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00:00:01
The Age of Artificial Authority (& How to Stand Out In It)
0 Playsin 20 hours
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez and co-host Ken Freire tackle the rising tide of AI-generated content and its impact on marketers trying to stand out online. With a flood of polished, AI-written posts dominating platforms like LinkedIn, they explore how marketers can preserve authenticity, leverage their human edge, and avoid becoming just another voice in the AI crowd. They share personal anecdotes and practical frameworks for how to lead with real experience, personality, and values in an era of indistinguishable content.
My Favorite AI Tools:
- Tella - https://danchez.com/tella
- High Level - https://danchez.com/highlevel
- Zencastr - https://danchez.com/podtools
- n8n - https://danchez.com/n8n
Timestamps:
- 00:00 - Why LinkedIn Feels Flooded with AI Content
- 01:45 - The Graphic Design Industry's Coming Disruption
- 04:21 - Coca-Cola’s AI-Generated Commercials
- 06:18 - Personality as the Differentiator
- 09:13 - How to Stay Authentic with AI Tools
- 13:41 - Voice Prompting for More Personal AI Output
- 15:44 - The Human Edge: Experience Over Imitation
- 19:24 - Trust and Values in the Buying Journey
- 22:41 - The Theology of Creativity
- 24:42 - The Joy of Building with AI (Not Replacing Yourself)
- 28:20 - Applying Authenticity to Expert Marketing
- 33:07 - Real Authenticity is Values, Not Emotions
- 34:33 - Why Defining Your Core Values Is Crucial
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
AI's Impact on Authenticity in Content
00:00:05
Dan Sanchez
Not long ago, you could scroll through LinkedIn and tell who actually knew what they were talking about. And more and more, I'm finding that it's getting kind of difficult because you're seeing content from everywhere and from everyone.
00:00:19
Dan Sanchez
Everyone's posts are looking crisp now as if somebody's everybody's been writing on LinkedIn for about three years and has great opinions and hot takes and all kinds of things to post. Yet it's getting harder and harder to tell if somebody actually knows what they say they know or if they're just having AI write their content for them.
00:00:40
Dan Sanchez
I know on LinkedIn, it's getting competitive and it's happening across the different social media channels where we're trying to sell our expertise. And this is becoming the problem of AI, is it's becoming harder to stand out as the commodity content flood floodgates open up and everybody's starting to pour in content because that's what we've all been trained to do as marketers.
00:01:01
Dan Sanchez
So what do we do now? Welcome back to the AI-driven marketer. We are continuing on in our own the show mini-series that we are turning into a book in the month of November, and we're going to be continuing on. You're going to be hearing a lot from this series, and it's exciting because we're gonna be talking about the things that nobody else wants to talk about.
00:01:22
Dan Sanchez
There's always more to talk about as far as how to execute a AI, and we'll continue covering that on the show. But in this series, again, we want to cover some of the softer things, some of the things that with AI,
00:01:34
Dan Sanchez
can actually help you overcome the wave of job loss that is coming for marketers and a lot of industries in general.
Leveraging AI Authentically in Marketing
00:01:42
Dan Sanchez
So today, we're talking about authentic AI. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm joined with my co-host, Ken Freire.
00:01:49
Ken Freire
Hey, what's up, bro?
00:01:51
Dan Sanchez
And Ken, right before we got on this this this recording, you were telling me about a story about a friend you bumped into recently.
00:01:59
Ken Freire
Yeah, so he is he has a YouTube channel, thousands of subscribers, and it's focused on graphic design.
00:02:07
Dan Sanchez
Mm-hmm.
00:02:07
Ken Freire
And it was one of those things I was like, oh, how are you implementing AI? And he was like, I'm not worried about AI at all in my industry. And I was like a little bit nervous. And I started asking questions like, how are you not worried? Because I know a lot of friends who are like doing ai and graphic design and are absolutely crushing it right now.
00:02:28
Ken Freire
And, you know, I'm not a graphic designer, so I don't know what that landscape is going to look like
AI's Role in Creative Industries
00:02:34
Ken Freire
a year from now. But you were talking about how like it, it the demise for graphic designers is coming.
00:02:41
Dan Sanchez
it's It's going to be an issue. As somebody who did graphic design before coming into marketing, you know, i i I'd say I'm a B b designer, definitely not A+.
00:02:42
Ken Freire
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:50
Dan Sanchez
plus To be A+, plus you really have to be in the game all day, every day in order to be in it.
00:02:54
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:02:55
Dan Sanchez
I'm good enough to like move things around, make some things look nice. I'm good enough to direct AI and how to make it. And I find with AI, I can, I'm i'm almost approaching A. Maybe not quite A, but like my level has definitely been improved.
00:03:07
Dan Sanchez
I was probably B minus, now B plus, maybe A minus, I don't know. but I find the AI makes it easy to make things look good. And the better AI gets, the easier it's going to make look, make things look good on like first shot, just like you can with photos, right?
00:03:16
Ken Freire
yeah
00:03:23
Dan Sanchez
You can go to mid journey and get an awesome looking photo. You can give it a photo of yourself and be like, Hey, make an awesome portrait of me and put it in front of this place. And all of a sudden you're like, bam. And it's like, it was shot with a really nice camera and everything looks perfect.
00:03:36
Dan Sanchez
as if a pro photographer had taken it. That's coming for graphic design. And that's going to be be an issue for graphic designers, just like it is marketers. It's just a matter of time before it catches up.
00:03:47
Dan Sanchez
But that's why we need to talk about it, because there's a problem coming. There's a multiplication of content. Everyone's going to have that look, that polish, just like we're seeing on LinkedIn with content.
00:03:59
Ken Freire
Yeah. and And, you know, to give my my friend credit, he's like, oh, I use AI for process stuff and little things here and there, but not for like the actual design. He's like, I'm doing 100% of the design work.
00:04:11
Ken Freire
And I was like, that's awesome. You know, again, design is not my my world, so i I can't speak into it. But I know how much you need AI these days and how much AI is going to change the landscape, but we also need the human touch.
00:04:25
Ken Freire
So it's like, how do you bring the human element into all industries, including graphic design, which can be affected the most? You know, we were even talking about Coca-Cola, right?
00:04:35
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:04:35
Ken Freire
They just came out with their their new commercial and it was all done by AI. All those videographers, right, who thought that they had a cush job, now their job is on the line.
00:04:46
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:04:46
Ken Freire
mean So like there you're going to need to pivot depending on the knowledge-based work that you're in.
Maintaining Thought Leadership with AI
00:04:53
Dan Sanchez
Yep. And you could tell this is the second year they've come up with an AI video for Coca-Cola with, you know, they're, they had the same, it's funny. They use the same song as they use last time of like, like as if they're anticipating Santa coming and Coca-Cola trucks are rolling into these little snowy towns.
00:05:10
Dan Sanchez
This time they had a lot more like animals, but anthropomorphized kind of like a Zootopia where they're all like people, animals, you know, they're seeing the trucks coming, getting exciting.
00:05:17
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:05:19
Dan Sanchez
Last year was a little cringy. It was like, not quite right. This year, you're like, okay, that just looks like a nice little commercial that kids would enjoy. And there's the animals don't talk, but they have sound effects to them sometimes. And you're like, huh, it's come a long way in one year.
00:05:34
Dan Sanchez
Everything's looking good. And next year it'll get even better. So we're not going back. And if Coca-Cola is able to push it, I think next year we'll have a bunch more of it across mediums, across graphic design, across written contexts.
00:05:46
Dan Sanchez
But what does that mean for expertise? Because that's what people are here for. That's what I think people need to lead with moving forward around thought leadership. But how do you stand out when Everyone's able to like ask ChatGPT, and ChatGPT can give you PhD-level answers. right i mean We both have a friend, yeah Kenny Ortiz, who was a guest on this podcast talking about the theology of AI, who is said and told at least told me that he's like, hey, like it it can hit PhD-level work.
00:06:22
Dan Sanchez
because he's tested it and compared it against his own papers. And he's like, oh my gosh, like it can recreate what I've created in a matter of moments. Something that took me weeks to put together and research and document.
00:06:35
Ken Freire
Yeah. You know, I was thinking about this last night as as we were preparing. And one of the differences that makes genuine expertise, that the kind of authority that we're looking for, and the thing that just looks polished is personality.
00:06:51
Ken Freire
right like And that's one thing ChatGPT can't you know imitate is is someone's personality. no matter No matter how much you try to prompt it, I'm starting to realize, oh, I could pick up when something's written by ChatGPT because it it uses certain literary devices that most people don't use.
00:07:09
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:10
Ken Freire
our And if they do use them, it's seldom, not like every single sentence. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, please. start changing it up a little bit, start adding your own thoughts into it just to break up the the monotony of how it writes.
00:07:19
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:07:24
Ken Freire
But I think personality is going to be the one of those things that we all have that Chatsubut can't imitate.
00:07:34
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. ChatGPT can mirror personality. And I think some of the tells right now like are obvious, with especially with writing, and LinkedIn whines about it all the time. Oh, the MDash. you know And it's true.
00:07:44
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:07:45
Dan Sanchez
like It really freaking loves MDashes. And only only good writers use MDashes. So you can always tell if you get an email and it has an MDash in it, you're like, yeah, that was a ChatGPT response. that's cool. I got a text message from somebody the other day and I'm like, yeah, that was a chat GPT response. I can tell cause you used an M dash and a semicolon. Cause who uses semicolons unless you were the English school.
00:08:06
Dan Sanchez
It's just, so
00:08:08
Ken Freire
I used to set my colons.
00:08:12
Ken Freire
and
00:08:12
Dan Sanchez
M dash is really the tell semicolon. Sometimes I'm like,
00:08:15
Ken Freire
I'll tell you what, I never picked up on people like in in books and stuff like that, that people would use in MDash until the flurry of MDashes are being used. Now I actually see them all over the place in books.
00:08:26
Dan Sanchez
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:08:27
Ken Freire
I was like, oh, yeah.
00:08:27
Dan Sanchez
No good writers have been using them forever.
00:08:30
Ken Freire
And I was like,
00:08:30
Dan Sanchez
I knew what it was for a certain things. As a graphic designer, I had to use M dashes because the editors would always knock me if I didn't in certain situations. So I knew what the M dash and the M dash were.
00:08:41
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:08:41
Dan Sanchez
But most people are like, what's an M dash? But I think those tells will go away. As AI gets smarter, you can coach it out.
00:08:46
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:08:48
Dan Sanchez
And it it does have certain writing mechanisms that uses. And depending on whether you're asking for a song or LinkedIn post or a certain style, it uses them all the time.
00:08:58
Ken Freire
yeah
00:08:59
Dan Sanchez
Truth be told, you know, it's something it uses all the time or it's like different little transition phrases. There's common ones that uses frequently and.
00:09:06
Ken Freire
Yeah. Like the not just this, but this.
00:09:09
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. And it uses those, but those will go away and it'll be harder and harder to tell.
00:09:11
Ken Freire
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:14
Dan Sanchez
And I think the thing that people need to focus on, the thing that people need to change is The big difference for coming up with content, and this is the topic really, is how do you actually stay authentic when it's so easy to create content with AI?
The Human Element in Content Creation
00:09:30
Ken Freire
yeah
00:09:30
Dan Sanchez
And to me, the big difference is you shouldn't allow ChatGPT to do your thinking for you. You actually have to feed it something. Otherwise, all your content, all your expertise is based on what ChatGPT can come up with, which doesn't help you stand out when everybody else is doing the same thing.
00:09:53
Ken Freire
Yeah, you know, something that you and I were talking about was indistinguishability, right? Where like the the lines are going to be blurred so much that you need to figure out how to stand out. And that's authenticity.
00:10:05
Ken Freire
And one of the things that I realized even yesterday when I was talking my friend, there was a couple of other of us that were talking. It was a homeschooling event. And the way they talked about using AI was, oh, just prompt it.
00:10:17
Ken Freire
It's going to give you the information and then just copy and paste that into whatever social media platform. I even had someone talk tell me, they're like, have you noticed how someone can sample your voice and your face and just start doing a video podcast that way? You don't even need to do the work.
00:10:33
Ken Freire
And I'm like, yeah, but it's going to sound so robotic. It's going to miss the nuances of what it means to be human.
00:10:37
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:10:39
Ken Freire
And your expertise needs nuances that it won't actually pick up. So I'm like, it it you're going to tell and people are going to walk away from it.
00:10:49
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. The amount of people I see pushing this whole faceless YouTube thing as the next like entrepreneur trap.
00:10:58
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:10:58
Dan Sanchez
It's like, I see it all over the place right now. It's like the big thing. Like, Oh, you can make a faceless YouTube channel, make lots of money. Oh, my, my cousin just started one. Yeah. I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's the new bait and switch people are pulling.
00:11:09
Dan Sanchez
Cause you know, it used to be drop shipping. It used to be, affiliate marketing. It's like, it just kept, it's like the new flavor of the year. Faceless YouTube channel.
00:11:17
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:11:17
Dan Sanchez
as if it's the easy way to make money. I'm like, yeah, it's the easy way to become a commodity real fast.
00:11:22
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:11:23
Dan Sanchez
Have you ever gone to YouTube looking for product reviews and hit a YouTube? Like this this was even before AI, but somebody would essentially find like B-roll of like generic products and then like put in the product photos review as if it's a product review and then just have a voiceover.
00:11:28
Ken Freire
Yeah. ye
00:11:38
Dan Sanchez
I hate those.
00:11:39
Ken Freire
I was.
00:11:39
Dan Sanchez
I like specifically, I'm like scanning to make sure it's not that.
00:11:40
Ken Freire
people
00:11:42
Dan Sanchez
as soon as I know it's that amount, I'm looking when I'm looking for product reviews on a new grill or something substantial or camera, whatever. Like I'm looking for real people sitting there with like five of the things and be like, hey yeah, yeah, bought all five and this is what I've learned. I don't even care.
00:11:57
Dan Sanchez
Like, like what if they're an expert or not? I just want to know it's a real person that actually bought the thing, used it and giving me their hot take on which one's better and why.
00:12:07
Ken Freire
what Why is your reviewer a redneck? You're like, we're doing grails. Okay. You have. Yeah.
00:12:11
Dan Sanchez
Because I was thinking of barbecue grills, I guess. I don't know.
00:12:14
Ken Freire
yeah
00:12:14
Dan Sanchez
I was in the mode. You tell I've seen a few.
00:12:20
Ken Freire
you have
00:12:20
Dan Sanchez
And I prefer that.
00:12:21
Ken Freire
so
00:12:21
Dan Sanchez
Why? Because it's authentic. It's a real person who's probably grilled a lot and has an honest take on which barbecue grill is going to be the thing.
00:12:29
Ken Freire
yeah
00:12:30
Dan Sanchez
But I think we're all looking for that. So in an age where ai is creating content like crazy and everyone's trying to automate it, everyone's trying to fake it, everyone's trying to come up with a face this channel, like authenticity really starts to matter.
00:12:46
Dan Sanchez
But the question becomes, how then do you actually lead with authenticity? Yeah.
00:12:53
Ken Freire
Yeah, I mean, i i think we we talked about it earlier a little bit, but one of those areas is don't let AI do the thinking for you. And I think this was like early on, you gave me this great tip, Dan, when I was like, how should I prompt ai You're like, just verbally vomit.
00:13:11
Ken Freire
with AI, just put your microphone on and just start talking. Let it capture the way you say things. Let it capture your your voice, your style, all that stuff. And man, I've just been doing that more and more.
00:13:22
Ken Freire
And all of a sudden, ChatGPT is just cat capturing that. Like, oh, can the way I communicate is a certain way, right?
00:13:26
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:13:29
Ken Freire
And I told that, like, here's my framework of how I typically communicate.
00:13:30
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:13:33
Ken Freire
But man, that has been a massive game changer for for my messaging to stay authentic.
00:13:40
Dan Sanchez
One of the things I think a lot about is this movie that I feel like is like one of the best pictures I've ever seen of like the difference between AI and human knowledge.
00:13:50
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:13:50
Dan Sanchez
It's this scene from Good Will Hunting with Will, like this genius boy prodigy who knows so much and he's like become a math prodigy. But he's actually a genius on like pretty much every topic.
00:14:01
Dan Sanchez
Like his girlfriend's pre-med and she's got to write this like science paper. He's like, what do you got to write about? Let me. And he goes and knocks it out in like 15, 20 minutes, like writes the whole paper. Once he finds out what topic she has to write on, he turns it in.
00:14:13
Dan Sanchez
She's like, I actually have to learn this. He's like, yeah, but we need to go out.
00:14:16
Ken Freire
yeah
00:14:17
Dan Sanchez
But he's, he, he tears his counselor's life apart just without even knowing much about him. And then his counselor is sitting down to confront him on a park bench in the scene. And he's like, well, you don't know crap, man.
00:14:31
Dan Sanchez
you you If I asked you about art, you could tell me everything about Michelangelo, like his life's work, him and the Pope, political aspirations, but you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.
00:14:45
Dan Sanchez
I could ask you about love and you'd probably quote me a sonnet, but you don't know what it's like to actually be truly vulnerable with a woman. I could ask you about war. And you you might quote me Shakespeare, but you've never actually had to hold a friend while he's dying on the battlefield looking to you for help.
00:15:06
Dan Sanchez
You know a lot, but you really don't know anything. And I'm like, that's like the best picture of AI. AI knows everything. It's been trained on all the knowledge, but it actually hasn't experienced anything.
00:15:18
Dan Sanchez
Nothing.
00:15:19
Ken Freire
yeah
00:15:19
Dan Sanchez
Zero. And that's a big freaking difference when it comes to like AI's expertise versus anybody listening here.
00:15:30
Dan Sanchez
You've actually been through some schools of hard knocks. You've actually had to experience some pain in some things to come to the expertise you've had. And that I think is going to be a competitive advantage later on.
00:15:41
Ken Freire
Yeah. You know, a few weeks ago, we, uh, my wife, my family and I, I have four kids at the time of this recording. We hiked a mountain. It's a small mountain. It was in the Smokies.
00:15:51
Dan Sanchez
So you have four kids?
00:15:53
Ken Freire
What?
00:15:53
Dan Sanchez
Four kids?
00:15:55
Ken Freire
I said at the time, well, five. One is still in the room, okay?
00:15:57
Dan Sanchez
You got one on the way, bro.
00:15:59
Ken Freire
I got one other way.
00:15:59
Dan Sanchez
It's it's already here.
00:16:00
Ken Freire
It'll be here in like four weeks, five weeks.
00:16:03
Dan Sanchez
That's five kids in my book. Over the womb.
00:16:05
Ken Freire
Five kids, five kids. Four kids on this side of, i don't even know how you say it properly. of the womb of her body.
00:16:12
Dan Sanchez
of the wo
00:16:15
Ken Freire
But what I was saying is we were hiking a mountain, right? And there were they were like struggling, but we got to the top and they saw these beautiful views and like, wow, we made it. What's the elevation, right?
00:16:25
Ken Freire
They're like, it was like 2,400 something, you know? was It was insignificant if you ever climbed the Rockies, right?
00:16:30
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. yeah
00:16:32
Ken Freire
But they felt really accomplished. So then fast forward a day later, we're just looking through some pictures that my wife and I have done and my kids are looking at it and they are like, whoa, but what mountains are those?
00:16:44
Ken Freire
And I'm like, oh, those are the Rockies. That's how it's peak. Mommy and daddy have hiked those. And they're like, whoa, how high is that? I'm like, well, that's about 14,000 feet. And they're like, and they're like what, we just climbed 2,400, you did 14,000? That's amazing. Like their mind was blown and they had some little bit of experience of what it took.
00:17:06
Ken Freire
But then when they saw that picture, they're like, I could see the picture, kind of what you were talking about. Like they see the picture, they see the thing, but they've never experienced a fourteen or They have a slight glimpse of it, but they are still like, we need it. The next little so next statement blew me away. My son was like, we need to go hike that mountain.
00:17:25
Ken Freire
And I'm like, yes, I want you to experience what it feels like to actually look at it.
00:17:25
Dan Sanchez
The human edge.
00:17:30
Ken Freire
Not just from this camera, this beautiful picture, but like you need to experience
Real-Life Experience vs AI Content
00:17:35
Ken Freire
it yourself.
00:17:35
Ken Freire
as we think about this, how does experience actually do the work that gives people credibility AI can't replicate?
00:17:46
Dan Sanchez
Experience starts to matter because in order to execute AI, you need to be able to and discern and understand what to pick. Because AI can come up with answers real fast, but it's not always right, or it's generic, or it's just not, you you can just low, if you're an expert, you know it's not going to be what you need.
00:18:09
Dan Sanchez
And so there's a big difference between someone like me who's been in marketing, eating and breathing it and living it, evaluating a marketing plan from AI, than someone who doesn't know anything about marketing, asking ChatGPT for a marketing plan.
00:18:22
Ken Freire
Yeah. Okay.
00:18:22
Dan Sanchez
I could discern the difference. Other people can't discern the difference. Shoot, I just came up with a song on Suno the other day. ChatGPT wrote the song, came up with the prompt. I plugged it to Suno.
00:18:34
Dan Sanchez
It's good. I like it. But honestly, it's probably... like I could post it on TikTok or on iTunes. It's not going to take off because... i don't I don't even have the vocabulary to describe even what it is. Like, ChatGPT had to write it for me.
00:18:46
Dan Sanchez
I like it, but like it's just not going to hit the same for people. It's not going to resonate in the same way. And that's going to make a difference. The other big part is people buy from people they trust.
00:19:01
Dan Sanchez
Recently, I had to go buy a pre-workout supplement. I put it had it in my mind. i was like, hey, I'm waking up early in the mornings. I like to work out first. I don't want to drink coffee or tea. it just takes too long to make. I just want it simple, caffeine, workout, bam.
00:19:14
Dan Sanchez
And so I was looking at pre-workouts. And I went to Walmart and was looking at all the different shelves. And there's like 30 different options. I'm like, oh my gosh. And they all look good. Coming back to that design point, like they're all, I mean, these are all designed by designers, but pretty soon, like that will be the problem we have with AI.
00:19:31
Dan Sanchez
All the content will look good. All the design will look good. Everybody's website will look posh. Shoot, it might, they probably all resonate too. Cause I can go do the research, find out what people's actual problems are and write the copy for it and the design. It'll all sound good.
00:19:44
Dan Sanchez
Just like I was looking at this whole shelf. and I, I couldn't decide which one was good. They all had good value props and I, I couldn't make up my mind. And then all of a sudden one jumped out at me it was because of a name on the, the container said Jocko. I'm like, Jocko, I know that name.
00:20:05
Dan Sanchez
That's something I've seen before. And I remember that was a Navy SEAL. Yeah, I'd heard him before on a few podcasts. I don't subscribe to him anywhere, but I'd heard him on a few guest episodes at different places.
00:20:18
Dan Sanchez
That Navy SEAL guy who's now a leadership author. And I bought that because I trusted it, because I knew something about him based on his experiences that I had heard him say on the podcast.
00:20:30
Dan Sanchez
I could discern something about him. And it wasn't about his, though his personality is fun, I didn't buy it because of his personality. And I think there's times for that. But for him, I bought it because his experience told me something about his values.
00:20:45
Dan Sanchez
which deep down I think is the real thing that's going to make the biggest difference for people who sell expertise, shoot for people who sell anything, is AI can't have values.
Fulfillment from Human Creativity
00:20:57
Dan Sanchez
And I looked at all those different containers at different pre-workouts, couldn't discern any of their values, couldn't trust any of their values. But because I knew this one was attached to a real person with real values based on real experience, I could actually go through and then believe and trust something. And I made the choice and I bought it and I've stuck with it ever since. I've come to found out that a lot of guys actually like Jocko's pre-workout.
00:21:19
Dan Sanchez
It's a popular one. But that experience stuck with me. And I'm like, huh, I think this is going to play out. I think this is going to happen to a lot of us. People are going to be looking for sources of truth that they trust.
00:21:33
Dan Sanchez
And when everybody sounds smart with AI, who can they trust? And I'm betting that it's going to be based on real people's stories, based on experiences that reveal values.
00:21:49
Dan Sanchez
Now, that's a lot. So let's kind of like unpack what that even means. Yeah.
00:21:53
Ken Freire
Yeah, absolutely. and And, you know, as we even talk about this, what we're talking about, these are like the core things that make humans better than machines, right? Like than AI. And this is the stuff that AI will never be able to replace.
00:22:06
Ken Freire
So, so far we've talked about like her personality, right? AI can't replace that. We talked about authenticity and we talked about experience and like all the values that we talked about.
00:22:16
Ken Freire
And as we unpack this, I want to come at it from a different, more philosophical worldview for a second. But I truly believe yeah you and I both are believers, right? we We love Jesus and he created us in the Imago Dei, right? This is the image of God. And when talk about this is that we are actually called to be creators.
00:22:36
Ken Freire
I truly believe all human beings are called to create and cultivate things Right. And that's something ai can't do. It can mimic it, but it can't actually create something like I just think about how many times I've I own real estate and I've had to fix things up. Right.
00:22:53
Ken Freire
When I've had to rebuild something, when I'm done, I'm like, man, I accomplished that. Same thing when I've i've written an awesome blog post. I'm like, right, man, that came out of my own mind.
00:23:05
Ken Freire
i've processed through it. I created something. And I find that humans, there's this immense fulfillment that we get from when we're creating and building something.
00:23:16
Ken Freire
And if we use AI to replace us in creating and cultivating, what we're gonna find as human beings is we're gonna feel really empty, man. We're gonna always be looking for the next best thing to find fulfillment in it. We're just like, I feel purposeless.
00:23:32
Ken Freire
And it's because you're not building. This is why I find like, i'm I'm going on a little rabbit trail, but this is why I find a lot of men who are feeling like, what am I called to do? I'm like, well, you're playing video games all day long. You're just watching sports all day long. You're not actually doing something to feel like you're purpose driven.
00:23:48
Ken Freire
But when you're building something, man, you're in it all day long. And I think this is the thing that makes us going to have an advantage over AI all the time. is that we are constantly called to be creating and cultivating and building.
00:24:03
Ken Freire
And if we're not doing that, man, we're going to find ourselves in a place where we feel like life is is empty and meaningless.
Leading with Authenticity
00:24:13
Ken Freire
But when we step into it man, you feel like you're fully alive.
00:24:16
Dan Sanchez
It's a big difference.
00:24:17
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:24:17
Dan Sanchez
And I think it's a major thing that separates out people who are just kind of like fiddling with ChatGPT and people who are creating, even if they have to just kind of give ChatGPT a rough draft.
00:24:18
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:24:29
Dan Sanchez
But if you're giving to it a rough draft based on truth, based on real experience, based on your core values, it's Then even if it's turning that into something and doing quite a bit with it, like that song I created, I it came up with, I was tired of there not being November music, lots of Christmas music, but I'm like, how come there's no November music?
00:24:46
Ken Freire
yeah You would.
00:24:48
Dan Sanchez
Like, come on, November is an awesome month. So I started making a whole album for it. And I started just coming up with different concepts for songs of like, i don't know, like an A story and a B story to every song, like the emotion, but what's actually happening and trying to walk out different things that I feel like are nostalgic for November.
00:25:06
Dan Sanchez
And it was a lot of fun. And the music was fun. But obviously, ChatGPT had to carry carry me quite a bit because I don't have an expertise in music. I don't even play an instrument. and i And I can't sing.
00:25:16
Dan Sanchez
So ChatGPT and Suna had to carry me. But still, it was fun because I was creating something unique. I was coming up with ideas for it to riff on. And I could probably experiment and do something farther with that. But I think...
00:25:31
Dan Sanchez
I think you have a good point. Like a big differentiator is people actually making things, even with AI, that are a reflection of what they know to be true and a reflection of their actual experience.
00:25:46
Ken Freire
Yeah. Well, and if you think about this, like I had this random thought last night too. i was like, someone created AI.
00:25:55
Dan Sanchez
Mm-hmm.
00:25:55
Ken Freire
Someone's AI is an AI daddy out there somewhere. Just kind of like I started, they started developing this thing and it's like they created. And like, if they didn't create this, we wouldn't be where we are today.
00:26:07
Ken Freire
right So I'm just like excited when I think about humans stepping into their God-given purpose of like go create, go build, go make things happen. Even if you're using AI, that's awesome.
00:26:20
Ken Freire
We as humanity have been using the tools and resources around us for millennia to advance society. And that's what we should be doing with AI as well. right But what I don't want people to do is think that AI can replace humans.
00:26:37
Ken Freire
Because here's here's here's another philosophical insight I've been thinking about. There is a stream of conscience or worldview that thinks we're just a clump of cells. It's just a whole bunch of neurons hitting our brains.
00:26:49
Ken Freire
We're kind of like in the matrix a little bit. That's how some people think about our world. So when they think about AI, they think, oh my gosh, it's the end of the world because AI can replace what all humans are doing.
00:27:01
Ken Freire
But there's other things that AI can never replace. For example, relationships. right? Like AI can't replace these deep, intimate relationships.
00:27:12
Ken Freire
And one of the ways that I have found that we have grown in deep, intimate relationships is through conflict.
00:27:18
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yep. 15.
00:27:18
Ken Freire
I know that sounds super counterintuitive, but like, if you can press through the conflict, you actually become better friends, right? And I mean, if we've, I've been married 14 years now, you've been married, what, 15, 16?
00:27:31
Dan Sanchez
fifteen
00:27:32
Ken Freire
Right. 15 years like there's been a lot of conflict in our marriages, but because we've pushed through, man, it's exciting. We're like, this is my best friend. we're We're excited to be with one another. We don't want anyone else.
00:27:42
Ken Freire
Right. And I will never be able to do that. And that sounds so counterintuitive because people run away from conflict. But like, that's the thing that helps us grow.
00:27:54
Dan Sanchez
So as you're listening to this, you're like, well, great. These are all things that separate us and make us different from AI. But then how does that help me as an expert? How does it help me as someone who wants to stand out from the crowd?
00:28:08
Dan Sanchez
And I think it helps you in a number of different ways. so
00:28:10
Ken Freire
Thank you.
00:28:10
Dan Sanchez
But the ones I want to talk about first are that it changes how you approach content. And we're going to be talking about that through the rest of this series, through the rest of this book series.
00:28:22
Dan Sanchez
about how to actually apply this practically. But I think it actually starts with that seed in the very beginning. like it has Everything you post on social media, everything you record on a podcast, everything that you're putting out there has to be uniquely from you, your thoughts, your wrestling, your your own experience.
00:28:42
Dan Sanchez
And if you don't have the experience, then you have to go get the experience. You can even do it as, you yeah even as you're trying to get the experience to become the expert, to become somebody who's actually gone and felt the pain of doing the thing.
00:28:55
Dan Sanchez
You could be posting about it and actually building authority around it, even as you're a student learning it. We're good into that. But that's why we're recording this episode is that there is a way to stand out from ai
00:29:08
Dan Sanchez
And we need to lean into it as much as possible because that's the only way we're to actually be able to stand out from those who are just prompting ChatGPT, even automating full machines to come up with a wave of content, a thousand posts a day because that's what they're doing.
00:29:24
Dan Sanchez
Lots of companies are being spun up all the time to come up with hundreds of podcasts an hour and then just split testing them to figure out which ones are the best ones. That's what you're up against. But there's something that AI can never do.
00:29:36
Dan Sanchez
It can never recreate you. It can never have your story. It can never have your experience. It can never have your particular set of values.
00:29:45
Dan Sanchez
And I think that's the advantage going forward. There's one last thing I want to talk tackle, and that is the idea of being authentic. We used to talk about this a couple of years ago. I used to see it on LinkedIn like all the time.
00:29:58
Dan Sanchez
And social media is like a broad culture thing. And I don't see it as much anymore. But when I used to hear authentic, people used to say like, Well, just be you. Just be you.
00:30:10
Dan Sanchez
And to me, that was like the worst advice. and Some mic people are like, people don't even know who they are. How are they supposed to just be them? Have you ever had any thoughts about that, about the advice on just be you and what it means then?
00:30:23
Dan Sanchez
And then like kind of what what it means today is we've been reflecting on all these different things that make us different from Yeah.
00:30:29
Ken Freire
Yeah. So to give some some context, i was born and raised in New York City. So whenever I heard just be you, it was like, just be super aggressive, super assertive. Just tell them to speak your truth. And it doesn't matter if you hurt that person.
00:30:43
Ken Freire
Right. They just need to hear it that way. And I was like, yeah, that works for some people. But I hurt a lot of people that way, too. Right? and And sometimes people take that, it'd just be you. I'm like, I'm just gonna be whatever I want, whoever I want, and not thinking about society and how that could affect others.
00:31:02
Ken Freire
So when I think about just be you, actually don't like that language, right? But I'm always thinking about to be authentic is to be someone who can truly show that they're not perfect, right? There's vulnerabilities, but they also are humble enough to say, and know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at.
00:31:21
Ken Freire
And everything I do is to help others, not to build myself up. And if you started to think about writing content in that way, all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, cool. It's not about me.
00:31:32
Ken Freire
It's about how do I help someone else? I think that's one way to be authentic. what do What do you think, Dan?
00:31:39
Dan Sanchez
Just a while ago, I had a revelation that it's like being authentic isn't based on your emotions. i think And I think that's what a lot of people think and being authentic is.
00:31:44
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:31:49
Dan Sanchez
Like, I'm just being me, but they're really just giving full vent to their emotions. Kind of like you were talking about your your new york's year yeah rough New York City style attitude was really just, well, you had an an emotional bent towards just being angry and being combative, right?
00:32:04
Dan Sanchez
And that's what a lot of people think being true to you is. Being true to you is how you're feeling in the moment. But I'm like, no, no. Being true to you is being true to the core values that you actually believe in. That's what authenticity actually looks like.
00:32:18
Dan Sanchez
What do you believe? Why do you believe it? And then tell me the story of how you came to that conclusion. Act out of that belief. Have faith in that belief.
00:32:30
Dan Sanchez
And I think that's what authenticity actually looks like rather than just giving giving way to your emotions. In that case, I'm like, please don't be authentic. If you're an authentic jerk, please stop doing that. I'd rather you be a fake nice person.
00:32:45
Dan Sanchez
Yes, let's be fake all day, all day. If you have to pretend to be Captain America, please do so. do not Do not be a punk. Do not be mean. I'd much prefer fake.
00:32:57
Dan Sanchez
But that's not what being fake is. Being fake is an acting out acting in incongruence with your core values or when you're shifting your core values from one group to another.
00:33:09
Dan Sanchez
That's what real fakeness is.
00:33:12
Ken Freire
Yeah. and And you know where I can see the challenge on like LinkedIn, for example, is everything does feel fake sometimes. Everybody's always congratulating. Everybody's like, that's a great idea. I'm like, no, it's not. That's a terrible idea.
00:33:25
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:33:26
Ken Freire
You know, and that's where I love just living out your core values and just saying, hey, you know what? I disagree. And there's an appropriate way, right, to disagree in on LinkedIn, for example. And I've learned that there's an appropriate way.
00:33:39
Ken Freire
Versus like X, man, that's a dumpster fire. people That's like New York all day long. An X of how people disagree with with one another. So I love that concept of just like, man, be congruent with your values.
00:33:54
Ken Freire
for
Teaser: Defining Core Values
00:33:54
Ken Freire
many people, they don't know their core values. And that's what we want to talk about next is like, how do you find your core values, especially when the world is telling you one thing and you're trying to use ChatGPT to sparse it out?
00:34:12
Ken Freire
But there's a great way that I've used it in the past of just trying to figure out how how I determine core values. I know Dan has a framework. And in the next episode, that's what we're going to talk about. And we're going to about a bunch of other things, but like truly figuring out what are the driving desires and motivations? What are the values that really help you to be who you're called to be? Not fake, but truly authentic.