Ep 003: Heidi Araya - From Agile Coach to AI Coach

Ever wondered what it feels like to completely redefine your life's work? Join us as Heidi Araya from BrightLogic.ai shares her personal narrative of transformation from a seasoned tech veteran to a pioneering AI coach. Heidi opens up about her journey from roles in big tech, including technical writer and agile coach, to facing job uncertainty and discovering a new adventure. By enrolling in a data science program at MIT, Heidi initially aimed to spearhead AI initiatives but soon realized a passion for helping others harness the power of generative AI. 

The conversation delves into the broader tech landscape, emphasizing the importance of diversification, community support, and continuous learning, particularly in AI. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Journey From Tech to AI Coaching
• 8:43 Transition to Entrepreneurship and Local Business
• 19:51 Navigating Uncertainty in Tech and AI

Transcript

Debbie: 0:01

Welcome to the your Life After Tech podcast. This is Episode 3. I'm Debbie Levitt. Don't forget to check out our lifeaftertechinfo multiverse, including our book, discord, community coaching and more, because you might be done with tech, tech might be done with you, or you're thinking about adding non-tech work to your tech career. Today's guest is Heidi Araya H-E-I-D-I-A-R-A-Y-A, and she is from brightlogic. ai. We'll be talking about her journey from many years as a change management person and agile coach across being laid off at least once and finally deciding to start a very interesting small local business. Let's get to know Heidi.

Heidi: 1:04

Wow, where to even start? I've spent many, many years in tech. The first thing I did in tech was I managed documentation. I thought that was very exciting and I decided to become a technical writer. So I became a technical writer, that evolved into a business analyst, that evolved into a product owner and then an agile coach, and then, finally, I was leading agile transformations, all in big tech, and I knew my career was ending. I mean because, honestly, everyone thinks they already transformed to agile and they don't need directors of agile transformation anymore. So I was looking for that next thing and I knew that it was about to fall off the cliff, and so that is my cliffhanger. So, yeah, do you want me to tell you what I did next?

Debbie: 1:46

um, yeah, actually we will get there. I just to uh. So you worked in tech for how many years?

Heidi: 1:55

25 years or so okay, join the club. Yeah, okay, and and I think you and I met at an agile conference we did, and I struggle to remember which one, but I think it might have been the TechWell conference or something like that. They were there because I was doing the conference rounds, probably like you in those days.

Debbie: 2:14

I sure was. I was doing the Agile conference rounds. Those will be stories for another day. So you're saying that you started seeing the end being a little bit near when you realized a lot of companies thought they had achieved agile enlightenment and might not need somebody like you. So when did you start thinking about a shift?

Heidi: 2:34

So actually, I knew that my job was coming to an end even 2019, early 2020. So I just couldn't figure out what the heck do I do next? Then I was laid off from my from my role leading the agile transformation in a big tech company. Covid hit soon after and I was like what do I do? Well, let me just. I mean, let's do the thing that I know how to do. So I became a consultant for a while. Then I got a call to lead another agile transformation. So I was doing that all the while wondering what the heck do I do next? Where do I go? I know it's the laggards now that are hiring me and this is not where I want to be. And I was really struggling how do I reinvent myself once again? I've been very successful for 30 years reinventing myself and I needed to do it again and luckily, ai came on the scene and rescued me from probably what would be a very boring career.

Debbie: 3:26

Do you mean the boring career of continuing to do agile transformations for kind of late to the party companies?

Heidi: 3:34

Either that or an adjacent career, like leading big change initiatives. And then I even had a vision of when I was laid off in October 2023, which was the second time I was laid off in October 2023, which was the second time I was laid off in 2023. Neither of them was a huge surprise, but still Gosh, what was I going to say? I saw AI come on the scene in early 2023. So I knew my career was coming to an end. At the same time, I still had a job and I started to explore it, what it would look like. When I was laid off in October of 2023, I decided I'm going to take this data science program at MIT because I knew AI was coming again, and at the time I started that program, I thought that I would end up in the same place leading a large change initiative.

Heidi: 4:23

That was going to be a big AI initiative machine learning or maybe leading a machine learning team or a data science initiative inside a company. So when I started that program I was like, well, at least I'll know enough about the nuts and bolts of AI to lead a team. So actually that was my vision. But then along the way I realized, wait a minute, I'm going to be doing the same thing all over again that I had been doing. I'm going to be suffering with all the same issues that I had been struggling with the past few years in tech anyway. So by the time I finished my program, I said no, I don't want that anymore. I'm going to figure out how to use generative AI and help people adopt generative AI and do something with this big AI thing. So no longer it was about data science programs and working inside big tech. But I had just decided I wasn't going to go back by that by that point. And uh, debbie, it was.

Heidi: 5:16

To get to that place, I had to divorce a part of myself. 25 years in tech, my whole identity was wrapped up in that leading big change initiatives and I had to take two and a half weeks off. I put my phone aside and just to really own that. This is actually what I wanted to do. So, yeah, I just tell people. It was like enforcing a part of myself. It really felt like that.

Debbie: 5:38

Was there a particular book you read, or process you went through, or coach? You had anything that helped you through that tough time of redefinition.

Heidi: 5:50

No, I had read all the books. Find your North Star Well, multiple books, right. Listen to yourself. I tried meditating. I take walks all the time. I tried buzzing devices. I tried all manner of things.

Debbie: 6:04

But actually the buzzing device that alternates the hands Exactly. Yes, Okay.

Heidi: 6:10

I know you're talking about. I tried everything to figure out what is next for me and I and I was left with no answer. But I think what it really was was I was afraid to embrace what it was, so it wasn't like the answer maybe didn't exist. I would have to go back and see all the things that I explore but I don't think I would allow myself to believe that it was over in tech. For me, it wasn't until I took two and a half weeks off and I went to Argentina to spend time with my family. I didn't have my laptop open all the time. I wasn't checking my phone. I had no wifi, just literally was there to spend as much time with my family and not think about any of that stuff.

Heidi: 6:48

But climb to the top of a mountain, had some good times and when I came back, I think I was finally ready to own that part of myself and I said you know, it's not about feeling bad, about leaving it behind. What will people think about me all of a sudden? You know I wasn't worried about that anymore Somehow. Previously I was worried about that. You know, again I go back to the divorce feeling. You know, what are people going to think of me if I'm not with that person anymore. You know, here was like what are people going to think if I'm not with that career or identity anymore? And so it was like a rebirth for me. But that is that space is actually what allows me to reflect and become myself, or who I am. More today I'll say yeah, that's beautiful.

Debbie: 7:34

It's a beautiful step that you took and I hope more of our listeners will go for that in themselves. Getting back to your story, it's interesting. You say I had to get out of tech, get out of tech, but you're working with AI. Is that not tech, or how do you define it?

Heidi: 7:48

Yeah, it's great. It's a really great question. So generative AI isn't actually that technical. But I knew even from earlier this year, when I hadn't really figured stuff out, that I didn't just want to coach people on change, because that was the other thing I was exploring is, well, I've been able to reinvent myself multiple times. Well, is it time for me to be a coach and help people reinvent themselves? And then I thought, no, I need there to be something a little bit technical. And so I'm in the space now.

Heidi: 8:18

Generative AI is not very technical. There are lots of no code tools that you can use and I help onboard and coach people to adopt AI. Tools that you can use and I help onboard and coach people to adopt AI, and if it requires something technical, I just hire out the work. So I now know enough to help people understand AI, use automations onboard, and then if I need to do more technical things, I just hire it out. But it's a great question.

Heidi: 8:43

I think I found that space in between where it works for me, because it's not entirely uh, not a non-technical or technical.

Heidi: 8:53

So I think one of the the pivots that I realized I made I had a very non-technical role in big tech. Right, I, I was the people change person, so I'll say maybe I'm a little bit more technical than I was then, so I'm providing technical solutions while not getting into the weeds. But I am actually from helping large companies and working as an employee. I'm serving solopreneurs, startups and small businesses. I'm from dealing with technical customers who knew a lot more about tech than me. Now I'm dealing with very non-technical customers, so they are struggling just to understand how to even adopt even though you know lms and ai isn't that technical the generative ai aspect.

Heidi: 9:35

But I'll say like one of the biggest shifts also was from being an employee to being a business owner and realizing all the changes that that made. Also, and the last thing for me was and why I think it's been such a it's actually been a very challenging shift for me is I was working remotely for most of my career and I was engaging from my home around the world with people all over the world and I didn't have a large local base of people that I knew and so now I am a local business owner where I am serving local small businesses, and so these shifts have actually been pretty interesting and fascinating for me to just realize and absorb on my own self.

Debbie: 10:19

So when you talk about serving local businesses and small businesses, for example and I'm going to make something up and you're going to feel free to tell me I'm wrong so does this mean, for example, a local accountant comes to you and says I've heard about them, their AI things, you know? How can it work for me? You know? Is that the type of work you're doing? Or, please correct me?

Heidi: 10:42

Yes, it could be real estate agents. I'm working with a handyman agency. There are insurance agencies. Yeah, accountants it could be really anyone. So I actually can collaborate well with marketing agencies who want to offer more technical solutions. They often do things like social media engagement for their clients, and so that's a really good pair up. So, yeah, absolutely.

Debbie: 11:06

And I know a lot of people who get into freelancing or entrepreneurship or coaching always wonder should I bill by a project price? Should I bill by an hour or time? You don't have to give us a number, but can I ask how you tend to bill? Or price?

Heidi: 11:24

Absolutely. I never bill by the hour, if I can help it. If somebody just wants a one-off thing, I try to bill by the value that they received from it, because billing by the hour, of course you're just tied to the number of hours you can work, which is not good for them or you, and then you're incentivized to make things take longer because you can bill by the hour. So it never made sense. But with AI it's making even less sense, right? Because maybe I can build an automation that would save 100 hours off someone's plate every month and so to them that might be very worthwhile versus, you know, someone else might not be willing to pay that. So yeah, I bill by the project and I give a fixed rate for the project, and then if I need to provide some kind of support along the way, then I will give like a fractional support rate for that.

Debbie: 12:14

Got it Okay, great, thank you for putting that out there. One question that I've been asking everybody on the show is if you think about your core personal qualities, your personality traits, who you are deep down inside, how does this new business match or overlap those?

Heidi: 12:36

I've always wanted to help people like deep down. That's the most basic thing. That has been constant throughout my entire career and either I was I was helping them, I was helping them find clarity, I was helping them find a better process. You know, it was like really essentially my career has been about process improvement, although very people focused process improvement, and so I always want to help people find a better way to do things so that they are happier. For years, my, my sort of tagline was alleviating misery in the workplace, at least to myself, I was helping people feel better at work. So my qualities it's really that I think it's it's very customer focused. I'm driven to find a solution for someone that works for them, and so if they can't afford the big thing, let's figure out what we can afford to make your life better in that way figure out what we can afford to make your life better in that way.

Debbie: 13:33

Got it? Was there any mistakes or regrets when you were? Because it sounds like you've really started this business in the last year because you said you got laid off in October 2023. We're talking in October 2024. It sounds like all of this happened in a year. Any mistakes or regrets? All of this happened in a year.

Heidi: 13:49

Any mistakes or regrets. So actually, I really opened up my business May 1st of 2024. So it's not been that long since I've been out there. So, mistakes or regrets no, I can't say that I had any mistakes or regrets. I think the thing that would have shortcut me this really would have been for me to understand myself sooner and embrace the fact that it was going to be over in tech, I mean. But I didn't even want this Debbie. I thought I was going to go back to tech and so when I took that program, it was I was going to be an employee. I never wanted to work for myself. So this is the other message I wanted to share. It's like I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, I just wanted a job that I enjoyed, where I could provide value. But with everything going on in the marketplace number one that the tech layoffs continue it's still very tough out there.

Heidi: 14:38

Matched with my feelings about tech, that kind of rose to the surface after I left because I was allowed the space to think about all the toxic environments I'd been in and all the people I was told not to talk to and do this, do that, and I had no budget. You know a lot of staff, no budget, I couldn't buy anything. I couldn't, I had no permission to do anything. And then I thought you know what? I didn't really like it, but I and I. But yet I saw no path forward. So this was literally the only path that I saw for me to do what I want, which was work with generative AI, helping people use generative AI and not be miserable at work every single day. So it was literally the only thing that I had left. It wasn't because I wanted to be an entrepreneur or work for myself ever.

Debbie: 15:28

Well, given that you kind of tumbled into where you are now, now that you're about five or so months into this new business, what do you think of your new boss?

Heidi: 15:43

So, you know, one day I woke up and I thought to myself am I still acting like an employee or maybe that's a bad term? Am I still acting like I'm going to get the phone call rescuing me from this situation where I'm going to get a bunch of clients or a bunch of work coming my way or somebody's going to pay me for something? And then I thought you know what I have to do more. So I am loving the new person that I am. I'm loving the person that I'm becoming because it's a constant growth. I had to learn a lot about what it takes to run a business and so, yes, I love this new me.

Debbie: 16:21

I have a lot more growth and I can't ever imagine going back at this point so you, you're coming into kind of your first half year of your business and you've been talking about developing some local clients. What are your next dreams of growth?

Heidi: 16:44

So along the past five, six months of talking to people, both local business owners and people that I meet along the way because it doesn't have to be local business owners I just felt like that would be a good niche for me to start and a good place for me to start to engage with the local community and provide value. So I learned that many of them are struggling with sales. They're struggling with the sales process in some way, and this is actually something that I never contemplated in big tech. No one had exposed me to the sales process ever so all of a sudden. So I hired a sales guy and he's telling me all this stuff, like you know, you've got to get these. You know, you got to have it.

Heidi: 17:22

I have a whole stack Now. I've got a stack of business cards in front of me. You've got to add them to your CRM, even if it's a Google sheet. Just you have to get back, you have to follow up with your leads and you have to email them and you've got to do this and you've got to. I'm like what the heck? This is so manual, like this. This process doesn't make sense. And he's like well, I can do cold calls, I can do, leads getting sales, some something in their sales process. So that is what is coming. Next for me is where I'm focusing on improving the sales process for service based businesses, and so that's the area that you're going to see me focus. Next, because AI can take a lot of the drudgery off the plate of businesses.

Debbie: 18:07

Next, because AI can take a lot of the drudgery off the plate of businesses. Yeah, sure, sounds like it. Yeah, that'll be interesting. We'll have to keep an eye out for you. Something you could put on your website in the future.

Heidi: 18:17

Yes, indeed. Yes, my website is going to be undergoing this revamp to focus on that as well.

Debbie: 18:22

Yeah, Cool, cool, exciting. So, thinking about our listeners and viewers who might be considering leaving tech or staying in tech, or adding non tech work or being more entrepreneurial, what advice would you have for them?

Heidi: 18:41

Well, the advice I would have for them is, if they already have a hobby that they enjoy and they know maybe that they could explore that more, then try it out, because diversification is going to be very important in a in an uncertain world. So that's actually another thing that I have a whole other talk about is thrive my world and what you need, so find some way to diversify. So I would definitely encourage folks to dig in there, and the advice I have is figure out what your sales pipeline will look like, because that was the one thing that I didn't think enough about is like how am I going to map out how many customers I need to make whatever monthly revenue? So have a monthly target goal for yourself, even if it's low to start, and then figure out how are you going to get those customers and have a strategy for getting those customers. So that would the previous me would have really appreciated someone speaking to me about that.

Debbie: 19:34

Super. Thank you. That is good advice and definitely goes back to ideas around budgeting and even remembering that that a new business may start small. We can't just say, oh wow, I'm going to make two squillion dollars in our first year. We have to remember that these things grow over time. Usually. There's a last question that I ask everybody, but it sounds like you might have a couple of other topics you wanted to make sure we touched on. Was there something you wanted to talk about?

Heidi: 20:04

Well, I think some of the things kind of came out naturally like I think it's a big step to leave big tech. We get paid really well. We have well, presumably steady, paychecks. The world is becoming more and more uncertain now, and so one of the things I want to tell people is again diversification is important. So think about it, even if you're still employed right now, think about ways you can diversify your interests and your income. And then the other thing that's really important in an uncertain world is going to be community. So if you work in tech and you still have a job, don't forget to find people to collaborate with, to support, because if something goes awry, then you'll have your community to support you. And even you know you and I met at an event and all the people, all the talks that I do, I often get invited because people know me from the community. So community is another big thing that I'll say is really important.

Heidi: 20:59

So the other thing is that I see this more and more.

Heidi: 21:05

I mean the world is becoming exponentially uncertain, which means that companies are hiring and doing layoffs, and so yet another friend just told me that her company she started a few months ago actually two friends in the past couple of months.

Heidi: 21:19

They started new companies and immediately were told that the firm is going to be acquired by private equity, and of course that introduces, you know, all the instability and more layoffs and, of course, all the changes, and so we can't expect that the world is going to be stable anymore. And so I think, going forward, companies will begin to rely more and more on gig workers, and so that means if you're in tech and you're not upskilling whether it's in AI or whatever the latest thing is then please start now to think about how you can make yourself relevant for now and for the future, and that predominantly means AI, because if you haven't started learning AI, then it's going to be hard for you to be re -employed, because employers are looking for people who know AI, so less experienced people who know AI are getting jobs over the more experienced people who aren't leveraging AI and haven't dipped their toes in yet. So that's the you know. Yeah, I would say other advice that I would give along the way.

Debbie: 22:18

Yeah, definitely good advice. I have to say, ai isn't something I've gotten heavily into only because of my area of tech. There aren't a lot of strong solutions yet that are doing a good job. We still have. There are solutions out there, but they need babysitting. They're still hallucinating way too much. They're not. Most of them are not saving us time, and so I think for my particular part of tech, which was has been CX and UX, a lot of us haven't been getting as much into AI regenerative AI because it's still been a bad assistant.

Heidi: 22:51

Yeah, yeah, and I think that it will improve. But I think it's about finding the space to continue testing. Like last year, it was terrible with some things. This year it's amazing at those same things that it was terrible about. So, like every couple of months, just keep exploring what's changed with the new models that come out. So maybe with the newest model, things have changed. So, whatever it is, they're going to be people on the forefront of what you're doing, exploring what that is like, and so then for those people in your same position to just make sure that you're on the forefront and keep testing, because things change so fast there.

Debbie: 23:26

Yeah, it really is a great point, and I think about some of the things that we try to do with AI in UX and UX research is can it hear an interview almost like this and summarize it well? And the system I'm using for my podcast software. It isn't giving me the greatest summary, but in my coaching sessions with people for those who consent I've been uploading it into a system that is designed for therapists and psychoanalysts and that is doing a great job summarizing that conversation. Why? Because there's a lot more on the line there and they had to really develop good models and whatever. You know, what do I know about AI? But they had to do something there where it could not spit you out a half AI-asked summary of the conversation. The conversation had to be extremely accurate, and so it's a good reminder that there are other tools out there and that it's always evolving.

Heidi: 24:30

That's actually really interesting that you found that tool, because I had the same feedback from someone who tried the common meeting tool called Fireflies, and I like Fireflies, but I typically never read the summary that it spits out. I just run it through my custom prompt, my custom scenario, and then it generates me a draft email in my email inbox. So then I open it up and I go, okay, I want to change this, I want to change that. But but yeah, of course, there are there lots of fine tuning. That probably happens on the therapy and so they probably had to do lots of, like you said, extra stuff to make sure it worked out, not just for general scenarios, but because AI works very well with the very narrow scenarios, because that's where it was trained on. It probably does a really great job there.

Debbie: 25:13

Yeah, if I can just talk about it a little bit more. There was one other interesting thing that the system does hashtag not sponsored. You know I'm not sponsored by them and I, um, when a, when people talk about different companies or people, it puts them in a separate place in the summary. It says okay, these are people and companies and places that were discussed and I posted this to LinkedIn and one of them, um, my dog had interrupted a coaching session I was doing and the thing said Olivia, olivia is a dog who interrupts the session. And I was like, wow, that's kind of you know. I looked back at the transcript and I just said, oh sorry, my dog is bothering me, she seems a little hungry. And the transcript, the summary thing. It said Olivia is a dog who interrupts the session for a moment of levity.

Heidi: 26:07

Wow, that's pretty fascinating. Yeah, that sounds like one. I'd be keen to try out too and run my transcripts through it.

Debbie: 26:14

Yeah, again, hashtag, not sponsored. It's called Uphel U-P-H-E-A-L. And again, maybe there's somebody better out there and maybe there's somebody worse out there. I'm not sponsored by them, but it's been a system I've been testing out and playing with and so far I haven't seen a system do a better job with summarizing conversations. The only downside is because it's meant for mental health. It'll add things like client does not seem suicidal and you're like whoa, you know what? I wasn't, I wasn't going there, we're just talking about design, um, but thanks for letting me what? Oh, go ahead. No, I was just gonna thank you for letting me take you on a little side journey there into some of the the you know, uh, ongoing weirdness that we still see in ai in 2024 yeah, but going to that, what you said about the client does not seem suicidal like.

Heidi: 27:12

That's actually pretty fascinating because the AI can detect different emotions. Perhaps or I'm just curious and I don't know how well those work right but maybe it's not only the spoken words that the client might say and detect some of those feelings, but also their, the emotion that comes through on their voice. So I train ai voice assistants for people and so one of them is this handyman who wants the ai voice to pick up when he can't answer the call and he's in a meeting or he goes to a lot of networking events. So he wanted it to pick up there. And it does have a setting and I try, I tested it out and called it and acted angry like someone had he had messed up something on the job and and it's just very empathetic, and so you, you know, AI can do lots of things.

Heidi: 27:55

That is really kind of fascinating these days. But I also think it it will make mistakes, and that's where I find people tend to look at the chat, gpt or the clouds or whatever the AI they're using, and I think it's a Google search and I have accurate answers and so, yeah, I always caution, people don't. If you can't check the answers yourself, then probably you shouldn't trust the answer.

Debbie: 28:20

Always a good point as well, even as AI continues evolving. So this is kind of my closing question. So if there's other things you want to talk about, let me know. But I like to ask people how can people get in touch with you or follow you online? Or maybe they want to hire you because they've heard this and they're excited about what you might do when do we find you, heidi?

Heidi: 28:43

The best place to find me is on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Heidi Araya, and I do have a Facebook group called AI productivity pioneers. So if, if whoever's listening is one of those people who hasn't dipped their toe into AI yet and they're they're curious about it, you can find us there On Facebook. We have monthly meetups live where people can ask questions, and we focus them on kind of like the newbie version there, and it's entirely free.

Debbie: 29:10

Excellent, excellent. So yeah, and we can also find you at brightlogicai and I hope people will check you out there and whatever you're doing. So I like to give the guests the last word. Anything else on your mind?

Heidi: 29:24

Because this is life after tech and AI seems kind of techie, but really there's a lot that about AI today, that generative AI that is not technical, and so, yeah, I just want to share with folks. If you haven't tried it, you don't really need a technical mindset at all. In fact, I think the people who have non-technical mindsets do best with generative AI because they're not expecting it to be some predictive output. So, yeah, just try experiment and I'd love to hear what people's journey with it is.

Debbie: 29:55

Great. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Heidi.

Heidi: 30:00

Yes, you're so welcome. Thanks for inviting me. So excited that you invited me. Thank you.