The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

Ryan Levesque

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.
The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

Ryan Levesque

Issue #061

| The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

The “Personal Branding Paradox” in the Age of AI.

The "Personal Branding Paradox" in the Age of AI (& Lessons Learned from the Latest Hormozi Launch.)

Ryan Levesque

8 min read

-

This week, it was my birthday :-)
 
(Forty-three and feelin’ free.)
 
And no, I did not celebrate by watching the Hormozi Launch – although the scale and volume was certainly impressive.
 
(More on that in a minute…)
 
Instead, I spent the day on the tractor moving fifty round bales of hay into the barn which in turn will feed our cattle over the winter.
 
(You know, IRL over URL)
 
Speaking of which…
 
Last week (as you may remember) I was in Nashville at that amazing Author Mastermind I shared in [Issue #060] Inside a Room With 40+ Million-Copy Bestselling Authors.
And then next week…
 
I’m delivering the opening keynote at the 2025 Newport Global Summit in Newport, RI – alongside Barbara Guggenheim, Steve Forbes, and Alan Patricof, the legendary venture capitalist.
(Huge thank you to my private client Diana Oehrli for inviting me to be part of the summit.)
 
And then in three weeks…
 
Tylene and I are hosting the inaugural Return to Real Mastermind Experience at our Farm in Vermont.
(This event is unfortunately 100% Sold Out – but you still can get on the waitlist for the next event by clicking that link above.)
 
All to say, it’s been a busy few weeks :-)
* * *
More importantly…
 
It’s also been a busy few weeks in the world of AI
 
We’ve seen OpenAI’s GPT-5 rollout – and user backlash around “personality loss” (i.e. people grieving their AI companions changing overnight…)
 
Google Gemini adding “memory” to personalize conversations even more…
 
And states like Michigan tightening deep fake laws, criminalizing the use of Deep Fake AI in certain circumstances.
* * *
Now, the headlines would suggest…
 
On the one hand, we want AI with a “personality” that feels “more human”.
 
But on the other hand, we want to be protected from Deep Fake technology that feels “too human.”
 
(I don’t know that we can have it both ways…)
 
Which I find to be a fascinating parallel to the focus of this week’s issue of The Digital Contrarian, which is…

1 | The Personal Branding AI Paradox

As we explored back in [Issue #025]
 
It’s never been easier to get into the game, but it’s never been harder to stand out.”
 
And I think the Hormozi Launch is a perfect example of this because it demonstrates what I describe as the “Personal Brand Power Law.”
 
“The Personal Brand Power Law” means that in any crowded space, only a tiny handful of voices capture the vast majority of attention, while everyone else fights over the scraps.
 
Makes sense, right?
 
Which is why it’s never been more important to build your personal brand so you can get a piece of the action.
 
Naturally, most people are leveraging AI to do this very thing…
 
BUT…
 
When it comes to using AI to help build your Personal Brand, the Great AI Paradox is this:
The more AI you inject into your personal brand to scale your reach, the less personal it becomes – and paradoxically, the harder it becomes to stand out.
In other words…
 
Scaling your output with AI tends to “flatten your voice” and pushes you toward looking, sounding, and tasting the same as everyone else.
 
On one hand…
 
Your personal brand is less about what you say and more about what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.
 
But on the other hand…
 
If what you say gets completely ignored because it’s lost in the sea of sameness online…
 
Nobody’s going to be talking about you or your brand in the first place.
 
So what’s the solution??
 
Well this takes us to…

2 | Personal Brand Playbook in the Age of AI: Three Quick Moves.

One of the “shifts” that my forthcoming book, Return to Real, advocates for is…
Shift #3 | The Best Things in Life Don’t Scale: Fewer, Deeper, Less.
It’s a strategy to not only stand out in the sea of sameness – but to also give yourself a strategic advantage in the AI Era.
 
And while we began exploring this Shift in [#056] Storytelling: The Most Scalable Post-AI Business Skill?
 
What we haven’t explored in detail…
 
Are some of the tactical moves you can begin immediately implementing in your business to start making this shift starting as early as this week, beginning with…
MOVE #1 (Fewer): Produce 1x Weekly Piece of “Source of Truth” Content that Comes Straight from Your Brain & Your Heart.
Explored in [Issue #055] My Contrarian YouTube Strategy. This is all about publishing fewer pieces of real, un-sanitized “Source of Truth” content yourself directly from your mind and collapsing the gaps between that content exiting your body (writing, speaking, etc.) and entering your prospect’s brain.
 
This can look like publishing one piece of SOT content weekly (this newsletter is an example) in lieu of dozens of pieces of AI-assisted content in the same timeframe.
MOVE #2 (Deeper): Show Your Struggle, Show Your Work, to Show that You’re the Real Deal.
Explored in [Issue #035] Why the Struggle is the Solution. This is about letting people see the messy, behind-the-scenes reality – not just highlight reel, but the REAL reel – as I’ve previously described it. When you share deeply your failures and the unvarnished process, it builds trust because it’s hard to fake.
 
In an AI-saturated world, proof-of-work “receipts” (the equivalent of hay bales in the barn and emergency room visits along the way) not only build trust, they become your “brand moat” and show people that you’re the real deal.
MOVE #3 (Less). Small Rooms + Strategic Absence Will Give You More Reach Than Going Big and Being Everywhere.
Coming off a launch like Hormozi’s – it’s natural to think maybe it’s worth trying to emulate the whole “go big and be everywhere” personal brand approach.
 
But remember, this is “Personal Brand Power Law” at work.
 
And then on top of that…
 
The level of relentless, maniacal focus to “be everywhere” for years leading up to a singular “big launch” like this – demands a decade-long level of sustained intensity, execution, and sacrifice that few are capable of (not to mention years and years of 12-18 hour workdays, 7 days a week.)
 
So instead of trying to “go big and be everywhere” (and running the risk of burning out or running out of resources along the way), a more sustainable approach is to put yourself into a series of multiple, smaller rooms that not only build powerful relationships, but which are strategically aligned with your goals.
 
(i.e. your equivalent of the “1M+ Bestselling Author Event”, the “Newport Global Summit”, and the “Vermont Farm Mastermind.”)
 
Just a few rooms like this can make all the difference in the world to your business – and can open up incredible doors.
 
And the beautiful thing about this approach – and not trying to “go big and be everywhere” is that “depth compounds.”
 
Meaning: Getting yourself into just one or two rooms like this can be all it takes to create a “domino effect” that opens up bigger and bigger opportunities.
 
The power of “Strategic Absence”, explored in [Issue #027] Your Strategic Content Ecosystem explains this concept in more detail.
* * *
Okay, so where does AI fit into all this?
 
And how do you deal with the whole “Personal Branding AI Paradox” we introduced a few moments ago??
 
Well, that brings us to…

3 | How to Amplify Your Personal Brand Using AI (Without Losing Your Authenticity or Audience.)

You see that headline right there?
 
(Yeah, the one you just read…)
 
It’s a headline I helped craft for a private client of mine, Mike Kim.
 
(See below…)
 
You see, this week…
 
Mike is hosting a Personal Branding AI Virtual Summit that explores the very question we’ve been discussing at the heart of this week’s issue:
BTW – I highly highly recommend registering for the summit (It’s 100% free – and you can pick which sessions you want to attend)
 
In fact, as I told Mike, there are at least 3 sessions that I immediately identified as “can’t miss” and that I’ve already marked off in my calendar (in addition to the session in the upper left I’m hosting to kick off the summit.)
(If the text is a bit hard to read, click on the image above, and it will take you to a page with all the details.)
* * *
Okay, I’ll leave you with that for now.
 
I know there is more to be said on this topic…
 
But it’s late and it’s time for me to wrap…
 
So let’s do this:
 
We can pick up the conversation in my session with Mike on the Personal Branding AI Virtual Summit…
 
In the meantime….
 
Have a great rest of your weekend…
 
Remember to hug the ones you love…
 
And until next week,
 
Ryan :-)

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

Read more newsletters:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Join over 100K+ readers of The Digital Contrarian getting unconventional business strategies delivered straight to their inbox.

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

© RL & Associates LLC. All rights reserved.

The Great Sea Change

The Great Sea Change diagram from Return to Real