The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

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The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

Issue #074

| The Digital Contrarian™

The First Trillion-Dollar Thought Leader.

The First Trillion-Dollar Thought Leader: Being Known for How You Think, Not What You Consume...

Ryan Levesque

8 min read

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We’ve all been told we need a “personal brand.”
 
But most of what the internet means by that is:
 
Become an Influencer.
 
Post more. Grow faster. Show every corner of your life.
 
(No thanks.)
 
The problem with that, is in the age of AI…
 
If you’re a founder, investor, advisor, (or a person of substance, as Adam Grant describes…)
That’s actually the wrong game.
 
The game that actually compounds is not influence in the social-media sense.
 
It’s Thought Leadership – i.e. being known for how you think, not what you consume.
 
And as we’ve just welcomed our most recent cohort of Category of One Thought Leader clients this past week…
 
It’s reminded me of…

1 | The Key Distinction between Influencers vs. Thought Leaders in this Post-AI World...

May Busch, former COO of Morgan Stanley, Harvard MBA, author of Visible & Member of my Strategic Advisory Group Mastermind and Thought Leaderclient.
Here’s the contrast as I see it:
 
  • Influencers optimize for visibility and engagement. They’re known for their lifestyle – the car, the trips, the food, the brands.
  • Thought Leaders optimize for insight and usefulness. They’re known for their ideas – the frameworks, the predictions, their theses, and the way they see the world.
 
Influencers “rent attention” from the algorithm.
 
Thought leaders “build mental real estate” in the heads of people who make serious decisions.
 
And that distinction matters financially.
 
In fact, with Elon Musk’s most recent pay package from last week, (love him or hate him) we may be witnessing the world’s first trillion dollar personal brand.
In other words: Markets already treat a certain kind of personal brand (the “idea-and-reputation” kind) as a multi-billion-dollar asset.
 
They just don’t book it on the balance sheet.
 
Which brings us to…

2 | What a Post-AI Thought Leadership Brand Actually Buys You Today...

In our post-AI world increasingly filled with “AI Slop” – a real thought leadership brand transforms your ideas into equity.
 
And this shows up in a number of concrete ways.
 
For example:
1. Company Value & Deal Flow
Effective thought leadership exerts a surprisingly strong influence on sales and pricing…
 
Thought leadership can be a more powerful marketing tool than traditional methods and makes people more willing to seek you out — and even pay extra for your expertise.
 
But at the same time, most thought leadership producers underestimate the level of impact their content is having in their market. Check it out…
Translated into plain English:
 
When your ideas shape how buyers see their problem and you consistently produce strong thought leadership content, you stop being “just another vendor.”
 
You become “the one who actually gets it.”
 
That gives you pricing power, credibility & authority in your market, and ultimately a line of people wanting to do business with you.
 
(This is the whole “Category of One” positioning we’ve been exploring together in recent issues of The Digital Contrarian.)
 
In addition, a real thought leadership brand gives you…
2. Optionality
When your thinking is visible:
 
Interesting opportunities start finding you:
 
Advisory opportunities, speaking invitations, partnership offers, & investment deals.
 
I’ve personally seen all of the above show up in my life after going “all in” on this strategy seventy-four weeks ago…
 
I’ve been invited to serve on advisory boards, international speaking opportunities, and even received an invitation from my alma mater earlier this week, to present at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University.
3. Talent Magnetism
Strong operators want to work with people whose ideas challenge them.
 
If your thought leadership is out in the wild:
 
  • It acts as a filter – repelling people who don’t vibe with your worldview, and attracting the ones who read your stuff and think, “I’ve been waiting for someone to say this out loud.”
  • It shortens the trust-building cycle with future hires, partners, and investors. You’re not starting from zero.
4. Durability
Last week, in [Issue #073] The Efficiency vs. Resiliency Dilemma, we explored the topic of fragility in business.
 
Influencer-style brands are super fragile.
 
(Just like that ancient Bezzera espresso machine, which I encountered at a cafĂ© earlier this week…)
 
Change the algorithm, kill the reach, and the “brand” evaporates.
 
A thought leadership brand is portable:
 
  • Companies can be bought and sold.
  • Platforms can rise and fall.
  • But your ideas, your judgment, and your reputation for being a deep thinker about important things – that travels with you for life.
 
In that sense, thought leadership is a form of personal anti-fragility. It benefits from time and exposure instead of shrinking under it.

3 | So Why Doesn’t Everyone Build One?

If the upside is this obvious, why aren’t more smart people  putting their thinking into the world with regularity and consistency??
On the left, an ancient sugar maple. On the right, a young orchard of pear trees (in tree tubes) that we planted from seedlings on our farm.
Because thought leadership lives squarely in the “Important but Not Urgent” quadrant of the Eisenhower matrix.
 
It’s like planting a fruit tree:
  • You dig the hole.
  • You stake the tree.
  • You water it.
  • For a long time, it looks like a stick in the ground.
  • But over time, it will provide food for generations…
 
Meanwhile, DoorDash will bring you dinner tonight (but will leave nothing for you or your family to eat tomorrow…)
 
  • Need leads this month? Run a quick promo.
  • Need revenue this week? Chase after a client.
  • Need a dopamine hit? Post something spicy, watch the likes roll in.
 
Publishing thoughtful ideas is fruit-tree behavior.
 
Chasing quick hits is DoorDash behavior.
 
And of course, we all know the proverb:
 
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.”
 
But the “tyranny of the urgent” wins. The inbox is full. The team is pinging you. There’s a fire to put out.
 
So the whole…
 
“I should really start publishing my Single Source of Truth newsletter and build that Strategic Content Ecosystem”
 
Gets pushed to next month…
 
Then next quarter….
 
Then next year…
 
In fact, most people won’t ever do it.
 
Or they won’t stick with it long enough to see the compounding, and won’t resist the temptation to chase whatever shiny new object is trending this week.
 
But that’s exactly why it’s such an advantage.

4 | The “No Shortcuts Across the Green” Rule

On a recent tour of a private school with my son, the guide mentioned a small rule:
 
Students aren’t allowed to cut across the central green to get to class.They have to walk around it.
 
Cutting across would save a few seconds. It’s the obvious path. But the school is deliberately teaching a habit:
 
Don’t take shortcuts just because you can.
 
There’s a content version of cutting across the green:
  • Churning out shallow posts…
  • Mimicking whatever is performing on social this week…
  • Chasing after virality instead of writing what’s true for YOU…
 
You absolutely can generate attention that way.
 
But you end up with followers who are there to be entertained, not to be led.
 
A thought leadership brand is the opposite of cutting corners:
 
  • You walk the long way: you research, test, refine.
  • You’re willing to be early on some ideas, late on others.
  • You say fewer things, but you mean what you write.
 
As I often say to my two boys:
 
“There are no real shortcuts in life. Only long-cuts in disguise.”
 

5 | A Small, Unsexy Next Step...

The risk with an issue like this is that it turns “thought leadership” into another overwhelming project:
 
Start a podcast. Launch a YouTube channel. Write a book. Redesign the website.
 
(Next week. When things calm down. Which they never do.)
 
Instead, try this:
 
  • Pick one idea you have energy around right now.
  • Turn it into a single email.
  • Send it to your list (no matter how small…)
 
Start with that today…
 
  • Then, do that once a week for the next 12 weeks.
 
Twelve pieces won’t make you famous.
 
But they will:
 
  • Clarify your own thinking,
  • Start planting those fruit trees, and
  • Begin the slow, quiet process of being known for something.
 
Remember:
 
The market  pays a premium for people whose ideas help it make sense of the world.
 
Influencers tell you what to buy next.
 
Thought Leaders help reshape your thinking.
 
And that’s the brand worth building.
* * *
Okay! I’ll leave you with that for today…
 
Have a great rest of your weekend…
 
Remember to hug the ones you love…
 
And until next week,
 
Ryan :-)
 
P.S. The tomato? Yeah, I was scrolling through my phone looking for a great photo to include with this post, and that one caught my eye…
 
Like that heirloom tomato, grown from seed in our garden earlier this year…
 
A good Thought Leader brand should stand out…
 
It should celebrate its flaws and imperfections…
 
It should be different…
 
It should be…
 
A Category of One.
 
Speaking of which…
 
If you’re interested in working with me personally 1:1 to establish yourself as a Category of One in your market…
 
I am about to open up ONE spot in my private advisory practice.
 
This is an opportunity to work with me personally as your business mentor, advisor, and coach for the next year…
 
This is a good fit if you’re already doing at least $1M in revenue in your business, you’re looking for a long-term business mentor / advisor relationship, you’ve been following my work, and you have the budget to invest at this time…
 
If this is you, and if you are very interested in the opportunity to work directly with me…
 
 
I will be opening up ONE spot very shortly (by application), and it will likely be the last spot I open for some time…

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