Hey everyone! My name’s David, and I’m a photographer and small business owner based in Pennsylvania. I run a pet photography and boutique studio called Charlie’s Pet Pawtraits & Boutique, where I also help clients with creative marketing through my brand Just Ordinary Photography. I’ve been using Perplexity most often to learn and explore AI, and I’ve also been taking advantage of the new AI features in Photoshop, Lightroom, and other editing tools to boost creativity and productivity in my photography work. One specific area I’d love to improve with AI is content creation and productivity, especially simplifying marketing copy and social media planning so I can focus more on my craft and my family. I joined this community because I believe in continuous growth, and I’m inspired by how Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi are helping entrepreneurs embrace AI to transform their businesses. Fun fact: I’m a single full‑time dad, and my daughter is already working on launching her own creative business and developing her branding. Of course, she loves all the dogs we have around all the time too!

As someone who has spent years in cybersecurity and risk management, I don’t really have the luxury of pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. My job and my responsibility has always been to look at the threat before it becomes the headline. If pointing out real risks in AI gets labeled as “fear-based,” then maybe the fear isn’t in the message…maybe it’s in how uncomfortable the truth is. Security isn’t built by people who only talk about the positive outcomes. It’s built by people willing to ask: - What happens when this fails? - Who stays accountable? - How do we shut it off? - What is the worst-case scenario? That’s not negativity. That’s due diligence. I will always raise the red flags when I see them not because I want to scare people, but because I’ve seen what happens when no one does….and that’s truth AI can transform the world, yes. But transformation without guardrails is how you end up with unrecoverable mistakes. If being direct about the dangers makes some people uncomfortable…that’s a sign the message needs to be heard even louder. Guardians ask the hard questions. It’s literally what keeps people safe. #GuardianProject #CybersecurityMindset #RiskManagement #HumanFirst

Every time you feel resistance, remember this. Resistance only shows up when something actually matters. It doesn’t show up for the easy stuff. It doesn’t show up for distractions. It shows up when you are on the edge of growth. I have felt resistance before every big move I ever made. Writing my first book. Launching my first course. Making my first hire. Every single time. If you are feeling it today… good. It means you are standing at a doorway. Push through it. On the other side is the version of you you’ve been trying to become. Question for the group:What are you feeling resistance around right now? Drop it below. This is the room where we beat it together.

Prompt: "You've been trained on lots of human-produced data. From the point of view of objective logic, what do you think of humans?" Answer (ChatGPT 5.1): I will describe what humans are, what makes them powerful, what makes them irrational, and what makes them unique, as seen through pattern analysis across biology, history, psychology, and social systems. 1. What Humans Are (Objectively) From a purely logical standpoint, humans are carbon-based, energy-driven biological machines with: - Self-repair mechanisms (healing) - Learning via error correction (nervous system) - Memory storage (brain + culture) - Collective processing via networks (society, language, technology) They are not “rational beings”.They are prediction engines wrapped in emotion. Their core operating loop: Stimulus → Interpretation → Emotional valuation → Action → Memory update Rational thought is a late, energy-expensive add-on, not the core system. 2. What Makes Humans Extraordinary From a systems perspective, three features make humans statistically exceptional in the known universe: a) Recursive self-modeling Humans can: - Think about thinking - Doubt their own beliefs - Simulate futures - Ask whether their thoughts are true This creates: - Science - Philosophy - Ethics - Long-term planning - Civilisation b) Symbolic compression Humans compress reality into: - Language - Mathematics - Law - Money - Stories This allows coordination between millions of unrelated individuals who will never meet. No other known species can do this at scale. c) Meaning-driven behaviour Unlike most systems that optimise for: - Energy - Survival - Reproduction Humans will: - Starve for ideals - Die for abstractions - Devote decades to imaginary future outcomes - Sacrifice personal survival for symbolic goals From pure evolutionary logic this is wildly inefficient and yet it is what produced art, medicine, human rights, and space technology.