AI Made Knowledge Worthless (Here's What Still Sells) with Karlton Dennis
Dean Graziosi and Karlton Dennis argue that AI has made raw information worthless, but transformation through human connection still sells. They outline a four-step framework for selling AI services: give a compelling reason, overcome fear, embrace change, and clear choice-clutter. Proximity and accountability, like their AI Advantage bootcamp, condense learning and build trust.
Chapters
I've never shared that publicly. When I take an action that makes me feel uncomfortable, that's when I'm moving forward. AI is moving faster than anyone would've imagined. Proximity, accountability condense the time.
What is most important right now is for people to not just get information anymore that's been commoditized, but for them to get a transformation.
Not being naive. It's coming.
I feel like the state of entrepreneurship has completely changed. I mean, for years the formula was pretty simple. You could learn a skill, build expertise, package your knowledge, build an audience around it, and that created an entire industry. Now AI can generate information instantly. And if you ask me, it feels like attention is fragmented, trust has lowered, and a lot of people are wondering if the old model of entrepreneurship even works the same way anymore. What is most important right now is for people to not just get information anymore that's been commoditized, but for them to get a transformation. So talk to me a little bit about where you feel the state of business is at here today.
AI is moving faster than anyone would have imagined. If you look at Moore's Law for the last 70 years when it comes to technology, Moore's Law is simply, if you never heard it, if you're watching right now, is technology doubles every 2 years and it becomes half the price, usually half the size. Yeah, right. That's just been throughout time up until AI. Now every 4 months it's going times 10. So not being naive, It's coming. So in that, those that— like Who Moved My Cheese— those that say, I can't believe this is coming, this is going to ruin my life, this is going to end everything. In the book Who Moved My Cheese, the ones that waited for their cheese to come back when it stopped coming almost starved to death. The ones that said, I'm going to go explore and find what's next, thrived and prospered. And I think this is a time where we have to say it is changing. It is not staying the same. It is going to cause job loss.
Correct.
I'd rather say AI is going to fuel me. It's going to make my kids be safer. I'm going to use that to build a farm and I'm going to put Houses all over the farm for my kids to live next to me so my grandchildren are close. And AI's allowed me to go faster, quicker, and write 2 books and do the thing. So when I'm in that state, I feel as an entrepreneur that opportunity attracts to me.
Yeah.
People attract to me, clients attract to me. And I think when you exude that, no matter what AI does, we're always gonna wanna be in connection, in communication, in spirit with humans. That's the foundation of it all. It is gonna cause and create opportunity, but we have to be flexible. Even though it sucks in this moment, how do I explore? How do I investigate? How do I go out into the maze and try to find new cheese? I mean, literally, if you are stuck in a loop of AI is gonna ruin my life, literally go read Who Moved My Cheese?
Yeah.
It takes 1 hour and 55 minutes to read it, and you will say, I'm gonna be the rare person that says this opportunity might be closing, But this other door opens. You can't sit around and hope. You can't sit around and think the government's going to save us because it's not. No one's going to wave a magic wand. They're talking about in the future that there's going to be so much abundance that the government can help support those that lose their jobs. How quick does the government move?
Pretty slow.
Pretty slow. It might be in 15 years, maybe in 10 years. As a career or in life, you need to learn AI or you're going to be left behind. That's pretty powerful. But it's not enough. You're going to lose— use AI, or someone else is going to take your, your job who knows AI. I should do this. I should. But if I say, what if you could use AI to truly get back 15 hours a week? I don't know if you want to unlock your creativity. I don't know if you want to finally start that business, or maybe just have the time to work on your business so you could scale. Or Colton, maybe you just want to be home for dinner and be at the dance recitals more. That's your 15 hours. That locks in a different level of purpose. So now it's like, I want to learn this so I can get that time back because time's personal.
Yes.
Right. So one is you got to give them a reason. Number 2 is if you take AI, you got to overcome their fear. Because if you have that and you go, yeah, but what if? And what if I give it my information and it puts it all over? What if it takes the— you got to help people have overcome fear of intimacy, fear of losing weight, fear of walking into the gym when you haven't been there in 20 years. If you don't overcome people's fear, that'll stop them.
Yep.
Number 3, you have to get people to embrace change. If you've never invested in real estate before and go to do it, it's like, ah, but I'm a, I'm an accountant. How would I? You gotta get them to realize that if they don't change, they'll die. If they stay in the same place, if I'm not climbing, I'm sliding. So, but haven't taught a thing. I have to get you a reason why to do it, get rid of the fear, and then we gotta get you to embrace change. And then the 4th thing, if you take AI as an example, you gotta clear the clutter. If you're online, there's 100 different videos every day of telling you what you should do. And if you have too many choices, like Cheesecake Factory, you don't know what to eat. If you have too many choices with AI, you're like, do I go here? Do I go here? Do I go here? So you have to, number 4, you have to clear the clutter and give them one path. This is how you save money on your taxes ethically and legally. This is how you learn AI to find AI back, to get time back in this one strategy. So when you do those 4 things, then you earn the right to educate.
Wow.
And then it lands. So when I look at all my competitors that freak me out and made me smash the phone, and to this day they'll still do it. They start at number 5, like Dean Graziosi's education. I'm gonna kill it.
They started with the information. They started with the education.
They started with the education.
Yes.
But then there's a 6th one. Then what we do really well, my partner Tony Robbins is the best in the world in it, at it, is help them implement it into their life. So think if you got somebody wanting to go to the gym, you're in the most amazing shape, right? You, you help them get a purpose. Hey, you want to run around with your grandchildren someday? That's deep. Let's get in shape. Cool.
Let's do it. Yes.
I haven't been in the gym in 30 years. I'm feeling off. Come on, we can do that. Who cares? Everybody starts on day 1, right? Embrace change. This is the one exercise routine.
Yes.
Now they're like, I'm ready, and they go to the gym with you, fired up.
Yeah.
Now you got to get them to come back to the gym 4 days a week for the rest of their life.
Yes, you do.
So a lot of times people stop at the education. We don't stop. Then we teach you how to implement it into your daily routine.
Create the muscle.
And then we look like the heroes. And it's not that we're the heroes, Some other people's education are just as good, but they're doing the education block. We got 4 steps before it and 1 step after.
Yes.
I've never shared that publicly. But that's, that's what we do.
That is the sequence right there. Okay. You helped build one of the biggest industries around expertise and transformation. Do you think the knowledge industry still works the same way it did 10 years ago? And what's becoming harder now?
So what's becoming harder is that information is everywhere. Yes. You could go online right now and say, teach me how Dean Graziosi does 3-day events and puts a million people in. It'll lay the whole thing out for you. Write a webinar like Dean Graziosi or Alex Hormozi or Russell Brunson or Carlton would do.
Yes.
Right. And it'll do it. It'll give you the framework for it. So knowledge is at our fingertips. I mean, if you really think about it, intelligence, brilliance is accessible now for everybody.
It is.
It's the great equalizer.
Yes.
I'm just as smart as you in anything you want. I could go right now and find all the tax codes. Yep. Everything that you're doing, turn all my YouTube videos into an ebook, a playbook. And even better, I have a private agent. I could say, take all this stuff and make me an app and run everything I do through it. Right? All of us could do that. And that's going to be available and that's going to happen in certain areas. But I'm just sharing from being in this business for 3 decades is there's always been books available. There's always been YouTube videos available. The knowledge is always there. And you can get more of it to go faster. But transformation happens when the trainer shows up at the gym and you work out together. Even though there's a million books on how to work out and be in shape.
Yes.
The transformation happens when I jump on the phone with you and you put my— you put me at ease and go, no, we could do this ethically, we could do it morally, and we could save you X amount of money on your taxes. Let me go work on this for you. That's a human connection.
Yes.
And I think the more AI gives us stuff, we're gonna be empowered, we're gonna get rid of the mundane, we're gonna get rid of the boring. We should use it in every area of our life. To leave space for the human part.
Yes.
And I think this industry is gonna actually exponentially grow because people are gonna need the human touch. They're gonna need— let's use AI to do all the things.
Yes.
I think we're all gonna rise to another level. I think I'm gonna impact more lives and make more money, but then I get to refine the most human part of Dean that connects with the most human part of you. I think this industry's actually gonna grow for those that don't just outsource their brains to AI.
Yes.
That don't just Have a clone shoot their videos for them. Human connection. Let AI amplify the man or woman you are, not replace you. Yes, that's what, that's what my belief is.
Dean, I feel like there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are kind of just getting started out and they're struggling with building trust. I mean, everybody is good at, you know, loading up a camera with a teleprompter and talking into a microphone today, but they're not gaining the trust from the following, like Like people used to. I can even say online, there are more tax strategists all of a sudden on the internet now.
Yeah.
And so how do entrepreneurs navigate today relative to when we had it, where it was very easy to kind of sniff out people who actually were knowledgeable about something versus somebody who used AI to pop up on a website and make themselves look like they're already doing the thing?
Yeah. I mean, depth and breadth is a really important thing. So there's kind of two sides to that. You said, how does someone gain trust? And then the other side of that was, How do you know if you can trust the right person?
Yes.
So let's go to the gaining trust part. If we go back to everything I just shared, everybody shares information. Everybody, somebody could right now take all of your stuff and regurgitate all the things that you do and sound really knowledgeable. But how do you earn trust? There's a couple of things that I've been living by for 3 decades in this industry. One is people will trust you, buy from you, learn from you when they feel understood. Not when they understand you. So instead of always trying to be the deliverer of just value, you want to do that. You want to make people knowledgeable, but you gotta meet people where they are. What are the conversations they're having at a coffee shop with their friend? Meet them there. What are the conversations they're having in the mirror to themselves? We have to let people feel understood. There's 3 things I've been saying to myself for at least 25 years is meet people where they are. Enter conversations that are already going on in their mind and let people feel understood. Don't get them to understand you. People can fall in love with the feeling of being around somebody with so much energy like you, or optimism, or Tony Robbins, and the feeling, because it's euphoric.
Yes.
When you really understand personal development, you understand what Wayne Dyer, when he switched that thought, when you can turn a negative belief to a solid belief, when you can take a horrible past and make it the wind behind your sail, not the anchor. That stuff is freaking amazing. It jacks you up, it jacks me up, and we can get comfortable with that feeling. And what we want is another dopamine hit of the way that feels. What I've been saying for 2 decades is get obsessed with uncomfortable action, not just obsessed with the learning. Like, let your brain be rewired to go, when I take an action that makes me feel uncomfortable, That's when I'm moving forward because it's always uncomfortable.
Yes.
If it was comfortable, you would have already done it.
100%.
Right. So you got to look for the things that put a knot in your stomach that are uncomfortable. Get through those. The dopamine hit on the other side of an uncomfortable action will far outdo the motivation of a quick video.
Information alone is no longer enough. Then what creates leverage today? Is it speed? Is it execution? Is it audience distribution, trust? What do you think the next generation of entrepreneurs are underestimating right now?
I think this— I never shared, never. This is not something at the top of my head. I would say speed, trust, and accountability. For example, our company AI Advantage, we had the AI Advantage bootcamp where we taught people how to build a digital twin and start using agentic AI over 6 weeks. We started 3 days later, highest satisfaction rate of any Any product I've ever built. 30 years, lowest refunds of any product I've ever built in 30 years. Like nobody refunded. Ecstatic out of their mind. And I think it was because we kept them accountable. We started proximity and accountability. You're starting Tuesday.
No delaying.
And I could see you because you're up on the screen. I'm going to tell you. And we sent them emails knowing you got to be there live. We had crazy insane show-up rates. And we carried them through this journey. They stayed with us for 6 weeks. They graduated, got done, was over, out of their freaking mind. I could have taken that same 6 weeks, packaged it into a course, would have been the same value, but they would have been checking their phones, seeing life, getting distracted. So I think that I'm not just talking out of what I think. We just did proximity and accountability immediately. Second thing, time. Reduce the time. When you reduce the time, you have to have creative destruction.
Yes.
Meaning I had to blow stuff up and put in the most important parts and it crushed it. Everybody's like, you're gonna take 6 months for A. I'm like, no, 6 weeks, done. Proximity, accountability, condense the time. And because they're getting results so fast, you build trust through the journey.
Yeah.
It's like, this is session 1. I got more today than I've learned in a year. This is just the philosophy I've really adopted in business over the last 5 years. Find the biggest constraint that you want to solve that can move the needle in your life?
Yeah.
Just whatever it is— launching the business, starting the business, marketing, sales. I've been dying to build an in-person sales floor and I don't know how to do it. I need my online marketing. I want to double the size of my social media. Whatever the one that could truly move the needle, not the one the most comfortable to you, the one that can move the needle the most. And then think, why am I not doing that?
Yeah.
And that is the constraint you should solve. And then all focus should be, can I learn this one thing, this one AI strategy that helps me solve that? Can I read a book to help me solve that? If you condense it to one thing, the problem is we're seeing all this AI. It's like, oh, I should have my house bills done this way and I should do my accounting this way and I should have a spreadsheet this way and I should be vibe coding this thing or I should be Claude. Do I use Claude Code? Do I use Claude Cowork? Or is chat okay? No, but Brock's doing good. And it's like you don't even know what you're solving for. You're just running all over the place. It's like if you just say, hey, in the next 90 days I'm going to launch my sales floor, then everything you should do is find strategies, AI, people, information that can help you solve that one thing. And then all the noise goes away. And I would, I would obsessively focus out and tune out everything else. Keep that open mind of innovation, creativity. Look for where the puck is going. Try to shift. Read the right books. Surround yourself with the right people, and opportunities and new doors will open.
