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As Chaos Grows Learn to Lead Through the Noise
393 Plays19 hours ago
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez and Ken Freire tackle the often cringe-inducing but crucial topic of thought leadership in the age of AI. They explore why the term gets a bad rap, how to redefine it with authenticity, and why standing out is more important now than ever in a sea of AI-generated, commodity content. They map out a practical path from professional to authority and argue that the world desperately needs more people willing to bring clarity, not confusion.
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
Resources Mentioned:
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/
Timestamps:
- 00:00 – Why thought leadership is awkward but necessary
- 01:00 – Defining authentic authority in the age of AI
- 03:00 – Why you can’t call yourself a thought leader
- 04:00 – Redefining thought leadership as deliberate influence
- 06:30 – Is there even room for more thought leaders?
- 08:00 – Why clarity is the antidote to content overload
- 10:00 – How Hormozi simplifies marketing for real impact
- 13:00 – The real path: from professional to expert to contributor to authority
- 18:00 – Why positioning as a student builds stronger authority
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
00:00:05
Dan Sanchez
In the last couple of episodes, we've gone deep into how there's becoming a problem when it comes to AI and how there's becoming a sea of commodity content. And even I'd say the bar for commodity content has gone up because AI is pretty good, but it's made it a lot harder to stand out. And while we've kind of beat that to death and we've talked about it, we've made a strong point that everybody now needs to become an expert, but not just an expert, but a very authentic, a real authority.
00:00:35
Dan Sanchez
But it brings us to a question, Ken, where we have to talk about this topic. It's a topic where a word, the phrase for this topic has become a little bit taboo. Like people don't like talking about It's become a bit cringy.
00:00:47
Dan Sanchez
But secretly, everybody wants it. Everybody talks about it behind closed doors, even though it publicly everybody slams it. So we're going to have to wade into the water and it's going to be uncomfortable. So bear with us as we get into it.
00:01:00
Dan Sanchez
We're going to talk about the topic of thought leadership.
00:01:04
Ken Freire
Yes.
00:01:04
Dan Sanchez
You can feel people cringing right now. So welcome back to the AI-driven marketer. Again, we are on a series. We are on a mission to create a book with a podcast episode by episode for the book, Own the Show, where we're talking about how to become an authentic authority in the age of AI.
00:01:22
Dan Sanchez
Not only using AI, but digging deep into the real things that make us truly human. Finding out how to actually leverage the things AI will never be able to do so that we can use our AI skills and those unique attributes to really stand out in this this coming wave of commodity content and AI content.
00:01:42
Dan Sanchez
So let's dive into the awkwardness, the the discomfort of this topic of thought leadership. Now, Ken, I come from a background of B2B marketing. and We've been talking about this topic for a long time.
00:01:54
Dan Sanchez
This topic's been published on.
00:01:55
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:01:56
Dan Sanchez
The coin was turned back in the nineties. Where do you sit with this topic? Is this something you've thought about in the coaching consulting world? Is this, is this even a phrase thrown out?
00:02:06
Ken Freire
Yeah. I don't know if they would say they want to be the thought leader, but there's always like the vex expert, the guru, the like the if you were like in the academic field, right?
00:02:14
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:02:16
Ken Freire
You wanted to have the PhD, not just a doctorate.
00:02:18
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:02:19
Ken Freire
You wanted to have the PhD because you wanted to stand out as the individual who people look to as the etc echelon of like expertise.
00:02:31
Ken Freire
And that's what I think about when I think about thought leaders.
00:02:34
Dan Sanchez
Do you think it's a cringe term?
00:02:36
Ken Freire
You know, at first I was like, what does that even mean? And then when I started getting into it, I was like, oh, how can I be known as a thought leader? But then I started wading into the thought i started wading into the waters of B2B and it's like, oh I can't call myself a thought leader because that's like you calling yourself like the number one best like restaurant in the world.
00:02:46
Dan Sanchez
don't know it goes.
00:02:51
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:59
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:02:59
Ken Freire
Like you can't do that.
00:03:01
Dan Sanchez
It's the number one rule of thought leadership is that you can never call yourself a thought leadership or a thought leadership. You can't call yourself a thought leader. That's like the number one rule of thought leadership.
00:03:13
Dan Sanchez
Number two rule is the same. Don't call yourself a thought leader, right? So it's cringy in that way. It's cringy because enough people have added it to their bio and LinkedIn or have maybe even said them said that about themselves up on stage, which you're like, ooh.
00:03:31
Dan Sanchez
Hi, everybody. I'm the biggest expert. You're like, stop it. So it's only something somebody else can call you. But is it fair game to like want to be it?
00:03:44
Dan Sanchez
But maybe we have to define what it is to in order to actually figure out if it's okay for you to pursue it and become one. How would you define it?
00:03:54
Ken Freire
Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. So I would say as a thought leader, as someone who has authority in a certain field and brings original, either original thoughts or is able to contribute more in a certain field.
00:04:08
Dan Sanchez
Interesting. I think I have a simpler definition and it might, it might be too simple.
00:04:11
Ken Freire
Oh.
00:04:12
Dan Sanchez
So we'll have to see, but I, I kind of take it at face value. It's, it's thought leadership. It's leading the thinking of a specific group of people. And it's,
00:04:22
Ken Freire
Oh, yours sounds way cooler than mine. Mine was too academic.
00:04:27
Dan Sanchez
and i And I specifically take leadership, which is a definition problem in itself. And I kind of like, what's the definition? Like it leadership is influence. I take it a step farther. I'm like, no, leadership is deliberate influence because you can accidentally influence people.
00:04:40
Dan Sanchez
And I'm yeah, it's not leadership. But if you're deliberately leading the thinking of others, That is thought leadership. So you could have you could be a thought leader within your own company, right?
00:04:53
Dan Sanchez
If you become the expert on AI and everybody kind of knows it and everyone's going to you for advice on it, are you not leading the thinking of others in your company?
00:04:54
Ken Freire
Bye.
00:05:01
Dan Sanchez
You are kind of a little, like a miniature thought leader, a micro thought leader in that that sphere. You could do it in a company, in a region, in a town. It could be worldwide.
00:05:12
Dan Sanchez
It just depends on the influence of that that leadership taking place.
00:05:16
Ken Freire
You know, it's interesting, like if if you take that same philosophy, you probably have a thought leader within your friend group, right? Like who's that one person who's always leading the ideas?
00:05:23
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yes.
00:05:26
Ken Freire
You and I have mentioned him already a few times, but Kenny Ortiz in our group sometimes are like, hey, Kenny, what do you think about this?
00:05:30
Dan Sanchez
you yes
00:05:32
Ken Freire
Because he's the most well-versed of a lot of things. And then Brooks chimes in and Brooks is like, they both go at it. And I'm the comedic relief. So...
00:05:43
Dan Sanchez
So there's multiple types of leaders, but a thought leader is, I'd say is a fairly common leader. There are lots of thought leaders today because of social media, because of the internet, it's made it very easy for a lot of people to essentially get a platform around their thinking.
00:05:59
Dan Sanchez
And of course, there's it's it's a lot different than what leadership used to be. So I'd actually say like thought leadership's even become more prevalent than just normal leadership because a normal leader, when they're with you and in in the physical space, there's like a whole different leadership presence, if you will.
00:06:16
Dan Sanchez
But now with social media, like a lot of leaders are essentially just thought leaders. And I think that's okay. And while the terms become cringy, I'm like, yeah, but there's not, we might call it an authority. We might call it a bunch of different things. And I'm like, it's still kind of the most appropriate term to me. And i even though it's become cringy, I'm like, i don't know how to get away from the term.
00:06:36
Dan Sanchez
The term's still useful.
00:06:37
Ken Freire
Yeah, I think it definitely is useful. But I think there comes another subsequent problem, right? Because even if you want to become a thought leader, Dan, the the bigger question to me is, do we actually need more thought leaders?
00:06:50
Ken Freire
Because it sounds like it seems like there's already a lot of thought leaders out there. I can think of any industry and I'm like, oh, I follow that guy or I follow this person or i follow that person. So how do you answer that question?
00:07:03
Dan Sanchez
There are a lot of people leading or at least attempting to lead the thinking of others, right? It's a noisy world.
00:07:09
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:07:11
Dan Sanchez
But I was reading a book a couple of years ago. It really struck me. It was a long book. I actually don't remember almost all of it. But there was one chapter right at the end that made it all worthwhile. it was a book called Homo Deus.
00:07:21
Dan Sanchez
I, and I can't really recommend the book to anybody. completely disagree with almost all his premises, Harari's. And, but there was one line in the very back of the book that he's like, there's going to come a time when there's going to be mass censorship and it's not going to be applied in the way that it was done in Russia, where they were trying to limit information.
00:07:41
Dan Sanchez
Instead, it's going to go in the other direction. There's going to be mass censorship by way of an overwhelming amount of information.
00:07:49
Ken Freire
Mm.
00:07:50
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, ooh, I remember, I think I listened to the audio book, but I remember writing it down to the point where I've like blogged it enough times and I remember what it is now. And was like an overwhelming amount of information.
00:08:01
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, man, this is completely happening right now. And it's only going to continue happening with AI. In fact, no matter what opinion you have, there's always another alternate opinion claiming fake news, misinformation, like all this kind of information where it's like information wars out there all the time.
00:08:19
Dan Sanchez
And because of that, I think... We're creating situations where people are craving clarity. And I don't know how else to find that kind of clarity across all these different topics without leaning on the expertise and authority of actual people.
00:08:35
Dan Sanchez
Because AI will be able to go do it, but there's always going to be ways for people to manipulate the AI. And I think the shortcut people have always had that we'll continue to have is leaning on specific voices in different fields.
00:08:48
Dan Sanchez
And it'll be different for different areas of our life, but like there will be like, there's a few voices you listen to on, uh, on Christianity. There's a few voices we probably both listen to on like fitness or on business, right?
00:08:54
Ken Freire
yeah
00:08:58
Dan Sanchez
Alex Armosi has definitely become one of those people who's leading the thinking of others on the topic of business and marketing and sales and so many other things. So I think that's why we need more thought leaders is because there's all this noise happening all the time and we need help cutting through the noise on so many different levels, even in very, very niche categories.
00:09:23
Dan Sanchez
So that's my justification.
00:09:23
Ken Freire
Yeah, and you know, what what's interesting is our you know, the last episode we were talking about core values, right? And for you to stand out, you need to know your core values. And when you know your core values, you actually are able to become a better thought leader because what you bring to the table is clarity to a certain group of people.
00:09:42
Dan Sanchez
Yep. Yeah.
00:09:43
Ken Freire
And that's exactly what we need. I think people like Alex Hermosi, the reason why he's become so popular, one of the reasons is he just brings a lot of clarity and simplicity to the problem of marketing and sales.
00:09:58
Ken Freire
Where so many times people are like, have this weird, complicated funnel. He's like, no, no, no. There's only a few levers you can pull. Pull those levers. Stop making excuses. Just pull those levers. I'm like... Okay, he's right. like There's no way around it.
00:10:11
Ken Freire
But that's why I think we still need more people out there who bring clarity, not confusion.
00:10:19
Dan Sanchez
Hermosi is a great example because business has been written about. I've read hundreds of marketing books, hundreds and hundreds of them, listening to them, reading them, talking about I've done hundreds of podcasts with VPs of marketing and some of the best tech companies which hire some of the best talent.
00:10:25
Ken Freire
you.
00:10:37
Dan Sanchez
And still after reading Hermosi and listening to some of his videos on how to do marketing, I'm like, this is a better way. This is a more simple way. He's actually taken something very complicated and simplified it down to the point that it's easier to explain. And now I use it when I'm teaching marketing to others who are getting into into marketing for the first time. I'm like, Hermosi made it easy. Here's here's a grid.
00:10:57
Dan Sanchez
Here's how to think about it. It's not perfect, but it's the best starting point I've ever seen in my life. And I've read all the books. I got the degrees. This one was better. And I always think there's room for improvement on these things. It's almost like you can always make the education better. And I think that's what thought leaders do is they, they're not only do they simplify things, but they also do a good job of curating things and pulling out. It's like, Oh, well I, I came up with this model, but this other thing was actually addressed by this other person over here. Let me explain it to you. And they curate some of the best things that they've found from others.
00:11:28
Dan Sanchez
And I just think we need more of that. Like how often have you gotten stuck somewhere that no one's written a book for? or no one's come up with a really good answer for?
00:11:39
Ken Freire
All the time. It's fascinating. The reason why i say all the time, because there there are things that I get stuck on that I'm like, how do i do this better? And I start reading books. And i'm I'm kind of OCD about this, right?
00:11:50
Ken Freire
Where when I have a problem stuck in my head, i just start ferociously reading to try to find a solution.
00:11:50
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:11:57
Ken Freire
And I find that there's not a lot of people who can make things clear. So I feel like I waste my time. And that's why I actually go to friends and go to people. I'm like, hey, who's a thought leader on this topic to like, you know, shortcut the the problem.
00:12:08
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:11
Ken Freire
So I think this is why we actually need more people out there who I can find. I mean, the other day i literally was thinking this, Dan. I said, there are so many thought leaders out there right now that aren't stepping up to the plate and doing the work that they need to, to be known.
00:12:30
Ken Freire
And because of that, no one's going to hear it and no one's going to find the solution or no one's no one's going to find freedom.
00:12:36
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:12:36
Ken Freire
Like they're stuck in their problem because someone's not stepping up to the plate. And I'm kind of like coming to my heart, like I want to find those thought leaders who are – sitting in the sidelines or sitting on the bench and saying, hey, you're there.
00:12:51
Ken Freire
You know you have the expertise. You know you have a calling. Let's rise up. Let's get you out of where you're at and show people what you have because people really need it.
00:12:58
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:13:00
Ken Freire
I need it. So let's get let's get out there, you know? But Dan, for you, you know We could talk a lot about the the need, and there are people who even heard me just now as talk about the need. Like, yes, I think I want to be a thought leader.
00:13:15
Ken Freire
We know it's cringy to call yourself a thought leader, but there is a pathway to become a thought leader. Walk us through that path of like, how do you do that? And and how does that even fit with AI?
00:13:27
Dan Sanchez
There is a path, but I will say it's it's somewhat counterintuitive. I think there are people who are truly, they're already quasi thought leaders out there. They're already an authority, and but they want to grow more.
00:13:39
Dan Sanchez
And I find that this path is a smoother way to gaining more influence. But again, it's counterintuitive. And I think the hard part, the reason why so many people reject information we're putting out there on the internet is because everyone's positioning themselves as a thought leader, as an expert, as the authority.
00:13:53
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:13:55
Dan Sanchez
And I have a weird way of avoiding all of that and actually becoming one but and saying the opposite.
00:14:02
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:14:02
Dan Sanchez
And I know it sounds weird, but I'm like, I'm going to lay out the path. And then in the subsequent chapters, I'm going to build out the case for why you actually don't position yourself as of the authority. You let other people do it.
00:14:14
Dan Sanchez
But the path always starts in the same place. Like in order to become a thought leader, you have to have a baseline. And I say, your're a base your baseline to authority is being a professional.
00:14:20
Ken Freire
yeah
00:14:24
Dan Sanchez
You have to be working in the industry, right? That's kind of like base level. Are you getting paid to do the thing? Like if you want to become a a thought leader in marketing, then how long, have you been a marketing for at least five years? Like you kind of have to put the work in order to be there for a while.
00:14:38
Dan Sanchez
and There's probably some ways to accelerate it if you're like a genius kid and you watch a thousand hours of YouTube videos and do some really cool stuff. It's possible. But generally, if you put in some time You have a base layer of what it means to be a professional in the area that essentially the kind of, are you already the kind of person that you want to influence?
00:14:55
Dan Sanchez
Makes it a lot easier to influence them because you've been there. but you have to go from just being a professional to the next step of being an expert. And to me, the difference an expert is usually knows all every, not everything there is to know, but close to it.
00:15:07
Ken Freire
Thank
00:15:11
Dan Sanchez
All the most basic things there is to know on a more specialty part of whatever that profession is. If it's marketing, then you've probably read and you want to be an expert. You've read everything on account-based marketing.
00:15:23
Dan Sanchez
You know, you've been in and out of all the different software platforms. You kind of, uh, have have listened to almost all the podcasts. You're like in tune with all the buzz around that particular aspect of marketing.
00:15:37
Dan Sanchez
That's what it means to be an expert. From there, you need to become a contributor. But you can't become a contributor you contributing unique ideas and thoughts and research until you know everything that's already been contributed, right?
00:15:50
Dan Sanchez
And it goes like that in academia too, right? You earn your bachelor's degree by studying all the basics.
00:15:52
Ken Freire
yeah
00:15:54
Dan Sanchez
So then you earn your master's degree, you narrow it down a little bit. And then you finally go into your PhD and start making a unique original contribution, <unk> just pushing that tiny little industry forward.
00:16:06
Dan Sanchez
But you can't do that until you know everything else that's been said. And that's the process in academia. I think that same process can happen just for you and your industry, but it doesn't have to be quite as exhaustive.
00:16:19
Dan Sanchez
You can find things that haven't been said or haven't been done or unique ways ways of twisting things without proving it to the nth degree to a panel of PhD judges that get to slam your your report. You can be like, well, nobody else is saying, and I've read all the books on the topic.
00:16:35
Dan Sanchez
so i'm going to start throwing out my two cents because I tried it differently and it's working. I'm starting to test it and I'm starting to test it with my clients. And I'm pretty sure I have a unique approach here that's working. All right. They can be contributions that way.
00:16:46
Dan Sanchez
And after you start contributing, you could start actually building your authority by becoming more prolific, by getting out there across more channels, and being more memorable in the way you're communicating it, making it simpler.
00:17:00
Dan Sanchez
Maybe even a little entertaining in order for people to remember you and consume more of your information so that you can actually influence their thinking more.
00:17:03
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:17:08
Dan Sanchez
So those are kind of like the four steps broadly. professional, becoming an expert, becoming a contributor, and then becoming an authority. In fact, the rest of this series, the rest of this book is going to be modeled after helping people progress through those essentially three steps, because we're just going to assume you're already a professional in your field.
00:17:27
Ken Freire
Yeah. And and Dan, why why, you know, as we think about owning the show, right, and and becoming this a thought leader, why do they need to go through every step? There's some people who might just say let's skip, you know, being an expert and a contributor and just be the instant authority with hacks and kind of being surface level.
00:17:47
Dan Sanchez
And that's where I think a lot of people get stuck. In fact, we're going to dive into the whole next episode on this one topic. So stay tuned for that. And I'm going to actually tell you that the secret to becoming an authority, it's not really a secret because I'm telling you here now, I hate, I kind of hate it when people say that it's like, not secret.
00:18:01
Ken Freire
Ha ha.
00:18:02
Dan Sanchez
But the way I found that's kind of counterintuitive to becoming an authority is positioning your yourself as a student or as somebody who's on a journey to discover or find a thing.
00:18:16
Dan Sanchez
That way, all the pressure of knowing everything falls off. You can actually do the honest work of sharing your learnings, of throwing out contributions without everybody slamming it because you're throwing it out as a student. Like, hey, I think I found something like this. I think I found something cool. you know And people can actually have an honest conversation. You can actually go on refining the idea that way.
00:18:43
Dan Sanchez
It changes the game completely. But again, I'm going to dive in deep into why even people who are already experts should reposition as students if they want to build their authority.
00:18:55
Dan Sanchez
And I'll give some tips and tricks on how to do that well in a way that actually builds the most authority over a period of like a year or two.
00:19:05
Dan Sanchez
So stay tuned for that one.