Mind Readings: The Vital Importance of Personal Brand in the Age of AI

In today's episode, let's talk about the vital importance of personal brand in the age of AI. One of the things that people are understandably concerned about with artificial intelligence is hey, this thing's going to consume a lot of jobs. Yes, it will. Go back to yesterday's episode to talk about the jobs AI is going to create. But yes, it will consume a lot of jobs, but some jobs will be much harder to replace than others.

What are those jobs? Those jobs are the ones where the human relationship is integral to the value that the job provides. Where the human relationship is integral to the value the job provides. If I go to the gas station, right? It's all it's all pump your own around here anyway.

So one employee is as good as another. It doesn't really matter. I go and pump the gas, whatever. When I go to the grocery store, uh, you know, one employee, assuming they even have employees, it's not self-checkout. Uh, one employee is as good as another.

But when you go to your hairdresser, your barber, your therapist, there's that relationship that you have with that person that is a core part of the value proposition. Right? You wouldn't be thrilled someone just swapping out your therapist or your doctor or your dentist or someone who you don't have that relationship with, your lawyer, with just some rando, right? You'd be like, um, excuse me, where's where's my doctor? This is this, I'm I'm sure you're qualified, but who are you?

That is a core part of the value. So if you want to have a bit of insurance against AI, start thinking about what is the relationship that you provide to any professional context, right? And that comes down to your personal brand. What do you do better than anyone else? What do you do more distinctly than anyone else that provides value?

Think about when you look on YouTube or your favorite podcast. Would you listen to that podcast if it was someone else? Would you watch that YouTube channel if it was someone else? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how much of a uh how much you like that person as the instrument of the delivery of information, their unique quirks.

You are watching this video with me. Would this video be as valuable if it was coming from someone else? I hope not, but it's possible. And there are plenty of people in, for example, the AI space who are who are liked and trusted because of who they are as human beings, not just because they have good information, but because they have good information that fits your brain in a certain way. There's a concept.

Um, I love this example from uh a book I read on on higher education of doorways. Everyone's got a doorway to their brain. And pretend information is a mattress, and you got to throw the mattress at the doorway and get it through the door. There's only certain ways you can throw that mattress. That's going to be your crowd.

That's gonna be your people. This is why you can have 50, 100, 200, 300, 500 people all talking about the same thing about the same topic. Some people are throwing mattresses in a way that your doorway accepts. Other people are not, right? There are some people who will be doing things and saying things, and their personalities just rub you the wrong way, like, oh, you know, there's that there's that one person.

Yeah, you got a hustle 24 7. And we're all like, there are people who need that. There are people who need to be who need that reinforcement, that motivation. Like, yeah, I can do it, because otherwise they'll be in bed, like, I'm not gonna do it today. But they hear that inspiration, that motivational message, and that it is for them, it's not for us.

In the same way that I will say things and it will rub people some the wrong way. Like, this dude, Chris is just an ass, right? He's he's he's arrogant, he's got this, he's got that. There, I'm not for everyone, you're not for everyone. But your personal brand is the encapsulation of that, and it is what will distinguish you from others in hiring and in your work, and especially in AI, because generative models, even with the best prompts, still struggle to sound exactly like someone.

Um, I have a whole series of things that I do to get a model to sound kind of like me, and it's getting better. My prompt's getting longer. Um, but it's still not quite me. And so, if you value the relationship that you and I have, then there's not a substitute, there's not a machine that can do that yet. Um, certainly tools like Hey Gen, for example, can create a video avatar that looks like me and sounds like me, uh, but it's still not me.

It's still not exactly me. So you're two questions to ask yourself. One, what do you do that no one else, including machines, can do? And two, is that part of your core value proposition? Whatever it is that you do, whether you're an employee, whether you're an owner, whether you are an influencer, whether you are a student, what is it that is so unique to you that no one and no thing else can do that nearly as well?

That's your personal brand. And if you want an insurance policy against generative AI, double down on it. That's gonna do it for today's episode. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.

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