Build Brands People Feel with David Brier

All right, I never thought I'd say this, but I don't take notes on my sales calls anymore. And it's not because I'm getting lazy, it's because I'm using Otter.ai to take them for me. Otter.ai lets me invite an AI note-taker into all my sales calls, which not only transcribes them for me, but summarizes them, pulls out sales-specific insights, and syncs everything to my CRM. Oh, and it has an incredible AI chat feature that allows me to ask it any question I have about any meeting. Even if my note-taker wasn't in the meeting, I can simply upload any recorded conversation to Otter. The amount of time it personally saves me is absolutely ridiculous. And that's not even scratching the surface of what it can do for teams.

So I'm super excited to be partnering with them to give you an exclusive offer to get Otter.ai for sales today for free. Go to otter.ai, that's O-T-T-E-R dot A-I forward slash JBSales to get your free offer and start saving time and selling more effectively today. This is what I call the leveling the playing field strategy. In the wrong hands, even the latest technology means nothing. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. Now, today's conversation is a big one. It's with David Breyer.

Check this out. He is known by many as the brand father and is the recipient of 320 international awards and the presidential ambassador for global entrepreneurship medallion, who has generated over $9 billion in brand value across four decades for companies from startups to fortune and 500s, the best-selling author of The Brand Intervention and his new book, Rich Brand, Poor Brand. He is applauded by likes of The New York Times, best-selling author of Pitch Anything, and a multi-million dollar dealmaker, Oren Klaff, who looks like. He's also called a brand genius by the billionaire Grant Cardone. Not exactly my favorite person, but, you know, got some status there anyways. And the Shark Tank's Damon John, who I absolutely love, calls him the brilliance with branding.

This was a really interesting conversation because, obviously, David's been around the block for a while and he's got a really interesting and unique take on brand and how to build your own personal brand, but also how to build business brands. And as you all know, I think personal brand is one of the most important things that we should all focus on right now because it is something that AI cannot take away from us. And we dove into that a little bit later. Actually, you need to listen to the end of it because we had a really rich conversation about what I did with Guy Kawasaki. And if you haven't listened to what I did with Guy Kawasaki, Google John Barrows or Make It Happen Monday, Guy Kawasaki, and you'll see what I did with his AI thing, who brought up a really interesting conversation at the end.

But with David, we started with his origin story, as always. He's got a really interesting one. He grew up in Brooklyn, really diverse backgrounds. As far as wanting to be in art, Rembrandt, all these different influences that he had. And graphic design was really where he wanted to get into. But then he was really woken up by Herb Lublin, something like that, I think. Anyways, and it was about typography. And it really struck him about how the letters weren't just letters and typography wasn't typography, but it was telling a story. And that's really where he started to look at design differently from a strategic standpoint, not just to make it look pretty. And that dictated a lot of the rest of his career.

So we started his first company and we talked about some of the projects that really resonated with him that got him to realize the importance of a strategic, thoughtful approach to branding, not just following trends. And then we dove into some of the stuff about brand intervention in his book and some of the things that have changed now or that he would change as it relates to AI because he wrote it well before that and talked about how to be different and how to take risks, what his evaluation of a risk is and how being different is really the best way to stand out. My curiosity was about authenticity and values, right? Because I always wonder why it's so hard to be authentic. And, you know, I think this world is just yearning for authenticity, but everybody's so afraid to be authentic.

So we'll go into that a little bit and how to play the long game in this world of short term satisfaction here and how the best brands always play the long game. So we unpacked a lot here and he's got a lot of resources too. So I do recommend you check and take a look at his website and everything is going to be in the show notes. But I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. David Breyer, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you today? I am very, very, very good. I am ready to light this up so that so that give people like raise the bar so freaking high on a Monday morning that the rest of the week is like it's like their normal like 10 now must be jacked up to 13 for the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

I love it. Absolutely love it. Let's get people fired up. So before we get into this, because we're going to be talking about brand, personal brand, corporate brand, all that fun stuff and how important it is and how it relates to AI and all that fun stuff today. But I always love starting with origin stories and you have a very interesting one, my friends. I was doing some homework on you and you grew up in Greenwich Village. So you got some diversity in you as far as the exposure to it. But you started your career in art and you had a lot of influence, oil painting. And I saw that you were influenced by Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Talk to me about that because art was my first major in college.

I realized I wasn't very good at it very quickly. But I've always my mom's an artist. She's an art major. She taught art. So what hooked you on that and how did that? And then we'll talk about the influence that that had on brand. I mean, basically, all right. So born in Brooklyn, then, you know, at five, we moved to Queens, Drake of Queens. And that was just like a melting pot. I mean, well, Brooklyn was the ultimate melting pot of like, you know, on my block, I had I think I had Italian, Hungarian, Russian, black, white. And of course, of course, the the the inevitable bully. Literally, the guy's name was Butch. OK, you can't even you can't even write a script. Like you can't even say, really?

Yeah. The guy's name is Butch. Hated the son of a bitch. Really a bully on the corner. Anyway, after age five, we split left to move to Jamaica, Queens, more melting pot than it. Then at 15, move to Long Island, which was I did not dig Long Island culturally was such a departure from Brooklyn, Queens. And then and then at 20, I moved out to I said, that's it. I'm done. I'm moving to Manhattan. I'm starting my career. I was I basically loved art. I loved anything that captured my attention and imagination early on. And then I was also very good at and this is it's funny when I'm talking to artists or people who are involved in the arts or creative creativity of any sort. I said to me, the biggest skill was, you know, because people go, how the hell do you do that?

And I was like, well, I look at what I find something I like. And I now replicate it. I mean, and that's granted that there's a skill set there, but that's what it was for me. It was like, OK, I like that. I like the way that person's face is. I like the way that thing is. Or I might dig the way something smelled like that's amazing food. What is that? So things, music, sound, architecture. I was just very, very, very, very attentive to those things that made me stop and go, what the hell's that? You know, I noticed the stuff that was not the not the vanilla cookie cutter, same crap assembly line output. But the thing that building, that piece of art, that this, that this and that made me stop in my tracks and become engaged.

I love it. That's what I get, you know, cubism was the thing that broke my brain early ages as I remember looking at the paintings in a museum of fine arts here in Boston. And there was a couple, it was actually, it was MoMA in New York that has the, and I just looked at it and Les Mademoiselles de Magnifique is my favorite one. And I just was like, what? And I, even at a young age, it was like the whole idea of four dimensions on a two dimensional plane. I'm like, how did, what? And, and I, I just became fascinated. And again, it was around it. My dad was, even though he was an engineer, he was a musician, he played the saxophone. So, um, and my mom was an artist and I was just enamored with it.

Same thing. Like I, I catch things where I'm walking down the street and a building looks pretty cool. I'm like, Ooh, wait a minute. That's different. And so I think it goes back to anything being different, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons that I love like, um, like Billy Joel. I mean, I, I think that he's one of the timeless greats, you know, I mean, he weaved story and genre and if he needed to go do up, he would go all in on do up. If he needed to go in, you know, romantic ballot, he would do that. If he needed to do something from Vienna, he did, but he, you know, one can, from the outside could look and say, well, he was really chameleon like and yeah, but to me, the greatest creators, and this is true for whether someone's an entrepreneur, whether they're a salesperson, whether they are, um, a CEO, a vision with a vision or, or just in any capacity or chef, it's like, do you have the ability?

It's like, wait a second. I have, I have a hunch. Let me explore that hunch and let me, and I mean, let me win with it or fail with it, but let me learn something more about it and come out the other side. And to me, that is where, you know, and whether, and I think it's as true for athletes as it is for any, any endeavor. So that to me is, is kind of like the thing. It's like, do I have a hunch that X, Y, Z is possible? Let me explore that. And that's where it gets pretty freaking magical. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB Sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process.

It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. And I think it's also about breaking down the components of it as well and becoming a master at each one of them. I think that's what really enamored me about Picasso was that he didn't just become Picasso.

Like he mastered oils. And then after he mastered oils, he mastered acrylics. And it was all these different mediums that he, to your point, dove into all in to be curious about it, to be, and he would learn it and they'd be like, okay, I've learned that. I haven't, you know, you never master anything, but you know, I've learned it. Now I'm going to move to the next step. And then eventually let me bring all this stuff together. So it's like, it's like in sales and business, it's like in sales, you, yeah, you got to learn how to cold call to get, to get that meeting. And then in that meeting, you got to learn how to have those questions. And then, and if you learn each one of those really, really well, now you can put it all together and you don't have to try the tips, techniques, any of that stuff.

Cause you just are. Yeah. You got it. So you want, so fine art was kind of your, your, you know, starting point, but then I read about you run into upper and lowercase magazine with, uh, Herb, uh, Herb Lubellin. Yeah. Herb Lubellin. Lubellin. Talk to me. You, this is the quote that I, that I found was interesting. He said it was, his work was intelligent. It was beautiful. It was communicative. It wasn't just design for design sake. It was design that meant something. How did that looking at typography, right? Cause a lot of people look at it. I was like, whatever, that's just what, you know, word like letters on a page. How did that open your eyes up to the strategy around design versus just the beauty of it?

Okay. So basically here's, here's the, here's the thing. Um, and this is true and going to be useful for anybody. I don't care whether you're oriented to design or if you're not, if that's kind of like some, you know, some in some other arena and you don't get it. 98% of the stuff that's out that that's published today is shit. It's complete and utter shit in terms of the way it looks, the way it communicates and all that kind of stuff. Even to the point where right now when I am designing brands and working with, um, working with my clients, if they have an internal design team, I am shocked by the general design illiteracy that exists. I'm going, I mean, there's, there's the craft and the skill in terms of, okay, you need to know what's the, you know, I mean, like, like right here, you could, you could even see that that's a poster with a collection of like, of, of, of, of, uh, logos and stuff that I've done over the course of years and all that.

And a lot of that was done even before computer. So all that shit was done by him. But the bottom line is, is, so there's a, there's a design illiteracy in terms of the craft, but there's also even more to the point illiteracy in terms of, do you see that, that what you just did by you just approaching it in a very two dimensional, shallow way? Like I'm going to move this from here to here because quote unquote, it looks better close quote. And you now, do you realize you now have just covered X, Y, Z's face. And we now don't, don't know who or what we're even talking about. I mean, this is the kind of crap that I run into that I'm shocked about. So what ended up happening was I was going to be an illustrator.

So I took my, I took my artistic skills. I was going to be an illustrator. I was like, okay. And then I started before I formally went into my career, I, and knowing that I would be dealing with art directors and that, that, okay, I give my illustration to an art director and I cross my fingers and hope that that art director, uh, doesn't lose their mind and actually still has some sense of taste and doesn't now take what I've created and do something weird or screwy with it or whatever now. So that's, that's, that's a, that's the, I might as well buy a lottery ticket. It's like, I'd cross my fingers, man now. So I'm like, well, what? And then I saw you and I'll see, I was literally in an art class and I, it was sitting on a drawing table.

Never heard about this. And for those that don't know this, UNLC stands for upper and lower case. It was all about typography and the art of typography, which is letter forms and how they work and how they, how they tell a story, how they are used in design, et cetera. Good. So you start leafing through this and I'd never seen anything like this in my life. The craft, it's kind of like everyone has their virgin story. And what I mean by that is the first time they heard a piece of music that broke their cherry, right? Or that piece of food that they ate and they're like, oh my God, I've never tasted anything like this. That moment of awakening, right? Our eyes are open. Our taste buds are open.

Our ears are open. Bam. A whole new, a whole new world has just opened up. So that's basically what happened for me. I was like, holy shit, because every page I'm looking and seeing the deliberateness. I'm seeing the intentionality. I'm seeing there were no two letters that were just allowed to, okay, that's the way they were typeset or put done. I mean, nothing was left to chance. It's kind of like for the, for, for those that are into jazz, it's like, you know, people had that breakthrough, like Miles Davis kind of blue, right? It was like this, the, the, the pivotal, holy crap. What a, what a groove. It was, it was like a swagger. It was like, holy shit. Or a Sergeant Pepper's only hearts club band or pay your, you, anybody can pick whatever, whatever you pick or whatever.

And that is what happened. And then literally it was at that moment, I was like, pivot. If I can, if I can exercise that degree of control to make sure the outcome was what I actually wanted it to be so that the person getting it, you know, it's kind of like if you or I were opening up a restaurant and it's like, and we had like a number of, you know, you had, you had blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, people that it went through. And we were early in the assembly line. We had to have a lot of trust and confidence in those that were later on who finally said, yep, it's okay to go out to the customer and be presented to their table. And then, and we wouldn't end up like someone going, okay, yeah, we've given you a one-star review or whatever the hell.

So it's that kind of, it was that kind of thing that I wanted to basically take more responsibility and accountability for the outcome. So then out of school, you started your own company effectively, right? I think it was David Breyer Design Works. What was one of the projects early on that highlighted this strategy versus just design for design sake for you? Was there something, was there a couple of projects that you worked on where you're like, holy shit, strategy, like being thoughtful and strategic about this design versus just making something pretty made a massive difference? I have been blessed. Some people might say cursed, but that's, that's, that's their problem. It's not mine. Cause I, I, I, I mean, all I, all I can say, and I, and for those that are listening, they're like, who the hell is this Breyer guy?

It's like, look, I've been doing this shit for 45 years. Okay. Um, I, it's because I love what I do and I have, I did not go to business school, but yet I've actually helped clients, my clients, and I know this factually generate well over $9 billion of all, of all sizes, shapes. And, and, um, because I just, I'm insatiably curious. I'm insatiably interested. I'm insatiably like, why the hell not? You know, if someone gives me a cookie cutter thing that I've heard 20 times, 50 times, a hundred times before, and I'm like, and I don't feel excited about it. And I, and because I, and then I'm not, not like me, David Breyer, but me from the standpoint of, if I am a customer of this product, I put myself in that seat.

Is this going to move the dial? Is this going to, is this going to have an impact? If I were approached this way, would I love it? Would I laugh my ass off and say, you're a freaking genius? Like, like Bravo, how come more people in your industry aren't doing more shit like this? So, so that was the thing that I started with design, but I kept on going, okay. And I'll tell you that actually probably the pivotal point that, that broke the camel's back in school, in design school, in, in art, anytime you're taught that guys are, Hey, make it look beautiful, work on your portfolio, have said, you have a gorgeous looking portfolio that you can now show. What is that? What is that telling you and me?

That's telling you and me. Okay. The most important thing is our portfolio. Now, what did I learn in the real world? The most important thing was that person sitting fucking across from me who actually had a problem that they needed to solve. Okay. It wasn't, they didn't give a shit about my portfolio. And so what I found was I started to see that my meetings fresh out of school were, I wanted to get to showing my portfolio as much as possible. So the, the more they looked at my portfolio, the more that they would be impressed, the more they would actually decide to hire me as a, you know, for their project, this, that, the other. What I started to see over the course of years was I actually was very curious.

I was like, well, you just said blank. Why is that? What's, what's the problem? What's the challenge? What's the frustration? What's the whatever? Because I wanted to really understand. I found that my meetings went from trying to get 85 plus percent showing my portfolio and maybe 10 or 15% actually here talking to them to now flipping to actually going 95% discussion, questions, interaction. And, and, and only at that point was the final 5% and those actually resulted in closes. So what they didn't teach you in school was, oh, by the way, the person sitting across from you is a hell of a lot more fucking important than that freaking important portfolio that we've been talking to you about for years.

And they don't give a shit about your portfolio. And in the world of sales, like that's why reps who jump in and product pitch or show the demo without having that curiosity, without giving a shit about what the client actually needs fail. Right. And I tell them, I tell reps all the time, it has not, everything is commoditized. Everything. I don't care what you sell, who you sell to. It's all commoditized. It has nothing to do with what you sell. It has everything to do with how you sell. That to me is like, it's asking the right questions, being curious, showing the part of your portfolio that aligns with what their need is, not your whole fucking portfolio. I remember I, this is the kiss of death.

I remember this was my turning point where I, I went in and, you know, I was told early days, like ask more questions, you know, two ears, one mouth, blah, blah, blah. Right. Make sure that they speak longer than you. So I asked, I would ask like 35 minutes with their questions in a one hour meeting. It didn't matter what you said. Right. After those 30, you were getting my pitch. It didn't matter. You know, I would hard go. Thank you very much for that. Right. And I would just, we were founded in. And then at the end, I would be so proud of myself, but I realized I picked up on this one word that if you ever hear this word at the end of one of your pitches, demos, whatever it is, you know, you've done a terrible job.

And it's the word digest. Right. It goes, Hey, you know what, uh, David, I'm going to need a little time to digest what you just told me right there. Why don't we circle back in a couple of weeks? We'll take it from there. Does that sound fair? If you ever hear that stop and apologize to the person that you just wasted their time because it's our job to help them digest that information. Right. So I, there's, I get a few other questions, but I wanted to jump to this one, which is you talk about the beige, right? Like how the beige branding is what's killing most companies today. And there's, and then there's risk, right? So there's, there's normality and everybody looks the same and whatever, and that's safe.

Um, kind of the standard. And then there's the holy shit risk. Like, like how do you determine risk? Because there's some, been some brands that have gone way too far. Right. And, and they, they fractured the trust of their audience, you know, whatever. So, you know, I'll give you an example here, right? Like, you know, what happened to Bud Light? Okay. And, and I don't want to get into any, what, what anybody believes in. I don't give a shit. Um, but that was a massive risk for them to go with the transgender beer thing that, and it blew up in their fucking face. Right now they've recovered and whatever. So when you're sitting in a room with marketers, with people, and you're talking about, we, we can't be beige.

We got to be different. How do you assess the risk of being different? And then what's kind of, what's the scale of like, yeah, let's go for this and see what happens. Right. Okay. So there's, there's so many, so many factors to what you've just, the door you just opened. The basics. So first of all, um, different isn't done for the sake of being different. That's the first thing. Another thing is, is that I will always tell clients to say, look, different is better than better. And they're like, huh? I said, okay, let's back up a little bit. Every one of your competitors are coming to the party with, we're the best, we're the greatest, we're the simplest, we're the fastest, we're the this-est, the that-est, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Do I want to come in and play in the same sandbox that everyone has already been playing in with the same metrics? And I'll give you this as an anecdote. One of my favorite points when I'm actually talking to a prospective client, I love when they go, they go, hey, you know what? Like we're talking, da-da-da-da-da, and then I love, this is what I call the hands-over-the-chest thing. And they say, that's interesting, David. Now, David, and now they ask me some very deep, meaningful question. Now, I'm inside, I'm smiling my ass off from ear to ear because I know this question came from a YouTube that they watched or a book that they read or something that they saw from Simon Sinek or something that they read from Seth Godin or what a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, and I'm smiling because I say, I'd let them finish. I don't know. I don't cut them off. And then I say, I understand why you're asking that question. But the question you should really be asking is, boom. So that's me pivoting and reframing and taking control of that conversation. And that's all based on this point, which I think probably most directly answers the initial question. People don't come to new conclusions with old information. Prospects do not come to new conclusions with old information. Potential buyers do not come to new conclusions with old, we are in the business of new conclusions. We all are. We are in the business of disruption. We are not in the business of sounding like our competitors, which are cliches, which is vanilla shit, which is the same metric that they're going to be judging us by because we've, we have chosen to keep ourselves in the same lane.

Hence the importance of differentiation. And in, in what I mean by old information, that doesn't mean like, like shit they heard 25 years ago. That's like five minutes ago before the, before this meeting, anything before this meeting and it's industry, sacred cows. It's the same old, well, everyone knows it's well. Everyone's done this. Every innovation that we all now take as mainstream today, whether it was Netflix, you know, saying, screw you blockbuster. We're not going to just force people. I mean, you look at a blockbuster thing. It's like, you know, that's a, that was a business model. Well, they were like, no, we want our, we want our boxes. We want people to walk in. We want them to buy the stale Twizzlers, the stale popcorn and look in all these boxes and find most of them empty.

And we want to force them to that. And by the way, we want to charge them for having a life. So late fees, we're going to freaking penalize you for actually having an existence in the world. That's their business model. Okay. That's an interesting business model. So Netflix comes along and they start out with their DVD, you know, by mail. Okay. That simplifies, but they realized they weren't married to their solution. They were married to the customer's problem or objective. That to me is that if, if anyone involved in sales, anyone involved is building a business in growth. If they don't understand that distinction, work it out. I mean, that is like your make break point. You cannot be married to, well, we are the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, first of all, if you're married to a technology, technology is going to come and go and all that kind of shit. Okay. They're going to shift and pivot and da, da, da, da. I mean, so you're, you're married to an outcome, but that outcome better be freaking married to the actual problem aspiration that our customer has. So, so is that, is that how you assess risk is regardless of what the campaign is, that if it's in the interest of solving a problem for your clients, then you, then a problem for your customers, therefore risk is relative. Is that, is that effectively what you're getting to? I would say that, I would say that it's relative, but then, but then we go, we go, okay, now let's take that, let's take that what you just said a step farther.

So everyone, any business is trying in some way to do just what you just described. Good. So 95, 99% of them have the imagination of a chiclet. And for those that are, that are too young, it's chiclet was a chewing gum that we actually chewed and we spit out on the, on the curb and you stepped in and got in the bottom of your, of your, of your shoes. Okay. That's what chiclet is. Okay. So if you're having the intelligence of a chiclet, it's not a good thing now. All right. So the thing is, is, oh, we've got, we know the problem that our customer has. Okay, fine. We know that our problem that our customer has. How are you going to now come out of the gate and frame it differently, uniquely? I mean, look, and for those that have been around.

So before, when the, when the iPod was like the third or fourth freaking MP3 player, it wasn't the first, they weren't the first to market, but it was the first to position it with something that music lovers gave a shit about. We didn't care about how much memory we didn't care about the, this, the, that, which is what everyone was doing. They could have said faster. They could have said cooler, but it was what? It was a thousand songs in your pocket. How bad-ass is that? Thousand songs in your pocket. You spoke like I speak. And that was their point of difference. Bud Light was a fucking disaster. And the, and everyone connected with it should have been fired. I believe they all were. They were stupid because they took, they took something that they observed culturally.

And they said, let's jump on that bag and wagon. What does that have to fucking do at the end of the day with drinking beer? And what does that have to do with the demographic of your beer drinking? Well, it's like, you know what? It's like, if you're going to talk to me, it's like, you know, freaking show me a God, goddamn freaking, you know, thing with beer. That is likely that, that somehow has remained stabilized while I'm on a rock and bronco or something. I mean, like, give me a problem that I can relate to. Not, it had nothing. It was difference for the sake of difference. And it was stupidly vetted. It made no sense. And they got what they deserved because it was so stupid. And it was so off point.

Difference needs to be some, sometimes the difference is the business model. Sometimes the difference is the business mechanism. Sometimes the difference is everyone's talking really. And we're like, you know what? We're the rebellious. We're liquid death, man. Murder your thirst. Brilliant. Brilliant. So it's, so it's like, it's knowing, it's like picking a battle that you, that make, that makes sense. And then using difference to amplify that and elevate that. That's the thing that people normally don't get. They're just, well, we're going to be different to be different. Well, this sure is different from everybody else. Well, yeah. Is that, is that anything anybody gives a shit about? And they didn't.

So then let's talk about brand as it relates to, you know, I mean, right now it is so tempting to jump on trends, right? Because gone viral, this happened. And so in the foundation is much more of a long-term strategic part about brand. But how do you balance that short-term trends on TikTok and holy shit, there's an opportunity for us to jump on it so that we can get some exposure here with, with the brand identity, long-term strategy? Because I think that's what a lot of people, especially sales reps and people who are trying to build their brand, they're just trying to like, oh, let me do this video now because that's what everybody else is doing on TikTok. Let me, let me, let me create my format of my content this way because that's what's going viral right now.

And, and I've always had a hard time with chasing trends, but it's hard to, the short-term gratification, it is, is way more appealing than the long-term. And I just feel like in general, as a society, we've gotten away from long-term strategy. We are so short-term focused that it's killing us. So how do you balance that in this world specifically? Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a very good question. And, and you're right. There's, we live in it, we live in a sort of microwave mentality where we want that instant gratification. Um, and all I can tell you is the greatest brands play the long game. The greatest entrepreneurs play the long game. I mean, look, I mean, I don't, I don't care. I don't care whether people, you know, love him, hate him or whatever like that.

But you take someone like Elon Musk, who is incredibly successful. Um, and now the rumor is that he's going to be the first, the first trillionaire. Sure. So you go, wait a second. Why is it, why isn't everybody just like burning his cars? And okay. So we, we, we, we had this, we had this blip. First of all, he doesn't get caught in the blips. He also doesn't chase trends. He, he doesn't even freaking advertise. He just kind of, he operates. He has a, such an understanding of the, of the ecosystem and the nuances of business and money and all those various things. And he's brilliant at doing what he does. He's playing the long game. You, you look at any, I would challenge anyone to, if they are like, wait a second, I got to play the short game.

I got, I got to, I got to, I got to meet this, this, this, this, uh, quarter is a quota or blah, blah, blah, blah, or whatever. Or this month's blah, blah, blah, or whatever, whatever you got. Pause for a minute. I mean, just give yourself the mental room to just chill and look and go, okay. You look at Gary Vee, you know, when Gary Vee first started talking about patience, you're like, are you crazy? You're like the Energizer Bunny. What patience, right? Um, or you look at Richard Branson, you look at, you look at any entrepreneur, Alex Ramosi, any of these guys, there's a, there's a hustle. There's a willingness to hustle. There's a willingness to lean in. There's also a willingness to take risks and, and experiment.

You know what? I mean, unless you're in the White House and, and you have the red dress or, or whatever, unless you have an incident like that, that you can't, that's like almost nearly impossible to recover from. Unless you have like some like, uh, that is like nearly, nearly impossible. But what are the odds? The odds are so against that happening. How many of those have actually occurred in historically? And there are few, few. So odds are in your favor to one, take risks, try things. I think chasing trends, you're going to go insane because you know, it's like who could have predicted, uh, Sweeney Sweeney's ad. And now you're going to try and replicate that or, Oh wait, who's going to, Oh, then who's going to do, who's going to, uh, who could predict was app as like a freaking like, you know, viral culture thing.

It's like, Oh, we're going to have our own was app. It's like, look, you can either be a follower. And here's the, here's the big mistake. People see something. They see it. They see a, a, a viral something. We got to have our viral something. Okay. Be a little smarter and say, okay, what about that? Actually like step back, take the macro. Don't go. So micro. This is the mistake. Go going. Micro is a mistake. You got to step back and go, okay. What was happening in that industry's space that allowed that to break through. And then you'll come away with some insights such as, Oh, they did, they did this zig when everybody was doing that zag. Because the things that we notice, we, as, as consumer, as consumers of products and, and, and purchasers, we notice differences.

We don't notice the stuff that's the same. I mean, I mean, and one thing that I tell people is like, if I had any brand to choose, as you'd say, David, you got one brand that you can choose that would, Walmart would be at the bottom of the list because no one is loyal to Walmart. They're only loyal to the low price. They're low. They're loyal to the low price. Now that, and that's not a customer base that I, I would ever, I don't care to have a customer base like that. I would rather, you know, I'd rather be an Apple or, or something like that, where it's like, I mean, how many times does anybody ever walk into an Apple store and say, Hey, what's the best deal I can get on block? No, they're, they're, they're walking their credit cards out.

They say, I want that color. I want that much memory. How fast can I have my box done deal. And that's the, that's what everyone should be striving for as far as a brand. So chasing trends is a loser's game, you know, and there's certain things you can play on yet. Everybody jumped on cracker barrels, like shit storm of a, of a, of stupid stupidity. I, I watched all these people doing it and I waited until they actually pivoted back and said, Oh, okay. We have seen the light. We're no longer idiots. Uh, we've seen the light, but it was, but it was also a stupid move, but there are other issues that compared to that. And Jaguar did an equally moronic. That was like the dumbest freaking, I don't even know what they were thinking.

And you and I could probably spend an hour talking just on that alone. That's a case study in and of itself of like, what the hell did you do? Like you, you had a niche, like just stay focused on that niche. Cause it was class. It was, it was, there was a brand to it, you know, and, and they just flipped it on its head. I think I saw some stat about like last year, they sold like 65 cars or something like it in, in a region where they sold thousands before. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I did. I, I did a post on that. It was like, it was like, it was like a 97.5% drop in, in sales and people. And, and it's like, and, and yeah, I mean, what you had was two things. You had one, you had an stupid, I mean, stupid, bud, bud light 2.0 kind of a moment, just really dumb, totally off brand as far as demographically completely spitting on their legacy now.

And then, and I, and I did, I did this post and, and, you know, it's like crazy. It got like 300,000. I mean, the amount of people interacting with it was insane. I had a few people who were like, well, you know, if you only do your homework, blah, blah. They already said they were going to be stopping production. And I said, well, if that's so true, where, how, where are all the pre-orders? I got two questions for you. One, where are all the pre-orders for their amazing new fleet of electric vehicles? And two, how come people who had an order for a Jaguar canceled? How come we had those two things happening concurrently? If it was so flawed, blemish free, give me answers to that. And then I will entertain.

Otherwise you just want to fight. And if you didn't want to fight, I don't give a shit about you. I mean, that's stupid. So where does brands start, right? Because I think a lot of people, you know, I've always had this challenge personally of why it's so hard to be authentic out there, right? Because to me, authenticity is the biggest superpower that you have. It's the most offensible thing, right? But so, but it's blatantly obvious to me how starved people are for authenticity, but how scared they are to be authentic. And, and I think for me, at least brand starts with a authenticity, but, but in order to get to authenticity, I think you got to just start with like real core values. Like what do you believe in?

And so my take on it is like all I had, even with reps and everybody else, I'm like, before you make whatever decision you make as far as your career or anything like that, why don't you take a step back and do some core value exercise here to understand what's really important to you. And so that then once you have that lens, you can start to look for opportunities, clients, prospects, you know, whatever that fit that, those values, and then you can align with them and you could do some special things when that happens. But if you misalign values, you're just going to argue and fight. So from your perspective, if somebody is listening to this right now and saying, all right, I want to build my brand and should I post this?

Should I do that? Like, where do you tell them to start organizations to like where, step back, where do you start that foundation? Because if you don't have a solid foundation, it's like a house of cards. Totally. So first of all, first of all, in this baby, which in this one, I found that there were 65, and for those that are just listening, if you're not, I just was pointing to brand intervention that book, which Damon John from Shark Tank, he wrote the forward to it. The thing was, when I started the book, there were 6,500 books on branding. 6,500, not 65, not 650, 6,500 books on branding. Now, by the time I was done, now you go to Amazon today, there's over 25,000 books on branding. And there was no single agreed upon definition of branding.

Are you like freaking kidding me? No single agreed upon definition. So I took that upon myself to say, well, that's bullshit. I've been in business long enough to know if there's a gazillion opinions about XYZ, that there's a fundamental truth that's missing. So I ended up bringing it down to a forward definition, right? The art of differentiation. Four words. The art of differentiation. And people were like, holy shit, that clarified, that eliminated like all the mist, the cloud, the fog, it was like everything cleared. So that was the first thing. So that's the first point. Now, with that being understood, then we actually now have a foundation from which to have a discussion. Because if we're not differentiating, how are we even getting on anyone's radar?

So people tell me, well, you got to have attention. And people have to, and I love this one. People have to know, like, and trust you. I'm going to punch the next person I hear say that. I'm going to punch them. I'm going to say, ah, you know how many times I've heard that? It's like, what gets someone to the point of knowing, liking, and trusting you? There are steps to arrive at that point. And one says it like, well, it's just kind of like, well, just make sure to watch behind your ears when you're actually like, you know, are showering or something. It's, there are things that make it possible. So, yes, you want to be real. Two, you want to be real in a way that is different. So, but again, you don't want to just be different for being different.

But you want, it's like, what's distinct about your conviction, that core value? How is that unlike what else is out there? Now, that leads to this point. There needs to be a hero and a villain to your, to you and your core values. Oftentimes, the villain is that the industry's current standard. Oftentimes, the villain is the compromise we have all been subjected to that no one has bothered or cared enough to actually ask and say, why the hell not? Why can't we do something actually a little different that may, I mean, Dyson comes out, you know, what? Vacuum cleaners hadn't changed in 50, 60 years. And now Dyson just comes out. And I've heard so many different iterations. Whether he did 2,000 prototypes or 4,000 prototypes, he did a lot of freaking prototypes before he actually got to the point where it's like, okay, it works.

And he introduces his turbine technology. He used design in terms of color, materials. He changed the whole game. And then he talked about not just the same old, same old. So he certainly used differentiation to do what he did. You know, Gary V used differentiation to talk in a way that no entrepreneur had spoken before. You know, and one could just go down the thing. It's like Michael Jordan. You know, he played differently. But even in Michael's own career, it's like Michael was always an A player. But when did he become legendary? When his game went from how do I up my game to how do I elevate the team? That's when he became legendary. It wasn't how do I play better? It's like how do we play better?

And so to me, again, so what does that mean? It's like everything you have just said to you framed is that there's what I am for, the protagonist, and what I am against, the antagonist. And I can guarantee you most individuals, whether they're in sales, whether they're reps, or they're companies that they're working with, they do not know what they're opposed against. All they know is they're pitching their stuff, man. We got to sell our stuff. We got to move our product. It's like, okay. But people, I use this as an analogy. The pathway to our customer's front door does not start at our front door. It actually starts at theirs with the stuff that's most real to them, most real in terms of pain, most real in terms of a challenge, most real in terms of an obstacle or an aspiration.

And if we talk to that, I mean, you've seen it. I've seen it. The best salesperson, it's like we feel understood. That person gets me. They get me. They know that, why am I dealing with that crap, you know? And so, did that answer your question? Yeah. I mean, it's just like going back to that foundation. And I think, like I said, the values, and I like the pro tag and the stand tag in this piece. It's just, I think so many people are built on a house of cars because they're chasing the trends. They're chasing what's popular and recentering around your core, what you stand for, right? And also what you stand against, you know, for me, I stand. But I want to interject one point because it's a place where I've seen people, if they don't know this with what we're talking about right now, they'll end up in a freaking cul-de-sac from hell.

And so, basically, what will happen is oftentimes, like, oh, okay, now they get into what I call navel-gazing. It's like, let me look. I got to figure out my core values, da-da-da-da-da-da. And one thing that I, when I'm working with clients, companies, I say, the worst place for you to start is looking inwardly. Who are we? What are our values? It's like you're just looking, you're in a cone of silence. And you don't have the full breadth of intel to actually navigate this well. So, I always start out there. Looking outward is actually the best place to start. It's like, okay, what are people, what are people having to put up with? What are the current available solutions? What are the options that people have access to?

That is the noise because if we're, if we're in the business of the art of differentiation, the enemy would be cliches where we blend into everyone else. And that is the noise out there. So, unless we take the inventory of that noise, we are basically screwed. We're kind of like, oh, well, I mean, and when I'm creating brands all the time, it's like we asset test it. It's like, you know, we collect the data. We do all this stuff. We do our homework. We get all the insights. And we develop this incredible narrative, the naming, the this, the that, all this kind of stuff. And then we go, okay, let's check this out. And we even had to do this recently with one of our clients where we came up with this killer narrative because we did, we had all the insight.

We did all the homework. We did all this. And then we did one final check. And I, so I went back and looked at what all the competition was saying. Those son of a bitches were saying everything that we had just developed, but I knew it wasn't true. That was the, that was where we went a little, a little, uh, like, whoops. Because I knew, I knew it's like everything they say was, I call it the political spin. It's like, Hey, I love your great family. We're going to deliver it. You know, it's like, so the, all the big promises and none of the, none of the delivery. So I was like, you son of a bitches. So I, now I had to reframe it. And what we came up with, because they were in the tech, the technology space and, and the line that we did, did to reframe it.

I call this, this is what I call the leveling the playing field strategy. And this was in the wrong hands. Even the latest technology means nothing. You see that boom, that all of a sudden you go, Whoa, what, what, what, because everyone's claiming, no, we got the letter that we got to this. It's like in the wrong hands, even the latest technology means nothing. And all of a sudden that just completely reframed it. And it was like, Whoa, what are we talking about? And we could back it up. And, and, and here's just the point of differentiation. So everyone can get the concept. Here's what we also discovered with the competition. None of these competing companies actually mentioned any specifics and they never mentioned any actual case studies of clients who actually use them and actually had the outcome that they were saying was true.

So they said all the right stuff, but they had no credibility and no social proof. So we went the opposite. So we first started with that pivot. Right. In the wrong hands, you know, even the latest technology means nothing. Right. And then it was like, and like so-and-so, like so-and-so, like we started giving you specifics and you're like, what, what? And these like so-and-sos were the exact same pain points that we knew others were already experiencing. So we were hitting them. So we, so you see how differentiation was used strategically to frame that narrative. And it's just, it's insanely successful. So let's stick on brand intervention for a little bit. You had, I think it was 33 steps to transfer.

It was super tactical, right? If you were to write it today, especially with AI, because you wrote it before AI came out, would you add anything? Would you subtract anything? And where does AI help from a brand standpoint? Like, or, or where is it going to replace certain things? Because I think everybody's wondering what the hell this is going to do to all of us, quite frankly. But specifically related to brand, where, where, where does AI help and where it doesn't? And how would it adjust some of the stuff that you wrote about earlier? Yeah. There might be, there might be a chapter. I mean, it's not, it's not a lot because here's the one, here's fundamentally, fundamentally what people need to understand.

AI, will AI replace tasks or accelerate tasks? Yes. AI factually won't replace people unless someone's job was really a sugar-coated task, right? So it's, so the, the burden is on us, but also the freedom is on us. So to me, one of the things that I tell people is that AI won't replace you, mediocrity will. Okay. And that mediocrity will be our mediocrity. Was I just kind of like coasting and now I'm like, so that I'm, I'm just coasting and so complacent that I'm now replaceable by a prompt now. And, and, and so that's where the, the onus to me, will there be fallout? Yes. Um, but I don't think it's going to be the kind of fallout. The, the ingenious ones will win. Um, and the, and there's one other thing that I, I, and I, I would, I have a great relationship with, with our financial advisor because he's like, how the hell do you pick your stocks?

Because I have this, like, I have a great track record of picking like these killers. And he's like, how the hell he, none of it makes sense to him because all he knows is he knows what he was trained in. He, these spreadsheets and, and he, he just, he just knows the spreadsheets. He does. Well, you know, historically when things have gone up, then historically they've gone down. And then that's like, I'm like, wow, that's so valuable. Thank you. So that was, you got any more toilet paper? I can, I mean, come on, man. And so the thing is, is that I guarantee you the most human brands are going to absolutely outperform and, and win over the most automated brands. Automated is going to be how you, you tell me you, you get the CEO, the COO who actually says, okay, we, we want, we, we need to, need to contain our costs on, on customer support or customer service.

And we have payrolls too high. So we're going to like, we're going to, we're going to cut this and we're going to now introduce menu trees so that people can now go through a, people can call up a company, feel completely, um, dehumanized. It's like, I'm not even worth a freaking speaking to a person or the, I love the wonderful tell where after the fifth or seventh or eighth layer of menu tree options, they always have that one where you get to no, no, no. And then there's like that 10 or 15 second pause. Or if you want to speak to a person, press zero, at which point you're like, I want to strangle a person. I don't want to speak to a person anymore. When I called initially, I wanted to speak to a person.

Now I only want to strangle one. And it's just, and so automation is going to, there's going to be two camps. There's going to be the companies that are really highly automated, um, that have managed to retain some of their humanity. There's going to, those that are like completely automated, they've completely dehumanized and they're going to be hated. They will become outmoded and those businesses will go out of existence. They will. So, so I'm going to be selfish on this one with this question. Help me feel better. So AI is getting to the point where it's almost indistinguishable from humans, right? The videos that we watch. I don't, I don't believe a single thing I see on the internet anymore.

Right. I understand. And so, um, I'm a quote unquote influencer, right? You're a quote unquote influencer brands work with me and they have me represent and I do a post and whatever, but I'm a human, right? So I'm a pain in the ass. I, I, you know, I have my view of what it should be. And, you know, we work that out with the brand, like, don't put any shackles on me. I'm not going to read your script, whatever. So now there's a AI version of John, uh, an AI avatar that is cool as shit, does whatever they want, whatever they want. Right. Same thing. And let's, let's parlay this to movies, right? You have actors, you got the De Niro's of the world and those types of things that you can feel, but these AI actors, I, I, we will get to a point where there's going to be an AI actor that you will not be able to tell.

So, so how, help me understand why that's not going to win. Like the AI version of John Barrows, isn't going to beat John Barrows eventually because the brand can control the AI version of John Barrows and the brand cannot control the non AI version of John Barrows. So help me understand how that's not going to happen. I would say there's a, there's, um, this is one of those things where it's a little bit of, I know it's to my, to my core, how it's going to play out. First of all, I don't, I've yet to run into anybody who's like, you know, I really can't tell the difference between AI responses and AI comments and AI crap. And AI output and AI posts and AI this and AI that, um, you know, I, I really can't tell the difference.

I mean, it's like, it's not, it's one, it's a little too perfect. It's a little too this. It's a little too that the lighting is flawless, the blah, the, that you get all these bits and pieces. So, but there's something that I would, I would say this is probably, uh, the best analogy I can come up with on the spot. It's kind of like, can anybody really tell the difference between a TV dinner that I put in the microwave and an actually something that came from a restaurant with someone who really put their heart and their soul into it? Shit. Yeah, I really can. And even if it's one of those really good ones put together by what, by those really amazing chefs who are like, Hey, you know, it's like, it's like me being in your kitchen.

There's, there's a difference. The differences, I think there's going to be a period where there's going to be a lot of, I can't tell the difference. And then I think it's going to flesh out where it's going to be so obvious. Now there may be a, may be a factor of, we're going to have to lean into it a little bit more. Like could AI replicate the conversation you and I are having right now? I don't know. Well, so, well, here's, here's an interesting experiment I did. Uh, so, you know, Guy Kawasaki, right? I mean, your book is, uh, your book is kind of has a similar title to some of the stuff you put out, but, um, I had him on the podcast, right? And, and before, and I was doing my research and cause I always hate asking the same stupid questions everybody else asks.

And so I watched a video that Google had posted and it was an interview with him at Google. It was two days before. And he had said in the interview, I created a Kawasaki GPT and, and I put every book, every podcast, everything I've ever done in that. And he said in the interview, if you ask Kawasaki GPT a question, you'll get a better answer than if you ask me. And so I was like, well, game on. So I took all the questions that I was going to ask him the next day in the live podcast. And I asked his GPT the exact same questions in the exact same order. Right. And then I didn't tell him when I got him on the podcast, we started having this conversation and I just went through the same exact questions.

Right. And at the end I go, guy, um, I know you're a huge AI fan here. I, I, I, I gotta be honest with you, man. I've already had this conversation with you. And he's like, what? I go, yeah, you're, you're GPT, man. I'm like, I, I, I asked your GPT the same questions last night. And I go, I gotta be honest, man. You were right. Your answers were better. And he's, and he starts laughing and he's like, well, cause he had just come off of surfing to be on the podcast. And I, and he was like, well, then why am I not out surfing? I go, guy, that's my question to you is if I can get better answers from your GPT, what the fuck is the point of this conversation? And he got into legacy. He got into all this other stuff.

I go, that's not my question for me trying to learn something from you. You want to grab a beer and have that AI is never going to replace that because we're humans and whatever else. But when it comes to me trying to learn something from you, what's the point of this live conversation when I can get you on demand whenever the fuck I want it? And I still can't, I still can't figure that answer out as, especially as a, as a creator, as somebody who has these conversations, who's somebody who makes money off of disseminating information to other people. I, I'm, I'm, I'm having a hard, because I do believe, yes, you're right. I'm the same way as you right now. It's like, I can still tell, right?

But can the person in middle of America who doesn't, isn't invested in the AI world, can they tell? I don't think so, quite frankly. I think they might feel it. I think there might be something, but I think they could easily be convinced by it. Just like old grandparents can be convinced by that cold caller who says that they're, you know what I mean? That, that, so it's, it's, it's, I'm, I feel like we're in this dangerous world right now. I, first of all, I, first of all, I love the fact that you did that. I think that that was like freaking ingenious, right? That was just, that was just, that was, that was a combination of ballsy and wild and out, out there. That was, that's all, that was awesome.

I love that. Now, I would challenge the, I would challenge this like this. And, and, and, and I, and I, and I so wish that I was, I so wish I want you to rewind the tape and get, get guy and you and me in and have a three-way, but because I, because I, here's, here would be my challenge to him. If your answers, guy, are not as good. I'm going to back this up a couple steps. So where's the data coming from that, that AI is, is getting the answers from everything he has said and, and communicated and shared before the greatest of us that are thought leaders, uh, communicators, disruptors, rebels, et cetera. Add whatever label you want onto it. The greatest of us, we, we know two things. One, we know something is around the corner.

And two, we know that we have no idea what is that thing around the corner. Okay. And we recognize those things and we celebrate those things. That is our, that is our ingenuity. That is our brilliance. That is our genius. And if we cannot think, I had this conversation with a, uh, uh, dear buddy of mine two weeks ago, if we can't think on our feet, if I can't put you in a room and you can't actually have a conversation with no script, with no safety net, if you can't do that, you are not, you're not really as valuable as you might think you are. The greatest entrepreneurs can think on their feet, the greatest, the greatest, um, leaders of any sort, you take it, whether it's, whether it's political, whether it's entrepreneurial, whether it's culturally, whether it's artistically, the greatest ones can think on their, why did people go crazy with Robin Williams?

Because he, he would, you'd throw him a crumb. He'd freaking create an entire universe out of like of madness out of that. That is the ingenuity of the, of humanity. That is where we shine. Not because he didn't look to the past of what he had said before to come up with that ingenuity and brilliance. He was like, he's, he's going, he's going from zero to 90 in 2.5 seconds, bam, into the unknown. And the greatest of us can embrace the balance between the known and the unknown, which is a point that I go over in brand intervention. I go over the greatest brands have a balance between what's known and what's unknown. Known is what we expect. Known is what we, what, what we can predict. Oh yeah, sure.

Those, that's like the bare minimums, right? That we need. And then you get the unknowns, which surprise and delight us. And I, and that to me is, is where the magic is. And that's the difference between what AI can do and what we can do. So I would challenge guy and say, guy, are you just relying on the crap that you've written and said before and are no longer being ingenious. That would be my challenge to him. So how do you feel about the quote? History is the best predictor of future success, right? Because I've never been a historian. I have a shitty memory. I literally just move forward. I make all my own mistakes, but I've made a lot of mistakes that if I read a book, if I had talked to somebody else, I wouldn't have made that mistake.

Right? So there's a lot of people, and the reason I bring that up is because that's what AI is, right? It's, it's looking at history and then it's potentially predicting the future based on that, like it's predicting the future answer based on the history of the information. And so with that, you know, what is that balance of history, knowledge, and, and innovation and growth with that foundation? The basic thing is this, is that history, someone who just knows history in terms of a set of a series of facts is not an informed individual. They're, they're a reciter of what has happened. The brilliant individual who can actually extrapolate what did we learn from that? What was the lesson that we learned from that?

What was the, what was the blind spot that had they actually been paying attention, they would have realized, you know, because history can be used as a crutch history can be used to me, the, the things that, that, that any of us rely on D that as a dependency weaken us. If we use it as a launch pad, that's one thing we use it as a thing to climb up to a higher level. That's an, that's a different thing, but if it's literally, and, and, and, and I will tell you, we are going to end up with guaranteed. I take this to the bank in 24 months, we're going to end up with a very stupid percentage of the population because unless they have AI there to do their thinking for them, they will have lost their ability to think for themselves.

They will have lost their ability to, it's like, all right, stand up there. I'm going to ask you some questions. What do you mean you're going to ask me some questions? You're like, where, where's, oh, and by the way, give me your, give me your iPhone. Thank you. Good. Oh, give me, give me that other device. Give me your smartwatch. Good. Thank you. All right, good. So here's some questions. They're either going to thrive or they're going to die. So those that, those that can do, that have that ability to think on their feet, to extrapolate. And, uh, I'm trying to think of the, what, what, what is that? There's a, um, there's one word I was trying to remember. It's one of the greatest words in the world.

It, it's, it's synonymous with impromptu, but it's, um, oh, extemporaneous. It's a word I had to look. It's a word I had to look up. I didn't know what the hell the word meant. Like two years, like a year and a half ago, I looked it up. I was like extemporaneous. It was like, I immediately invented the, the, uh, the, the definition that it was like, uh, sir, are these bags yours? Oh no, those are just some, some extemporaneous ones that someone else, uh, you know, for the front, it's like, what does that even mean? I don't know. It sounded good. But for those that are listening who don't know extemporaneous means basically like impromptu in the moment, it means that you like, can you, can you extemporaneous think on your feet, right?

Uh, can you be the greatest comedians are extemporaneous is an example. And the greatest chefs, like, look, let's look at these incredible, like cooking shows. Okay. We're going to throw you five, six ingredients that never should be in the same room. Make a meal out of it. If you can't do that, if you can't create that extemporaneously, then you are not a great chef. You should be able to do anything and have it be something right. So that is, that's my very long answer. But I, I honestly believe that that's where we're headed. There's going to be those who cannot think who have forfeited. They've outsourced their ingenuity, which I think is the most destructive thing that you can do. It's like the salesperson who owns, it's like, that isn't on my script sheet.

I can't think from my, I don't know how to respond to that. What is, you know that? I know that that's a disaster. And that is what AI is basically doing on a big, broad scale. Now there are pluses to AI if used properly, but we're talking about some of the places where there are some limitations and there are some limitations. No question. I mean, I say it all the time. I think the danger here is we've gone from a search engine to an answer engine, you know, with Google, at least there was a perception of choice, right? We Googled something and we could all argue that Google kind of told us whatever it felt like telling us, but at least we had to, we could choose our truth, if you will. Whereas AI is now an answer engine.

It just gives us the answer. And for somebody like you and I, who are curious, who have business acumen, who are interested in those, it's a superpower. Cause it's like, oh, tell me more about this. How do we get there? You know, whereas to the vast, unfortunately to the vast majority of our population who are lazy as shit, they're just going to take that answer and copy and paste it. And quite frankly, to your point in 24 months, I don't know what the point of the human is in that equation. I just don't. And it's, it's the next great thing. It's the surprise. It's the delight. It's the why not factor, right? It's the what if factor. Those are, those are the things that humans will create and sure.

Someone's going to say, oh, well, you know, AI can innovate. You know what? Prove it to me. Prove it to me. I, I, I will out innovate any, any AI any day of the week. Um, and you know, it's probably going to be able to say he's, he's, he's out of his freaking mind. It's like, if you believe that much in AI, then you believe that the human race is not ingenious in terms of its, its potential of what it can be. And if I ever find that AI is replacing me and I'm, believe me, I have some clients who are kind of like, Hey David, I, I, I went into AI and I told it to say, say, write this and, and, and sound like David Breyer. I've actually had people say, and, and they were happy with what they got.

I'm like, okay, good. But the bottom line is, is that, um, we will, we, if I ever find myself being that replaceable, I, at that point, we'll take that as a wake up call going, all right, I've gotten too complacent and I am going to elevate. And the thing is, is I have the judgment and ingenuity to be able to make that decision. AI does not. I think we'll end it there, David. And you know what we should do, we should come back a year later from this and, and see where we are with this. Cause I, I am, I am hopeful that you're right. Let's put it that way. Well, um, I, I have a, I have a feeling that we will both each show up rather than send our AI avatars. Yes. Yes. Well, we could do the same thing.

We could have all four of us have this conversation together and see, see where it goes. It's not awesome, David. We'll tell people you got rich brand, poor brand out now, uh, tell people where they can find out where to, you know, obviously it's on Amazon and all that fun stuff, but where do you want people to, where you want to send people here? Yeah. The bottom line is, is first of all, I mean, if, if, if, if you have heard this and you're like, wait a second, I need to know more about it. It's like brand intervention is just, it's, it is not like anything you've ever seen. It's like, I mean, literally that's, that's the size of the type in the book. Nice. I like it. Big words, short pages.

It's like, it's like, you know, it's big, it's bold because I, I refuse to have a book that was kind of like, uh, just like everyone else's where we go, okay, you know what? I'm going to have 300 pages. I'm not going to tell you where the 10 or 15 pages that are really the good shit are. I'm going to make you search for it. I mean, I have a little more respect for every reader than that. That's why I wrote it. By the way, that's why I wrote a children's book. Like people were going to ask, like asking me when I'm going to write a book. I'm like, what the fuck am I going to write about? And most books are so fluffy shit. I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going to write a book with my daughter and it's called, I want to be in sales when I grow up.

And it's because I just wanted to cut through all the bullshit and just give people what they actually need. I love it. I love it. But yeah, people, people can go to rising, R-I-S-I-N-G, risingabovethenoise.com, risingabovethenoise.com. You can, you can subscribe, subscribe to my newsletter. You can like, and there's this ton, there's a ton, tons of material and information in there that are just high. I have over 300 articles on brands, rebrands and show, and I show you the stuff. I don't just, I mean, here's the difference between, I'll leave you with this final thought. The difference between me and, and, and some of the other brilliant minds are, I actually do this stuff. I create brands every freaking day and I do this and I've, and I've, and it's resulted in billions and billions of dollars for startups to like total rebrands to all kinds, all kinds of stuff, but the magic is I actually care enough to actually show you.

I, and I'm not just sitting on the side, coming up with great observations of the human condition and how people think or what they do or don't do a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that kind of crap. I do it. I love it. And I have a ball with it. And you know, and if you, and if you like what you've heard, which if you're a smart person, which obviously you are, because if you're listening to John, you're obviously smart. So obviously you probably, this, this is my food for your soul. I hope so. I hope so. They're wicked smart kids here in Boston, but now in New York too, even as we translate out to the Midwest. Awesome. David, look, I appreciate the time here, man. It's been a fun conversation.

Totally. All right, everybody. Great, great questions. A lot of fun. Love it, man. All right. Well, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I say, at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile, you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now, and I can't thank you enough.

Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter, where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today. Let's all level up and make this happen together.