Do Happy Work
In the Do Happy Work Podcast, we explore how universal and natural concepts can be applied in leadership and transform the way we view and do work with one goal: To build happy businesses that express who we truly are.
Do Happy Work
AI Won’t Make You Stand Out — YOU will
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Many business owners are asking: “How can AI help me stand out?”
In this episode, we challenge the premise. AI is a powerful tool—but tools alone never create differentiation. True distinction comes from clarity about who you are, what you stand for, and the unique angle only you can bring. Once that inner direction is clear, technology becomes an amplifier. Without it, even the best tools only produce average outcomes.
What You’ll Learn
- Why AI cannot create true differentiation for your business
- The difference between tools and identity
- Why uniqueness must come before technology
- How self-clarity turns AI into a force multiplier
- Why businesses that rely only on tools become interchangeable
Key Insight
Tools can enhance your path—but they cannot define it.
First, know yourself. Then use technology to express that truth at scale.
Reflection Question
Are you using AI to discover your unique voice—or to avoid finding it?
Takeaway
AI doesn’t make you stand out. It makes what is already unique about you more visible, powerful, and scalable.
Text us! We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Follow on Linkedin: Olivier Egli
I'm your host Olivier, and this is the Do Happy Work Podcast, where we look at work in a different, more natural, and more peaceful way. This is the Do Happy Work Podcast, and I'm Olivier, your host and your voice of Nature in Business. And in each episode, we're going to investigate one central question around work. And Vera brought a new question for this episode, which is I did.
SPEAKER_01:The question is, how is my business supposed to stand out using AI?
SPEAKER_00:I think that this is a very interesting question because you could replace the word AI literally with anything. How can I use marketing to stand out? How can I use advertising to stand out? How can I use a product to stand out? How can I use a messaging, a mission, whatever? What have you. And I think it's important that we draw a difference or like we draw a line between the tool and that which makes us special. You know, I I feel like we have to ask the right questions. So AI is something that right now has brought a lot of attention into not just the work field, I think humanity in general, all over the world. And the problem is that we have a tendency of not understanding when a tool is a tool and when the tool uh starts to replace us. And I'm gonna lean out a little bit. I'm probably gonna uh voice an unpopular opinion. If you need AI to stand out, AI should replace you.
SPEAKER_01:Elaborate.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're picking up what I'm putting down. It's more like if you need a tool, no matter how fantastical, how advanced, how you know, how evolved that tool is to make you desirable and different in a market space, it means that that tool will be the thing that makes you different and not you.
SPEAKER_01:Or worse, it will do nothing.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, it will do nothing. That that would be my second point. My first point is like your assumption shows that you have nothing to offer. And when you have nothing to offer, it's like math. Zero times a billion is still zero. So if if AI is a billion and you are zero, you use AI, you have zero times a billion. And that's a problem. That's it that's a problem that we have this assumption, and that's why we're so afraid of AI. Because we ourselves lack the clarity on our own value. We put all our hopes into this new technology, but when you put all your hope, you also put all your fears into that. You outsource your value. This is what this question tells me. Somebody who asks that question is actually truly asking themselves, do I have anything to offer at all? And it's a valid question. And I think it's the real question behind this. Is it after all in business? It's probably the question of all questions. Let's be honest, that's the real question we should ask ourselves. Not what is a certain tool gonna do for us. What do we have to begin with that is of extreme value to the world, so that once we find a great tool, we can use a tool for leverage for that differentiator that we have. And so it's more like consequential. It's not there's no causality, it's not like you are different because you have AI, you're different because you're or you're you, because you are clear on your value, but because you know that, and now there is a great tool, you can maximize that difference. You know, you you can make your value more visible, more accessible, and more affordable, right? Because those uh AI agents will allow for a lot of small businesses to create value much cheaper, faster to a wider demographic this is so true. This is important, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Do you and this is a question really more for you on like how you feel about it? Do you is it concerning to you that people are embracing AI so much when you know that their business really doesn't come from a place of truth?
SPEAKER_00:I am worried that we are mentally not ready for this kind of technology, and this is why all we see in it is either a weapon or a thing that will you know replace us or cast us into misery. But we don't see that uh a true revolution is always for the greater good of society. But in this case, here we don't see it as such because we we don't our work is not about that. So if humanity had a clear grasp on work as being relentless self-expression, then I would think that would be the most amazing thing because now AI helps people to express themselves better. But because our current mindset is one of how can I take more? How can I uh retire sooner? How can I uh increase my margin without increasing my costs, how can I like increase my profit without employing more people, those are scarcity thoughts. And then you have a technology that technically offers that. That worries me because it means that we are going even further down the rabbit hole of scarcity. So if we already hate working, we already hate being of service, we already hate bringing like relevant human value into the world, we already hate it because we don't know how to do it, because that's not how we were educated. So now we have this great tool that promises us to uh to be done with work faster and sooner and easier, we are going to be worse off in the end, because AI is not gonna fix anything, it's always the hand that uses the tool that can decide where it's going. And I might sound like a broken record, but it it is in the end, it's very simple. It's always very simple. Just a few years ago, we had a programmatic advertising online that really took a leap forward. So was you know, like the advertising that was truly able to track um viewer behavior. I mean, we might not really talk about this as a revolution, but in terms of an evolution, it was a big step forward. The problem is just that the businesses that use that they were not up to any good. They didn't use the technology to actually be more visible and deploy better value. They just did it because they wanted to harness more money. Now that we have AI, it's the same thing, it's just gonna be at a scale of times a million.
SPEAKER_01:What about the people that are like, uh, no, like humans always come out on top, everything's gonna be fine. Um, what do you think about those people? Like, AI is gonna come and say it, yeah, it's going to replace certain jobs, but at the end of the day, we're gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I don't have a crystal ball, but I know that as we're part of nature, and in nature, everything that goes into a certain extreme has a tendency of bouncing back, right? It's uh the pendulum sways in two directions, even though if even if the swaying motion, you know, goes farther than before, it will eventually bounce back. It has to. Uh, there's one dangerous phenomenon happening right now. It's not just that we have access to this extreme technology, there's also an extreme gap inequality that's happening. So that the middle class is basically eroding. It's something I always talk about. Uh, the middle class is what keeps us, what keeps an economy afloat. It's not the upper class because the upper class is separated from the other classes, they just have their own self-interest. And the lower class does not have a lot of mobility because they're trapped in labor, they're trapped in low-paying jobs. It's the middle class that has the most mobility, the most flexibility, and the most momentum. But because the economy right now is getting into this great divide where we only have two classes left, which is the extreme lower class and the extreme higher class, we lose this middle class that could use AI to build great things. Platforms that are actually supporting grassroots movements that could actually build value that helps people be free or learn things that are important for them so they can actually create art but also businesses that serve human value. I I don't want to sound accusatory, but billionaires rarely have the greater good in mind. And the lowest class, and I hate that term, but I have to use it here to simplify it, they also don't have uh a society's best interest in mind because they're too worried about survival.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So who has any flexibility to actually balance the system is the middle class, and we have to hold on to the middle class. And I always hope you know that I talk to people who find themselves in the middle class who are trying to use that power. So if you are in that position, you have a small business, you're using AI agents or thinking about it, and you're more and more involved in that, don't use it to get away and rise in the ranks to become a billionaire or to just fend off being poor. Use it to create real value. Use it to elevate that which is true about you. That also means, of course, again, it's just a tool. It doesn't matter what they come up with, it doesn't matter if the news keep accelerating themselves about new algorithms and new platforms. What's relevant is what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it? And what precedes that is why are you going to use those? Because right now, when I talk to people, why are you using it? Is it's kind of a me too, it's a me too assessment to do it. Everybody's using it, I should be using it.
SPEAKER_01:And that's behind, right? I don't want to, I don't want to miss out. Or I think it comes, it comes from complete fear. I don't even think it comes from scarcity. Ultimately, it's fear.
SPEAKER_00:Well, fear is how scarcity shows itself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Scarcity is a is a concept, fear is an emotion. Um, but in the end, the relevant thing is that you have this great technology, and now you're gonna use it because you're afraid, or you're gonna use it because it offers opportunity, but not opportunity to overcome your fear. Opportunity to spread something that needs to be spread. And that's what these AI agents are actually great at. You know, they can help you write a book, they can help you plan your business, they can help you create products, design an MVP, but only the middle class will do that. And with that question that you asked me at the beginning, that shows me that the middle class is confused. It shows me that the where this question comes from, there are people who are overwhelmed with being at this crossroad between opportunity and possibility and an ever-changing world, and this this uncertainty of the future, whether like, am I working to survive, am I working to thrive, am I working to just, you know, somehow make a dent? This is wrong. This is this is not the attitude that we need to have. As as people who are part of the economy, we have to understand that we have an obligation to show up as our truest self and bring our unique voice into the world so that it can touch people, so that it can liberate people, so that it can enable people. AI can help you do that. But you have to want to, and you have to also first be clear. Don't go into an AI agent and ask AI agent who you are. This is the craziest thing, you know, that people are starting to do that.
SPEAKER_01:It's so crazy, and sorry to interrupt you, but I just I have acquaintances that have full-blown philosophical existential conversations with AI, and I'm like, why don't you have that with yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:And I and like you're your own, be your own AI, if you will.
SPEAKER_00:No, be your own real intelligence. The real in the real intelligence, and the real I will just say this to kind of like put a lid on it, is what is intelligence? Intelligence in the understanding, in the current understanding, I mean the word intelligence has never been used as often as now that we have an artificial form of it, which is hilarious because intelligence is part of being human.
SPEAKER_01:It's crazy. We don't really listen that it is artificial intelligence that we keep saying.
SPEAKER_00:You know what's off with it? What is intelligence? Well, intelligence for AI is rational intelligence, it's the ability to connect two seemingly unrelated dots, right? This is how we measure uh IQ. The ability to uh think abstract in abstract terms, to see connections that are not obvious, to rationalize things. This is how humanity understands intelligence.
SPEAKER_01:It's such a um, I'll say it's such a westernized way of thinking that oh man, when something is rational, we love it. We're like, oh, that makes so much sense. I get it, it's so clear, but it's completely lacking the emotionality or the intuition.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And so when we talk about EQ as emotional quotient, emotional intelligence quotient, uh, and and where's the emotionality in that? We cannot synthesize emotion, we cannot. But then there's also social intelligence, which is the ability to actually create, co-create. So so to work not just for yourself, but to actually work and present value into a system within which you thrive, but that also thrives along with you. That's a very important aspect of intelligence that is not addressed with AI. But you go into a forest and you see that the trees don't exist for themselves. There's a closed system that co-creates, collaborates, communicates, co-co-co, which is the hallmark of intelligence. Look at our AI agents that we have right now. They have none of it. They don't have the understanding of what it means to exist as a connected being. Because true consciousness is the ability to tap into this reality that we are all coming from one. How is a machine supposed to be able to synthesize that? It cannot. We humans have lost that ability. We humans are not even tapping into universal consciousness or work as part of collaboration within a system. We have become so self-driven, so egotistical and selfish in our ways of life that we act no different than a machine. And that's why we should fear the machine. Because we in our own work, we have become machine-like. Now comes a machine, and the scientists say that this machine will soon be more intelligent than us. Intellectually, yes, possible. Insufficient to say that they're superior, but because we have done such a poor job at understanding what work is, at doing real human work, yeah, the machine's gonna take that work and it should.
SPEAKER_01:It should.
SPEAKER_00:It should. Again, an agent, right? We'll call them AI agents. Agency has the word, the French word agir. Uh, and an agency means to act. So an AI agent is really just something that acts on your behalf. But what if you don't know who you are, and now you have an agent who acts on your behalf? You're really just a broken leader with a minion that is just you know being fed horseshit.
SPEAKER_01:Putting more noise in the world.
SPEAKER_00:But what if you actually had this conversation with yourself and you actually went in there and looked at what you have been bestowed with? What are the true gifts that you have? What are the experiences you have to share? What is the happy work that lives inside of you? And now you take an agent and say, say, I would like to act upon that clarity. Now the AI agent can give you leverage. And then the whole question that you know we I I was trying to answer in this episode kind of dissolves. It kind of like it dissolves because You don't have to worry about standing out. No, because it's just it's obvious that you are you yeah, exactly. It's obvious that you are standing out, but AI is helping you making that visible. Making it visible, making it accessible in in the world, in in marketplaces, uh, as it should. And and that way we don't create more noise because we're at risk, right? We know what it's doing to uh to the music, to the music scene, to the art scene, film scene. We are creating a lot of noise right now with these agents. Uh and if we tracked back and said, like, I want to first know what what my voice is, and then I want to act upon it, we would actually create great, great pieces of value, great pieces of art, great pieces of great businesses.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, if you have something, you know, for somebody listening, what is one thing you can tell them they can do right now if they feel like that? Lack of clarity.
SPEAKER_00:You have to build a plan of responsibility and and an accountability in your AI approach. So rather than just you know, falling for the next trend, falling for the next shiny object, have a clear intention first, where you say, like, okay, I want to know what I am about, and then I want to find the right tools that help me bring that out, but then it also means that whenever I use a tool, whenever I investigate a tool, it has to support that intention, it has to support something that's true about me. So I I would really suggest that you develop a clear protocol in the dealing with AI where you say, I will be the master, I will be the one holding the key, the intention, and the AI will remain a tool. I will not glorify it, I will not worship it, I will see it as a hammer, but I will claim responsibility for that tool.
