AI and Leadership: Building Resilient Business Brands in the Digital Age

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[00:00:21]Welcome back to another episode of the Growth, Grace, and Gratitude Podcast.

[00:00:26]Today we have a special guest with us, Gal Borenstein, founder and CEO of the Bournestein Group and leading author of business leadership books on branding, marketing and public relations in the age of AI. So very excited to chat with you all about growth strategies for companies and just how businesses are experiencing different stages when it comes to having like a solutionoriented idea where I think a lot of even when it comes to personal growth a lot of people who are on the spiritual journey they are also seeking solutionbased things and I think that shift that people are going through in their business and personal space is really helping fuel that motivation forwards into success and also happiness. When it comes to growth and leadership, I think it's very interesting to kind of connect the two and figure out how to create more of a solution-based reality. Whether people are in business or personal growth, there is this shift towards wanting to be more solutionoriented and there are growth strategies for that. So what kind of inspired you to get into this whole journey and building your group and connecting to the world of business leadership?

[00:01:45]Well, I think that uh especially in business uh most entrepreneurs have a reason that um is kind of unique to their situation and motivates them to actually uh take the risk of starting a business and then managing it and then continuously kind of invent yourself uh in that position almost every day. One thing that all CEOs that I've advised over the years, it really is rarely [clears throat] about money. It's even when they have to make the numbers or have that goal of making uh more profit, that's really not what's carrying them from day one to day two. So, the journey really is different for each one of them. And it's typically uh social causes. It could be something that their family experienced in u the generation before them and that's really kind of giving an opportunity uh for people to develop their business based on that story or as we call it now origin story. So in my case uh I was really uh meant in this [clears throat] destination type of uh point of view uh to be a journalist and um I started writing at age 14 and uh all my life until graduating from uh graduate school. That was kind of my my way. And then uh one of the classes that I took uh in university uh was what is the purpose of communications and coming from uh the idea that communication is about communicating ideas. It's about ideas. It's about differentiation. It's about telling a story that people can u relate to when it comes to even news. Uh what really happened with me is I opened a book that the professor recommended and the first line said the purpose of mass communications is to make money.

[00:03:59]And I remember for two semesters in two different classes, it kind of shattered my idea of what is kind of like kind of the goal of communicating.

[00:04:10]So that was kind of two years of hate if you will or two semesters plus another year of other uh graduate level courses forced me to uh examine what am I doing.

[00:04:23]So what I was doing essentially is adopting the writing and the storytelling and uh some of the same skills like market research and look at the market and say how do I get a job and the answer was there were there were no jobs available uh during that time uh which was kind of uh early 90s and even with the techna that I had it wasn't enough to actually make ants meat. So I basically said I have to get some experience. I worked for uh a tech company for uh almost a year and two months. Um it was a small company and everything that I kind of learned from uh dealing with um people and dealing specifically with the seauite that company gave me kind of the inspiration to say whatever the other companies like the companies I work for how can we uh convert that into something interesting and the answer was cross the road or the street to uh into um advertising. marketing, branding, and PR because they really are the other side of the mirror. When you're a journalist, you're telling a story that has a headline. It has kind of a interesting point to actually get you excited about reading a story.

[00:05:50]Marketing and branding and PR all about uh really kind of creating it for the purpose of commercial use one way or the other. So that's really kind of the point where it kind of came together for me that perspective.

[00:06:06]>> That's so inspiring. I also grew up loving to write and also I got into journalism as well. And it's so interesting you mentioned that connecting communication and storytelling and how important that is.

[00:06:18]And I was just going through my children like books when I was a child and it's so funny because Bourne Bernstein Bears is like my favorite. Your last name is Borenstein. [clears throat] And then my favorite children's book is Baronstein Bears. And it's like this is my favorite childhood classic. And I think it's also something to learn about their storytelling for children, how it begins as well. And it's like the art of connecting to family, to love, to sharing, to dealing with peer pressure. And it's all connected to adulthood. what we have to deal with in the world and how we choose to market, how we choose to brand ourselves, how we choose to either be led by money or kind of allow our creative expression to be fueled by that passion and also to accept money as a form of fuel to help us invest in ourselves, in our projects.

[00:07:11]So, if you're ready to shake off that daily stress, come join us for online beginner adult ballet and yoga classes each week to connect with the flow of movement and the art of ballet into perfect synergy. Come as you are and learn to love your body a little bit more and gain strength and flexibility with each class. All are welcome. Sign up at ballet arts, [email protected].

[00:07:42]First class free. Telital supports focus, energy, immunity, sleep, recovery, and resilience. Start feeling better today on a cellular level with zeolyte super green juice micronutrient gut support and more. Get over 50% off your first order for T vital. Link in the description of the podcast. I was wondering if you're more of an introvert or extrovert because a lot of my friends who are dancers. I grew up dancing at the School of American Ballet and so many of us are extroverts and then a few of us were actually introverts and did well while rehearsing even better than extroverts because there's this like attention inward. So I was wondering which one you are and how you feel it affects your flow in the workspace. Uh it's a really uh fascinating uh question and a kind of a quandry if you will when you're kind of in the business world and you're u running a company you're the CEO the president or uh for that matter any kind of uh position of uh corporate responsibility that you have.

[00:08:54]I found in my experience that most people are actually very shy and very introverted and they don't express their emotions very often. Uh but the reason they're not doing it is they don't necessarily trust each other. And when you don't trust the person that you're next to, let's say in a management meeting, when you don't trust uh the opportunity uh to develop a relationship, you kind of put your rails up, if you will, your kind of [clears throat] your guards and you really kind of focus on how do I make transactional trust happen. So maybe kind of what we used to call a feedback sandwich or something that encourage people to kind of open up a little more.

[00:09:39]And that really kind of uh goes back to the idea that both kind of uh characteristics of introvert or e extrovert uh are connected to to to trust and developing that trust is something that I really kind of uh focused on in kind of helping brands especially in technology and B2B understand the concept that it's not just their product, it's not just their service, it's not just the quality and the number units sold in the marketplace. It's about creating kind of a fabric or an ecosystem where everyone in the company have something that is bigger than themselves which we call mission and vision and then making sure that we also measure trust in a way that is tangible for the company. Uh the outcomes typically lead to more growth and less uh churn if it's employees for the CEO. they know what's actually going on in a company because people are not afraid to actually uh come in when when the the tr statement uh my door is always open. making sure that your product or your service improves itself over time because you are self-conscious now because you collect the data and you know that your customers, your employees, your middle management, your management team and the CEO actually have alignment in terms of what is it that the narrative provides in order to sell and when there's a breakdown you can actually look at it fairly quickly and say, "Well, the breakdown is that we never told our employees that the company's doing great." So, when all the big guys in the company got a bonus and we didn't, uh, we felt really distraught and looks like we're not valued, which sometimes is the case, but most of the cases it's financial decisions that are made uh not to just enrich the executive suite of a company. uh unless you're in a publicly traded uh space which is very different. It's really is about how you are able to take the story the narrative of what you got and make sure that everybody is aligned with it.

[00:11:59]>> Yes, that is so true and the art of measuring like trust and understanding credibility is so crucial. I personally went through a bunch of experiences where I had to deal with like copycats and people who took part of my words or my writing and tried to make their own, you know, creation. And a lot of people people do experience this for sure. And I was I was actually listening to Gary Vee recently and he said something about this saying like if you are so concerned with somebody copycatting you and you you are stuck in this stagnant fear space that means you also are currently limited limited and you kind of can't expand beyond that. So it was for me an eye openener and also made me realize that okay if people do copy they can only copy a fraction of what you're creating. If you have your own integrity and morality, authenticity, transparency, if you have all of that, that should help you evolve your brand, your personal your personality, just everything about who you are and it shouldn't stop you or kind of make you feel inferior. Do you have any advice for people who do experience this kind of stuff in business?

[00:13:14]>> Yes. And uh I would start with the you saw basically or people see uh their ideas being copied if you will and fundamentally while that is uh very unethical. People do it every day and in today's digital trust environment you can uh find narratives outside your office. So you're not just cheating by stealing somebody else's idea within your company or your ecosystem, but it can come from anywhere in any form. It could be a video, it could be a short form content, it could be advertising, it could be your PR strategy, but I always also say imitation is the uh closest compliment to being able to really kind of get flattered, but what you actually said is credible enough and inspirational enough to get people say, well, this has value. keep your head high, continue innovating, and then create proof points. It's really kind of about taking uh the originality of your ideas and then using them in multiple formats, but also uh when you have a new idea, it's on you to spread that narrative very quickly because in the digital age with AI, >> Pod Pitch is the first and only software that finds, writes, and sends pitches to podcast hosts from your actual email address. Pod pitch will make sure you get podcast bookings guaranteed. Link in a description of the podcast.

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[00:15:07]>> Information that is about your narrative is no longer in your control, in your hands. It's all about how fast can you get it to market before people start copying it. And even if they copy it, you have the ability to track the information a lot faster than what it used to be when you know it was a company secret and people [clears throat] were under NDAs and somebody leaked it or moved from Facebook to uh another company. Uh that these days are gone. Everything that we do is visible. So it's really kind of critical for creators, for consultants, for people that really kind of are in the business that develop with narratives and opportunities is to really kind of ignore the ignore anything that basically creates uh a dynamic where you're feeling that somebody stole your stuff. They didn't steal your stuff because even your ideas or my ideas don't come from nothing.

[00:16:10]They can come from a Sanszu uh philosophy in the art of war or they can be Simon Synynic with why. It could be any anything that you take and then forlay itself into a unique opportunity.

[00:16:24]>> That is so beautifully said and I think there is this kind of connection between competition and attachment to the perception or the idea. And even just yesterday watching the Olympics, I was watching Alyssa Lou win the American figure skating gold medal and her whole entire personality is so inspiring because on her interviews people are asking her are you excited to win a medal and she's like it doesn't even matter because she said that she doesn't have the attachments. She's just fully there, fully about human connection, presence, and even respecting every every performer and every competitor and showing love and showing compassion. I think that's such a shift in terms of even the Olympics sharing that stage with people and that's where the true winners are also taken into account. I think people are so tightly held on the idea of attachment to something physical or to win to the idea of winning a medal. I think there and also today is National Leadership Day. So there's something about being a good leader that's all about human connection. Would you agree with that?

[00:17:37]>> Absolutely. Uh I think u leadership is about three things. It's about number one creating and following a set of cultural values. The second is having a unique and differentiation between your product or your service and uh the the other companies you're competing against. And then the third is creating something that has the quality and the trust building elements to bring it all together. And if people do that typically they have some level of extraordinary uh success. People that basically are waiting for innovation to come to them or they get innovation with the fear of being replaced being displaced because of AI for example which is what I talk about in my book don't believe the hype. It really is about the idea that you are not going to be replaced or displaced if you understand the value of what AI can do for you. And at the same time, it's trust but verify that you got to have >> Yeah, that's beautiful. I was just going to mention um your new book, don't believe the hype when trust is on the line, an executive guide on keeping your brand resilience in the era of digital and AI. That's a very inspiring message for people who are transitioning and who are transforming their business and their brand and they do want the kind of top advice and support to help them navigate these new waters of creation and branding and marketing. What is your core message for people who are a little bit afraid of AI? Maybe they feel like they are smarter than AI or they don't want to rely or be codependent on AI.

[00:19:24]Well, um the most important uh point about um the coming of age for AI is AI is not really new or the newest thing that we ever experience. If you had Siri, if you had Alexa, there were kind of the most recent innovations where you can retrieve information. The Google search engine, same thing. They're all basically part of artificial intelligence, but that didn't touch people in a way that was tangible to their work as much as they thought it's going to be. And the way I see it as I kind of work with uh companies uh CEOs to actually create a trusted brand is that you just have to look at AI as a great employee in terms of productivity if you program it and give it the kind of outputs that you're interested in getting uh faster. But at the same time, it's all about the questions that you ask. Uh not necessarily about the the answers that you're going to get. And I see that every every every day with AI especially the typical kind of scenario that I hear from our clients such as uh you know we develop a whole direct uh marketing campaign uh via email and we used chat GPT or Google Gemini or Entropic whichever it is and it really gave us a lot of facts and the ability to kind of customize a letter to thousands of people and when the output comes, interestingly enough, it has no emotions. It has nothing really valuable that you didn't even uh already know.

[00:21:16]And that's really kind of the struggle that we're going as a society of information uh gathering and data collection. All these different things need experienced people with original ideas that can uh be passed to the AI uh part of the business and kind of mass replicate it. But at the same time when you try to massreplicate if you have the single uh mistake it get mass replicated to thousands or millions of people.

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[00:22:14]Sanger Daniel's online seminar promoting a positive message of self-healing with bioenergy. Work together with live seminars and remote coaching. Use code bio20 for a 20% discount for our audience. Link in the description of the podcast. And a lot of companies over the years since AI and the kind of the precursor to AI had really kind of don't get the idea that you got to get it right first on a human level. You got to be [clears throat] relatable and you got to put both your kind of emotional intelligence into it with this work. And number two, if it worked and somebody kind of got engaged uh to lead conversation, it's not necessarily going to go the way you think it would because you didn't kind of simulate it in a way that mimics human behavior. And the bottom line is human behavior co kind of uh thinking all these different things are actually the core of what is making AI successful.

[00:23:23]>> Beautifully said. Yes, that's very true.

[00:23:26]Are there any digital trends currently that you love to kind of observe or any of the ones that you feel like they're not really aligned with digital business?

[00:23:40]Well, I think that uh right now the uh widely used information is being tied into CRM, customer relation management systems and most companies that are over 25 employees u you know when they say let's kind of reorganize our sales and marketing and growth uh they typically pick uh Salesforce which is connected to another kind of robot if you will is called uh um LinkedIn another one that is called um Slack and they're all about accelerating the communications and if you can accelerate the communications it could be a benefit but again uh you can't build it if you're not asking the right questions and the right questions are did this fall flat with our audience? Did we check that the audience that we're selling to is actually uh prepared to accept a new innovation in the marketplace? Just think about for example uh a new cream for facial um treatment uh for cosmetics. Uh they come up with a promise that they found a new element that will make your skin look great, right? In the consumer world. In reality, it's really kind of helping people just associate themselves with a brand. So, when you buy skincare, for example, the name and the branding go a long way. Same when you think about a perfume or a cologne, uh have you ever seen an igly person in any of those uh commercials?

[00:25:23]translate that into the next part of uh the evolution which is now you have to because there's social media and if people don't like it you're going to be on Tik Tok uh responding in a kind of a respond mode versus being proactive. So what I advise all clients and all con entrepreneurs and people that are trying to take their ideas to the next level, it really is to look at once you have an idea, does it address the kind of challenges that customers have? Align the values with um the employees and the management before it gets out and then test it again and again even if you're not in the product or consumer market.

[00:26:09]uh it could be a kind of a piece of software that got developed for cyber security. If you kind of follow the news, cyber security is kind of uh the weak point in uh kind of the new age of AI and digital because everything is becoming online real time and imagine cyber security is getting hacked and these are the people that are the most trustworthy uh engineers that you can think about but yet they say trust us we have the tools to make sure that you don't get hacked. And in reality, they get hacked as many times as a bank does. They don't talk about it. Uh, and when they do, it's typically the brand names that we all know. You know, Verizon, AT&T, um, you know, T-Mobile, for example, and suddenly you get a notice that says, uh, you got hacked. And, uh, the you got hacked is not just the brand of AT&T or Verizon. it really is the company that is uh kind of close looping their security. So there's a lot of erosion of trust because people don't go through the messaging and kind of the narrative to say yes there is a lot of uh turmoil and bad guys out there but we're kind of the closest to being somebody who cares about it and then provide proof points that that's the case. So sometimes the proof point would be we didn't get hacked this year. Uh we didn't uh have to deal with paying uh bitcoins to a shady uh dark web organization. That's a win. But people don't message it correctly. They just look at it as we we got to apologize and we got to make sure that we fix everything, which they have to do. But at the same time, it's not the same as being proactive about it and kind of pushing the communication that you are the partner of your client's business.

[00:28:22]You're not just following orders. And I think the difference between the two is what successful brands do.

[00:28:31]>> That's amazing. And it's also the fact that you just ultimately have to be grounded in your values to also avoid temptation and to be aware of the risk.

[00:28:42]So you're completely right. There is so much risk and when you're actually succeeding and you have more experience on your side and you have more credibility, it also bolsters so much confidence for the team, for the business, for yourself and for the growth. It stands. Do you have anything coming up you want to share with the audience? Anything new you're working on?

[00:29:10]>> Like to kind of share with the audience is no wonder two books that have been released in the past year and a half.

[00:29:18]The first is called don't believe the hype which is really kind of an executive guide for anybody who is in business that needs to understand that it's all about creating proof points internally and externally in a company to keep your brand resilient and growing. And the uh latest book that I just released is called uh beating Goliath with AI, which is really kind of a description of us as uh businesses or kind of entities uh being the Davids.

[00:29:53]And if we look at AI as enabling us to fight Goliath, the big guys as a small business by using digital slingshots, uh we might actually get to kind of empower oursel to really compete effectively against uh the guys that can crush you simply because they have more resources. So that that book it really is about providing kind of a playbook for people in small business that really kind of need to change their um kind of attitude [clears throat] and kind of adjust to a new world where you can be crushed faster than ever before. But at the same time if you look AI as a friend and incorporated into the business properly you have the opportunity to have differentiation.

[00:30:43]And in this book, I give some ideas of how to do it and a framework that is called hustle, which is about really kind of the things that you have to do to get out of your box. And the box is what you think about yourself versus what people think about you.

[00:31:01]>> Amazing. Such an inspiring conversation.

[00:31:03]Thank you so much gal for coming on the podcast and sharing and guiding innovators and executives and becoming the trusted voices in noisy markets.

[00:31:13]Thank you so much for sharing your story, your wisdom and where can people connect with you, get your books and see your content.

[00:31:21]The easiest way uh to connect with my books is uh just go to Amazon and type go Bernstein and you will see five books that I wrote in the past uh 3 to 5 years. And um in terms of professional connections, use LinkedIn, look up my name, Gen Bourstein.

[00:31:41]There's only two of us in the world with that name. Uh, chances are very good that if you send a connect with Chris, I'm going to look at it. And uh, also I want to mention that folks that are listening to this podcast are invited to ask for a free copy of the e version of the book don't believe the hype and fighting Goliath. And you can basically send me a request and for the first uh 10 people that are actually interested in it and send me a request uh the podcast listeners can take advantage of it and get it for free.

[00:32:23]>> Amazing. So people can totally take advantage of this great opportunity.

[00:32:27]Thank you so much.