The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

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The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

Issue #075

| The Digital Contrarian™

How to Craft Your Worldview With AI.

How To Craft Your Worldview With AI: What I Learned At Tony Robbins & Dean Graziosi's $250K Private Mastermind this Week...

Ryan Levesque

15 min read

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I’m just getting back to Vermont after spending this past week in Mexico.
 
I was invited to deliver a talk at Tony & Dean’s $250K Private Mastermind…
 
A room filled with ultra-successful 8 and 9 figure entrepreneurs…
 
(As well as several billionaires…)
 
The event was held at a brand new Ritz Carlton Reserve property on 900+ acres an hour outside of Puerto Vallarta…
 
And we were the first to ever stay at the property.
 
The group was amazing…
 
And the venue was incredible.
 
Think: 6-Star Luxury…
 
Suites that start at $9K/night…
 
$11M private residences…
 
And private Michelin Star dinners on the beach at sunset….
* * *
Yet, in the keynote that I delivered…
 
I discussed the sobering reality of the rising wealth inequality we’re experiencing that represents what I believe may be one of the most important forces to shape the next few decades…
 
And after Day 1 of the event was spent focused on the promise and possibilities of AI…
 
I was asked to open Day 2 with something a little…. different.
In my talk, I shared a contrarian Worldview that offered a slightly *controversial* perspective around what may be even more important than the AI story unfolding right now…
 
And even more importantly, what to do about it.
 
Which brings us to…

1 | Your Hidden Operating System: Why Building A Comprehensive Worldview Is So Important.

Now, in case you’re wondering…
 
The *slightly controversial* talk I delivered received a standing ovation…
 
(And at least one person in the room came up to me afterward and said it was the best talk she’d heard in her entire life…)
 
But all that said…
 
After returning home from delivering a talk like this…
 
(In addition to processing all the feedback from my session…)
 
I will also spend considerable time reviewing my pages and pages of notes from all the other sessions of the event, to organize my thinking, so that I can deliver a debrief for my Private Clients and members of my Strategy Advisory Group Mastermind on the takeaways I believe are most important.
 
(Something I’ll be doing this week before we break for Thanksgiving…)
Photo Credit: Dan Usher
I’ll also typically spend time reflecting on how these new ideas may challenge (or potentially reshape) my current Worldview…
 
And how it might influence key decisions I’m making in my business, with my family, and in my life…
 
Which begs the question…

What IS a “Comprehensive Worldview” Exactly (And Why Is It So Important to Have One)??

In a nutshell, a Comprehensive Worldview is a set of assumptions you use to answer 3 fundamental questions:
 
  1. What is true about how the world works?
  2. What pattern am I in right now?
  3. How should I position myself next?
In other words…
 
Your Worldview is the combination of (1) what you believe is true about how the world fundamentally works, (2) the patterns you’ve learned to notice, and (3) how you decide to act because of it.
 
A well-formed Worldview drives every major thread in your life, including:
  • The business you decide to build…
  • Where you invest your money…
  • What you choose to study…
  • How you parent your children..
  • The food you put into your body…
* * *
Now, to be clear…
 
Most people sleepwalk their way through life…
 
(Nevermind operating on the basis of a Comprehensive Worldview.)
 
Accepting whatever core beliefs the algorithm and their environment surreptitiously serve to their subconscious mind…
 
In contrast…
 
A consciously formed comprehensive worldview requires both curation and intention…
 
In other words…
 
What you choose to pay attention to and who you choose to learn from matters a lot.
 
Which brings us to…

2 | Deep Convictions, Loosely Held: Three Lenses That Have Shaped My Own Personal Worldview...

In my forthcoming book, Return to Real…
 
I explore Three Colliding Forces Reshaping the World that combine to create what I believe is a singular moment in human history that is about to arrive at our doorstep…
 
And as I first shared in [Issue #046] Brace for Impact – my thinking in this area (which continues to evolve) has been influenced by the work of Ray Dalio, Nate Hagens, and Yuval Noah Harari – among several others…
 
In fact, each of these names – Dalio, Hagens, Harari – has contributed what I consider to be several of the First Principlesinfluencing my personal Worldview at a fundamental level…
 
(BTW – “First Principles” are the small number of key ideas you’re willing to treat as non-negotiably true about how the world works – and then use as your starting point for every important decision you make in life…)
 
For example…
1. The World Operates Cyclically, Not Linearly (Dalio)
As a student of both history and biology…
 
I believe the world operates cyclically, not linearly.
 
When you can identify what type of repeating cycle we’re in and what phase of that repeating cycle we’re in, you can make educated predictions about what’s likely to happen next.
 
 
This applies to not only…
 
  • Biological & Natural Cycles (growth, decay, regeneration, repeat…)
 
But also…
 
  • Economic & Historical Cycles (credit booms and busts, rise and decline of empires)
 
Short version: The world runs on cycles, not straight lines. If you learn how to recognize the cycle and the phase, you can anticipate what’s coming next.
 
2. Energy Is The Base Layer of the Human Experience (Hagens)
Energy is the base layer of everything: Every biological system on Earth and every economic system humans have built.
 
I believe that beneath all the layers of abstraction…
 
(Money, markets, technology, “the economy”, etc.)
 
Is a thermodynamic reality that we cannot ignore:
 
Energy availability, quality, and cost ultimately shape what’s possible in our economies and in the human experience.
 
And what we call capitalism is essentially the process of transforming energy into goods and services humans find useful.
 
That’s all it is.
 
 
Short version: Energy is the base layer of everything. Capitalism is just us turning energy into useful stuff – and we ignore that thermodynamic reality at our peril.
 
3. There Are Three Levels of “Reality” – Objective, Subjective, Intersubjective (Harari)
There are actually three forms of what we describe as reality:
 
  1. Objective Reality – Things that are true regardless of what anyone believes (gravity, viruses, CO₂ levels).
  2. Subjective Reality – Your inner world of feelings, thoughts, and personal experience.
  3. Intersubjective Reality – Things that are real because many people believe in them (money, nations, laws, companies, religions, brands). 
I believe that every underlying assumption or “truth claim” needs to be understood first through the lens of which kind of reality you’re dealing with.
 
(i.e. Be Curious. Ask Questions. Seek Truth.)
 
Confusing these three levels is where a lot of bad thinking and bad decisions come from.
 

Short version: There are actually three kinds of real – objective, subjective, and intersubjective – and you have to know which one you’re looking at before you decide what’s true.

 
* * *
Are you starting to see how these work?
 
Now, the reason why I’m a big believer in “Deep Convictions, Loosely Held” is because there is a danger in treating any core belief around how you see the world as final and forever.
 
Instead, when you treat everything as your current best attempt to make sense of the world…
 
You give yourself permission to evolve…
 
And even potentially change your mind.
 
(Gasp!)
 
In other words…
 
Deep Convictions, Loosely Held (Another of my First Principles, BTW…)
 
Means the courage to act as if something is true today…
 
But the humility to update when better data (or deeper wisdom) appears.
 
So when you look back at what wrote or built a decade ago and cringe?
 
That’s just a sign of your growth :-)
 
Which brings us to…

3 | How This All Applies to Business: Lessons Learned from a $40M+ Product Launch...

At the Tony & Dean $250K Mastermind, there were a number of incredible speakers and sessions…
 
But the session I’ll highlight here today is the one Dean Graziosi delivered, wherein he shared some of the biggest lessons learned from his company’s most recent $40M product launch…
 
Now, there were a HUNDRED different things Tony & Dean did to make their launch the massive success it was…
 
But if there was just one overarching Core Idea I took away from Dean’s Worldview on marketing it was this:
 
“Ripe Fruit vs. Green Fruit”
 
Most marketers spend their entire lives focused on identifying and picking ripe fruit (i.e. people most ready to buy). Few ever develop both the patience to pick fruit that is still green, and the skill to ripen that fruit over time. But green fruit is where almost all the opportunity is in every market. And focusing on green fruit is the key to doing a $40M product launch.
* * *
A single Core Idea – shaped by a Comprehensive Worldview – can serve as the foundation for an entire product launch…
 
An entire brand…
 
Or even an entire business…
 
For example…
 
When we launched The ASK Method® Company, it was built upon the following Core Idea, shaped by my own Worldview, influenced by my business mentor, Dr. Glenn Livingston:
 
“Message From Your Market, Not Your Mind.”
 

By asking people the right questions – you can not only understand the problems and pain they’re facing – but the exact language they use to describe those problems and that pain. This insight in turn tells you not only what products to create and sell, but also the exact language to use in your messaging to sell those products.*

*As an aside, my thinking on this topic has evolved somewhat. But this is a topic for another day…

In terms of Core Ideas…
 
Pretty simple, right?
 
This in turn brings us to the next question, which is…

4 | How Do You Build (or Update) Your Own Worldview? And Where Can AI Help?

If a Comprehensive Worldview is so important…
 
How do you actually build one?
 
Or, if you already have one (you do), how do you make it more explicit and useful, instead of just letting it run silently in the background?
 
I asked ChatGPT for a little help to “operationalize” this for us…
 
And what follows is a six-step process you can run on yourself to start documenting (or expand upon) your own Comprehensive Worldview…
 
Beginning with…

Step 1: Surface the Worldview You Already Have.

Before you build anything new, you have to see what’s already there.
 
Because here’s the truth:
 
You probably already have (somewhat of) a worldview. You probably just don’t have it articulated all in one place.
 
If you want to surface it, start with a few simple prompts in a journal or on a blank doc, like the following:
 
  • “What do I assume about the future of the economy?”
  • “What do I assume about technology & AI?”
  • “What do I assume about human nature?”
  • “What do I assume about the planet and our ecological future?”
 
Don’t overthink your answers.
 
Just write what you actually believe in your gut (not what you think you’re supposed to believe…)

Step 2: Articulate 5-10 “Strong Beliefs, Loosely Held”

Next, start turning vague assumptions into actual statements.
 
Use a simple stem:
 
“I believe…”
 
For example:
 
  • “I believe the world operates cyclically, not linearly.”
  • “I believe energy is the base layer of the human experience.”
  • “I believe the best things in life don’t scale.”
  • “I believe the only business worth building is a category of one.”
 
These don’t have to be perfect.
 
(And yes, this is exactly the kind of thing you can ask AI to help you wordsmith once you’ve got your rough draft down…)
 
The key is to get 5–10 Strong Beliefs, Loosely Held out of your head and onto the page:
 
  • Strong = you’re willing to act on them.
  • Loosely held = you’re willing to update them when better data or deeper wisdom appears.

Step 3: Choose Your “Faculty of Thinkers”

You don’t have to build your worldview from scratch.
 
Other smart people have spent entire lifetimes wrestling with the same questions you’re asking now.
 
So an underrated move is to consciously select a “Faculty of Thinkers” (dead or alive) you want to learn from – almost like you’re building your own personal advisory board.
 
For example, you might choose:*
 
  • Macro / Cycles: Ray Dalio, Howard Marks
  • Energy / Ecology: Nate Hagens, Donella Meadows
  • The Human Story: Yuval Noah Harari, Joseph Campbell

  • Embodiment / Nature: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Wendell Berry

*Don’t limit yourself to these categories or names. These are just here to give you some thought-starters. You should focus on the areas of the world that are most relevant and meaningful to you and your work. e.g. if you are a commercial real estate investor, you should have “Deep Convictions, Loosely Held” and a “Faculty of Thinkers” specifically focused in the area of commercial real estate investing.

 
The goal here isn’t blind agreement with everything a particular thinker believes.
 
The goal is triangulation.
 
i.e. If multiple thinkers like Dalio, Hagens, and Harari are all looking at the same world from different angles…
 
Where their views overlap may offer clues as to where the deep truth lives..
 
Which brings us to…

Step 4: Stress-Test With Dissonance

Once you have your initial set of beliefs and your “faculty” in place…
 
Now comes the uncomfortable part:
 
Actively expose your worldview to things that contradict it.
 
That means:
 
  • Read people you disagree with.
  • Listen to the smartest version of the argument you think is wrong.
  • Invite friends, clients, and mentors to say, “Here’s where I think you’re missing something.”
 
My friend, Jake Cohen recently did this with a Core Thesis he is developing around how to think about and invest in AI over the next decade…
 
Most people avoid this because it feels threatening.
 
But if you’re serious about “Deep Convictions, Loosely Held”…
 
This is how you discover where your worldview has holes and is over-simplified…

Step 5: Connect Your Worldview to Real Decisions

A worldview is only useful if it shows up in the actual decisions you make.
 
Otherwise it’s just an intellectual exercise.
 
This is where you trace the link:
 
Worldview → Business/Investment Thesis → Concrete Decisions (What you build, what you buy, where you live, who you serve.)
 
For example, in my own life:
 
  • A Dalio-style belief that the world runs in long debt and empire cycles…
  • A Hagens-style belief that energy is the base layer of everything…
  • And a Harari-style lens on objective / subjective / intersubjective reality…
 
Those beliefs (combined with others) led me to:
 
  • Sell my last company at the time that I did…
  • Move my family from Texas to a farm in Vermont…
  • Build a business aligned with the Return to Real movement…
  • Invest in assets, skills, and relationships I believe will matter 10–20 years from now…
 
Different worldview → different life.
 
Same for you.
 
When you look at your business model, pricing, offers, hiring, marketing, and even where you choose to live…
 
You should be able to say:
 
“This choice makes sense because of how I see the world.”
 
If you can’t connect those dots?
 
Either the choice, or the worldview, needs another look.

Step 6: Create a Review Rhythm

Finally, you want to build in a simple review cadence.
 
I recommend treating your worldview a bit like the Investment Policy Statement discussion from [Issue #042] How to Keep Your Head Straight When the World Goes Sideways…
 
Once a year, sit down and ask:
 
  • “What do I still believe is true?”
  • “What no longer matches the world I’m actually seeing?”
  • “What have I learned this year that should update my beliefs?”
 
In other words, this is not about rebuilding your beliefs from scratch each year…
 
But you are refining and recalibrating…
 
Just like you’d rebalance a portfolio when certain positions drift out of alignment, you rebalance your worldview when:
 
  • New data appears…
  • Old assumptions stop working…
  • Or real life delivers you feedback you can’t ignore…
 
This is how you avoid becoming the person clinging to a 2010’s worldview in a 2030’s world…
 
(Sadly, I am seeing many entrepreneurs who are struggling with this, as they continue to operate their business in an Old Economy paradigm…)
 
Which brings me to my invitation for you this week…

5 | Your Turn: One Principle Reshaping Your Worldview?

If you’re willing, I’d love to hear from you.
 
Simply SHOOT ME AN EMAIL with…
 
  1. One principle that deeply shapes how you are seeing the world.
  2. Where it came from (a book, a mentor, a personal experience, etc.)
You don’t need to write an essay.
 
Even 2–3 sentences is great.
 
I read every reply.
 
And with your permission, I may share a few of these (with attribution, or anonymously if you prefer) in a future issue or debrief…
 
Because my hunch is:
 
If there are questions right now that you are thinking deeply about…
 
There’s a good chance that I (and others) are probably thinking deeply about these same issues as well…
* * *
Okay, I’ll leave you with that for now…
 
Have a great rest of your weekend…
 
Remember to hug the ones you love…
 
And until next week…
 
Ryan :-)
 
P.S. As a heads up, I have something cool planned for Black Friday this year…
 
With pretty much the only way to work with me and my company these days starting with a multi-thousand dollar investment…
 
What I’m doing for Black Friday will be under a hundred bucks.
 
(And it will probably be the only thing at that price point for quite some time…)
 
So keep your eyes peeled – I think you may be interested in what we’re about to make available…
 
More good stuff to come very soon! :-)

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The Great Sea Change diagram from Return to Real