How Business Owners Can Start Using AI Well

How Business Owners Can Start Using AI Well

Most business owners have run a few prompts through ChatGPT and assumed that counts as using AI. Susan Diaz, CEO and founder of Northlight AI and author of Swan Dive Backwards, joins Wendy and Kelsey to make the case for going deeper. The conversation covers why AI literacy matters more than access, how to treat AI as delegation instead of magic, and why documenting how your business actually runs is both the starting point for AI and a quiet driver of business value. In This Episode * Understand the difference between AI access and AI literacy, and why a license alone doesn't move the needle * Reframe AI as delegation, so a weak result points you back to a weak brief rather than a broken tool * See why writing down how your business works builds intellectual property and makes the business more valuable and sellable * Use the 10/80/10 approach, where you set the thinking, let AI carry the middle, and keep the final polish * Pick one tool and get better at it instead of chasing every new headline and feature * Ask the harder questions about jobs, security, and adoption that leadership tends to skip Featured Quote "Everything we're doing with AI is a form of delegation. The second you start to think of it as delegation, you'll get less frustrated about 'oh, it didn't do anything.' But did you tell it how you do it? Did you tell it the 37 steps that go into making the thing the way you like it?" — Susan Diaz About the Hosts Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts. Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning. About Our Guest Susan Diaz is the CEO and founder of Northlight AI and the author of the self-published book Swan Dive Backwards. She works largely with small businesses on practical AI adoption and hosts a long-running podcast with more than 275 episodes. She wrote her book by recording 25 episodes over 30 days, 13 of them with guests, and using AI to help structure and cross-reference the material. Resources & Links * Swan Dive Backwards [https://www.amazon.ca/Swan-Dive-Backwards-Curious-Literate/dp/1738742636] by Susan Diaz, available on Amazon (including Amazon Canada) * Northlight AI, Susan Diaz's company * The four AI archetypes from the book and its companion quiz: the Diver, the Pathfinder, the Operator, and the Bridge Builder * The Big Leap and its four zones of incompetence, competence, excellence, and genius, referenced in the conversation Connect With Black Star Wealth * Website: blackstarwealth.com [https://blackstarwealth.com] * LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendybrookhouse/] | 1 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseymacaulay/] * Podcast: The Number, available on all major platforms If this episode resonated, follow The Number so you don't miss what's next.

Why 44,000 Businesses Closed in One Year

The number is 44,000:  businesses that closed in a single year, most of them not sold, just shuttered. Manja Horner, leadership strategist and founder of Boost Learning Design, joins Wendy and Kelsey to unpack why so many trades owners are walking away with no successor and no plan for the knowledge they spent decades building. The conversation looks at the hidden costs of skipping training, the brain drain hitting the trades, and what it takes to build a business that actually holds its value. In This Episode * Why "figure it out as you go" can quietly cost owners up to 8 percent on every project * What goes wrong when a strong tradesperson is promoted into management without training * How to think about training and HR as core business functions rather than overhead * Why a quarter of the trades workforce is heading for retirement, and what that means for owners * What a knowledge capture system looks like, and why it matters before key people leave * How leadership and skills training tie directly to business value and exit readiness Featured Quote "Yes, we have the bodies leaving. We haven't talked about the brain drain that's happening." — Manja Horner About the Hosts Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts. Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. She works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning. About Our Guest Manja Horner is a third-generation tradesperson, leadership strategist, and founder of Boost Learning Design. She helps trades businesses fix the leadership training and accountability breakdowns that drive turnover and crush margins. She is the author of Pass the Torch: A Call to Rescue the Future of Trades. Resources & Links * Pass the Torch by Manja Horner: passthetorchbook.com [https://passthetorchbook.com] * Boost Learning Design [https://www.boostld.com/] (Manja's company) Connect With Black Star Wealth * Website: blackstarwealth.com [https://blackstarwealth.com] * LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendybrookhouse/] | Kelsey MacAulay [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseymacaulay/] * Podcast: The Number, available on all major platforms If this episode resonated, follow The Number so you don't miss what's next.

Why Working With a Financial Planner Reduces Stress

Money is still the number one source of stress for Canadians, and this episode gets into what the data actually shows. Wendy and Kelsey walk through the 2026 FP Canada Financial Stress Index — nine years of tracking financial anxiety across the country — and zero in on one number that tells the real story. People who work with a financial professional are 14 percentage points less likely to lose sleep over money. That gap shows up twice in the survey. This episode explains why, and what it looks like in practice. In This Episode * What's driving financial stress for Canadians in 2026 and how it's shifted over the past few years * How financial anxiety breaks down differently across age groups — from early career to peak earning years * Why the 14-point gap between people with a planner and those without keeps showing up in the data * What the shift from "freedom from" to "freedom to" language tells you about where someone is in their financial journey * Why waiting until you have things figured out before seeing a planner is the wrong approach Featured Quote "It replaces assumption with clarity, and it replaces fear with options. You don't know where you are until you do that analysis." — Wendy Brookhouse About the Hosts Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts. Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning. Resources & Links * FP Canada Financial Stress Index (2026) [https://www.fpcanada.ca/2026-financial-stress-index] — the survey referenced throughout this episode.  Connect With Black Star Wealth * Website: blackstarwealth.com [https://blackstarwealth.com] * LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse | Kelsey MacAulay * Podcast: The Number — available on all major platforms Curious whether Black Star Wealth works with people in your situation? Visit blackstarwealth.com [https://blackstarwealth.com/] to learn more.

Why Real Business Success Takes Ten Years

The Number | Episode 004 — Long-Game Thinking Bryan Clayton built a landscaping company from a single push mower to 150 employees and eight figures in annual revenue — then sold it. Then he started over. In this episode, Bryan shares the number that guided his second act: 10. Not a revenue target or a headcount — a timeframe. He and Wendy talk through what it actually takes to build a business that works, why most "overnight successes" are the result of a decade of quiet grinding, and how a single metric can be the difference between perseverance and delusion. In This Episode * Why every discretionary expense in your business costs you five to seven times that amount at the sale — and what to do about it * How Bryan used one metric (weekly transactions) to stay focused and avoid building on a bad idea for years * What "default alive" means, and why it's the most important financial position a business owner can hold * The difference between a pivot that makes sense and one that just lets you avoid hard work * Why thinking in decades — not quarters — is the mindset shift that changes how you run a business Featured Quote "Every decision you make as a business operator — if you want to sell your business — is going to cost you by five, six, or seven times, whatever the multiple is in your business." — Bryan Clayton About the Hosts Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts. Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning. About Our Guest Bryan Clayton is the CEO of GreenPal, a technology platform that connects homeowners with local lawn care providers. Before GreenPal, he built and sold Peachtree, a landscaping company based in Nashville, Tennessee, that grew to 150 employees and 90 trucks before being acquired by a national operator. Resources & Links * Built to Sell by John Warrillow — referenced by Bryan as a key resource for founders thinking about exit planning * The Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki — referenced by Bryan when reflecting on life after his first exit * 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy — referenced by Wendy in conversation with Bryan Connect With Black Star Wealth * Website: blackstarwealth.com * LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse | Kelsey MacAulay * Podcast: The Number — available on all major platforms If this episode resonated, follow The Number so you don't miss what's next.

The One Number That Simplifies Your Spending Plan

The Number | Episode 3 — The One Number Most people manage money reactively — checking their bank account after the fact and hoping it adds up. In this episode, Wendy and Kelsey dig into The One Number: Black Star Wealth's system for cutting through the noise of multiple accounts, competing priorities, and unconscious spending. They explain why a spending plan works better than a budget, how automating your fixed costs frees up mental energy, and how a single weekly number can give you both boundaries and permission — depending on what you need. In This Episode * Why "spending plan" works better psychologically than "budget" — and how the framing changes your relationship with money * How The One Number works: automating fixed costs so you only need to track one weekly discretionary figure * Why the number resets every seven days, and why that matters when life goes sideways * How to use your weekly number to understand the real trade-off between paying down debt and maintaining your current lifestyle * Why this system helps both over-spenders and under-spenders — and how it removes the guilt from both sides Featured Quote "It's about how much can you spend on your discretionary things every week without worrying. Everything else works." — Wendy Brookhouse About the Hosts Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts. Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning. Resources & Links * The One Number — Black Star Wealth's system for simplifying spending and aligning money with your goals. Learn more at blackstarwealth.com Connect With Black Star Wealth * Website: blackstarwealth.com * LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse | Kelsey MacAulay * Podcast: The Number — available on all major platforms If this episode resonated, follow The Number so you don't miss what's next.