Mia Fileman
Are you tired of empty promises and stolen ideas? Me too. Got. Marketing is a podcast for marketers and small brands who want real talk and clever strategies without the bs. Running an online business is hard, but everything gets easier when your marketing starts performing. I am Mia FileMan, your straight shooting campaign loving friend here to talk marketing, running a business, pop culture, and everything in between.
Let's dive in.
Mia
Hello, friend. We live in a time where having a PhD seems to matter less than having a ring light. Today I'm joined by someone who's actually studied the human brain, not just hacked the algorithm. Dr Patrick Aouad is a neurologist who's as comfortable talking about neuroscience as he is waxing philosophical about life, death, and the state of public discourse. We're digging into the credibility crisis and what it means to be a real expert in 2025 and how we might just make substance sexy again. Welcome to gut marketing, pat.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Hi, Mia. Thanks very much.
Mia
It's a little bit strange that I have a neurologist. On the Got marketing podcast, do you wanna tell people how this happened?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Sometimes I don't quite remember how it happened, to be honest with you, but I'll try and piece it together. I think that, you know, as a trained healthcare professional, we work with people by default. It's part of the gig, and we generally work with people one-on-one. In the marketing world, you're kind of looking at. One to many all the time, but I guess in, in the world of healthcare and medicine specifically, but generally speaking, you're trying to make an impact, a lasting impact, and usually use knowledge, expertise, experience, and connection or relationship to achieve that impact. I guess in marketing you're also trying to do the same thing, but it may be for good or bad, or. Ambiguous reasons. Health promotion is really that division of healthcare where, where we're trying to promote solid ideas to improve people's lives using substance. My journey, uh, which has been a really interesting one, I'm really interested in and I sometimes I. Cringe at the word passionate, but I guess I am passionate about making a difference in whatever way works.
So if marketing is the way that we can make a difference, then marketing is the solution. If clinical bedside medicine is the way to make a difference, then that's the way I'll do it. If business is the way to make a difference, then I'll examine that. If research in the laboratory is the way to go, then perhaps.
That's the, the line of inquiry to take. So, because I think that way I've traveled down different roads and met lots of people, including chief marketing officers, and I've come to understand that unless you've got someone that can promote a good idea, that idea can die. And that's what's led me here, I guess.
Mia
Yeah. So what happened was I posted about Bell Gibson on LinkedIn and I got like 140 comments and one of them was from you and it was. Such a thoughtful and fascinating comment. And so then I reached out in the DMS and we continued the conversation there and that's how we're here today.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Yeah, I'm pleased that happened actually.
Mia
Me too. Alright, let's dive in. What should define expertise? In 2025. And what actually does?
Dr Patrick Aouad
it's such a really interesting question right now. I mean, it's even more relevant right now than what it was maybe six months ago because of ai. So expertise, I think, traditionally was a combination of, or an accumulation of knowledge. I think you need knowledge to have expertise. I think that you also need to have experience to have expertise. So I don't think it just comes with knowledge alone, but some sort of lived or vicarious experience. So what I mean by that is. Maybe you've combined or paired your knowledge with. A practice of that knowledge in a context in the real world, or you've got a mentor that's applying that knowledge to real world cases through their experience and and teaching people. But there needs to be a transfer of experience in some way combined with knowledge ultimately to provide people with information that places them in a better position than what they were before they received that information. And I, I think when we say better position, it need, it needs to be defined as well. I think that is a position whereby their quality of life improves. In some way, whether you're seeing a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or otherwise, you want the bridge to stay up. You want the legal proceeding to. Progress in the desired way. You want to be healed or have advice that helps you prevent that condition.
You really need someone or something combined with someone often to deliver that expert led advice. And so that's what, where expertise lives. Expertise is not knowledge alone. It can't be knowledge alone because it, it lacks the nuance and context that's required to transfer that impact to another person.
That's, that's where I think expertise lives and AI certainly is going a long way to filling the knowledge part of expertise. And [00:05:00] it's, it's getting better at creating artificial experiences that are close to what would feel like a real world experience. But that's where it gets murky. Because you, you can't separate potentially what will be trustworthy from non-trust and it's very difficult and more important than ever that people critique whether they're receiving expertise or influence.
Mia
Yeah. Because I mean, you can read all the books about becoming a parent, what to expect, what you're expecting. You can speak to people who've become a parent, but until you've actually lived that experience, you have no idea what it's like to be a parent. Right.
Dr Patrick Aouad
That's a great example.
Mia
Yeah. So how does it feel for you as a trained medical professional to watch wellness influences and gurus gain more trust than doctors?
Dr Patrick Aouad
The first word's frustrating. That comes to mind, and I think that I speak for a lot of my colleagues that they find it almost intolerable. You know, there's a almost a sick feeling that comes across my colleagues when they see. Someone who's unqualified, and sometimes I would say negatively qualified IE, they're full of misinformation, which is worse than no information sometimes. And, and there's also that saying a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. So when we see people take a little piece of information that may or may not be useful, and then promote that information as though it is very important, uh, and will impact people's lives. It's very distressing. I think it's highly distressing for the medical profession, and that's not because I can't overstate this enough. That's not because there's some sort of intellectual ego that the the profession has. It's because we just know that you have to work very hard and spend a lot of time to understand something in detail and that things that are communicated as simple and black and white as though they're a solution, almost always going to be incorrect. We also know that people struggle with probability. We all do. I mean, medics do as well. We struggle with shades of gray and, and, and that sort of thing. But unfortunately, that is what life is. It is messy. There are shades of gray that all studies are not black and white. And so it's very, I. Very, very frustrating, I think is the, is the best, uh, way to put it.
The next thing I think is we, we feel compelled to act and to resist and to combat influences that are promoting a misinformation or disinformation, but the way that we do it is often a bit counterproductive, which is why I think we've gotta maybe be better at our own marketing. But we, we, we tend to resist it in ways that don't do ourselves any favors and maybe don't paint us in the most likable light with the general public.
Mia
Yeah. So from my perspective, how we actually are defining expertise has really changed over the two decades of my career. Now it seems that popularity, pseudo fame, and vanity metrics like the size of someone's social media audience. What we are using to judge expertise. So we will see someone with 170,000 Instagram followers and we will assume that they are a branding or a marketing expert. What are you seeing in terms of how expertise is actually being measured in your industry?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Excellent question. So in the clinical world, whether you're in psychology, medicine, practicing surgery, dietetics, whatever it might be, traditionally speaking, our credibility. And our influence was carried by or underpinned by the research we'd done, the number of articles we published, our university affiliations, the hospitals, or the clinics we worked in. It was a very self-regulated, self-assessed world where really the club decided what was important or not. It wasn't. The public, and it certainly wasn't based on our volume of likes or commentary or impressions. It was based on actual depth of quality, depth of substance, depth of rigor, and that world self perpetuates within its own filter bubble, so to speak, where we all as clinicians.
Almost a competitive with each other. It's actually a really good competition. It's a healthy one because we're all aiming to find answers for people, uh, and, and collaborate, but push ourselves more and more to uncover things. And I think sometimes the general public, very much sympathize, empathize, resonate, uh, or inspired by it with, it might be finding cures for melanoma, things like this, or breast cancer, really, where there's an emotional narrative that goes with it, combined with some deep science that people respect greatly. You know, people that win Nobel prizes are usually revered for their life's work. I think that that actually, that. Premise. That ideal has been diluted a lot by what you just spoke about, but nevertheless, it was culture unto itself. Now, the problem with that now is that our knowledge base, our expertise, our collective wisdom, so to speak, is only as good as our capacity to pass it on. To promote it. Otherwise it's like a tree, you know, falling in the forest. Nobody knows it. It's, it's occurred. So we somehow need to pay ourselves some respect and give ourselves half a chance. And for all the work we do find a way of [00:10:00] bridging across and gaining the traction that those that have very little qualification gain and in for whatever reason, you're completely right, that general public, not all, but a significant portion conflate expertise. With influence and they're not the same thing. Our popularity, influence, and expertise are very different things. It'd be nice if they all are aligned. I mean, you need a driver's license to drive on the road, right? You need to have, you need a prerequisite license and some knowledge and some driving experience to get on the road. It. Would be useful if, you know, before you made a comment on engineering that you had some sort of qualification on engineering so that you didn't trick people into doing the wrong thing. So we don't have much regulation around it, and I'm not promoting censorship by any stretch. I actually just think that all opinions should be promoted, but some opinions need to be valued more than others.
And we need to have ways of creating frameworks for people to value opinions more than others based on things like qualifications, expertise, experience. And that way we're gonna be a safer society, probably a, a society that's gonna head towards better outcomes than taking unfortunate side tours and side quests that lead to harm and sometimes death.
I think we have devalued. Slow, considered learned and rigorous in favor of quick, confident, and viral.
Mia
Oh, I completely agree. But then Belle Gibson happened and people were like, oh, hang on. This is really dangerous. There are consequences to this, and Gwyneth and the Liver King. So how did we get here? Is the problem that we lost trust in these traditional institutions?
Dr Patrick Aouad
I think in part. That trust has diminished. And I think social media and different views through the pandemic and things like that didn't help. But overall, I don't think that the foundation of society necessarily completely lost trust, but rather the voices became so diluted and confusing that people don't know what to believe or where to look. And certainly people are wired as I am, to look for the simplest option that [00:12:00] resonates with my values. So if somebody says something that sounds appealing and resonates with me and my needs and my way of life, I'm going to clinging onto that and pursue it. And I think the commercialization of social media and the ability to build a career as an influencer has meant that people.
We'll find ways to get clicks and money in whatever way possible, and there'll always be a proportion of people that don't really have regard for the consequences. I know certainly, you know, as I've learned more about business communities, some business people just basically take the view that the consumer has their own brain and mind. They're consenting adults if they hear information that is not necessarily rigorous or based. In fact, it's up to that consumer to reflect on that. Do their own research, crosscheck that against something else, and pursue things at their own risk, and that almost obfuscates the responsibility of the content creator. We know that's actually completely unethical and not how really a decent person would operate, but. It is a philosophy that I do see some people operate within and buy and therefore justify their behaviors, which is really scary.
Mia
Yeah, sorry. Same because it's a very privileged position to assume that everyone has the same access to education and information as you do.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Correct. Exactly. Right. And we know this, I mean, and I'm gonna be posting some things soon on social media around some key concepts that underpin healthcare, what healthcare really is. Because it's certainly not a transactional industry. It's not meant to be transactional. It's meant to be continuous. It's meant to be relationship led and and based in expertise and knowledge. The only way to affect change with an individual over time is to impart some information that helps their lives and then. Provide a framework for accountability and ongoing trust. And if you can do that over the course of our lives, and I'll give you examples. I mean, in our parents' generation, they'd have a family doctor that knew the parents, the kids, the grandkids, and they'd see them through. And so they had to understand the cultural context of that family, their financial aspects of that family, all sorts of things. There were relationship breakdowns, kids born, all sorts of things. But the family doctor would take that context into account and then treat the. Person as much as the disease. And when you've got time and continuity, accountability becomes a non-negotiable because you have to show up again and again and you can't just cut and run. There's no sound bite. You can't hide behind a keyboard. You the clinic's on the corner, if you do something that's you. Short changes somebody or gives them advice that isn't quite right. You have to apologize for it. You have to make up for it. Mm. So reputational risk was a real thing and credibility was a real thing. I think those kinds of frameworks and foundations have been slowly chipped away at. And people are looking for a quick buck, three to five year turnarounds and return on investment. They know that if they make money in a certain way, and maybe they've done it in sort of a way that isn't necessarily ethical, they go, that's fine though. I've made my money now and off I go. And so it is such a brave new world now. I guess that these sorts of concepts, continuity of care and trust based care and stuff like that is being superseded by quick soundbites and convenient access to things where convenience is not a substitute for quality. But these are things that I think the age of technology has convinced us. Is the fact, and that's diluted. To go back to the core of your question, it's diluted expertise and the voice of professors and so forth, and therefore they're just not heard, and that's a shame.
Mia
Yeah. A really good example of someone that came in, made a quick buck and now has just completely reinvented herself is Brittany Dawn, who was a wellness influence. And she was selling personalized meal plans, but in fact, everybody got the same meal plan. And then there were people who were very underweight and had eating disorders, getting a meal plan that had them eating 900 calories a [00:16:00] day. And you know, it was very, very dangerous. And it all came to a head. And so she just shut down that business and has now reinvented herself as a Christian influencer. And she's seen the light and she's very apologetic and Jesus has lit the path, but real people got hurt.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Yeah, it's devastating. It, it's such an awful mode of operation. I mean, I know as. My colleagues lay awake at night worrying if they've made the right decision for each individual patient. They see. We are re highly regulated. We pay a lot for our insurance in case we make decisions that are aren't quite. Right. We hope that we never have to, we never have a claim against us. I mean, it is an ongoing burden and privilege to carry throughout your life, and you certainly don't get to reinvent your qualification. It takes years. I mean, for me it's 14 years of training after school to become a neurologist, multiple other qualifications, and there's so much misinformation around how we gain our qualifications and what influences our [00:17:00] curriculum out there that.
Get in the minds of people, and I can tell people unequivocally that everything that we study is not encumbered by commercial or any other influence. It is purely based on real science. Real understanding of population health built over hundreds of years of incremental knowledge and iterated and iterated to the point at which we now have lives that we do cures for things that we didn't have cures for before.
And ultimately, everybody in their darkest day, or almost everybody on their dark days run to experts for help. Up until that point, unfortunately these days there's maybe mistrust or misinformation or confusion that delay them accessing expert care when really they could just do it upfront and save themselves a lot of heartache. So I think, you know, we are not gonna dismantle that emerging. I. Structure, that socio technological structure that I sort of like to refer to overnight. But I do think that we need to participate within it with a louder voice and a clearer voice with more eyeballs on it, be more fun without being patronizing. I think that that's another thing that we're quite. Good at unfortunately this sort of, um, patriarchal sort of hierarchical approach, which is no longer appealing to the world and understandably so. Uh, we need to just come at this as human beings and meet people where they're at. Acknowledge that we're human beings too, and we don't get everything right.
We're trying our hardest. And certainly trying much harder than a lot of people that are just looking for their posts to go viral.
Mia
Yeah. I'm really glad that you mentioned some of the real impact of wellness misinformation, like patients delaying or rejecting treatment thinking that, oh, I'm gonna try the celery juice. And if that doesn't work, then I'll come back and do chemo and it might just be too late at that point. And I feel like the Apple side of Vinegar mini series was really good at showcasing that.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Completely. And I, I know I've got plenty of patients myself that have done the same thing. But, you know, and I, I mean, I've got my own approach. I've got my doors always open kind of approach. I. I never judge anybody for their treatment choice. And over time [00:19:00] I've got much, much better at integrating my advice with their preconceived views so that we can co-create, I guess, a solution that works for them and build trust. But that takes a great degree of understanding, empathy, exchanging stories, basically saying as well, what would I, what would I do for my family?
What would I do for myself if I was in their situation? Why? You have to be quite vulnerable. But that's a, it's a great thing and I, and I do think that the medical students I teach and the doctors going to specialist training that I teach if I had more time because they're so busy learning the actual nuts and bolts of diagnosis and treatment. But we really need more emphasis on communication. I. On co-creating things, meeting people where they're at you, you can spend 15, 20 minutes just dismantling someone's view that they may have enriched on YouTube. And often dismantling someone's view is very distressing. People hold onto their beliefs and views a lot, and they certainly aren't gonna let them go easily. And so in order to, for us who have been grounded in a lot of expertise to guide people along a safer direction. It takes time. And unfortunately as well the economic system, the commercial system doesn't really incentivize us to do that. So we come across quite blunt and it then backfires on us and, you know, where we are, time poor and trying to do our job.
So it really is a bit of a, a system that's rigged against expertise shining through. Hmm.
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Mia
And something you've said to me before is that you are not actually trained to debunk bullshit. So if someone comes in quoting influencers, you are not actually trained to tell them why. The juice won't cure cancer. You are trained to tell them what will cure cancer. So then it becomes, I can imagine really problematic for you.
Dr Patrick Aouad
I think that, you know, you're completely right. I think when you're faced with a preconceived view or a strongly held belief around something, the the worst thing you can do is dismiss it outright. I. Initially, but I think that's what traditionally a lot of experts do, and that never works. So you've got to sort of understand how people came about that view what's reinforced it, and you need to demonstrate your knowledge in depth.
And I think sometimes when you've gotta go to town and pull your pen out, get a bit of paper out, and take people on a bit of a journey and show them why it is that, you know what I know how it applies to them, really demonstrate you care. And I think. Some people don't actually ever want to listen to something otherwise. So that's almost like combative. But many, many people actually just [00:22:00] looking for someone that takes the time to speak with them and go through things with them and, and then they'll say, well, I've never had a doctor that's spoken to me like that before. You know, you are down to earth and you're explaining things something to me. And, and sometimes it doesn't happen the first time, but I can tell you like six months later they're sort of saying, what I did isn't working. I mean, and hopefully that happens less and less over time. Yeah. And maybe technology will help us with that. Maybe because people are actually developing quite a quick trust with ai, we might be able to, as healthcare providers a certain point, say, look, ask AI the question, what is the best approach to managing blah? And see if it aligns with what I'm saying. Now, maybe that will help, I don't know. But certainly the large language models, particularly in the medicine space. Very careful to align with literature. Not, it's not there yet completely, but hopefully there's alignment between what the technology will tell the world and what we will, and then they'll say, okay, either we're all part of one big conspiracy or we actually do know what we're talking about.
Mia
That's a really good point. I love that use case. I hope that's true. And AI isn't just pulling from [00:23:00] the overwhelming. Amount of rubbish that's on the internet and using that to spit out the answers because it draws on what is in the public domain. But if it does weight research higher, then that's, that's good news.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Completely. It's also how you prompt it, so it's not what the most popular treatment, the most popular treatment for heart attack or the most popular treatment for, uh, breast cancer is very different to what are the most successful. Treatments to date. Uh, you, so how you prompt it is very important as well. And, and we know there's confirmation bias and we know people ask questions that they know will lead to an answer that they already believe in.
And AI has a propensity we know to almost, you know, give you a pat on the back, which is. A, a good thing in some context, but it's actually a really dangerous thing in others.
Mia
Yeah. This is how echo chambers have been created. So in the current landscape, pat visibility trumps credibility, and I'd love to know from you what the consequences of this is for experts [00:24:00] being invisible in the public conversation.
What, what is happening?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Yeah, so this, the multifaceted, I think, sort of approach to answering that question because if you look at even access to content. So, I mean, without revealing my age, when I was growing up, there were five free to wear TV stations. For most of them, you had to wait through an ad break to get to the next show. You'd have to look at the TV guide to pick your favorite show and maybe record it or wait for it, and that created a bit of slower thinking and less erratic. You know, decision paralysis that goes on these days. It's the other end of the extreme now. There's countless streaming platforms, countless podcasts, there's YouTube, there's social media platforms. We're inundated with information whether we like it or not. And all of these content platforms have algorithms that will. Help select things that you've already chosen before. And human nature has a predilection for choosing things that aren't necessarily good for us. We like dopamine hits, we love 'em. A short term gain is way better than long [00:25:00] term pain.
And so we'll choose that and then it'll sort of reinforce our gratification. So in that sort of environment, you're very unlikely to be sitting watching four corners on A, B, C as a 12-year-old. Or Australian story for that matter right now. When I was a kid, I'd incidentally turn the TV on and catch these stories and learn about, you know, Australian of the Year or a Nobel Prize winner, or whatever it might be.
And I'd hear long form expert content. So I guess that it's extremely difficult to sort of shine through that landscape. And I would say that, and without sounding too traditional or old fashioned, it actually is gonna come down to parents. Community, human connection schools, and all of those systems that we rely on, at least to an extent for values and purpose led learning, so that you sort of have a framework for dealing with the barrage of options, content, and understanding why, like understanding what filter bubbles look like, understanding what echo chambers are, [00:26:00] understanding that you're being manipulated consistently by some algorithm and that you need your own internal algorithm that supersedes the one that's.
Trying to address you. So to have that agency, to have that sense, that self-awareness, to be interested in the universe, the human body, psychology, critical thinking and so forth. Obviously it, it is what we want all young people to have as they go through life to make effective decisions, decisions that help themselves. Their workplaces, their families and communities, but certainly they're not going to find that mentorship and long form, slower intellectual thinking in the way in which content is delivered today. How can we change it? Well, I think that you are almost, there needs to be deliberate financial incentive for large organizations to put experts back out the front. But why would you do that? You know, it's almost like saying, Hey everybody, look, before we let, we let you have dessert, we're gonna make you eat greens for two hours. And everyone's like, no. They're gonna find ways around that. So I genuinely think that the only way is going to go through channels like this where people like you that are trying to scale content with substance have real passion and drive behind it. And I don't wanna see us go through dark ages 'cause there's a real dichotomy. Now, there was a dark age where human knowledge, then there was a renaissance, right? Where enlightenment and higher thinking came through. And right now, on one end of the spectrum, there's an argument that we're going through Renaissance. Because of the age of this technology that can make us a collective consciousness and present solutions that we've never thought of before. On the other side, it can be viewed as a dark age where we're dehumanizing ourselves in place of technology and connection is being lost and true social skills are being lost value for experience and the elderly and their lived experiences being lost.
So going through an age of enlightenment and a dark age at the same time doesn't make sense. I dunno who's gonna win this battle. But I do feel something positive. I mean, look, I did some work with Gallup the other day. The large consultancy, you know, the, the, the number one thing all employees are looking for in their workplaces is hope, trust, compassion, stability. They're not looking for more technology, they're not looking for higher remuneration, they're looking for a sense of community, vision, direction, human qualities. So I am. Hopeful that there's this guttural instinct that people want, that they just know something is getting out of hand. And hopefully, and maybe I'm naive or an eternal optimist, but I prefer to be that than the the alternative.
Hopefully there's a groundswell of people wanting connection again, and people like you can help people get in touch with expertise and. You know, we are humans. We're not robots or certainly not proponents of the pharmaceutical industry or that none of that's actually going on. There are certainly bad players out there, but the rest of us are just doing our best.
So, you know, I think that work you are doing is great.
Mia
Thank you. I really appreciate that. I tell everybody that I meet that I wanna have a commune because I'm Greek background and I feel like we've lost the sense of the village where one parent takes all the kids to school while the other parent goes and does. The shopping and we spread ingredients around. It's like, well, I have extra greens and you have extra milk. So we trade. And then there's this sense of community and so many people tell me, that's what I want too. We all wanna go back and live in a commune. So I've got a question for you, Jonathan Het is a social psychologist.
He's written quite a few books and he is advocating that. Smartphones should not be given to children until they enter high school, and that kids should not have social media until they're 16 as a dad, but also as a neurologist. Do you agree with this?
Dr Patrick Aouad
I think there's very, very good reasons for that recommendation, and as a dad, as a father of three, I already feel somewhat, uh, concerned and maybe guilty, slightly guilty that I haven't proactively instated something like that.
But, you know, life's life and I, I like. Watching things that are streamed and stuff too. And I use social media for my own reasons and, but, uh, there is very good reason for that. And it's because, you know, and I [00:30:00] won't get into too much of the science, but the part of our brain that can assess information is developing into our twenties and beyond.
A. And if you are preconditioning, your brain with dopamine hits short-term gratification, the prefrontal cortex gets dysregulated. And we've seen the boom in awareness around A DHD, and there's certainly people that have dysregulated attention, uh, spans and incapacity to learn because the way their brain works is a bit different. But if things are framed differently, they, they excel. But there's also a emerging syndrome. What I refer to and what I've read, some great articles. On, and so I certainly don't take credit for the term, but it's a socio technological syndrome where society's becoming so disconnected, IE anti commune, where we are not actually thinking with a collective consciousness, what's happening with John down the road and Margaret next door and can I borrow their ladder? And here's my tomatoes, you've got cucumbers. That collective consciousness around community has deteriorated because we're siloed off combined with this. Overstimulation of dopamine [00:31:00] hits and short form content with misinformation that dehumanizes us. When those two things occur in parallel, our brains wire itself almost into a fight or flight mode.
We're constantly in a state of heightened tension cortisol, and if that's occurring in use. You prime your brain to be geared that way, so you kind of are never able to calm it down. You know, in the old days, when I say the old days, people used to read the newspaper with a cup of coffee, the, and it was a factual newspaper. And there are some people I know that still go outta their way to get the paper version because it reminds, even the smell of the paper reminds them of something nostalgic that slowed them down and made them appreciate the moment and everything in our commercial lives and business lives and metropolitan lives is almost. Sabotaging that. So it's even more important to have strict rules around how to retain it. And this is where I get a little bit, you know, unfortunately my, my negativity can come in. The force of the technology is so brute. Mm. And so it's a tsunami that. [00:32:00] You have to have an overwhelming amount of self-awareness, support, and guidance to combat that or build a framework around it.
And I feel like sometimes only the privileged are and the rest is susceptible to whatever's going on in the world.
Mia
Can I tell you I feel the same way. The sort of solution that I have kind of found. One, I leave in a regional area. My family all lives in Melbourne, but I find that living in Darwin is a very different childhood to growing up in a major city.
We just naturally spend. A lot more time outdoors. There's just not enough cool shit in Darwin. And we are, we're a little bit behind as well. And then the other thing that I find is organized sport. My son does three sports a week. There's just no time for him to be online because he's got training and games.
Yeah. Pretty much five days a week. And so it's like we shrink the, the screen time.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Yeah. But that's so true. I think that organized sport, teamwork, training, being outdoors, it, it's amazing, isn't it? That. Something that Aussies have always been proud of sport in our culture, and sometimes it's almost been revered so much in lieu of other stuff that maybe we should be glorifying.
But I'm exactly the same when I'm out there when my son's doing soccer and I've got two girls as well. And when they're doing, when they're, they're different events. They all do different things, but when I'm there, I actually feel more human because there's other parents, you share stories, they're in some sort of group where they're exchanging ideas, calibrating themselves against.
Their peers in normal ways and not using a screen to do it or tell 'em what to do. Yeah. Uh, on the flip side, at schools, many schools are requiring screens really young and training kids in ai, I dunno whether you saw it, but in China and in the US they're mandating AI training as as young as primary school.
And so the people are ahead and understand how to use and evolve with the tools. There's a logic to that because it's becoming a ubiquitous tool that helps you stay ahead and get ahead and be innovative. But at the same time, there are huge behavioral and psychological ramifications we don't even understand yet as a result of that. Now, others might say, well, pat, that happened when the computer came out. That happened when the pen came out, for goodness sake. And definitely they could be, right. I, I'm not a, um, alarm of dinosaur. It's just about how do we take these tools and integrate them into humanity in such a way that our humanity's preserved and the technology empowers us.
And not something other than that.
Mia
Yeah. Alright, so let's come back to how to make substance sexy again. Do you think experts like doctors and psychologists and researchers and academics need to become marketers? I think we need marketers.
Dr Patrick Aouad
I dunno whether we can become them. I think that we should have buddy marketers and I think it's actually a great space. I think that marketers that are looking for a niche could definitely pair up with experts and say, look, you've done so much work. But it's not out there. We could help a lot of people here. I'm a chief marketing officer. I only work with experts in their field. No matter how nerdy you are, it makes you nerdier. The better the, the less you like talking to people and, and they can almost become their mouthpiece. It's very cringey. I certainly, when I started doing any of this stuff, felt very self-conscious. [00:35:00] I grew up in a sort of environment where you get good marks. The work speaks for itself. Networking was something people did when they didn't know what they were doing. I've learned over time that you've gotta combine all of it. You've gotta know what you're doing. You've gotta talk to people, you've gotta be out there. If you wanna make a difference, you've gotta think about all the ways in which you can make a difference, which is what's landed me here. And so I think that t for healthcare providers, experts, whether they are professors of, you know, molecular biology or they are, uh, clinical psychologists to be marketers, certainly, but they do need to be marketed.
In ways that doesn't denigrate them. And one thing that's happened in the 20th century is a lot of the shows like the doctors and Dr. Phil in the US have actually made it worse sometimes because the producers have said to them, you want more eyeballs? Make your show more salacious, more sexy in this way.
And so there's actually been a bias away from rigor for good reason because people like, they like sound bites and they like things that make their lives feel a bit better by watching a bit of trash TV like Jerry Springer and stuff. And so it's then meant [00:36:00] that those experts become sellouts. You know, unfortunately, the ones that don't sell out, so to speak, again, get diluted.
I think we all need AEA that says, well, I'm gonna champion an expert once a month, and hopefully in a small way inject expertise back into the mix. Without being elitist or exclusionist about it. It has to really integrate with the way we live today. Otherwise, we'll end up becoming just our own, again, echo chamber. So we need marketers.
Mia
Yeah, I agree. I say this to my customers all the time, that it's not enough to just be an. Expert, you do need to know how to play the marketing game because people who are less experienced, less qualified, less credentialed than you faking it until they're making it and they're winning.
And so unfortunately, I feel like it's just part of the cultural zeitgeist that real experts need to work with marketers to get their brands and their message and their knowledge out there so that we can meet. Fire with fire and if your credentials and experienced and you know how to market, then you will win. Right? Because people who are underqualified are winning on nothing or no substance.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Yes. The irony is that doctors are heavily regulated. So because we're so regulated, we are very much sort of cut down into what we can and can't say, which is a good thing because it makes it. Uh, safe. With that said, it also means that we can't compete with everybody who's unregulated and it's an unfair playing field. So we've done all the work but can't speak so much, and they've done very little work and can say anything. So again, I think that that's exactly why we need people that can play within our frameworks, but at the same time, promote. Good things that will make a difference. Over time, all of us went into our various expertise and specialties to make a difference.
That's why we did it. So you are quite a philosophical guy and I've really enjoyed speaking on the things that are quite existential. Do you think the popularity of influences, gurus, and this manifestation culture is a spiritual void masquerading as empowerment? I do. I [00:38:00] genuinely do and I, and it goes back to what I said earlier. You know, in Gallup study when they said that what they want from their employers is hope, compassion, stability, trust. People are looking for existential solutions to their lives. Their why is missing a lot. And then traditionally in tribal cultures, traditional cultures, there were either sets of values that people followed, or religious communities that people were a part of.
And family was more predictable and the way a person's life would play out had a lot more certainty. So you sort of knew where you'd be at 20, 30, 40. Now I'm not saying that's right. This isn't a right or wrong thing. The fact of the matter is, is there was more of a common true north for most people that they could all point at in some way, shape or form. We know in more traditional societies, like the commune that you visualize, uh, which I'm sure will come to be at some point and I'll have to visit, that's for sure. But in those environments. We know that formal mental health diagnoses are lower, they're less because people have purpose and they're part of a community and they know why they do things and they share more and there's knowledge and they sit around a [00:39:00] campfire and so on, and so, absolutely. I think in disconnected socio technologically complex environments like our, like we, we have in our cities, it's almost like the counter. To having a true north, something that glues us together, a collective consciousness. And there is a void there and it's quite difficult to unify people without sounding too woowoo. So I, I think we've gotta find a common language again. And I think, you know, this is where companies are trying to step up and create value systems for their employees because it, it matters. People wanna be part of a community, not part of a business. Schools are certainly doing it more and more and more, but I think we're doing it for ourselves as much as the kids.
It's amazing. I was going to some school related preparation stuff with my kids, and there was some really reflective elements to these workshops, these sessions, and the facilitators and the teachers are asking these kids questions like, do you know what a conscience is? Now the kids are all reflecting on what a conscience is and all the parents are sitting with the kids and we're all looking at each other thinking, God, when's the last time that we reflected on our conscience? It's fascinating, but it's, it's so important.
Mia
Yeah. Alright. You've been so generous with your time. So I have one final question. What is one thing that you would like the gut marketing audience to think more critically about this week?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Oh, I think that, you know, one specific thing, it's very marketing related.
The new AI has come out, been released. Some different companies have done it, but it's with respect to audio visual content creation. So creating actual ads, videos, the hyperrealism in them is insane. I've seen some amazing examples. Now, if I showed that to my grandparents, they would think it was real.
They wouldn't have any way of knowing otherwise, and. It's insidiously now creeping into our threads all the time, and this is 2025. We're in the end of May. Things are changing like 30 day cycles at the moment. They're not changing on three yearly cycles. They're changing on monthly cycles. I think what I'd love.
You to critically examine is how that hyperreal content creation is going to impact us and how marketers are going to use that to their advantage [00:41:00] commercially. Is it going to be to the detriment of society or is it gonna be to the benefit of companies? I don't know, but I'd love for you to. Look at it and follow it along.
Mia
So there was this influencer who discovered that someone had created a video of her speaking on a podcast. She was talking about a nutritional supplement, and they were, this company was running this. Fake video in their advertising and she had nothing to do about it. It wasn't even her. So like there is some ethical issues around identity theft and impersonation and intellectual property.
Like, holy moly, someone can just make a video of you, pat.
Dr Patrick Aouad
That's the thing. And I could be, I could be selling a vitamin that's. Dangerous. So the, you know, this is, uh, it's really interesting what we want. So when you say ethics, I've said on ethics governance committees, I've run research which actually go through rigorous approvals, and that's just basically to even look at data, let alone do anything surgical or otherwise. There's so many barriers and ethical considerations in the world that I was trained in. I'm worried that the cool kids will think ethics is for losers. Ethics is like this boring word that people who are boring use to limit. Content creation and to limit innovation. And I really hope that people understand what ethics actually is. You know, it's actually quite depressing how many people aren't really worried about how they're perceived by the time they get old and live their life out. Like it's amazing how many people are willing to give up. Integrity for whatever, and then at some point later just live with that. It's quite remarkable and maybe that's an overarching economic issue and problem we can, we we're not gonna solve today. But certainly there are some key areas in humanity that need to be reexamined and, and starting with connection and the importance of human being interaction.
Mia
Totally. Do you wanna talk briefly about CU Health and what you're building over there?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Um, absolutely. So look, CU Health is Australia's. First comprehensive multidisciplinary healthcare platform.
What that basically means is it's a digital space where people, anyone can log in, receive care for what they need, evidence-based care from experts. We use AI behind the scenes to help make our world more efficient, but we never substitute experience-based expertise for something that is not that, uh, we're very proud of that. One of the, the key ways we make a big impact is. Our providers will work together no matter whether you're a dietician, a psychologist, a doctor, a health coach. They all work in a team-based care approach through the technology so that people can get the care they need. So if you've got pain or you wake up tired every day, you're starting to feel a bit down.
You're behind on your cancer screening, you're worried your grandma got dementia and what your risks are, see your health can help that person. We currently provide it primarily through businesses to look after their employees. That's a really, we found a great way of looking after one community at a time and.
Transforming businesses into caring communities. It's a big win-win. You look after the people and the business does better. Really, you've gotta find sustainable ways of getting good care out there that meets people where they're at. And also, people are time poor, cost of living pressures are ridiculous.
So that's where CU Health is living now. We're gonna make some very significant announcements over the next month. We are really making a huge difference. We're starting to change some lives and really improve the economy through our solution. So it's been a real, I guess it's labor of love for me over the last few years to get it to a point where we're really proud of it.
So a new website will be actually launching in a few weeks, which is really cool.
Mia
Awesome. I'll put all the details in the show notes and when you're ready for a marketing campaign, you know where to come.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Thanks, Mia.
Mia
Uh, anything you'd like to leave the audience with today?
Dr Patrick Aouad
Absolutely. I wanna say to them that firstly have some hope. I think everyone's feeling a little bit like they don't have a runway more than. Three weeks, three months. Three years. So I think that we've gotta have generational hope again. So that gives people fuel for the rest of their working week, their fortnight, and so on. And I just wanna say that expertise isn't dead.
It, it's just bad at content.
Mia
So, good. Thank you so much Dr. Pat Award. It has been absolutely amazing talking with you today. I could have done two more hours. We'll have you back and we'll keep the conversation going, but thank you.
Dr Patrick Aouad
Wonderful. Thanks a lot, Mia. I really appreciate it.
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