Of all the talks I’ve ever given, this is, in my judgment, the best.
At Jazz @ Lincoln Center, speaking to the students of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition:
[Below is the edited transcript. An audio version is available for download at the bottom]
If you are a thought leader, trainer, coach, or service provider of any kind who shares with an audience or works or with personal clients, you are in the midst of a storm right now.
There’s a very powerful competitor out there trying to put each and every one of you out of business. This is an extremely well-funded competitor. I just checked their market capitalization. It’s around $230 billion. Everyone has heard of them. Everyone uses them. People have access to it on their computer and in their pockets or phones. Pretty soon it’s going to be driving your cars. It’s even going to be on your eyeglasses. If you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about Google.
We live in an age now where information is abundant, cheap, and free. If you are going to compete by providing information to your clients, you will lose. Competing with Google is a losing proposition. Often you’ll hear the distinction made between information and knowledge. There’s so much information out there, but what we really need is knowledge. Google has us beat here because they have videos. They own YouTube. Anyone can get the information distilled in any way they need. They can get all the concepts they need for free. Just flip on TED or go to YouTube. It’s all there.
This sounds a little depressing. How can you compete with this behemoth that is making all of the world’s information free and available to everyone? The answer is that your competitive advantage is not information. It is transformation.
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