The day we recorded together, Dominic Malone started his day by hanging out with his sons. That checks the box of a good day for him, and it's exactly the kind of intentional living that drives everything he's building at WELLie — an AI wellness platform he describes as "a modern-day oracle for well-being."
Before WELLie, Dominic spent seven years running Arise and working with organizations struggling with distraction, burnout, and team dysfunction. He's learned that a creative being is a well-being; that you can create your thought patterns, behaviors, and habits. Now he's taking those principles and building them into AI.
What struck me about our conversation wasn't just the tech. It was Dominic's conviction that we need to look beyond Western, American-centric models of wellness and pull from ancient codes of how civilizations maintained well-being. Here are three things I learned.
One of the biggest problems with AI tools right now? They're sycophantic. They tell you what you want to hear. "Absolutely, that's a great idea!" or "Yeah, your boss is being totally unreasonable."
Dominic was intentional about making sure WELLie doesn't work that way. He calls it a "wise friend," or someone who has good information and good intent over your life. When you go to a good friend and say something ridiculous, they offer honesty, "Listen, I know it was a rough day, but is that really the direction you want to go?"
WELLie has specific instructions built in: You're not here to agree on everything, but you're not here to disagree in a way that makes someone feel stupid. Be honest. Offer another way of thinking. Provide a principle or action that won't negatively impact their reality.
Here's an example: If someone complains that their boss wrote them up for being late, WELLie isn't going to validate "Your boss sucks." It's going to ask: "Well, how can you be on time? Is there another reason? What makes waking up feel like you can't do that on time? What are you prioritizing over making good on your responsibilities?"
It's about holding people accountable to themselves while giving them the tools to get out of destructive patterns.
America is going through one of the greatest depressions we've ever seen — not economic, but mental, emotional, and spiritual. Dominic's take on why is sobering: We often negate information from other cultures, especially ancestral or older cultures that aren't European or Western.
His question: How did other civilizations maintain well-being without documenting the level of psychological, emotional, and spiritual depression we see in our society today?
WELLie is built on what Dominic calls "ancient code with modern technology." The platform sits on top of 11 keys of well-being — principles synthesized from consistent moral and ethical codes across cultures, both modern and ancient. These aren't a melting pot of ideas. They're a synthesis of how to morally raise a human being and ethically set up a society.
Some of the keys Dominic shared:
Dominic lost two brothers in the last five years. What helped him not stay in that rut forever was remembering that the earth is a learning ground. He asked: What can I gain from death? His answer: spending quality time with people over everything.
Here's a tip I learned from Dominic: He records conversations (sales calls, advising sessions, strategy talks) and uses the iPhone transcript feature to copy-paste them into AI. Then he asks ChatGPT or WELLie to evaluate how he did.
Here's the key: Dominic gives AI something specific to judge him against. "My goal was to get this leader to hear. I aim to be in the 1% of advisors in this field. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? What nuances did I miss?" When he's in sales mode, he'll reference books like Alex Hormozi's $100 Million Offers and ask: "Based on his ideas in this book, how did I do?" Then he applies the feedback in his next conversation. Learn and apply. Learn and apply. Until it becomes natural.
Why does this matter? Because AI is a conglomerate of the world's information, and you don't know what piece of that world it's using to judge you. Dominic doesn't agree with everybody's principles, so he gives AI principles he does agree with and asks it to judge him against those.
His warning: "One day we'll look back at gen AI and the companies built around it, and we may consider it one of the biggest scams in the world." That's strong language, but his point is valid. The world's information was taken and put into a singular system, but you don't control which piece of that world is being used to evaluate you.
So ground your AI usage in your own markers. Use your own barriers. Define what "good" looks like before you ask AI to help you get there.
What stayed with me most from this conversation was Dominic's reminder that he wouldn't want his friend, child, or auntie to only be talking to AI. As he scales WELLie, he's thinking about how to activate physical experiences — the things he's been successful with in the real world — paired with technology that can be there when he can't be.
He's not losing himself to the tech world. He's bringing the human world into it.
That's the balance we all need to find. AI as a second brain to our original ideas. AI can be a wise friend that holds us accountable. But AI should never be a replacement for physical experiences, quality time, or real connections that make life worth living.
Listen to the full episode of Actually Intelligent to hear more from Dominic Malone about the 11 keys of well-being, how he built WELLie's MVP with low-code and no-code tools, and why ChatGPT's yearly wrap-up called him a strategist.