How To Build A Successful Personal Brand in 2024 (Full Masterclass)

we were talking about personal branding at the end of yesterday and I have a studio of one right now right the vision is for it to be more but I'm curious if I should be building my personal brand or the studio brand anyways I'm just like where should I be focusing to try to get some traction I'm still not sure if I fully am committed to this what I'm about to say but I'm not sure there's such a thing as a business brand there's things that people refer to as a brand as a business but

what they're referring to is the efforts of a collective team of marketers writers designers is creating an experience it's a collective thing you know what I mean it's kind of these things and I think a lot of us understand what brands do on a corporate level which is the market to us their whole goal is to get us to do something what I'm trying to do and when people speak about personal branding they use the same literal language for corporate branding and they bring it over to personal branding they're designing whatever it is they're teaching

you to go and help you sell more things I don't know about you but I'm just tired of people trying to sell me something I'm just kind of like allergic to to it now and so when I try to teach people about personal branding it's not so much I'm trying to sell you anything it's mostly I want to know who the hell I'm supposed to be in this life and I want to heal and to show up 100% as I am and when I can do that oddly enough I seem to attract more people to

me if You' read Marty num's writings especially in brand flip he goes we don't want to be sold things but we love to buy and as it evolves is we don't want to buy We join tribe because we're looking for connection and meaning in our lives I'd just like to go into the history of branding a little bit and you'll start to understand like why we are where we are and how we may want to have a different dialogue about it and I'm telling you right now for every single person who's here who wants to

develop their personal brand and if you do it the way I hope you'll do it you'll have a competitive advantage over everybody else who's doing it the wrong way and I'll just be as polarizing as like there's a right way and there's a wrong way okay just to make the argument for most of our civilization whether you believe in creation or Evolution we've been around for a long time we've had to procure our own food source and make our own supplies it's only in the last let's say 100 years that we've going through this industrial

revolution industrial age where specialization starts to happen so we're no longer growing our own food so what happens is as we get into specialized skills and Industrial manufacturing things like that there's a disproportionate amount of options that are happening now living in small towns there's a local grocer there's one a general goods store and there's only one kind of flower and is more people specialize competition happens now they have to distinguish themselves from each other and they create identity and it's just a distinguish so point of differentiation right it makes sense and as the small

town grows into really big town the grosser no longer knows you're on a personal level can't make recommendations anymore and so now that job is now put on the companies so the company is now staying in there with their packaging with their design the materials and the colors and the messaging and so now we have all these options and one compan is trying to prevent the other company from being a counterfeit version therefore damaging their relationship with their customers because they'll get upset and it's like we didn't sell you that this is the evolution of

Identity Design marketing and then especially now in the 21st century we don't have just one kind of flow or one kind of toothpaste we have too many kinds of flow and toothpaste and so the modern concept of branding I think is only like 30 years old or so and it's been heightened by the internet and social media cuz now instead of going somewhere and having limited choice we have even unlimited choice and so let's try to understand this then branding is preference branding is when I have an irrational emotional connection to a thing that I

shouldn't have but I do cuz we're irrational emotional people we're creatures designed to really respond emotionally so we kind of understand that right so everything that you need to understand about branding I think I just told you story format differentiation and preference and the way that I choose because we are now wealthier than we've ever been individually there's less disease we're longer lived we're healthier theoretically so now we have more resources we have more choice and so instead of survival we're looking for meaning there's a quote from an lape and she said that every dollar

you spend is a vote for the kind of world you want to live in when I buy Arrowhead versus Voss versus Fuji I say I would like for those companies to thrive I joke with my my kids because my wife and I we like this little Korean teriyaki chicken place called Teran Yaki they hate it my wife and I we love it it's tasty it's it's fresh it's it's clean eating and my older son's like Dad oh oh no it's like oh you want to eat there they're going to go out of business like boy

they've been around in business longer you've been alive and I say if they're going to go out of business I'm going to go over there and buy 1,000 chickens and now he's like d why would you do that cuz I want to support them why do I care about them I don't know I can't even tell you why I mean maybe cuz when I was a art center student or working around here was an affordable meal and I have some weird connection to that every time I take a bite maybe it transports me back 30

years I'm reminded of like my starving self I'm like this is good still good today so we have an emotional irrational connection do you want people to have a preference for what you do probably then you have a brand if not you're a commodity now here's what we know too every product has a story some stories are good some stories are not worth mentioning what's the story of Arrowhead everybody get I'm St out this bottle I'm almost certain to Arrowhead it's just filtered water what's the story of Fiji does anybody know the story of Fiji

it feels exotic who said that exotic yeah it feels exotic cuz like I'm on vacation and then they introduced this language what did they say dgo artial it's artial water wow untouch by humans filtered through Lava Rock of the vegian islands and then you know what they do if you look at the bottle first of all the bottle's different most bottles look like this their bottle is kind of square and on the back of the bottle as you're looking through the water you see a little bit of Fiji you see what they're doing to you

as far as I know this came from Colorado and came out of tap but it's a good story I don't know what this bottle of Arrowhead costs I'm assuming not much that's why we have it it's like 35 cents bottle of Fiji is like three bucks bottle of loss is like five bucks cuz it has a different story why am I talking about all this stuff what's your story how manufactured is your story what is the integrity and the authenticity of your voice is it there I tell people I see dangerous things because I pretend

like I know what I'm talking about but as I look into this idea there's Carl Young that he talks about this that there are two selves and it's regulated by our ego our ego manages who we're going to be in the world there's the Persona which you're all very familiar with it's who you pretend to be to be accepted in society and all of us are inner Persona we are it's it's undeniable and then there's this other side where like what are we managing then on the other side of the Persona is your Shadow Self

it's the ugly stuff it's stuff that no one wants to talk about it's the stuff that brings you shame and you feel like if you were to expose that you'll be ostracized and there's a good chance you might be from childhood maybe we're like seven or 9 years old you've gotten the Persona put on you by your parents most likely you know as a kid you've said it yourself if you have children and it's definitely been said to you don't stare at that person it's not nice that's just you being you or I want to

eat that or I want to go there and I think that person's funny or I think they're cool you just say whatever it is you want to say because the ego hasn't been taught how to regulate how you show up in public right and like if you eat your boogers when you're 3 years old people like don't do that people get freaked out like but it's tasty it's salty it's a good snack it's all natural it's not GMO right and you're like you can't do that so we all stop being our boogers so what happens

is when you show up and pretend to be somebody that you're not for long enough you forget who the hell you are and when we get into the personal branding stuff all I'm trying to do is get people to remember that's it it's not invention it's memory my wife is really into like all everything related to like Quantum quantum physics Quantum particle quantum entanglement so she's into this whole Quantum thing and she's deep into like um conspiracy theories and like weird pyramid and anina and Freemason gild like babe just don't give anybody our money okay

explore as much of that as possible just just don't fall into the cult hole I just please but she shows me these videos and they're fascinating for me to watch because she introduces me to Concepts I'm uncomfortable with and that's a really cool part of my relationship with my wife she goes look at this guy like he's from Argentina or something he has a heavy accent and he calls himself a rememberer do you guys know about this it's a fascinating concept okay so you know there's a lot of strange things that are happening so I'm

going if you indulge me I'm going to take you down a weird conspiracy theory hole okay can can we go I'm gonna go none of it which I believe but this is the story I'm learning okay there's a couple of complex Concepts and I think Chris Nolan has been exploring these Concepts that the the idea that there are multiverses do you realize how many different things in F and media and Cinema are talking about multiversal like multi-dimensional things that are happening and time being like this fluid thing and it's starting to get really complicated so

one of the theories is that the future version of ourselves far into the future are trying to communicate to the current version of ourselves and the time thing is not even a real thing because the old version ourselves are here too it's all happening simultaneously and there are these rememberers who have not gotten a single thing that Humanity has gone through and they will tell you what ancient versions of us know it's wild ass stuff but I don't know if I believe it cuz they ask them questions like and they go into these weird States

right and they're like speaking and being channeled through because future and past versions were speaking to them and so they have groups like this and people ask them questions about so where are the aliens and what's happening what are they and then they give these strange answers I say strange because they're horribly vague and nonspecific I want dates I want facts I want figures and they just give strange answers and everybody like oh I'm like no uh I want more specifics but the idea of a rememberer is like pretty cool someone who's not forgotten like

ancient wisdom throughout Humanity okay I'll give you one more part and then I'll bring it back to personal branding it's connected I promise the theme that I wanted to explore with you is can you remember who you are and if you can are you then courageous enough to show that and it's kind of an interesting thing so let me share with you concept number one true strength comes from weakness it comes from vulnerability and let's explore this concept okay if you were to think of some of the people you admire the most throughout history the

ones who stood for something the ones who were captivating who had ideas and were philosophers and could move whole groups of people with just their words the ones who seem super comfortable in their own skin who weren't these charlatans trying to sell you something there's probably a handful of people that you think of in your mind right and it's not typically like who's portrayed today today if you ask some young people who's this iconic person you're thinking about they might say the rock he's popular millions of followers he's like some Alpha dude right with muscles

on top of muscles and they're like well that's who I aspire to be what names come to your mind when you think about like throughout history who are some of these people that really stood for something and you'll start to notice a pattern hopefully I can land the plan and just talk to you about that who do you think some of those people are just shout out a name Gandhi you say Gandhi for sure Gandhi what's that M okay for sure anybody else like Socrates right who Socrates Socrates yes of course Mandela I also think

of somebody like the Dalai Lama are these physically strong people I think of Mother Teresa she's pretty frail God's pretty skinny dude you know everybody's like not physically imposing but you know you look at them you just see strength courage and conviction and that's why I say true strength comes from weakness and so when you look at the models on social media all we have are images of strength so I know something in marketing just one simple concept and it seems to be true every single time which is when everybody's doing this don't do that

just do this other thing when everyone zigs you zag and everyone zags you Zug right if everyone is doing a linear thing do a curve of linear thing all you need to do is go in the opposite direction of everybody and you will stand out so if you want to be able to stand out and we see that always see are images of perfection of strength of Glamour of success you just got to the opposite and they're like that's refreshing I don't know if the dog llama is wealthy I can't tell because all he does

is wears roped he has nothing but yet I think he lives richly and the people who have been able to meet him they'll say similar things like there's an aura an energy and I think I like why are people drawn to that so there's something about this right and so it's a struggle for all of us to be able to say like well well how much of myself do I want to show and how much of this is just me trauma dumping and what is the intentionality behind this when you see people do that because

people do do that you kind of get grossed out by it too so there's something weird here and I think it has a lot to do with your intention we can smell intention from a mile away right when you tell a story that seems to be vulnerable and all it is is you're just seeking attention and that's your intention we can see it oh I'm tired of you crying about XYZ all the time you have to kind of work at this and be guided through this process now some of you have uh gone to the

progroup and the the back calls when I started to explore personal branding through the lens of pop culture it's evolved quite a bit I'm not saying it's radically different but I've refined that there's like an evolution of the exercise and getting people to think about this so here's one thing if y'all want to work on your two-word branding I've been trying to figure out how to make it easier for you to figure this out number one is rather than come up with words that you love about yourself let's just start with words that you're like

move those are my shadow words because let's start from a place of vulnerability and truth and so what I do is now I instruct people to write as many words as they can from the lens of you not liking yourself and just write all those words down and then we can write words that people who don't like us would say about us and then we say what about the trolls what about a critical parent and just write down as many words as possible and then we start to separate the words that have no emotional triggering

effect with us and we really look at the ones that have a triggering effect in order for you to show courage it has to be uncomfortable for you to reveal it typically when I instruct people to do the two-word brand you know what they say it's like I'm charmingly handsome they don't literally write that but it sounds like that to me I'm a creative genius a genius designer I'm like what what are you doing here what are you doing cuz you know why they just think about Marketing in sales Marketing sales they go right back

to corporate branding it's like I'm just I'm just tired of that so now what I instruct people to do is I just say go with all your dark horrific Shadow words and sit in that kind of discomfort for some time and then what we do is we take your shadow word usually one or two words that's it you're only allowed to use one or two words for a shadow word so if you can't describe in one or two words you chat TBT and ask it for one or two words to describe some complex thing right

it'll figure it out for you it's good at that kind of stuff and then the next thing you want to do is you want to add a Transformer word this is where the magic happens where you make a negative a positive and there's something very therapeutic about this so when you can reveal to the world I don't like this about myself but you had the Transformer word but I've learned to accept it I've learned to embrace this thing that I've hid from everybody for really long time Tom Ross you guys know who Tom Ross is

he's the founder of design Cuts he was in the uh London Workshop of course he's like Chris think I got my word I'm like what is it I'm a people pleaser like okay not exactly a good word it's not like you walk around like yell want people pleas her it's not a good word but he goes is it wrong if I tell people about people please repress I'm like if that's your word what are you going to do about it transform it man it goes that's all I got no no no really I had a

Transformer word why is being a people pleaser so important to you he goes man cuz I run communities if you run a community it's good that you're tuned to what other people need you see how he started to evolve his thinking around this where it's a negative word how did it help you why is is an advantage and he found it 10 15 minutes later he comes back he I got it look what you got I'm a proud people pleaser I'm like is there a shorter way to say that he goes I don't think so

well why don't you why would you sleep on it and see what else you come up with so now he goes around telling people he's a proud people pleaser the cool thing about it is when you land your two or three word brand what happens is it's not supposed to be the whole story it's just a title to the movie it's a title to the book and it has to be intriguing enough that somebody's like let me open to Chapter 1 what does that mean Tom what is a proud people pleaser and that's when he

gets to tell the story about how he did X and now he's here and this is why this happens and then it's summarized you so what happens is when you find your two or three word brand it becomes a lens in which you can tell stories because remember if you're a product without a story and you are definitely a product then you're a commodity so somebody out there not for everybody will be intrigued by this whole idea of a people pleaser and they're going to want to get to know time they might want to interview

him they might want to join his community his tribe because maybe that's what they're looking for a place where they get to feel important like they're a priority to someone in their life so now that becomes an asset he took a liability and turned into an asset so you all have infinite stories that can reinforce who you are in the world that people then can say I want to be part of that I can choose anybody but I choose you or I choose you you can't do it if you're not willing to show up and

show yourself okay does that make sense somebody else that you can study I guess it's just the the London Workshop here is James Martin made by James mbj he does a lot of local work James is kind of an adorable character he's a bearded guy he's like the British Aaron drain but like hipper yeah and James tells you stories about his his troubles with sex uh being U sexually molested um dealing with drugs and alcohol he talks about it all the time and so he goes Chris what do I do with this this is like

there's a lot here to unpack right and he started to come up with like different words and combinations like he's got a lot of stuff to work with I won't tell you how he landed it but he did land the plan and and I I brought him up because a woman came over to me and she goes Chris I had a relatively normal child that I don't have any trauma you know no one abused me I wasn't like assaulted do I manufactur something I'm like no please don't do that don't create false trauma you don't

have to have trauma like being a people pleas is not traumatic so we automatically you know see how our brains are wired as soon as somebody does that that must be normal I'm going to go do that like if we had a room here and you guys started pouring out just talking about all the abuse and neglect that you've had in your life the one person is like no I had it pretty good they'll like manufacture something just so they can fit in it's all about fitting in and if you want to stand out how

can you fit in and that's the name of the game here when you're building a personal brand you have to give someone a story that they can understand and relate to and it's in the imperfections it's in the flaws that we relate to you uh Pixar's like 22 rules of of of uh of writing story is that we admire people or characters more for their struggles than for their success so the proud people pleaser now has a filter in a lens he can tell infinite stories he can search through the memory banks of his life

and just pull out the moments that seem to connect to this theme and what happens is it becomes a lens that crystallizes all of your stories if I tell you say we're going to have each one of you grab the mic and tell the story you're going to flounder many of you will ramble on most of you have no point it would be totally incoherent and uninteresting to most of us but all of a sudden I say tell a story that sets the origin of why you're a people pleaser much easier tell tell a story

when being a people pleaser was an advantage when it's been a disadvantage and so now you know how to search for the story so your life is kind of like the Internet it's vast it could be infinite and when you understand your two-word or three-word brand it's like now you have Google and it can serve up the results and you just go through the top 25 stories and you can quite literally turn that into talks you can you can use that to write a book you can do some pretty powerful stuff but you need to

give people something to bite down on right my example is um and it's not a great one cuz you're like this is where you don't want to do what I've done you want to do what I'm telling you to do do as I say not as I've done yeah cuz Mo's like but Chris well what would you say then what's the light I already got a I already got a question but it's not about this no it's about it's not about what you're about to say oh what about what you're doing and what you've already

done what what's working for you why do I need to follow what you say it's always the same I'm looking at it from the point of view of of an instructor or a coach or an advisor I'm looking at you and I'm saying here's how I would do it if I were you and your shoes today right so you guys know um I I use the loud introvert thing and it seems to work pretty well for me you're like that's not very vulnerable where's your Shadow word bro okay it's not I'm going to just be

honest with you it's not because I didn't set sit down like how am I gonna manufacture how I GNA do this I just did what I did and it's working but then if you try to do it CU here's what inevitably happens and some of you in this room might feel triggered as soon as they say this they're like Chris you're a loud introvert I'm a shy extrovert they like shut up you don't just take what I do and just flip it around and it happens it happens every single freaking time how long that take

you to come up with we want to be you no we want to shut [Laughter] it doesn't work that's what they do and they're like Chris Chris they got it and they do some weird version of that and they think they're Geniuses you guys I'm like I wonder how you came up with that you mean just flip the words backwards and it's done that required zero zero zero soul soul searching you think you're so clever here's 55 other people went to the workshop they came all the exact same stupid thing now some of you might

have like want to change your LinkedIn profile right now like oh okay that was me that was me right you don't want to do that but I'll tell you how it works for me you'll notice a very specific pattern cuz I'm very formulaic in how I do things if something works I try to do more of it to prove if it works right and you'll see my LinkedIn posts follow a very similar format and it almost always lands on somehow I'm an introvert and all the introverts and there's lots of us in the world apparently

especially in the creative circles they're like I feel seen this is good to know this is really you I didn't know you struggle with that I didn't know you have your dark days when it comes to media and public speaking and I'll tell you right now uh kind of almost like just looking at the data from from the post that I have the ones where I touch on that those painful moments those will outperform by 3 to one so they have 3,000 engagement ver 1,000 I can almost guarantee you and if you're not sure and

you don't want to believe me just go back search for me for LinkedIn filter by post and just look at engagement read the story look at engagement read the story and you'll see and I'll never run out of those stories there's an infinite number of them and what's really cool is most of you are like I have no stories to tell as soon as you figure out your two to three word brand you're like I have too many stories to tell and you'll start to unlock memories that you thought were lost it's a really cool

thing I told my wife this a few years back I said it's strange because as you get older you're supposed to forget things you know early on stage Dimension all the kind of things but I'm like I am remembering things I didn't even know I knew it's pretty wild so you're rebuilding those synaptic nerves or Pathways from memories that I've been lying dormant for a long time and I'm sure to do brain scan of me as I'm thinking about the stories you're going to see different parts light up in my brain and it's a pretty

cool thing right so you all have infinite stories that can reinforce who you are in the world that people then can say I want to be part of that I can choose anybody but I choose you or I choose you you can't do it if you're not willing to show up and show yourself personal branding you had another question am I building my personal brand or am I building a brand for my studio like a personality for means for making my studio I don't know what you're doing you said am I building this are you

asking me to should I yeah like should I okay let's let's do the question one one more time should you should I be as a studio of one be build focusing on building a personal brand or building out a personality for my studio okay let's try to understand this then okay you're you're a studio one so your personal right is just you and figure out who the hell you are figure out your point point of view your beliefs your values your interests um your origin story your transformative story all those kinds of things that's you

if your studio has one person I don't understand the conflict then you're going to create something else for your company well when I think about a studio I feel like you have more clout when you're a team right like that I'll get while land bigger clients than I'm just Ellen so which is why I've created means for making and talk about my collaborators and yeah um so that's why means for making instead of just saying I'm Ellen Keith Shaw like means for making does stand for something I stand for something too right but I think

it was and I still believe that I don't want to be running my business just as me I think it's very different for for some folks who are offering kind of different okay yeah there's some things here I want to take apart sure and I want you to imagine I'm writing this on a whiteboard cuz I don't want to get up let's just imagine that that's the case okay your statement is I feel like I have more Cloud if it's a team bigger than me and that's the vision that it is but that's fine just

full stop there CL I have more clout if it's more than me and a lot of people here would believe that too you're bigger okay so we're going to practice critical thinking I need to find one example where that's not true and then your theorem falls apart you you you know what I'm saying it's like we can't disprove gravity so therefore gravity must be real follow like the Earth was flat and then we did experiments and then we found the Earth was not flat at all it was round and now the old Theory goes away

so if you want to be a critical thinker to be like a deep thinker philosophical minded who's got like these gems what you want to do is every thought you have the first thing you should do is try to disprove your own thinking and the way this works it and it's very powerful this is how I always win my arguments so I win the battle lose the war sometimes when it comes to my wife I'm like I was right like you sleep in the other room right you never win you never win okay so what

we're going to try to do is we're going to try to disprove this statement that have more clout as a team versus an individual so we need to find one example where an individual has more clout and we might have to Define what clout means okay and we'll do that together and then we'll see and then we might want to revise our thinking is that fair I don't know yet this is not premeditated of course she didn't text me before I'm like Ellen's going to talk about this so we just have to work through this

Scott just hang tight for a sec I'll get you what CL means um appealing to a level of client and a budget yes that's how I think I'm Cloud that's pretty fair I love the way you just when super tactical with that I thought you going to give me some fluffy cloud and you didn't so I appreciate that it means I have access to bigger Brands and clients and the amount of money I can charge is much bigger fair fair those are really good things now we can objectively say we we'll take get rid of

the word clout and we say do we know of individuals who have access to really big Brands and clients who are able to charge more relatively speaking than a team Dan Mo go on Seth gon James Martin James Martin Aaron drer and drin probably but the thing is is I don't want to be any of those people like I want to work in collaboration with other folks like that's fine yeah but that's a personal preference it's not that I need to get to work to with those Brands and charge that kind of amount of money

and therefore I need to present myself as a team I can charge as much as I want and I just so happen to want to collaborate with others there's a refinement of thinking there and when you're able to be that clear then you can communicate that to people and like you see now I understand who you are Ellen and there's just a slight difference there now maybe some of you like Chris you're getting really pedantic and you're just chopping up words I'm not because words shaped thinking oh absolutely rtics right like we don't want to

get into like legal EAS and all that kind of stuff but it's like is the idea different enough that is worth us exploring I think it is cuz I can think of lots of people that's an army of one who's done better than a whole collaboration let's think about musicians what bands were better after they broke up and we solo acts Tom Petty who else kind of Justin Timberlake yeah oh yeah oh think about that justified man Beyonce there you go Destiny Child uh negativity will get you banned in here I'm just going to put

that out there right now Jo we're not going to disrespect Des we're not going to disrespect DC you see not always better together but sometimes and that could have been somebody's tagline you just got to get clear about what it is that you think okay so let's not go and say let's do that because that's what the world wants and actually I don't think that's what the world wants sometimes I think I'm not saying you specifically Ellen but sometimes we're uncomfortable maybe the word might be insecure and we want to do something because that solves

that problem but then that's not us I think you're powerful as a human being just as one person I want to bring this back to personal branding you have a story you have a truth how much you want to lean into that's up to you I am too old too cantankerous to care what you think to change who I am so I'm just going to show up as myself you don't like it I understand I can be offensive I can and it's okay but I'm I'm not willing to change that because I've accepted that part

of my dark side I'm just okay with it there was a different time in my life when I would have done anything to get your approval to get you to like me and I'm looking at that time in this time I'm much happier much healthier much more successful being this cranky bastard than I was at this play kitting wiener uh so when did you come to accept and switch your dark side I think I was lost for a while dgo and I think when I was in college I found myself and I found that I

could be good at something and I put my heart and soul into that thing and that allowed me to rebuild myself I think if you're like one day 18 you don't know who the hell you are you're just do what everybody tells you to do what your Society your culture your church your parents your grandparents your cousin your uncle whoever your auntie you just do whatever they tell you to do but for me I was a person Desperately Seeking Chris you know like I'm looking for something right now and when I found graphic design and

more specifically typography dro I'm like I think I can do this and I can be good at this I can suck at everything else in my life you can think I'm total dog trash but I'm going to be good at type and I became really good at type and so I'm like okay that's my identity I'm a designer a typographer and I'm going to put all my energy my heart and soul into this and from there I started to have a a trunk to build branches off of and it's like I I don't know if

you watch this guy he's always showing you how to like recycle seeds and fruit he's super high energy and he goes like disend that guy you know what I'm talking about he got a signature move like he's a little bit too much fun energy for me but I keep watching them and there's a whole process in which you can take a duting into a tree and he has all these steps but once the tree has taken root and it's strong and you can transfer it outside it's going to be all right it doesn't take that

much effort you just put a little water on it's fine but in the beginning stages you got to mist it put cinnamon and you got to do all these kind of weird stuff I watch the video you know so for me designed in typography was that trunk and The Roots set and over time the roots just get stronger and deeper so it can withstand a gaale force wind and that's that was it Trio I needed to find something I could build my identity on so if you peel back all the layers and now you know

like every tree there's rings that show you the age of the tree at the center of it is probably designer and maybe outside of that is teacher and then entrepreneur and then motion designer and director and just keeps growing growing but if you cut back all the way to that core and you we don't have to go back there the tree is much stronger now but that would be the core and when you find your core everything's pretty easy that would be my my take on that Mo I know you wanted to say something and

we cut you off so something that I want to just share something that I learned from him a few years back on a phone call um about asking questions when I'm in a tough spot he would tell me that people are usually looking more for permission than they are answers and a should question is one that he can't necessarily answer he can only guide you to the answer that you want so and I'm paraphrasing because my memory is not as good as his but as I was listening to you I feel like you've already made

up your mind as I was listening to you yesterday I'm listening to you today and when you when you framed it and the whole group said should I do personal branding or business branding it just felt like you had the answer even when he said it you were like well clout and and and you guys kept you kept favoring business brand so I don't necessarily the lesson for me is like I just have to find my own discernment in my choice and be okay with that because no one can hold the accountability but me and

that's why he can't answer a should question cuz like he can't be accountable for whatever decide to choose so that's just a lesson that I learned from him um that I wanted to share with you that might help you in the future uh that's help me my I don't know if it's push back or just a question but my impression right now is in our culture particularly in American culture being honest and transparent is becoming really popular what can we do to ensure that we're not pandering don't do something just because it's popular or unpopular

do because it's true if being a good parent or a faithful partner is all of a sudden trending those I don't want to do that if it's good it's good I think what we do is we sometimes look at some signals and over magnify them in our mind we see a handful of people getting into vulnerability and they seem to be doing really well we assume like everybody's there I can almost tell you right now 99% 9% of the world ain't doing it and we falsely equate like four people we think because the way it

registers in our mind right ber Brown Joe Koy does a pretty good job of this and people owning their story Hassan minhaj he's doing it it's like wow this is really cool and I'm trying to get other people to do it just because that's the right thing to do it don't matter if it's trendy or not it doesn't matter what is the alternative I don't get it like's just say for example if therapy is helping lots of people right now and all of a sudden it's like the new La thing to do and like I'm

not going to do that I'm too cool for school you saying I'm going to screw myself over cuz I'm a non-conformist I'm a rebel without a clue I think as humans people are good at discernment and we can tell who's putting on and who's like being genuine and over time like the consistency with this who you are like we can tell and we know like okay you're moving with the trend you know this one is just being honest and genuine so I think that's what sets it apart I think that's a good thing like we

said before we can smell intention a mile away we know who's doing it fake and it's a bit and they're going to do it that's fine you'll fool some other people some of the time if I'm doing something as a carousel on Instagram and there's like 3,000 other people doing it I don't really care what they do I'm not going to change because they just are doing the same thing I don't even care I'm only going to change because I feel like it's time for me to evolve and change that's all it is like if

you're a classic jeans and t-shirt guy with a jacket just because everybody's doing it what are you going to do there's other ways to be different so I wanted to speak to a you had said like how do we know if it's a bit how do we know if our vulnerability is performative I just asked is it am I doing this whatever the thing is for validation for praise or for approval and if it's yes to any or all of those things then it's not true vulnerability it's not even a bit but it comes across

disingenuous it comes across inauthentic and it comes across sometimes not ready and when it's not ready then you land into this Arena of trauma dumping I have a much easier way to understand this sure let me try this on you guys okay if you were to write in your Journal no one's supposed to read that you're not doing it because you want someone to read it you're writing because that's how you have to understand yourself to process your thoughts that's really how you should create content now I'll give you another example let's just say you

knew your mom read your journal and you wrote things in there so that your mom would treat you a little nicer let you go out with your friends that's what we're seeing you can smell it I want you to read this cuz I want you to do something I want you to feel sorry for me I want you to open the door for me I want you to let me stay out later but it's just for you okay who am I it's a really big question it's not one that's easy to answer so it's not

like you're going to just crank out something and you're done it when you're 17 you're still trying to figure out who the hell you are some of us are really lucky and we get to figure that early some of us are still working through it and some of us will never get there because it requires a level of introspection and discomfort for you to get there we know friends write things we like oh my God cuz you know the real person and then you like what the hell are you writing right now we know I

don't feel mad or anything I just like it's it's a cry for help then I'm dming them like that's fake AF when are you going to show up and they get super offended like what do you mean I'm like you know when you said this you stopped there why didn't you tell this part cuz I know that part like well Chris or people going to get upset I'm like you see you stop because you knew you already knew the rest of it you're just lying to yourself don't give me half that story cuz it makes

you look good give me the other half that makes you look bad and how you dealt with it what it taught you here's another thing that you can usually tell in these stories the good ones from the ones I like what is why is in your story you're always the hero so that's also another good place you know know you'll notice a lot of my story someone else is the hero not me I'm the idiot usually in the story not always where someone else told me stop doing this and I did it when we talk

about vulnerability and weakness and other people jumping into your story then they see themselves in you and Dan Gibbs has a funny way of saying this it's not her saying but everybody's trying to be the sage on the stage when you should just be the guide on the side everybody wants to be the star and so you know these days when I when I get up on the stage I try to think how can I tell you I'm an idiot then all of a sudden the guard gets lower hosi talks about this when he was

on stage let me tell you three things that are bad about me that I don't like and then I'll tell you one thing I like by telling you three bad things that don't like the one thing that I like has more weight and power if he went on stage like I'm good looking I made a gazillion billion dollars and I'm great at marketing like now we don't believe him you know what he said when he go he went up and said you were there grow with video he's like I don't know first thing about content

creation and content marketing actually you all know much more about it than I do I'm mostly a paid ads guy and this is but I'm shifting my thinking everybody's listening now go look at your last post everybody in your mind like okay did I do that did you go on stage and tell people how you suck at a bunch of things but you kind of know one thing maybe you say like now it's become a formula cuz I am a formula guy when I figure out something works I just do it again and you're are

you manipulating like maybe I don't know I just like if it works why would I change it so these days my post usually begins with my God here's how stupid I am and I struggle through it here's the pain but here's the thing I learned and I still need to remind myself every single time you'll also get really suspicious of stories where I struggled all my life and I'm totally cured says who lie I was hooked on Heroin for 10 years I'm perfectly clean now never struggle with it again lie and even if it were

true we don't want to know that story we don't care about that story because it's in the struggle that we get to know who you are and we get to relate to you it's that way so Mo if you ain't feeling a little bit of pain then maybe you need to dig a Little Deeper it's not about like pain but it's just maybe it's more like discomfort you have to be uncomfortable okay ehor and then we're going to get to you well what's your name again Deon we're going get to Deon because he's been very

I want to bring us back little bit before that story so the problem is I have when we see the content and especially if we follow the advice of vulnerability thing and what I see online if is that I am tapping into someone's diary and I'm exhausted on reading all these feelings and especially the problem I have with anry Hansen content is that it's all about her and I lose this sense of what I'm doing here and especially if I follow this advice thoroughly I see more and more people like us who is more sharing

and tapping into vulnerable side without giving us something that they promised initially like PR strategy or something else and I feel like I'm exhausted of just being exposed to other people trying to use us as a followers to filter out and figure out their inner self how do we present ourselves and tap into our weaknesses and be vulnerable able and share content that resonates with people but still being helpful and do business and to build the brand it bring some value to people not only uses people as a mirror to reflect on themselves you said

using us like if you feel used don't don't read some of these content if you want to build a strong community and audience that shows up for you you have to show up for them the greater value you create for them the Transformations you're able to create for them the more people will show up the Style and what you do it in is part of your personality and your voice so you can't just be all out there with your personality voice all the time unless you're a really charismatic person but even charismatic people need to

give you value Joe Koy I believe is a very charismatic person but he makes us laugh he gets us to point at our silly childhood and just laugh at ourselves and you could say well isn't Joe just doing therapy on stage and you could say yes but they don't have to be mutually exclusive you can be doing some form of self therapy self-healing while entertaining giving value to other people these are not either or it's often times an and I suspect where you get a little bit up set is when it just it's for me

and I get nothing I feel like uh when when you build a personal brand it becomes ours as well as yours and then I feel like when I see the content that Miss aligned with the mission I feel conflicted every person here who builds a relationship with the community at some point you don't control the brand and it's often kind of upsetting cuz like what do you mean you're going to tell me what my mission is I'm like you know what your mission is or do you and they'll say like Nike is not behaving like

themselves and Nike is like yes we are so at some point point you should be so fortunate that your audience Community knows you so well that they start to control the brand and when you act in a way that's inco inconsistent with the brand they turn on you okay it's happening with Elon Musk right now for a long time Elon Musk just was like I'm trying to save the world I'm a forth thinking genius and now he's all those things plus he's got some radical opinions about lots of weird stuff and now people are like

selling their Teslas they don't want to be part of him anymore so much so that people have stickers that they put in their car love the car hate Elon because they want to be clear oh yeah especially in California if the content doesn't serve you you don't need to follow it and people have said this to me too it's like that's not the future's Mission like I'm pretty sure I know what I want I'm pretty sure my argument starts with a premise if you don't believe the premise that an argument holds no weight a product

without a story is a commodity do we accept that so if you are a product let's just assume you're a product and you have no story then you are their for saying I'm a commodity I'm easily replaced now I don't know about you but if you go on Instagram and you look up something like portrait illustrator would block that's a pretty specific thing you're looking for you will find hundreds if not thousands of people who do the exact same thing this is a problem why would I choose one over the other now we think sometimes

all I have to do is be good at what I do and tell the people in the world this is what I do that's a good first step and for many they can't get past that step they're trying to talk to too many people they're trying to say I do too many things and we don't believe any of those things but let's say you've done that you've like I'm going to be for this type of person I'm going to do this kind of thing well now you compete with everybody who does that and we're trying

to differentiate even more and the only way we can differentiate as far as I can tell is tell a story this isn't about me me me me it's not self- serving it's about saying if you care about the things that I believe in this might resonate with you that's all it is let's take 10 bottles of water we just came from Mars and there's 10 bottles of water here and I take off all the labels you still might prefer one shape or the other but if I take all the water and pour into the exact

same container now you cannot quite literally tell the difference between all these things but that seems to be like where a lot of people are at in the creative space we take our contents us our ideas and we pour it out we say there's no different so without the label without the design without the story and the colors and the materials it's just like everything else I want to choose companies that I want to see in business Seth Goen writes in his book all marketers Liars that we the buyers and the manufacturers are complicit in

a mutually shared lie this wine tastes better cuz they told us and we believe them this tennis racket is better because they told us and we believe them we have to agree on the LIE the actual differences are much smaller than what we think and there's all kinds of people who swear up and down oh I'm so attuned to flavor and taste and yeah there's a couple of people like that but most of it it's just you're unwilling to believe that you're complicit in the lie and you can read Seth's entire book as a couple

hundred Pages it'll come to the exact same conclusion that they're lying and we're buying so if you think if you've told yourself now if I tell a story it's too self- serving it's all me me me me then you won't won't tell your story and then you will be the commodity but here's the weird thing as I try and tell stories around what it is that I do people get really excited about it and they reward me with a couple different things one greater reaction count more engagement and the amount of sharing and re-sharing invitation

to speak about those kinds of things and then I have Authority for whatever reason because enough people say that it's just that like so it seems like the more I test this concept the more evidence I'm able to collect that seems support that argument Aaron James drain you guys know who James Aaron James drain is anybody he's a graphic designer and if you talk to Young designers and you ask him who's the best designer you know he's going to make the top 10 list he should not even be on the top 10 list he's a

good designer he's a friend of mine but he should not even be on there because there are legends and Pioneers of Swiss German English you know design American Pioneers that should be like so deep but why is drapping on that list because people often associate Fame with skill and we can escape this we buy something we think it's good because we've heard people talking about it it's just the way we are because we're social creatures we depend entirely on the network of people that we know like or trust saying this is good therefore we buy

and use that thing so again you need to help people be complicit in the lie and this a strong language to say it's a lie I know it's not a lie it's just there's a story I want to believe you so I don't think it's self- serving I think there are people who do it self-servingly I think there are people who do it in a way to manipulate you I think there's people people who do it in a way that's really superficial not really going to any real place and we can see that if we

can't we'll eventually figure it out that's why when you see like some Savvy marketers who tell you this hard string kind of pulling story I don't believe you there's something funny about the way this is packaged so carefully and the way that you're able to deliver it that I smell coners and there are a lot of them and you know who they are I'm not going to mention their names some people think I'm a Conor I'm okay cool not for you and it's an odd position to be in it really is do you guys know

that the the the Chinese culture the Chinese people invented gunpowder do you guys know this yeah for fireworks that's all they wanted they couldn't think of anything else to do with it and then the Western is like let's use fire gunpowder kill people let's just say you're like that first Chinese chemist like hey we take bird turd we mix it together we can make fireworks it's going to lead to the annihilation of whole groups of people and then Sandy Hook and everything else like are they responsible I don't know I mean Oppenheimer explores this theme

deeply just because you can should you and where do we go with this and it's a super complicated question to ask here here's what I'm thinking I'm going to teach you what I know how do you want to use math or storytelling that is your responsibility I hope to attract the right kinds of people but unfortunately there are good seeds and bad seeds and I also have a complicated world view on this right I have a strange worldview cuz I argue with people all the time most of the times I think I'm right but my

worldview is I could be right and while arguing with you you could be right or you could be wrong and I could be wrong at the same time where all of us can be right and we all have different right answers I have my way of doing it I want to share it with you I think I have a gift for teaching that's all I want to do now if you want to go make nuclear bombs unfortunately it's out of my control I try to teach people how to write carousels and hooks and then people

use it to do horrible things or they jack up the design or they plagiarize other people's content it's like not really the intention there are people who watch the exact same video that have wildly different outcomes you know this several of the people on the internet will watch a video and say this doesn't work this guy's a const he doesn't know anything about business C I would never work with a pompus a-hole like this person that's one set of reactions and there those quite a few of those reactions apparently and then there's these other reactions

when somebody text me like I just made $440,000 watching this video somebody else is like I just crossed six figures seven figures eight figures whatever I'm like man you need to send me some money I got to eat too right and it's from the same video nothing else is different literally the same piece of content this is the nature of people you walk in with your lens your bias Your Story You're liviing beliefs your abundant mindset your scarcity mindset and you hear what you want to hear some people apply right away some people never apply

some people want to watch 100 more videos that say the exact same thing before they take a step it's not for me to judge or determine I'm not your judge you get to do whatever you want it's your life and it's a short one so why don't we try doing it around the things that we want but I will tell you this like Apple's like we're here for The Crazy Ones the square page the round hole The Misfits the troublemakers I'm just here for the action takers I really am take this piece of information go

do something with it to better your life better your relationships to be a better parent or spouse or teacher Guardian whatever it is that you do use it use it for what gives you Joy and purpose the rest of that I don't know what to do okay and so before we go into our walk I just want to share a little debate I had with Mo and it just reminded me of something we're always having debates you know so it began with dgo actually sitting there St on her face with aada burritos or whatever we're

doing and drigo jiggle like you know Mo's like you should be doing this with your life it's easy to spense advice by the why you should be doing this with your life so dle is like you know Chris said yesterday you want to be like popular or you want to get the job done if if I want to get the job done I would just be a real estate agent and I turned to him you're confusing the concept and you're just merging two things that actually don't belong together which a lot of people do this

is why I'm like I didn't tell you that those are the words I said but then you put it together and you made some kind of weird mashup Remix album of what I just told you that's what I told you pursuing something to make money while killing your soul is not getting the job done it never has been getting the job done is being in alignment with who you're supposed to be in this world and saying SC the consequences I'm going to go for it that is getting the job done so where we confuse this

is drigo says I hate real estate let's just say and Chris like if you want what you want in your life you have to do the things that you hate it's true except for when you try to achieve that thing the thing that is the bear to the thing that you want you have to want that thing so if you wanted to be a real estate broker and like going to get his license is a horrible thing he doesn't like to study then that's what you're supposed to do that's called getting the job done that's

not in his cards and he's going to get slaughtered this is where Mo comes in is like yeah when when let's go ahead and say your money bit do it I'm going to kill you right now I said I said yes but when money is involved people get jaded yeah that's why they throw away what they really want to be aligned with and then you said so he's talking about money now right cuz he's like he literally said money makes you jaded and I said no it doesn't money is neutral has nothing to do with

this money does not make you jaded not being alignment with who you're supposed to be in this world that's the thing that's makes you jaded and we start arguing about this like no Chris he's trying to prove it to me I said okay if money makes you jaded aren't people who have no money super happy he goes yeah but and aren't super rich people not happy yeah but and you just keep going over and over again right and so it reminded me of something that Jesse itler the billionaire guy said at the conference he goes

um I was raised by a workingclass father who worked in a hardware shop or owned a little mom and pop hardware store but he died to billionaire I'm like what a story that was he goes financially he's middle class his heart he was a billionaire and he's looking at a room full of I think relatively soulless people who just wanted to make more money he says let me ask you this question can you be a billionaire in the bank and be broke in your heart and be a billionaire of course they're like no cuz he's

like a billion time Z is what zero right and he says if you can be a billionaire in your heart but have no money are you broke there of course not you're fulfilled so all of this is just to say the pursuit of money and everything that you think around money is really not the pursuit the pursuit is to find who you're supposed to be in this world to figure out your gift and to share it with as many people as possible and when you do that I can only guarantee one part of the equation

you'll be happy and you'll die a happy person you might be broke financially but you won't be broke spiritually emotionally intellectually in your heart and maybe at the end of the day when you realize how short our life is that won't matter but I also as a capitalist think the more aligned you are in your life the Richer you'll be financially in the bank account the problem is in drigo observation he's like well I should be a realtor then I'm like no you won't that is the wrong path that is the path of just pursuing

money for money's sake and you think that's what will make you money and it turns that it won't because there are people men and women who live breathe and eat real estate they've been dreaming about this all of their lives and they will eat your lunch every day of the week right there are people who like magic and there are people who are in love with magic and the people are in love with it and versus like it they will destroy cuz you know why it takes an incredible amount of fortitude courage conviction to get

past all the Nos and the rejections the late nights and the strain relationships that's going to get you there and you're going to need that passion in the gas tank to get your cross that finish line and everyone who doesn't won't that's it so you hear the story and it's told over and over again how someone struggled for 15 18 27 years who woke up every morning on a Tuesday and a Thursday and put those signs up like open house until they got that first big break and then they turn that into something it happens

over over again and we see them in in popular culture and media and stories that we read and the people that we talk to it's almost always the same exact blueprint and yet we dutee ourselves and we think oh my gosh it's a two-year Endeavor I like this so I'm going to achieve that and then they don't and you know what they do they pick another thing and they do that and that doesn't work two years later they try this thing and then just keep trying and trying and restarting it never goes anywhere you know

this so money doesn't make you you Jed there's rich people that are happy and poor people that I mean rich people that are unhappy and poor people that are really really happy that's not it at all but I do seem to feel like and I need evidence and you can just prove me that the people who seem to be super aligned with what it is that they're supposed to be doing they seem not only happy but quite of them quite a few of them are really wealthy wealthy in different dimensions though like the D Lama

is probably not wealthy but he's wealthy in the spiritual Dimension maybe a billionaire in that space right like Mother Teresa like robes and poor and she was rich in a different dimension like if you're the world's best tennis player I think that's Roger Federer right you're celebrated because that's what he loves if you're Michael Phelps you just love the pool and you just the most decorated athlete right that's it you guys to just find that thing the problem why it's so difficult for many people is we have folks telling us this is what you're supposed

to be doing that could be your parents and it's society and it's your culture and it's your religion it's all these things and so like I said when you pretend to be somebody for long enough you forget who you are you forget what you want you forget what makes you happy and sometimes it takes a fishing trip or a 10day immersion retreat thing to go and recalibrate it's like who the heck am I supposed to be it turns out it's actually quite difficult to be happy and it takes work it shouldn't cuz it's like the

most natural thing but I think it's because of the way our society and culture is evolved that it's now become really hard it's hard to know who you are it's hard to pursue what makes you happy it's hard to give yourself permission to like that Pursuit and that's a struggle [Music]