Computer Educators Association conference.

And we'll get all into that in just a second, because again, what you are working on is something that is great. And I'm really excited to help amplify your work and your platform. So Nick. Before we dive in into story. org, please, can you tell us a little, uh, or give us a little brief introduction and what your context is, I guess, within the AI space and, you know, as a founder.

So tell us that journey. Yeah.

[00:03:33] Nick: Yeah. So I'm a dyslexic entrepreneur. Uh, it turns out that as, uh, dyslexics are more likely to be entrepreneurs. Uh, if they can get enabled, they can sort of create this world that they want to see. Um, I was terrible. At writing, I could never pass an essay test, but I was good at math.

I was good at like some sports and some music. And so I got by, um, and I eventually went to Stanford to get my PhD. Again, like deep dive into the technical stuff. I left there. I started a company, got VC funded, sell it, sold it. So a lot of exciting journey. And what, what I came back to with this is so much about what we do is about communication.

Uh, if you're a big company, if you're at a school trying to communicate with parents, uh, your like communication is essential to getting our work done, but also to sort of like own our own, like trajectory. We want to, we want to create, so I was working a little bit in executive coaching and then we, we, uh, we're building an app for coaches and then we realized that with all of the new tools with AI, you could build an app.

Where you can just talk out your ideas and get to super, super clear writing. So this is a passion project for me, right? Because it's like, I need this to communicate clearly with others, but other people are using it. And I'm just, just sort of thrilled by like, how this is enabling people. And I'm just sort of so thrilled to be.

Connected with you, uh, after, after you found the app online.

[00:05:07] Fonz: Yes, absolutely. And, and I'm just really excited and that's so great to hear. And thank you so much for sharing your background, you know, because oftentimes, you know, I, I love the, this is my favorite part of the show is that introduction, because I really love for our audience members to really make that connection with our guests.

So thank you so much for sharing a little bit about what you've done and what you're doing. And obviously talking about dyslexia, but what you're doing is. Wanting to enable people to communicate, to bring their thoughts and that thought process and be able to see it come to life. And that, to me, was one of the coolest things that I have seen.

I mean, I know chat GPT came out over a year ago and, you know, that kind of blew my mind. And I was like, Oh, that's great. You know, I, I have it on my phone. I have it on my computer and yes, I use it, but to, it doesn't do what your. What you app does because of the potential that it has and that I've seen, and again, in sharing it more than anything, uh, Nick, I want to share just that excitement of seeing a room full of educators just get blown away.

by the possibilities that this has. So let's talk a little bit more about storied that work. And so you mentioned you wanted to create something that'll enable people to communicate, bring those thoughts into ideas. Did you have anybody in mind, or was this just something that you said, Hey, I myself am somebody that.

wants to get my ideas out and be able to see them come to life. What was the thought process? Can you share a little bit about that backstory?

[00:06:54] Nick: Yeah. Um, a lot of the backstory is from executive coaching, executive coaching, life coaching. Um, my, you know, I'm, I'm a primary parent, my kids, helping them, enabling them get their thoughts out.

Um, it like I was really sort of working in in that space. And how do you become so the app is built to be an active listener to really give you that space to ask clarifying questions. I love you mentioned chat GPT. I love it for many, many things like if I need to look up facts or reword something. Um, but I wouldn't call it an active listener, right?

Like if you say, like, I want to write in a LinkedIn post, ChatGPT will write you some, like, something, but it's not your ideas, right? And this is designed to be a listener to you. So you can talk out your ideas, and then it can get them very, very clear. Not someone else's ideas. It can enable you. It's your, your pilot, like, like a communication coach or just what, you know, um, sorry, I'm digressing a little bit, but a lot of a lot of the best people.

The most creative, the most, uh, the, the, the people that have like the best ideas and get the most done, have people around them to hear them out and help them communicate. Well, this is like a tool that is there for anyone. If you need to talk out your idea, Um, and we'll go into some examples soon, maybe after showing a little base basis of it, but it's, it's around for anyone.

So then, so basically no one's unblocked and everyone can get hurt.

[00:08:30] Fonz: Love that. I love that. And just to, just to give you a little backstory on, on myself too, as being an educator and being in education for 18 years and being in the classroom for 11, I think one of the biggest things that I enjoyed, or at least tried to do is allow my students that.

Uh, thought processing time that discourse and many times what happens is, you know, in teaching 5th and 6th grade, and then I also did high school is oftentimes students are just like, you know what? Just tell me what I need to do just so I can do it and so on. And. You know, we have to move fast through a curriculum.

We've got to do and meet certain things at a certain time. So sometimes I think that, uh, obviously that time is of the essence. And a lot of times we cut back on that discourse or that communication or allowing students to ideate and just even verbalize their ideas. But one of the things that I can attest to is that when I was in the classroom.

Obviously, we didn't have this amazing tool yet, but in using some tools where I would allow students to record themselves and I can hear their thought process. If I was giving them a task, they would either present they would, you know, like I mentioned, record themselves, they would do a, you know, a drawing, whatever modality it is that they felt most comfortable with, with submitting to me.

I found it to be very useful because I still saw. Their thought process and the learning that was taking place through that digital artifact or that analog artifact, whatever the case may be. Now, you know, a couple months ago in discovering your app, the way that you explained it right now, it is so perfect because it really is, and it really does feel like a true.

Co pilot like a true active listener. So I, myself, you know, again, flipping the switch into that educator cap, I was like, this has so much potential within the classroom for all types of students, students that may need supports, students that may not need supports, but also there for teachers, which I can't wait to share with you a couple of things too, that, you know, at TCA, we got a lot of great feedback from storied.

So that is wonderful, but you're absolutely right. I, uh, the, the difference between any large language model that I've seen that is really just, uh, either on your desktop, laptop, or your phone does not really feel like an active listener. As a matter of fact, it's like, you're just really telling it what it is that you need to do for you.

And it just doesn't have that feel. And so I can't wait for you to demo this, uh, for us. So what I want to ask you now is. You know, you mentioned allowing and enabling, um, you know, people, students, ideas. How is it that you were able to kind of, you know, I guess, come up with the app and the concept to make sure that it does.

Exactly. Like you said, to be able to take my ideas. I may be a little scatterbrained, but put them down and then really just get them to kind of flow. So what was the process there? I mean, the, the, the experimentation, the, the betas and, and the testing and all of that, you know, how long did that process take?

[00:11:53] Nick: Um, I mean, we've we've been going hard at it for a little over a year. Um, and even before that, we were building a system that would enable executive coaches to use voice. as a way to communicate and listen and then transform that with AI. And I think there's a couple components there. One is, um, if you can free up your hands and talk out your idea, it's a huge barrier, right?

It's, it's, people feel safe if they write only one or two sentences. You can imagine your, your, uh, you know, middle school teacher or middle schoolers that are, you know, reluctant to write. But once they start talking, you can hear that, like, they've got, they've got these ideas. So that's, that's one component is, is the voice.

And then another part is just listening, like, thinking more about how you would interact as a, as a human. Um, to, like, ask a clarifying question, right? You wouldn't want to write, like, here are ten really hard, long questions if you were human. You just want to ask the part that they need to hear to get clarified.

And then, um, I think we're also thinking about the way we write, so it's, like, visually easy to skim, because Um, you know, the long writing styles, we just want it easy to skim so that people can see the main points and they're like very visually structured. So just a bunch of stuff there that we've really picked up from the executive coaching and listening space.

[00:13:19] Fonz: That's wonderful. And you know, one thing, again, I know you revert back to the executive coaching and listening space, but sometimes I am always in awe of. I guess just the potential of those tools where sometimes, you know, you're thinking that executive coach, but myself kind of putting that educator hat on and being like, Whoa, like you don't understand what you've got going on here.

That could definitely take the education, um, landscape by storm and, and schools and help and enable so many students and even teachers with, um, you know, different abilities and that need additional supports. You are. I can't wait. Like, I'm so excited about it. I

[00:14:01] Nick: think this is, I mean, it's one of those things where, like, um, what do I do for my kids, right?

I have to, I have to focus, get out of my, like, AI space and be, like, really present to listen to them, right? And when I am, that's so enabling for them. And what do I do for my friends? I have to Focus and be present to listen. And then if I can actively listen, they're like, wow, this really helped. And you know, my teammates, whether it's, you know, you know, or communicating, I do a lot of Boy Scout stuff.

So, uh, communicating with the parents on that, it's, it's just really a missing thing right now. And I think during the pandemic, we realized it was like really missing. And if you have, if you have remote teams or like you have to communicate with many people, like principals do, you have to get it into clear writing.

But you still might need that space where you can just talk out an idea to get there as a step. Uh, and so that's, that's a little bit what we're building. Maybe we should show the demo so that we're like less handling.

[00:15:00] Fonz: This is a great segue into that. I was actually going to go ahead and bring up the screen here.

So let me go ahead and pop that in. There we go. All right. So go ahead. Nick shows yours. I show us this because this is something marvelous.

[00:15:15] Nick: Yeah. So, I mean, it basically says like, what is your idea? Talk about your ideas and you just talk out what you're, what you're thinking. You might say something like, I want to create an email to the parents, or I want to create a document with Um, with, uh, this I, you know, this idea, like this plan, the meeting plan for tomorrow's lesson.

And if it's not clear, it'll come back and ask you a question. Like, what was that about? What part you enjoyed? Like, it'll detect what part, what, what things you need to, like, maybe say a little bit more before you can create clear writing. And then sort of as soon as you hit convert to writing, uh, you can ask for more questions if you want.

It will display it in a way that's very visual. And I also want to make clear, this is a desktop version. We also have the app. You go to the same website and it just works on your phone and you can even load it to your phone. So you can be like walking in the, you know, uh, I live in the Bay Area. So you can walk in the Baylands and be like thinking about tomorrow's lessons and just talk out that idea.

And right there, you've got a lesson plan. Um, and then, you can keep editing. You can, like, just, like, with, uh, with, uh, ChatGPT, you could say, like, This is great, but I need one part to be changed. Change it and then, uh, click share and send it away. If you need to send it to your, uh, coworker or, uh, you know, you can get it in your email.

If you want to use that for your lesson plan, you're, you're like unlocked and ready to go on your next thing. I

[00:16:44] Fonz: love it. That is something that is so amazing. And, and I know that you and I had talked about. Maybe it was about a week ago or something. And I love what you said right now that let's say I'm an educator or pretty much any person, but I'll stick to education just because that's what I'm most familiar with.

But like you mentioned, this isn't a tool that I'm going to be using to create my lesson plan. This is going to be the tool, like you said, when I'm kind of. I have that epiphany or that aha moment and then say, Hey, based on this lesson, I can go ahead and extend this or take this idea and expand it. And, or I want to add this, or I want to add that.

And it's here on your phone. And then it, it comes out, it's there on a digital, you know, platform. That you can edit and then you can enhance that lesson and go in deeper. And that to me, when you mentioned that, when we spoke, I guess it was about a week ago, I was like, yes, that, that is it. Because even oftentimes for myself, I work with teachers.

Sometimes I'll go, I'll do training sessions with them and then. After I leave, I'm like, Oh, I forgot that. Or, Oh my goodness. I can, I can take this to that next level. And now, like you mentioned, one thing that I loved is I do have it on my phone. So it's there on my home screen, bring it up. And then I can just talk my ideas out and just go to town.

And it has been an amazing tool. And honestly, for myself, I have always found writing to be a struggle for me. Um, I don't know if it was just because it was very punitive, you know, when I was growing up. And so it was just like, Oh, I don't want to write. I don't want to share my writing. And maybe just kind of that imposter syndrome.

But now the fact that I can take those ideas. And speak them into existence and then be edited in a nice way. Like you mentioned that you can skim through. That's something that's wonderful. So Nick, what I would love to do, if you don't mind, I know you showed us kind of a demo there. You walked us through it, but I would love to show our audience also as well, how we can go ahead and do this on the desktop and the phone functionality is very similar and it's going to work great.

So let me go ahead and also share my screen. And I can go ahead and bring this in

[00:19:07] Nick: while while you do that. Um, you know, writing is a hard skill. It's one of the hardest skills we learn writing and reading. But you really want to do is enable you. So if you like writing, that's great. But what if you have a good idea when you're leaving the grocery store, right?

What if you, um, are just sort of having a moment of like, there's papers everywhere and you need to like just talk through your main plan. This is just another tool you can add to your mix. And if you're one of the people that really like can't, you know, just graphic, dyslexic, you know, you have some of those like really negative emotions with writing.

This is totally, totally enabling, but it's, it's really enabled for visual thinkers, for like kinetic thinkers, people who liked it, you know, have all these different forms of learning styles. This helps them get through writing.

[00:19:57] Fonz: All right, here we go. So here's my screen. I'm just going to go ahead and click log in and I'll go ahead and do that.

All right, here we go. All right. So this is what I love about your platform. I mean, it's very basic. The UX UI on it is wonderful because everything is nicely cued and it's just there already. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just go ahead and briefly record a little bit, kind of like a recap of.

Maybe TCA, because I do want to talk about that as I did introduce this set of learning lab. So let me go to do a quick recording here.

Go ahead and click allow. So this year at TCA 2024, I was able to lead a learning lab with a. various educators from around Texas and really around the nation. And I was able to show them the importance of AI, not necessarily in a way that it's going to be overwhelming to them, but in a way that is slightly, uh, you know, subtly introduced, um, to them.

And I shared storied. work, which is a wonderful platform where you can take your ideas. And speak them basically into existence where educators can go ahead and have those epiphanies and immediately write or immediately speak into the app to be able to enhance a learning lesson that they might remembered or take it to that next level.

So I'm going to go ahead and stop there. And now it kind of picked up with what I do. And now this is the part that you mentioned, we're going to go ahead and just convert this to writing. And like I said, I wasn't perfect in my speaking. Sometimes you can worry about that. I, you know, you can go ahead and rerecord again if you'd like, but something that I love is I can just go straight into this.

Just like you shared right now in the video and it's just transforming those ideas into writing and look at this. This is what I love TCA 24 learning lab embracing AI and education by yours truly when it was when it was created. And then, of course, it gives me some bullet points. So it already took what I shared.

And set it up in bullet points. But one thing that I love, um, like you mentioned too, as well as you've got your, uh, AI picture here, but we can also go ahead and have those many options. Like you mentioned, we can identify gaps and answer some of those questions. It says, and, and like you mentioned, it's an active listener.

So Nick, tell me a little bit about this as far as the active listening where it says identify gaps. This is amazing. Yeah,

[00:22:45] Nick: so one of the first part of active listening is really giving them the space when you're doing the initial recording and not jumping into soon like we will only ask a question if you if you really need a question, but you like you were clear, so it allowed you to move through and then after you've written, you know, like part of it, the hardest part of writing is starting getting started in the first place, right?

And so we allow you to get there. But then we ask questions that help you. Um, like cover things that you might not might have missed just like a writing coach, right? Except you're free to do this on your own, like on your own time. Um, and that, that's, that's tremendously enabling to have that available to you at any time.

Um, then the last part is, um, we give you some the, the, so the questions are there. The second one down is the main idea. Part of writing is expanding your idea, and some part of it is compressing it around a single focus. We give you some op options and then you can say, actually, I really need the focus to be around something else.

And you can describe that and it will rewrite that around that. And the final one, I want to say is the, um, describe changes, which is the, the bottom. Which is, um, maybe you can describe this in, um, like what you did at, at, you, you told me some of the things you shared at TCA, um, like, um, you know, if you have a multilingual group or if you need to rewrite this as an email, it really will listen to you and do its best to, to sort of transform, transform that, that, that writing style or, or even the language.

[00:24:23] Fonz: Now, this is one thing that I love to that I shared was, for example, as a teacher or a principal like you, we got into that idea that they've got a lot of things and many times it's like you walk out of a classroom and you've got so much on your head and then it's you forget now they can pick up their phone.

They can get their idea across. But the one thing that I love to hear is also if there was some communication Um, that you needed to do in Spanish. Now, uh, I'm going to be honest with you. When I was prepping for this learning lab, for some reason I just was there and I said, Hey, okay, I'm going to share storied.

And I said, I never tried this, but I'm going to give this a shot because if this works, this is going to be a total game changer. So I'm sitting there. You know, about half an hour before my session starts. And I'm just kind of, you know, playing around, getting ready to do some demos and just kind of getting my points across.

And then what I went ahead and did is I just said, you know what, how about if I write translate into Spanish. And then I just said, let me give this a shot, see what happens. And I, this is the moment that my brain just kind of just exploded because being able to take what I just spoke and obviously the format that it had given me, because it asked me, you know, what specific main ideas I want to work on and so on, it expanded all of that, but now it changed it into Spanish, Nick.

I'm going to tell you this right now, the reaction in that room, there were 50 plus educators there. I mean, every seat was full. And when I shared this with them, and they saw that this translated that document that quickly and that easily from. Inception of the idea to speaking the idea and then seeing the creation of the idea and now just translating it.

They were blown away. And so today, like I mentioned to you earlier in the pre chat, I did get an email from 1 of the participants asking, you know, for the resource because I guess they misplaced the link, but they were. It's they wanted the resource that I shared because they wanted to get to connect with storied because of the potential.

So for my educator friends out there, like I mentioned to you, and then you just saw in a matter of seconds, I was able to summarize what I did at TCA. The presentation storied asked me or gave me some options as far as, uh, changing the main ideas. And I did, and it kind of rewrote that in that, in this, uh, you know, model here that you're seeing or this example, and I was able to translate it.

And then the other thing that I love that Nick shared too through the visual demo is now you can change this into a blog post, a cover letter, an explain it to me as I'm five, a journal entry, a memo, an email, and this. Right now, like I said, look, in a matter of seconds, you've got that transformed into an email, Nick, just thank you for this.

This is amazing, Nick.

[00:27:35] Nick: Well, well, well, thank you. I mean, I, I, um, again, back to that coaching, it's giving people a safe place to articulate their ideas where they're, you know, their information is secure and they can be heard. Wow, that's really needed in today's world. And then you can go in and adapt it, right?

Like, and let's, let's take back from the dyslexic perspective, right? Spelling is not still automatic for me, right? Sentence structure is still not perfectly automatic for me. And so if To have a place where I can just get my ideas out and talk them and of course I make mistakes when I talk, but then I just sort of like correct it and eventually get it out.

It's like getting to that first draft, right? Like, that is so important for children, and it's actually so important for adults, right? If you are feeling like, um, if you need to get that message out to your parents but you're not quite sure what it says, just hit talk, like just hit and talk through your idea.

You'll get there and then you can worry about the rewriting and whatever. And then maybe you've got, you know, part of your class is, uh, you know, Spanish speakers so you can rewrite it for them. Like, it's, it's just taking one component of the time and really trying to enable people so they can get out their ideas.

[00:28:58] Fonz: I love it. Now, another thing I wanted to share, I did change it into a separate document that I had been working on. And actually this helped me do a blog post that I did post, but what I loved again is being able to get those ideas and then just seeing them come to fruition and, and really understanding me.

And like I said, getting those follow up questions, it, it really, it. Like you mentioned, it's kind of like a coaching thing, but it didn't feel like a coaching, I just loved it because it was that interaction and I love the bouncing of ideas, but the one thing that I love too, is also that you can always revisit previous versions of what you have done and how it saves them.

So if I were to take this version here again, and I would change this document and say, Hey, you know what? I want this to be a Twitter thread. It'll go ahead and create this into a seven part Twitter thread, but then say, Hey. Okay, that's good. I can go ahead and edit, but then I can always go back and revisit my previous iteration.

And I think that that's something that is great too, as well as somebody who has that idea and now they're seeing, okay, now I want to build it out in this way. Now I want to build it out this way, but it's still your original ideas. And the fact that it, you can always build up on those ideas even more and come back and revisit and take it to that next level that I have not seen anything else do that.

Uh, and this is what really, it's just the value that this brings to somebody like myself and to many others is wonderful. It's um,

[00:30:35] Nick: in version one is your, is your, uh, cleaned up like a beautified version of your transcript. Um, so you can go all the way back to remember what you, what you said. There's there's, um, I followed this writing coach, David Perel.

He's an online sort of blog post writer. And he talks about how capturing your ideas is like. It's that that capture habit is actually the most, it's the most important first step to communicating, becoming a writer, becoming a leader, becoming an influencer, because you're, you have all these ideas, and if you don't do anything with them, they're going to get, you know, float away to entropy.

Right. And so if you're thinking of something that is important, the first thing is getting it down and maybe you'll evolve it into a blog post or maybe, maybe you won't, maybe like, maybe you'll talk it out and you're like, huh, okay, I understand that a little bit more, but that wasn't, maybe I shouldn't say anything on that yet.

Right. And so it's really, it's really enabling tool to help people take control of their own, you know, their own destinies.

[00:31:45] Fonz: Yeah, I love it. And the next thing that I did want to share with you aside from having, you know, 50 plus people in that room and just getting wowed by it is thanks to this and this application and obviously just in having conversations with my doctoral professors who happen to be at TCEA, and they actually had a booth there.

So I went and I visited them and because they have been, uh, they've embraced it. Artificial intelligence. And especially even right now as doctoral students, one of their things is there. It's like, Hey, there's a chat GPT. There's Claude. There's all of this. If I mean, it's a tool, as long as you cite what you used it for and how you used it, we're completely okay with it.

And to me, that is wonderful in the sense that they're embracing the technology. It, the, the dissertation no longer feels. Like so punitive and boring. Now it feels like, man, I can go in deeper and so on. So I went and I shared with them the app and he immediately downloaded it on his phone. And he just tried it out.

And from that moment on in conversation, I say, you know. This AI thing is, I mean, obviously over a year has been huge and I said, you know, why does a dissertation have to be writing? Like, why couldn't it be like a podcast? Why couldn't it do something like this? But in having that conversation now, I went and I ended up changing my dissertation that day.

And now what it is, is it turned into, we said, well, Why can't it be a podcast? So essentially my dissertation is going to be based on all of my interviews that I've had with founders, creators, such as yourself, educators, we're talking about AI and now it turned into a qualitative study. So I want to thank you.

Because that really helped to as well to kind of get that idea going and coming to fruition. But also on behalf of Dr. Corbett and his wife, um, I want to give you thanks because they really do appreciate the app. And like I mentioned, he uses it frequently now because of being able to get his ideas down on, you know, recorded and then being able to see that has really helped.

[00:33:59] Nick: Yeah, well, and thank you for promoting it. When you when you left TCA, you sent me a little message on LinkedIn. You're like, I bet you're gonna get more users in Texas. And sure enough, like there's more users in Texas the next morning of the next day. Um, you know, I think just helping people really like so many people be unblocked and able to communicate their ideas.

That's really the mission that we're trying to serve. Well, I love it.

[00:34:23] Fonz: I mean, your mission is great. The vision is wonderful. The app is so easy to use and it's so intuitive. And like you said, it really, you took what you did as an executive coach or coaching people and put it in a way and in a form that is so easy and intuitive and not overwhelming.

And it just really, like you said, it enables you to get those ideas, but also it helps you keep Going because now you feel like, Hey, I'm unstoppable here. Like I can keep these things that I've been holding back because maybe like I mentioned that imposter syndrome or that insecurity and so on, Hey, I can put it down on paper.

I can reread it. I can kind of rework it. Uh, I've got my coach here. That's going to ask me like, Hey, is there a specific main idea? Hey, what would you like to change? And then it just starts taking shape and really. Just getting it to where you needed it to be and what your intention was. And I think that is something that is very powerful.

So I really do appreciate that because like myself too late. And I told you, my story too, is really like, I'm 1 of those. I have so many ideas. And then I. Like sometimes I get that analysis paralysis where I just stop because I'm so overwhelmed. Now, anywhere I go, it's like my wife's like, what are you doing?

I was like, I got an idea. Like I'm recording it right now. So now, and so believe it or not, I've got a couple of podcast episodes that'll probably be coming out solo episodes because now I'm able to rework those ideas and things of that sort. So I'm really excited about it. So again, you know, you're definitely hitting on so many.

modalities and maybe, and maybe, and so many people, you know, from adults to young children that this can make a huge difference for. So thanks for that.

[00:36:11] Nick: Um, your reading and writing was one of the most fundamental skills that we, we teach, as I said, um, when you're dyslexic and you, and you really struggle with those, you, people really feel blocked.

Um, and there are dyslexics are like three or four times more likely to end up in jail. Uh, but they're also if they can get over that and get to the point where they can communicate their ideas, they're three more three times more likely to be entrepreneurs, right? Like, because once you get over that barrier where you can figure out some sort of solution or people or tools or technology around you to get like, get your ideas out, it unblocks all your other forms of thinking.

And I think that's. You know, even in today, you can imagine a world where, like, we just listen to, like, hateful messages online or, you know, that's so stimulating, it, like, hits our amygdala, and we get angry and reactive. Or you can imagine, and then that AI amplifies that. Or you can imagine a world where AI Helps you clarify your ideas, and instead of you asking ChachiBT to write your lesson plan, you use those moments of like ideas that you're having, like when you're out for a run or something.

And become even a better teacher, right? And even better leader to your, uh, your education community. Um, you know, you talked about doctoral thesis. I, you know, I did a lot of physics and building and math. I struggled to write. Um, but like when I, if I could talk out those ideas, I had the ideas in there. So it could be really enabling.

So we're just hoping to get more feedback and, um, it's still free in beta right now. So we're mostly just trying to bring. Bring people in and, and, uh, see which ways it can help people.

[00:38:00] Fonz: Absolutely. Well, that kind of segues into my last question that, that I had for you. Um, you know, as far as the interview, uh, well, actually there's still a couple more questions, but, uh, you know, kind of winding down this segment is what is the future for storied?

What is it that you may have in mind if there's anything that you might be able to share, you know, what are some next steps? Because again, like, I think that this is going to definitely take off in a way that maybe. I don't know, maybe you didn't think of because I, there's so much potential here and just the education space alone can really just boom, come in all at once.

And so that's huge. So what are some of the future plans?

[00:38:39] Nick: Yeah. Um, you know, we've started by enabling dyslexic leaders, these dyslexics who are adult and like have great ideas and are trying to communicate them. But I think there's a lot of ways we can expand. We can work with organizations. Schools, um, you know, there's other people in the OT space that, you know, enable people.

Um, certainly we're building the data security levels on that to get, to get adopted there. On the AI side, you know, I think there's a lot of information in the way we speak, right? It turns out that when to ask a question is, is I think a harder problem than what question to ask. Because if you listen to when people are struggling, you can hear it.

And as a human, you can, AI can't, right? It doesn't know when it like, when, you know, just think about my Google assistant. It's always sort of like not understanding my intent or picking up the wrong things. So I think there's a lot to do in the audio side to help people understand their intent better so they can ask questions and so you can write it better for their intent.

So I think this is the, you know, the future is bright in terms of helping people. Um, get, you know, helping enable people by being a better and better listener. Love

[00:39:51] Fonz: it. That is great. And I think that that's something that we definitely need more of, just more listeners for sure, and just more ability to share and have discourse and that, you know, share ideas and so on.

So I love it. I know for, like I said, I'm, I'm. I'm excited all around, but just because my world for the last 18 years has been education, I am like extremely excited. Like just want to shout out of the, off the rooftop and be like, Hey guys, story. work, like use it, use it. All right. Well, Nick, it's been an honor and a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you so much for sharing just your insight, your story, the work that you're doing. And again, like, I'm just really excited to continue. To share your work and share this platform because of the potential that it has, obviously within my space here in the education space. And obviously seeing the, the, just the technology being used in such a positive way, I absolutely love it.

So thank you so much for that work that you're doing. But before we go, I always love to end the show with these following three. Questions. And I know these are some of the questions that I have a couple of friends that always listen in just to get that edge of kryptonite question. So we'll go ahead and start off with that one.

So Nick, as we know, every superhero has a pain point or that one weakness. And we know that for Superman, that kryptonite was that weakness or that pain point. So I want to ask you, Nick, what would you say in this moment? What would you consider to be your current edu kryptonite?

[00:41:28] Nick: I think, um, a lot of teachers, teachers in the writing space will, will, uh, resonate with the idea of those kids that are just hard, hard to get them to start writing, communicating, you know, like, you know, they're smart, but they like, it's hard to get them to start doing it.

Um, that, that's our issue too for adults as well. Right? Like people have amazing ideas and they just have to be willing to go and start building that habit of recording it. So that's that's our main challenge right now. But once people get there, it's like it's awesome. It's awesome to see what happens.

[00:42:07] Fonz: Love it. Excellent. All right. Question number two. If you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

[00:42:17] Nick: Um, very similar theme. Um, you, you ping me with this question. I think it'd be like, take control of your life and be heard. Like, if you, if you can share your message. It's a wonderful world.

[00:42:34] Fonz: I love it. I love it. And absolutely. And I, yes, that hits in so many levels and just going back to your previous answer too, as well. So that is a wonderful, wonderful billboard for sure. All right, Nick, the last question is if you had to author a book starting tomorrow, what would your book be about?

[00:42:56] Nick: Um, I kind of laughed at this one because for some reason I thought of that old movie, uh, Dr.

Strange love or how I learned to love the bomb and I'd write like Dr. Talk love or how I learn to start rambling and be effective and because I think, you know, I, I spent 23 years getting my, it's more than 23 years in school. Like I did like. all the way and then I did a PhD in applied physics and I was so analytical and like able to criticize and be right and whatever and I was so critical of myself um when I when it came to my writing um and for good reason because I'm terrible at spelling and I could get money that feedback but once you once I got to this point where you I felt okay just talking about my ideas and I found systems or people where I could talk about those ideas.

It's so, it's so enabling. Um, that's, that's why, uh, get rid of the old analysis paralysis and critical and let people talk if that's what, if that's what, uh, gets them able to communicate. I love

[00:44:08] Fonz: it. I love it. Thank you so much. Because that really hit like for me, like I said, it's something that I definitely struggle with very much and that analysis paralysis.

And then, then after that, too, it's just almost that imposter syndrome to that. I'm like, I just feel very self conscious about my writing to as well. But I tell you what, you know what you're doing and what I've been able to do has been wonderful and still being a feeling a little bit still unsecure, insecure, I should say, but It's helping.

And, and just the fact that I'm still being able to ideate and see my ideas come to fruition and reworking them and so on. You're

[00:44:47] Nick: an amazing example. Like, you know, you're able to articulate these ideas, find these things, enable, it's, it's clear that, you know, you've turned that to be a creator. And to be an influencer really to help people, uh, and, and, and the world benefits from that.

So I want to thank you for your awesome work. Um, I recommend you to all my people who are looking for, for education space. And remember life is about learning, right? So education is relevant for everyone.

[00:45:12] Fonz: Absolutely. Well, Nick, it's been an honor and a pleasure to be here with you speaking and sharing your story.

And you know, it's been great, obviously meeting, I mean, getting to know each other after what, maybe three meetings that we've had and. Just to be able to share those, uh, just those wonderful wins, you know, that I've been able to share, been able to see and everything. So I'm really excited about what the future is going to bring to you, to your company, to everything that you're doing.

And it's just really exciting time. So thank you for being here with us this

[00:45:42] Nick: evening. You didn't need any, you just picked it up and start running. And now, now you're creating and bringing others, but I'll offer a personal onboarding to anybody.

[00:45:50] Fonz: Awesome. Excellent. And we'll definitely have all your info there in the show notes.

So for all of you that are listening, thank you so much for, you know, checking out this episode and just hearing the story, you're going to see all of Nick's information, uh, obviously on the webpage, make sure you do connect with him because he. Is readily available and he'll send you the Calendly and you can definitely have a chat and you're going to connect with them and you're absolutely going to fall in love with them and the work that he's doing.

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