RV: (00:00) Man, I have to tell you that I have been so impressed with the man you’re about to meet, Chris Harder. And it’s the generosity of this guy’s heart that blows me away. I would say it’s his generosity and then it’s his humility in terms of how much he still to this day invests in his own personal development. I met him in a very high-level mastermind. He runs masterminds though. I mean, this is a great example of the guy that is usually teaching is still also always learning. And him and his wife, Lori, are just incredible individuals. We, we’ve gotten to spend some time with them. AJ adores them. And this is someone who’s just built a personal brand. Him and his wife both have monster personal brands. They built it from the ground up. They’ve done it right. RV: (00:47) And he offered to come on and, and, and share. I, and I asked him to come on and be like, Hey, can you share some of those secrets? So his podcast is called for the love of money. That is, you know, probably his, his biggest platform he’s got like a quarter million people on Instagram at the time of this recording as well as a lot of lot of people. And I think, you know, but beyond that, it’s just entrepreneurship and success in general and really more of the heart of, you know, what it takes to succeed as both a personal brain and an entrepreneur. So Chris, my brother, welcome to the show. CH: (01:23) Hey Rory. Heck of an introduction. Thank you for that. And let me just say I echo all of those kinds of thoughts right back to you and AJ and just think the world of you guys. RV: (01:32) Well, thanks brother. I yeah, it’s been, it’s been fun for us to kind of, as we’ve shifted more from like the corporate world into more of the entrepreneurial world the last couple years and then also starting my personal brand over, like really getting into the space and seeing what people have been doing. And you were one of the first people that kind of popped up on my radar and in my feet and I was seeing around. And I would love to just, so being that you are a money guy and you talk about money and gratitude and generosity and giving and accumulating and, and, and, and investing from a personal brand perspective, are you open to just share with us? Like how do you actually make money? Cause I think that’s just a question people still have. It’s just like there’s so many different ways to make money. What actually pays your bills every day, CH: (02:19) Every week. Yeah. What a great question. Okay. So this, and I love that you’re all about personal branding because what I’m about to share all comes from one central piece and that is the personal brand, right? So as of today, when we record this, we have sole ownership or partial ownership in seven, I’m sorry, eight different seven and eight figure businesses. So some of the obvious ones for us where the revenue streams come from is my brand with the podcast underneath that, I call that a coaching brand. So there’s a media brand or there’s a coaching brand, right? So even though the podcast is a form of media underneath that we monetize it through e-courses, through two different masterminds, through one on one coaching and through events that we throw. Then under Lori’s brand I would say is more of a media brand because she’s monetizing her podcast through sponsorships and affiliate deals and things that are a little bit more traditional. CH: (03:14) When you build up things with the intention of media behind it, and we can get into that later. The difference between a media brand and a personal brand, I mean that’s a great like and it’s important for people to understand that distinction because podcasting is one of those things that people go, well, my business model is podcasting. And it’s like, well no, podcasting for most people is a traffic source. Your real business model, like what you’re saying is courses, masterminds, coaching events. In the case of Laurie or Lewis house or you know, people like that, Jordan harbinger, their business model actually is podcasting cause they’re doing brand deals. They’re monetizing the podcast itself. That’s cool. That’s an important distinction. So I love that. Well, it’s a, it’s a very important distinction for this reason. When you’re building something, even though we’re all doing it, let’s say through a podcast, it really helps you decide, do I need to build a large enough podcast in order to sell the number of coaching programs I need, whatever fashion it is, or do I need to build this podcast to the size and attraction to sell brand sponsorship deals? CH: (04:17) And those are two very different sets of mechanics behind the scenes, right? So what we’ve done is we’ve built these personal brands and think top of funnel. So pop two large podcasts feeding into Instagrams and Facebooks and mailing lists. And then we’re able to leverage those large brands to do things like investor deals in outstanding foods and investor deals in a tech company and investor deals in a vegan what do you call it? Coffee creamer company. And we’re able to also leverage it into, we built a huge network marketing team because of it was easier with personal brands. We’re able to pivot into an alcohol company that Lori has started all because we have audience. And when you think personal brand worry, you really got to think constant audience acquisition and interaction because if you master that you can pivot and build whatever you want. CH: (05:14) Mm. And, and the, so which came first? Like did you have the audience first or did you build a business first and then you took that money and use it to build the personal brand? Like what was the sequencing of how, you know, and now it’s, it’s sort of like, you know, we talk about she has wall, I know you’ve heard us talk about that. Most of our paying clients will know what that is, is like you guys are on the other side of the wall. And, and I think of ’em, you know, you’re focused in terms of what you spend your time on, but when you move to investing, it’s different. You’re not spending your time on it as much. It’s more of just you’re putting your money there. So what was this one? Do you agree with that last part and is that how you think about it? CH: (05:54) And then what was the order of how it kind of happened? Yeah, that’s, that’s exactly how it happened is you need to really go deep and specific in one category first until you break through that she hands wall to use your example and then you’ve kind of earned the right to expand off of that. So where our first large audience came from was Lori’s fitness brand. It’s really funny that we’re recording this while we’re kind of facing this pandemic crisis economy because I was thrown into entrepreneurship, which by the way, I always wanted to be in any ways during the last financial crisis, 2000 interesting. I came from banking and of course that was a banking crisis and Lori and I were young and arrogant and ignorant. We thought that it was going to last forever. And so we did not take care of our money. CH: (06:38) And when the music stopped, Rory, we had to get rid of it. Everything. And I don’t mean like kind of getting rid of everything. I mean we had to short sell the home that we had just finished building. We had to get rid of the cars, the investment properties. And the most humiliating part was this. We had to put every possession on Craigslist and watch his car after car pulled up in front of the house and person after person walked into the home and they would bargain for the couch and bargain for the chairs and bargain for the TVs and the grills, whatever they wanted. And they would walk out while the neighbors looked on in judgment with our possessions. But do you know what that did? Worry that moment that felt so horrible while it was going on? I felt so humiliating while it was going on. CH: (07:26) That was the moment that actually allowed us to downsize into a tiny little 900 square foot apartment and decide again, choose again, pivot and reinvent again. And so without that back against the wall moment, we went to started building personal brands. Now here’s why I share that story. I don’t care where you’re starting from. What do you already have a brand or whether you feel like you are below zero right now? The very first thing we did was Laurie had a gym at the time and she really had no career up to this moment. She said, I’m never going to let this happen again. So that’s when Lori rolled up her sleeves. And so she had a small gym, one on one studio that we built out on the weekends on her own, and she created the beginning of a monthly plan and she started competing in fitness and build a Facebook following. CH: (08:15) Now keep in mind we’re talking 12, no, 2009. I mean this is before everyone’s doing it, right? Yeah. And the minute it caught fire her, her Facebook started to grow quickly. She made an effort to put herself in magazines and I’ll, I’ll, I tell you what that has to do with today’s brand building in a little bit here. She made an effort to get herself in magazines, which at that time drove her Facebook and driving that Facebook drove her online workout program, which they were not a dime a dozen back then, like they are now. Right. And it was building that very intentional building of a Facebook audience and building an online revenue stream in addition to that gym that made us really take off and realize that this is what we wanted to do from here on out. And at the time Roy, I was a partner in a mortgage bank. Yeah, you’re right. So I left the bank that laid me off and I took a partnership in a mortgage bank and I took for the wrong reasons. I took it cause I was scared and, and I didn’t have a lot of other options. But when I saw what Lori was doing, I sold out my partnership because I said that’s what I want to be doing. I came home and I helped her grow that brand and we’ve never looked back ever since. RV: (09:28) Wow. Interesting. Yes. So you mentioned something there about not everybody was doing it right. And so to that your back against the wall, that’s an, that’s a powerful story. Cause I know for sure there’s, there’s somebody is listening right now that’s going through something similar to what you went through. CH: (09:50) Do you think it’s too late RV: (09:52) To build the personal brand? Like, like you said, workout programs are a dime a dozen. You have Facebook? Yeah. Is, you know, now it’s really Instagram and it’s even Instagram is like on the later part of its maturity cycle. Yeah. Like what do you think? It’s too late, do you think? Is there, is there a next thing? Do you think it’s just the same old tools and just kind of starting from ground zero? Like what, what’s your opinion on the life cycle? CH: (10:17) Cool opportunity here. I’m so glad you asked this. It’s never too late. Number one opportunity never goes away. It just changes shape, form and location. So it might change from Facebook. Actually, let’s be honest, if I changed from my space to Facebook and Facebook to Instagram and Instagram to tick tock now and but it’s always just changing shape and location and it’s our job as we’re building personal brands to always be aware of looking for how it’s changing and where it’s changing into and to go that direction. And so if you’re just starting a brand right now, you can not have thoughts of it’s too saturated or everybody’s already doing it because you’re going to do it differently. You’re going to have a little different swagger, a little different spin, a little different set of beliefs, a little bit different energy behind what you teach. CH: (11:06) And so even if someone has already started a similar podcast, even if they started a similar brand, even if they started a similar membership or similar mastermind, yours is going to be different and it’s going to speak to the people that don’t yet resonate with the ones that are out there. And here’s the most important point. If people are afraid that it’s too saturated, all you have to do is reel yourself back in and say, what is my financial goal? Great. Let’s pretend it’s, you know, a million dollars. Okay, how many customers do I need at blank dollars to make a million dollars? So we’ll say your program was a thousand bucks. Okay, you need a thousand customers at a thousand dollars to make that million. Okay, great. How many months do I have to do that? 12 months, so what do I really need to go out and get out of that gigantic slice of pie of potential customers? CH: (11:56) It’s something that is so minuscule to meet your financial goal that even if other people are doing it, there’s still more than enough to go around and that should be what makes you excited to go out there and just carve out your tiny slice of the pie. Yeah, I mean if you get a hundred customers a month, that’d be 1200 a year, but if it was a hundred a month, that’s 25 a week. So do you get 25 people a week? That’s five a day. You get five, five people a day. You’ve made an at a thousand bucks, you’re making a million dollars. Yeah, and there’s some, if you do a 10th of that, like if you do a 10th of that, for many people, you’re probably still landing in an okay place. Exactly. Yeah. I don’t want people to get caught up in a million dollar example. CH: (12:38) You want to make a hundred grand, then it’s just a hundred customers at a thousand or maybe a thousand customers at a hundred dollars there’s so many different routes to your goal, but the point is this, there, the number of customers required. It’s such a tiny percentage out of the whole pie out there. Then even if you’re starting today, there’s still more than enough to go around. You’re going to find enough customers that will resonate with your style and your teaching. Yeah, I mean a thousand. Yeah. You’re talking about a thousand customers. There’s however many 8 billion people on the planet. Like you only need a thousand. Exactly. Exactly. The other thing that’s crazy is like your thousand or probably, you know they’re already, they already, even though they don’t know about you, they are all gathered somewhere. Right? They’re all following somebody that’s like you and that because of digital marketing, like you can actually go get in front of those people fairly directly. CH: (13:32) Yeah, and Roy, I’ll also add this, it’s not like all consumer only chooses one brand or one person and ignores all the other ones. I always say people are junkies and I don’t mean like drug junkies. I mean it in a fun, positive way. People are junky. So the same person that loves Lewis house also wants to consume Jay Shetty and they also want to consume Tom, bill you and they also want to consume, you know, just the list goes on and on. So they don’t stop at one person. They consume as much as they possibly can. That’s what I mean by they’re a junkie self-development. A junkie is going to go get all the self development they can and entrepreneurial junkie is going to go get all the entrepreneurial guidance they can. And so if you are starting today and you’re bringing a fresh voice and a fresh spin and a fresh facade, it’s actually, you’d be welcomed. CH: (14:21) Bye. Probably millions of people who are saying, boy, I wish somebody fresh would come onto the scene because I’m already, let’s say a use to following these, these individuals I’ve already found. So you used the term junkie. So I want to talk about that because one of the things that I think it’s interesting like that we have a family member who refers to what AIG and I do as a Hocus Pocus. That’s what it’s, it’s not like in a negative thing. It’s more, it’s not like a demeaning thing. It’s more of like a, I don’t understand it. It’s just like this Hocus Pocus. And I, you know, like personal development and like the idea of a junkie I think over years is like I had somewhat of a negative connotation, but as my life has gone on, I go, gosh, the only thing that’s really different from where I am today and where I started raised by a single mother is I am a total junkie. CH: (15:17) I am the self-help junkie. Like I am the conference junkie. I’m the coaching junkie. And I don’t know if you would agree with this, but one of the things I feel like you and I have in common is I think you are too. I think you’re a junkie for sure. I mean, listen, I wake up in the morning and I have a rule that I must consume a book or I must consume, not a whole book, but I must consume pages of a book or I must consume a podcast as the first in first experience in my day. Right, and it’s because during the day, every single one of us, we’re going to consume a ton of propaganda. Yeah, and a regular individual who’s not a self development junkie, they’re just going to consume whatever propaganda falls in their lap. And let’s be honest, there’s a lot of negativity out there at all times. CH: (16:05) What if you are a quote, self-development junkie? Then that means instead of consuming any propaganda that falls in your lap, you are selectively choosing and seeking what I call positive propaganda, podcasts, books, YouTube channels. I’ll make you better courses, whatever it might be, and that positive propaganda, when that outweighs the negative propaganda and you’re able to consume, consume, consume. What it does is a couple things. One, it kind of chooses what colored lenses you’re going to see the day through, right? Number two, it kicks you back in the game quicker. Okay. A bad circumstance happens during your day. You’re not going to unwrap it if you know what to turn to or if you just got off a great podcast or something motivating, you now have the tools to handle that rock circumstance in a better way. And that means the outcome turns out more in your favor. CH: (16:56) And so I will take the label of being assaulted, self-development junkie all day long because it’s better than just consuming what happens to fall in my lap by circumstance out there. [inaudible] Yeah, I love that. So I want to tie this back to network marketing and direct sales a little bit cause that’s another kind of thing that we have a shared background of it at different companies. But a lot of our clients, that brand builders group and I, and I know some of the people in your masterminds, our indirect sales, how, how does, how do you use social media and personal branding and digital marketing? How have you guys used that? Cause you still draw some fair, some fairly significant income, right? From a direct sales company that you earn a residual residual income of over seven figures of a team. We started building 10 years ago. Wow. Yeah. RV: (17:51) So how do you, do you still, do you still actively kind of promote that using the tools of digital or is it more just like the fact that you’re out there and you, people meet you and they ask and they’re looking for opportunity and it just kind of comes up in conversation? CH: (18:06) At this point? It just falls in our lap. You know, people just see us or hear of us and by proximity, a lot of times they’ll just go sign up on our team. So we’re not very active in it anymore. But we spent a lot of years being wildly active in it. And I’ll tell you what, one of my favorite things about network marketing is this, and I want to talk about a quick, it gets a bad neck, right? Right. So, and this is coming from somebody who, number one used to totally judge it. I thought I would never do that in my life. Number two, we have so many different types of companies and so many different arenas that I’m not sharing what I’m about to share from being. This is my number one income source. I’m sharing this from the standpoint of in all the samples I’ve been a part of, I really stand behind this one opportunity and here’s why. CH: (18:52) So in my opinion, it is the greatest set of training wheels in order for entrepreneurship that you could ever like earn your coupon that you could ever learn that. And here’s what I mean. The barrier of entry in almost any kind of company is always very low. It’s something you’re consuming anyways, something you’d spend money on anyways, right? But the upside is limitless. You know, I know probably at least 200 different people from different companies that have made over seven figures, some eight figures in network marketing, right? So the upside is limitless. The barrier of entry is very low. And the entire journey from start to finish is one of self-development. It’s one, I’m learning sales, it’s one of learning marketing, it’s one of learning brand building and how to leverage it. It’s one of learning team building and money management all slowly and all in a way that you really don’t have anything to risk other than a little bit of self esteem and a couple of friends sometimes because that is probably the highest the biggest cost of entry is a few people will judge you in the beginning and if you can let your ego go, it’s a great set of training wheels to truly learn real entrepreneurship. RV: (20:08) Man, I’ve never heard that quite like that and I totally believe in what you’re saying. And the, the other in terms of the training wheels, the part that’s so cool. And you know, at this point we made it, we were out of all direct sales because I speak to so many of the different companies that I, I, we actually got it had to kind of move, move out of that. But I still believe that my mom, we just actively helped get my mom back into a direct sales company and she was at Mary Kay years ago when I was younger. But the other thing is you don’t have to build the product. Like, and even in a personal brand, like half the battle CH: (20:48) Is creating an amazing product. The other half is making sure a whole bunch of people know about it. Like in network marketing or direct sales. A lot of times the products are awesome. Like a lot of times you, you have this great shake or oil or makeup or you know, whatever the thing is, your workout program and you don’t have to do any of the product development, you just gotta go tell a bunch of people about it. How’s this for a real life example? I was like to lift the curtain and use ourselves, right? So if I were to add up all the money, we’ve made a network marketing over the years, it’s over 10 million bucks. Wow. We started for probably $200 worth of shakes that we tried back when we were saying I would never do this now for comparison, this drink, this beverage company that Lori is starting, we have over a quarter million dollars into lawyers, IP formulations, sampling trademarks, you name it. CH: (21:40) And we don’t even have a run of product yet. So how was that for like a comparison of barrier of entry compared to payoff if you are just joining a network marketing team in a very safe way to learn entrepreneurship as opposed to what it really costs to develop and launch any other physical product? Yeah, and, and I think, you know, this isn’t meant to be a commercial for network marketing by any means, but I, the thing that to me speaks so consistently about your story is one of humility of being, of being willing to do the things you know, to take the stairs is the metaphor that we use all the time of doing the things that no one else wanted to do and not being afraid of judgment and having your back against the wall and selling all your stuff off and then doing direct sales. CH: (22:30) And then I know for sure because this is true about every personal brand that you started a podcast, nobody was freaking listening. You were doing Facebook. Nobody was there like it’s easier now because you know that you’re actually impacting lives. But when you first start it’s like, well this happened to me. I shared this with somebody this week, so I just relaunched. I had to start over and I have a brand new YouTube channel. My video from this week has three views. Oh my God. One of them is mine. I’m pretty sure the other one is like the person on my team who posted the video. I’ll go watch it. You’ll have four dice. Yes. and as you listen, but it’s you and I are willing to do that. We are willing to have zero followers. We are willing to have three views. We are willing to take the stairs. CH: (23:22) We are willing. Two how other people look and say, Oh boy that looks like it’s failing because we know that we are in it for the long game and I think that’s where people go wrong. Well and back to network marketing or whether it’s traditional business or any other form of business. People dip their toes in and when they don’t have a a quick hit right away they say, see it didn’t work. If you know that you are in it for the long game. And listen, I had to teach myself years ago when we were losing everything. That Eagle will cost you more than anything else in life. Right? I’ve got a saying. It’s ego is your greatest overhead because ego will will cost you by speaking up when you shouldn’t. It’ll also stop you from speaking up when you should because you’re afraid you might look dumb. CH: (24:08) Eagle will burn bridges, it’ll burn relationships, it’ll make you miss opportunities and ego will stop you from building that YouTube channel or that podcast or that Instagram or that tic TAC because you’re so afraid that people are going to look and see that you have three views, which is such a silly, a silly thing too. It’s like even if you have three views, it’s like you say you want to make a difference in someone’s life. There’s three people you know too. Not counting yourself even as like you’re making a difference. Like so, so I want to talk about the time, cause you bring up the time horizon and that’s good. I think that’s important for people to understand too. So realistically here, how long does this take take to start? Like, and let’s talk about the personal brand specifically, right? Like podcasting, putting content on social, like whatever you want to call it, blogging, doing videos on YouTube, whatever. CH: (25:06) Like how long does somebody have to be willing to do it for before they go, yeah, it’s not working. I should pull the cord on this thing. Or you know, like give us in today’s world, cause I know, I know you have a lot of your students are kind of like brand builders group. A lot of ours are kind of starting in there earlier in their journey. So I’ve got a two part answer to this. The first part is don’t start anything that you don’t see yourself still doing and enjoying in three years. So don’t start that podcast, not started that YouTube channel. Don’t start that Instagram account unless you see yourself enjoying it three years from now and continuing to build it. And then the second part of that answer is you can monetize a small audience very quickly, but you shouldn’t hang your hopes on monetizing it in a large way. CH: (25:57) Very quickly and saying, if it didn’t work at first, I’m out. Right? Is it possible? Yes. Should you quit? If you don’t do it right away, Nope. You gotta have that longterm commitment. So I’ll give the example. I’ve seen people with a very small following, find 10 clients at $10,000, whether it’s a coaching or a mastermind and make a hundred grand in their first few months of business. That’s a very realistic scenario. I’ve also seen people work five years before they hit six figures, and there’s a lot of factors that go into it. How much effort are you putting into it? Are you willing to reinvest your revenue into hypergrowth or are you starting to use it as a paycheck? Are you good at collaborating and mixing it up with other people out there that can point their audiences back to you? Or do you feel like you’re going at it solo? I mean, these are all very important things that will affect how quickly you get to grow and how quickly you get to monetize. RV: (26:55) Yeah. That’s so, so good. And is so, so important. I think yeah, I mean, you just, you, you nailed it. And that’s the thing too. It’s like, it’s not how long have you been doing it? It’s also how much have you been doing it, right? It’s like there’s plenty of people say I’ve been podcasting for a year and it’s like you’ve released six episodes. That’s not podcasting for a year. That’s podcasting for a week, spread out over a year. That’s exactly, that is exactly. It’s like, for example, Laurie’s show like caught fire and is X exponentially larger than mine right now? I could get jealous or I could say, huh, guess it’s not made for me. CH: (27:42) Or I could look at where her hockey stick moment happened and say, mine is right down the road. I just gotta stay the course until my hockey stick moment happens as well. Because if you continue to, and I love what you said, not just do it for a long time, but how often, how much do you put into it while you’re doing it? If you continue to say I’m committed to both of those components, your hockey stick moment will happen, right? It will shoot up at some point. You get the right break, you’ll get the right follow where you get the right share, you get the right you know, episode that goes viral. But don’t stop short of that hockey stick moment just because somebody else has gotten there as, and you haven’t reached yours yet. RV: (28:21) Yeah, that’s good. That comparison thing is a real, I mean, that’s a real, that’s a real struggle to like, it’s just you’re always looking at how many followers do they have and how many downloads do they have? And that’s, yeah, that can be a discouraging moment. Yeah, I think it’s important to, if you’re gonna play the game of comparison and say, look how good someone else is doing, then you need to play the full game of comparison CH: (28:44) And look the other direction and say, wow, look at all the people that wish that there where I’m at. And by the way, I’m not an advocate of playing the comparison game, stay far, far away from it. But if you’re going to play it, you need to play both sides of the field. RV: (28:56) If you’re gonna look at this end zone and say, CH: (28:58) Not fair, look what they’re doing, look where they are. Then you also have to look behind you at the other end zone and say, Oh wow, people wish that they were at the 40 yard line at the 50 yard line like I am right now. RV: (29:08) Yeah, I love that. And I would also, I would also say that too, to that point of the full comparison, it’s like you can’t look at where Laurie is at today and go, okay, where am I compared to her? You have to go, how many total hours has she put in? How much heartbreak has she had? What is everything that she has been? What is everything that she has been through? And it’s like, I’ve done six episodes so far. Right, and you don’t, you don’t factor in that because you don’t see that part. It’s but, but it’s like, again, if you’re going to play the comparison game, play the game CH: (29:42) And remind yourself like there’s a whole story here. You can’t compare their chapter 20 to your chapter one, you’re, you’re so spot on because if you’re going to do that, you must seek out all the facts. So if I was looking at Lori compared to me some additional facts or this, she had a great big Facebook following that she worked hard to build long before I decided I wanted to build a brand. And then she had been kicking out three episodes a week while I was only kicking out two. And when I went to three, she went to four. Right. So she has been doing more longer and that is why she has exponential more growth than me. I can’t look at a timeline and say, Oh boy, at the three year Mark, you know, she was higher than I was. That’s not fair. CH: (30:29) Yeah. That’s one reason why she’s doing better than you. The other reason is because you and I both share the same problem with our wives are actually better than us and we have more charisma. We just got you know, we just have to live, we have to live with that every day. But sugar mama. I mean, that’s all I’m saying. Sugar, sugar, mama. You know what’s really funny? I do want to talk about that. When you find the right partner, when you find that right ride or die, that lifts you up when you’re down and you lift them up when they’re down. When you guys have complimentary skillsets, right? So my strengths are her weaknesses, her weaknesses are, and I should say her strengths are my weaknesses. When you can decide to make that work, Oh look out, you can accomplish anything at any level that you want. CH: (31:18) Right? And by the way, if you don’t have a partner, this is not an excuse. This doesn’t mean, Oh, see, that’s why it’s working for, for Rory and Chris is because they found great partners. So I guess I’m screwed. No, that’s not what the message is. The message is by yourself. You could do absolutely extraordinary. And when you find that right partner have been, it’s just like everything you’re trying to do amplified. Yeah, it can. Yeah. It can be right. I mean when you’re by yourself. And this was something for me that, you know, it was like I worked till midnight when I was single every night, like all the time, other than Thursdays and Fridays, like when I was in college and you know, like Thursday and Friday nights and maybe Saturday nights, but it was like four nights a week I was working like crazy because I didn’t have a responsibility to somebody else. CH: (32:08) And then when you get a partner, you know that can work for, you can also work against you. You get the wrong partner, you get the wrong business partner, you get the wrong relational partner, you know, that can also, you get the wrong vendor. Partnerships can accelerate or decelerate, but you know, like what you said, you’ll know you have the right partner if they lift you up when you’re down and you can pick them up when they’re down. And when you decide to work together, it’s like one plus one can equal four. Absolutely. Without a doubt. It’s, it’s, it’s just such a magical thing to find. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So Chris, buddy, where obviously you’ve got the podcast, if people aren’t listening for the love of money where else would you direct people if they want to kind of connect up with you and see more about what you’re, what you’re up to. Make sure you follow Chris, not Lori because he needs the followers. She does. CH: (33:04) Here’s two great places to find me. I’ll find all my [email protected] and Instagram is a platform that I hang out on the most right now and I’ve made a commitment to answer every single business question that comes in. And sometimes it’s a daunting task, but, but I stick to it. So go find me there at Chris w harder. Yeah. alright buddy. So last little thing here. Right. Do you think that generosity is a necessity for a successful personal brand or do you think it’s an act, an accessory? Do you think it’s a necessity or is it an accessory to the success of a personal brand? What a great question. Absolute necessity. Here’s why. When you are generous in your relationships, then they’re going to using law of reciprocity, give you things back that will help you grow your brand. When you’re generous to your customers, then law of reciprocity is going to kick in and they’re gonna be more loyal and give you things back that helped your business grow. CH: (34:09) When you are generous to strangers, when you’re generous with your time, when you’re generous with your knowledge. For example, if you create incredible opt-ins, you’re generous with your knowledge for free. If you do amazing webinars for no charge and you’re being generous with your knowledge and your time, then those have exponential returns on growing your business. And here’s a real live a example. I do live webinars right now while we’re going through this crazy economy. I wanted a platform for people to be able to ask questions about their pivots. Right now it costs me, in other words, I’m investing two hours a night, three nights a week, so six hours of my life. Wow. I mean, that’s big. At the time that we’re recording this, I charge $4,000 an hour for my coaching. So, I mean it’s a big commitment, but what happens every time I hang up, when I’m done serving, when I’m done adding value, when I’m done, I’m like answering the questions and I’m on that great high cause I just got to help people, their businesses. CH: (35:07) I open up my Instagram and there are always, you know, when you click on your notifications, there’s the mentions by the way, this is what everybody should always be. Measuring on their Instagram is shares and mentions, not likes and comments, but the thing that says, mentioned the caps out at 99, every single time I’m done with the webinar, it’s capped out at 99 mentions, right? Screenshot. Wow. I just learned that screenshot. Wow. He just said this. Then your followers grow exponentially faster, exponentially higher because of all those mentions. And so that is a perfect example of if you are generous with your knowledge, if you’re generous with your time, if you’re generous with everything that you can be, then law of reciprocity kicks in in a real tangible way. Gosh, I love that. The whole freaking personal brand business is built on the law of reciprocity. CH: (36:01) It’s like you can’t outgive people like you. You can’t, you can’t give away. Everyone’s like, well, I can’t give that away cause then what do I sell them? And it’s like, it’s not how it works. It’s like you, you, you just, you give it away and it always comes back. It’s the craziest thing. Like this whole, this whole space who is invented and built upon and thrives because of that one single law, Roy giving is the secret to everything you want in every aspect of life. And listen, it’s counterintuitive. People think if I want to make more money or if I want to accumulate money, I need to save. But the answer is giving is a secret to everything you want. And here’s how I learned that. I’ve always actually had a generous spirit ever since I was a kid. You know, my parents grew up teaching me how to tip extra as a kid and they let me figure out the tip and they’d explain why we tip extra because that’s someone who left their family to serve our family. CH: (36:55) And then at church they would give us boys, my brother and I, the money to put into the offering plate and explain, here’s why we put a little bit more in than other people that you might see. And we weren’t rich growing up. It was just they wanted to teach us generosity. So I always had the spirit. But here’s where it really hit home for me. About five years ago, I read 30 books in 30 days. Laurie was on a rocket ship. I was just treading water in the good, good land of good. And I wanted to catch up the Lord. So I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna read 30 books in 30 days and halfway through those books, and by the way, all the books had different agendas. They were spiritual books. They were seven steps to this. They were autobiographies is how to do this. Didn’t matter. Do you only agenda was it had to T improve me in some way and had to be less than 300 pages so I could finish it? CH: (37:46) Exactly. So at the two week Mark, I remember being in bed, finishing a book I rolled over to Lorina said maybe you’re not going to believe this, but two weeks in so far, 14 out of 14 books, no matter what they’re trying to sell me, giving is the common thread through these things like giving us the secret to what they’re trying to sell me. And then I watched for that common thread and it held true through all 30 out of 30 books and of all the gifts that I got from taking on that little personal challenge, the number one gift was confirmation of what I kind of had a hunch up. And that is the more you give law of reciprocity will kick in and the more wonderful blessings you’re going to get back in different ways in life. Wow. Wow. My friends Chris, harder. RV: (38:36) This is the story behind the story that you see. We’ll have to see if we can get Lori on here sometime to get her part of this. Without doubt. I mean this is a, it’s just so awesome brother and I, I appreciate you sharing so transparently. You know, your mistakes, the failures, your insecurities, like your journey and and just kind of be at being a champion in the world for believing in people and encourage them to be generous and, and just modeling that generosity over and over and over again. Man, we just, we, we pray for you guys and we wish you the best. Well, well, thank you so much. I know how much your audience means to you, and so I really appreciate you giving me this platform to share those stories and share those mistakes and share those insecurities like the more people that, that do, that it gives other people permission to take that first step. So thank you.