The Twin Room Episode 4: Standing Out as a Thought Leader

It was 2009, and I was sitting in an event and really not even realizing what that event would— the impact it would have on my life. And I'm a front row person. I was sitting in the front row of this event, and the speaker walked up to the stage and it was Simon Sinek. And he was talking about why. He had just released Start with Why, the book. And the moment that I remember the most was at the very end he said, I'm not going to hand out these medallions. And the medallions were, you know, the Start with Why, the circle. And You have to come introduce yourself to me and ask for one. And I learned a really important lesson that day, and that is just asking permission and using your voice to ask for things. And the most important part of that day was it really changed the way I thought about purpose. This is like kind of pre-purpose, PP, you know? And now you hear it in everything, but it was a time when companies didn't necessarily think that way. We'd been in business for a long time and had a really successful agency. And I don't even think I really even thought about purpose. That was 2009. I still have that coin with me today. And I take it out every once in a while and really think about that day and what it meant to me. And it really kind of formed an opinion in my mind about what thought leadership really is and the impact that thought leaders can have on people, communities, and the world. And I've read every book he's written since then and follow him, and he's been very clear on message, very consistently clear on message. And I think that has become a real challenge for thought leaders today. If we think about how many leaders we follow and I'll definitely wanna talk about Deepak Chopra, but Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss and Gary Vee. Gary Vee. And some of them have very specific topics and some that just have very specific personas. Like with Tony Robbins, you know what you're gonna get with Tony. Have you seen Tony Robbins' digital twin? I have seen it. It's amazing. Amazing. It's very good. And I think about what it did for Tony Robbins. And Tony Robbins, that's something, you know, there are people that begin movements. Tony Robbins is one of those people, you know, that began— he really started the whole sort of— I don't even know what he really does, but let's just say inspiring many and taking them through a process. And now he's one of the best digital twins that I've seen. You can go to Tony Robbins, I think it's probably.com. By the way, if you don't own your.ai on your name, maybe you should purchase that today. But Tony Robbins, his digital twin, you can connect to them, ask them questions. I think it's like $49.99 a month or something like that, or maybe in a year. But what it did for him is it scaled him 100x. Exposure. You know, exposure. So everyone has access to him. That's why in thinking about digital twins, we have to be so intentional about how we build them because they're, they're, you know, just like I think about the day that I met Simon Sinek. He's been very consistently himself over time. And I'm certain he's working on a digital twin. Think about what that means 10 years from now and how that consistent Simon shows up. Very consistent. Were you thinking about Deepak? I was. Do you remember that day? I do. And what I was thinking about was you talked about a consistent message. Yeah. And also, Deepak talks about a lot of different things. Yeah. But one of the things I was so inspired by was what he said when we were at that conference. And that was the only measure of success is joy. Yeah. And it goes back to being that authenticity part, you know, and really understanding, you know, what brings us joy. I also felt the same thing with Simon Sinek. Yeah. With why. And then when we learned what our why was, that was an amazing experience too. Yeah. That the White Institute, we branded that. Yeah, that was a great campaign too. Well, I think it was because it was all built on purpose. Yeah, built on purpose, on purpose, on purpose. One thing about Deepak and just having the opportunity to interview him, like I was, oh, what an opportunity to interview him. The thing that I remember from that interview was He said it was time to think bigger and that we can no longer think small. And he talked about the impact that we can and should have in this world. And I remember that day talking to him about his digital twin, which is really where I really started thinking about the impact that digital twins could have on leaders because I felt like it knew me. Because when you talk to a digital twin, it learns your behavior. It learns how you ask questions and starts delivering content to you based on you. So it's interesting how I know that these— there have been several people that are leading this endeavor in terms of creating digital twins that actually align with their personas. And well, now I think about Deepak and some challenges he's had recently with some potential, it's reputational issues, which, you know, one of the things that I'm always struggling with is, and this goes back to some of our crisis work, is today when someone says something about a leader, people assume it's true, whether it is or not. And then once it's out there, it becomes part of their epigenetics, right? The epigenetics. Mm-hmm, go back to your sticky notes. And so it becomes part of who they're known and how they're known and, That's one reason why we have to be very careful about the digital assets we have out there and be very, very aware of what's being said about us. And because we want to know how we're perceived and that we need to be in a space and a place where if we need to react or respond, that we can and we should. What's the best way to do that? Listening campaign. To build in, you can do that, by the way, with AI today. You can build an agent Or you can actually work in Claude code. I'm not— whatever tool you're using. But you can ask it to create just sort of a listening campaign whenever you're mentioned. And some channels are not accessible, but you can do a general search with it whenever you're mentioned that it will give you a report. So we're in the process right now, and I know everyone knows that LLMs are not searchable like websites are moving from this SEO to zero click. Well, I think zero click. I think I kind of miss the novelty of clicking actually, you know, and I'm not aware that I'm not clicking because I'm searching and it's searching in these LLMs and LinkedIn and you're getting those results. But those results, you know, are not always necessarily pure because a lot of people are building a lot of AI search in what they're doing. And so it's kind of same thing like paperclip but through AI. Yeah, yeah. The challenging part though is if you don't, um, have whatever website or blog or whatever you have set up to where it can, uh, read LLMs. Yeah, it won't, it won't see it. Yeah, so that's a tricky part. Yeah, AEO, AEO. You know, I kind of question if people even need websites anymore. You know, I think there's some amazing tools out there where you can build a website in minutes, and the website can react and interact with people based on who they are and where they come from. So there's a dynamic aspect that's coming out with websites. I think that's why you have to have a strategy. You have to be really clear about what your goals are. Again, like who your audience is, what tools you want to use. I know, for example, just with AI and our team, we've really struggled with what tools to use. I mean, how many tools do we work with? Like 14 or something like that. And I know that we've— our AI consultant has been telling us just pick one, pick one and stick with one because they'll all be at the same place at some point. But, you know, I think going back to this idea of experimentation and really testing different tools against each other so that we can be and share knowledge with our clients and the leaders we work with. I wanna mention something you said because you were talking about building a strategy, talking about websites. And I think that it's really gotta start on the strategy side. A lot of people come to us and they say, you know, do y'all do websites? I'm like, well, yes we do websites, but what is your strategy? So I think it's also really important, Gotta start with strategy. Gotta start with strategy. Gotta start with strategy. It's not about the platform. It's not about the whatever tools you're using. It's about strategy. Strategy. What are you trying to achieve? And then after you have your strategy, you can apply it to many different things. Yeah. I do think with, and I know you always say that people come to us for websites, I know that's not historically true today, but I find that people are coming to me on the leader side, the leader engine side and like saying, how do I get clear on my message? How can I create a message that I'm known for and build an editorial calendar around making sure that's consistent? You know, some people are looking for digital twins, some people are looking for, you know, standing out in their industry, or maybe even writing a book. So the, the what people look for now has really changed over over time. And with organizations, is it the same that you're seeing? Yeah, we just had a launch, grand launch, this week where someone came to us and said, look, you know, we want to reinvent ourselves. We've been in business for a really long time. We want to reinvent ourselves and we need to reinvent in 8 weeks. 8 weeks. So the best part about it that I thought was that we came together as a team because as they were trying to build their message, It kind of evolved over that time, even though it was really speed dating. But it was an opportunity for people to really think about, well, does this work, or is this what we want to do, without coming in and saying, this is what I want to do. And they were able to bring in a lot of their team to do that. So it makes it much more valuable, I think. I think we went through a few names on that one. Yeah, a few names. But whatever it takes. We've always been like that, whatever it takes. To get to the right place. I want to mention something about that because, you know, trademark was such a big part of that project. And many of the strategies that our member of the team came up with were amazing, but the trademarks were taken. And how difficult trademark search has become. And we worked with an amazing trademark— we worked with two independent trademark attorneys in that search. How important is trademark today in brands? Well, I think if you want to own it, that you, you know, you want to make sure the trademark, because if not, somebody else can take it. And, you know, what if, you know, for example, Twin Engine, what if someone comes and says, well, I want to be Twin Engine? Yeah, it's happened. It has, it has happened before. And then we had to challenge that, but we have the trademark. The other challenging thing about trademarks is it has to be a certain category. So one of the ones that we're seeing a big shift in right now is anything— for software. Yeah, yeah. So in terms of software, so it's just something you'd be aware of and something you need to think about in the beginning. Yeah, we— another project we recently did, we had a big issue with trademark and We trusted that the client was working with a trademark attorney. Yeah. And they said they were. Yeah. And the brand launched, and I know that we asked them every single time. Yeah. Brand launched, and then we found out that the trademark was taken and they had to take it down. It was an absolutely terrible feeling. Yeah, it was disappointing. And it's a responsibility. And, you know, I think that I wish we would have pushed harder on making and ensuring that they were doing that part of the project. Yeah, it's a critical piece. Yeah, it's a critical piece. I think it's becoming even more important with the, you know, the IP of leaders. You know, how do you trademark a face, a likeness? I know that we talked about that in another episode about Taylor Swift, and that's the process that she's working on right now. And, you know, smartly so in terms of, you know, protecting her likeness and her voice. From AI, because many of you have probably seen in some of the tools where you can replicate your voice, you can choose different voices, and there's some that sound very familiar to some voices we know really well. So that's really tricky for, you know, how you maintain some ownership of not only your organization brand and the challenges that you will certainly face, whether it's your global brand or just in the US, and you have to really think about that actually I recommend everyone that maybe is thinking about this to go back and look at their trademarks. Are they up to date? Are they in the proper categories? Ensuring that those things are protected. You mentioned that we talked about in a different episode about AI and how people are able to replicate things. What do you do if somebody does? There are some emerging organizations out there that almost work from a crisis standpoint where they work on making the claim that— first of all, you have to find out where it came from, um, and you have to find out how it was published. It's a lot more difficult than it used to be. You know, it's not like you can just trace it back. And, um, there's some bad actors out there. You know, we're going to see this, we're going to see a lot of this, uh, in the very near future. Um, and this is something that, you know, a service that you may want to— especially if you have a very, um, visible face and that you are the face of your company, you might want to take some some, you know, action and really thinking about having someone and talking to your— at least your crisis team, your legal team— on what you need to put in place to ensure that, you know, that doesn't happen. But it's going to happen to all of us. And so fast, it's happened so fast. I mean, 2 years ago, we've been really thinking about this. Well, I remember, um, you know, many years ago, and, you know, Google, you know, reviews. Remember if there was some bad thing mentioned out there, you could— what we call this— push it down, and you could, you know, but can't do that anymore. Not today. Yeah, today. And it's out there. And again, it goes back to, is it real, is it not? And kind of takes me back to what you said originally about strategy and how important having a strategy is. And, you know, as exciting it is to build a new brand and to launch a new product or service or build a digital twin, make sure that you really consider the legal side of that. You have to protect it. You have to protect it in many ways. Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, you know, my— you know, I can lock your phone with my face and your banking app thinks I'm you. So think about the damage I could do. Not that I'm going to. That's funny. Yeah, but yeah, it's definitely something that, um, most recently I thought a lot about because, um, um, there's— when you look out and, and see different brands, there's not a lot of there are a lot of new and unique things out there. So you have to find really what makes you really unique. Because everything else looks the same. Distinct advantage. In Stand Out as a Thought Leader and then Stand Out as an Organization, there's an exercise in both of those books that is called distinct advantage. And it's a Venn diagram where you have one circle and that is what people are looking for. Circle, what I offer. And the other one that overlaps is, you know, where your competitors don't want or can't. And you're looking for that little overlap. And I think that people often think they know what it is, but when you really go through that exercise, you learn so much more. It's not service, it's not the product, it's something probably really unique to what a company does. That's one of my favorite exercises. And thinking about that, um, I think another point is you really have to understand the audience that you're going for. Who is your ideal client profile? And that's who you're gonna speak to in terms of your voice, your message, and things like that. Because the challenge that we've seen before in some organizations and thought leaders too, they really don't understand who their audience is and they're speaking to someone and they're very passionate about what they're speaking about, but they're not actually speaking to their audience. Yeah. So that's challenging too. It's a process. I call that drift. The drift. It happens with real people and digital twins and organizations. And that you're working on something and maybe you have a team that's working on independent. You're not looking at everything. And then all of a sudden you see something like that doesn't sound anything like me or that is not directed to our target audience. So you have to really think about drift and think about how you continuously bring things back together. I know that we do quarterly strategy sessions for our clients and thought leaders just to keep them on course, to keep them aligned with what they said they were going to do, whether they've done it or not, what they learned and how that strategy needs to change and evolve and how they keep focused on what that key audience is really looking for and making sure they're speaking to them in the correct voice. Yeah, another thought about that is archetypes. Yeah, because you mentioned that teams are working on different things too, and it's really important that, that everyone is clear on what your archetype is because that is your voice, that's how you present yourself, and that you stay true to that. Carl Jung archetype specifically is what we're talking about. But, you know, we've also been looking at that on the thought leadership side, and I think that, and the digital twin side it's almost like I think we have to, you know, and this is what I've actually been struggling with this. Maybe, maybe you are, maybe you're not. And that is when you build a digital twin, are you building it to be a mirror of you? Are you building it to complement you? And archetypes play a big part in that because if you're building it to complement you, the archetype's gonna be different for your digital twin than it is for you. I think when you think about real life twins, like you and I, we are completely different, but different, you know, um, you know, I think identically different actually. I think that, you know, and it goes back to the experiences we've had and we've become very different people, but we complement each other. So we, we, we build on each other, you know, and that's why I think, um, we often refer to digital twins as, as you know, thought partners for thought leaders. Um, and I know that that's how many people are using AI tools, you know, of being a thought partner. But how does that really come out when you're building a digital twin? Do you think it's a mirror? You think it's a copy, or you think it's a complement? When I think of digital twins, I think of a mirror. Yeah, because it's a reflection of who you are, and it kind of goes back to what you said about Tony Robbins. Because he's able to scale, scale his brand by creating that digital twin and increase exposure, brand awareness. You know, you may disagree, but I see it as a mirror. I go back and forth. I mean, I think about the opportunity of having a visionary and an integrator as digital twins. I think we could look at it two different ways. I often see it that way because I think, especially on the visionary side, they need integrators. But what I'm seeing with the AI tools that we're testing is they're working more like integrators, not like mirrors. So maybe a digital twin is different than an agent, is different than a clone. And I know that the industry is working on really defining what those definitions are. But I think I'm still a little like— again, it goes back to being in that experimental phase, like trying different things. You know, looking at these digital twins, experimenting with them, seeing what they can do. I mean, I think, you know, to myself, you know, I've been looking at maybe buying a robot. I don't know if you've seen those, that you can buy these robots now and they can live in your home and they can do a lot of amazing things. And the reason I want one is, you're like, what are you doing? The reason I want one, because I want to see what it can do. And I think we all need this intensity and curiosity to begin to think about what could the future look like for us. And I know from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I'm always like, whoa, let's try that, you know. And I think from a robot perspective, these digital twins that we think about in the future could be, you know, robotic twins, you know. I mean, we won't be as unique. Maybe they'll be like, I Oh, identical twins. So I know that they just came out in a paper, and I can't remember, I don't know who to credit for this, but moving from agentic AI to identic AI. And think about what that's gonna mean in terms of identity for leaders. That's interesting. Yeah. You mentioned about the future, and a funny story that I just, just popped in my head was 1976. Are we at Walt Disney World? We're at Walt Disney World. Do you remember this story? Yeah, I don't know what the story is. Are we in— where, where? It's a Small World After All? No, no, we're at Walt Disney World. We're at Space Mountain. Okay. And at the end of Space Mountain, they had a— you're on the revolving thing, the future. Yeah, it showed the future, and we were looking at it, and it showed people opening up this thing to cook food in this thing. And, and they— there was a big TV where they were actually talking to somebody on the TV. And I mean, it was just like, you're looking, you're like, no way, no way. And look at where we are today. Look at where we are today. And, and, and now things are happening so fast, you know. That was '76, a little while ago. Uh, and people are calculating our age right now. Go for it. But, uh, But it's, it was just, I thought it was fascinating. Yeah. And it stuck with me because I thought it was, wow, could the future really be like that? And it, and it, and it is. But now things are happening so fast. Who knows what, who knows what things are gonna be like? I mean, I think we can probably see a year from now, but 5 years from now. So maybe we'll get that robot. I hope so. I want one. Maybe we'll have a triplet. That would be scary. That would be scary. I think a lot of people wanna be our triplet. They really don't wanna be our triplet. Anyway, that's what's so fun about these conversations is we get to talk about really the two engines that we run at Twin Engine, the leader side and the organization side, and explore things like digital twins and what we can learn from twins to be more of ourselves. And giving Simon Sinek full credit to really think about how do we start with why, how do we build a strategy around where we're going in the future, And that's what the Twin Room is all about. See you next week. Bye.