# 172. How to Build a Profitable Personal Brand Before It’s Too Late ft. Chris Do

An episode of [THE 505 PODCAST](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1591279585), 11 Sep 2025, 1 h 45 min.

Audio: https://podcasts.beehiiv.com/3f71d8b4-2a8c-40eb-8500-c62b76bd9acc/019d43e4-0103-7741-b37f-b81b41dca056/019d43e4-6e50-764d-abed-34115f1bdc46/019d43e4-7030-72f4-9078-fc3cdeb96673.mp3

The 10 Minute Personal Brand Kickstart (FREE): https://the505podcast.courses/personalbrandkickstart What’s up, Rock Nation! Today we’re joined by Chris Do - award-winning designer, educator, and founder of The Futur. He’s built one of the most recognizable personal brands in the creative world, reaching millions with lessons on business, creativity, and self-expression. Chris reveals why most creators feel invisible online, how to cut through A.I.-driven noise, and why value has to come before selling. From leaning into vulnerability to building the “bank of karmic equity” to experimenting with bold new formats, he shares the exact playbook for standing out. If you want to build a profitable personal brand before it’s too late, this episode is packed with practical, hard-earned lessons from one of the most respected voices in design and business. Check out Chris here: https://www.instagram.com/thechrisdo/ https://www.youtube.com/ @thefutur SUSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: https://the505podcast.ac-page.com/rock-report Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/xgEAzkqAvs Kostas' Lightroom Presets https://www.kostasgarcia.com/store-1/p/kglightroompresetsgreece COP THE BFIGGY "ESSENTIALS" SFX PACK HERE: https://courses.the505podcast.com/BFIGGYSFXPACK Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:16 - Why most people feel invisible online 2:42 - Can the average creator still cut through the noise? 3:46 - The danger of making content for the wrong reasons 6:16 - Why storytelling and meaning matter in content 8:25 - When Chris started leaning into vulnerability online 11:22 - How to find your authentic voice as a creator 14:18 - Our Personal Brand Playbook 14:42 - Building confidence to show up on camera 20:24 - Clubhouse lessons: learning to think in real time 25:01 - Why value comes before selling 29:24 - Impact-driven content and reciprocity 35:38 - Entertainment vs. education in personal branding 38:30 - Depositing into the “bank of karmic equity” 42:25 - Why “the riches are in the reaches” 44:08 - Testing new content formats vs. proven strategies 47:11 - Why Chris started “man on the street” content 49:39 - Chris’ favorite stand up comics 50:55 - Why great artists always keep growing 57:25 - The curse of pivoting into education too late 59:33 - The problem with copying others’ content style 1:04:47 - Advice for creators building a personal brand in 2025 1:08:19 - Chasing perfection vs. publishing consistently 1:15:58 - The difference between visionaries and followers 1:19:32 - How Chris structures his content strategy 1:23:01 - How Chris monetizes through partnerships & equity 1:27:48 - Chris’ thoughts on Alex Hormozi’s $100 million book launch If you liked this episode please send it to a friend and take a screenshot for your story! And as always, we'd love to hear from you guys on what you'd like to hear us talk about or potential guests we should have on. DM US ON IG: (Our DM's are always open!) Bfiggy: https://www.instagram.com/bfiggy/ Kostas: https://www.instagram.com/kostasg95/ TikTok: Bfiggy: https://www.tiktok.com/bfiggy/ Kostas: https://www.tiktok.com/kostasgarcia/

## Transcript

[0:00] When you create a piece of content as a personal brand, your highest order should be to be able to express yourself in the truest way, to be vulnerable and transparent.
[0:08] In doing so, you're giving yourself permission to be okay with yourself.
[0:12] That's Chris Do, award-winning designer, educator, and founder of The Futur, where he's helped millions of creatives turn their passion into profit.
[0:19] Chris has built one of the most recognizable personal brands in the creative world, reaching millions online with practical lessons on creativity, business, and self-expression.
[0:27] When we're talking about personal branding, if you wanna be original, all you have to do is return to the source code, who you were supposed to be in this life before society, obligations, school, work, family changed you to be somebody else.
[0:38] In this episode, Chris breaks down why authenticity beats algorithms, how to cut through the noise, and why playing it safe is actually the riskiest thing you can do. Safe is risky, risky is safe.
[0:47] When you do what everyone else is doing, you get what everyone else is getting, and if you're not already in position one, two, or three, you're pretty much dead.
[0:53] Chris isn't afraid to share his own opinion and believes that standing out requires the courage to say what others won't. If you can't have a different point of view on something, you're just part of the noise.
[1:02] But so many people are afraid of having an opinion or stating their opinion publicly that they wind up contributing to the noise. This isn't about vanity metrics like views and likes.
[1:11] It's the blueprint for building a profitable personal brand before it's too late. Let's get into it. Chris, why do you think so many people feel invisible online right now?
[1:20] I suspect it has a lot to do with them getting swallowed up by the algorithm and the proliferation of content creators, especially in the age of AI.
[1:29] Now, if we just roll the tape back two or three years ago, prior to the mass a- adoption of AI, it took a little bit more work to get our stuff out there. But now what we're seeing is robots talking to robots.
[1:41] We've exported our thinking to other peop-- uh, to machines, and the machines do most of our thinking for us.
[1:46] We can see this-- The, the worst example of this is on LinkedIn, where a robot writes the post, and a robot comments to the post, and another robot responds to the comment. So where is the humanity in all of this stuff?
[1:58] It's ridiculous. So my friend Daniel Priestley described it this way. He goes, "Imagine that you're at an airport. There's, like, planes taking off, planes landing, and planes waiting to get off the ground."
[2:09] He says, "There's fog, this marine layer that's coming in, and it's gonna make it impossible for you to get clearance from the tower. That fog is called AI."
[2:19] So the ones that have a great personal brand, that are good content creators, thought leaders, already up in the air. They're at 30,000 feet, not a lot of fuel. They're cruising. Life is good for them.
[2:29] The problem is for us, the regular pedestrians, the kind of just trying to like, uh, "When's the tower gonna let me take off?" It's gonna get too late really soon, and you won't be able to compete against the noise.
[2:40] There is some good news, but I think that's part of the reason. How soon do you think that happens where-- I mean, right now, I believe every day on Instagram, it's like 100 million videos are posted.
[2:50] I mean, in the next six months, that, that's probably gonna double. It's gonna be 200 million, and half or 60% of it will be slop. Is it going to be possible for the average person to cut through the noise?
[3:00] I th- I think so. I, I think the algorithms are working really hard to help you.
[3:05] And for an older content creator like myself who's got a decent following and reach, it sucks because they wanna democratize all this stuff. They wanna say, "Hey, you.
[3:14] You with, like, a pen and a piece of paper, we're gonna give you a shot."
[3:18] So it doesn't matter what size of audience the other person has, they wanna distribute it equally because they wanna encourage as many creators to do this as possible. I think that's a good thing overall.
[3:29] It's frustrating if you're, like, the person who's enjoyed this ride so far, but it's good news and bad news for everybody, right? It's just gonna get more and more crowded. So whenever there's a new platform
[3:39] or an opportunity, I don't think you should wait for it to, like, prove itself. I think you should get in 'cause they're giving out that free traffic at the beginning.
[3:46] I just think back to when we talked, I wanna say it was a little bit over a year ago. Even thinking to back then, it seems like so much has changed, especially with the ramp-up of AI.
[3:59] If someone is feeling invisible, having a hard time standing out, but is in the position where they're ready to go hard at their personal brand, build something of substance, what would you tell that person?
[4:10] Like, what is maybe the first step they should take in order to stop feeling maybe so invisible online and start building that personal brand? Okay.
[4:19] I think we have to first get into the motivation and the reason 'cause this matters a lot.
[4:24] If you want to start creating content because you feel like you can't keep up with the Joneses, and everyone's doing it, therefore, you must do it, I'll tell you right now, don't do it.
[4:33] Because you'll waste your money, you'll put out crap content, and only to affirm that none of this works, and you feel frustrated for whoever told you this is what you need to be doing.
[4:41] So for some people, it's just-- it wasn't meant to be. For example, not everyone can make a film. Not everyone can produce an amazing piece of music. We can just be consumers, and that's totally okay.
[4:50] You go practice doing whatever it is that gives you joy, and maybe creating content isn't it for you. Not everyone can be a writer. Not everyone can paint and, and make art. We, we have to accept that.
[5:01] But for some reason, the popular narrative is that everyone has to be making content. Everyone's gotta work on their personal brand. Now pause and say, "You know what? You're okay.
[5:11] You're not, you're not less of a human being. You're not less important. You still matter." Now, the other side of it is I like to express myself through some art form. I like to write. I like to write music.
[5:24] I want to make art, motion graphics, video. I wanna write books and articles. Okay, for those people, we can do some work together, right?
[5:33] So I think you have to start to understand that every art form relies on this one core principle, is that you have an emotion, and when you create your art, someone else shares that emotion with you.
[5:46] So if it's really good art, it's like a high emotion. If it's bad art, I feel nothing. And this is why some actors are paid a lot of money, because when they emote through the screen, we'll cry with them.
[5:58] We'll, we'll cheer them to get off the floor when they're, like, beaten down and, and that's what-Art h-holds for all of us.
[6:04] So if, if it gives you joy if you have ideas that you feel like need to be said and you don't know what else to do with your life because you're gonna do this anyways that's who I'm more interested in trying to help.
[6:15] 'Cause otherwise you don't need to do this. Yeah, I also feel like with the ramp up of AI and how- Yeah... easy it is to make content,
[6:23] it's starting to feel a little bit cookie cutter, so it feels like the meaning and that storytelling is missing.
[6:31] And so maybe that's a big reason why people's content isn't landing is because it feels like everybody else is out there, and it's not different, and there's no, there's no story, there's no meaning behind it. Yeah.
[6:44] You know, I wanna share a little story with you because it's starting to form the foundation of how I think about personal branding.
[6:49] And for people who have heard this word too many times, I just wanna say, "Hey, hang in there." I got a different perspective on this, and I'll share it with you, and it might ruffle some feathers, okay?
[6:58] So I'm flying to, I think to Austin, and I bump into somebody I just met, like, a couple months back, Dr. Vu. He's, like, a longevity performance good doctor, right? And we just chat.
[7:09] We wind up, like, sitting across the aisle away because it's Southwest, you just pick whatever seat you want. And we're talking, he goes, "Chris, gosh, y-you're so spiritual." I'm like, "Bro, I'm not spiritual at all.
[7:21] Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't meditate, I don't, I don't believe in... I believe y-you live and you die, and that's pretty much it." And he goes, "Well, you know what?
[7:30] It's 'cause you don't understand the true meaning of spirituality." I'm like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, it's to, to know, to accept and express your truest self."
[7:40] I'm like, dang, if that's the definition of spirituality, I'm the most spiritual person I know, 'cause that's all I'm trying to do in this lifetime, to know who I am, what makes me, me, to figure out what makes me different, to embrace that.
[7:52] That's the acceptance part. And I would go beyond self-acceptance. I would go into, like, self-love. I love myself. I am my own number one fan.
[8:00] I have to be, because people who don't love themselves tend to be very difficult to love. Not impossible, but very difficult.
[8:07] And the last part is, well, you prove that you've accepted yourself by expressing all the good and the bad, and you kinda finally tear away the persona that you show up in the world, and you start being your real self, transparent, vulnerable, and you stop giving an F what people think.
[8:23] And that's what I'm on a journey to help other people do. When did you start leaning into your shit and being this vulner- this more vulnerable version of Chris Do?
[8:32] Because I think back to when I first got on the internet, and Coast and I giggle about this all the time, looking at our very first videos we ever made and how honestly embarrassing they were.
[8:41] We were playing characters, being someone that we weren't. And now I think back to the stuff that we make online, and I think there's... it's so similar to how we are in real life.
[8:51] Like, if you met us in real life, you'd be like, "Those are the same guys. I listen to their show every week." And it's made everyone's life a hell of a lot easier 'cause we're just being ourselves.
[8:59] We can just turn on the cameras, record, and put out content, and I think people are obviously connecting with it way more than those early days of what we were doing.
[9:07] So I'm curious for you, you know, when did you start becoming a little bit more vulnerable online? What was that process like? Well, I just wanna encourage both you guys and everyone listening to this.
[9:17] One of the best things that somebody can say to you is, "You are exactly who you pretend to be on radio, on TV, and everywhere else." Like, it's just one version of you, okay?
[9:26] And we, we say that because it's actually kind of a rare thing. Oftentimes, the expression is be careful of meeting your heroes or icons 'cause they're bound to let you down. They're not as nice as you think.
[9:36] They're not as generous as they pretend to be. They don't have the kind of time that they should, given that you make their life and their careers possible. We just put that out there, okay?
[9:46] So, so many of us, if we get into something new, we do what we see. We're- we emulate. That's how we learn. So I just got back from speaking at a conference. I don't wanna say which one.
[9:56] But I noticed something strange about some of the presenters, that they were one person in the green room, and when they, they, they hit the stage, they hit their mark, and the lights are on them, and their, their mic is hot, they turn into somebody else.
[10:10] It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So somebody on stage is, like, yelling and jumping and just being super aggressive, and backstage they're, like, the coolest person. And I start to think, "Why is that?"
[10:22] Now, I don't think ill of them, but I think they think they've seen other people get on stage, do that very thing, and people are like, "Woo, woo, woo," you know, "That's amazing." And they're like, "Let's do that."
[10:33] So it starts to become the template of how we're supposed to behave. So if you take that one data point
[10:38] and you move that across all social media, when you see somebody on a pod or a Casey Neistat vlog, you're like, "That must be how it's done.
[10:45] I'm gonna emulate that," realizing it could probably just kill you just doing this kind of content every single day.
[10:52] And so if we just take a breath and just say that there's a natural evolution to how we all make content. The first part is we observe. We don't play. The next thing is they're like, "Put us in the game, coach."
[11:01] Then we step in and we play the game, and we play the game that we obs-observed. It makes a lot of natural sense. Somewhere along the way, hopefully sooner than later, we start to realize, "I, I get it.
[11:13] There's some room here for me to not to play the sport or the game the way everyone else plays." And that's when you find yourself, and that's when your audience truly connects with you.
[11:23] There's a guy, his name is Doug DeMuro. Do you know who he is? I think I've seen Doug somewhere. He talks about cars, okay? Okay. I think I may have seen it. I'm not sure. Yeah, he has a car bidding app too.
[11:33] So Doug's like, "This is the new Datsun." Okay, okay. \[laughs\] You know, he, he does this really strange affect, and he goes, "We're gonna get to the quirks and the features of..."
[11:44] That's how he talks the whole freaking time. Now, I imagine Doug, you know, at the family reunion isn't saying, "Please pass the gravy," 'cause that's just too much. But you know what?
[11:57] I think that's a character he gets to play because that's an extreme version of him, and I think it's beautiful. It's different.
[12:04] At first, it's too much for me, and then now, like, now I listen to other people like, "Hey, you wanna care a little bit more when you talk about these things?"Put some energy into this because I'm going to feed off your energy.
[12:14] So I wanna be careful how I say this. It's not to say that there aren't different versions of you, but all the versions you present need to be true to some part of you. This is really important. So when Jose and I,
[12:26] my, my business partner at the time when we were running the school, not connected to what Hermosi is doing, uh, spelled the same way, uh, we're like, "Well, who are you gonna be and who am I gonna be?"
[12:37] Because no one wants two idiots saying the exact same things. It's not interesting to anybody. So Jose naturally is an extrovert. He is ADHD. Uh, and on the Myers-Brigg, he's the exact opposite of me.
[12:48] I'm an INTJ, he's an EFP something. I don't even know what the letters are, but we're literally the opposite of each other. He's a little hippie. You know, he'll smoke pot, he'll do whatever.
[12:59] I'm like straight ed-edge as you can imagine. So I said, "Okay, why don't we just lean into these proclivities of ours? You be the crazy person, I'll be like the sane person, the business person."
[13:10] And we did this for a while, 'cause I was like, you remember that TV show The Odd Couple?
[13:14] Like Oscar and Felix, and they worked well together 'cause they were so different, and writers make this stuff up, so we played into these roles. What happened was I started to feel like
[13:25] I'm always the business, straightforward, strict Asian dad guy, and Jose's always the fun-loving, we love you, we don't care, I'll eat the food off the floor, I don't care.
[13:33] And I was like, but there's parts of me that, uh, is that way too, but I have to like not be that person.
[13:40] So was it until he and I split up that I started just to lean into what I wanted to do, which is I'll tell jokes, I'll put on funny voices, I'll do my thing because that's the totality of me.
[13:51] So somewhere around 2016-ish, when I started going off on my own, not having the constraints of like who do I have to be next to the other person, that I start to lean into this.
[14:02] And what's really interesting is as the years go on, they're like, "Chris, you're totally changing. We can see you changing on camera. You're becoming a different person." To which I responded, "I'm not changing.
[14:13] I'm being more of myself." See, 'cause at the beginning, I wasn't ready to show you all of myself. \[whoosh\] \[piano music\] Hope you're enjoying this episode.
[14:20] Real quick, wanna let you know about an awesome free product that we got linked in the description. It's our Personal Brand Kickstart. What's in it? Okay, we got five prompts for you.
[14:26] It's gonna help you define your personal brand, get clarity, and start posting content that really resonates with your audience.
[14:32] It'll literally take you less than 10 minutes, and it's been super apparent with all the guests that we've had on our show, they have really strong personal brands, and it's allowed them to scale their businesses.
[14:40] So go check it out, top link, and let's keep it rolling. I completely agree with that. I think as you make more content and allow yourself to show up online, like it becomes a lot easier just simply talking to camera.
[14:52] And the exercise of hitting record and putting yourself out there, it's a muscle that needs to be worked.
[14:59] And it can be scary at first, but I, I think somebody like you who's been doing it for decades now, you're even now m-more comfortable being even more yourself because you've put in the years and years of effort.
[15:13] And I think that's important to touch on because people think... They look at somebody that they admire who's crushing it online and they think, "I'm gonna be just like that.
[15:22] I'm gonna be just as confident right off the bat."
[15:25] And it's just not the case 'cause it takes years, it takes understanding yourself, living life, having those experiences to then bring into your content to tell more stories and, like we said, create more meaningful content.
[15:38] Right. If someone is, \[lip smack\] you know, scared to put themselves out there, is the first step you have to understand really who you are and get comfortable in your skin?
[15:50] That's the first step, and then we can start, you know, thinking about what we wanna actually say in our content?
[15:57] Or what is like, what's that first step to becoming comfortable enough to show up in an authentic way online? Yeah, I don't think there's th-the way. I think there's a way.
[16:07] There's many ways, and whatever way works for you works for you. I wanna ask both you guys this question,
[16:13] which is right now, if it, as the best as you can tell, how hard is your brain working to be a part of this conversation?
[16:21] Because I look at your brain as you have one brain, and every other thing that you think about is pulling the processing power away from that one brain.
[16:29] So one percentage of brain is probably thinking, "What's the next question to ask Chris?" Another part of your brain is, "How do we respond to what he just said?"
[16:37] And then another part's like, "How do I look on camera right now?" Like, "Are my hands in the right place?" And, and maybe your face is tensing up 'cause like, "I don't like my face the way it's looking right now."
[16:46] Another part is thinking about the words you wanna say. Okay? So just imagine all these things pulling away at your brain.
[16:54] And then we, we haven't even talked about the brain is, part of the brain that says, "Are people gonna like me right now? Am I saying cool things? Or uh, am I interesting right now?" And so if you start off with 100%,
[17:05] right now it's probably not anywhere near 100%, and that's the problem. Like when we're dialoguing, how much of our actual brain capacity can we use? Ideally 100%.
[17:16] But some people are so consumed by the, the last thing I said, which is, uh, am, "Am I smart?" And, "Do people like me?" And they're worried about that part.
[17:25] And I would say that takes away at least 50% of your processing power. So if I were to ask you a question while you're preoccupied with that, you might not be able to really respond.
[17:35] W- at least not anything intelligent, and you can't tell any stories 'cause you're, you're, you're split. You're like juggling many plates in the air right now.
[17:45] So I ask that as a rhetorical question just to think about that. So what I've learned is, you know what? Let's relax. Let's chill.
[17:52] If you need to, you need to meditate, you gotta go g- um, I said I wasn't spiritual and here we go.
[17:56] You just need to chill out a little bit and get in touch with yourself and know like, "Okay, what is the point of our conversation today?"
[18:01] To say like, "It's to connect, to, to listen, to respond to if necessary, or to remain completely silent."
[18:09] And all those options are okay for whatever length you deem it, uh, to be okay.So when someone's gonna ask you a question, if you're not ready to answer, just take a long-ass pause. Just pause and say, "You know,
[18:21] that's a good question. No one's ever asked me that question before. Such a good question, I really need to think about it." Just slow it down
[18:32] so that you can quiet the rest part of your monkey reptile brain, just like chill out a little bit. Now,
[18:39] the way that I was able to do it, I'll tell you, but it's not possible for everyone to do it this way, but first autobiographically, um, I taught at a art school for, like, 17 years, so I've had a lot of opportunity to work with people in real time and solve problems in real time.
[18:55] And then I started making content for a couple years with Jose as my mentor. \[clears throat\] I was able to shadow him,
[19:01] and if we have something like that, like you guys are doing this together because, hey, it's scary one person, it's a little bit less scary two people, and you can divvy up the roles, and you can play until you feel like, "You know what?
[19:13] I'm ready to go off on my own," if that's ever the case. And that's what I wound up doing.
[19:18] And I gotta tell you, something accidental happened to me on the way, which is this, this app called Clubhouse, if anybody remembers that.
[19:25] And it was an audio listening kind of real time thing, and I couldn't understand, like, why anybody would do it.
[19:31] And all the, like, the junior high kind of nerves got to me, because I would join a room, and some people in that room who are hosting would be, like, all excited and like, "Oh, Chris Do's in the, in the audience."
[19:41] Like, oh, I just was exercising. I don't really wanna talk right now. You know, I was just listening. And now they're like, "Chris, uh, you know, no pressure, but can you come up on stage?
[19:49] And we wanna talk to you about X, Y, and Z." I'm like, "Oh, God. Okay. Okay. Let me figure this thing out." And now my heart's, like, racing really fast, um, and you get put on. But what happens, as I've learned, is
[20:02] you learn how to think in real time at a speed and frequency that you haven't been able to experience before.
[20:09] 'Cause during the height of that, I think I was hosting three or four calls a week and joining on a bunch of other things. Like, if I was in the bathroom, if I was, like, eating, I would just turn around and listen.
[20:19] And so I think the reps really get you comfortable in learning how to speak and to listen. So true. I think back to the first episodes that we did and exactly what you're saying. I'm thinking 16 questions ahead.
[20:33] I'm also trying to focus on what the speaker is saying. I'm like, "Oh my God, am I looking good on camera? Is that camera rolling? Is the audio rolling?" Yeah.
[20:39] You're thinking about all these different things, and it pulls you out of... completely out of the conversation. Mm-hmm. You're not able to focus, but 174 episodes in- \[laughs\]... I feel like, I feel like we're in a...
[20:50] it's just you, me, and Costas in a little room, and there's no one else and nothing else around us matters. It feels like, you know, we're just so connected here via this screen.
[21:01] It takes those so many reps, though, to get to a point where you feel comfortable.
[21:05] That thing you also said earlier about taking a pause, I had a class in college from a, a confidence teacher, and he told us that when you're doing a public speech, if you ever don't know, like, the answer to a question, he goes...
[21:18] Exactly what you said. He goes, "Restate the question, whatever they said-" \[laughs\] "... and be like, 'That's a really good question.'"
[21:24] And it buys you, like, 15 seconds of time to be able to rethink what you wanna say and come back with something normal, and the pause doesn't feel weird to other people.
[21:32] It only feels weird to you when you take a little bit of a pause. It's so interesting. You know, there are people who analyze people who give speeches, and it's really weird.
[21:43] They really zoom in on that moment where they pause to think. They put their hand on their chin, their mouth. They, they do something like they look off to the corner. They see how they're thinking so deeply.
[21:54] It's probably 'cause they don't know what to say. \[laughs\] You know what I mean? You just get credit for it. Mm-hmm. And so in our culture, we feel like this silence is dead air, and dead air cannot be allowed to exist.
[22:05] For sure, it can. It creates sometimes necessary tension, too. I think back to Clubhouse, and I remember when it started gaining popularity. Braden goes, "Oh, dude, we gotta go all in on Clubhouse."
[22:18] \[laughs\] Like, "This thing's gonna blow up." \[laughs\] And then it just like... I haven't heard Clubhouse- Probably lasted for like- \[laughs\]... four or five days. Dude, it... people ruined it. It was a great concept.
[22:28] Yeah, it was. Yeah. It was an amazing concept of value creation. What happened, though, I think the issue there was you had a ton of guys who would get in and just were self-promoting instead of giving value.
[22:38] So you'd hop in these rooms. They were like, "Oh, this was once a great room. I really learned a lot from whoever they had last time."
[22:43] Then you'd pop in, and you'd be like, "This guy's just promoting his thing," and it's not... There's no value transfer happening.
[22:49] And I feel like you got too many of those guys that popped in and found it, and then it just got ruined, and people were turning... It was like you basically clicked into a room, and you're given ads.
[22:56] You're like, "Dude, I didn't click... I'm not here to get ads. I'm here to just hang out or learn whatever the heck the topic was." Yeah. I could just- Yeah. I could...
[23:04] Like, Chris, I could picture you being like, "Do I look all right?" \[laughs\] It's like, it's just audio. It's audio, man.
[23:08] \[laughs\] I think the reason why Cl- Clubhouse went down was one of the reasons that you just said, Braden, which is, um, you're just promoting all the time, and it's, it's really freaking annoying. But you know what?
[23:23] I, I think part of the problem was the founders messed it up themselves. There was some kind of cool thing to kinda keep it small, that, "Oh, my God, Mark Cuban's in the room," or, "Elon Musk is here. What is going on?
[23:37] This is really cool." Because regular people were having the opportunity to share space with somebody they thought they'd never be in the room with, and they would just have a conversation with you.
[23:47] And so I thought it did a really good thing for breaking down barriers and bringing people of different socioeconomic classes together, and that was awesome. And then they're like, "We must grow this thing really fast."
[23:59] So they got rid of the, you have to be invited by somebody. They, they pulled the Facebook play too early. They opened it up too fast.
[24:07] 'Cause Facebook grew quietly amongst universities and colleges for some time before they opened up to anybody when they hit critical mass and they knew what they were doing.And the other part to it is, is they changed the algorithm.
[24:20] So now, like I can't even find rooms, and there's, now there's too many people making garbage rooms and they're not really promoting the right kinds of people.
[24:27] Now, I, I have it on the DL about some people behind the scenes, it became a popularity contest, so who they knew, who they wanted to support, they would push, and then the rest of the people, if you're not on their list...
[24:40] And they pushed all the wrong people. They pushed people they, they liked, but not because they were good content creators. Yeah. I, I think it would've had legs.
[24:48] Well, I mean, it's gonna be interesting to see in the next three to six months.
[24:52] W- there's gonna be a new app, I, like can almost guarantee it, and we will all hop on it, and we'll be early adopters, and we'll get the underpriced attention when it, when it, you know, when it goes out to the public.
[25:03] I wanna go back to something that Brayden brought up and you also touched on, Chris, about providing value. Can we talk about how important it is to provide value without asking for stuff in return, how that plays
[25:17] into building a personal brand, but also a regular brand? I'm curious to get your take on this. How does a regular brand versus a personal brand, how do they provide value without asking for something in return? 'Cause
[25:31] I think of like a, I think of a traditional brand, and like their ask is for you to buy their actual product. Is there a way for a traditional brand to provide value without maybe always asking for something in return?
[25:44] Yeah. Well, if, if you believe in a lot of the business management consultants, they'll tell you this, which is all businesses exist to make a profit.
[25:54] You have to have profit so you can continue doing what it is that you're doing. When you run out of money, you run out of runway, and you can't do this anymore. You have to lay off people.
[26:03] You have to like pull back your offer, and then someone who does it better than you will eat your lunch and then ultimately absorb your customers or your community. And so businesses exist to make profit.
[26:13] And they look at every endeavor as a measure against investment of time and money and people and resources. So it's very transactional that way.
[26:22] And so a lot of times, and one of the other reasons why, uh, Clubhouse was ruined is because all, uh, great ideas are ruined by marketers, right?
[26:32] When it was just real people connecting, talking, trying to figure out this social audio thing, marketers come in like, "Wait, we could just sell a lot of our coaching programs.
[26:39] We could get you to buy a book, uh, buy my course, or do something." Yeah, and it, it just became like, ugh, it's just spam all over the place. So this is where I wanna separate
[26:50] business branding and personal branding, 'cause there's a reason why there's two different words here.
[26:55] But what people don't understand is they, they borrow the playbook from corporate branding, and they bring it right over to personal branding. They do the same things. They create a fake persona.
[27:04] They build an identity that isn't real, optimized for conversions, and they're looking at everything they do as, "Well, I'm only writing this to get customers.
[27:13] I'm only doing this to get people to sign up for my book so I can become a bestseller." And so again, they're turning it transactional. I was talking to a friend of mine, a new friend, his name's Ryan Dice,
[27:24] and Ryan was saying that there are three types of people. We'll focus on the top two. And there are relational people, people who like care about each other and will, will go out of their way to help you
[27:35] without any expectation of return.
[27:37] And that's why some of the content that the people who all go out there and help homeless people or to help people get on their feet does so well, 'cause we want to see goodness in the world as much as we wanna see ugliness too.
[27:49] Then there's the other type of person, which is a transactional person. A transactional person says, "I only do this when I can see the ROI in what I do."
[27:58] And believe it or not, there are quite a few people like that too. So what we don't want to do is mix up those two in our mind.
[28:04] And if you're a transactional person, I'm not saying you're a bad person, that's just who you are, so I don't think of you as a friend.
[28:09] I think of you as a reliable business partner or a vendor or a client, and when the business is done, the relationship is done, okay? I'm not here to say judgment or you should be one or the other.
[28:21] Uh, Ryan says the third type of person is the Machiavellian kind of person, which is pretends to be the relational person but is doing something else.
[28:28] He says those are the people you have to really look out for, 'cause it's like deception and fraud. They tend to be the scammers and the, the fake gurus.
[28:38] So w- when you create a piece of content as a personal brand, your highest order should be to be able to express yourself in the truest way, to be vulnerable and transparent, because in doing so, you're giving yourself permission to be okay with yourself, to, to be comfortable in your own skin.
[28:58] And we're trying to figure this whole thing out from birth to death, "Who am I? What makes me, me? And what's the meaning of my life?" So I'm just trying to help people do that inner work publicly while they're doing it.
[29:13] And so yeah, some level of self-development, self-awareness needs to happen, 'cause otherwise you say things that aren't even true because you're totally unaware.
[29:21] Not that you're a bad or malicious actor, but you just don't know. Talk to me a little bit about impact within your content and how that in turn has made people run to pay you.
[29:33] Like, I think about the people that put out great content, even with, like with my ad agency, for example.
[29:40] I feel like we don't have to do tons and tons and tons of selling because we put out a lot of great content on how brands can win on social. So then someone at a brand sees it and goes, "Hey, this was super helpful.
[29:51] I implemented it. It worked. I would love to pay you for it."
[29:54] And even with our pod at the very beginning of the whole entire thing, how can we impact people with what we know or what the friends that we have in our network know?
[30:02] And now I think to the people that we're able to have on, and they are able to, one, deliver tremendous impact of the stories that have helped their businesses, and then people go and implement it into their stuff, and they're willing to, you know, buy something from us or share our stories, sh- share the pod.
[30:17] It's like become i- it- it's just kinda like the snowball has rolled down the mountain all because the tip top of the mountain, there's just this thing of impact and value.
[30:26] I'm curious how impact and valueYou know, goes into the stuff that you're making. 'Cause I, I remember you said something a long time ago.
[30:32] You're like, "When I finally started doing value-based content, my brand skyrocketed." A lot of it was me, me, me, me, me for so long. I'm just curious of that shift. Yeah.
[30:42] So if we, uh, we- we'll zoom out a little bit and kind of look at how societies, communities, and villages develop, tribes, if you will. There is an, kind of, um, an implied social contract that we have with each other.
[30:55] If we're gonna be friends and neighbors, we... And we work together cooperatively. Like, if you think about it, if you're in a house or an apartment, like, there's some general guidelines. Like, don't take my stuff.
[31:07] I won't take your stuff. Mind my space, and don't run over me. Uh, don't run over me in your car. There's, like, basic things that societies need to survive and thrive. We live in a large society.
[31:19] It's called the United States of America, and there are certain tenets that we hold to be true. Depending on where you go, and it changes a little bit, but
[31:28] some things are necessary as the glue to hold us together, and one of those things is written by Dr. Caldini in his book, Influence: The Psychology of, uh, Persuasion, and one of the principles, it's called reciprocity,
[31:43] right? So when you do something for someone, most good-natured, non-sociopath people will say, like, "Wow, that was really kind. Let me help you out." And in the book, he talks about this.
[31:55] He says, like, they do these experiments when there's two people, and they're, uh, one part... One person's an actor, and the other person's a real person. They're studying them.
[32:03] They were volunteering to take some kind of quiz or test, and one guy says to the other guy, the actor says, "You know, um, I'm gonna go get a Coke or a soda from the machine. Do you want anything?"
[32:15] And they're like, "Nah, I'm good." He goes and gets the soda and comes back. He's like, "You know, I got you one anyways." And the person doesn't even want it, but they're cool.
[32:24] He goes, "You know, um, my, my daughter's trying to, like, sell Girl Scout cookies, and things like that, and we're trying to get her to go to camp or whatever. Would you be interested in buying some cookies?"
[32:34] And they're like, "Yeah." Even though they didn't want the Coke, they're going to buy the cookies 'cause reciprocity has been activated 'cause we don't wanna feel like we owe anybody anything.
[32:45] And so they do this test, of course. The people where they don't offer a Coke, and they just ask to buy the cookies, they're less likely to buy on orders of magnitude less.
[32:56] And they said if, if you study what the Hare Krishnas used to do, they would follow people around. Their entire organization is built around donations and people feeling like they need to give something.
[33:05] So they would give you this book, a gift to you. You know, a gift to you, and they would give you a book, and, "I don't want a book. I'm, I'm shopping with my family here."
[33:11] And you hold the book, and they're like, "Uh, can you give a donation?" And you're like, "Sure. Here's five bucks." Right? And you would throw away the book,
[33:19] and then what they did was someone else, another Hare Krishna, would go in, pull it out of the trash, and give it to the next person.
[33:25] What they realized is books are heavy, books are expensive, so they would just give people a flower. The same thing. They're activating reciprocity. So we understand that we need this.
[33:36] Even though we know about the concept because we live in a society, we can't resist this. This is why people are like, "Free sample. You want a taste of this?" "Oh, let me, let me put this lotion on you right now."
[33:48] "Can I clean the window of your car?" And you're like, "Oh, no, I don't want that," but then you still feel like, "I need to buy something." I have personal stories I can share.
[33:58] Like, even though I know the concept, even though I teach it, I can't help but to feel this way, right? It's why when you go into, like, like, a high-end luxury goods department store or a boutique, what do they do?
[34:11] They're like, "Oh, hey, can we get you something? Would you like some sparkling water?" And they don't do it out of the tap. They give you a nice little bottle, and you're like, "Damn it.
[34:19] I know I'm gonna spend a couple thousand dollars on something I don't want today," 'cause they've acted, uh, they've, um, activated reciprocity. So when you create content, think about this, guys, that helps me,
[34:33] that transforms me, that gives me clarity on my relationship and my business or my creativity or something like that, and you keep doing it over and over again, at some point I start to feel bad about myself.
[34:47] I need to buy something from Brayden Acosta. I need to do something with the boys. I need to recommend them for something or give them a review or something like that.
[34:55] Now, it's not a one-to-one relationship, so when you start to count one to, one to one, you've just moved from the relational type of person to a transactional type of person.
[35:05] And so we look at there's, there's lots of content creators. I don't know how many millions of channels and YouTubers and creators there are,
[35:12] but some have high view count but low reciprocity 'cause they've not done anything for you, and sometimes when you entertain us, we don't feel like, yeah, you did that for you.
[35:26] You're an entertaining person, so what I do is I pay you with a view and a like and a subscribe, but I don't owe you any more.
[35:33] This is where personality and showing up with beliefs, values, and telling people more of your story really can make a big difference.
[35:40] That is so interesting because we were talking about that the other day, how there's so many TikTok creators, YouTubers that are getting millions of views, and they're entertainers, but you don't see it come through with their, with anything that business-wise that they do because they, you don't know much about them.
[35:56] It's kind of surface level, right? It's like the entertainment, but you're like, "I don't even know where they live. I don't know anything ab- about their relationship, their family," whatever. And
[36:06] it's, it is, like, a, a wild thing I want you to kinda analyze for us.
[36:10] Like, why does someone who gives maybe educational value or something in that realm, why is someone willing to transact with them over someone who is more just on the entertaining side of things?
[36:21] Well, let's break down... We won't name names to protect the innocent, but let me sh- tell a couple of genres, okay? There are people who do, like, top 10 lists. Top 10 things I learned from this person.
[36:31] Top 10 things that this person said. That's cool. You've organized the information for me.You're not even in the videos. It's not even your ideas.
[36:39] You've done the work, so I feel like the payment for you is to watch this video. I don't even know who you are. I don't see you, I don't hear your voice, okay?
[36:47] And then there are other kinds of creators who might, like, cook. There's some amazing people who like, oh, you're making me hungry by watching this content. That's cool.
[36:56] If you had a restaurant, I'd go there, but most of these people don't have restaurants. They've actually quit that industry just to be a full-time creator. So again, I'll like it. I'll tell my friends to check it out.
[37:05] It's really great, but I don't feel like I owe you anything. So once we break beyond the entertainment, like when we watch things like Netflix or Amazon or Hulu or Apple Plus,
[37:17] we don't feel like we owe them anything, and that's some high production there with great writing, great acting, visual effects and all that stuff, 'cause it's entertaining. We already gave you the money, okay?
[37:29] This is really important right now. So many years ago, I saw Hormozi speak, Alex Hormozi speak on stage, and he goes, "You know what?
[37:37] If you give people for long enough, and you don't ask them for anything, when you ask them for something, you could ask for something really big." The problem is, and, and this is tying into a much bigger idea, this idea
[37:50] that there's a, a bank of karmic equity, okay? Every time you do something good that you give value to people, you make a deposit, and it compounds in interest over time. So think about it.
[38:03] Every time you're like, "Hey, buy my book. Uh, go subscribe to this thing," you've emptied out that account. It's not a one-to-one relationship.
[38:09] You can give like five times the value, and you ask for something, it kinda empties out. So his game, and I believe in this myself, is just to make as many deposits in the bank of karmic equity
[38:22] so that you become a millionaire or billionaire in e- in karma, so that when you ask for something, you can have a gigantic ask, and everyone will feel great to give to you.
[38:32] It also, like, I, I think of Gary Vee as well, like the jab, jab, jab, right hook theory of just give away as much value as possible, and like you said, you deposit those, you deposit those into people feeling like they owe you something 'cause you've given them so much.
[38:49] I think that's a, that's a great just, like, basic level of like how you should approach creating content.
[38:56] You also said something, I was watching one of your talks recently, and you said, "The riches are in the reaches and not in the niches," and I thought that was really interesting and I'd love to go into that.
[39:07] We kinda touched on a little bit earlier where you're like, you first have to figure out, like, if creating content is for you or if it's not, and if it's not, it's all good, but if it is, great.
[39:18] So if someone is in that, like, "This is for me. I wanna create content. I wanna grow a personal brand," why are the riches in the reaches versus the niches? Okay.
[39:30] I, I, I just do wanna say something, like sometimes I'll write just because it rhymes. \[laughs\] Sounds pretty good to me. And then you're like trying to like pull it apart and- Played well...
[39:39] like, uh, bruh, that's all I got. No, I'm just kidding. So in this one, uh, the model's drastically changed, right? If we just look back 10, 20 years ago, here's how it all works.
[39:49] Uh, TV was made to sell advertising, and so how do we do this? Well, we gotta create something that's interesting for people to watch, some program, a talk show or something like that, or a scripted drama.
[39:59] And then during the commercial breaks, we're gonna pitch like crazy to you, and the people advertised during that time block, they're basically funding the production of this program. So there's a model here.
[40:13] There's a network, and you tune into networks to consume unique and locked content, and you deal with the commercials so they can continue to watch the content. This is the model, okay?
[40:28] The way that the world works now is we've collapsed the network, the, the, the, uh, production studio, and the advertising agency into like one person. You are the network.
[40:42] You have specific types of content that's locked to you. So when you create that kinda content, people will watch it, and they'll feel a personal connection to you.
[40:53] Some people have been able to do that at a massive scale.
[40:56] Some for being famous, some for being really good-looking, uh, but some for, like, really giving tons of value and doing it in an entertaining kind of way, so that when they're able to flip that and make it into like a billion-dollar exit,
[41:09] that's pretty wild. So we now understand that all brands, all products and services want that same reach. They just don't go through traditional networks anymore.
[41:23] So they're looking at your level of engagement, who's engaging with you, and the strength of the relationship, and are your values aligned? So this is really important.
[41:33] So some companies come to me, and I think I attract a different kind of company, a more business-oriented company, or maybe an AI or something else, and they, they give me different opportunities to work with them
[41:45] as an advisor, as an equity stakeholder, as an affiliate partner or something like that 'cause they're like, "You speak to the audience that we want to get,
[41:53] and your level of personality, professionalism, or production is exactly what we want, and for that we'll pay you."
[42:02] And the problem with it being in the niche is this, is that when your content is so niche or niched down, is that your audience is so, so small,
[42:12] and you have to learn how to grab larger audiences to bring them into your niche, and there are some people who do this really, really well.
[42:20] And so if you can't figure out how to reach people, and you don't know how to teach people, you're, you're, you're not going to be wealthy in this new 21st century model.
[42:27] Can you explain to me with your own content how much of it is, "I've done this before. I know this works," versus, "I'm testing something new here"? Is it 90/10? And what are your thoughts when you do post something new?
[42:41] Are you very tied to it, or are you like, "I'm just gonna let... I'm just gonna see what happens here"? \[laughs\] Are you trying to expose me? No. \[laughs\] I feel like it. No. No, I'm just kidding.
[42:53] It depends on what I'm doing. If it's more business-oriented around a creative industry, 99% is I've done this, I know it works, and I've done it many times. Will it work for you?
[43:05] I don't know, because you're not me, and you won't do it the way I did it, and you don't have the same pedigree, passion, and maybe talent. Who knows? But I know it works for me.
[43:13] Blair Enns said this thing, he says, "All strategy is autobiographical." Of course, I'm gonna tell you what's worked for me. Now, when it gets into, um, this newer space of, of marketing,
[43:26] of branding or writing, I know what works for me, but I'm not a person who's spent 20 years in the marketing industry, direct marketing, uh, performance mark- I don't know how to do that kind of stuff. So sometimes
[43:40] when you ask me a question, it's the first time I've actually thought about it, but I'm pulling on a lifetime of experience, either in design, in practical experience, or things I've heard or learned from other people.
[43:55] And so I have high degree of confidence when I tell you what the answer is, but I'm not saying it's backed by all the receipts, 'cause it's not.
[44:04] But I'm almost certain it's a better solution than the one that you were going to do or the one that you're doing now.
[44:10] More so with content creation specifically, not like a framework that you're getting asked on the spot.
[44:15] I'm more so talking about, you know, if we looked at 100% of the content that you put out on YouTube, how much of that is 80% I know this, this idea, I've talked about this, this works, and I'm trying maybe a new format here and I'm not married to how this thing does?
[44:30] Oh, I see. That's more so what I was asking. I see. I'm not married to the format at all. I'm only interested in doing what works.
[44:36] When, when you talk about communication or teaching, there's a transmission of an idea, and then how is it received on the other end?
[44:44] And sometimes the signal is-- or the message is good, but the signal is bad, so we just change the signal. And I try to find every single way that might cut through that will work for, for anybody.
[44:56] So we're trying a new format. It's called Man on the Street. It's a tried and true method. It's been great. You need to keep doing them. They're awesome. Well, thank you. Yeah.
[45:04] I've done it twice, so we gotta go onto the third one. No, they're- They're working. I, I rem- I saw someone comment like, "I'm glad you did it." I don't know if it was one of your friends that told you to do it. Yes.
[45:11] But it, it is a... You're great at it. You should really do it. I think they're awesome. Well, thank you for saying that, but that allows me to talk about something else.
[45:19] So it's easy to get on a screen like this, relatively speaking, and just talk to people that you know and like and everything's cool. But all, all of, I think, human existence is about personal development.
[45:31] How do I grow? How do I stretch? And I think it-- I don't know who said this, but it's like the human mind, once stretched, does not return to its original shape. And I like that.
[45:42] Like, for me, my life isn't worth living anymore if I don't feel like there's anything left to learn or to grow into. It's like I'm just a lifelong learner, a constant improver.
[45:53] And so I talked to my friend Brendan Kane during the interview, and he's inter- he's like just analyzing all of our content. And I say to him, "You know, I've been thinking a lot about doing a Man on the Street thing."
[46:05] He goes, "Oh, I have the format for you. Just do this thing." He goes, "It won't work. You'll hate it. But here's what you should do."
[46:12] And he told me, you know, and I'm a really good student in that when, when, when boss says do, I just do. I don't question. He goes, "Just ask people, 'How much are you worth?'"
[46:21] So people watch that episode and they're thinking, "Chris is all talk. He ain't gonna do this. It's never gonna happen." But what they don't know is I'm a person of my word. My word is my bond.
[46:32] I'm doing this, and I'm excited about doing it. And what they don't also know is I'm holding a spatula walking around the house. Whoever comes near me, "Mom, tell me how much you're worth an hour. What are you worth?"
[46:41] You know, "How much are you getting paid an hour?" I ask my wife and I'm just... Because you're getting all kinds of weird responses. I'm preparing for when this happens on the street.
[46:51] And so I do them, and they're working really well.
[46:53] Like, we've only done two sets of these, and the data looks amazing, because the highest benchmark for the previous set was 200 some odd thousand views, and the last time we were with Taki Moore has over half a million views now.
[47:06] So I'm like, "Oh." And I, I didn't even think that one was that great, but it's just like I just need to do it enough times so that I can be great. It's like the school of hard knocks. The young guy- Yeah...
[47:16] who's going up to people saying, "Oh," like, "How, you know, how'd you make, how'd you make your million?" Like, "How do you know I'm rich?" He's like, "I, I just have a good inference."
[47:21] Like, and he is so good at when they're like, "I don't have a sec." He goes, "No, no, real quick, one question." \[laughs\] He gets them to turn, he gets them to turn around. Or like the valet guy.
[47:29] He's like, "You gotta get outta here, man." He goes, "No, real quick." We go all around the world asking millionaires and billionaires what they do for their business. He's got his pitch down. Yeah, he's got it so down.
[47:37] Yeah. He's good. Right? Once you put in your reps, you can do that, and then you start to figure out ways you can make something out of nothing.
[47:45] So here's the thing that you can, can learn about this thing, uh, in r- as it relates to personal branding. Why do I even want to do Man on the Street? There's a reason why.
[47:56] So I, I haven't shared this publicly with too many people, so I'll say it now. Brendan says to me, "Chris, you're an introvert, man. You're gonna hate this. I did this.
[48:04] It was just, oh, you have to shoot so many episodes, and it doesn't work, and it's just so wearing." It's because that's his personality. And on the surface, I have a similar personality.
[48:14] But what I love to do is I love to kind of push and pull. I, I wanna turn up the heat. And no matter what you say, I, I'm gonna do something with it, and I have enough experience.
[48:26] And my mindset going in isn't to convince you to start a business or quit your job.
[48:31] My only interest is to learn more about what you're doing and asking the questions that I think the audience wants to know, because I'm the audience. I want to know.
[48:41] So when you give me kind of a loosey-goosey answer, I'm like, "Well, uh, I, I don't buy that. Uh, let's, let's go a little deeper," or, "You're not comfortable sharing," and we just do that.
[48:50] And eventually, these, these episodes will get really raw, and they're gonna get really spicy, because that's not-- we're gonna get into the place of stop pretending, let's just talk truth for a minute.That excites me and in a different life if I, if I was a, like, native-born American raised by American parents
[49:08] I think I would've been, like, a stand-up comic. I love watching stand-up comics do, uh, crowd work 'cause you're like, "How do you know how to say that? You're so witty.
[49:18] You're so quick, and how did you turn a piece of garbage into, like, a really great set?" You know, "How'd you do that?" That was... So I just watch them do crowd work. I'm like, "I wanna do that."
[49:30] Not with the same amount of pressure, but I wanna practice that and so maybe someday I'll get really good at it.
[49:35] So the man on the street is a perfect format for my personality, my passions, my hobbies, and what I think I'm strong at. All right. We'll do this. Okay. We'll prep...
[49:45] We'll all three prep a five-minute stand-up routine- \[laughs\]... and we'll go to an open mic and we'll, uh, we'll see \[laughs\] how we do. I've totally fantasized- I'll see you at The Plaza... about it too. Yeah, yeah.
[49:55] I'm only doing crowd work, though. That's the problem. Rough stand up. Who are your favorites? Yeah, who are your people? Like, who do you like to watch? Um, um, And- uh, what is his name? Andrew... Schultz? Schultz.
[50:06] He's good. Schultz is the best. Yeah. He doesn't do much anymore 'cause he's too b- uh, he's too busy being rich and famous, I think. \[laughs\] But back in the day, you look at his old clips, he's so good.
[50:14] He's so witty with the comments and the phrasing, and there's something that all comics who do really well have, which is this biting tongue with, with a little bit of vulnerability and sincerity.
[50:27] If you look at Jo Koy, he'll, he'll, he'll crack you, and then he'll put in his, like, injured voice where his voice literally cracks as if he's speaking to his mom like, \[laughs\] "You know? Like, I'm madder, you know?"
[50:39] You know, that kind of voice. Yeah. Schultz does that, too, um, and I think Matt Rife is pretty good, but, uh, sometimes his, his jokes are a little corny. But, uh, he's quick-witted.
[50:50] Jimmy Carr is amazing, like p- probably one of the best. Just so good. Like, whoa, you just pulled that out of nothing. It's amazing to see people do this. You brought up how you don't wanna feel,
[51:02] in a way, satisfied with what you've done. You always wanna try to get better, and I saw, I believe it was Actors on Actors. It was Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo was giving Robert Downey Jr.
[51:16] a compli- a compliment saying, "Man, like, it's been so cool to work with you for all these years. You're continuously trying to get better as someone who doesn't have to. Like, you have all the money.
[51:28] You have all the accolades." Like, he asked him, like, "What kinda keeps you going?" And \[laughs\] Robert Downey Jr. goes,
[51:37] "Well, what the fuck's the point if you're just, like, sitting in, in your past and thinking to yourself, 'I've done it all. Like, I'm good.'"
[51:45] I feel like as, as artists we're always trying to constantly get better and push the envelope, and I just... That made me think of what you were saying 'cause
[51:54] you're always trying new stuff, and you're always trying to get better. So that just reminded me of that.
[51:59] Like, whatever your art form is, you know, whether you're a teacher or an actor or a creator of such, like, we're always trying to get better. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it.
[52:09] And you lean into that uncomfort- a bit uncomfortable... That's a good word, you know? Can you- Uncomfortability. There it is. You lean into that, and I think that's something that's always- Wait, what I lean into?
[52:20] Right. Say it one time. Uncomfortability. Got it. \[laughs\] Boom. Or discomfort. You lean in... That's an- That's an easier way to say it... easier way to say it. \[laughs\] You lean into discomfort, and you- Yeah...
[52:29] can see that why I think you've kept growing. Many of the people that are in this educational space or started out as business owners then pivoted into it later on, their brands just die after a certain period of time.
[52:41] Yeah. Because what worked four or five years ago doesn't work anymore, and e- we're even seeing this now with some of the ads that we're running.
[52:47] You can see what worked six months ago, and it was like, "Oh, the cost per click was this." Let me tell you, it's not the same today. \[laughs\] Okay? It's completely different. Spend some money.
[52:55] And it's a totally different ballgame. It's always evolving, and the best people will say, "Okay," you know, you, you don't seem married to formats, and I think that's really awesome. On the flip side of that- Mm...
[53:06] one of the ideologies that you preach is to not chase new when trying to build a successful personal brand.
[53:13] So can we kinda flip the script a little bit and touch on why someone shouldn't chase new when trying to build a successful personal brand?
[53:20] Yeah, I think there are a lot of ideas that get mixed up in popular culture and, and part of the conversation, right?
[53:27] Like, well, like, I wanna do new, fresh, innovative things, and history has shown us that people who try to do new, fresh, innovative things don't wind up doing so well.
[53:37] And so you're like, "Well, Chris, what are you saying, then? Just do what everyone else is doing?" No, there's just a different thing.
[53:42] So when we say new, we're talking about chasing something external, what's next, and there's always something that's next. The next trend, next format, next platform, and this is what we see people doing.
[53:54] When something doesn't work, they just move to the next thing and the next thing, and chances are they're never really get good at anything.
[54:01] What I'd rather say is rather than try to be so freaking innovative by trying to look outward, be innovative by looking inward, and it's a little bit different.
[54:11] So people are like, "Well, uh, don't you like the idea of being original? Like, isn't new being original?"
[54:18] Well, it depends how you look at the word original because they share the same word as origin, which means at the beginning or the source of.
[54:28] So when we talk, when we're talking about personal branding, if you wanna be original, all you have to do is return to the source code,
[54:35] like who you were supposed to be in this life before society, obligations, school, work, family change you to be somebody else.
[54:45] And you can see this happen across cultures or as- across countries in that when we go to school, we start to learn how to behave so that we can get along with other people.
[54:55] We learn really early on, like, if you have little kids, they're like, "That person's ugly. Why they do this? You smell bad." They just say all kinds of things. And we're like, "That's rude. Don't say that.
[55:04] Don't point at people. You know, people are different."So after a while, you start to learn all these rules. Raise your hand before you speak, wait your turn, never cut, do this, do...
[55:13] So you're learning more and more rules, right? And you also learn that the people who are different are ostracized by the community.
[55:23] And when that happens and we can see that, we start to learn that it's very unsafe to be different. So the class clown usually is put in the penalty box.
[55:34] We're gonna h- we're gonna have a parent-teacher con- conversation about this. Or the person who's, who's too smart starts to act up because the class is moving too slow. They're bored.
[55:44] Like, your, your child lacks focus. Or perhaps your child is just too smart and you're not smart enough to teach them at the pace in which they're going.
[55:52] So I'm really all about this, but if we can see these effects happen over and over again across our most formative years from, from birth to, like, 20-something when we're graduating from school, you see now why we all show up in the uniform of life.
[56:09] We dress the same way, we talk the same way, we celebrate the same way. It's kinda wild, and it's almost scary to say something that's contrarian to the popular culture and what people believe. This is what's happened.
[56:22] So we've stamped out all individuality. Somebody said, I'm gonna butcher the quote a little bit, "Artists are the... are peop- are adults who had survived childhood and didn't get this stamped out of them."
[56:36] That's all they were. They're just not good at following rules. Not good at all. And I was spending some time with a friend of mine, and he would ask me certain questions, almost kind of like it was a social experiment.
[56:51] Have you ever tried asking somebody f- for these things? Have you tried, like, cutting in line or doing any one of these weird things 'cause we're, we learn like that's not right, you can't do that, don't do this.
[57:00] Uh, don't ask for a better price, don't ask for a better seat, all these kinds of things, right? And then we just grow accustomed to, like, seeing things the way... I mean, it's very much akin to, like, The Matrix.
[57:10] Do you think that's air that you're breathing? So I believe an entire Matrix film is an allegory for us to understand that what we believe is concrete and rigid is not at all. It's all very malleable.
[57:23] And when you can learn that that's not air that you're breathing, you'll be able to fly. Brayden, you wanna say something?
[57:28] No, I just love, I love what you're saying, and I think that you do have to, you have to question everything. Otherwise, you end up just following in line with the system. Yeah. Yeah.
[57:38] And I, I mean, we both went to college, right? I, I understand how it was. We were being trained to be employees. Yeah.
[57:44] And it wasn't until I feel like I graduated and I was, like, trying to be an entrepreneur and I'm like, "I don't know how to do taxes. I don't know how to sell my business, like, sell my services to people."
[57:54] I learned about advertising more so in theory, not actually how we could go sell advertising. And I think...
[58:00] Like, I don't understand why we didn't have a whole degree that was sales, 'cause that's what damn near the whole world is and how, how this whole thing kind of functions is on sales.
[58:09] And as I got out, I don't know, I felt like you're almost, like, indoctrinated into, into just following in line right behind everybody else. It's super interesting. Yeah, you bring up that, like, safe is risky. Hm.
[58:24] Which is interesting- Yeah... because you would initially think, your mindset goes to, "This is safe. This has worked in the past. If it works for them, it'll work for me," but that's actually a risk, correct? Yeah.
[58:36] It's a line borrowed from Paul Arden's book, "Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite." He's a legendary ad man, and his, his chapter "Safe is Risky, Risky is Safe."
[58:47] When you do what everyone else is doing, you get what, what everyone else is getting, and if you're not already in position one, two, or three, you're pretty much dead.
[58:54] There's a general rule of thumb that the person in the first place in any industry or market is three times bigger than number two, and number two is three times bigger than number three.
[59:04] So basically, if you can't be first, second, or third, you're screwed. I, I almost feel like if you can't be first, you're screwed.
[59:11] And so if you just do all what everyone else is doing, it's not gonna work out unless you're number one.
[59:16] And then now why is risky safe is because, well, if you're doomed to do something, then at least do something on your own terms and try an idea that might break through the noise, that might be an innovative business model.
[59:30] It's just better that you pursue that. So this is why taking some risk is the safest thing that you can do.
[59:37] When do you think you developed the calluses to be okay with being disliked and being, you know, someone seeing something you say and saying, "This guy is not right. This is terrible"?
[59:48] I still remember when you were \[laughs\] when you were on the pod last time, you're like, "I want all the smoke." Like- Give it to me. We're gonna just-... I'm not afraid of being unliked. Yeah.
[59:56] But is that something- Yeah, well-... that came as you got, as you got older? Or do you think, you know, when you were at The Futur, you were totally okay with that back in the day? Okay. A, a good question.
[1:00:06] Do you guys know what an iconoclast is? I don't. Okay. An icon- iconoclast often has religious connotations, but it's really anybody who challenges conventional wisdom.
[1:00:17] So when we're talking about the CSAM and all the noise and the AI fog that's coming in, if you can't have a different point of view on something, you're just part of the noise.
[1:00:27] But so many people are afraid of having an opinion or stating their opinion publicly, that they wind up contributing to the noise. And they don't mean to, but they are.
[1:00:37] So I found my voice, my identity, when I was going to school at ArtCenter. ArtCenter is a college that is a specialized visual arts school, one of the best in the country.
[1:00:47] And when I went there, it's not like a normal college. You don't have fraternities. You don't have sports. You, you basically don't do anything but do work, and the kind of work you do is pretty intense.
[1:00:58] And when I learned how to design by enrolling in Simon Johnson's Typography I course, I was like, "Wow, this is..." It...
[1:01:06] Somebody gave me the key to, like, understanding design in all levels, not just type on a page, but furniture design, architecture, fashion. You understand rules about proportion, scale, contrast.
[1:01:20] And so I started to build my identity around somebody who knew their way around design.So what was fascinating to me is when we have a skill that we practice and we know we're better at than, than most people-- that we're better at than most people,
[1:01:35] that helps us define ourselves. Like, you think about the, the professional athletes or the musicians who make a lot of money doing what they do,
[1:01:44] I'm pretty sure they have their identity figured out pretty quick because the world is constantly showering them with opportunities, with validation, with everything that they want. So like, okay,
[1:01:57] so for me, design, graphic design was my LeBron moment or whatever it is you want to say. That was my Pharrell moment. It's like, I know who I am now. I have something to contribute to the world.
[1:02:09] I'm not just a person occupying and taking up space and oxygen. And so from that point forward, I started to lean into this, and I was like, "I can build my identity now."
[1:02:21] So sooner than, than later, like while in school, I started to like, "That's it. I don't have to prove myself to nobody anymore. I'll say what I want." And sometimes I would rub people the wrong way.
[1:02:33] And it's quite interesting. I didn't know it at the time, but after the fact, people were like, "God, you're such a douchebag, cocky bastard."
[1:02:40] You know, they wouldn't tell me that in person, but because at this point I'm like, I was kind of mirroring what my, my instructors were, have taught me at that point.
[1:02:47] Like, I can look at your design, I can tell you what's wrong.
[1:02:49] So when the instructor would open up for discussion, I might say like, "Yeah, I don't think the type is working because of these things," et cetera, et cetera. They're not used to their classmates saying this.
[1:02:58] They can accept it from someone who's in a position to do that. But in my mind I was like, "I was trying to help you." In their mind it's like, "Who do you think you are?"
[1:03:07] So later on, like until they get to know me better... Like, I remember one person came up to me and apologized. The guy's like, "You know, Chris, I got you all wrong."
[1:03:16] I didn't even know he had any animosity towards me at all. I'm like, "Oh, okay." He goes, "You're actually a really good guy." So he inferred that he thought I was not such a good person, but I didn't care.
[1:03:27] Um, your opinion has nothing to do with me. I'm like, "Well, I appreciate that."
[1:03:31] And so to this day, decades later, I still have the exact same response, meaning people come up to me and they're like, "I got a bone to pick with you." We talk for a little bit and they're like,
[1:03:43] "You're making this really difficult because you're actually really likable. I didn't, I didn't expect you to give me time." I'm like, "Well, what in my life would make you presume that?" So what happens is
[1:03:56] we're all really not interacting with the person in front of us. We're all, we're all responding to ghosts from our past
[1:04:02] because the behaviors and the words that you say remind someone of something else they heard from someone else who wasn't as nice, kind, or generous, or didn't have good intentions, you see?
[1:04:12] So sometimes if you're in a relationship and you do something, your partner might get really upset at you. "Over this little thing?"
[1:04:21] Because it reminds them of something when they were powerless, probably with their mom or dad, and you're doing that exact same thing.
[1:04:28] So all that unresolved childhood trauma comes up in this one moment because they're not really present. They're living in the past, and that's the problem. So now I know who I am. I don't... I mean, I care about people.
[1:04:42] I really do. Genuinely, I care. But I don't really care about people's opinions about me, and there's a big difference there because the same word care is in, in both sentences, so...
[1:04:51] You brought up something interesting about having a contrarian point of view. Yeah. We had somebody on the pod recently named Seth Godin. Okay.
[1:05:00] And he has a contrarian point of view when it comes to the word, um, authenticity, and we asked him about it and he said, "I think people should focus more so on being consistent than being, um,
[1:05:15] authentic," because he says that authenticity's kind of bullshit, which is a crazy thing to say, and it's... Not a crazy thing to say. It's a contrarian point of view.
[1:05:26] And then when we were talking to you, you were like, "Yeah, he kind of Jedi mind tricked you guys." \[laughs\] "He's actually doing something a little bit one step further than you think." Easy, Stormtroopers. Yeah.
[1:05:35] \[laughs\] There's a Jedi in front of you. So can you talk about that- These are the droids you're looking for...
[1:05:38] and the strategy behind having a contrarian point of view and actually how it can work in your favor when building a brand? Seth Godin is a thought leader. He's a prolific writer.
[1:05:48] He's a consistent con- uh, person who's super authentic to who he is too. Like, his persona, personality, truest self is just telling you the way he sees it.
[1:05:59] He doesn't have a lot of room for nonsense, and I find that the older you get, the less room you have for that kind of stuff, you know? People who are older are like, "You know what?
[1:06:07] Uh, I'm, I'm closer to death than I am to life, so the, the, the, whatever remaining years I have left to do what I do, I'm gonna just tell you, you're stupid," or, "I like this," or whatever it is.
[1:06:17] You know, "What a dumb question." They'll just say it at this point, and you're... \[gasps\] "You're not allowed to say that." I'm like, "Watch me." So what I think he's responding to is a couple different things.
[1:06:27] Clearly, I can't debate him or do this, but I understand what he's saying if you look underneath the layers. Today, it's so popular to talk about authenticity, authenticity, that the meaning of the word is just gone.
[1:06:38] And we joked about this the other day, and, like, the people who espouse being authentic are usually the least authentic people. They're the most disingenuous because it's almost like smokescreen.
[1:06:49] Like, "Oh, I'm really honest. I'm a really good person. Oh, I'm, I'm a faithful person." Like,
[1:06:55] you know, this is why the, um, the left will o- oftentimes make fun of people on the right, these evangel- evangelical Christians who are like, "That's so gay."
[1:07:03] I'm like, "Yeah, you're the one sleeping with a boy in the bathroom, right? Because you're covering up for something." So this whole authenticity thing is a smokescreen, right? It's like, you're the most opaque person.
[1:07:14] You're just, uh... Yeah, that's how you live? That, that's where you vacation? Come on. Let's just be real here. Maybe one day out of 365 that's what it looks like and that's what you're doing.
[1:07:24] And so-There's just a problem with that. You don't talk about authenticity, you are authentic or you're not. Most of us can see right through it, so probably there's a reaction to that.
[1:07:35] But the other thing that he's saying is but beneath is, is like before you start thinking about your true voice, why don't you just get good at something?
[1:07:42] He's talking about skill, and I think that's really important 'cause you asked me how did I get to that place where I felt like I knew myself and was comfortable, uh, uh, being disliked. Well, when I found a skill.
[1:07:58] So you see, he might have just been telling you the life plan, which is work on this skill, the authen- authenticity will take care of itself. But you know what? That doesn't grab headlines.
[1:08:10] That doesn't get clicks and views. So I think he knows what he's doing on that front. So interesting. Gosh. You gotta listen to that pod if you're listening right now. \[laughs\] That was a good one.
[1:08:20] You talked to- Link in the description below. Yeah, we'll leave it in the description below. Talk to us a little bit about world building.
[1:08:25] It's something that we've had long debates about on the show about building a world here for our viewers to hang out, and people can do that in real brands like we've seen it in, you know, movies like Marvel and these different massive, you know, giant movie industry or we've seen this in other movies.
[1:08:43] Yeah. Tell me about how it can relate to a personal brand in the form of world building. If we roll the tape back to like five years ago, Marvel's on top of the world.
[1:08:53] Every studio, every channel or brand wanted to figure out how they're able to do this. Basically, they were at a point in which they're just printing money.
[1:09:03] They're pulling characters that were obscure, like Guardians of the Galaxy, that no one even knew about, and they're just printing money. Hand over fist is what they were doing. And when they plan their stories that...
[1:09:15] You need to know this because I'm a, first of all, I'm a comic geek dork, okay?
[1:09:20] What I don't know is that when you read a story arc in Marvel, in the not the cinematic universe, just in, in the traditional comic books, they get together and they bring all the editors in chief together who are managing multiple books and, and IP.
[1:09:33] They map out what the next 10, 15, 20 years is gonna look like.
[1:09:38] It's a massive amount of planning, and then they go away and they do their own books, and they know all the crossover points because they're building this thing together.
[1:09:46] And this is world building on, world building on a scale that most of us cannot comprehend. So what I didn't know about was Civil War was, um, preceded by Secret Invasion.
[1:09:59] And Secret Invasion was an amazing arc, and they'd finished that arc, and you're like, then they kind of like something happens in a frame and you don't know what happens, and then they tell this whole other story, and then they tell you later that one scene, that's where we swap the heroes with a Skrull.
[1:10:15] Now people are like, "What the heck is he talking about?" Okay? Whereas say their competitor, DC, every character lives in a different world. There's not that continuity.
[1:10:26] There isn't canon to say like, "This is one massive timeline, and you can just watch all of it in sequence and see how it all plays out." This is beautiful. Okay. Now, how does this relate to people?
[1:10:38] Let's first look at brands, companies, okay? One of the hottest things to have happen are what you would call brand collabs or collabs or crossovers.
[1:10:47] When two very strong brands do something together, it becomes really cool. I'll talk about the one that is really cool as a concept, but not a high-end brand.
[1:10:57] So there's a person I interviewed many years ago, and what they do is they do brand licensing. They figure out IP that could work for something else. So I think it was Forever 21.
[1:11:09] They did a thing with, with the United States Post Office.
[1:11:12] So they borrowed their IP, which is the eagle, the blue, the typefaces, and all the different kinds of things that's associated with the Post Office, and they actually turned it into fashionable things.
[1:11:22] They said that collab flew off the store shelves. And he showed me some pieces, I'm like, "Wow, what a good idea." So cool. Now, the cooler version of this is when Louis Vuitton does a collab with Supreme.
[1:11:37] Both houses were on fire in that collab because they brought something new and different to the table.
[1:11:44] Louis Vuitton brings in their, the history and the heritage of trunks, high-end fashion, uh, bespoke tailoring, the monogram, all their brand assets if you look at the Damier pattern,
[1:11:55] the floral pattern, all that they brought. And then Supreme brought in street cred, skateboarding, Futura bold italic, and red. And when they did the collab, they had assets.
[1:12:09] So the- their two worlds was like Superman and Batman got together and they teamed up for something, and that was this beautiful thing. I think that was peak collab for some, for some brands, and that's really cool.
[1:12:21] Now, when we talk about you and me in the regular world, let's say there's an event that's going on and they're bringing some of the top people in the industry for thousands of people to come and be a part of.
[1:12:34] What are they building? Well, they're borrowing whatever brand you've built and trying to bring them together like the Justice League. But you are pre James Gunn Guardians of the Galaxy. Nobody ever heard of you.
[1:12:48] They didn't even know the characters. They don't know your story. There's no brand assets. Like, can you draw the Guardians of the Galaxy logo? I can't. I can't name all the characters, right?
[1:12:57] So a person like, like these fictitious characters we're talking about has certain things they bring to the table if you, if you know how to build your brand assets.
[1:13:08] So if you look at Superman, there's the S icon, there's the suit, there's the cape, there's that little curly coif of hair. Like even how he wears his hair becomes a signature.
[1:13:18] There's his powers like super hearing, cold breath, laser vision, X-ray vision. There's his weakness, kryptonite.
[1:13:24] And then there's all the characters that support him and his nemesis, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Doomsday, all these kind of characters. So it's a rich world with a lot of, lot of mythology.His origin story. So we know that.
[1:13:35] So we just pull that to you. We, we can say like, "Okay, you have a physique." Like, if you were to get naked, stand in front of a bright light source, we just look at your silhouette.
[1:13:45] Some of us are tall, some of us are short, some of us long arms, short arms, whatever. That's what you're born with, but that's part of how we identify it's you.
[1:13:53] In, in fact, when they design animated characters, they design the silhouette before they even know what the character is. They just draw blobs and shapes. Kung Fu Panda is a excellent example of that.
[1:14:04] There's a snake, there's mantis, there's, like, the panda, and they all have very different shapes. So you can study that. Next is, like, your personal style.
[1:14:13] This is all the stuff that you do to you, your hair, your clothes, your earring, glasses, everything that you do that changes the silhouette, and it communicates
[1:14:22] your energy, your preferences, your taste level to lots of people. Then there's your tribe, the people you associate with.
[1:14:29] The, the, the Jim Rohn saying, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." Back when you were younger, your mom's like, "I don't like Jimmy. Got bad vibes. He's a criminal.
[1:14:38] He's throwing up that N-G. If you hang around with him, you're gonna become like Jimmy." And a lot of times, that is what happens. Parents do have some wisdom once in a while.
[1:14:47] Uh, there's next, your, like, your mannerisms or your quirks. You know how you, uh, listen to Matthew McConaughey? "All right, all right, all right. Sh, sh." You know, the w- the little Texas whistle?
[1:14:57] He does that, you know. That's just, that's his quirks. That's what makes him him. If you're talking about Trump, you know, "A lot of words," the, the little things with his hands and his, his mannerisms.
[1:15:07] "People are saying..." And it's very easy to pull on those things because they're so exaggerated with him. But you have to look at your own quirks and mannerisms.
[1:15:18] And then we say, like, there, there are certain rituals that you participate in that make you you. There's your story, your backstory, your inciting incident story, your defining moment story.
[1:15:27] There's your beliefs, your values. There's your language and your messaging. Even your tone of voice becomes a part of your brand assets. The last one is the actions that you take based on your beliefs and values.
[1:15:44] So if you look at all that, I think that's like 10 different things I just mentioned. Many of us don't even understand one of these things, let alone have 10. So this is what we try to work on.
[1:15:55] I feel like you doing those impressions is the, the, the stand-up comic- Yeah... wanted to come out of you. Yeah. \[laughs\] Those are pretty good. \[laughs\] And so when somebody's thinking about their personal brands, like
[1:16:07] those nine or 10 things, it can almost feel a little bit overwhelming to hear you talk about it and be like, "Damn, I gotta think about- Yeah... all those different things."
[1:16:15] Is there one that you maybe advise somebody to, to start with and then start thinking about the other nine? Or like, is there one of those that's more important than the other?
[1:16:23] Or do you think it's just like the strongest brands and personal brands are thinking about every little nuanced detail between how they dress, how they speak, what they're saying, what their set looks like when they're setting up a podcast or a talking head, like those sort of things?
[1:16:40] Yeah. We start with the inside. I w- I would consider this the foundation, your beliefs, your values, your story, your rituals. That matters a lot.
[1:16:49] I would say the more external ones are the dressing, like the finishes, like, uh, marble, f- carpeting, drapes, what, what style of exterior, what, what paint are we doing?
[1:17:00] So those are important because you can walk into a house that's been framed, it's really solid, but it's not worth a lot. But you finish it the right way, it could be worth 10 times as much.
[1:17:10] You finish the wrong way, you would lose a lot of value. So those two things are kind of interlocked. Oftentimes, though, you have to kind of look at the foundation. Does it line up with the external?
[1:17:20] And this is where people get this all messed up. So there's the sequences. If you start with the outside first, like, "I wanna be perceived this way.
[1:17:27] I wanna look like this, I wanna talk like this, and I wanna associate myself with these people," but inside you're not the same, that's where we get into lands of being if- inauthentic.
[1:17:37] And people are like, "There's some kind of conflict going on," because not all of it adds up. You know what's remarkable about people? Doesn't matter how old or young you are, your spider sense,
[1:17:47] your gut, your intuition is actually way smarter than you think. You know how you meet people and you're like, \[snaps fingers\] "That's a good person"? You just met them. You don't know nothing about their story.
[1:17:57] They could be a serial killer. You do not know. Or you can say, "You know what? Uh, let's lock the cupboards. Put your stuff away because I don't know, I got a bad feeling about this." More often than not,
[1:18:10] that gut is right. So what I start thinking about... And there's a line from Sherlock Holmes because he was, uh... This is the Benedict Cumberbatch version of the British series.
[1:18:20] He goes, "I thought you were all about logic. How are you, how are you talking about gut and instinct?" He goes, "Well, your instinct is your logic working faster than your brain can process."
[1:18:31] So over your lifetime, you've noticed certain behaviors and associated with certain characteristics and traits in people. So you and I, we're signaling to each other all the time non-stop, right?
[1:18:45] Somebody with a, has a deeper voice, you're just like, "Authority." Not really, but just because you ha- you're on a lower register, authority, right? It's little things like that.
[1:18:57] Or someone who twitches a little bit, you're like, "Oh, anxious." And we don't know them, but that's what it communicates to us because when we're anxious, our knees are, are shaking and bouncing up and down, right?
[1:19:09] When we're telling a lie, we're nervous, our hands are shaky. So we're signaling to people all the time, and we need to start to get in tune with that. So I would say start with what you were born with
[1:19:21] and the things that were out of your control. Who are your parents? What did they do? Where were you raised? That's called cultural currency. If you grew up in the South, we know some things about you.
[1:19:32] When you grow up on the East, we know something. Oh, you're a California person? Oh yeah, we know. \[laughs\] Do you, did you ever get trapped in a perfection mindset when you were starting?
[1:19:45] And what would you say to someone who might be waiting for that perfect moment to hit before they start sharing their stuff? I think when I was in design space, we, we try to catch this thing called perfection.
[1:19:58] Like, every little piece of type, color, imagery is perfect, and we noodle on things forever, and we celebrate that within design culture.
[1:20:07] The more obsessed you are, uh, the better you are as a designer, so we tell ourselves. When it comes to content, I think we need to realize something, and people, by the way. Perfection is an illusion.
[1:20:18] It's a lie we tell ourselves to not do the work. Almost always, or a high percentage of people are like, "Well, it's not good enough." It's a strategy on how to delay doing something.
[1:20:32] That's all it is, is, like, it's not good enough. It's like, 'cause you don't wanna release it to the world. I don't have the right lighting, the right camera, the right script.
[1:20:40] I, I, I need three more people and 10 mil- 10 more million dollars to, like, do the set the right way for it just to work. All we're doing is it's an avoidance strategy to not do it, to not...
[1:20:52] to test our own ideas if we're good enough. Because inside, we're not comfortable. We're not comfortable or confident enough that we can't have that idea shatter our world. It's so fragile.
[1:21:05] So you're like, you know, how many friends do you know who have said something like, "Oh, I would be the X if only I had that. I'd be rich if my dad gave me money. I'd be rich if I wasn't..."
[1:21:17] or, "I'd be perfect if this and this." Really? So let's go get you that. Let's see what happens. "Well, I'm, I'm not ready to start today." I'm like, "Well, that's really what it is."
[1:21:26] So perfectionism is an avoidance strategy to not to have to test what we think about ourselves is true. How do we get over this? How do I do this? Okay? There's a book, it's called Rework.
[1:21:41] It's written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier. It's an amazing book. They're the founders of a company called 37signals, who make Basecamp. In it, they said, "Do not make a big gamble. Make small bets."
[1:21:55] So instead of saying, "We have a new idea, a new product or feature that we wanna introduce," instead of spending $100,000 and taking six months, they say, "Make 10 experiments for $10,000 in two weeks."
[1:22:10] So each time you do it, you'll fail. You'll learn something. Apply it to the next thing and do it.
[1:22:14] And oftentimes, what you come up with at the end of the six months for the same amount of money is way more innovative and, and, and you're learning so much as you're doing it.
[1:22:23] Or you'll find out really early, not a good product market fit. The idea is not as good as we think.
[1:22:29] Almost all wannabe entrepreneurs, want- wantrepreneurs, fail because they make the idea so big that it's too hard to get started, so they wind up doing nothing, therefore cementing the idea that they would've been a great entrepreneur had they had the resources.
[1:22:44] Whenever we make a piece of content, there's typos. There's a weird glitch frame in there. Uh, did they color grade that the right way? Did I say it the right way? No. I don't care. You do the work.
[1:22:57] You ask yourself two questions: What could be better? And what did I do well? And then you can be a constant improver. What you were saying about perfectionism resonates a lot because
[1:23:12] I remember when we were first starting the podcast, or even really when I was first starting to, like, make content and make videos for brands, two things happened. One,
[1:23:23] I remember being like, "Oh, I just need a gimbal, and then once I get the gimbal, it's game over." And then I got the gimbal and then I said, "Ah, fuck, I only have a 24 to 70 lens. I need the 16 to 35."
[1:23:34] Then I got the 16 to 35, and I was like, "I don't have a 70 to 200." That's very niche to s- photography and video, but- \[laughs\]... you always feel like you, you know, there's...
[1:23:43] I always felt like, "Oh, if I just had this other piece of gear, like, it's game over." But that's not the f- that's not how it works. No. And then also,
[1:23:54] perfection of it, perfectionism is a trap because your taste changes. You get better at your skill.
[1:24:02] And so what you think is perfect in this time currently, looking back in probably five years' time, what your level of perfectionism was or what your idea of perfectionism was, you're gonna look back and think,
[1:24:18] "Oh, that's actually not as good as I can make it now." And so perfectionism is almost a lie because the goalpost keeps moving as you continue to get better at your skill. Yeah. See, so you're chasing new. Yeah.
[1:24:32] New and next. It's always gonna be like, "Oh, I need that new thing," or the version two of that gimbal came out. Yeah. And that's what my team was doing to me. I'm like, "I have four gimbals, guys. What are we doing?"
[1:24:42] Yeah. "Have we made anything good with this gimbal yet?" It's so- "We need the new drone, Chris." I'm like, "Okay." Yeah. It's so true. Okay, question for you. Algorithms are always changing.
[1:24:55] There's always gonna be new apps coming. Where we post content and how we share our message, it's gonna change. I'm assuming things are gonna pop up in five, 10 years down the line that we can't even fathom right now.
[1:25:07] Right. What philosophies about building a strong brand, building a strong personal brand, will hold true five, 10 years down the line, regardless of the mediums or the platforms and how we share our message changes?
[1:25:21] I'm gonna s- tell you from a very personal p- point of view. I've been making content a little over 10 years now.
[1:25:29] Like, the, the beginning of my journey into content creation began in January of 2014, so we're on our 11th year, I suppose.And I'm saying this not as false humility or s- to be self-deprecating.
[1:25:43] I don't find myself to be self-deprecating, but I don't know what any of these platforms do. I barely know how to use any of the apps.
[1:25:49] It's always some young person on my team or someone who's in our community's like, "Chris, did you know you could hit that button and do this?" I'm like, "What button?"
[1:25:55] And then you do that thing and they're like, "How long has this button existed?" "Uh, bruh, it's been there since the beginning." Like, oh my God, right? Like, I'll tell people, "I can't change that."
[1:26:05] They're like, "Yeah, you can. Just click on those three dots and do this thing."
[1:26:08] I tell you this because I've been making content based on just knowing that I want to teach people to give generously, to learn how to say things in ways that people can remember, that are simple and that are actionable, and then it doesn't really matter what platform that we do this on.
[1:26:26] I, I think I, I'm not one, but one of a few creators who can do multi-platform content and grow a decent sized audience across multiple platforms, right? So we started on YouTube.
[1:26:38] We have two point seven million subs on YouTube. I'm on Instagram, just cracked a million followers. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm about to crack six hundred thousand.
[1:26:45] Uh, TikTok I struggle with and, and Twitter is just like, I'm just a couple hundred thousand on each. And people are like, "What, what next?" I'm like, "I don't know." Oh, let me do podcasting. Sure.
[1:26:55] In some markets we're top ten. And it's just, what I know about this is to be true. If you know who you are, you accept yourself for who you are, and you're willing, and you have the courage to be disliked,
[1:27:09] to present that true self out into the world, and your intentions are to help people, and that you're more relational than you are transactional, some transaction has to happen, but you're more relational, you're gonna do just fine.
[1:27:22] So we're in VR now, or we're in some kind of weird other thing that-- some fourth dimensional thing that somebody's invented, it'll still come down to that. Now, this is not a game of quick returns.
[1:27:35] It's a, a game of just slow and steady. So sure, there are people who are bigger than us who will rocket right past us, but I say just give it time. You'll see. They all eventually just burn out, crash out, or cash out.
[1:27:48] They're done. It happens all the time. There was something that we just saw last week, one of the craziest events on the internet that I've seen since, since I've been making content.
[1:28:01] I wanna talk about Alex Hormozi's hundred million dollar, um, what was it called? What the heck was it? Hundred Million Dollar Model. Money Models. Hundred, Hundred Million Dollar Money Models launch.
[1:28:11] What are your thoughts on what we saw occur on Sa-Saturday? Well, from a variety of different sources, Alex and his team were able to generate over a hundred million dollars in revenue in twenty-four hours.
[1:28:28] Kind of unfathomable if you think about it. So there are lots of people who are gonna hate, and they come out, but then they're missing the point. They're not learning everything they can. You can
[1:28:39] learn without throwing the baby out with the bath water, okay?
[1:28:42] So we wanna acknowledge both things, things that are done really well and things that are like, "Huh, that bothers me a little bit," so let's have an honest conversation about this.
[1:28:51] So for those who don't know, Alex has been making content at a very high clip for the last couple of years.
[1:28:57] And he basically came out of obscurity to being one of the most talked about ref- referenced people in the, the business space. And he has a unique approach.
[1:29:07] His unique approach is, "I've done it, now I'm gonna talk about it." And that was not any different in Saturday's launch of his book, Hundred Million Dollar Money Models.
[1:29:18] So the entirety of-- it seems like the entirety of the, of the webinar was focused around showing you all the receipts over and over and over again. And I think that builds a lot of credibility.
[1:29:31] So what we learn here is that if you haven't done what it is that you purport to be an expert at, lots of people should be suspicious. That's not to say that teachers who know how to teach
[1:29:44] should get shade thrown on them because they haven't done it themselves. Some teachers are brilliant. That's their gift in this life, and that's amazing, okay? Not discounting them. Please don't get me wrong.
[1:29:53] But in the kind of, uh, self-proclaimed guru coach space, I, I think you need to do what it is that you say you're going to help people do
[1:30:04] because it's always a, uh, like a red flag when someone is selling you a program to make money, and that's how they made their money. Almost always. And there's lots of people that we know that are doing literally that.
[1:30:16] But, you know, the, the world is gullible. They fall for these things time and time again. That's why they continue to exist. What Alex did, what people don't understand is he said, "Come buy my book. It's thirty bucks."
[1:30:31] For a price of a book, that's very reasonable. So, "Okay. I'm gonna buy the book." "You'll get shipping first." "Cool." "You can attend a VIP thing." "Cool." I wasn't part of some VIP thing.
[1:30:44] There's a hundred or eighty thousand other people in the same VIP, quote-unquote, "link." But he did say that in the pre-launch, he sold more books than the previous two launches combined. Pretty remarkable.
[1:30:57] And then he gave some pieces of information we kind of have to pull apart here. Number one, I think he said he spent four and a half million dollars in paid advertising to get y'all to come in.
[1:31:08] Four and a half million dollars that he can account for to generate about six million dollars of book sales. So if you look at it like that, that's not a good ROI.
[1:31:17] That is like seventy-five percent cost to acquire a customer or something like that. My math ain't great on this, guys. Don't quote me there.
[1:31:23] But then if that's all you saw, you didn't see the bigger play, 'cause what was writing underneath all this stuff was he's now going to do what he tells you to do, which is the value stack.
[1:31:32] He starts talking about all these things that you can buy, and then he does the same thing again, which is, "Oh, it's all free. Everybody who bought the book, you already get this. No worries."
[1:31:42] And then he tells you, "I have a big dream."I want to make this kind of business education available to all the entrepreneurs, and he says, "In America," and he's anchoring it really high here.
[1:31:52] There's like thirty-nine million entrepreneurs in America. Let's make this dream possible. So he enrolls you in his dream.
[1:31:59] Very kind of Steve Jobs thing to do, and the entire like Russell Brunson webinar funnel thing is just like played to the T here. So okay, he goes, "I have another problem.
[1:32:10] The top ten nonfiction books have all been authored by politicians." So now he's saying something which I want to peel back here. Are we in a fight against politicians? Do you dislike them as much as I do?
[1:32:26] Of course, that's a hot button thing. Not a lot of people I know love politicians. So he goes, "Help me dethrone them. Help me break a world record." So he's attacking every psychological, emotional trigger that we have.
[1:32:42] Couple of problems here. Oh, then the offer comes in. Buy two hundred books, so I can give them to people to make sure that this is possible.
[1:32:54] So he has a tangible thing, thirty dollars a book, that's six thousand dollars. And he says, um, "I'm gonna give you this other thing too, this binder with more stuff."
[1:33:05] And he makes sure that everything that he's telling you has a visual representation. They're, they're props mostly to show you the volume of stuff. And then what we don't realize is
[1:33:17] he's tapping into how old-fashioned we still are. All digital things, it's just a download, it's just ones and zeros in a cloud, but oh my God, pieces of paper bound together with glue, that's valuable.
[1:33:31] It's the craziest thing ever, and just genius in how it's all done, and you look at it, right? And he goes, "Oh, and you'll have access to my AI robot that's been trained on all these things."
[1:33:40] So he's just stacking out of control. So let's just pull apart some of the things that I-I'm a little critical of.
[1:33:47] I don't believe everything that was said was one hundred percent above board, and I'd like for my coaches and teachers to be more bound to the truth.
[1:33:58] The fact that he said he has twenty-five thousand of these packages, and they sold way more than that. False scarcity. The fact that he's like, "Well, you get some VIP access." No, we didn't.
[1:34:10] There's a lot of like kind of funny things. And there's a part to the story that I, I find to be problematic. But you know what?
[1:34:16] It just goes to show you how emotional we are as decision makers, as emotional creatures than logic, which is let me... Help me get this educational material in the hands of thirty-nine million entrepreneurs.
[1:34:29] What entrepreneur cannot buy a thirty dollar book? You've already failed the entrepreneurial test because that's like five cups of coffee at Starbucks. So even that hook was a little bit funny.
[1:34:42] And we know the retail price of the book is thirty. Charge whatever you want.
[1:34:46] But the actual cost of making that book at the volume in which he's pushing out these books, I think he did two point eight million books in a day, it's gotta be like a buck fifty.
[1:34:58] So I find the hook to be disingenuous, and I have a small problem with that. But you know what? I got mad respect for everything he's been able to do, and it's an internal conflict that I have.
[1:35:09] Like, just be honest with me. Just say like, "Hey, buy these books, give them to somebody who's not smart enough to be an entrepreneur yet. Maybe one day they'll change the world."
[1:35:18] He also said something I thought, and don't quote me on this, "Buy the book, it's tax deductible," which made it sound like it's a charity, which it's not.
[1:35:29] I know there's some fine language, you know, I'm sure they ran it past legal, but it's like, what? It's tax deductible as a business expense, but not as like a 401(c), like you're giving it to a church or a school.
[1:35:42] So there's some funny things there, right? And then what you don't get to see is, you know what? From the general audience, if you're willing to pay thirty dollars, you've separated yourself.
[1:35:53] You've raised your hand and said, "I have intent. I have capacity to buy, and I have intent."
[1:35:58] From that group, he culled it down even more from the hundred and ten thousand peak views, he culled it down to, "Which one of you guys can afford six grand?" And people were just diving in there.
[1:36:08] It was just out of control. And he had this great little thing, a, a book counter, which just made it so exciting to be part of like, we're part of history. We're helping entrepreneurs. We're breaking records.
[1:36:21] We're giving a big F-U finger to the politicians of the world, like you can't have us. It's kind of brilliant.
[1:36:29] And then what you don't know is after the six thousand dollar thing, he asks you to buy, I think, six hundred books. It was like twenty-five grand for the- I think it was eighteen grand. No? Eighteen grand. Okay.
[1:36:40] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was eighteen grand. Yeah. So he's-- it's always done in denominations of a book. So I, I, I reverse engineered six hundred books that you can pay over the next year, or you can pay it all at once.
[1:36:51] And for that, you get access to this like exclusive circle community, some Zoom calls with Alex and his team. And so now we're, we're like just, we're just drunk at this point.
[1:37:04] People are plastered like on an emotional high like and, and people are, are like just ecstatic about what they were doing. Like, do you know six hundred people that are entrepreneurs?
[1:37:18] I don't know that many myself, so it's like, wow.
[1:37:21] And then once you got into that program, apparently there was a message that went out that said, "Oh, until the end of day today, if you wanna have even more access to us," whatever the offer was, "it's gonna be a hundred grand.
[1:37:36] Comment all in, but you need to pay that today." And the response to that by some people who were on the inside was like forty people-ish, give or take, said, "I'm, I'm all in." So just that last part of the, the funnel,
[1:37:52] that was a forty million dollar grab.If my math is right. So what, what we can do is this. If we were to do this, and this is, uh... Russell Brunson writes about this in his book, Dotcom Secrets, the full value ladder.
[1:38:05] Or what you have low price, and then you just keep ratcheting it up. And, and I, I kn- I know at one point Russell was coaching or teaching him things, so he pulled it off to a T.
[1:38:18] And there's a lot of lessons for me to learn. Now, the m- I don't want to argue the model. I have some questions about the ethics and the level of transparency and, quote-unquote, "truth."
[1:38:29] And this whole thing like, "Oh, we're only gonna do this webinar this avail- this offer's only available today." And then next thing you know, it's like there's a replay on Sunday, and there's another replay on Monday.
[1:38:38] I'm like, \[sighs\] "Come on." But I do understand if you tell people you have three days to act, you won't act. And so here's the big thing that gets all of this a pass from me.
[1:38:52] If the product is really good, the book is great, um, the coaching sessions are great, the AI robot's great, the one-on-one time that you may or may not be able to buy is all great,
[1:39:05] then I give it a pass mostly for the psychological triggers that were used, right? The problem I usually have is people do this exact same thing and their product's junk, which is most of the time.
[1:39:18] So only time will tell from the 2.8 million books that were sold, the record that's broken, and I love that an entrepreneur is able to do this,
[1:39:26] then you'll know if the product's good because you'll start to hear a lot of complaints. Like, "This community is garbage. The AI is stupid, you know, didn't do anything.
[1:39:36] Here's what it said, you know, when I asked it this question." That would not look good. But I think the last part I wanna make, the last point I wanna make on this is
[1:39:46] what Alex has done is he's built a community of entrepreneurs who actually can spend money, and he's demonstrated, at least in the samples he shared time and time again, how he's able to get results for some people.
[1:40:01] And they felt joyful to give him their money.
[1:40:06] We should all aspire to achieve that level of impact and relationship with people, 'cause at the end of the day, as much as you wanna talk about brand, brand is really can be reduced down to one thing, the strength of the relationship you have with your people.
[1:40:22] How they feel, not how you feel. It don't matter if you feel like our relationship's really strong. If they don't feel that way, it's not worth anything.
[1:40:30] So whatever he's done in the last couple years, he's built a really strong bond, relationship with people, who have money by the way, that's another important point there, and they're ready to give it to him.
[1:40:42] I mean, he, he did rise so fast it felt like. I feel like I saw the clip of him explaining, "I paid Grant Cardone 150,000," or whatever the heck the thing was. Hundred grand.
[1:40:53] And Grant just for about five minutes said, "Hey, you need to make more content." \[laughs\] And from that moment, it was like, great, they went and hired the, a humongous team- Yeah...
[1:41:02] to be able to divvy it up, and you couldn't not see his face on the internet during this launch. I mean, granted, I think all the entrepreneurial people, we are in a vacuum with who he was targeting.
[1:41:12] 'Cause I had asked someone, I was like, "Do you see these ads?" And he's interested in the space, but right now he's so much more on AI, and he's like, "I have literally not been hit with one of the ads." Right.
[1:41:21] And I was like, that is so interesting because- Yeah... I couldn't not look somewhere and see his face or his ad, which is so crazy.
[1:41:29] It's weird 'cause I b- I bought the book because my buddy Neil told me to buy it, and then I get 37,000 emails from him. But I don't see any of his ads either.
[1:41:38] And the weird thing is I was talking to a small group of, like, 12 entrepreneurs, they didn't even know who Alex Hormozi is. Wow. I think it's deep penetration within a very specific vertical and not a lot wide.
[1:41:49] 'Cause once you watched one, you were being hammered with it. You... I don't think you could not, you could not s- I didn't watch any of them... you could not see it.
[1:41:56] I, I was going to Facebook Ads Library and writing down the hooks. I was literally going, and I think at one point there was 100 and, 145 or 160 different pieces of creative that were in his Facebook Ads Library.
[1:42:12] I got a question for you, Chris. Yes. When it comes to your own business, are you running ads for certain stuff, or is most of, like, uh, uh, either, like, the digital products that you're selling or, uh- Speaking...
[1:42:26] you know, like the mastermind speaking stuff, is that all just off of organic, um, like, organic content, or are you running ads and stuff?
[1:42:36] Uh, some ads people ask me what we're spending a month, and they throw out some wild numbers. I'm like, "We don't even spend that a year. You're saying people spend this a month?"
[1:42:45] Uh, the vast majority of what we do is organic.
[1:42:48] We do need to get better at the paid game because, uh, it goes back to this thing that I said, like, if you believe what you're doing is good and it's, it's a quality tool, coaching thing that you do, program,
[1:42:58] then you kind of owe it to the community that you serve to do whatever you can to get them that help. And sometimes people have a lot of resistance.
[1:43:07] There's inertia, so when they don't move, you have to nudge them to move.
[1:43:11] So we've done ads, um, for our recent CAM workshop, which, which is Client Acquisition Machine, where the workshop is, uh, it's a virtual workshop. It's 100 bucks.
[1:43:21] So we try to spend not a lot of money, but then all of a sudden, as y'all have said, in the six months in which we were running ads, it's costing us too much money now.
[1:43:29] It's costing us $60 to buy you to come into the, to a webinar. But this is where entrepreneurs really understand something, right?
[1:43:38] Which sometimes I get stuck myself, which is if you're cash flow positive, you just keep running it again and again and again. So what that means is,
[1:43:49] as long as there's still some money left over to do it, I'm good, right?
[1:43:52] So if I sell, and I'll, I'll tell you the math very transparently, 300 seats, 'cause that's the maximum we can hold, and everyone pays us 100 bucks, I theoretically have a $30,000 budget every single month,
[1:44:04] as long as there's a little left over for me to do a little bit more.
[1:44:07] But the way that it works is if I have, um, an ability to do more workshops and I could sell 600 of them, then I would do that, and then now it's, I'll bring in $60,000 of revenue, and I just do, then I try and push it up to 120,000.
[1:44:23] I just keep spending more money on ads and I just keep growing the webinar. You have to spend a lot of time, money, and effort into running those ads because the ad sets don't work after a while. Yeah.
[1:44:32] You know, and it's- They die actually pretty quick. Oh, yeah. That is a whole, that's a whole thing and a whole conversation we could spend years going into. \[laughs\] Mm-hmm. This has been, this has been amazing, Chris.
[1:44:43] I just wanna thank you for coming on for round two. This is gonna be episode, like, 172 of the 505 podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment.
[1:44:52] Go check out Chris' content down below, and we'll see you guys all next week. Peace.

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